Love and Other Words (Page 48)

Andreas stands at the head of the aisle, watching in anticipation of his bride. Miss Dina sits beside Alex but reaches over her lap, taking my hand and holding it so tight I feel her love and her confusion and – above it all – her relief in that single, trembling touch.

Next is Nick Jr., with one of the bridesmaids. He’s filled out, barrel-chested like his father, tall like both of his parents. With a full beard, he looks more lumberjack than district attorney. I can’t really imagine him in sharkskin, if I’m being honest.

Then it’s George and Liz, arm in arm, all easy smiles. They’re such a perfect combination of happy faces and confident strides that I catch myself grinning, eyes brimming.

Alex hands me a tissue. “Two criers, on either side of me.”

“Shh,” Miss Dina whispers. “Just wait. It’ll afflict you soon.”

I’m not prepared for it, somehow – I’d forgotten that Elliot would be walking down the aisle – and the sight of him, with the petite blond maid of honor on his arm, his smile calm as he makes eye contact with the gathered guests, is a blow to the emotions wrapped tightly in my gut. Warmth bleeds free.

He looks so good.

Smiling, well over six feet tall now, easy in his skin. He looks at me after he leaves the maid of honor near the altar, and our eyes catch and hold.

It’s been hours since I thought of my ex-fiancé, but seeing Elliot now – at the altar and in his tux – makes me realize how monumentally wrong everything felt with Sean. How wrong it would feel with anyone but Elliot.

Stepping back, he files into position at the head of the groomsmen and manages to pull his eyes away from me as the music changes, and the guitar begins strumming the opening notes to Elvis Costello’s “She.”

The crowd stands. I know I should be looking for the bride, but my head is the only one facing forward, unable to stop staring at Elliot.

He can feel my attention, I’m sure, because he blinks away, turning his head just the slightest bit, meeting my eyes. There’s a question there in his, the playfully obvious What the hell is wrong with you?

I don’t know what else to do, so I simply mouth the word Yes.

Yes, I’m yours.

Yes, I’m ready.

Yes, I love you.

then

friday, december 8

eleven years ago

“

G

od, this book is amazing,” Elliot whispered, turning the page.

Inwardly, I gloated. Finally Mr. Snobby McClassicspants was reading Wally Lamb.

I rolled to my stomach, looking up at him on the futon. “I told you you’d love him.”

“You did,” he said. “And I do.”

We were finally allowed back in the closet together – door open – because it was too cold to send us outside, and Dad didn’t want to listen to us whispering downstairs all day long.

Senior year was already completely insane, and most weekends in November had been spent at home in Berkeley, preparing for college applications, SATs, and honors theses. We were trying to apply to schools in the same cities, if not the exact same colleges, and the intensity in our need to coordinate had us checking in with each other, constantly. This was the first weekend I’d actually been with Elliot in five weeks, and there was a forceful undercurrent, pushing us closer, and closer, and closer together, even with the door open.

“You should worship me,” I told him.

He looked at me over the rims of his glasses, brows raised. “I do.”

I grinned. “Or be my slave.”

“I would.” He closed the book, leaning his elbows on his long thighs. “I am.” I had his full attention now.

“Fan me with palm fronds and feed me tiny succulent grapes.”

It felt like the air stopped moving between us.

“Say that word again,” Elliot asked hoarsely.

“Fan.”

“No.”

“Tiny.”

He sighed, exasperated. “Macy.”

“Grapes.”

He turned back to his book, releasing a weary growl. “Pain in the ass.”

I grinned, licked my lips, and gave him what he wanted: “Succulent.”

He looked up, eyes dark.

Door open.

“Succulent,” I whispered again, and he crawled to the floor, leaning in to kiss up my neck, tickling. I squirmed, glancing at the door. “You are such a word nerd.”

His tongue followed the path of my throat and I heard his smile when he said, “Put your hand down my pants.”

I cackled, whispering sharply, “What? No. My dad is literally twenty feet away.”

Our eyes went wide in unison as, just then, the car engine started in the driveway, tires crunched down, down, down and then disappeared.

“Okay. I guess he’s more than twenty feet away,” I mumbled.

Elliot pulled back and stared at me, eyes dark and carnivorous, and it felt like a switch, bubbling something up inside me. I reached out and

finally

finally

put my hand over the buttons on his jeans, felt what I’d really really wanted to feel there.

“Now what?” I asked. This was happening. This was happening. I was touching. It. Him – it.

Elliot’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You don’t know?”

“I’m not sure?” I said, left with no more questions when he growled out a smile and covered my mouth with his.

We fell back to the floor, legs and arms entangled, lips bruising against teeth, messy and desperate and completely perfect. After all the forced physical distance and discussions about everything we wanted to do to each other, and never knowing when or how we would get time alone, this tiny window felt like the Hope Diamond, dropped into our palms.

I had never known this feeling, this ache that bloomed in my stomach and spread, lower and hot, driving me past my senses and pinpointing my entire universe down to this one sensation, and then the next. And then wanting what came after.

My shirt came off. My pants were unzipped and peeled away. I pushed closer, afraid that even naked we wouldn’t be close enough to satisfy this new hunger.

He bent down, licking my neck, my breasts, and then returned to me, greedy lips sucking at mine and then back down over my chest. His hand pressed flat against my stomach and fingers teased at the hem of my underwear.

“Too fast?” he asked, breathing heavily, and I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me from where his mouth explored my breasts.

“No,” I said out loud. It was too slow. Not too fast – too slow. Fire crackled up and down every nerve ending and I wanted more, even if I didn’t know exactly what that was.

“Shit, Macy, I’m… this is insane. Good insane. You feel insane under me.”

I laughed because Elliot’s rare incoherence was strangely reassuring, and then his lips were on my mouth, swallowing my laugh and making it his, his tongue slipping over mine as his hand cupped my breast, squeezed, our sounds muffled by the way we could barely bring ourselves up for air.

His fingers went lower again, slipping over my ribs, across my navel, below the cotton to exactly where I needed them, and he made a strangled sound at the same time that I ground out something unintelligible. His hips shifted over me, seeking the same rhythm as his fingertips gliding across my skin.

In a flash he was moving down, tugging my underwear off, and kissing my belly, hips, and then lower, almost wild with the want that mirrored mine. He shook below me, between my thighs, shoulders trembling under my grip, and I missed his weight on top but whatever he had decided to do with his mouth distracted me from any other coherent thought. It was warm soft suction, hands on my legs, resisting the way they seemed to want to close around his head and the mad sensation of tongue and lips and his gasps of air. He was doing that thing I’d barely let myself imagine.