Other Side

∞ | Birthday Present

"TWENTY-FOUR has never looked so good." Zaid murmured accolades over her skin, hands coming to life. He gripped her bare waist, wedding band cool against the sensitive skin, prickling with goosebumps from the late October chill. "Sometimes, I still can't believe I get to call you my wife."

He kissed a small path down her stomach, cupping her backside through her pleated black trousers. No particular dress code was required to be a miserable grad student, but Talia treated this entire PhD experience just like her two years in the corporate world, dressed to the nines by eight every morning. Or maybe she just couldn't bear to let the thousands of dollars she'd funneled into that wardrobe go to waste, especially her precious Tom Ford collection, which had earned the most coveted spot in their closet.

Whatever the motive behind her fashion sense, Zaid still loved it.

"Sometimes I slip up and call you my fiancé in front of my friends," Talia chuckled. She tried to give herself the benefit of the doubt most of the time, as it hadn't even been five months since they'd tied the knot in Newport on a balmy May afternoon. Her laughter turned into a sharp gasp when his fingers dug into the cloth-covered flesh, but she still managed to choke out, "Most of my colleagues don't even know I got married."

"That's because you always forget to wear your ring," he grumbled. He gripped her left hand and held it out in front of him, admiring the diamond-encrusted gold band. "Is it ugly to you? Is that the issue?"

"No, baby. I love it."

"Then why do I find it on our dresser most mornings?"

"Because," she began, looking away, "I don't want people to take me less seriously because I'm married."

He couldn't contest her logic, a feminine worry perpetuated by his own kind, anyway. So, instead, like a true man, he used the momentary lapse in her vision to his advantage, unclasping her pants and letting them fall to the hardwood. He leaned back on his palms on the king-size bed, legs wide apart, swirl of skin peeking through the open buttons of his dress shirt, and let his unseemly gaze slide down her body, now only covered by two measly articles of clothing. She folded her arms over her front as she stood before him, failing to realize the pose only fired him up more, chest peeking out of the lace of her navy-blue bra.

Zaid slid his hands down her ribs to the sides of her thighs, brow furrowing.

"Have you been eating enough lately?" His thumbs swept across her hipbones, noting the way they poked through the fabric. "You look more tired than usual."

"To be honest, I've been drowning in stress. I don't think I've pulled this many fifty-hour weeks studying before." His stubble pricked her thumb as she ran it down his cheek, then over his soft bottom lip. "Maybe a homemade birthday breakfast could help."

"Min ouyouni," he concurred over her lips, "but I'm not hungry for food just yet."

Talia blinked, and her back hit the bed under him, gazing at her second favorite sight in the world: the clothed version of him. Her fingers toyed with the buttons of his shirt in anticipation, feeling what she could of his skin.

She dropped her head to the pillow in frustration, hiding a laugh. "The clothing equilibrium is a little off here, if you ask me."

Without another word, he undid the rest of his buttons and tossed his shirt backwards, not caring that it knocked over three bottles on the dresser—her overpriced perfume, of course. He climbed back over her and planted his arms on either side of her head, gracing her peripheral vision with the grooves of his defined arm muscles, bulging out of his tan skin.

"You know how much I love you, right?" Zaid caressed her cheek with his knuckles, locking her into the spell of his warm hazel-brown eyes, the window to a soul she knew inside and out. "It's the kind of love out of which people make a whole bullshit writing career, hoping that it's real."

"I know, ya albi," she laughed, sliding a hand down his chest. She loved feeling his heartbeat, knowing after all these years, her presence could still make it race. "I feel the same one."

Breaking into a grin, he leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, an act so pure for how the rest of this morning was going to play out. "Sometimes I hate that I love every fucking thing about you, because I constantly have to remind myself what each one is." His breath was hot at her ear as he twisted his words in the perfect way. "Like...how much I love fucking you."

She grasped the back of his head, mouth at his ear now. "Do you remember the rest? Because hearing them right now would make this birthday girl very happy."

"Cocky woman," he grumbled, dragging his fingers through the roots of her hair. He tugged just hard enough that it still felt pleasurable to her, tilting her head up at the perfect angle to lose himself in her brown eyes simmering with desire. "I think you already know much I love your crazy hair. You know, the curls you feel the need to ruin every morning."

"I don't have a choice—"

"You do," he grumbled, tightening his grip. "I also love the days you study at home, because I can watch the way your eyes light up at the most boring theorems and stupidly complex formulas." In her embarrassment, she closed them, but he took that as a chance to press a kiss to each eyelid. "You are something else, Talia."

"That something else is mortified."

"Let me embarrass you more, then," he chuckled over her lips. "I love how even after all of those Arabic classes, you still pronounce the letter qaf kind of like kaf."

Before she could protest that remark, he closed his mouth over hers, slipping his tongue past her stubborn lips. His fingers traced the length of her neck and hooked themselves around the necklace adorning it. Pulling away, he whispered, "I also love how despite the fact you almost never take this off"—he traced the engraved pendant and then tugged on it lightly—"you still sometimes forget how many dots go on a ta."

He placed a chaste kiss to the hollow of her neck and then continued downwards, to her chest, then stomach, all while his skilled hands squeezed her breasts, knowing exactly what type of touch could make her obstinate self moan and gasp into the oblivion. His fingers hit the sliver of sensitive skin just above the lacy edge of her underwear. Kneeling on the ground at the end of the bed, he pulled her hips towards him and told her the last of his heart.

"The funniest thing of all that I've come to love about you," he finished, curling his fingers under the fabric, "is that I could probably live the rest of my life in this country, and you'd still never consider me as American as you are."

Soon enough, her underwear met the same fate as his shirt, crumpled in a corner of the room somewhere. When his fingers slid over the place where she wanted his mouth to be, a tortured sigh escaped her lips. The sound was enough for him to push her thighs apart, dip his head down, and keep her there with two rough hands, allowing her pleasure to become his conviction for the rest of the morning.

Between gasps and gripped bedsheets, Talia laughed about how he'd given her a litany, but always left only one word on her lips in return: his name. It lost meaning from how many times it met the air, until Zaid tired of hearing it and looked into her eyes, uttering the term she loved even more than her own name.

"Happy birthday, hayati."

***

min ouyouni: from my eyes