Chapter 29

29

At one point, during one of the slower scenes in the movie—when they find out Cypher is a two-timing piece of shit—Carter leans over and whispers to me, "Hey. I know what happened isn't about how you look. But you know…I want you to know, okay? That you look like a goddess all the fucking time. First thing in the morning, when you probably think you're messy. You're so gorgeous…and whenever you shower, the way your hair gets, and your, you know, glowing skin? After, I mean, not in the shower." He coughs a little and even though I can't see him in this dark theater, I know he's blushing. Blushes always look like spilled raspberry sauce on Carter's light skin and I'm sad I'm missing it right now. "After showering, I mean. Of course. And whenever you dress up, sometimes I feel like I can't breathe around you. And when you're just in your pajamas, cleaning…you look so pretty when you're by the window and the sunlight makes your hair look like brown metal."

"Bronze?" I ask, my voice a little too froglike and emotional for my liking.

"Yeah, bronze. And I like it when you take your first sip of coffee for the day. Like it's the best thing you've ever tasted. And I…yeah. I also like your toes."

"My toes?!"

He laughs. "Yeah, I've always liked them. You paint them so pretty. Remember when you used to wear toe rings?"

I groan, my eyes rolling up into my head. "Those were the early aughts, Carter, you can't judge me for that."

"I'm not judging. I'm telling you I liked them." He is so uninhibited right now, and I can't help but think all the buffers in this place are contributing to that—the dark. The sound. The distraction of sweet and salty snacks. "You could be wearing a dress made out of…I don't know. Birds? And I would still think you were the prettiest woman I'd ever seen."

Normally, I'd make a comment on the weird randomness of a dress made of birds, but instead it's like my breath has been punched out of me twice in a row. First, when I had the thought that maybe I was in love with Carter. And now, when I realize that… of course I'm in love with Carter.

My whole life, Carter has been the one who has seen me without judgment. And not just without judgment, but with unreserved admiration and kindness. He has never judged me, not even when I would call him after another shitty day with Johnny. He believed in my gifts without question from the start, not pretended to believe like Leilani did.

And I think I've always known this. I have always known that deep down, I'm in love with Carter Velasquez. But I've pushed the thoughts and feelings away, just like I've pushed him away, when he got too close to those particular thoughts and feelings.

When we were teenagers, and it was clear he was beginning to get a crush on me. I pushed him away.

When he visited me at work and leaned in to smell my perfume. I pushed him away.

When I was single for the first time in years, and we kissed, and God, the way that kiss made my nerve endings explode, the way it felt like I was being struck by lightning—I can say that now, having actually been struck by lightning—I pushed him away in the worst way possible. By choosing another man right in front of him.

I don't just want to be not Selfish Teal anymore.

I want to be Brave Teal.

I want to not just make it up to the people I love, but I also want to unabashedly love them. And that's what Sage was trying to tell me earlier. To not just love them, but to let them in. To allow them to see the most vulnerable parts of me. To let them care for me and love me, too.

Because I think that Sky was right…Carter loves me but he has also been pushing me away, too, because of me constantly doing that to him in the first place. He loves me but he also doesn't want to get hurt by me. I could be wrong, of course—and God, it would hurt so damn much if I am—but right now, I am bursting with the feeling like I am the source of lightning. If I don't tell him…if I don't tell him, I will become a storm. I will dissipate into the sky in a flash of white-hot light.

I turn to him. The action scene on right now is brightly lit—Trinity is about to watch Neo dodge bullets—and even though it doesn't escape me that maybe this is kind of a dumb place to do this right now, I open my mouth and say, "Carter. I'm in love with you."

I'm pretty sure that plop is the sound of the extra-extra large popcorn hitting the floor.

"What did you say?" he asks, his voice croaking and gasping.

"I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you since…for a while now. And I'm so sorry it's taken me this long to realize it." My eyes are brimming with tears, so I take a deep breath. "And I know I'm broken. I know that…I'm probably not your first choice."

