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Candace had had a shit year. She’d been passed up for a promotion she wasn’t sure she wanted but damn sure knew she deserved; her landlord had raised the rent on an apartment she could just barely afford — with two roommates — and rarely saw because she was always in the air. Her mom had also had a scare with her diabetes that had been traumatic. Candace couldn’t remember having done anything in the spring and summer besides fly, ferry her mom to doctor’s appointments to give her dad a break, and hope his hypertension didn’t also become an issue.
For months, the only thing keeping her going was knowing she’d see Ezra tonight. She’d been stalking Miles’s Facebook for days, waiting for the obligatory “My boy’s back in town” post. When the picture finally popped up on her feed, she’d gasped at finally seeing his grimacing face after so long. In the picture, Miles had thrown his arm around Ezra’s shoulders and they were smiling and squinting into the camera. Ezra had grown out his facial hair a bit, the five o’clock shadow almost giving his angular face a menacing glare. Almost. He seemed bulkier, like he was weightlifting again. She’d lost herself staring at it for far too long, a year of delayed excitement flooding her veins.
She’d spent the past few days winding herself up into a ball of anxiety, but now that the day had finally arrived, she felt weightless with anticipation. It was a feeling she’d come to associate with Ezra because she only ever felt so free once a year. And this year, she needed the release of sinking into his touch more than ever. Candace had spent the entire day soaking and scrubbing and moisturizing her body, daydreaming about what his hands on her smooth skin would feel like after so long, wondering the entire time about what Ezra’s blush would look like when he saw her.
She slipped on the pair of nude dark brown lacey underwear that she’d ordered months ago, specifically for tonight. She sat at the vanity in her bedroom, poured a small bit of coconut oil into her palm and then carefully undid her twists and arranged the crown of her curls in a way she loved. A way she knew Ezra loved.
She shimmied into the gold sequined dress she’d bought on deep discount in a sale the day after her mother told her that her new medication was working. The dress was more than she’d normally spend on a single item of clothing, but she’d considered the expense worth it, because it was Ezra. She sprayed herself with her favorite perfume — the same perfume she’d been wearing since senior year of college — and then looked at herself in the mirror. The rich gold of the dress accentuated the depth of her dark skin, the fabric flowed over her body, dipping deep into the cleft of her breasts, hugging her hips and flaring at the knee, highlighting the beauty of her curves. The curves she loved. The curves Ezra worshipped once a year.
She wished it was more.
The dress made her feel beautiful, but she hadn’t bought it for that alone. Pathetically, she’d also bought it hoping it would make Ezra want more than this one night. Sometimes she fantasized about having the guts to broach the topic herself, but she was terrified of being rejected by someone she loved so much. Too much.
She ran her hands over her rounded stomach and hips and imagined Ezra doing the same. And then she swallowed all her fear and insecurities so she could focus on enjoying tonight. After the year she’d had, it was the least she deserved.
Decided, she stepped into her four-inch heels, grabbed her purse and headed out to have the best night of the worst year.
***
“Ezra, can you help Miles move the couches out of the way before he hurts his back?” Mei yelled from the kitchen.
“I’m not an old man,” Miles yelled over his shoulder as he walked into the living room where Ezra was trying not to watch the clock, waiting for Candace. “But actually, my back has been acting up,” Miles whispered to him.
“What’s that you said, old man?” Ezra yelled. “Arthritis?”
Mei’s loud cackle floated in from the kitchen.
“I hate you,” Miles said. “Help me with this damn settee,” he ground out.
Ezra laughed and moved to help him.
For a few minutes, Ezra didn’t think about Candace. He and Miles rearranged the living room furniture to make more room for people to gather. By the time they were done, both men were feeling old, huffing and puffing, faces flushed. Of course that was when Candace arrived.
“I’m here,” she called from the foyer.
Ezra stood up too fast and his lower back tweaked. He groaned.
“Who’s the old man now?” Miles mumbled just as Mei ran into the living room.
She breezed past them toward the front door. They both cringed as the sound of Candace and Mei’s squeals filled the room.
Ezra snatched up his beer bottle and went to take a sip. It was empty. Miles laughed and snatched the bottle from Ezra’s hand, shaking his head as he headed toward the kitchen. Ezra glared at his back and fidgeted — smoothing his shirt down his torso, running his hands over his hair — his stomach fluttering and his neck warming. When Candace finally walked into the living room, Ezra’s mouth went dry.
She was wearing gold, his favorite color on her, even though every color looked beautiful against her skin. Her hair was a soft, curly crown around her head. She was like one of his wet dreams come to life; as if she’d put herself together specifically to tempt and torture him. He wondered if that was a possibility, but immediately dismissed the thought.
“Hey, Ezra,” Candace said, in the deep whiskey voice he missed 364 days of every year.
Ezra tried to smile. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded. “Hi, Candace.”
She smiled at him and he was certain his heart stopped.
“We’re all together again. Finally,” Mei said.
“Yes, we are,” Miles said. “Let’s toast to that.”
He handed each of the women a glass of wine and passed Ezra another bottle of beer. Ezra took a quick sip before the toast; his mouth was so dry.
