Page 13 of Sex, Lies, and Margarita Mixes

He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against his chest, saying nothing.

He just holds me and lets me breathe. He lets me crack .

And when I turn and lean into him fully, my face against his chest, trembling, he just whispers, “You don’t ever have to explain how he hurt you.

But if you want to—if you need to—I’ll hold it, carry some of it, with you.

I know the bits you’ve shared, but I also know there’s more you haven’t. ”

Fuck Chase. Now you’ve done it.

I don’t cry. I strip. Because grief over the power I gave him still lives in my body. Fear that I’m not enough still lives under my skin. And shame still lives in the places he never touched but still somehow controlled. The places I allowed him to control.

I want to give all of me to Chase now.

I pull off my shirt, dropping it to the deck, unsnap my shorts, letting them fall to join my shirt, and crawl onto the lounger without a word.

He follows.

Silent. Gentle. Worshipful.

Uncaring that we’re outside on a deck that anyone could walk out on or pass by at any moment, he parts my thighs like I’m something sacred.

Like every inch of me is his to heal. Sea air drifts over my heated skin.

It blows across my folds. Then, he’s kissing the inside of my thigh like it’s a vow.

He whispers, “Tell me what you need, baby.”

My voice shakes as I reply, “I need to feel powerful again.”

He nods. “Then lie back and let me give you everything. ”

His mouth finds me. Soft at first. Then, deeper. Hungrier. My hands curl around the lounger as he brings me to teeter on the edge of the abyss. He stops. I grab his head and yank his mouth back to me as I demand, “Make me come, Chase.” He does. Not just for release. For revenge. For repair.

As I hold his head a willing hostage and I shatter, drenching his face, he moans into me like it’s him being undone.

Like he needs this more than I do. He growls against my spasming pussy, “That’s it, baby. You take everything,”

I scream into the wind.

Loud. Raw. Wild.

When I stop shaking, he doesn’t move.

He doesn’t even mention the fact that I took pleasure from him, selfishly, and he’s still raring to go. He just holds me like I’m the miracle this world forgot to pray for.

I whisper, for the first time ever, “Can I be little tonight?”

He freezes. Then, he kisses my forehead and scoops me into his arms. He grabs a towel that was laid out to dry earlier in the day and covers me with it, shielding my nudity, my vulnerability, from the world.

“You can be anything with me, Roxy.” And he carries me through the now empty living room and to our bedroom.

CHASE

She’s perched on the bed wearing my t-shirt with nothing underneath. And somehow, this is more dangerous than when she was naked. She smirks, “I’m hungry.”

Chuckling, I stand. “Then, let’s get you fed, baby.” She stands and starts for the door. I stop her. “Uh, after you put on something to cover my favorite dessert.” I nod.

She glances down, laughs, and says, “Good call,” and pulls on a pair of pajama shorts.

Minutes later, she’s padding around the kitchen barefoot, hair messy, skin still glowing from the most personal orgasm I’ve ever witnessed, holding a banana like it owes her child support. And I’m fully aware that she doesn’t have on any panties.

“I want banana bread,” she says. “But, like, emotionally.”

I blink. “You want banana bread emotionally?” What the hell does that even mean? I scratch the side of my neck. “Baby, what?”

She nods like I’m not completely lost, and sighs like she can’t believe she has to explain it to me. “You know. Banana bread that says, ‘I see your trauma, I love your thighs, and I’ll bury a body in the backyard for you.’”

Ah… okay.

I grin. “I got you.”

I gather ingredients while she sits cross-legged on the counter. “You want chocolate chips?” I ask.

She nods and points at herself. “Duh. I’m emotionally unstable. A basket case. The answer to chocolate is never even a question. It’s always just yes.” Reaching over, she steals a handful of chocolate chips and starts popping them into her mouth.

As I prepare her banana bread, she sits on the counter and judges my technique, watching me like I’m the Food Network version of her emotional security blanket. I grin at my own analogy.

I am. Happily.

“Do you ever think about what you would’ve said if we’d met now instead of when we did?” she asks offhandedly.

I stop pouring the batter into the loaf pan and look at her. “What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “Like if we met today. Here. Like strangers.”

I think about it.

Then, I smile. “I’d walk up, hand you a cupcake, and say, ‘You look like you ruin lives, give life altering blow jobs, and can make a decent lasagna. Where have you been all my life? Marry me.’”

She snorts. “Bold.” Her eyes rake over me and she licks her lips. “So, basically same thing as before.”

I grunt, “Yup. With you, I don’t do casual. I knew that from the millisecond we met.”

Her eyes soften, “No, you do forever. ”

With Roxy… hell yes, I do.

I knew the second those dark eyes flashed at me from across the lawn and those red lips twisted up into that sexy smirk of hers that she’s always directed at me that I was a goner.

Hopping off the counter, she wraps her arms around my waist and kisses my chin.

I pour the rest of the batter into the pan and slide it into the oven with her still holding on. Grabbing her ass, I lean down, kissing her on the mouth while looking into her eyes. “I love you.” She doesn’t say it back, but she squeezes my waist harder.

She loves me.

This is domesticity, and with my Roxy, it’s deadly .

Nothing has ever made me fall harder than Roxy West in my t-shirt and short shorts with no panties wrapped around me like a memory while the smell of banana bread baking in the oven fills the kitchen.

“I never want to face anything alone again,” she whispers.

I stop and look her in her dark, sexy eyes.

“You never will.”

She doesn’t cry.

She just believes me.

Like I’ve finally earned that kind of faith. Or maybe she just finally believes it. And for a man like me? That’s everything.

The banana bread comes out of the oven.

She eats half the loaf, and we fall asleep on the couch. Her legs are across mine and her hand is resting on my heart. The list of everything I’d burn for her sits unspoken on my tongue.

I would burn it all.

Every lie. Every doubt. Every ex.

If it means she keeps waking up like this.

Next to me. Safe. Loved. Home.