Page 84 of The Love We Make

Until now, I believed it was lounging in my couch with my dogs sprawled across my body, and it can be that—but it’s not only that. Because it’s also this. It’s also letting this gorgeous, phenomenal, accomplished woman into my life and letting her shake my foundations. Giving her the key to the overly complicated lock around my heart. This doesn’t have to be so difficult. It can be as simple as Mimi and me in this bed. At least it is for now.

Mimi topples me off her and glues her body to my side. Her fingertips roam across my belly.

“Your body really is a work of art,” she whispers. I make a mental note to remind her of those words when my alarm goes off at five tomorrow morning. Then there’s no space left in my brain to make mental notes at all. Mimi circles a finger around my nipple. More than anything, it’s her gentleness that floors me again. As though she can somehow read my body and knows this is what I like. Or maybe I showed her earlier, when she was straddled across my face and I made her wait for it—but I didn’t test her patience for that reason. I just wanted to keep her there, in that intimate position, for as long as possible.

Mimi shifts upward and sucks my nipple into her mouth. A jolt of electricity courses through me. Something inside of me must have sensed this when I tried to kiss her that very first time. When, unbidden and unexpectedly, I tried to get my first taste of her.

She touches the part of my brain that my conscious mind can’t reach. The instinct that lurks in my body that only reacts to certain people. No wonder I went crazy for Mimi. My subconscious recognized something I’m always on the lookout for. An older woman because, as Juan likes to put it, I’m a walking mommy issue on very shapely legs. Mimi is an amazing mother with a flock of children who adore the living daylights out of her. That will always touch a nerve inside of me. But Mimi is much more than that.

She exudes the kind of energy that’s irresistible to me, a sort of command over the world around her that excites me. Her constant control of everything speaks to the incorrigible control freak in me. It could even be that what irked me about her so much when we first met, that need to show us who was in charge when she waltzed into the room, is what excites me the most now.

She flicks her tongue against my nipple one last time before making her way down. Her hand follows the path her lips are taking. My skin is on fire and there’s only one way to put this fire out.

She kisses my lower belly while her hand dips between my legs.

A smug smile graces her face as she looks up at me. “No lube required tonight,” she says. It turns me on even more. It makes me even wetter for her.

She leans over my thigh and her lips touch down. She sucks my clit into her mouth as she did with my nipple earlier, and I all but lose my mind. Her fingers bide their time, but her tongue doesn’t. There’s something about the way she does this—soft and warm and slow—as though she’s gauging my body’s tiniest reaction, that gets to me. Because it’s an extension of how she is outside of the bedroom. Beneath her glitzy TV executive exterior, Mimi’s all nurturing warmth, and I can’t get enough of that. The combination of the two makes the last of my defenses crumble once and for all.

She pushes herself up and replaces her tongue with a fingertip. She draws slow circles around my clit while she finds my eyes with hers. Mimi looks at me, her gaze as gentle and kind as her tongue was on me earlier. Her finger slides down and she pushes inside me.

I keep my eyes open because I need to see her face. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to. Mimi adds another finger. Her thumb edges along my clit as she pushes high inside of me.

I pull her to me and kiss her hungrily. She has given me the best gift ever. Not this orgasm that’s about to roll through me, but the kind of trust that when expressed in mere words could never be enough. The kind of trust you need to feel in your bones, that goes beyond words—beyond my flawed communication skills.

But I feel something else hum in my bones and quake in my muscles. Our kiss deepens before it stalls. I look into her eyes as I come at her fingers, clamping around her, and giving myself to her. My body surrenders, and I know, as the buzz in my clit intensifies, that I’m more than enough.

* * *

“I want to say something.” I can’t imagine a safer place than where I am right now, cradled in Mimi’s arms.

“You don’t have to,” Mimi says.

“I know, but I want to.”

“Of course.” Mimi’s spooning me, one arm curled tightly around my belly, pulling me into the endless warmth of her skin. “Do you want to stay like this? Is that easier?”

I roll over in her embrace. I want to say this when I’m looking at her, just as I wanted to experience the joy of that climax with her gaze on me earlier.

“Hi.” Mimi’s expression softens when she lays eyes on me. She leans in and kisses me lightly on the tip of my nose.

“This is not something I talk about, not even with Juan and Imani, so I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to come out.”

Mimi nods and smiles.

“I want to explain something to you. Well, try to, at least.” That delicious relaxation in my muscles is turning into tension again, but that’s okay. I’ve been teaching myself to live with the tension, to just let it be and accept it without reacting—especially overreacting. Most of the time, it doesn’t work. But tonight, with Mimi’s arm draped around me, and the residual afterglow of making love, I can try, even though it’s definitely going to be uncomfortable.

“Okay.” Mimi gently strokes my back.

“I don’t hate my parents, nor do I actively ‘shun’ them, as you put it.” I pause. How to even express this? But some issues do require words. Some feelings need to be spoken out loud so they can’t grow into something unmanageable inside of me. “I love them, even though I know it’s not a given that children and parents automatically love each other. I’ve seen enough of that to not believe in that fairy tale. But…” I take a breath. “Seeing you with your kids and how you are with each other… To grow up in a house like that, with a family like that, is my ultimate fantasy. It wasn’t like that for me. It wasn’t horrible, and my parents did the best they could with what they had, but emotionally—I mean, they’re like me.”

I chuckle nervously. “Can you imagine two people like myself raising a child? With a short fuse like that? And no way to express their feelings? But I can’t blame them for who they are, nor can I blame myself for who I am. I am their daughter. I’m so much like them, and it fucking kills me sometimes, because I want to be… different. I want to be better.” I focus on a tiny freckle Mimi has on the left side of her chin. “I know that, even though they can’t say it, they love me and they want me to be happy more than anything. They may even be proud of me, who knows, but if they are, your guess is as good as mine, because they’ve certainly never told me. They wouldn’t dream of it.” I swallow something out of my throat. “I sometimes dream of it, even though it would be the most awkward conversation if they were ever to say something like that out loud. But I know exactly what it’s like, to be like that. To feel something profoundly but, for the life of you, not be able to share that feeling.”

Mimi’s fingertips are still gliding gently over the skin of my back.

“I understand them, I really do. But that doesn’t make me want to spend more time with them—on the contrary. Maybe that’s cruel, and that makes me a bad daughter, but I am me and I can only act accordingly. When I do visit them, the tension between us, the negative energy because everything is pent-up and unspoken, is unbearable to me. So I decided a while ago to minimize visits because they frustrate me more than anything. I should probably work on mending this thing that is wrong between us, but it’s too hard. And that’s the decision I made for myself. That I don’t have to spend more time with them just because they’re my parents. I know that’s selfish, because it might be hurtful and disrespectful to them. They would never say if it was. They would never demand anything of me. I get the feeling that they may prefer things the way they are as well. But I don’t really know.” I let the tears that well in my eyes tumble freely. There’s no use trying to hide them now.

Mimi brings her thumb to my cheek and tries to catch them.

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