But it’s more than just our chemistry or the smoking hot sex. It’s also the way we can stay up all night talking about nothing and everything all at once. Sharing our deepest fears and our biggest dreams for the future. She tells me all about her crappy family, and I tell her about mine—well, all of them except Angel, who I obviously adore. Naomi does too. The two of them get along great, and wind up ganging up against me more often than not these days. Somehow, I don’t mind.
They’re my two soft spots in life.
Naomi and I also talk about the future. Not in specific terms, not yet. It’s early days for that yet, and as much as I want to leap straight in with her, to go all in right off the bat, I respect her decision to take things slower. But we’ve daydreamed about the kind of house we eventually want—a big house in the countryside with a white picket fence, a couple of dogs, more than a couple of kids. The whole nine yards. I’d always thought, abstractly, that I’d want kids someday, but I’d never pictured a whole life with anybody before. Not until I met Naomi. Because before I met her, I couldn’t imagine a future like this, a future filled with everything I could ever ask for.
I slide my key into her door now and knock softly, listening for any signs of life inside. So far, the coast seems clear. I turn the knob and push my way inside, calling out as I do. “Naomi?” Just in case something went wrong with the plan, in case Monica wasn’t able to stall her for long enough.
But from the empty silence within, it seems like the coast is clear. So I get to work quickly, setting everything up. First, I lay out the Chinese food, a reminder of that first “date” we had together, if you can call it a real date. I’ve taken her on plenty since then, out to dinners at fancy restaurants in town and hiking in the countryside, boating in the pond downtown in summer. We even went on a ski trip this winter, and out to the beach with some friends for New Year’s Eve. But this first date is what I always remember when I think about how we first began. It was so simple, and yet, I had one of the best nights of my life cuddling on the couch with this beautiful girl, getting to know her, picking her brain, finding out who she was, a few jokes and samples of Chinese food at a time.
With the food laid out, I start on the flowers. I set up the main bouquet in the center of the table—lilacs, lilies, pure white roses and gardenias, all of her favorites, as Monica assured me, along with a few white orchids mixed in for exotic flavor. It looks beautiful. I add the card I wrote beside it, just a heartfelt expression of everything I feel for her.
Then I sneak upstairs to add the finishing touches. A new lacy set of white lingerie I bought her, along with a pair of sexy dice, for playing with later. And, of course, when I return to the kitchen, I have to line up our Netflix queue to her favorite cheesy reality show. Our favorite cheesy reality show, honestly.
I just finish doing that when the key turns in the front door, and Naomi crosses the threshold. I meet her in the doorway before she even steps foot inside, and clasp my hands over her eyes. “No peeking yet.”
She laughs softly, a breathy sound that even now, a year later, I can’t get enough of. “Am I being robbed?” she jokes, one hand on her hip. She holds out a bag at her side. “Can I at least set my stuff down?”
“Nope.” I pluck it from her fingers to set it aside.
“Now it definitely seems like I’m being robbed,” she responds, snickering.
“I’m just relieving you of some burdens, like a good boyfriend.”
She laughs louder, though she follows as I lead her toward the kitchen. “I see. So you’re going to start taking over my chores for the day, is that it?”
“If you’d like me to.” I lean down to kiss her cheek. “Today is all about what you want, Naomi.” With that, I let my hands drop. She gasps a little, as she sees the flowers and the Chinese food. “Happy anniversary,” I whisper, as she spins around to face me, her face lighting up with a huge grin that I’d give anything to wake up to every single day. I catch her as she jumps toward me, and claim her mouth in a long, slow, searing kiss. When we break apart, my arms are tight around her waist, and I can already feel the stirring in my groin, as all the heat in my body floods south, the way it always does whenever I’m touching her.
“I love you, Naomi,” I murmur against her lips. We said it for the first time six months in, even though I’d longed to say it from the very first day I woke up with her cradled in my arms, shifting against me that way she does in her sleep, her body sliding against mine until I was hard all over again just holding her.
She smiles against my mouth. “I love you, Jason.” When she kisses me again, it’s softer this time. Sweeter. Then we pull apart, and she reaches out for the bags I took from her. “I got you something, too.”
“You didn’t have to.” I grin at her. “You’re enough for me, Naomi.”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, presents are still nice too, silly.” As if to emphasize the point, as she takes her bags and sets them on the counter to root around for whatever it is, she pauses to take a deep breath of the flowers I set out. “Mm. My favorites.”
