“You brought the love that I needed, even when I had no idea I was living with a hollow hole where my heart should be. That I’ve been living half alive without you and thinking I was complete.”
I hold up the ring.
“You have the other half of my heart, my love. And I think I have yours. Will you marry me, Shannon, so we can be whole, together?”
The crowd gasps, collectively holding their breath. I’m right there with them.
And then:
“Oh, yes, oh yes yes yes,” she whispers as I slide the ring on her left ring finger.
It fits perfectly.
I stand and we kiss on the shining floor of the gallery on that fifth floor at the MOMA, a security guard clearing his throat, the crowd around us applauding and calling out congratulations.
I can’t hear any of them, though, over the sound of our hearts beating in sync.
* * *
We take our time. Shannon’s fingers move slowly over the buttons of my shirt, soundlessly opening me to her touch. Moonlight bounces off the diamond resting in its platinum setting, her left hand weighed down by the newness of the ring. The thin band of metal is cold against my bare chest, the sensation making me sigh as her palm slides under my shirt, following the planes of my body.
Another button, another breath, another look. She kisses me on the breastbone, then over my heart, my own hands gentle at her waist, my body primed to make love yet held in check.
We have all night.
We have all our lives.
“Thank you,” she murmurs against the soft skin of my neck, just under my ear.
“For what?”
“For loving me.”
My breath catches. “I never had a choice.”
In the open room we’re two bodies, two hearts pumping blood, four lungs exchanging air, four eyes and hands taking in the terrain of each other’s body. Her lips on my neck are the sweetest movement, my hands finding her hot skin and sliding up the rolling hills of her breasts, the supple silk of her nipples as they tighten like sculpting desire with my own hands.
The suite I booked is all clean lines and dark wood, dim lights and wide windows, thirty-nine floors above the city and the bed is as big as a small field. We undress each other, the clothes pooling at our feet with whispers and the hushed sound of gravity at work. Soon we’re nude, bare before each other in all our glory, and her eyes captivate me.
Slow blues music plays in the background as I pull her into my arms, thighs embedded between hers, the curvature of her spine against my forearms like it was hand-carved to fit my grasp. Her lips and tongue meet mine with abandon, love so different now, forged in commitment and declaration, in promises and—soon—vows.
I asked. She said yes.
Now we show each other how true it all is.
My wanting has a new tone, a different tenor, changed irreparably by my proposal, her acceptance, our joining. At home, wanting Shannon took on a crude sort of steamy demand, like a second set of veins and arteries in me, a pulse that could only be tamed by sex.
What I feel now is so wholly changed that I cannot call it the same. This is sultry. Mature. Ripe and lush, a give and take that is less about quenching a need and more about tending a flame. She dances in my arms, a slow, languid journey we’ve only just begun.
“I love you,” she whispers against my mouth.
“I know.”
We recline on the bed, hands slow in their ministrations, achingly aware of everything. So many times I’ve made love with Shannon and never noticed the arch of her thigh, this small mole on her hip, the way she bites her lip when I kiss here there.
How could I have missed so much that has been right in front of me all this time?
“We’re really doing this.”
She doesn’t mean making love. “We are, Mrs. McCormick.” My own words make me shiver. She joins me.
Her hand spreads against my navel, fingers hooking one by one against my skin. “I like the sound of that.”
I slide one hand to a place where her pleasure often starts. She grinds against me and makes a thick sound from her throat.
“And I like the sound of that,” I say as I dip down, down, down to a place where I won’t hear more than the coursing of blood through her body, twinned with mine in rhythm.
The only place in the world I want to be.
Minutes later she pulls me up, sweat lingering between her breasts, begging to be licked away. Her mouth is fast on mine, urgent and pleading. Her thighs part and a steady hand takes me home.
The second I’m in her she opens her eyes, staring up with a depth that makes me see other dimensions. Layers of love. The faces of children we have not dreamed of yet.
And the unfolding of the rest of my life.
We make love with our bodies, striving to match with flesh what we see in each other’s souls.
We fail.
Guess we’ll just have to try again.
And again and again and again.
For the next sixty or so years.
’Til death do us part.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Momzilla...
Someone’s using a mirror to reflect the sun on my face, like I’m an ant under a magnifying glass. The pinpoint of heat on my cheekbone is maddening. I crack one eye open and shut it, fast, before I’m blinded.
Not a magnifying glass.
That’s Shannon’s diamond.
It’s morning in NYC, the muted sounds of traffic outside below us a backdrop for the day after the best day of my life. Shannon’s next to me, warm and soft, brown hair a tousled mess and stretched across my chest like tentacles claiming me.
Her mouth is open in a half smile, as if she’s dreaming happy thoughts, and in repose she is ethereal. Otherworldly. Soft and vulnerable.