Verity(23)

Those were thoughts I couldn’t admit to him, of course. I might have been obsessed with him, but a woman knows if she wants to keep a man forever, she has to act like she could get over him in a day.

And that is when I became a writer.

My days were filled with thoughts of Jeremy, and if I didn’t figure out how to fill them with thoughts of something else until he returned, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hide how much his absence gutted me. I created a fictional Jeremy and called him Lane. When I was missing Jeremy, I’d write a chapter about Lane. My life over those next few months became less about Jeremy and more about my character. Who was, in a sense, still Jeremy. But writing about it instead of obsessing about it felt more productive.

I wrote an entire novel in the few months he was gone. When he showed up at our front door to surprise me with his return home, I had just finished editing the final page.

It was kismet.

I congratulated him with a blowjob. It was the first time I swallowed. That’s how happy I was to see him.

I acted like a lady after I swallowed, smiling up at him. He was still standing by the front door, fully clothed, other than the jeans that were now down to his knees. I stood up and kissed him on the cheek and said, “Be right back.”

When I got to the bathroom, I locked the door, turned on the water in the sink, and then puked in the toilet. When I let him come in my mouth, I had no idea how much there would be. How long I would have to continue swallowing. Keeping my composure was tough while his dick was in my throat, drowning me.

I brushed my teeth and then returned to the bedroom, where I found him sitting at my desk. He had a couple of pages of my manuscript in his hands.

“Did you write this?” he asked, spinning in my desk chair to face me.

“Yes, but I don’t want you to read it.” I could feel my palms beginning to sweat, so I wiped them across my stomach and walked toward him. He stood up as I launched myself forward to snatch the pages from him. He held them over his head, too high for me to reach.

“Why can’t I read it?”

I jumped, trying to pull his arm down so I could reach the pages. “It needs work.”

“That’s fine,” he said, backing up a step. “But I still want to read it.”

“I don’t want you to read it.”

He gathered the rest of the manuscript and tucked it to his chest. He was going to read it, and all I could think about was stopping him. I didn’t know if it was any good, and I was scared—terrified—that it would make him love me less if he thought I was a bad writer. I dove across the bed to try and reach him faster, but he slipped into my bathroom and locked the door.

I beat on it.

“Jeremy!” I yelled.

No answer.

He ignored more for ten minutes as I tried to pry open the door with a credit card. A bobby pin. Promises of another blowjob.

Fifteen more minutes went by before he made a noise.

“Verity?”

I was on the floor at this point, my back pressed against the bathroom door. “What?”

“It’s good.”

I didn’t respond.

“Really good. I am so proud of you.”

I smiled.

It was my first taste of what it felt like for a reader to enjoy what I had created for them. That one comment—that sweet, simple comment—made me want him to finish reading it. I left him alone after that. I went to our bed, crawled under the covers, and fell asleep with a smile on my face.

He woke me up two hours later. His lips were skimming my shoulder, his fingers tracing an invisible line down my waist, over my hip. He was behind me, curved around me, molded to me. I had missed him so much.

“Are you awake?” he whispered.

I made a soft moaning sound to let him know I was.

He kissed a spot below my ear, and then he said, “You’re fucking brilliant.” I don’t think I’ve ever smiled so big. He rolled me onto my back and swept my hair out of my face. “I hope you’re ready.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Fame.”

I laughed, but he didn’t. He pulled off his pants and removed my panties. After he pushed into me, he said, “Do you think I’m kidding?” He kissed me, then continued. “Your writing is going to make you famous. Your mind is incredible. If I could fuck it, I would.”

My laughter was mixed with a moan as he continued to make love to me. “Are you saying that because you believe it? Or because you love me?”

He didn’t answer right away. His moves became slow and deliberate. His stare was intense. “Marry me, Verity.”

I didn’t react, because I thought maybe I had misheard him. Did he really just ask me to marry him? I could tell by the intensity in his expression that he was more in love with me in that moment than he’d ever been before. I should have said yes immediately, because that’s where my heart was. But instead, I said, “Why?”

“Because,” he said, grinning. “I’m your biggest fan.”

I laughed, but then his smile disappeared and he started to fuck me. Hard, fast thrusts that he knew would drive me crazy. The headboard was slapping against the wall, and the pillow beneath my head was slipping. “Marry me,” he pleaded again, and then his tongue was in my mouth, and it was the first real kiss we’d shared in months.