A Splendid Obsession

by Cathleen Galitz

  Not intentionally.

  Wrapping one arm around her waist, Dave stroked the bare skin of her exposed back with the other, deliberately grazing the sides of her breasts along the way. He was driving her crazy. Involuntarily, Kayanne arched like a cat and heard herself purr. She felt him reach for the delicate clasp at her neck, which he undid with an expert flick of his finger.

  The silky fabric slipped away to reveal her bare breasts, and Kayanne fought the urge to cover herself. Her nipples tightened into perfect tight rosebuds as Dave stepped back to admire his handiwork.

  “Wow,” was all he could manage to say before following his gaze with greedy fingers. He touched her gently, cupping her in his big masculine hands, fondling her and brushing his palms across her taut nipples. Then he kneeled in front of her to take her in his mouth. He sucked with all of his mouth, teeth, lips and tongue all working together to render her powerless.

  When her knees almost buckled and Kayanne could handle no more, she said in a raspy whisper, “Stand up.”

  When he complied, she rewarded him by grabbing both sides of his shirt and yanking it open. Buttons plinked as they hit the hardwood floor. She reached around to undo her own zipper. Her dress pooled on the floor. Dave pulled his shirt out of his pants, tore it off and draped it on the banister. Socks and shoes were abandoned on the way up the stairs. His briefs hung on the doorknob of his bedroom door.

  Kayanne didn’t take the time to appreciate the simple masculinity of Dave’s bedroom with its sparsely decorated walls and big, comfy bed. One minute she was standing wearing nothing but lacy panties with a matching garter belt holding up her nylons, and the next she was lying naked on her back atop the fluffy comforter. They didn’t bother turning the sheets back.

  They were two people coming apart at the seams, desperate to find out whether kisses that melted bodies could do the same to their souls. Under the circumstances, it was a wonder that Dave had the wherewithal to remember the condoms he kept in the top drawer of his dresser. A tangle of limbs, they clawed at one another in a frenzy. Naked flesh was hot upon naked flesh. Searing, slick, demanding, the feelings simmering between them since the first time they’d exchanged curious glances came to the surface as immediate and scalding as lava pumping over the edge of a volcano.

  Entwining her hands at the nape of Dave’s neck, Kayanne riffled through his hair and found it soft to the touch. She breathed in the musky fragrance that was only part cologne and all him. It stimulated her need to taste him. She licked the salt from his neck and found it good upon her tongue.

  His hands clasped the back of her head and drew her away so that she had no choice but to look straight into the eyes of the man who was about to make love to her.

  “Hurry,” she commanded.

  Willing and wanting, she had never been so ready for a man.

  Happy to comply, Dave positioned himself strategically over her. Women could say what they would about size not mattering, but Kayanne begged to differ. When Dave showed himself to her in all his masculine splendor, she gasped. Then ran a painted fingernail down the length of his hard sex. And up again.

  His skin stretched even tighter. She took him in one hand and squeezed gently, lingering when he moaned. Holding him thus, she felt the full extent of her feminine power.

  “You like holding me in the palm of your hand, don’t you?” he asked, and she knew he meant it as much symbolically as literally. The hard edge to his voice told Kayanne that she was playing with fire.

  “I do,” she admitted, succumbing to her need to have him inside her.

  Dave paused only long enough to reach for the ripe globes of her breasts. He held them in his hands as if they were matching chalices of pure gold, then dipped his head to suck greedily at their swollen nipples. Kayanne fought the urge to beg him to take her immediately. He sheathed himself with protection before pressing himself against her engorged entrance and kissing her deeply. Unable to stand the sheer bliss of his lips and hands and manhood upon her at once, she tore her mouth away from his and screamed when he entered her.

  Slick and hard, he filled her in ways that no other man ever had. Her scream echoed his moans of ecstasy. Grasping her buttocks in both hands, he plunged into her with an unnecessary apology on his lips.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured.

