“And...and again?” Her bottom lip trembles. She bites it.
I kiss her and draw her lip into my mouth, so I can bite it, instead. “And again,” I whisper, “until you can’t even walk.”
That does it. She moans once more and sinks her nails into my shoulders, then pulls me in with her legs as far as I can go, holding me there so that every inch of my erection is bathed in her orgasm.
I almost finish, right then and there. It takes all my brainpower to divert my attention from her spasming muscles or the noises flowing out of her.
When it ends, she looks like she might cry.
I slip out of her; it’s the only way I can stop myself from coming. Even her shivering is too much, right now.
“Where next?” I ask, kissing her until she unlocks her body from mine.
“Anywhere,” she manages.
We move to the armchair. This time she gets on top, even though I know I run a serious risk of finishing sooner than I want to: if she’s in control, I’m a goner.
So, instead of sitting back and relaxing when she lowers herself onto me, I grab her hips. I let her set the pace first.
As soon as she shuts her eyes and starts to lose herself in the feeling, I bring her down onto me harder and harder, each time. Her face tilts to the ceiling.
I pull one of her nipples into my mouth, relentless, while my hand finds her swollen clitoris. My rhythm is fast, powerful—and has her coming again in about four seconds.
“It—it’s still...it’s still h-happening,” she stutters. Her arms wind around my neck and pull me close. We stay perfectly still while her orgasm pulses through her body.
When she’s spent, I gently lift her off me and help her to the kitchen. She’s forgotten about the challenge. Good thing, too. I’ve practically won, already.
“Tell me where.” I sweep my free arm around the room; the other is supporting her weakened, pleasure-wracked body. I can’t even pretend it doesn’t kickstart my ego like a Nobel Prize. “Dining table? Countertop?” I pause and nod to the French doors. “Golf course?”
Mara regains some composure and makes her own way to the island. She pats it; I help her up. “Pumpkin Spice Central will be just fine,” she says. As she shoves a container of pumpkin cake aside and opens her legs for me, she adds, “But let’s revisit that golf course thing, sometime.”
My erection aches as I slide it into her sex, now soaked and somehow even tighter. That “sometime” won’t be tonight. I know I can only take one more of Mara’s orgasms before I dive headfirst over the edge. Her arms struggle to hold herself up, and the sight feels like it could shatter me.
But still: there will be a “sometime.” She said so herself.
The liquor in my system evaporates. I’m completely lucid now, and other than a post-orgasm fog, she seems sober, too. With so much adrenaline and need in our veins, there’s no room for anything else.
“Yes, yes…oh, God, keep doing that.”
The countertop is slick from her—from everything I’m doing to her. Every thrust pushes her back a little more. I tighten my grip on her ass and pull her back.
My body’s on fire. The edges of my vision blur, and I know I’m dangerously close.
“Mara,” I warn, when suddenly, we hear a crash.
We freeze. Our chests rise and fall in sync with each other.
“I think,” she whispers, pulling a piece of her hair from her mouth, “we broke the sugar bowl.”
My laugh echoes against the tile floor when I look down and see, sure enough, a pile of clay shards.
“Good,” I tell her, and kiss her until our laughter stops.
“There’s...one more place we could…go,” she pants. “If...you want to.”
I pull out and help her stand instead of answering. I know where she means.
Bringing Mara into my bedroom doesn’t feel wrong, or even awkward, the way I feared it would. Maybe that’s because I’ve thought of it as “my” bedroom, nothing but a place to lose sleep, for so long.
The bed barely makes a sound as I kiss her, guiding her back against my pillows. She sighs happily when I push inside again.
“Levi, it feels so good, I....” Her voice fades into another whimper. I notice teardrops at the corners of her eyes.
“I know, baby.” I kiss her one last time.
She doesn’t have to tell me she’s close; I don’t have to tell her. We’re in exactly the same place, together.
My release surges, an electrical storm through my core. I sink into her and moan when she does, the sounds melting together until I can’t tell which of us is louder, or if we’re even loud at all. Her sex quakes and brings me to the highest point, where my brain washes blank.
All I can think of is the pleasure rushing through her at the same rate, in this same moment. How incredible it feels to know I gave it to her.
The calm settles around us. I withdraw slowly.
“You win,” she whispers, then swallows the dryness from her mouth. “There’s no way in hell I can walk.”
I laugh and pull the blanket around us as her eyes shut. When I kiss her forehead, she smiles.
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “You can stay right here.”
20
For the first time in my life, I don’t cringe when I turn over and see the same face in the morning I saw the night before.
There’s no dread-filled urge to gather my stuff, no mapping out an escape route, and no itch under my skin propelling me out the door before I’m caught like a mom playing Tooth Fairy.
“Good morning,” he grins sleepily. God, it sounds even better than when he tells me goodnight.
“Morning.” He kisses my forehead. I kiss his chin.
So this is what staying feels like. Gotta say: it’s not bad.
“Stupid question,” he says, and pushes my hair behind my ear, “but...you’re not still looking at that place today, are you?”
“Depends. You sure you want me for a long-term roommate?” I take a breath to steady my nerves. This is amazing, being here with him and not wanting to bolt—but it is still new to me. I’m bound to be a little nervous. “I leave makeup everywhere, never put away my laundry....”
