He felt her fingers stroke the pulse point at the base of his neck, then feather over his throat to rest lightly at his collarbone before they played with the button again. “Your heart is racing,” she whispered.
He couldn’t answer. Conscious thought dissolved. He felt the first button give way. She trailed a finger along the skin she had exposed. The second button followed the first’s example. So did the third and fourth. She kissed the base of his throat and murmured against it.
He felt her hands brush his chest, parting his shirt. He could feel each separate finger splayed across his rib cage. Her lips were warm and soft against his skin. His eyes closed, and without thinking he arched to give her better access.
She unfastened the remainder of the buttons with impatient swipes of her hand. Then she eased the shirt off his shoulders until it fell to the floor. “Thomas,” she said, moving back to see him better, “you’re beautiful.”
“Aren’t I supposed to tell you that?” His voice sounded strange. Hoarse and muffled.
“Not in the twenty-first century. Not unless the spirit moves you.”
The spirit moved him. He lifted the hem of her shirt, a bright fuchsia, and slipped it over her breasts, over her upraised arms, over her head. Her skin was a warm rose, and her breasts, after he removed the bra, were the same provocative hue.
“You are beautiful,” he said.
“Touch me.” She moved closer, and her eyelids fluttered shut. “Tell me I’m beautiful with your hands.”
He told himself he knew how she would feel against his palm, but reality was so much sweeter. He hadn’t remembered that a woman could feel this way, that the differences he took for granted were so enticing, so overwhelmingly seductive.
She threw her head back and moaned as his thumb traced slow circles around one nipple. “Sweet and slow and perfect,” she said. “This is perfect, Thomas.”
The part of his mind that could still form words wondered how perfect their lovemaking would remain. He was aching for her already, a man who’d been celibate too long, face-to-face with the most enchanting temptress he had ever known. But what would happen when she was in his arms, pleading for release?
As if she knew his thoughts, she opened her eyes. “I want you, too,” she whispered. “But maybe I’ll be the one who doesn’t please. That’s always a possibility, isn’t it? This takes so much trust.”
He pulled her to him and felt her naked torso melt against his. Her hair danced over the backs of his hands; her lips caressed each place they touched. He slipped his hands inside the waistband of her panties, and the elastic stretched to accommodate him. His hands were filled with her flesh; his senses reeled at the onslaught. He was aware of fear, but more aware of desire. He wondered if he had ever wanted anything else as he wanted this.
“There’s a bed in the next room,” she said. “Our room.”
He had never slept there with Patricia. She had always chosen the room upstairs, so he could prowl the downstairs at night without waking her. The bed downstairs was narrower and old-fashioned, made for lovers who wanted to spend the night entwined in each other’s arms.
She led him by the hand. At the bedside she slipped off the rest of her clothes as naturally as if he had always intimately known her body. When she was naked except for a white patch of gauze and adhesive on her shoulder, she straightened and faced him.
He could have told her she was beautiful again, but the words seemed trite. She was all women, and still, somehow, only herself. She was everything female and enduring, a symphony of fluid, changing lines and curves. He understood why ancient man had revered and honored woman’s fertility. He understood how men had been brought to their knees throughout history by the feminine form.
She held out her arms, but he didn’t want to go to her clothed. He undressed as quickly, as easily as she had. Her smile was all-knowing. “I won’t repeat myself,” she said.
She sat on the edge of the bed; then, as sinuously as a cat, she rolled to her side, leaving room for him to join her. He stretched out beside her, riveted by her expression. She believed the battle was won. She knew her powers, and she could see his response.
She stroked his shoulder, but her eyes never left his. Her hand glided down his arm, then rested at his waist. She leaned forward, their gazes were still locked until the last moment before she kissed him.
Her hand trailed fire, moving slowly over the part of him whose ultimate destiny was to give her pleasure. His response was immediate. He moved against her hand as she wrapped her fingers around him. He felt one long leg drape over his hip as she inched closer. And all the while her hand worked potent magic.
He couldn’t touch her enough. His palms, his fingers were limited receptors. He wanted to know her with all his senses, to immerse himself in her purest essence. He touched her breast with his lips, savoring the salt-tinged warmth of her skin. He filled his lungs with the erotic fragrance of her flesh. His eyes feasted on the hills and valleys of her body.
She was everywoman, that marvelous, enduring creature who from the beginning of time had peopled the earth with her hard-won bounty. But she was more; she was Garnet, the woman who could be his for all time—if he allowed her to be. The woman who wanted to make him whole again.
He moved away from her touch and leaned over her to better explore this prize. Her smile was as old as woman’s first triumph. Her eyelids fluttered shut as he touched her again with his lips. Then, as he moved over her with the slow stealth of shadows at nightfall, she gasped and murmured endearments.
