Skin Like Dawn (2 page)

She wanted to touch him, but she doesn’t know what he’d do.  She couldn’t take the risk. 

She parted her lips – his eyes still consume them.  Then he looked at her suddenly.  She’s taken aback.  He looked wounded in some way, but she can’t tell for sure. 

Brandy…

“One of the biggest mistakes of my life,” he murmured.  His eyes never leave hers.

“I’d give anything,” he inaugurated.  But he stopped right there and she cocked her head to the side with anticipation.  

This is a monumental moment – her Brandon David Greene at a loss for words. 

Then, he surprised her, capturing her by the ass and lifting her up with ease.  Either he’s gotten stronger or she’s lost more weight for the wedding than anticipated.  Their stupid families and her overwhelming nuptial qualms are a deathly combination.  Her thighs clench around his waist, and he holds her securely under her legs.  

“But I’ll do one thing,” he whispered.  His eyelids are heavy with something – she feels it too. 

Suddenly she’s the malleable version of herself – pure putty in his grasp.  

“Hmm,” she breathed.  She even has the audacity to nuzzle her nose against his, softening him.  

“Oh, God, baby,” he groaned with draining capitulation.  She attempted to stifle a giggle but fails.

He smirked.  “Just give me a chance…”

“To do what, Brandy…?” 

“To make it up to you…” 

She kissed his lips once, deeply, assuredly.  He groaned again, this time from the bowels of his throat.  

“We have the rest of our lives for it,” she whispered against his lips, kissing him again.  “But I know where you can start…” 

He lowered her to the floor inquisitively; she smiles up at him as she takes him by the hand.  

“Come,” she enticed.  She led him to the bedroom, yanked his arm round so that he tumbled on the unmade bed clumsily.  She tugged at the knot that holds her bikini top together.  He doesn’t tear his eyes away.  His face is serious.  He wants this as much as she does.  

They had no other choice.  

In seconds, she stood nude before him, proudly, and he manifestly exhaled as though preparing himself.  

As she ran her fingertips across her hips, she smiled again, and purred, “This is yours…it has always been yours…I never wanted anything else…so take it…”

ALWAYS TALLIE

HE COULDN’T SLEEP ONE NIGHT.  But he’d really, really tried. He was mentally exhausted from it all, if he had to be perfectly honest with himself.  He never thought that he could feel something so significant for someone else; where he lost the entirety of himself.  

He really, really needed the sleep, but it never came.  So he sat up.  The temperate August warmth pooled like beads on his bare shoulders.  And he looked down at Natalie.  She looked so peacefully despondent to the truth, as though she’d purposely turned her head and encapsulated herself in a bubble, disregarding everything. 

Is this how they really wanted to end their one-year anniversary?

She didn’t even stir when he moved to slide off the bed away from her.  

I love her, he reminded himself.  I really, really fucking love her. 

And why?  What had she done in his life? 

For starters, she had become the reason he woke up every morning, and greeted the day with such fervor.  Yes, that was just a cliché he’d mulled over in his head, but it held a bounty of truth.  

She was Tallie – the one true unfaltering thing in his life.  The one unsullied thing that he wanted to hold onto, cherish, acclaim.   

He fucking loved her.  

But she made him so angry – far angrier than he’d been with any of his past girlfriends.  She thought too highly of herself.  Whenever they argued (which they did quite often), she’d stomp away with her hands crossed at her little bird chest, purely victimizing herself as though she weren’t to blame for why he completely lost it sometimes.  

And he’d run after her like a fucking fool, soaking up every inch of her self-righteous virtue, dumping it at the collection dock by his heart.  

They were in this together, or so he wanted to believe.  The bevy of effort he’d put into his patience towards was slowly starting to dwindle.  

It wasn’t the about the sex.  But sex was good.  And he was a man with needs.  

He’d never tell her so, it would kill her.  But he almost succumbed to his needs a couple of nights before.  

He’d left his heart elsewhere that night, and went out with Scotty and a couple of his friends.  He was on his third beer, and thought seriously about calling Natalie but changed his mind.  She probably wouldn’t answer anyway.  She was pissed about something.  But when he questioned her, she completely shut down.  Per usual.  He just walked the fuck out, leaving her sitting there glaring at him. 