  “You won’t,” she assured him, alternately mewling and purring.

  I’ll never let anybody hurt me again. Not even you….

  Releasing his hold on her thick mane of hair, Dave pillaged her body with his hands. As a starving man savoring the rarest delicacy, he devoured her as if fearing nothing would ever taste as sweet again.

  Kayanne couldn’t make out the words he muttered. Were they words of love? Or oaths protesting her power over him?

  Straining for release, he climaxed in an act that was poetry to behold. Usually Kayanne held herself back and watched with a certain amount of disinterest men’s foolish attempts to dominate her either physically or emotionally. This time was different.

  This time, Dave took her along with him for the ride, cresting only when he was certain she was ready to climax. It happened so fast that she had no chance to restrain herself, to pull back emotionally, let alone to analyze the situation. Never had Kayanne made love with such abandon. Never had she felt so free. So wild. So completely beautiful inside and out.

  When Dave exploded in her arms, it was all she could do to keep from crying.

  Holding on to her last shard of dignity, she dug her nails into his broad back and smothered any endearments that might make her sound needy. It was a long trip back to the reality of her own skin. If there was such a thing as heaven on earth, Kayanne was convinced that this had to be it. It was as close to perfection as she had ever known.

  And just as she’d feared, it was more addictive than any spirits she’d ever tried.

  Slick and wet and spent, they clung to one another in the darkness as orphans tossed upon tumultuous emotional seas. The rare man who understood the value of after-play, Dave held her tenderly, stroking the length of her arm with his fingertips. His deep breath warmed her bare skin. Placing her head against his chest, Kayanne was reassured by the steady thumping of his heart. She feathered kisses on his chest and contemplated the pull between the ordinary and the sublime. It was so powerful, it rivaled the miracle of the white light that had appeared out of nowhere to mend her tattered heart.

  Was it possible that God was not stingy with His miracles as to grant but one a customer?

  For a brief, shining moment, Kayanne let herself imagine someone as good and decent as Dave loving someone as tarnished and world-weary as herself. Images flashed into her mind’s eye, imprinting themselves upon her soul. Wholesome images that were far from glamorous. And far more appealing. Images of Dave lifting her hair off her neck to nibble playfully while she did the dishes. Slapping his hand in jest as he sneaked a bite from the meal she had simmering on the stove. Waking him in the morning with a hot cup of coffee and a smattering of kisses. Cheerful morning glories entwined in the front picket fence. A baby curled up in a crib.

  Of course, planting emotional roots meant taking risks, and Kayanne wasn’t sure she could ever commit to that. Still, the possibility of starting life over with a man whose love went more than skin deep took hold of her imagination. And refused to let go.

  Out of the darkness came a startling question that shattered their companionable silence along with any illusions Kayanne might have had about finding protection from the past in the sanctuary of Dave’s strong arms.

  “Would you mind telling me who Pete Nargas is?”

  Kayanne wondered if he was asking because of that stupid “black widow” remark made at the reunion. As idiotic and irrational as the man who’d made it, the comment still had the power to wound her deeply.

  “He was my first real boyfriend,” she said, keeping her voice deliberately flat.

  Dave drew a heart on her shoulder with his index finger.
Kayanne had no idea why that tender gesture opened a door that had been nailed shut for so long, but suddenly she felt the need to share with him everything that she’d kept bottled up inside her.

  “He was the hometown darling. Captain of the basketball team. Honor student. A genuinely nice boy.”

  The problem, she went on to explain, was that he fell madly in love with her.

  “I, on the other hand, was more in love with the idea of being in love,” she admitted. “But I did care for him a great deal. It was just that I had my own dreams at the time, and they didn’t include enrolling in the local community college and being pregnant at seventeen.”

  She wondered why she should expect Dave to understand when no one else had. Did she sound as selfish to him as she sounded to herself?

  And as guilty?