“To friendship,” Mei said, lifting her glass.
“To family,” Miles added.
“To something less corny and sentimental,” Candace said.
Ezra spluttered a laugh. “To next year,” he said.
“She said, ‘less corny,’” Miles muttered.
They made deliberate eye contact with one another as they clinked glasses. Candace and Ezra held each other’s gazes as they sipped their drinks. Ezra thought he would fall apart at the intensity in her eyes and the way her soft lips rested on the edge of her glass.
“You know what we should be toasting?” Miles said. Ezra tore his eyes away from Candace reluctantly. “These drinks are better than that first New Year’s Eve.”
They all groaned.
“We didn’t all drink that swill. Some of us,” Candace said, gesturing to herself and Ezra, “had discernment, even then.”
“We were nervous,” Mei said, coming to Miles’s defense as she walked to him.
Ezra watched as they molded themselves to one another and smiled at each other. There was something comforting about seeing them so close, even after all this time. And as Ezra took another sip of his beer, he snuck a quick glance at Candace and wondered if they would ever have that with one another.
***
There was no high like this. No amount of wine could beat the sound of Ezra’s footsteps following her down the hall to the tune of her heartbeat. Nothing made the adrenaline rise in her body like his warmth at her back, his breath rustling her hair, and the brush of his skin as he reached around her to open the door to Miles and Mei’s spare bedroom.
The sounds of the party didn’t travel all the way up here when the door was closed. She heard him gulp in the dark silence and smiled to herself at the familiarity of that nervous reaction. She turned around and found him staring at her.
Her nipples hardened. She loved when he looked at her this way. As if he couldn’t wait to taste her. As if she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Did you miss me?” she found the courage to ask.
He laughed, just a huff of air, and she wanted to crawl out of her skin and disappear.
“Of course I missed you,” he said. His voice stroked her skin and made her nerves tingle. Her nipples were so hard they hurt. She’d been wet all night but that grumble of his voice made her sex clench.
She laughed herself, a nervous exhalation of breath. “Prove it,” she said. Begged.
Whatever complaints Candace had about their relationship, they’d always been completely in sync in the bedroom. It was instinctual. Their connection was so natural and easy and explosive. She’d never experienced anything like this with anyone else.
Ezra stalked toward her with a small smile on his face, his blue eyes dark and intense. But when he finally touched her, his hands were gentle as ever as he slipped his fingers under the straps of her dress and pushed them slowly over her shoulders, his knuckles dragging along her skin.
She was practically naked under the dress but for the lace underwear she’d bought for him. But the way Ezra touched her made her almost wish she’d worn more clothes so she could enjoy the pleasure of having his pupils dilate with lust as he undressed her for even longer. He ran the pads of his fingers around the waist of her underwear, caressing the soft skin there. Candace thought she would melt. She moaned and he captured her mouth, groaning as their tongues met and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
Ezra dug his fingers into her waist and she whimpered as he deepened their kiss and pulled her nearly naked body against his.
For a second, Candace thought there was no way this perfect kiss could get better, but then Ezra pushed his hand into the back of her underwear, prying her legs apart with his own as his fingers moved between her ass cheeks and grazed her wet sex.
Her head fell back on a screaming moan.
He kissed her chin. “Did you miss me?” he whispered against her neck.
She couldn’t answer. Her knees were weak. Her heartbeat was pounding. “Missed” didn’t seem like a strong enough word. “Ezra,” she moaned, her only answer.
He laughed against the column of her neck and then licked his way down her clavicle, slipping two fingers into her aching core. “Feels like you missed me,” he whispered against her right nipple before he licked it as his fingers began to move in and out of her in strong, slow strokes.
Candace shivered against him. “Too many clothes,” she spluttered.
She could feel his smile against her breast. “I agree,” he said, using his free hand to push her underwear over her hips. She happily helped him, shimmying until that expensive scrap of lace pooled at her feet, his fingers still buried inside her.
“I meant you,” she said, pressing her body against his again. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
He kissed her briefly. “I agree,” he whispered against her lips, unfortunately pulling his fingers from between her legs.
Candace thought to help him undress but her body had a mind of its own. She stepped back to watch him, her hands caressing her breasts, tweaking her nipples, enjoying watching him as he watched her. His boxer briefs were tented by his erection, a wet spot spreading at the front, and she bit her bottom lip as her stomach fluttered with need.
“I missed you,” she whispered, because she had. She’d missed him clothed and naked, touching her and across the room. His voice whispering in her ear and laughing loudly at one of Miles’s jokes. Making her sex quiver around his shaft, the soft steel of him in her pumping hand. But more than anything, she’d missed what it felt like to see herself in his eyes. However inaccurate and shadowed by desire, there was nothing like realizing that he still saw her the way he had when they were teenagers.
She wasn’t that girl anymore, but for a few hours a year, she could pretend.
He smiled at her as he bent to push his underwear over his hips. When he straightened and they were both naked, they burst into laughter at the awkwardness of being naked together, even after all this time.
