Playing the Hand You're Dealt (27 page)

Read Playing the Hand You're Dealt Online

Authors: Trice Hickman

Chapter 26
Emily . . .
 
 
 
 
So Powerful, and So All-Consuming
 
T
he sun peeked in through the tiny slits of my wooden miniblinds, filling my bedroom with soft rays of light. They say the sun always comes out after a storm, and this morning was proof of that. I looked over at Ed as he slept comfortably beside me. He was lying on his right side, facing me, providing me with the perfect angle to study his face. Before now, I was never able to really look at him with a critical eye, for fear that he or someone else would catch me staring and read my desire. But his slumber mixed with the glorious morning light solved that. Now I could relish him in the privacy of my bedroom.
My eyes took him in. Starting at the top of his head, I studied the way his hairline framed his chiseled face. He was in no danger of receding or balding in the foreseeable future, and his curly pepper-and-salt hair was still full and lush. Moving down, I surveyed his wide brows that perfectly accented his eyes, even with them closed.The bridge of his nose was similar to mine, moderate and slightly narrow, and his lips were just the right size, with just enough hint of pink to make them kissably irresistible. I wanted to run my fingers along the edge of his face and feel his smooth caramel skin against my palm, but I resisted, not wanting to wake him from what looked like peaceful sleep.
I turned on my side and gently nuzzled my body close to his, while he draped his strong arm around my waist, as if it were an involuntary reaction. He pulled me farther into his chest, my bare back freely resting there. “Are you awake?” I asked.
“A little.” He kissed me at the nape of my neck as his warm breath grazed my hairline.
I could feel his early-morning erection against my behind, and it took me back to last night.
Samantha and Tyler had dropped me home from what turned out to be a mess of a birthday party. Just as I had suspected, and as Ruben had so accurately predicted, Carl showed up and showed out. The police arrested him and his cousin for trespassing, and I heard a rumor among the partygoers that the officers found a gun and drugs on both of them.
I prayed that once Carl made bail he wouldn't come after Samantha. Ruben's prediction of death was still looming in my mind. But the incident that upset me more than Carl was the way Brenda had treated Samantha. After witnessing her verbally belittle and then physically assault my friend, her own daughter, it was the first time in my life that I had wanted to inflict harm upon another person.
I had been home about an hour when my cell phone rang. My heart raced when I saw Ed's name flash across my screen. I wanted to see him, but I hesitated.
“Please,”
he'd said. Ten minutes later he pulled into my garage and parked his luxury SUV beside Hazel.
We sat at a comfortable distance from each other on my couch, free from the weight of watchful eyes and ears. But we said little.We listened to the rain as it beat against the window, thunder stomping in the sky. Rain. It was a cleansing force, a natural passage. It washed away dirt and grime and left clean new paths in its wake. It breathed life into the earth, and made things grow, and it calmed anxious lovers sitting on a couch, waiting for the inevitable. The rain was my sign. It was my opportunity to wash away my old fears and start living for the first time in my life. No more playing it safe.
In a bold move, I slid over and straddled Ed's lap. And as the saying goes, that was all she wrote.
We made love right there on my living room floor. It was hot, steamy, and passionate. I had wanted him so badly that my emotions led me to reach for what I had desired since that hot August day at Spelman eleven years ago. And while it hadn't unfolded like the idyllic, tender moments I'd envisioned for our first time, it was everything I had hoped it would be, and more.
My only regret was that even though I was on the Pill, we should have used a condom. Pregnancy was one worry, an STD was another. But when I had the only man I had ever wanted in a position I never thought would come, clean medical records had been the last thing on my mind. So after Ed retrieved his overnight bag from his truck and we ventured upstairs to my bedroom, I told him that I had taken an HIV/AIDS test six months ago during a community education drive back home. “I'm negative, and before tonight I haven't been with anyone in eight months,” I told him.
Ed looked at me curiously, as if my STD status hadn't crossed his mind. But in the spirit of mutual disclosure he shared with me that he'd tested negative back in the spring during the citywide HIV/AIDS awareness testing that his organization, 100 Black Men, had sponsored.
After our awkward sharing of medical records, we settled into bed. We were both exhausted, but we were also too excited to close our eyes, wanting to continue our long-awaited moment.We talked for the next two hours about the eleven years of secret desire we'd shared, and laughed about the fact that until I moved here, neither of us had been sure if the other was truly interested. He also admitted that mild jealousy had played a role in his behavior at the restaurant. “I just wanted you so much,” he said.
Now, lying next to Ed, snuggled against his warm, naked body, I tingled inside. “Do you want coffee and a bagel?”
“Not this morning. I have everything I need right here.”
I loved hearing him say those words.
“How long have you been up?” he asked, stroking the outside of my thigh.
“A while.”
“What are you thinking about?”
I smiled. “Last night.”
I felt Ed's hand move up to my left breast, cupping it as he planted a soft kiss on the ball of my shoulder. “I love the way you took control,” he breathed into my ear, gently tugging on my lobe with his teeth. “But now it's my turn.”
