Forever & Always Read online

  "I love you, Ever. I wish those words were stronger, I wish I had some way of expressing it better."

  She tilted her face to look up at me. "You just did, baby."

  I grinned. "That was pretty fucking intense."

  "You mean it was pretty intense fucking?"

  "That, too." I kissed her temple, her forehead, her cheekbone. "But it was more than fucking, Ever. So much more."

  She shrugged. "It's just a word, Cade. For us, everything we do is...more. We have sex, and it's making love, because that's what it's expressing, every single time, whatever kind of sex it is. Whether it's hot and hard and dirty, or soft and slow, it's making love. It's fucking. It's boning. It's shagging. It's...all the slang words, I guess. It's pure and it's perfect and I love it, whatever you call it. I just like the word 'fucking' because it...I don't know, it turns me on for some reason. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that. I love fucking you. I love being fucked by you. Because it's you and me, it's not...it's not less, or less important, or anything because of what word we use."

  She kissed my breastbone, and her hand smoothed over my stomach, found my cock, and fondled it. Her mouth was hot and moist on my skin, her hand soft, her fingers caressing and manipulating me into arousal. I wondered, as she kissed my torso and fondled my growing erection, if I would ever get used to this with her, if I would ever take it for granted, if I would ever get tired of it. I couldn't see how that would be possible. Every time we made love, every time I kissed her, it felt better than the last time. Every time we came together, I felt closer to her than ever, more intertwined with her, more tangled up in her.

  "Don't--don't ever leave me, Ever," I whispered, fiercely, desperately, needily.

  She paused, glanced at me. Her eyes blazed. "Never, Caden. Never. I promise you. I'll never leave you."

  Ever

  "Little House" by Amanda Seyfried played in the studio, the soft strains floating to us. Cade's eyes were closed, but I knew he wasn't asleep. I couldn't close my eyes, couldn't take my gaze from his body. I couldn't stop touching him. He was growing hard in my hand, slowly responding to my touch. I wanted this to last forever, this feeling of anticipation, completely sated, flush with his love, yet still ravenous for him, ready to feel him inside me again, fill me again, sate me all over again.

  The only thing in the way was having to pee. I whispered, "Be right back," to him, heard him murmur an acknowledgment, and went into the bathroom to pee and clean up a bit. When I came back, he'd rolled to his side, facing me, watching me approach through slitted eyes. I added a sashay to my hips for him, and melted at the smile he gave me.

  It was intoxicating, the way he wanted me, the way he needed me, responded to me. The slightest touch, a kiss, a simple caress, and he would moan, growl, go hard. I could bring him to the edge of coming within seconds of touching him.

  It was just as dizzying a high belonging to him. I was his, completely. He knew me, owned and controlled my body, my pleasure. I gave him everything I had, and he did the same for me, and together, we knew total ecstasy in every touch, every kiss, every moment spent naked and writhing together.

  All this passed through my mind as I climbed into our bed, twisted to lie on my side, slid my back against his front. He kissed the round of my shoulder, pulled my hair away and kissed my ear, my neck. His hand cradled my breast, and I felt my nipple aching for his touch. I shimmied my hips against his groin, and felt the rewarding prod of his hard cock thick against my ass.

  I wondered, briefly, about that, having him in me there, but then his fingers danced over my belly, distracting me, and I moaned as his touch tripped down over the shaved mound of my pussy and between the tender, sensitive lips, and his touch brought heat billowing through my core, the slick, wet heat of desire.

  "Oh, god, Cade..." I moaned, "I need you."

  "I'm so hard it hurts," he whispered in my ear. "Already. What do you do to me?"

  "Same thing you did to me."

  I was rocking into his hand by that point, writhing on his two middle fingers, panting and riding the verge of orgasm. I reached behind me and grasped his hot, silky hard erection, shifted my hips and draped my leg over his thigh. He bit my earlobe and breathed my name, "Ever..." and then I felt his huge cock glide into me, and I was complete again, filled by him.