"Teal." Carter doesn't know what to do with his hands, so they're all over me, along my arm, my shoulder, till he's cupping my face. "You're not broken. And you've always been my first choice. Since I was nine years old and first moved to Catalina Street and saw you and your sisters roller-skating up and down the street."

I wipe my eyes. "Oh, man. The pink roller skates."

He laughs and says, "Say it again, please. Say you love me, Teal."

"I love you, Carter."

His lips meet mine, clumsily at first, though I'm not sure why—from him not seeing well, or maybe just the intense emotions we both seem to be feeling. But then we get the angle of our faces right and then everything is right. Everything. His big lips gliding over mine, me opening my mouth to let his tongue in, our breath getting heavy. I grab at what I think is his pec, or maybe just under, at his rib cage, and his hand slides over my hip, over the juncture of my thighs. He grabs me there, lightly, giving me a squeeze, and I gasp, breaking the kiss to moan as quietly as I can, even though we're the only people here.

"I told myself I wouldn't make love to you until you fell in love with me." His voice is gruff and low and I can feel it somehow vibrating against me through his hand. Or maybe that's because he's gliding his palm against me in a rhythm that makes my eyes want to roll backward.

I try to laugh, but it comes out like a series of erotic groans. "But we…but you were fine with oral?"

"I tried so hard to resist you, Teal, but I never could."

I gasp when he rolls his palm in a way that hits me exactly right. "Do you—God—do you have a condom?"

He immediately pulls his hand back from between my thighs, and I am not too embarrassed to whine in disappointment.

"We aren't doing it for the first time in an old-ass movie theater," he responds.

"So you're going to take me to the new one?" I ask, trying to lighten the mood, because it sounds like he's sort of rejecting me again.

His arms wedge under me and I squeak, and then he hoists me into his arms. "Ha. No. We're going to leave right now, actually, and I'm going have you in our bed."

Our bed. In our home. Because Carter Velasquez is my husband.

It's still scary, to think I'm on the verge of having what I have always secretly wanted. But I want to be brave and brave and brave, so I wrap my arms around his neck and, with my lips, find the spot I kissed during our first dance as esposo y esposa.

He hisses in a breath, and I can feel goose bumps forming under my mouth. "That's one of your erogenous spots, isn't it?" I whisper.

"It's…something. God. I can't even breathe when you—" And then I do it again, proving him right as he holds his breath in and then shakily lets it out when I'm done. "Damn, Teal. Damn."

We make it back to his place in about five minutes. He kept doing this dumb move of hitting the gas while simultaneously trying to stare at me, like he was in awe of the fact that I was his, seriously his. "Pay attention to the road!" I kept squeaking, watching him blush over as he whipped his head back front-facing.

As soon as we make it through the entryway, I basically jump on him. He catches me, his hands on my ass, leaning me against the wall as we begin kissing with the intensity of a teenage make-out session. He cups my face with one hand, and I hold on to the back of his neck and squeeze. My entire body feels pre- and post-orgasmic at once—warm and tingly, focused only on how I can get ever more closer to Carter.

"Wait," I say suddenly. He freezes, slowly lowering me to the ground. I wince when my left foot hits.

"Are you in too much pain?" he breathes.

I laugh, because even though I am in pain, and am probably due for another Advil, the endorphins of him, of his lips and shoulders and hands and everything, are doing a better job of numbing the ache than any pill. "I'm fine. I just wanted to, ah. Change first. If that's okay?"

He furrows his brow and nods. "Okay. Just—"

"I'll let you know when I'm ready for you in the bedroom." And then I limp that way as fast as I can.

Once there, I about rip open the top drawer to my dresser, pulling out socks and bras until I find what I'm looking for. I hold it up in front of me: the barely-there bikini lingerie Sage and Sky gave me on my wedding day. I haven't even tried it on yet, but with something like this, in which the fact it's not supposed to fit is kind of the point, it doesn't matter. I peel off my clothes as clumsily as I can, putting my weight on the dresser and off my foot, and then tie it on.

