Both Sides Now

by Barbara Ferrer

  Oh…my. Now there was an image to leave one feeling seriously tingly. Sitting up, I yanked my shirt over my head and tossed it aside, my throat closing and leaving me breathless as I took in the expression on Nick’s face. It absolutely froze me, the way his eyes narrowed and his hands reached out and stroked my stomach, cupped my breasts, his thumbs flicking over my nipples, which were just dying for their turn. But not yet.

  Shifting my body and lowering my head, I took him in my mouth, just a little at first, and with each breath relaxing and taking more of him in, falling into that near hypnotic state that doing this brought out in me. I moaned when I felt his hands tangle in my hair again, not gentle, like before, but tight, as if he was using his grip to hold himself back.

  Scratching the insides of his thighs lightly with my nails, I relished just how close he already was, the heady scent of him filling me and making me dizzy to the point of passing out. I moved faster, until I felt, rather than heard, his groan, low and deep in his chest as he arched up hard, one final time. His hands tightened even more in my hair, sending stars across my vision, even as I kept my gaze on his face, loving the way he looked, lost in his climax. Then, as if he could sense it, his eyes opened and met mine, widening. An instant later, his grip relaxed in my hair, his hands moving to frame my face even as his body continued jerking lightly, like it just didn’t want to stop. Or want me to stop.

  “Dios mío, mi vida…that was…you were…Dios mío…how…”

  He couldn’t even figure out what language he wanted to use. I smiled as I gradually released him.

  His hands were back in my hair, stroking gently, as if he was trying to make up for his earlier roughness. Silly man. He didn’t have a thing to apologize for, but I wasn’t about to stop him. It felt too good.

  “You know, just because I’ve only ever had one lover, Nick, doesn’t mean our sex life was vanilla.”

  “Yeah, Libby, but—” He was still gasping, gulping down huge breaths of air. “Vanilla or not—what you just did—Jesus.”

  Now I was starting to feel a little self-conscious. Sitting up, I crossed my arms. “What about it?”

  Another thing I already knew about him—that he didn’t blush. But it didn’t mean that he wasn’t without his signs that he was embarrassed, the way the tiny muscles around his eyes tended to twitch, and his gaze would slide away, looking for something, anything, else to focus on. Just like it was doing now.

  “Mi vida, I’ve—” He stopped, pressed his lips together, shook his head while I felt like I wanted to shake him.

  “For God’s sake, Nick, what?”

  The more aggravated I got, the more his embarrassment seemed to fade, the jerk. He relaxed back into the pillows, all tousled hair and sleepy eyes and making me want to throw myself over him every bit as much as I wanted to strangle him. “All I’m saying is, I’ve been with women who’ve had a helluva lot more than just one lover, and they didn’t give head like you. You…God, you act like you love it.”

  Maybe he didn’t blush, but me? I blushed. And I could feel a raging, full-body flush surging as I shrugged and looked away. “I do.”

  “Hey.” He reached out and pulled me back over his body until we were nose to nose, hip to hip, our legs tangled together. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have teased. Don’t you understand what a gift that is? To not have to lie there feeling like you’re on the receiving end of some big favor? You were so beautiful to watch, Libby.”

  His voice dropped as he spoke, one hand sliding down between us. “You owned me, Libby. Totally and completely.”

  Amazing how everything could tighten and turn liquid all at the same time. From the smallest of gestures, the simplest of words. Something else I’d missed…so much.

  Little orgasms trembled within as he stroked, taunting with their promise of the larger release that had begun building as I made love to him.

  “How, Libby?”

  His voice was a low, sensuous rumble against my ear, and all I could do was sigh and dig my fingers into his shoulders, but it was enough of an answer for him. “How have you survived?” His breath was a warm caress against my skin before he pulled back, his gaze dark and heated and sending yet another tremor coursing through me, one more step up the intensity scale.

  “Don’t know,” I finally managed to say. “Damn vibrator’s only ever good to take the edge off. Not like this.” I stretched, groping for purchase on his sweaty shoulders.