  “Pete was obsessed with me. He couldn’t handle it when I wanted to break up with him. Eventually, to spare his feelings, I accepted a promise ring that I shouldn’t have and tried to make something work that wasn’t meant to be. I finally broke up with him officially after the prom. It was an ugly scene. He threatened to kill me. When that failed to change my mind, he said he’d maim me so that no other man would ever want me. The thought of me being with anyone else drove him crazy, I guess.”

  The terror of his threats remained with her to this day. And were part of the reason she was afraid to let anyone get close to her.

  It was hard not to interpret the silence that followed her disclosure as a personal indictment. Jagged blades of regret filled the space between them. Kayanne had never been able to forgive herself for what had happened next. She wished there was some way to make the re-telling easier.

  There wasn’t.

  Kayanne hadn’t spoken of the incident indepth to anyone except Jason DeWinter. Considering where that had gotten her, she was understandably hesitant to unlock that door again. Sighing, she wiped imaginary blood from her hands onto the sheet.

  “He killed himself shortly after I broke up with him. Left a suicide note that everyone in town saw as a condemnation of me personally.”

  She took a moment to compose herself before continuing.

  “Aside from the craziness at the end, Pete was basically a good boy. He wasn’t the type to pressure me into having sex. Said he wanted to marry a virgin.”

  “Ah, honey,” Dave mumbled into the cascade of auburn hair spread upon his pillow. Though he tightened his grip around her shoulders, his embrace remained infinitely tender.

  “Does that mean Jason DeWinter was your first?”

  Kayanne nodded against his shoulder. Suddenly she was sobbing for all the times she hadn’t been able to shed a single tear. Like a dam giving way to years of neglect and building pressure, she crumbled and was swept away by the force of those memories.

  “I should have decked that son of a bitch when I had the chance,” Dave told her.

  Kayanne was surprised by the vehemence of his reaction. She’d been waiting for him to do what everyone else in town had done at the time—blame her for Pete’s death and call her a home wrecker. A slut without any morals whatsoever.

  “Jason was young, too,” she reminded him.

  Dave’s voice grew hard. “You might be willing to forgive that cretin, but I’m not. Downplay it all you want, but what he did was wrong. On many levels.”

  He leaned up on his elbow to look into her tear-streaked face. Kayanne did her best to focus on what he had to say and not the effect he had on her physically.

  “None of it was your fault. You were a high-school student, and he was a counselor. He took advantage of you when you most needed adult guidance. The man should be in prison.”

  Kayanne put a hand on the hard plane of Dave’s chest. “It was all such a long time ago,” she said with a long-suffering sigh.

  The last thing she needed in her life was more scandal. She remembered her mother sitting her down shortly after Pete’s death and asking if she’d done anything to lead Mr. DeWinter on. Hearing that question spoken aloud by the one person who shouldn’t have had to ask had sent Kayanne lurching out of the nest on wobbly, wet wings.

  Looking back on her youth from the safety of Dave’s cozy bed, she could analyze things more clearly than when her world had been caving in around her. Associating her lack of intimacy with Pete at least in part for why he killed himself, she had given herself to Jason as a form of penance. One that had sent her ricocheting from one bad relationship to another ever since.

  Kayanne had trusted her father and Pete, both of whom had betrayed her by dying. Then she’d put her trust in Jason, who had used her and thrown her to the wolves. Was it any wonder she was commitment-phobic? In her mind, love was inexorably mixed up with death, deception and atonement, thus making her recent yearning for domesticity all the more confusing.

  Moved by the fact that Dave, now knowing what he did, still felt the need to defend her, she considered the possibility that he might be different enough from other men to risk taking a chance on. The biggest problem was that all the romantic relationships she’d been in since high school had revolved around alcohol. Kayanne might be willing to put her battered heart on a platter one more time, but she could not afford to risk her hard-fought sobriety.

  No matter how promising the relationship might be.

  Or how wonderful the man might be.