God, why did he love her so much?  Why did she matter so much? What was it? 

Just for once he’d like her to go out of her way, find him, march right up to him and claim him.  The chasing had lost its appeal. 

But like the sucker he was, he drunkenly concocted ways to make it better.  He liked when she smiled and he knew that he had something to do with it.  

A trip.  Yes, a trip.  He would research flights while she was asleep tonight.  They could go somewhere tropical.  And then maybe…just maybe…when she was totally comfortable…and they were totally alone…she’d want to…

Fuck it, he told himself.  This is useless.  

It was the sex.  It was always about the sex.  

He’d finished his fourth beer – it was at this moment that he felt comfortable picking up his phone and asking her about it.  

He dialed the all too familiar number, instantly recalling the look on her face when he left her sitting on his living room sofa.  

And then a memorable face walked toward him, halting his efforts completely.  He knew her face from somewhere, but he’d lost sight of how.  Class?  Work?  Another bar?

She was ambling quickly toward him with a smile.  She recognized him too.  He knew his brows were furrowed, but he couldn’t discern if it was because he was trying to focus or if it was Tallie circling around in his head.  

“Brandon…?” 

In a previous life, she would have been his Kryptonite: pre-Raphaelite strawberry blonde hair, supple breasts, blue eyes as big as saucers.  Damn it.  

He was staring, he realized.  She was still trying to get his attention. 

“Hmm…?” 

“Brandon Greene…?”

“I think that’s me,” he answered coyly.  Then, she smiled.

“I figured,” she replied.  His eyes kept flickering to her breasts.  Stop looking at her damn breasts!

Then he chanted Tallie’s full name in his head.  

“You look…different,” she mused, cocking her head to the side.  

He’d fallen in love.  It was his sickness.  It hurt.  

“Thanks,” he replied facetiously.  And he giggled.  Then his groin glimmered to attention at the sound of it.  Damn it. 

They’d kissed once.  He remembered it now.  He was drunk then too.  But he was single.  Yes, he was definitely single when it happened.  They might have done other stuff too.  He couldn’t recall. 

He realized he was staring at her again.  And she was still talking. 

“…anyway.  So what are you up to these days?”

Trying to get my girlfriend who I’m obsessed with to sleep with me.  Trying to get my girlfriend who I adore with every fiber of my being to love me the way I love her.  Trying to understand said girlfriend. 

He shrugs his shoulders.  “Not much.” 

But it’s so much more than that.  It’s so much more.  His life has become so fucked up in such a short period of time that he can scarcely catch his breath.  And Natalie can feel it.  Damn it she can feel it.  She knows what’s going on.  Maybe that’s why she’s so angry with him.  

“What about you?” he responds.  And she takes off, tumbling down a series of events that have occurred since the last time they interacted almost two years prior.  And then suddenly they’re in the middle of the dance floor, writhing together.  And Scotty is watching him closely.  

He doesn’t give a damn. It feels good to be this close to a woman in this way.  Or is that the beer talking? Is it the fragmented parts of himself coming together and acting out of turn?

He should go and call Natalie now.  Say “goodnight” and tell her he loves her.  Because he really, really does.  

But then Strawberry Blonde leans up toward him and purses her lips.  The music is taking them over.  And her smell…goddamnit her smell.  

She’s trying to do something that he doesn’t want.  But he’s entertaining it.  Why the hell is he indulging this?

He places his hand on her arm and ceases her movement. “Not here…come.” 

He tugs her by the elbow and leads her outside.  The summer heat has dampened the part of her shirt covering her breasts.  He rolls his lips in.

“This is fate, isn’t it?” she murmurs. 

“Shh…”

And he pulls her a little closer.  His conscience is screaming at him.  Pure, unsheathed screaming.  

Then Tallie and her debilitating ebony lion’s mane comes into view.  His heart does something funny. 

And his phone vibrates in his pocket.  He thinks it’s Scotty.  He knows it’s Scotty asking him what the fuck he’s doing.  He loves Natalie as much as he does.  It’s almost alarming how much.  

But he looks and it’s her.  His baby.  