  “Vibrator?”

  “Mm…” I nodded, moving my hands to his hair. Much easier to grab onto even if it was sweaty too. “Nora decided I needed one.”

  His hand stopped moving. “Your mother gave you a vibrator?”

  “This is Nora we’re talking about.” I sighed. “About six months ago, she told me I was being impossibly crabby and maybe it would help.”

  Silence. Utter silence, then the son of a bitch started laughing.

  “Stop it, Nick, it’s not funny!” I tried to smack him, but even laughing like a damn loon he still managed to catch my hand and hold it against his chest, heaving with his gasping laughter, like it had been forever since he’d laughed like that and the more he laughed, the more it vibrated along my arm and the more I started feeling it. And no matter how much I wanted to be annoyed with him, I couldn’t help but love how joyful he looked and really, it was absurd. So goddamn absurd, and then I was laughing, just as hard as he was, the two of us giggling and wiping tears from our faces.

  Until all of a sudden…it wasn’t about laughing anymore.

  Nick

  “Libby?”

  Silently, she slid from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom while I sat there wondering, What the hell? One minute, we’re laughing, I’m feeling better than I have in months—the next, the joy was gone. And I wasn’t sure how or why.

  Maybe I should leave her alone—but this was Libby. I couldn’t. She had to know I couldn’t. And the fact that the bathroom door was cracked open, that it wasn’t closed and locked? Yeah, she knew. She’d just needed a few seconds of space, for whatever reason.

  “Can I come in?”

  More silence. But it also didn’t have that “Fuck off, asshole” vibe, so I figured her silence pretty much equaled an invitation. Pushing the door further open, I found her sitting on the edge of the tub, her arms crossed over her midsection.

  Kneeling in front of her, I uncrossed her arms and took her hands in mine. “Libby, qué es?”

  She wouldn’t look at me and it was killing me. Especially when a single tear slid down her cheek to the corner of her mouth where it disappeared.

  Another tear, down the opposite cheek, but losing the chance to make it to her mouth as I reached up and caught it with the tip of my tongue, tasting Libby in the salty drop. Imagining I could taste the rage I felt holding her body tense.

  “I just realized again how goddamn tired I am of everyone taking care of me. Nora, Ethan, even Stan, for God’s sake…” Her gaze rose, meeting mine. “Did I tell you he showed up?”

  I leaned back, shaking my head as I tried to remember…Stan, Stan…Oh Jesus. “Your father?”

  Her nod turned to a hard shake of the head as she looked past me. “Yeah. Stan. Playing at being daddy for once in his misbegotten existence.” She sighed, still staring off into the distance. “Poor Stan—that’s so unfair to him. He can’t help how he is, and I know he loves me. I know they all love me, but damn them. They all think I’m so fragile—can’t handle the big, bad world without someone running interference.”

  “Fuck them.”

  I rose, grabbing her upper arms and pulling her up along with me. Gently winding one hand in her hair, I pulled her head back until I could look into her eyes.

  “And fuck everything else, Libby.” I struggled with each word, not sure why I was so angry—just knowing that I was. “Inside these walls, this is our world. And the outside world and anything that’s ever happened out there can go straight to hell.”

  I spun her away from me and p
ressed her up against the bathroom counter, the two of us facing the mirror while I trapped her from behind with my body. “Look at us, Libby,” I whispered against her ear. “This is us—in our world. Anything beyond that door—it has no place here. It just doesn’t exist when we’re together.”

  No hospitals, no cancer…no spouses, because I was just now starting to realize how jealous I was—and hell if I knew why. I had no right to that jealousy. There was no goddamn way I could ever claim it. But in this world she’d only ever been mine, and I’d only ever been hers. Yeah, it was a fantasy, but it was a fantasy we needed.

  I watched her face in the mirror—marveled the range of emotions that crossed it. Her tears and her smile—God, that smile. Watched as she reached an arm up and hooked it around my neck, turning her head so she could kiss me. Turning in my arms, she pulled back far enough to meet my gaze, the connection, without the barrier of the mirror between us, feeling that much more real and tangible, and I could see she got it. She got what I meant. And I could see she felt it, too.