“Believe me, I’ve noticed.” He touches his forehead to mine and shuts his eyes, growing serious. “I don’t want you to move out, Mara.”
My heart’s doing an Olympic-caliber floor routine through my chest. I’ve never felt anything like it.
“I don’t want to, either.”
We rise slowly, stretching against each other and laughing. When he invites me to shower with him (another first for me), I can’t follow fast enough.
Under the warm, tumbling water, he kisses me. It takes me back to that night in the snowstorm: the two of us in the center of some swirling force, only aware of each other.
That was the night I knew I wanted him. But it took me until a few hours ago to understand why.
It was more than physical. I’d known all along he’d be a good fuck—I just had no clue he’d surpass that title in mere minutes, from “good” to bone-rattling. No: earth-shattering. Soul-shaking.
“I know, baby,” he’d whispered, when I couldn’t even speak anymore, reduced to tears by what he did to me. By how much I wanted him. It was in that exact moment I knew one night would never be enough.
While we shower, teasing each other with soapy hands and slick skin, he asks if he can take me on a date.
“Like, tonight?”
“Sure. Or, you know...right now. The only thing I had scheduled today was seeing that rental with you.”
For some reason, the sweet tilt of his head embarrasses me. “You don’t have to. I mean, last night was kind of a date. We had drinks, we had sex.” I shrug, like that’s basically all there is to it. For me, that’s all it ever is.
“Last night was not a date,” he says resolutely. “It was awesome, don’t get me wrong—but it wasn’t how I usually treat a woman I...” His voice dips, drowned in the water a
nd steam. He wipes his face. “...like.”
I smile and blush, then poke his ribs. “I like you, too. And if you insist on taking me on a date, the least I can do is suggest a place I know you’ll love.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asks, scrubbing his face again. “Where’s that?”
“Pumpkin Fest.” I read the banner and give Mara an impressed smile. “Sure you can endure an entire afternoon of pumpkin spice?”
“Pumpkin spice, yes. You around pumpkin spice? That’s a different story.” She stoops to tie her boot, thanking me when I help her back up. “But lucky for me, this place has plenty to offer besides the sweet stuff you like. Look—pumpkin chili.”
We approach the tent hand-in-hand. With last night still fresh in my memory, Mara swinging my hand, and the cool, bright fall air sweeping through the farmer’s market square, I’m suddenly the happiest I’ve been in...well. In years, if I’m honest with myself.
Mara takes a bite of the chili immediately. “This is so good,” she sighs, even while fanning her mouth to cool it off. “Here, try some.”
I reach for the spoon, but she feeds me a bite, instead. She even blows on it first.
“Not bad. I still like sweet pumpkin stuff more than savory, but this is better than I expected.”
Mara’s eyes linger on my mouth. She swipes my lip with her thumb.
“This is weird,” she says quietly, “that it’s not weird.”
I nod. I expected my first date after the divorce to be awkward and rigid, if it ever happened. For a long time, I couldn’t even picture it.
Then, gradually, I saw pieces of what could be. Dinner with candles, movies in the dark, and my hand around someone else’s, a woman with shifting features and no real identity. Somehow, I never once pictured anyone like Mara. Now I don’t think I could picture anyone else. I wouldn’t want to.
The festival is set up in a wheel pattern, with a concert at the hub. We get beer at a truck nearby—pumpkin ale for me, normal light beer for her—and stand by the stage a while, sipping and swaying to the music. Mara leans into me when I put my arm around her shoulders.
Off and on, I think about last night. Not the sex, surprisingly enough, but everything before that. She was so outraged at Lindsay’s behavior on my behalf, ready to get me some justice however she could. My heart still races at the thought of her kissing me, and that sudden moment when things seemed to tip from pretend into reality. I forgot about everything, and everyone, else.
“Hey,” I call, when the music builds. She turns her head, ready to ask what, when I kiss her. I feel her knees give a little against my leg.
“I keep thinking about that night at the hospital,” she says, after we drift our way from the stage to a quiet, shaded spot in front of a church, where some families are picnicking with their festival food. “How...different we both are, now.” Her arms wrap around her knees, chin resting there as we watch passersby. “I feel different, at least.”
“Me, too.” I shake my head, wanting so much to explain it. “I always think of myself in this ‘before and after’ way. The guy I was before my business, who had fun and joked around—and the guy I was after, who did nothing but work.” I pause. “And now neither feels totally right.”
“Then there must be a third guy,” she says simply. “One who’s in-between. Learning how to balance ‘absurdly serious’ with ‘having fun.’”
“Huh. Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. It’s not like I’ve forgotten how to have fun, I just…need a refresher.”
I watch her pick a blade of grass from the patch underneath us, position it between her thumbs in front of her mouth, and blow. The blade whistles like a kazoo.
“Like that,” I laugh, before finding my own piece to do the same. “I can’t even tell you the last time I did that. Or just sat on some grass, actually.”
When I try to make it whistle, Mara laughs at the pathetic whoosh of air I produce.
“Practice,” she assures me. “You’ll get it back.”