He holds a finger up to Strawberry Blonde and languidly stumbles out of earshot. 

“Brandy…” she murmurs.  The sound of his nickname…it takes him back swiftly.  

She’s been crying.  He instantly hears it in her voice.  He exhales heavily. 

“I’m coming home right now, baby…don’t cry…please, don’t cry…” 

He dashes home and she’s waiting by the door.  They embrace tightly, and she crumbles into tears.  He takes her to his bedroom and coddles her to sleep, squelching her need to tell him “I’m sorry” over and over again.  He already knows this.  He can feel her.  

Then he quietly tucks away to the bathroom, recalls what could have happened and empties the entire contents of his stomach into the toilet.  

Now, a couple of nights later, he stared at her sleeping peacefully.  Yes, it was a drunken sleep.  A pitifully drunken stupor that left him alone with his thoughts. 

She doesn’t want me. She said “no”.  She doesn’t want me. She said fucking “no”.  She laughed at me. 

He tugged open his nightstand drawer stealthily.  And he pulled out the box.  The blue box. And his hands started to tremble.  And his throat ached a bit.   

Mulling over the course of events in his head, he slowly cracked the box open.  Natalie stirred a bit and murmured something that he didn’t understand.  

He didn’t have the energy to figure it out either. 

And he looked at it – really, really looked at it.  

He deterred away from remembering how long it had taken him to pick out that fucking ring, dragging Scotty and Asha along as if they had the faintest idea who Natalie was and what she liked. 

He’d never even thought about doing this before – going to jewelry shop after jewelry shop, trying to find the right one.  Nobody knew her better than him.  He would always be certain of that.  

He saw dozens of gorgeous rings over the course of a week, but none felt right.  He likened the experience to the women of his past, pouring through them one by one.  He’d given each just enough energy to get by.  But none of them in no way could measure up to the feelings he experienced at present – a girl who innocuously refused his every charm and grace.  A girl who proudly thwarted every single one of his advances, subtle or obvious.  A girl who completely came out of nowhere, and left him dumbfounded to submission.  Unscathed submission.  

Fucking love.    

He’d planned out everything – and Scotty and Asha were with him from beginning to end.  Sure, he should have taken a moment or two to remind himself that Natalie was only twenty.  Sure, he should have recalled that she was still in school, and would be in school for a while.  Sure, he should have fucking told himself that she still got anxious every time they went to bed together each night.  He’d gotten his fill of reassuring her that he wouldn’t touch her in a way that she didn’t want to be touched…unless she wanted him to…unless she looked at him that certain kind of vulnerable way…exposing every facet of his carnal vulnerability.

He was a man, damn it.  And he was in love.  Why shouldn’t he want to make love to his girl? Show her how much he really loved her? 

But he was ready through and through – what’s a man supposed to do when he finds “The One”? Watch her walk off into the sunset? 

Fuck no. That wasn’t his way. 

But he realized something while looking down at her while she slept.  She was in his oversized t-shirt.  Her hair was pulled back tightly into a bun.  He could have easily bent down and kissed her lips.  He never wanted to erase how defenseless she looked lying beside him.  She was comfortable.  This was the only way he could see who she truly was – when she was far away, away from him, away from the conscious world.  

And it killed him.  

He wouldn’t make it.  Damn it, he wouldn’t make it if she chose to walk away from him.  He couldn’t live without her laugh.  He couldn’t live without her intelligence.  He couldn’t live without her ability to calm him. 

He couldn’t fucking live without her. 

But
she
…she could live without him.  No question.  She could wake up the next morning, and she’d be fine.  She never really needed him.  It was all in his fucking head. 

Damn it, Tallie. 

The odds are stacked and fucked up against him.  He knows what he has to do, but he hesitates. Why? Shouldn’t this be an easy solution for him? For them? After the way she acted that night, he got his answer loud and clear. 

The ill-teetering love steadiness between them had shifted a long time ago.  He’d just refused to recognize it. 

But, damn it, he loved her.  Shouldn’t there be a better way? 

No, this was the only way.  

He wanted to blame her for this steadfast misfortune. But he couldn’t.  He could never force her to feel a certain way that she didn’t.  It wouldn’t be right.