  “Nick.” Her voice was soft but nevertheless intense.

  I kissed her neck, her mouth, as she relaxed against me and allowed me to scoop her up in my arms and let the fantasy take over.

  • • •

  We were back in bed after a shower. I was leaning up against the headboard with Libby draped over me, her head on my shoulder, one arm across my waist, as I stroked her damp hair. For the longest time we stayed like that, quiet, just staring out the window at the reflections the high rises cast on the nighttime waters of the bay.

  “Me gusta.”

  “¿Qué?” I replied, although I had a good idea what she meant.

  “La idea que este mundo es solamente de nosotros.” As she continued in Spanish, I felt another layer of intimacy wrapping around us that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with just us—as we were. One more thing that was uniquely ours—the shared background. The ability to move freely between our two languages, being able to use just the right words to express exactly what we were feeling. It was something I’d never had with another lover. Something I knew she didn’t have with Ethan. That made me tuck her closer against my side and brush a kiss against her mouth.

  I picked up a long piece of hair, held it toward the light from the one lamp we’d left on, checking out all the different shades of brown, even a sort of silver-brown that reminded me of the trees in winter back in Jersey. Like her eyes, her hair at first appeared to be just an ordinary brown, then you realized there was a lot more there. Just like Libby. On the surface, ordinary.

  Like hell.

  “Es igual para mí también, Libby. I like it, too, and…” I dropped her hair and returned my gaze to the window, trying to look beyond the dark.

  “And?”

  I closed my eyes at the warmth of her cheek rubbing against my shoulder, her hand stroking my side. Taking a deep breath, I finally admitted, “No te puedo mentir—it scares me. It scares the hell out of me, just how much I like it.”

  Libby

  March 10

  My eyes snapped open, my thighs clenched and shaking around the hand I had trapped between them, sheet twisted in my other fist as I tried to figure out…where…what…

  “Libby?”

  I blinked, struggling to adjust to the dark. Tried to steady my breathing as I realized—

  My room…my bed…

  “Libby, are you okay?”

  Oh God.

  Like a shot, I was up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, the tile floor cold and hard against the sole of one foot, Sundance’s solid back warm against the other. The contrast was enough to shock the rest of the sleep out of me—what little was left.

  As details of the dream I’d just woken from trickled through the filter of sleep and into my conscious mind, a sharp stab of guilt twisted its way through my stomach, hard and painful. I was in our bedroom, our bed, for God’s sake. Yet I couldn’t deny…even as my stomach continued to twist, leaving me vaguely nauseous, there was also a deep heat coiling through every muscle of my body, tempting me to sink back into the mattress and back into the dream’s seductive embrace. God, I didn’t know it was possible to feel guiltier—but there it was.

  “Libby?”

  “Yeah, Ethan. I’m fine. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, gorgeous, I’m good—Just heard you.”

  “Heard what?” Ay Dios mío, please, please, God…

  “I dunno, exactly.” His voice sounded slurred and sleepy and, God forgive me, sent still more heat through me. “Sounded like you were having a bad dream.”

  Praying my legs would hold me, I stood and crossed the short distance to his bed, Sundance padding alongside. “I’m okay. No bad dreams.” Except the ones where I was losing him, but that wasn’t a sleeping dream, unfortunately.

  “Can I comfort you anyway? Reassure you there’re no monsters under the bed?”

  I could almost hear the smile in that soft, drawled comment. Could even see it, as my eyes adjusted to the dark. “What if I already know there aren’t any monsters?”

  I rested my hand against his cheek, stroking skin that was unnaturally smooth and soft and tried like hell not to think of Nick—his face heavily shadowed with stubble, rough and abrasive and so unbelievably erotic. Once upon a time, Ethan’s beard had been every bit as heavy and a rare source of contention between us. He’d hated shaving, I hated how it scratched.

