“Of course,” he nods and I offer a relieved half-smile in return.
Snuggled up in the security of Hayden’s arms, we lay there, savoring each other.
“Beautiful…” Hayden murmurs as I relax against the soothing motion of his hand softly caressing my scalp, and the rise and fall of his chest.
“Hmm…” I can’t talk. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. I feel the darkness of unconsciousness creeping its way over my body.
“I–I…” I hear his stammer, but the grasp that slumber issues over my physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted body is too strong for me to battle. And I drift into a deep, peaceful sleep; unable to hear what Hayden wanted to finish saying, but the feeling of love and safety in his arms, brings life to my speculation.
Even absent sight, the glare which bounds from my window and ricochets around my room causes me to screw my eyes shut farther, in an attempt to cling onto the vivid images that sleep delivers. But my effort is unavailing; the illusory world that I sink to fades and morphs into reality. Surrendering to wakefulness, I stretch my body, my muscles sigh indulgently as I straighten.
Reaching out, I search blindly for the protective, strong and gorgeous man that for most of the night lay spooning me and fingered through my hair until I drifted peacefully. Alas, I am greeted with cold and ruffled sheets beneath my wandering, caressing fingers.
I am startled by his unexpected absence.
Instantly assembling the covers around my body, I perch myself up in the empty bed. Fighting my way through the somnolent daze, I scan the room. My chaise longue lay bare of Hayden’s neatly folded clothing. Where is he? What has happened? Did I dream that he stayed with me the night? Did I dream that he said he would never go anywhere?
Pushing my disheveled tresses back, I peek at my alarm clock, 2:45 p.m. I have slept most of the day away. A new sense of disorientation surmounts a minimal amount of panic that obscures my reasoning. I fling the comforter off my body and heave myself out of my pit. I throw on my sweats and black camisole before I leave the empty room.
“Good morning, Sammy. Finally decided to emerge?” Jessie calls impishly from the living room while I stagger through the dining area.
The only word that I can manage to verbalize through my unsettled haze is, “Coffee.”
“It’s in the pot,” she answers from the comfort of the sofa.
I round the pillar to the kitchen and pour myself a full mug of much needed caffeine. Briskly making my way back around the bar, I slip onto my stool.
“I take it everything went well last night?” she hauls herself from the couch and strides to the unoccupied seat next to me. She straightens out her overly large, black, boyfriend sweater that hangs off her left shoulder exposing her red bra strap. Her hair is plated in childish pigtails, with identical tendrils on each side of her face hanging free.
“We now have no secrets that could be detrimental to our future if that is what you mean, Jess,” I mutter, stilling my mug in mid-air before taking a sip. “Where is he?” The notion of him being too much of a caring person that he couldn’t find the strength to leave me while I was staring at him in the eye fills me with dread.
With an ache in my chest and the inability to catch a decent breath, mixed with the fear that maybe last night was the last night together, sends me into anxiety overdrive. My head starts throbbing, my ears ringing and the room spins on its axis as G-Force holds me fixed, paralyzed to my seat. I watch the events around me unfold, but powerless to fight through it.
“Hey, sweetie, you look like you just seen a ghost. Are you okay?” Jessie brushes my matted hair back from my face.
“He’s left me, hasn’t he, Jess? He couldn’t do it when I was awake, so he waited until I was sleeping.” A sharp stabbing pain hits like a bolt out of the blue against my right temple, as tears begin to gather.
“Sweetie, you have been summoning tears like a noble woman summons her servants, over the last day and a half.” Withdrawing her hand from my rats-tails, she presses against the top of my knee and squeezes with a reassuring influence. “No, he hasn’t left you, but he did ask me to give you this.” She leans to the side and removes a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of her skinny jeans and hands it to me.
I stare at the paper between my fingers then back at Jessie. Her bright, emerald eyes are brimming with love and diligence as she cocks her head and smirks at me.
“It’s a goodbye letter. I know it is, Jess.” I verbalize my insecurities, shaking my head in denial, pleading to the cosmos that I may be mistaken, and that my trepidation and negativity is misguiding my judgement of Hayden’s abilities to be so callous.
