by Sarah Hogle
His tongue slips into my mouth and it’s two things at once: quick pulse, hot blood turning in my ears. It’s languorous, long fingers of molten gold in a slow spill across the floor, burning the room away. With every thumping beat of my heart I am being ruined. I never want anyone to hold me again if they don’t hold me like this.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, our reflections watching each other.
My heart is too large to fit inside my chest. “Honestly?”
“If you’re willing.”
“I’m thinking that I’ve had dreams about getting our hands on each other and none of them live up to this.”
He bites his cheek, eyes downcast. “You dream about me?”
“I can’t help it.”
“No, I . . .” He wets his lips, picking words carefully. “I love that you do.”
“There’s the literal dreaming,” I venture. “And then, you know.” How do I say this without saying it? Oh, well. Caution to the wind. “Fantasizing. Everybody fantasizes.”
I’m starting to worry that I’ve overshared when he stares at me with a keen intensity and he says, “Can you tell me?”
“I could show you, if you’d like.”
He takes one step backward, which seems counterproductive, but I think he’s signaling that he is paying attention. “Tell me how it starts.”
“It starts with us standing in the sunroom that was going to be a conservatory but is now a café. You’ve just done an amazingly romantic thing with some clouds and it’s got me feeling all swoony.”
“Oooh, I like this so far.”
“You pick me up.”
He obliges with zeal, scooping me to his chest like a knight rescuing his princess. I think about where we are, where we could go next.
“You carry me out of the room.”
So he does.
“And we go . . .” My bedroom is too far. I’m in practical mode, hunting for the nearest soft landing pad. “Into the living room.”
So we do.
He lets his forehead fall to mine. “And then?”
“You notice a plaid couch,” I say, “that looks big enough for two people even if one of them is the size of Thor.”
He laughs. “All right. I’m noticing it.”
“And you say, ‘My, it’s been such a long day. I think I have to lie down immediately in this room where there is only one couch to lie on.’”
Wesley tries to keep a straight face. “My, it’s been such a long day. I think I have to lie down immediately in this room where there is only one couch to lie on.”
I grin. “You lay me onto the couch first, delicately, and admire me for two full minutes. You’ve never seen such beauty.”
He sets me down. A flash of lightning slants across his chest like a jagged blade and the emotion in his eyes steals my air. “I haven’t,” he murmurs.
“Two minutes is a long time,” I amend. “You admire me for a few seconds, then turn in a slow circle.”
Raising a brow, he complies.
“You tear your shirt up over your head.” Wesley snorts, but my expression is stern. “And you do it ferociously, with animal magnetism.”
He gamely peels his shirt off, tossing it aside.
My attention takes a leisurely stroll across all the bare skin he has on display. It’s decadent. “You flex your arms.”
He gives me a dry look.
“You have to,” I insist. “That’s how the fantasy goes.”
He flexes, and I fall back snickering. Wesley sighs melodramatically.
I want to see how much I can get away with. “You say, ‘Is it hot in here or is it just me?’”
He makes a face. Grumbles. “Is it hot in here? Orisitjustme.”
“It’s you,” I assure him, enjoying myself. “Then you—”
“Start to get impatient,” Wesley finishes darkly.
“No, you do not. You start doing a striptease.”
His eyes flash. “Or, I walk over to you.”
“Or, you shuck your pants and helicopter them over your head.”
Wesley leans over me, fisted hands pressing into the couch. His voice drops low, scraping my skin. “I kiss you.”
I loop my arms around his neck, only too happy to give in. “Yes. That’s exactly what you do.”
So he does. Softly, softly. Again and again.
I’m starting to feel warm, a bit delirious, and lean back slightly. “Just real quick.”
“Yeah?” He withdraws.
“Not to be down on myself or anything, but this is your first time. And, uh, I don’t know what you’ve been imagining, but . . .” I scramble for phrasing that won’t kill the mood. “I’m not a Victoria’s Secret model. You might have idealized what the woman in this experience would be like. I’ve done this, but not a lot. Also, I just ate, so I’m going to be a little bloated—”
“You’re beautiful. I’m going to love whatever’s under here,” he says, sliding a hand up my torso. A bolt of heat zings through me.
“Okay, but—”
“Maybell.” He stops me with two fingers pressed to my lips. “Don’t be giving me disclaimers, you don’t deserve that. I’m going. To love it.”
I let go.
The kisses change tempo, get deeper, needier, and there are long fingers gliding up my wrist, palms, lacing through mine. He settles over me, asks, Is it okay if I touch you, and I say, Yes. I’m giving him tremendous power over me by wanting him the way that I do, so much that it sticks in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. He’s giving tremendous power to me by trusting me enough to be intimate like this.
“What happens next?” I ask.
Wesley reaches behind me and bunches up a fistful of my dress, tugging it to mold tightly against my curves in the front. “I think you know what happens next.” His mouth slants over mine, the pressure of his kiss desperate, before he draws away to drink me in, eyes tracking down my body.
“What if we . . . ?” He exhales raggedly, playing with the zipper up my back.
“Yes.”
“And then we . . . ?”
