To Caress My Day

Lovingly, Twigs tenderly framed each side of Seth’s head with her delicate hands, her brown orbs staring up at him with tears glistening them. She didn't know if she could speak, if her words would come out clearly even if she tried. Giving herself some time to loosen up her restricting throat due to Seth’s request to pay for her mother’s cancer treatments, she managed to bestow a wobbly smile upon him before clearing her throat. “My love, you’re right. Cancer is too much of an urgent matter for me to be allowing my predilection to get in the way of my mother’s needs. I will happily accept your help with her treatments, Seth, but…”

“But what, Tahliah?” Seth softly spurred her on when she faltered, his brows furrowing as he stared at the sorrow now washing over her face, stealing her rickety smile. Reaching up, he cupped the back of her head with one hand while the other planted itself on her slender hip, not wanting to let her go ever again. His fingers tingle at the familiar caress of her silky curls twirling around them.

“But it isn’t up to me.” Twigs went on, her luscious bottom lip beginning to quiver as she lowered her eyes to his pale bare chest. “My mother is just like me. She won’t accept your help, not even during something as dangerous as cancer. She…we really don't like to burden people.”

“Taking my money to aid in the payment of her treatment is far from being a burden if you ask me.” Seth readily defended, frowning at both Twig’s and Araceli’s tenacity when it came to accepting a helping hand. “I could never think that of her or you!”

Twigs nodded, sliding her hand down Seth’s cheek to curl around his forearm. “I agree with you there that that doesn’t make her or anyone else in this kind of predicament a burden.”

With a heavy sigh at what laid ahead for him when it came to Araceli, Seth tenderly gathered Twigs closer to him with a tug on the back of her head, wrapping his other arm across her slender back. Holding her closely, he rested his chin on the top of her head, inhaling deeply the sweetness of her hair’s scent.

Nuzzling her face into his bare chest, Twigs peacefully shut her eyes as she snaked her arms and legs around his waist. This was what she needed. This is ONLY what she needed. Seth, and his arms encircled around her to exile all her fears and demons away, to keep her forever safe. She didn’t need a bottle of vodka to drown her sorrows into, or drugs to briefly numb her pain, or a holy book to tell her this was in God’s plan all along and to blindly accept it as if her mother didn’t matter all that much to her.

No, Twigs just needed Seth, the man she loved.

After a while of reveling in each other’s presence to get a break from reality’s malice, Seth opened his eyes to finally face the music with an idea having come to mind. Rubbing a hand up and down his girlfriend’s back, he softly whispered to her so as not to jolt her from her calm state. “Tahliah. I need your help. You have to help me convince your mother. I tried to do all I could for my mother…I…”

When Seth’s voice broke, Twigs went still in his arms, her eyes snapping open. Tilting her head up so that her chin was resting on his chest as she stared up at him with concern, it broke her heart to corroborate that he was indeed blinking back his own tears from having lost a loved one. Feeling like a giant’s fist was squeezing the life out of her own heart, Twigs whimpered for him. “Oh, Seth.”

Composing himself so he could finish, Seth cleared his throat, his brown eyes still staring off over her head so she wouldn’t see the full extent of his mother’s death through his eyes and how it had affected him still. His bare soul was lying open for her to rummage through for an answer. “I did all I could for my own mother. It didn’t save her.” Leaning down to press his lips against Twig’s forehead, Seth whispered against the satiny flesh. “But your mother hasn’t developed any of the fatal types of cancer that are out there. I looked it up, she has a 80%-90% chance of being cancer-free!”

Twigs gaped up at him, now realizing that Seth’s perseverance when it came to her mother was bigger than just solely terminating her cancer. It was a way of redeeming himself, for atoning for not being able to save his own mother even with the odds all stacked up against him. Powerless to deny him this because she would've aided him in saving his own mother too had she been there, Twigs pressed a loving kiss to the center of his chest before glancing back up at his tensed face. “I promise you that I will do the best that I can to convince my mother to accept your help, baby. Me and my step-father, Luther.”