  With no words spoken, only mutual understanding, we rolled together so I was lying on him, my spine against his chest, my knees bent and my head arched back over his shoulder, my ass against his groin and his cock deeper inside me than it had ever been. His fingers were still circling my turgid, throbbing clit, pressing lightning into me, drawing heat from me, making me so wet his thrusting cock slicked and slipped and squished.

  "God...damn, Ever, you're so...juicy." He laughed at his own words. "So wet for me. God, do you feel the way I slide inside you?"

  "I feel it...I feel it. You're so deep, Cade," I gasped, "almost too much, but so perfectly too much. Go slow, baby. So slow. Slow as you can. Love me slowly."

  He moved sinuously, slow as the coursing of the stars in the sky, loving me with every inch of his body, fingers in me, cock in me, hands on my belly and my breasts, tweaking my nipples into diamonds, kissing my neck and my ear. I twisted my head and his lips met mine and he was all around me, beneath me, kissing my breath away, stealing my soul with his mouth on mine, except my soul was his already.

  I came, a first slow pulsing glow, and he kept gliding glacially slowly into me, kissing me, making out as we made love, tongues dancing, his palm cupping my breasts, caressing them and kneading them and his fingers circling my clit, dousing me in wet desire.

  Another pulsing orgasm, stronger now, followed by a third like a crashing ocean wave. I didn't understand what was happening, those small cresting climaxes, one after another, each building upon the next.

  They were waves, I realized, not orgasms, but the buildup to one so massive it would shred me.

  I slid my body against him, pressing my heels into the bed to move away, crushing my hips down against his up-thrust, clutching at him with my hands over my head, holding his face to mine, imprisoning his lips to my kiss. Wave after wave struck me, broke through me, and I couldn't breathe for the potency of each new climaxing swell, and still he loved me without speeding his pace, a tireless rhythm, a slow sine wave of bliss.

  I began to grow frantic as the waves of ecstasy neared their apogee. I moved against him, sought speed and friction and pressure, but he never relinquished the slow pace I'd begged for. I panted into his mouth, not kissing him now but merely gasping, biting his lower lip, writhing helplessly on top of him.

  There was no way to measure how long we moved together that way, in silence except for our breathing and our bodies' slide and the faint music playing in the background. We were silent, uncharacteristically silent, feeling something being created in this timeless moment together, this desperate, catalytic fraction of eternity.

  I felt his body tense and his muscles go iron hard beneath me, felt his cock swell inside me and his motion go staccato as he neared his release.

  My hands were around the back of his head, pulling myself up on the column of his neck, lowering myself with ever more forceful movements, and I felt him cruising into me, crushing into me, delving deeper and harder, not faster, only with more power and more force.

  Our mouths were touching and open, sharing gasped breaths, eyes meeting and sparking, and I couldn't fathom what was happening, what this was, how I could feel his very essence within my mind, expanding in my heart, how our souls could meld with the heat of our bodies' union.

  Cade, in orgasms past, came with a soft grunt, a low groan or growl, a curse or a breathed whispering of my name. I was the loud one, the screamer.

  Now I felt a growl begin in his chest as his cock drove into me, and I heard my own voice begin to groan wordlessly. We moved in perfect sync, ultimate unison, matching stroke for stroke, our voices raising louder and louder until Cade was growling like a lion
and I was shrieking breathlessly, abandoned to him, to us, to this.

  Louder still, Cade bellowing and roaring, me screaming.

  The waves were one now, a blasting, fiery inferno torching every synapse, every molecule, my belly clenching and my pussy clamping down around his cock, and I felt him lose all control with a shout, fucking into me with such power that my body shook and spasmed and yet I met his urgency with my own, rolling my hips, all my weight on his chest and my frantically digging heels, grinding into his thrusts with all the strength I had, feeding the frenzy in us both, the nuclear reaction detonating within us, a wild mad frisson, becoming something unknown heretofore, something like the moment that had begun the whirling of the universe, an instant of creation that cannot be caught by mere words, something true and pure and past the scope of human comprehension, a tearing of the veil between heaven and earth so that as we moved in erupting love we saw into eternity together, we saw the face of God, the fabric of infinity.