  What I wouldn’t give to feel that…just one more time.

  And just what kind of lowdown specimen was I that in one breath I could be aroused by the sound of my husband’s voice and the next by the memory of my lover’s skin. A memory that in turn, spurred a memory of my husband’s touch?

  And let’s not forget the part where I had been awakened from an erotic dream starring said lover.

  There simply weren’t words.

  “What if I’m the one who needs comforting?”

  My breath caught, my hand stilling against his cheek. “Ethan, are you really okay?”

  The sheets made a soft sound as he shifted in the bed, making Butch grumble and leap down from his post at the end of the bed to Sundance’s abandoned cushion where he flopped with an indignant huff.

  “I’m really okay, gorgeous. At least as okay as this fucking disease and a dose of Nora’s brownies allows.” His hand reached out and caught mine as it slid from his cheek. “But I miss you. I miss you next to me, your breath on my skin, your legs rubbing against mine. I hate that I’m here in this stupid goddamn bed and you’re across the room in our bed, alone. It’s so unfair.” His voice was low, lacking the humor that usually laced it; instead it was raw with a pain that for once had nothing to do with the cancer eating him alive.

  My eyes were hot and stinging, but I wouldn’t let the tears fall. “But it hurts you so much.”

  “I’m okay,” he repeated. “For the time being.” His laugh was short. “Libby…we won’t have too many more opportunities to just…be.”

  Goddamn him and that honesty. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—turn away. Argue rationale or cite reasons why it was the last thing we should be doing. Especially if—

  Don’t go there.

  Lifting the covers, I slid in next to him, but still kept to the edge of the bed…inexplicably afraid in a way I'd never been before. Until he reached for me, putting a hand on my waist and urging me close and closer still, until our foreheads touched. He sighed, his hand shifting lower to rest on my hip.

  “You feel so unbelievable—so right. Did I ever tell you that enough?”

  And with those words, my fears disappeared—shoved into insignificance by Ethan's need. And my own. I edged closer, exploring the vastly changed contours of his body, caution and fear over causing him pain giving way to desperation. I wrapped myself around him with abandon, sinking into the blessed familiarity that was my husband’s embrace—that had always been the other half of my soul and without which I’d felt so incomplete for so long.

 
His mouth covered mine as he eased up the hem of my sleep shirt, his hands gentle as they cupped first one breast then the other—less so as his long fingers played over my nipples, hardening them almost to the point of pain and making me whimper into his deep kiss. I broke away from him only long enough to pull the shirt off along with my underwear, before taking his face in my hands, returning his kiss with all the feeling I’d been bottling up. At the same time, however, a small piece of me held itself at a remove, maintaining distance. I didn’t want to hurt him—didn’t want to destroy this moment—

  “Liberty, stop it.” He sucked hard on my lower lip, the small, sharp pain focusing my attention, His hands grabbed my wrists in a surprisingly strong grip. “Don’t you dare hold back from me,” he whispered against my mouth.

  Breathing hard, but for the first time in a long while not sounding harsh or labored, he eased me back on the mattress, settling me in the curve of his body, one hand beginning to play over my body with the skill developed over years of practice and experimentation, familiar and, God, so welcome. Stroking small circles over my abdomen, his fingers gradually ventured between my legs, as he lowered his head to my breasts.

  “Ethan, please…” I wanted to beg him to stop, because I didn’t want him to wear himself out. Wanted to beg him to never stop…never leave me.

  “Relax, Libby. Just go with me.” His hand stroked back down between my legs, his fingers teasing over every sensitive spot I owned, rubbing with just enough pressure that I was seeing stars, trapped in that amazing place between too much and not enough. And just as it began to edge past too much, he shifted, sliding his fingers high inside as his palm started rubbing hard circles on the outside and that’s when it became too much, not enough, just enough, everything, all at the same time.

  “Ethan.”

  I lost myself completely then, clutching his neck, his shoulders the way I always had—pulling his mouth to mine and sinking into the pleasure even as I strained for more.