I nod. It already feels like I’ve gotten something back, even if I can’t pinpoint what.
“You know,” she says, taking a breath as she shakes the grass off her hand, “the night we got in that fight? I thought—and please don’t take this the wrong way—I thought you were...kind of pathetic, for believing that relationships could still work, after what you’d been through.”
My smile and shifting jaw show her this isn’t news to me. I figured that was exactly what she thought.
“But,” she goes on, “I’ve kind of changed my mind about that.”
“How so?”
Her fingers fidget with more grass, tearing the blades into pieces the size of pepper flakes. “It’s inspiring, really. That you can still think that way, even when you’ve seen the other side.” She looks at me during the exact moment the clouds clear overhead; her eyes shine in the sunlight. “It makes me think, you know...just because I haven’t seen the good side of relationships yet, doesn’t mean—”
“Excuse me.” A white-haired man in a dress shirt steps onto the curb in front of us. “Are you...are you Mara Peterson?”
“Peterson?” I glance at her, expecting her to be every bit as confused as I am.
Instead, she’s giving this man a look I’ve never seen her give. It goes miles beyond “serious.” She looks like she hates him.
“No,” she says, and gets to her feet before I can steady our beers on the ground behind her. “Come on, Levi.”
I gather the cups and scramble after her. I can’t help looking over my shoulder at the guy, who’s still standing on the curb, staring at the back of her head while she stalks away.
“Mara,” I whisper, “who is that?”
We turn the corner of the church and wind through the booths and tents on the side street. Her arms are folded against her chest with impossible tightness.
“My dad.”
My legs freeze. I don’t know why. I also don’t know why I turn and look again; he’s well out of sight, by now.
Nope—he’s following.
“Get me out of here.” Her voice breaks, but she swallows when she looks back and spots him. “Please.”
My instinct is to tell her to stay and hear him out. If we’re really different today, if things have changed as much as it feels like they have, then there’s no better time for new beginnings.
Then I look at her scar.
It doesn’t matter how many tutorials she watches, or how many makeup samples spill out of those shopping bags she brings home. Even if she could cover the scar, or get rid of it completely, it wouldn’t stop existing. Not in the ways that matter.
I might think talking is best, and I might wish every day I had the chance to talk to my dad. I might think, deep down, that Mara is kind of lucky her father tries, because mine didn’t. But what I think and what she’s lived are two totally different things. It’s not my place to make her stay.
“In here.” I steer her to a side door of the church. It closes with a heavy, slow thunk behind us.
The chapel is cool and smells like old stone. It’s an historic landmark; foot traffic from the festival mills through the main doors at the end of the aisle. People pause to admire the stained glass windows and read facts off the brass plaques bolted into the walls.
“Thank you.” Mara shakes out her arms and wilts against one of the ledges under a window. Sunlight spills through the colored glass, casting a halo of bright blue and royal purple around her head.
I know I’m on eggshells, here. Whatever I ask, however I ask it, she probably won’t take it well.
“I, uh...I thought your dad lived in Indiana.”
“He does. Did. I don’t know.” She rubs her temples. “He’s been calling me more lately. I never answer.”
“Peterson.” The name feels strange on my tongue. “When did you change it to Fulbright?”
She stares at her boots, coated in dust from the market square. “When my mom and I moved here. It’s her maiden name.”
<
br /> “You never did tell me what happened to her.” When she slides to the thick, navy carpet, I do the same. “Did she...pass away?”
“I wish.” When I reel, she explains herself. “She lives in a nursing home in Maryland, where my uncle Danny moved to. All the junk caught up with her when I was in high school.”
“She started using again?”
“No, she was still clean. Far as I know, anyway. But apparently using it before fucked up her heart and her veins.” Mara picks a thread off her jeans and lets it flutter to the floor. “Two strokes in two days.”
“Shit,” I sigh. She nods. “So if she’s in a nursing home, I’m guessing she’s not…. I mean, can she walk, or take care of herself at all, or—”
“She’s basically a vegetable. Barely talks, spends her days strapped into a wheelchair, staring off into space. They feed her baby food, give her sponge baths, put her in diapers.” Slowly, Mara wets her lips. “So it might sound totally awful, but I do wish she was dead. She shouldn’t have to live like that.”
I find her hand, upturned and limp on the carpet. All the fight that flashed in her eyes before seems to have drained out of her.
“She doesn’t even remember me anymore.” She muffles her sniffling in the sleeve of her jacket. “I stopped visiting a couple years ago, which pisses Danny off. But what’s the fucking point, you know?”
I nod, even though I don’t know. I would still visit my mom, no matter how sick she was or how little she remembered me. I’d still listen to what my dad had to say, if nothing else. But I also don’t have to carry the scars of my family’s mistakes with me, every single day.
“He ruined her life,” she whispers, anger filling her voice, eyes, even her posture, all over again.
Little by little, her hands slips out of mine.
When we leave the church, my father is still waiting for me.
He hasn’t seen us yet. The door is set back in the stone; he’s across the street and down a ways, sitting on the sidewalk while he checks his phone.
Honey, When It Ends: The Fairfields | Book Two Page 13