With You (Without You #2)

by Marley Valentine

Guilt lodges itself in my chest, threatening to sour what is meant to be the best day of my life. It’s not about whether or not he would be happy for me, but rather the notion that my happiness is reliant on my brother’s death.

It makes me feel selfish and indulgent. It makes me feel unworthy. It makes me feel like a thief. “He’s Rhett’s.”

“I don’t even want to think about a life without him.”

I love and allow myself to be loved, in a way that is beyond anything I could’ve ever dreamed up for myself.

“I love you,” I repeat, the three words never enough and yet all encompassing.

The tragic beauty of our love sitting between us, like it always does, as sure and steady as the beats of our hearts, binding us together more than it ever has before.

There’s a reason we don’t have eyes on the backs of our heads, because we can’t look back. We can’t change the past, we can only live in the moment. Here and now. Him and me.

“Only with you,” I answer before recklessly kissing him again. “Five years. Ten. Twenty. Fifty.”

Before either one of us gets the chance to say another word, Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” starts to play on the speaker, and the flutter of anticipation returns to the pit of my stomach.

It doesn’t matter that a million ‘I love you’s’ have already left my mouth for this man, and my lips have kissed him an endless number of times. Because nothing in existence could’ve prepared me for the way I would feel, watching Deacon walk down the aisle, arm in arm with his father, toward me. Toward me.

“Friends. Family. Welcome to the wedding of Deacon Sutton and Julian Reid.”

And like all those years ago, when we were navigating our initial feelings, I trust us. I trust what we have, what we’ve built, and what we’ve promised. Implicitly.

“And you consume me, Julian. My whole world is you, and there isn’t a single thing about that I want to change.”

“I want to love you, the way you deserve, till my dying breath. Every minute of every hour, of every day, I promise to make you feel my love.”

“I promise to love you when it’s quiet and love you when it’s loud. I promise to love you in the light and in the dark. When you need me and even when you don’t.”

“I guess I’ll love you in every world and every lifetime, then, huh?”

“There aren’t enough words in the English language to convey just how grateful I am for you choosing me, for loving me and allowing me to love you.” I bring our interlaced hands to my lips and kiss his fingers. “You continue to be the steady rhythm of my heartbeat. You are worthy and you are special, and I’ve never been more grateful to call someone mine.”

The sound of Dermott Kennedy’s “What Have I Done” fills the room, the lyrics hitting me just as hard this time as they did the first time I heard them.

“Let me watch you fall apart, baby,” he says. “I want to see you come on my cock.’

You’re now the man who loves another man unconditionally and will lay your life at the feet of his family to love and adore and protect and to serve.

I have loved blood relatives, I have found family in strangers, but nothing ever compares to something that is only yours. I thought my heart was full with Deacon in my life, but nobody prepared me for my own capacity to love beyond him.

“Julian,” he whispers. Wordlessly, I answer him, turning myself in his arms, giving him my full attention. Surprising me, he slams his mouth on mine, and my whole body melts. The kiss feels like an exchange of life and air and a union of want and weariness.

“You’re so fucking beautiful when you come,” Deacon says hoarsely, his mouth below my ear.

Hands by your side, baby. Lie still and let me fuck your mouth.”

He lets his body fall back to the mattress, sighing. “You can be right and I can still be sad, both of those things can exist.”

“Your love was like one of those mood rings Victoria used to wear; a different version of it for every version of you.

“Yes. If I can make you come in less than five minutes, I win.” “You win what?” “Your cum down my throat.”

My muscles tighten as he continues to take me to the back of his throat, and the sound of him gagging on my cock has my body ready to explode. “Fuck, baby. You’re so good at that,” I praise.

“You bought us gloves.” Julian’s correct observation steals my attention. Pushing his chair out, he leaps into my arms, giving me only a fraction of a second to catch him. I hold him against me as he whispers over and over, “You bought us gloves.”

“You bought us gloves,” he repeats. “For Reese and Rowan and Me.” Looking around the room, I see how Rowan and Reese watch us with intense concentration, always curious about the life we lived before them. “You’re my family,” I tell him. “And I buy my family gloves.”

I know tonight will be a night they will both remember fondly. In a way that I could not explain, both our kids are in love with our love. And I don’t know if it’s because we love loud and proud or because we make them feel safe enough to love loud and proud too.

“Always,” I promise. Only him and me. Me and him. Husbands.