Quietly, holding her asleep in my arms, I let myself cry with that realization.
I’m not embarrassed. It’s not emasculating. It’s real. It’s human.
She loves me.
She’s not demanding anything from me.
I fall asleep, eventually, still wondering at the marvel that is the woman in my arms.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Delia
I wake slowly,but my senses tell me I’m not in my home. I’m somewhere unfamiliar. It’s the scent in the air, the…feeling.
But then I wake more fully, and memories flood me. Even before I open my eyes, I’m smiling. Because as awareness of my surroundings picks up, I feel him.
Which means all those memories were not dreams. I didn’t dream any of it.
I let my eyes remain closed and let the smile hover on my lips and I revisit last night.
Coming home, exhausted but excited to be going home to Thai. The candles. The rose. A whole box of signed copies of my favorite childhood books. The best sex of my entire life, bar none, by several orders of magnitude.
All the sex I ever had before him was, cumulatively, a small firecracker going off. Not even an M80, just one of those cheap crappy ones you get from a roadside stand. Last night, bare, with Thai? That was a nuclear detonation.
I sigh, remembering.
AndIinitiated it. I feel proud of that. I wanted him, and I took what I wanted. I didn’t wait for him, I didn’t hold back, I didn’t shy away from myself, from my own needs. I didn’t hide.
I’ve always pushed what I want and need behind the veil of what Ihaveto do—work. That always came first. The company. Dad. Taking over, all of it. Thai blew into my life and knocked all the pieces of my life askew and awry, but it helped me reprioritize.
I matter. What I want matters. What I need matters.
Thai has helped me see that. Showed me that.
The bath, and the things he told me about himself.
The massage.
God, the massage.
The orgasm at the end was…beyond words.
He’s behind me, arm flung low over my hip.
As I consider turning toward him, he twists to face away—and I realize I have a certain need which cannot be ignored any longer. A quick trip to the bathroom—including a rinse of my mouth with mouthwash—and I’m back in bed, bladder relieved and hands washed. This time I snuggle up behind him. Press up behind his big hard body, curl against him. Wrap a hand around his waist.
I don’t quite doze, just rest like that, not quite sleepy but perfectly content to lay holding him.
After a time I couldn’t put a number to, he stirs. I feel him waking. His hand covers mine.
He rolls to his back, and his eyes fix on me. “Hi.”
I smile. “Hi there, beautiful.”
“Isn’t that my line?”
I shake my head against the pillow. “Nah. You’re beautiful to me, so that makes it my line.”