Ejecting a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, Seth’s familiar grin stretched across his lips as he glanced down into her gorgeous Pixie face. Pressing an affectionate kiss to her forehead, Seth’s smile faded a bit when he remembered he wouldn’t be able to be in attendance through that difficult meeting. “I wish I could be there. Not only for that conversation, but also for every appointment she goes to. Work has been taking up every aspect of my time lately. I doubt they’d give me any more off without a fuss.”

Loathing that reminder, Twigs had to shut her eyes to keep herself from reacting as overdramatically as she craved to. “I know, Seth.”

Retracting his arms from around her, Seth cupped her small face between his large hands, his eyes tracing over her features as her eyes fluttered open to greet him. “For the first, my job has become more of a bother to me because I want to see you all the damn time, Tahliah. And yet I can never seem to.”

“I feel the same way about your job.” Twigs had to confess, biting on her lower lip with shame. Her hands found Seth’s hips and gripped tightly onto them. “But at the same damn time I would never want you to throw all your life’s work down the drain for boring old me. You would never ask me to do the same, so I wouldn't ask it of you.”

“And that’s one of the many reasons why I love you so goddamn much.” Seth maintained, swooping down to place a chaste kiss on her plump mouth and then retreated before she could bewitch him by parting her lips and including her seductive tongue into the mix. “Because you understand me so well. Though I can’t imagine it’s been easy for my sexy little Pixie, us being apart all the time.”

“It’s not.” Twigs answered honestly, smiling amorously up at him. Time spent with this man were the happiest times of her life. It was a tragedy that their time together was always so limited now. She didn’t know how long they had before he had to take the next flight out of her country. Not wanting to know how long this time, but needing to know at the same time, Twigs tentatively asked him while bracing herself for another heartbreak. “When are you flying back to California, Seth?”

Making a face of pure displeasure to her question, Seth groaned. Leaning his head back so he could glare hatefully up at her ceiling, he lamented as he cupped his hands over her smooth shoulders. “Jesus, Pixie, why do you have to ask me that question right now? We’re having a moment here.”

“If not right now, then when?” Twigs countered irritably, giving him a look despite his face being tilted skyward from her. She didn’t wanna break up their happy moment either, but neither did she believe she’d survive living in utter ignorance down to the very second he was scheduled to leave. Her heart would certainly give out on her from the shock of an unforeseen goodbye.

“How about never?” Seth declared before glancing back down at her to find her annoyed with his evasion. It was childish of him, he knew it. But it was better living like Peter Pan in their Neverland with her than to go back to California and grow up. He swore he never hated his job more than when he met his girlfriend. Shoulders slumping, Seth rolled his eyes and answered in a prickly grumble. “Fine. I have to leave…tonight.”

Tears sprang into Twig’s eyes so fast her vision should legally be declared blind. She was unable to see anything other than the blurred form of her lover who would soon be just that again, a blur in her life.

Feeling his heart ache in his chest, Seth’s eyes widened with regret as he hurriedly cupped her face again to swipe his thumb over the droplets to stop them, his voice cooing tenderly to her. “Pixie, baby no, it’s gonna be okay.” But nothing he said at that moment made a difference. Pressing soothing kisses all over her face, Seth pulled her back into the protective hold of his arms, allowing her to shed her tears there because they wouldn’t be stalled. “Shh, I got you, Tahliah. It’s okay, I got you.”

Not wanting to weep on him again, Twigs pushed back from his chest and pleaded. “No, don’t please. I just…I just need you to make love to me again. Just one more time, Seth.”

“I was already planning to.” Seth assured her before seeking her mouth with his and fusing them together. Lowering her down onto her couch, he helped himself to peeling her underwear off and tossing it over his shoulder. “I promise we’re not resting until we’re both fully sated this time.”

Wantonly spreading her legs for him, Twigs let out a cry when Seth thrusted his cock within her with a loud moan of his own. They made love on her couch, then the floor, then the bathroom before and after their shower, and then in her bed until they passed out from exhaustion. It took them waking up the next day in their own beds an ocean away that they realized they hadn’t come close to being satisfied that day, and were both gravely disappointed as they laid in bed still yearning for the other.