“Yes.”
He fishes into the back pocket of his trousers and withdraws a foil square. “I bought these a couple days ago, just in case. I didn’t want to assume anything. But I kind of hoped.”
I press two fingers to his lips. “I’m glad you did.”
Wesley smiles against my fingers, relieved.
He unzips me, then I have to do a bit of wiggling before the dress is a puddle of fabric on the floor. My temperature is so high that the air is an icy bite. I would have thought I’d feel terribly vulnerable on display like this, but his gaze traverses my body with such longing, with such naked, blazing lust, and I feel like the most gorgeous creature that ever walked the earth.
Wesley drags his fingers over his face, eyes large.
“Fuck,” he utters weakly.
It is a heady, gratifying thing, to watch this man unravel.
He explores with his hands, glancing at my expression every so often to make sure I haven’t changed my mind, that I’m enjoying it. “I can’t get over how soft you feel.” He plants a kiss on my stomach, traveling up between my breasts, each touch reverent. He takes it in turns to be sweet, dirty, sweet, dirty, switching on me without warning. The sensations he’s . . .
My mind empties of words.
His tongue. His hands. I’m. It’s. Oh. I have to bite down.
When my hands explore him, too, he hisses through his teeth and pulls back somewhat, knee digging into the couch to hold his weight. His stomach muscles contract as my hand slides down them. “I know how this goes, but I’ve never done it before, so I might need some help.”
I am on fire. Anticipation is to blame for why I nervously babble, “Teamwork makes the dream work.”
/> Wesley’s chin falls onto his chest, body shaking with silent laughter. “Oh my god.”
“I’m sorry.”
But it dispels some of the tension, relaxing me enough to smile.
I claim his mouth again and he surrenders the self-doubt and insecurities building up inside him, letting instincts take over. The rest of our clothes come off. I smooth a hand over his chest and push so that his back hits the couch, and his eyes widen. Taking charge takes the pressure off of him. I straddle his hard, muscular body and introduce him to the finer things in life.
“Jesus,” he rasps again and again. “Jesus. God.”
“I had no idea you were so devout.”
A rumbling laugh swiftly ebbs into a groan, and he draws in a deep breath until his ribs protrude. His eyes pierce mine, brows pulling together ever so slightly. Before I can ask what, he moves.
A quick study, he rolls us and seamlessly assumes control. Pupils blown. Lips swollen. Pleased half smiles as he learns what I like; soft laughs and grated curses as we both learn what he likes.
He feels wonderful,
wonderful,
wonderful
and it isn’t because of any particular move he’s making, or because he’s some kind of god in bed, but because it’s him, and I think he just might feel the same way about me.
A dozen manifestations of Wesley have tried to imitate this. Wesleys on windy hilltops, soaked in rain, chests heaving, hair dripping. Wesleys leaving footprints in the sand on a warm beach. Princes and baristas.
He doesn’t kiss like a dream, doesn’t touch like a fantasy. He is Wesley, real. My imagination will spend the next thousand years chasing the memory of this: Wesley. Real. It will never get it right because he is beyond imagining. Nothing beats real.
* * *
• • • • • • •
HOURS LATER, WE’RE IN my bed. When we collapsed on my mattress we both announced that we were going to sleep like the dead tonight, but reality has made liars of us because we’re not used to having company when we sleep and each of us keeps jolting awake whenever the other one moves. It’s a lovely gift that keeps giving to see him next to me. I kind of like that I keep forgetting his presence every time I’m about to drift off to sleep and then abruptly startle; this means the truth of his being here sinks in over, and over, and over again.
Wesley reaches up to stroke my hair, smiling only with his eyes. I feel more than accepted when he touches me, when he holds me and smiles at me. I feel wanted.
I feel like I’ve finally found home.
Suspended in a state that isn’t quite dreamland, not quite wakefulness, I scroll through my mental calendar. We’ve got so much coming up in the next few weeks: his brother will be visiting before we know it to discuss investing in us, I’ll be meeting Sasha Campos in hopes that she’s going to join me in my new adventure, and I could possibly have that young woman and her son from the gas station staying here soon. I’ve got to get the last of my legal ducks put in a row. The house painted up into everlasting sunset.
Wesley’s got sections of wild overgrowth to clear in preparation for four-legged friends (and a few with wings). Once the hotel opens, Wesley will still leave from time to time for landscaping jobs. I, on the other hand, am going to be homebound for the foreseeable future.
Which means that if there are any last hurrahs in order, the time for them is now.
“Hey,” I whisper, prodding him. “Are you awake?”
“I don’t know.”
My mouth twitches. “You don’t know if you’re awake?”
“I don’t know anything right now,” he replies hoarsely. “What’s my name? Never heard of it. My brain’s as smooth as a scoop of ice cream and I’m not mad about it.” He folds his arms beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. “So I’m going to lie here and just be absolutely stupid for a while.”
“I think we should make good on our pact,” I tell him, effectively shattering his afterglow. “Quitting at the resort. Going to Loch Ness.”
“We will.”
I sit up, laying a palm to his chest where his heart pounds rhythmically. “I mean now,” I elaborate gently. “I think we should go now.”
