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“I’ll let you do anything you want to me if I can have you. You can shred me until I’m nothing but a speck of dust, and I’ll let you do it, because I deserve that shame. I’m owning it.”
I stop, because I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to tear him apart. I’m just so used to being hurt that I’m lashing out. I put my hand on his chest. “I’m not going to shred you,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be. You have every right. But there’s one more thing I have to tell you.”
I wrap my arms around myself. “I’m not sure that I can take any more,” I say. “It’s already been a lot.”
“This one I hope that you’re going to like.”
“Okay.”
Wallace stands up straighter. “Like I said, since I’ve been home, I haven’t been myself. I’ve been floating, and I haven’t seemed to settle. It’s like I had lost myself and who I was. But then I realized the one thing that’s always been true for me. You’re my home, and everything with you is broken. This new life, new success, it means nothing to me. Not when I don’t have you. You’re it for me. You’ve always been it for me, Tia.”
I take a breath, because those aren’t the words I thought were coming, and yet they’re the ones that I wanted the most to hear.
“I know that you might not be ready, and I’ll understand if that’s the case, but I’m not going to stop trying to make things right. My entire life if I have to. In the meantime, this is the only thing in the world that feels right to me.”
Wallace sinks to one knee in front of me, and my mind goes blank. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening, can it? I’m starting to shake. He looks so hopeful and so full of light. When he pops a ring from a box, I burst into tears.
“Tia, will you marry me?”
I’m really, really crying now, and I can’t help it. I ask him. “Are you serious?”
He laughs too. “I am completely serious. I love you. I want to spend my life with you. I always have.”
“I love you too,” I say, throwing myself onto him and pressing my lips to his. He wraps me in his arms, and I get lost. All of my anger disappears, because this is what I wanted. For him to make amends and to never leave. I’m sure there will be things that we have to learn about each other, but in this moment, everything is absolutely perfect.
Wallace slips the ring onto my finger, and I can’t stop crying. “I thought you were going to ask me then,” I say softly. “I thought you were going to ask me before you left. I would have waited for you, no matter how long it took.”
“I’m so sorry that I never said goodbye,” he says, leaning down to kiss me again. “But I never have to again.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I say. “But right now, we’re going home.”
* * *
There’s a sense of déjà vu as we stumble together into my house. As soon as we’re in the door and it’s shut, Wallace has me pinned up against it. We’re undressing each other again, but this time it’s slow and sensual, because we have all the time in the world. His fingers find my zipper and undo the back of my dress. It falls into a puddle on the floor. I’m left in nothing but my underwear, and I love that dark gleam that I see in his eyes as he picks me up and carries me toward the bedroom.
I hold up my ring for him to see as we move. “I like wearing this,” I say.
“I’m going to like you wearing only that,” he says, placing me on the bed and slipping my underwear off my legs in one swift motion.
I unhook my bra before slithering off the bed and pushing him down onto it. He’s already mostly naked, and I like that. But I haven’t had nearly enough time to play. “You’ve explored my body,” I say. “It’s my turn.”
Propping his arms behind his head, Wallace grins. “I don’t have a problem with that.” That position makes his biceps bulge and I just want to lick every part of him that I can reach. And so I do. I start with his mouth, kissing him gently, and then less gently until I have to push his arms down again.
I stroke my hands across his chest, finding the grooves of his muscles and pressing my lips to his collarbone, biceps, and his pecs before I mimic exactly what he did to me and tease his nipple. It’s hard under my lips, and I swirl my tongue around it as he groans in contentment. It’s nice to feel this powerful, to know that I’m giving him just as much pleasure as he’s going to give me. We have all night.
