Page 19 of Still the One

“Mac,” I whisper, as I look down at her.

She opens her eyes to me and sits a little straighter.

“Do you want to… stay?”

“I do,” she says, like Sandra said to Tyrone earlier today, but in an entirely different context. She pulls me close and doesn’t say anything else. Her mouth is too busy finding mine again.

Chapter 11

Mac

I’m not sure how unplanned this is on my part. I came up to Jamie’s room. I looked her in the eye and told her I wanted to kiss her. I can kid myself a kiss is all I want, but it stopped being that the instant our lips touched. Because Jamie is Jamie—my Jamie. We were good at a lot of things together, but we excelled at this. Our chemistry was always very physical, and we always found each other again between the sheets—which made it hurt all the more when she slept with Cherry.

Kissing her doesn’t take me back in time so much as it takes me out of time entirely. Back then, the second our lips met, the rest of the world seemed to disappear and, apparently, this hasn’t changed. As though, even after all these years, part of her is still part of me. As though us being together, totally merged and codependent for ten full years, has weaved parts of her DNA into mine. Her touch is still electric. Her breath on my skin still feels as though a fire’s being lit in my soul. Maybe some people are so important, leave such an impression, that the body can’t forget them, no matter how hard the brain tries.

So, yes, I want to stay with her tonight. I want her to undress me, with her eyes first, then with her capable hands. I want Jamie to do to me what she used to do—because she always did it so damn well.

The past twenty years, I’ve dated amazingly interesting women. I’ve slept with people whom I found so sexy outside of the bedroom, I couldn’t wait to get them into bed, only to find that this kind of spark, this thing I had with Jamie from the start, was so elusive, I had to conclude I could only ever experience it with her.

That’s what killed me when she left me for Cherry, after she’d already slept with her. She must have felt that special spark that I believed was exclusively ours with Cherry, and that was the hardest thing to accept. The most difficult aspect to get over at first—before I realized that my dream of having a family with her got crushed as well when she left.

But despite all of that, despite Jamie leaving me and turning my life upside down, here I am. Her lips skate along my neck. Already, I can’t get enough of her hands on me. Already, I want her with a passion I haven’t encountered with anyone else—ever.

Jamie’s growing in confidence with every kiss she plants on my skin. I can feel it. It radiates off her, and I want more, more, more. I want all of her. Just for tonight. These things happen at weddings, that’s just a fact of life. Especially at destination weddings in romantic locations like Hawaii. I can accept that—and I can use it as the perfect excuse tomorrow.

Jamie looks down at me again. Her eyes twinkle and she traps her bottom lip between her teeth. It makes her look irresistibly mischievous. With her gaze pinned on me, she starts to unbutton her shirt. My mouth goes dry at the prospect. My eyes are glued to her hands, her nimble fingers. She opens the sides of her blouse and reveals her chest to me.

I reach out my hands and slide them from her belly to her back. Her skin is warm and inviting. I can’t wait to explore every last inch of it. To find out what has changed about her and what is still the same. Because I once knew this body like the back of my hand. I charted every freckle, every bump on her skin, that tiny, nearly invisible birthmark in the crook of her arm. I open her bra, slide it off her.

Her breasts don’t look the same—how can they?—but they still take my breath away. Her tiny nipples are rock hard. Instinctively, I reach for them. Jamie leans over and I skate my tongue along her nipple while I cup her other breast in my hand. A riot starts between my legs. My clit throbs. The fierceness with which I want her surprises me—maybe even scares me. Perhaps because this shouldn’t feel as good as it does. It should be more awkward, less fluid and effortless. Because so much time has passed. But time stops now that I have Jamie’s nipple in my mouth, and she moans deep in her throat—like she always did—and it sets something off in me.