Candace was wiping happy tears from her eyes when Ezra stepped forward, somehow always at his boldest when they were naked. He grabbed her hips and pulled her toward him. She wrapped her arms around his torso, suddenly nervous.
Not for the first time during one of their New Year’s Eves together — not even the first time tonight — she had the urge to tell him how much she’d always loved him. But then he kissed her, smiling against her lips as he walked her back toward the bed. It was for the best, she thought, as she sucked his tongue into her mouth. It felt too good to be with him like this and she didn’t want to spoil it.
He gently pushed her onto her back and then began to kiss his way down her body, touching and licking and sucking her into a frenzy.
“Oh god,” she hissed when Ezra’s mouth covered her sex. Her hips arched closer to his mouth and his tongue, and his strong, heavy hands settled on her hips, holding her in place. “Oh god,” she moaned again.
Ezra licked her, slowly parting her lips and circling her clit, smiling against her wet sex as if this felt as good to him as it did to her. Candace considered covering her mouth just in case someone heard her, but she didn’t. She only moaned louder as Ezra sucked her clit into his mouth and licked at her opening and then groaned against her pussy, the deep vibrations pulling a high-pitched whine from Candace’s throat. She came with a sharp cry, her thighs locking around his head and still he lapped at her, extending the life of her orgasm into beautiful echoes that made her scalp tingle.
When she looked down her body, she found his eyes on her and she came again. He smiled.
She was still shaking when he finally released her. He lifted onto his hands and knees. He kissed her mound and then used his mouth and tongue to travel back up her body. She groaned when he bit at her nipples and sighed as he licked up her throat. And then he was hovering over her, smiling down at her, his wet face shining in the light from the streetlamp outside. Candace smiled as she pulled him down, enjoying the hard weight of him on top of her and her taste on his lips.
They had to separate longer than either of them liked to find the stash of condoms at the bottom of Ezra’s suitcase. The endeavor took longer than it should have because they kept stopping to make out around their laughter.
“Found it,” Ezra finally said, holding the box of condoms up triumphantly. His back bent with a groan when Candace palmed his erection and squeezed.
“Finally,” she whispered, leading him back to the bed, still holding his dick.
She pushed him onto his back as he’d done to her. She stood over him and tore open a condom. He caressed her leg just behind her knee and smiled up at her as if she were the sun. She wanted to taste him, but she was impatient and needed him inside of her now. She’d been waiting all year. But they’d have all night, she reminded her momentarily terrified heart. And then she crawled over him and sank down onto his hard dick, feeling once again as if she were floating.
But then Ezra grounded her.
“Candace,” he whispered up to her, his hands on her hips.
She could feel his eyes on her as she began to ride him, her hips moving in slow circles.
“Candace,” he groaned again. And again. And again, as she rode him faster and harder.
The room filled with their moans and cries and his name on her lips, her name on his.
They’d spent every New Year’s Eve this way for nearly a decade, Miles and Mei’s parties raging while they snuck off to be together. Eventually the familiar sound of fireworks exploding outside marked their dwindling time together. Their bodies were covered in sweat and they kept chasing just one more orgasm — and then one more after that — desperately needing to fill every moment they had together with enough memories for the coming year.
They heard the countdown in the house, the combined voices loud enough to carry to their room. Ezra pulled Candace’s face to his, close enough that they could look into one another’s eyes as their hips moved together. Neither of them believed in New Year’s resolutions, but when he held her like that, staring into her soul, she sometimes let herself imagine that he was making her a promise. He didn’t ask her out on a date or surprise her on her birthday or do anything that might indicate that he wanted more than just this night, but every year, for that brief moment when their eyes and bodies were connected, Candace always found herself hoping for more and hoping he could see that in her eyes.
The fireworks were still exploding outside when Ezra moved his right hand between their bodies to massage her clit. She came in a clenching, wet rush and he came soon after. She collapsed on top of him and there were a few blissful breaths of calm. But as she rested her head on his chest, scraping her nails gently through his chest hair, she felt the exhilarated rush of knowing they had all night mingle with the dread that their night was almost over.
***
The sun wasn’t out yet, but the sky had begun to brighten. They were exhausted. Candace burrowed her face into the pillow under her head as Ezra pulled her close to his chest. Her eyelids were drooping and his breaths had begun to deepen and slow. In a few minutes they’d both be asleep. And in a few hours one or both of them would have to rush out of here to get back to their real lives.
Candace wanted to let herself fall asleep. She more than needed the rest. But she wasn’t ready for the night to be over. She wasn’t ready to wake up and have to leave Ezra or to find that he was already gone. She wanted this to last forever.
She took in a deep breath of air, summoning up the courage to tell him how she felt, even if not the depth of her emotions. “I wish we could stay like this,” she whispered.
Ezra tightened his arm around her middle and buried his face in the crook of her neck. She smiled.
“I can’t wait for next year,” he whispered, and placed soft kisses along her jawline.
He was asleep in minutes, his arms still around her, the heavy feeling of his mouth still lingering on her skin.
Candace cried silently until the sun was fully in the sky and then carefully crawled out of bed, dressed, and slipped out of Miles and Mei’s house before anyone woke up.
She wished she hadn’t said anything at all.