  It wasn’t right to let Dave go on thinking that she’d played the part of the poor victim for the past decade. The night seemed made for confessions.

  “Listen,” she said, laying her history before Dave like a stained rug. “I don’t want to mislead you. I’m no fair maiden who needs to be rescued from an ivory tower. I’ve been with lots of men since Jason DeWinter, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to run around trying to beat all of them up.”

  Kayanne held her breath waiting for him to explode. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d left a man’s bed with an oath on his lips. Forrester probably would have slapped her for such an antagonistic remark, but once again Dave proved to be cut from a finer cloth.

  “You’re right,” he admitted, leaning down to kiss her on the lips. And cheeks. And earlobes. And on closed eyelids where, despite every attempt to push him away, Kayanne could not erase flickering images of spending the rest of her life with such a good and gentle man.

  “First of all,” he said, attempting to set the record straight, “I’m the one who needs to be rescued from an ivory tower. And secondly, now that you’re with me, you can forget about those other men because they don’t matter anymore.”

  Ten

  Kayanne’s heart soared like a kite far above the tedious fields where mere mortals played. Never could she have imagined Dave reacting to her candor in such a generous, high-minded fashion. Perhaps a second chance at love wasn’t entirely out of the question for her after all. For one glittering moment, she walked up to the home of her dreams and peered right in the window. Tender images of living with this man, having his babies and sharing the rest of her life with him provided a glimpse of heaven on earth.

  Then she spied that same bottle of whiskey that had been sitting half-empty on Dave’s front porch the first time they’d met. Kayanne knew that just because she didn’t want to drink anymore didn’t mean Dave shouldn’t be able to imbibe. History confirmed the fact that most of her favorite writers did their best work while under the influence, and she had no reason to believe that Dave was any different.

  As much as Kayanne wanted to believe that she could be around other people who were drinking without slipping into dangerous old habits, she simply couldn’t afford to trust herself so early in her recovery. The urge to drink was still strong in her, and she doubted it would ever completely go away. It had taken all of her willpower tonight just to resist temptation. Had Dave not been by her side at the reunion, she might have fallen off the wagon and landed face first in the spiked punch. It didn’t take much of an imagination for her to envision a night that could have ended far differently.
<
br />   Alcohol abuse was the reason she’d left Forrester, and Kayanne was convinced that if she wanted to maintain her sobriety, she would have to die an old maid. She wanted to believe that a woman could have a full and meaningful life without a man. Seeing Mrs. Rawlins again reassured her that being alone wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Satiated from mind-boggling sex and enjoying the warmth of Dave’s strong body, however, Kayanne wasn’t sure she wanted to live such a life.

  It was important to weigh her present sense of euphoria against waking up clearheaded every morning. Nor could she dismiss the mysterious white light that had enveloped her when she’d forgiven Mr. DeWinter. Kayanne believed it to be a sign from God. Counting herself lucky not to have accidentally killed somebody before coming to her senses, she didn’t want to risk stumbling back into her old life of missed appointments, meaningless relationships, drunk driving and fuzzy thinking.

  As tempting as it might be to wrap herself in a lovely cotton-candy fantasy, Kayanne couldn’t quite bring herself to believe in happily-ever-afters for people like her. Flesh-and-blood people who made awful mistakes that no amount of penitence could fix. Should she ever fall back into her old ways, the possibility of dragging Dave down with her was untenable. She never wanted him to regard her as she’d ultimately come to see Forrester—as a mean, hopeless drunk.

  Dave lay in the dark with Kayanne in his arms and tears in his eyes. Long after her breath had ebbed to a steady rhythm, he continued stroking her hair. He couldn’t have fashioned a more tragic history for her had he written it himself. Having crossed the line between fact and fiction, he could no more return to looking at her life objectively through a writer’s microscope than he could turn his feelings on and off. He literally ached for her.

  Kayanne made him want to be the man that she thought he was. A better man. The kind who could slay dragons and make her laugh at the same time.