  I wept, and felt his tears on my cheek.

  His eyes blazed amber, wet with tears I knew matched my own, love made liquid and escaping through our pores as sweat, our eyes as tears, our most intimate places as the juices squeezed from passion.

  "Ever..." he breathed, and I heard the susurrus of words unspoken thick in those two syllables.

  "Caden," I whispered, and let my eyes refract the love I felt bursting from my being.

  Silence.

  Breath, sweat, tears, love.

  Purity of connection.

  Eternity.

  We slept, dreamed, twined together in body and in spirit.

  an arpeggio, descending

  Caden

  'Twas the night before Christmas...and the roads were complete shit. Actually, it was the night before Christmas Eve, but close enough. I've always hated that stupid poem, except for the way Clark Griswold recites it in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Ever and I were on our way home from shopping and a late dinner, driving through a blizzard. The snow was so thick I couldn't see the lines on the road ten feet in front of me. I was going barely thirty on I-75, wishing I didn't have to pee and cursing the snow. Ever, in the seat beside me, had her feet up on the dashboard, her phone casting a white glow on her face. She was texting someone, Eden most likely. My wife and her twin had been fighting for the last week, arguing via text message about whether Ever and I were going to go to Mr. Eliot's house for Christmas tomorrow morning, and whether we were going to tell him we'd gotten married. Ever didn't want to go, and really didn't want to tell him. She didn't see the point, she claimed. She hadn't seen her father in months; he hadn't made any attempt to contact her, hadn't come to see her. I'd never met Mr. Eliot, except that one time in the parking lot of Interlochen, nearly six years ago.

  I understood her anger, her frustration. She and her father had essentially parted ways many years ago, and hadn't mended the distance. She claimed she wasn't angry at him, not for anything in particular, she just didn't care to see him. I didn't quite believe that. He was her father. She was hurt that he'd checked out of life, that he'd rather work a hundred hours a week than see his daughters, his only family. Not having any parents of my own anymore, I wanted her to try to fix things with him before it was too late, before she lost him and realized what she was missing only after it was gone.

  I'd told her this, of course, and it had become our first real fight. I'd held my ground, become impassioned, upset at her stubbornness, her refusal to even admit that she was pissed off at him, and she in turn had been mad at me for trying to force her into something she didn't want to do. It had been a fight that lasted three days. Three days of tense silences and cold shoulders.

  We'd gone shopping today and to dinner. It had been...awkward, since she still wasn't talking to me, really.

  I leaned forward against the steering wheel, peering through the snow, preparing myself to say whatever it took to end the standoff.

  "Look, babe," I began, glancing at her, "first off, I'm sorry for upsetting you."

  "It's fine," she said, not looking up from her phone.

  "Clearly it's not." I sneaked another glance at her. "I just...I don't want you to have any regrets. You'll regret it if you don't fix things with him."

  "If this is your attempt at an apology of some sort, it's not going so hot for you. Just sayin'."

  "Can you please put down the phone and talk to me?"

  She sighed, and finally looked up at me. "I am talking to you. I don't have to turn off my phone to talk to you."

  "You're not listening to me."

  "You're not saying anything worth listening to." Ever slid her feet off the dash and stretched. "God, this weather. It's gonna take us another hour to get home at this rate." It was normally not even thirty minutes from our condo in downtown Royal Oak to Somerset Mall, but it had already taken us that long, and we weren't even halfway home yet.

  "It's insane, that's for sure." I rubbed my face. "Ever, listen. I'm sorry. It's your decision, your life, your business. I won't say anything else about it. If you don't want to go to your dad's place tomorrow, that's fine with me. I love you, and I just...I wish you'd make an attempt with him before it's too late." Her gaze hardened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but I lifted my hand in a gesture of surrender. "You know how I feel, and that's all I'll say. I don't want to fight anymore."