With gentle ease, Ed rolled me onto my back, ready to take me on another journey into bliss. I moaned and delighted in the way he sucked my right breast while delicately tweaking the nipple of my left between his thumb and forefinger. He took his time making his way down my body, kissing each exposed inch of my skin until his head rested between my legs. Just as I thought he was going to pleasure me, he paused for a moment, as if studying a map.
“I've been waiting . . . wanting you for so long,” he said as he ran his finger over my growing wetness. “So beautiful,” he whispered.
My body tensed with excitement when I felt him touch me in the place that until last night I'd only fantasized about. With soft and careful attentiveness, he swept his finger back and forth over my tender opening, watching me as I squirmed beneath his expert touch. Slowly, he spread my lips, slippery and wet, before covering me with his warm mouth.
I could feel his hunger and desire to please me. He perched his mouth at the base of my engorged clit, sucking and softly tugging at it as his tongue probed me. “Oh, yeah,” I moaned.
“You taste so good,” he breathed, sucking me deep into his mouth.
My hips bucked forward and I arched my lower back as he devoured me—as though taking small bites of an apple. His tongue was skilled, fluid, and precise. He worked with determined concentration, testing different angles of pressure until he found the one that made me cry out so loudly I was sure I could be heard at the coffee shop around the corner. I gripped my fingers at the back of his head and pressed his mouth close against my heated flesh. I loved the sight of him gently lapping between my legs as the morning sun flooded the room.
After he brought me to orgasm with his loving tongue, he moved up, kissed my stomach, journeyed to my breasts, and then found his way to my lips as our bodies moved in unison below. He reached over to the nightstand for a condom, slipped it on, and parted my legs with his knee. He looked into my eyes as he entered me, slowly, and with a hint of restrained force.
“Mmm,”
I moaned.
We both let out soft cries of pleasure as he carefully eased his way farther inside me until I took in every magnificently thick inch of him. He was large, in length and in width, surprisingly more than I'd imagined. Yet, his size felt just right inside me. He filled the empty space that had been waiting just for him, making love to me, purposefully, and without inhibition. “I love you, Emily,” he whispered into my ear.
“I love you, too,” I panted, engulfed by his soft kiss and smooth strokes.
He increased his rhythm as the next orgasm inside me began to form with a pleasure so great it was nearly indescribable. He must have known what I was feeling because he smiled, then plunged deeper inside me, opening the door to a blessed euphoria I didn't think possible. It was so intense, so powerful, and so all-consuming. I shut my eyes, opened my mouth, and let my body succumb to it. Ed did the same. I felt him bury his head against my collarbone as he made one final thrust before letting out a slow, pleasure-filled moan.
We lay there—still and breathless, completely and blissfully satiated. This was what I had dreamed our first time would be.
We showered together and then returned to my bed. I rested my head on Ed's chest as he stroked my shoulder, applying light pressure for a gentle massage.
“Mmm,
that feels good,” I purred.
“I'm glad.”
I looked past the box of Trojans and over to the alarm clock. It was still early, barely nine o'clock.There was a full day ahead, and it suddenly dawned on me that once Ed walked out of my door he would return to a life that didn't include me. He was in tune with my thoughts, and he could feel my mood turn.
“Emily, what's wrong?”
I mumbled into his chest. “What time do you have to leave? You've been gone since last night and she'll wonder where you are.”
Though it wasn't the first time that Brenda had crossed my mind since Ed walked through my door, it was the first she'd come up in our conversation. I hadn't asked any questions last night about how he was going to explain being away from home, or even how he left the house in the first place, I was just happy that he was with me. He had an overnight bag, so I knew he must have given Brenda some kind of explanation for his absence. Now, lying in my bed, on soft, wine-colored sheets, after making beautiful love, I wanted to know. Besides, we had to acknowledge the other side of our paradise, the side that was surely going to raise the hell we had tried to avoid for eleven years.
“I told Brenda that I was going to hang out with Ross, and not to expect me back until today.”
“Oh.”
Hearing him say her name while lying in my bed sounded like glass shattering on the floor. The thought of what I'd done made me feel ashamed. In just one night I had become one of those women who other women sucked their teeth and rolled their eyes at—a home wrecker, a status I had feared and must now claim. I was the other woman. The
younger
other woman at that. It was a category far worse than all others in the breaking-up-marriages department.
I shouldn't have expected to feel anything different from the guilt that cloaked me. I knew this would be my lot if I had an affair with Ed, so I had to accept it. I took shallow breaths, thinking that after each time we were together I would have to watch him shower away our sex before he returned home to his wife. I thought about the secret phone calls we'd have to make, and the lies we'd have to tell if we wanted to see each other. I thought about the fact that there wouldn't be many occasions, if any more at all, that I would be able to wake up beside him in the morning light.
“Emily, are you okay?”
“No.”
He stopped stroking my shoulder and brought me up to his face so he could see mine. “I want to share my life with you.”
“But you're married.”
“And that can be remedied.”
Slowly, I pulled away from him, sat up in my bed, and reached for my robe, which lay on the nightstand at my side. I remembered something that Samantha told me Tyler had said when they were dating. “A woman should never have a serious conversation with a man while she's naked because men will say anything when they've got ass in the palm of their hands.”

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