“Stop thinking the worst of everything, and just read it, Sammy.”
I concentrate on the lined parchment in my grasp. With great hesitancy, I unfold it once. Peeking up into her warm expressive, green eyes, her sculpted pink lips and high-rise cheekbones, she inches forward on the stool.
“I’ll be in the shower if you need me okay, Sammy.” And with a tender caress of my shoulder in and offering of comfort, she smiles her secretive smile, and leaves me alone with my letter.
It rustles as I finish unfolding its contents. In Hayden’s neat, italic script, I begin to read:
Dearest, Samantha.
From the first time I laid my eyes on you, I felt something in me shift and unfurl––awaken even. The words you spoke that day haunted my mind, it gave rise to a lost expectation I never imagined I could have recaptured. You said, “Before we begin.”
Well, Samantha, that was the beginning…it was the beginning of us, and you have consumed my every waking and sleeping thought since that day.
I recall the elation that I felt secretly exploding within me the first time you placed your soft lips upon mine. It was then that I knew that there was something different about you; you brought color into my dark, abysmal life, you made me feel hope. You unknowingly helped me rediscover feelings and abilities that I was convinced was lost forever, in an abyss that was slowly singing out to me like a siren’s song––to become a part of and to lose myself to entirely.
Well, beautiful, I have lost myself to the siren’s song…I have lost myself to you.
Every passing moment that I’m with you, I feel I can achieve anything, can do impossible things just for you, because you are my strength. You have done more than just give me your time and affection, you have ignited the furnace within me, showed me that I can make someone happy and make them feel special without the menial, stereotypical things that some desire…and that I am not a weakened man.
Your faith in me, unlocks the door to my self-loathing and I am gradually freeing myself from the cursed voices that condemn me to acknowledge the derisive sentiments they torture me with everyday.
My furnace burns for you…I burn for only you, Samantha Kennedy.
You are the light at the end of my tunnel. You are the air I need to breathe.
I worship the ground you walk on; for you are a Goddess…you are my Queen.
Forever yours, Hayden xxx
I brush away the tears that progresses to roll down my face and splatters against the elegant black ink of Hayden’s handwriting upon the paper.
My first love letter, what a way to wake up?
Pressing the paper against my chest, I smile deliriously, a smile so broad that it makes my cheekbones ache, but I am powerless to stop.
Reaching past the fruit bowl, over to the corner of the breakfast bar, I recover my cell phone and switch it on. I need to ring Hayden; I need to hear his voice. I need to thank him.
Within seconds of me turning on the device, it beeps and vibrates in my hand, startling me as it tingles and dances against my palm.
I open up the message.
*** Received: Sunday 21
st
October 2012 @ 10:30 a.m. ***
Good morning, beautiful. Sorry I had to leave before you awoke.
There is something of great importance I needed to take care of.
I beg of you, please trust me, and do not jump to conclusions.
I need to see you tonight, mine at 7:00p.m. xxx.
I snigger at his message, and nip at the right-side of my lower lip, wondering idly what matter of importance has to be taken care of on a Sunday?
Parking my blue Honda next to Hayden’s DB9 in the parking lot of The Paramount, I lean over to the passenger seat and dig my cell out of my purse. I chuckle in amazement as I rummage through bills, cosmetics and fresh panties, seriously, how I could fit so much junk in such a small space is beyond me.
Finally grasping the rectangular touchscreen, I pull it from its encasement and pull up Hayden’s number.
Just like clockwork, he answers on the third ring.
“Hey, beautiful, where are you?”
“Hey, I’m just parking. I will be up in a few minutes.” I check my makeup in the rear-view mirror, rubbing a smidgen of stray gloss away from the seam of my bottom lip.
“I will see you in a moment then.” I sense his lip curling into one of his luscious, suggestive smirks. A jolt shoots up my spine and through my hips. “The door’s unlocked, so just come straight in.”
“Okay, will do. See you in a few. Bye.” I hang up then toss my phone back into the deceptively small purse, before glancing back into the rear-view mirror and tousling the roots of my hair, giving it the ‘shaggy’ look that Hayden falls head over heels for.