“I know.” I grin.
She smirks at me. “You pay a little too much attention sometimes, you know that?” She takes whatever her gift is out of her bag and holds it behind her back. “Okay, eyes closed.”
I obey.
I feel her cup my hands gently, and place something in my upturned palms. It feels lightweight, smooth, a little damp. A flower? I peek one eye open, but she swats my shoulder.
“No peeking yet.” She clears her throat. “I have to explain the rules, first.”
I arch one eyebrow, eyes still tightly shut. “There are rules to my gift? Sounds exciting already.”
“No sarcasm either,” she replies, though I can hear the smile in her voice. “What I got you is a question. But you don’t have to answer it right away, okay? You can take a while, think about it. We’re going slow, remember?”
“Trust me, I remember.” I grin. “Can I look now?”
Her voice moves a little further away, almost like she’s too nervous to stand near me and watch this. “Okay, go for it,” she says.
I open my eyes. In my hands is a single white flower. A lily of the valley, I realize. I’m starting to recognize the types from her shop. Curled around its stem is a single slip of paper. I unroll it slowly, noticing my name written across the back in Naomi’s careful script—nothing like my messy doctor’s scrawl. Some things are a stereotype for a reason.
I turn the note over, and a smile starts to spread across my face, right away.
“Like I said,” she butts in, clearly still nervous. “You don’t have to answer right away…”
“Yes, Naomi,” I tell her. I set the piece of paper on the counter top between us, where her words will be visible to us both. For a good time, move in with me? it says.
We’ve brought the subject up before. But I respected her pace. I didn’t want to push her into anything she wasn’t ready for. Now, though…
“You have to be sure,” she says again, but I’m already crossing the kitchen to her, scooping her back into my arms, and shaking my head at the same time.
“Of course I’m sure,” I tell her. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Grinning, I kiss her again, harder this time. And as she curls her legs around me and I prop her ass onto the kitchen counter top, pulling her body closer to mine, I realize I have never been surer of anyt
hing in my life.
She slides her hands between me, eager as ever, and slips them beneath the waistband of my jeans. “Happy to see me, I take it,” Naomi says with a grin in her tone.
“Always,” I reassure her in a whisper, even as I arch up into her palms, savoring the touch of her soft hands on my thick cock, already hard, but growing even harder at her deft touch. She wraps both hands around me, starts to stroke my length, and I reach up to brush her hair back from her shoulder, leaning in to kiss the soft skin there, at the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, savoring the way she shivers at my touch.
God, could she be any more perfect? As if she’s reading my mind, the moment I think that, she slides off the counter in front of me and reaches for the belt of my jeans.
“I didn’t finish giving you your present,” she says. She unhooks the sweater she has looped around her waist and tosses it at her feet, onto the cool tile of the kitchen floor. Then, before I can say another word, she kneels in front of me, and at the same time, finishes unzipping my jeans. She tugs them down slowly, until they’re past my knees and they drop to the floor. I step out of them, standing there in my boxers before her, but as she reaches for me again, I catch her hands, and draw them up over her head, to wrap my hands around each wrist.
Then I arch an eyebrow at her, smiling. “Let’s try it with your mouth instead,” I say, and she grins up at me, always one to rise to a challenge.
With her hands still caught in mine, she leans in to bite the fabric of my boxers and tug them lightly down. It takes her a couple of tries, but she eventually manages to draw them down far enough that my cock springs free. Then it just takes a nudge from her chin, and they slide off. As for her, her mouth is already back to work, as she licks her way along my inner thighs.
“God, I love that filthy mouth of yours,” I murmur, as I spread my legs a little to grant her easier access.
Her tongue darts between my thighs and along my balls, before she tilts her head to suck my balls into her mouth, her tongue toying with them as she sucks. A groan escapes the back of my throat, but I can’t take my eyes off of her. Watching as she leans back to trail her tongue up one side of my cock and then the next, tracing every inch of my thick, veined shaft with the pointed tip of her tongue. She feels fucking incredible, soft and hot at the same time. When she draws her tongue back to blow a quick breath of air over the cool spots where she just licked. It makes my nerve endings tense, and I curse softly under my breath, still watching her, loving the way she cocks her head to one side to meet my gaze as she goes back to licking me.