  She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, swallowing hard and blinking. "I don't, either. It's been killing me, fighting with you." She leaned across the console between us and wrapped her arm around mine, rested her head against my bicep. "I was so mad, because I don't want to be mad, but I can't help it. He walked away from me, Cade. From us, Eden and me. He's worked seven days a week, from five in the morning to ten or eleven at night, every day since Mom died. Sometimes he sleeps at work. He doesn't talk to us. Doesn't call us or text us or send emails, sure as hell doesn't come see us. He stopped caring, Cade, and I don't know how to fix that. He's my dad, and I love him. Or...I want to. But I don't know how you're supposed to love someone who isn't there and doesn't want you, doesn't love you back."

  I hated the tears I heard in her voice. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm so sorry. It's bullshit. I know it is. And I don't know how you're supposed to fix it, either. Maybe...I don't know. Just go over there with me tomorrow, and try to hash it out. Tell him how you feel and that you want your dad back. I don't know. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, babe. I'm just--I hate seeing you upset, and I know this thing with your dad is harder on you than you're letting on, even if it is way deep inside."

  "You're right. I know you're right." She took several deep breaths, sat up, and wiped her eyes. "Fine. Okay. We'll go. But I'm not even going to try and approach the fact that we got married. Not that I'm ashamed, I just--"

  "One step at a time," I cut in, "I get it. For real."

  She twined her fingers in mine. "Thanks, babe. I love you."

  I glanced at her, smiled. "Love you, too. Together, one day at a time, okay?"

  She nodded, and we drove home in silence, more companionable now.

  Ever

  Cade was nervous, tense, picking at his food and bouncing his foot under the table. Dad was...the same. Not looking at anyone, not talking, just shoveling food into his mouth. Eden was gamely trying to make small talk, but it kept falling flat.

  "I saw this movie the other day," she said, taking too big a swig of wine. "I don't even know what it was called, but it had Ryan Philippe and that redhead from X-Files, what's her name, Gillian...Gillian Anderson? Yeah. And it had all these other famous people in it. I don't remember the whole cast. It was made a long time ago. Late nineties, maybe? And it was just about all these different people going through different things. And Ryan Philippe's character, I think it was him, he said something really cool. He said, 'Talking about love is like dancing about architecture.' It just struck me as such an interesting thing. Because you can't really talk about love, can you? Not really. I don't think so, at an
y rate."

  I rolled my eyes and glared at her, mentally willing her to shut up. She caught the hint, of course she did, but she ignored me, chattering on.

  "I don't even remember the name of the movie. It was on some obscure cable channel, late at night." She paused to drink more wine. "It wasn't Ryan Philippe's character, now that I think about it. It was...Angelina Jolie. That's who said it. I wish I could remember the name of that fucking movie."

  "Playing by Heart," Caden put in, not looking up. "I watched it, too. It played on, like, one of the sixteen random Starz channels in the middle of the night. That movie had fucking everyone in it. Sean Connery was in it. So was...what's his name, a character actor kind of guy. Jay Moritz? And Ellen Burstyn, too."

  I glanced at him, trying to hide my irritation. "When did you watch that?"

  He shrugged. "Thursday? You were asleep. I couldn't sleep, so I flipped channels, landed on that movie. It was good, in a disjointed kind of way."

  Dad let his fork drop to his plate with a clatter. "Are we still talking about this movie?" He pushed his plate away. "What does that movie have to do with anything?" He addressed the last part to Eden.

  She frowned back at him. "I was just...making conversation. All of you are being so awkward. Someone's got to say something."

  Dad rubbed his hand through his thinning hair. "No one's being awkward, Eden. It's fine. We're all just eating."

  "Dad. Not being awkward? The tension in here is so thick you could cut it with a knife."

  And so it would begin. I glanced at Caden, who was still picking at his food, not eating but pretending to.