After a torturous slow ascent to what I have come to name as, ‘Hayden’s Haven on the thirty-eight floor’, I stand before his apartment door. Cupping my hands together I expel a warm breath into the hollow they form while eagerly rubbing life into them.
I overhear faint music beyond the doorway. Out of politeness I knock on the wooden surface then, with caution I push the door open, sweeping it aside as though pushing it through deep snow.
Oh, my God. I am stunned, dazed, cemented to the spot whilst all breath is assailed from my body and tears take the place of my words.
The warm, deep sound of Kenny G’s, Songbird reverberates over the speakers, filling the apartment with the delicious duotones of music. Flames from the candles flicker to the silent beat of their own secret melody as they stand scattered in a perfect array around the rooms. Rose petals lay strewn across the dark, hardwood flooring, like a celebrity red carpet waiting for someone worthy to ambulate over their daintiness.
I seek Hayden through the gilded glow. Instantly locking eyes with my breathtakingly, gorgeous man as he leans against the arm of his sofa facing towards me, wearing simple, black pants and a crisp white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone. His thick, dark hair which is usually flopping at an angle over his brow is slicked back to perfection.
With his legs shoulder-width apart, his hands hanging down between his legs, I notice he is grasping and toying with a single, red rose. He has that dangerously mysterious air about him in the muted light and embracing his choice of position––like he’s been purposely waiting for me. At this moment, I would crawl on my hands and knees over cracked glass and burning embers, just to undress him with my teeth.
He sinks his teeth into the right side of his bottom lip the lets it roll free to curl into his captivating, shy-smile.
I mirror his expression, catching my own lip to halt my face-splitting beam and shake my head in awe.
Rising to full-height, all six foot two inches of delectable masculinity, Hayden pushes himself away from the arm of the couch. He prowls with seductive purpose towards me, closing the space between us in utter silence. With deft fingers, he dreamily twists and rolls the long-steamed flower. As he reaches me, he strokes the blossom down my cheek and follows the curve of my jawline with tantalizing purpose. Temptation, seduction and desire rolled into one beautiful man…it’s as though I’m being tested by Lucifer himself.
“Happy one month anniversary, beautiful,” he mutters with intent, and I soon lose myself in his darkening stare. His Hayden-like scent is enough to make me feel ready for him to take me right now alongside the very door I rest against. Lowering his head, he seals his mouth over my own with a lingering kiss. When he pulls away, I cock my head. And through the wondrous smile etched on my face, I frown with tangible bemusement.
“Hayden, it has––” he places a finger on my lips, shushing me immediately.
“No, it shouldn’t have gone the way it did. Tonight is a do-over. Are you okay with that?” He caresses my lips with his loitering finger. The combination of his heat, his scent, his deep, jagged voice vibrating its way through his throat, his eyes, magnetic and luring is enough to render any thought in my head.
“You are always full of new ideas and surprises,” I reply softly. Watching his eyes tighten, and the return of his secret, shy-smile, I’m aware of that delicious constriction of my pelvic muscles, and the formation of my pooling desire.
He tucks some hair behind my ear and captures my chin, tilting my head back. He trails the bud of the flower down the side of my neck and my throat.
“Tonight, will be new for both of us.”
HAYDEN
I bend softly and lovingly. I plant a kiss on Samantha’s full, glossy lips. Her eyes shimmering as she holds back tears that plead for their escape.
“This is all, so beautiful, Hayden.”
I smile, and for a fleeting moment I feel relatively timid in front of her. I peek down at the floor.
“But not half as beautiful as the woman stood before me.” The words flow unbroken and I raise my head and meet her piercing, blue gaze. “For you,” I hand her the lone, long-stemmed red rose and she instinctively sinks her button nose straight into its center.
Scooping her left hand into my own, our fingers laced, I brush my thumb over the back of her knuckles. Compared to my own, her hands seem dainty whilst in my grasp––dainty, soft and precious, like the finest silk and as rare as The Lesotho Diamond.