“Me too. I mean—not the IUD part. The other part. Can you tell I’m nervous?”
Nervous Russell is the most endearing version of him. “Seems to be a common theme with us.”
“It’s good, though,” he assures me, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Good nerves. The best kind.”
“So I take it this means you want to?” I ask, and he kisses the grin right off my face. Still, I pull back for another moment. “There’s one more thing I want to ask. This might sound presumptuous, but a few weeks ago, I put some lube in my purse. Just in case. Would you . . . be okay with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I can’t say I’ve had a ton of experience with it, but if you want to use it, then I’m game.”
“God, I like you.” I hurry to retrieve it from my bag out in Russell’s living room. When I get back to his bed, I tip a few drops into my palm, rubbing my hands together before I reach for him.
His head lolls back as I run my slickened hands up and down his shaft. “Well. I’m a big fan of lube, as it turns out.”
“Good.” I straddle him, my knees at his hips, kissing him long and deep.
“You’re gonna ride me?” he asks, gripping my ass, fingers digging into my skin. I’m addicted to the sexy-sloppiness of his words.
“If that’s okay.” I lift my hips, letting his cock nudge my entrance. Teasing. I’m aching and empty and so fucking needy, but I hold myself back, waiting for his yes. “I just—really want to see you lose control.”
A choked-sounding laugh. “Yes. Yes, it’s more than okay.”
When I reach down to guide him inside, he’s so warm and hard and right that I have to close my eyes for a moment. With nothing separating us, what I’m feeling is purely him. I let out a gasp right away, more at the shock of the sensation than anything else. My brain short-circuits, unable to focus on anything but the feeling of being filled so completely, so perfectly. A pure and exquisite torture.
“You feel,” I say, “so goddamn good. God, I like you like this.”
“What, losing my mind because you’re so fucking sexy?” He hisses out a breath as I lift up slightly, then sink back down, finding a new, frenzied pace. “Because you tasted so good that I nearly fell apart when I was fucking you with my mouth?”
I cry out, pushing my hips forward so I can take him deeper. “Am I horrible if I say yes?”
It’s not just his surprisingly filthy mouth that I like. I like the way he asks me questions, the way he checks in with me. I like his soft kisses and his desperate ones. And I love watching him unravel, his eyes dark and pupils dilated, hair wild, his thumb rubbing dizzying circles just above where our bodies are joined.
And while he starts to shudder beneath me first, he makes he sure he takes me down with him.
“It isn’t always like this, is it?” he asks once our breathing has slowed.
“No,” I say, snuggling closer, draping an arm across his chest. “It isn’t always like this.”
* * *
? ? ?
“YOU HAVE A working wood fireplace,” I say from the couch in his living room, a knitted throw draped across my legs. “I might just have to move in here.”
I expect it to create some weirdness because we’re nowhere near that stage in the relationship, but somehow it doesn’t. Maybe we’ve put all that discomfort behind us, and these new versions of Ari and Russ are the most mature yet.
“That was one of the reasons I fell in love with this house.” He reenters the room carrying two mismatched mugs of hot chocolate dotted with rainbow marshmallows. “Sorry about the marshmallows. You can guess who picked them out.”
“I love them.”
He slides onto the couch next to me, and I adjust the blanket to cover his legs, too. It’s a chilly night, and the crackling fireplace is perfection. Russell’s in a navy robe and I’m in one of his T-shirts, not caring that it’s big on me. It all feels so domestic, a word I once thought would never be attached to a scene in my life.
It’s good to see you happy, too, my brother said, and maybe I really am.
Russ nudges me with his knee. “You seem pensive.”
“I’m peaceful, I think. There’s a difference.” I take a slow, sweet sip of hot chocolate before placing it on his coffee table. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking about families, I guess.”
“Ah. A not-at-all fraught or complex topic.”
“I meant what I said about wanting to spend more time with Elodie. If you want me to.”
“Absolutely,” he says. “It’s a wonder she turned out as well-adjusted as she is, or she’s great at hiding it. Liv and I obviously didn’t have a clue what we were doing.” He sips from his mug. “She surprises me all the time, and she makes me laugh, and she’s this whole person with fears and ambitions and likes and dislikes, all completely different from mine. She’s so fucking funny, and she’s smart, and it’s just . . . kind of amazing.”
That awe is written all over his face.
“It’s obviously not without its challenges,” he continues. “I had no clue what to do when she chipped her two front teeth a few years ago on vacation and it took us three hours to find an emergency dentist. Or how to help her with her math homework. And I had to see The Emoji Movie.”
“Was that the one with Patrick Stewart as the poop emoji?”
“You know, he did what he could with it.” He glances down at the melting marshmallows in his hot chocolate. “I never had the time to decide whether I wanted kids. It just happened, and maybe it happened in a completely backward way, but . . . things are really good right now.”
“I’m so, so glad,” I say. “I used to worry whether everything with my mom would make me a bad parent. Around college, I started thinking it would be really great to have a family of my own someday. Obviously it would be different, and I’m sure it would be imperfect in its own way, but I want that. The imperfections. All of it.”
“The imperfections can be pretty damn great.”
We sip in silence for a few moments, until it occurs to me that we haven’t talked about Torrance or Seth once all day, and it’s a freeing thought. Maybe we found each other because of them, but what we have here—it’s all our own.
“I think part of the reason I was scared to give a hundred percent in relationships was that it meant I could potentially get to that place where I might start a family,” I say quietly. “I don’t even know what that would look like, if I’m being honest. But with you . . . I think I could get close.”
Whatever percentage of myself I was giving to those boyfriends, I realize now that wasn’t nearly enough.
Or maybe it’s that Russ is the first person who’s felt worth it.
“Come here,” he says, pulling me up against him. “I need you closer.” When I rest my head on his belly, Russell pats it and says, “Is this what they mean by a dad bod?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Whatever it’s called—I like it. I like all of you.”
“I like all of you, too. Every version.” He brushes some of my hair out of the way, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I like you when you’re talking about sun in the forecast.” His mouth moves lower, lips fluttering over my eyelashes. “I like you when you’re gleefully telling everyone to expect about a hundred more days of rain.” A kiss at the corner of my mouth. “But I like the real version best. And I feel really fucking lucky that I get to see that Ari Abrams.”