Leave the Night On Pt. 04

Tenderness fills up his gaze. "I know, Pearl. I could never have fought off your horniness. Of all the teachers in the world, Hannah had to have you. I didn't stand a chance once I saw you in that polka dot dress."

He manages to drag another half-smile out of me.

"This was always going to happen," he says, still trying to joke. "I wouldn't have rested until I got into your pants."

"Or under my skirts."

"That too."

This time I let out a full-on laughter. "That's better, My Pearl."

I snuggle into him. "You wonderful asshole."

"Tell me what you need. Do you want some tea? You want to cuddle? Do you want multiple orgasms? Tell me what I can do."

I twist in his arms, pressing one single soft kiss on his neck. "I want all of those. In that order. Tea, cuddle and multiple orgasms."

"Green tea?"

I nod. "Green tea?"

Before his spot in my bed has grown cold, Julian is gone and back, returning from the kitchen with a new mug of steaming tea. Settling himself with his back against the headboard, he creates a space to fit me in between his wide-open legs. I lean on him, my back to his chest, his chin on the top of my head. We fit together everywhere, like two peas in a pod.

He listens to me. He lets me cry, nuzzling my neck and whispers words of reassurance in my ear while I act like a drama queen.

I don't see the time rush by. I feel drowsy, warm and safe. Julian's scent is all around me, his heat surrounding me. I'm engulfed by him and I want to know nothing else.

"Do you know where she's gone?" he asks, suddenly breaking the silence that's settled around us.

"Mel?" Sleep is clinging to my voice. "No. She wouldn't say. But I pray she hasn't gone to him."

Julian blows out a long, tired breath. "For her own sake, even though I don't like her, I hope the same "

"Anyway, thanks to her I'm going to enjoy unemployment for a while," I deviate from the issue.

"What about your stories?" he suggests. "Your sketches are great. You're funny, smart, children love you. You told me you dreamed of writing children's book. You are really good at it. You should try it."

I consider his idea, but I'm not sure enough of my work. "I don't feel confident enough."

"Hannah loves your book. So do I," Julian counters. "She's making me read it to her every night. I know it by heart."

"That book was different," I say, "It was meant for Hannah."

"You know she's hard to please. Kind of like you."

I tip my head back so it rests on his shoulder. "When have I ever been hard to please in your presence?" I ask, with my mouth moving over his chin.

He takes the mug from my hands and sets it on the nightstand. Then he slides his ass on the bed until we're both lying flat on the bed. He turns, readjusting us so we're side by side, facing each other. "Are you feeling better?"

I brush my nose along this. "Yes."

"Do you want me to stay?"

"I always want you to stay," I whisper, and it feels like an admission.

"Then I'm staying," he breathes against my lips.

"Thank you for coming," I sniff.

"I wasn't ever planning on leaving," he says. "Plus, this isn't a favor for you. My presence is motivated solely by my own selfish reasons." He's acting like his teasing self again.

"Which are?"

He slides one hand through the slit in my robe and meets the bed warm mound of my right breast. "This here", he says, squeezing one breast.

I smile in the semi-darkness. "You know you wouldn't have to do much to get this."

A familiar welcoming heat spreads throughout my body to kindle in between my legs. My mood changes, forsaking my moroseness in favor of my lust.

I shift to close the gap between us, but Julian retreats momentarily drowning me in panic. "What's wrong?" I ask with a pounding heart.

"Pearl." He draws back enough to meet my eyes. He's still so close he's blurry. "I need you to know I would never, ever hurt you. Okay?" Even in dimness, his eyes search mine, waiting for confirmation I give in the shape of a rub of my face against my pillow that translates into a nod. "Never fear anything from me. I will never hurt you. I would never lay a hand on you. You're always safe with me. Always."

The constricting grip on my throat is a threat I fight off with teeth and nails.

"Julian," I begin, resting a hand on his cheek. "I appreciate you saying this. You have no idea what these words mean to me. And I know I'm safe with you. Of course, I'm safe with you." I take his hand still engulfing my breast and lower it to a warmer spot on the inside of my left thigh. "But I would go insane if you wouldn't lay your hands on me. You see," I punctuate my meaning by riding his hand up my thigh. "I need your hands on me."

My body is crushed by the weight of his fitting over it. Julian finds me ready for him, as I am always. His. Me, wet and inviting. Me, wanting him to take the reins and give me the sweet relief of surrender.

It starts slowly, almost unintentionally. With one deliberately rough push, he enters me. I cry out against the fleeting pain that widens into the pleasure of being full of him.

My hands are held above my head. My legs are prevented from any great range of movement by the pinning weight of his own. He works with an agonizing slowness, watching my face, trapping me under him so I can do nothing but feel whatever he chooses to do to me. He won't even kiss me so as to not miss a shift of pleasure in my expression, relishing the push and pull of our combined movements.

Still, he drags it out, doing it for me. To me.

Deft fingers play a swirling, dizzying game with my clit. He pulls out slowly, lets the tip of him just there, rimming my entrance, and then he slowly pushes himself in, saying, "How can you feel so good?" to which I only moan an answer.

He goes on and on and on. Words escaping him here and there, "I love this. I love fucking you."

And the words find a place inside me to strum against rib cords and reverberate throughout my whole body.