My body remembers how it loved hers. How it could never get enough of her. How it tried to keep her in bed when Jamie’s alarm clock went off too early. How it held onto her—long after she’d left. How our bodies fitted together so seamlessly, as if they were meant for each other. No wonder my body brought me here. My feet carried me to her room. My lips formed the words that declared my intention. It’s a far cry from how I felt this morning, when I was in this same room, and when I was met with an avalanche of pain. It’s miraculous what a few hours and a bit of conversation can do. Seeing Jamie as more than her betrayal changed the circumstances so much that it led to this.

Jamie twists her torso away from me, but my mouth doesn’t have to go without her long. Her lips are back on mine and the earlier tentative gentleness has made way for Jamie’s tell-tale determination. Her hands wriggle between my back and the couch. She’s probably trying to find the zipper of my dress. My bright red eye-catching dress that I picked for a reason. Because I wanted Jamie to look at me. It was expensive but totally worth it.

“Let’s move to the bed.” Jamie’s voice is sultry and low. She climbs off me and holds out her hand. It’s only a few steps to the foot of the bed.

I point her in the right direction to the zipper. Jamie wastes no time sliding it down. Her hands are warm on my shoulders as she guides the fabric off me until it’s nothing but a messy red puddle on the floor. I swallow hard because I’m standing in front of Jamie in just my underwear.

“You’re so beautiful,” Jamie mutters under her breath, but I can still hear it clearly. She undoes the button on her pants and steps out of the tuxedo bottoms she has worn so well all night.

The sight of her feels like slamming into a wall of heat. Her soft dark hair falls to her shoulders. Her pale skin contrasts with the black fabric of her underwear, which is more practical than sexy—it always was. Why would she wear sexy underwear, tonight of all nights, anyway?

While we used to always keep things light and even jokey when things got hot under the collar, there doesn’t seem to be much room for that tonight. Maybe because there’s something utterly fragile about the whole situation. Although, I don’t feel as though I’d bolt out of the door if one wrong word was uttered. There are no more wrong words, and I’ve thought the worst of Jamie for the better part of two decades already. I’m ready to let go of all of that, even if just for one night, to be free of that burden, that sadness that’s burrowed its way deep inside of me. I want to replace the bitterness I’ve associated with her with a new joyful memory. Then move on again, free and lighter.

Jamie makes a move for me. She won’t be able to stand that I’m still wearing a bra while she isn’t. That I’ve had my hands and lips all over her breasts while she hasn’t touched mine. Who am I to keep her waiting? My bra is disposed of in seconds.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” she says, articulating very clearly now. And I believe her. Not that I have trouble believing that I’m sexy in general, but I believe I’m sexy to her. That she once again wants me with every fiber of her being.

When you love someone with all your heart, when you want them with all that you are, and the other person doesn’t want you with the same passion, that’s the most humiliating, demoralizing, devastating feeling in the world. That sort of thing will break your spirit for a good long while. Then you get over it, because life goes on and time does its thing, but something always lingers. Nothing’s ever quite the same again. You’re always slightly off balance. Not a lot, not so much that it messes up your life forever, but just enough to make you remember that you once had something special and you’re not quite sure you’ll ever feel like that again.

Come tomorrow, I’ll probably revert to that feeling again. But that’s why we have tonight. That’s why my soul feels momentarily restored when Jamie says I’m sexy. But that’s also why she can only say this now, in this room, when it’s dark outside, after the day and evening we’ve had. At this wedding, where a friend brought us together. This is the only moment in which this balance can exist. I know that. And I’ll take it.

Next thing I know, she’s pinching my nipple between her fingers, which is always a direct line to my clit. I haven’t been this turned on, this ready for everything, in years, maybe decades. Maybe since the last time we slept together, when I had no idea she was slipping away from me, that I was losing her to someone else.

Jamie smiles at me now. She paints on that devilish grin I remember so well. The one that always undid me. The one that said loud and clear, I’m going to make you come so hard, you won’t remember what day of the week it is. Jamie was always very good at that. She had me weak at the knees from the first day we met. I tried to play hard to get, but I’ve never been as useless at anything as I was at that.

She pushes me down onto the bed. My panties slide off me a fraction and I get rid of them entirely.

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