I burst into laughter when I look at myself in the mirror. The little triangles of the top barely hide my nipples. The bottoms—let's just say I would absolutely be arrested if I wore this to the beach. The backside is a thong, so it hides about as much as the front. There's something about the fact that at first glance, it has the same form as a normal bathing suit, but then all the naughty bits are more or less on display rather than covered. It's ridiculous and hot at the same time.

I open the door to call for Carter, but he's right there, patiently waiting. His eyes drop down my body, and his mouth falls open. "Do you like it?" I ask, putting my hands on my hips and posing as sexily as I can with my weight on one foot. "I was thinking of sunning just a little bit, before sex."

He's staring at my breasts, where I'm pretty sure one of the fabrics has busted off my nipple just by my lifting my arms a little. "What? You sure?"

I snort. "I'm kidding, Carter. This is lingerie."

He stares between my legs, and then he reaches out to touch me there, sliding his fingers where the fabric doesn't even cover, where I am already beyond slick for him. "Good," he says, gruff enough to make me gasp, and then he grabs me to lean on him as he slides one, then two fingers inside me.

"Oh my God," I whimper when he curls his grip right where I need it the most.

He makes me come so fast, I'd be embarrassed if it weren't so good. As soon as it's over, he lifts me and places me on the bed, where he once again just stares at me, as though I were made entirely of pearls and diamonds and whatever other precious stones Sage can't afford to work with yet but spends a lot of time looking at in the lapidary store downtown.

"I love watching you come," he tells me.

"I want you to come now, inside me, please." I tug at his shirt. "Let me see you."

He pulls it over his head and I'm treated to the beautiful expanse of his lean torso. Sitting on his knees, he works his belt and kicks off everything else awkwardly, and I almost giggle until I see his cock, how hard he is, how much I need him inside me.

"You know how long I've wanted to do this?" he asks, grabbing a condom from his side table.

I shake my head.

"Twelve years old. I first learned what sex was from Tito. He had this old Playboy he'd found and proceeded to educate me and Marcus."

I laughed. "I'm sure cousin Tito gave a sound sex education."

He smiles at me and it's so big and warm, it takes my breath away. "It was short and to the point. And no mention of how to please a woman, naturally." He lowers his body onto me until we are aligned, my breasts against his chest, his erection against my thigh. "But that night, I jerked off for the first time in the shower and I thought about you."

"You were twelve and I was fourteen."

"Exactly. You were the hot older girl." He leans down to kiss my neck. "Every time I learned something new about sex, from my older cousins or porn or whatever, I'd always imagine it with you."

I feel a frisson of sadness in my chest and swallow as unexpected tears sting my eyes. "What is it, baby?" he whispers. "You want me to stop?"

I shake my head. "No. I just wish my first time had been with you. I wish my head wasn't so far up my ass when it came to my feelings for you."

He kisses me, so slow and syrupy that it makes one of those tears in my eyes fall. "We have now, though, Teal."

He's right. We have now. So I reach down and wiggle until the tip of him is right there, and he whispers You're sure? and I whisper back, Yes , and then he slides all the way in.

His groan, oh my gosh, it does things to my belly and vag and everywhere else. "You feel so good," he grunts in my ear.

"Muévete," I say, urging his hips on with my hands. He grins and obeys, thrusting his hips soft at first, then getting harder and more urgent.

"How do you like it? How do you want it?" he asks.

I pinch his ass and smile when he yelps. "However you want, Carter."

"But—" He moans when I lift my hips to meet his. "Isn't there a position that gets you off more than the others…"

"I don't get off during intercourse."

"Never?"

I shake my head. "Lots of women don't." I try not to sound defensive.

"I know, babe. I want to feel you come on my cock, but that's okay. I'll get you off again however you need it."

What he means by that is, he lifts my legs over his shoulders, until there's friction inside me that actually is pleasurable. And he tries so hard to last as long as he can, but he comes before I do, if I was going to, which I'm not entirely sure I was.

But I sure as hell come when he pulls out of me, slides his body down, and licks me slow and hard until I'm shaking and screaming his name.