I succumbed to it, convulsing under him, crying out his name, clutching him to me until I feel him jerk under my hands, spilling himself inside me.

"I want it this way," I breathe.

"What way, My Pearl?"

"The feel of you inside me."

"If you let me, I might just stay here forever."

"Stay," I say.

***

I'M BLISSFULLY COAXED out of sleep by the press of lips to my temple.

"I have to go get Hannah," Julian whispers in my ear.

"Humm. "I stir in bed, refusing to open my eyes.

With a half sleeping brain, I hear the rustling of his clothes getting back on his body.

With a colossal effort, I make myself rise. I swing my legs out of the bed, stretching, but don't get up. Instead, I admire Julian putting on his pants with a stupid sleepy smile spreading across my satisfied face.

It's so ridiculously insane that I get to wake up to that.

He comes over to me and sits on the bed, putting me on his lap. The hardness of his thigh muscles under my sensitive parts makes me wince. "I've made you sore again," he says, unable to hide his self-satisfaction.

"And you love it," I reply.

He laughs, unbashful. "Call me if you feel like talking today, okay?" he says. "If you're not too sick of me, I could try coming over late today."

I smile like an idiot. "Come again tonight. Come every night. Make me come every night. I could never get enough of you."

"If I didn't have to go, I'd make you come once for every language you speak," he jokes.

I hug him tight, inhaling his scent. He spent the night giving me support, making me feel better, and a piece is me being torn apart knowing he has to go now. "I wish you didn't have to go."

He rubs his hands up and down my arms. "I do, too."

"I'll miss your body in my bed."

"I'll be back before it gets cold." He nuzzles the soft spot under my ear. "You won't even have time to miss me."

Except I miss him all the time.

I want him all the time.

The feeling begins in my chest, swelling up, pressing against my lungs, climbing up my throat, taking a more consistent shape. In the safe band his arms form around me everything I feel narrows down to him.

I let my forehead drop against his and the words flow out of me. "I love you." It escapes my lips with a smile. So easily. So naturally. It's as if I've said it aloud a million times before.

But.

There is always a but.

Julian's body grows cold and immobile under my weight. "What?"

He inches away from me, angling his torso backwards, dropping his hands from my arms.

I open and close my mouth. The look on his face makes me afraid to repeat the words. But why should I? He's made me believe I have a right to feel and say these words. "I love you," I say again, ashamed to hear the insecure cadence of my voice.

Slowly and with a gentleness that hurts, Julian shoves me out of his legs and back into my mattress.

He stands up.

It takes a while to land. And then it does.

This is the part in which he runs away. This is the part I've been dreading

"Julian?"

"Pearl,".... he rakes a hand down his face, staring blankly out the window.

"What?"

"This is...I wasn't expecting this." he doesn't face me. He aims his words to the wall.

"You weren't expecting what?"

He says nothing.

"Julian." I find that hurt has lent a dangerous edge to my voice. "Look at me when you say it."

He whirls. And the eyes burrowing into mine are not the warm coffee I love.

"Pearl, this is-is too..." he stammers, shoving another frantic hand into his hair. "I don't know! Fast!"

I actually scoff. "Fast? Are you kidding me?"

Was I alone this whole time? Wasn't he here with me? Living those moments with me?

"You have to understand, Pearl. I have Hannah, I have-"

I rise to my feet. This is where my blood boils and every shred of dignity I have left surges up my throat. "Don't you dare use Hannah's name right now!" I hiss.

Julian's eyes are a dull black, flickering over my face without focus.

"I have to go." he blurts.

"What?"

He fumbles to put on his shoes, almost tripping over his own feet as he aims for the door.

"Julian, please," I say, hating the desperate plea even as I utter. "Don't leave like this."

He turns to look at me. "Pearl, we haven't talked about this. We haven't even discussed what this is. We can't...I can't..." His throat bobs.

His gaze is pleasing, almost suffering. I can tell he thinks I should try to understand him.

I draw back, mouth open in disbelief. "Talk about it? Julian, these are the consequences of our actions; of all this time we've spent together; of all the things we've said to each other."

He spreads his hands open, offering me only emptiness. "It's too fast for me."

I shake my head. "You can't be serious."

He turns for the door again. "I gotta go get Hannah. I can't do this right now."

There is a new version of him here. The version I had yet to meet.

He's not the man who supported me, dried my tears, and kissed my hair.

The man who was here last night, who was here a minute ago, is gone. I don't know who this coward tripping over his shoes is. He is the same as the other men who came before him. The ones who had me for a night and then walked away in the morning. The ones who didn't care for who I was, only what I had to offer when the lights went off.

He's just another man.

Humiliation burns like acid in my stomach. Now I see what a mistake it was to entertain the notion that falling in love with him was the natural thing to do. I told myself it wouldn't feel like it did before, that I wouldn't have to lose myself, that I wouldn't have to pretend, to change or adapt. I thought I'd fallen in love with him while being completely myself.

I thought I could love him with the lights on.

How easy it was to fool myself.

But I do love him, and I can't let go so easily.

"Julian?" I only need the name to beg.

He stops, already halfway out the door. His shoulders rise and fall with the fast rhythm of his breathing. But he doesn't look back at me.

"I have to go", he says. And so, he goes.

My bedroom door slams, creating a rumble that thunders in my chest.

And my heart breaks.

***