“Right now?” He’s still half-asleep.
“I found a buyer for Victor’s coin collection. I was going to put the money toward a pool, but I think we should do this with it instead. Before it gets so hectic around here that we miss our chance. When I feel like I really need to do something, I don’t want to put it off.” I swallow. “From here on out.”
Wesley pulls himself up onto his elbow, a fathomless silhouette save for the twin gleams of his eyes. He stares and stares at me, and then finally says, “All right. Let’s do it.”
Chapter 20
WHEN MORNING DAWNS, WE’VE got our plane tickets, set to take off at eleven forty-five a.m. We’re bleary-eyed and groggy but there’s a thrum of exhilaration in the air and we’re already packed, in the car, on our way to Around the Mountain Resort & Spa. I’m going to quit a job I don’t have anymore in legendary style, and then Wesley’s going to find proof of the Loch Ness Monster but never tell a soul about it. We are a pair.
“Car music?” he suggests, fiddling with the dial.
“I’m too amped up for music.” Which sounds absurd, but I think the extra stimulation would feed my anxiety and then I wouldn’t be able to go through with my half of the pact.
We play I Spy instead, which consists of the same three colors (red stop signs, green trees, and yellow drive carefully signs indicating twists and turns). There aren’t too many cars on the road until we reach Pigeon Forge at a quarter to nine.
“Wild Bear Tavern,” he observes, lifting an index finger off the steering wheel. “They have takeout. Really good German toast.”
“I’m too amped up to eat.”
I’m wearing a red power suit with shoulder pads, hair in a messy topknot. I look like a high school secretary from an eighties teen comedy, which is to say, I look extremely excellent and like a person who makes firm decisions.
Wesley pulls through the McDonald’s drive-thru anyway, ordering us both pancakes from the breakfast menu. My stomach’s sloshing something fierce, but he made the right call—I feel better once I’ve eaten.
“You ready for this?” he asks, nudging me to polish off my orange juice because he thinks I could use more Vitamin C.
I half-laugh. “Ahh . . . no.” Then I shake my head, smiling wanly. “Kidding. Ready as I’ll ever be! Let’s go.”
I still don’t know what I’m going to say when I get inside Around the Mountain. I’ve decided to wing it.
“This is nuts,” I can’t stop saying.
Wesley doesn’t argue.
“They’ve probably forgotten who I am.” I’m sort of but not really joking. “I’ll tell them off and then somebody will go, ‘Who was that?’” I’m chewing my nails, leaning forward as far as the seat belt will allow. I crank the air conditioner to full blast. “Jeez, it’s hot in here. Do you think it’s hot in here?”
“It’s just you,” he jokes.
My knee bounces at warp speed. “This is nuts.”
“Oh, definitely. But here we are.”
I jerk around, panicking. The giant statue of the bear strumming a banjo rears up overhead. The lodge is directly behind us. We are in the parking lot. The parking lot.
Where Wesley puts the truck in park.
“What?” I cry. “How are we here already?”
“You’ve got this, Parrish.” He tries to fist-bump me. I would laugh if I didn’t think I’d throw up immediately afterward. “Do you need me to come in with you?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine. Keep the engine running in case we need a quick getaway.”
For his sake as much as my own, I plaster on a confident smile and slide out of the car with watery joints. I’m goin
g to hate doing this, maybe more than I’ve hated doing anything I’ve ever not wanted to do, but I can’t wait to be the version of myself who is on the other side of having done it. The Maybell who stands up for herself. Who cares if I’m about two months too late and this mission probably looks batty from the outside? It’s never too late to make waves.
I am, right this very moment, becoming the kind of Maybell who walks calmly across the parking lot, and the kind of Maybell who pushes through the front doors. The kind of Maybell who stands in the lobby of the building where she spent her entire adult life.
Nothing has changed. The rocking chair that seats eight fully grown humans is currently occupied, camera light flashing, and the lobby smells strongly of chlorine that launches a dozen memories. I can hear splashing and yelling from the indoor water park. What was I expecting? Of course it looks the same. It hasn’t been that long since I was here, even if it feels like a year has passed.
I square my shoulders. On behalf of the miserable Maybell who spent Christmas day handling stiff sheets from the honeymoon suites and having ten minutes shorted from her already pathetic lunch break, I am going to walk up to Paul.
I am going to say, You were a bad boss. You spent all day on Russian dating websites instead of doing your job. You promoted me to event coordinator and then wouldn’t let me coordinate events, and for that, you suck profusely. I want you to know that I quit because of you.
After that, I imagine Christine will happen by, scowling like always. I’ll tell her to go to hell and it will be everything. I’ll astral-project into orbit, lighter than air. A feather on the breeze, whipped cream on a cupcake. A living sunbeam.
That’s the high note I’ll leave on. And I won’t, no matter how tempting, glance back at their stricken faces. It’s like heroes in an action movie ignoring explosions going off behind them.
And that will be that. A proper quitting story.
“I’m so happy to see you! Oh my god!” I blink rapidly as someone crushes me in a hug. “You’re back!”