She was so alive in his arms. He wondered how any man could resist her. Every cell of his body seemed to swell with longing, but especially that intimate part that had betrayed him since Patricia’s death. But never in the years since had he tried to make love to a woman he loved. Sex had been intended as a momentary release. Now it was more. So much more. Garnet was not just a woman; he was not using her in a way that was against all his principles. She was his woman. He loved her, despite not wanting to. He loved her, and she was his wife.
“Thomas, come to me,” she said.
He had almost convinced himself that this time would be different, but as she pulled him over her, the fears returned, faint, nagging voices inside his head that fought to be amplified. He could feel her lips drinking the passion of his, feel the lush curves of her body press against him. For a moment, for one brief, victorious moment, he knew that she would win against the voices—that he would win—and they would become one.
And then he knew there would be no victory.
The longing didn’t disappear. He had never wanted anything so much. His body screamed for release at the same time that it denied him the possibility. In seconds he went from man to eunuch. Half a man.
He sank against her, unable to complete what she had begun. Her fingers dug into his back, then soothed him with gentle caresses. She kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his lips. “Rest a moment, and we’ll try again,” she whispered.
He would have, if there had been any point to it, but there wasn’t. That much he knew. “No.”
She was silent for a moment. “I told you it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t,” she said at last. “What matters is that you want me, and that you trusted me.”
He wanted to believe her; he also wanted to scream that she was lying, that this mattered more than anything. He moved away from her and lay beside her, his hand over his eyes.
She lifted his hand. Her hair snaked provocatively along his chest. Her eyes gazed into his. “You’re a wonderful lover, Thomas Stonehill,” she said huskily. “We’ve just got to work on the ending a little.”
He pulled her closer so that her head lay against his chest and held her so that he didn’t have to see her expression. He heard her small, surprised gasp as his hand moved over her. He parted her legs and sought the most intimate part of her. She gasped again, explosively this time, but she didn’t move away. She twisted, then moved against him, giving him freer access.
She moved with him, and when he bent to kiss her breasts, she gasped again. He could experience her pleasure building by the mounting tension in her body. She was more beautiful in this last moment of passion then she had ever been before. Restless and completely sensual, and somehow pure. There could be no artifice, no pretense. She was a woman, his woman, letting desire claim her.
And when it had, she lay in his arms, boneless with exhaustion. He cradled her head against his shoulder. He wanted to weep, although everything that made him a man told him he couldn’t.
“I don’t know if I could have been that generous,” she said.
“Generous?” He stroked her hair. “I wanted to give you pleasure. As much for myself as for you.”
“You did.”
He knew he should move away. He had only proved how impossible their marriage was. But he was as powerless to leave her now as he was to make love to her.
The day to leave her would come soon enough.
“I’ve imagined sleeping with you,” she said. “You wouldn’t sprawl. You probably don’t sleep that deeply. And even though some people might think you’re aloof, I know better. You wouldn’t move away to find your own space. You would sleep with your arms around me. Not too tightly, because you’d still want me to feel free. The perfect man to sleep with.”
Perfect except in the most important way. But he didn’t remind her of that; he was sure she needed no reminder.
“I think I’m falling asleep now,” she said, laying her hand on his cheek.
“Go ahead,” he said. “You need to rest.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“I’ll stay.”
But he didn’t say how long he would stay. There would be time for that discussion later. For now he held her and felt her body relax into sleep. And as she slept, he lay awake and contemplated his own failures.
12
The mural was in progress when they returned to the Corners. There had been no opportunity to negotiate with Ferdinand at Dorothy’s funeral, and the following day had been too eventful. But when Garnet and Thomas walked into the church after their too brief holiday at the lake, there were whole figures blocked out on the wall that had once been tainted with graffiti. Ferdinand hadn’t needed a key. No MidKnight needed a key to walk through a door.
The mural grew and changed over the next weeks, but no one ever saw Ferdinand inside the church. Several times at night Thomas heard noises downstairs when he was trying to sleep with Garnet breathing peacefully beside him. But he never left her to confront Ferdinand. Ferdinand would come to him when he was ready. It was enough that the young man had decided to cover the wall with the stirring New Testament images that spoke of his own struggles and pain.
The Thanksgiving holidays passed. Thanksgiving itself was a quiet day spent at the lake. Garnet cooked a traditional feast with his assistance. After dinner they walked through the surrounding woods together, scuffing autumn leaves and gathering fallen butternuts. And that night he tried and failed once more to make love to her.
Since their first time together in the cottage, she had never once indicated distress at his failure. She was supportive to a fault. He wanted her to rage at him, as he raged at himself. He wanted her to tell him that she doubted his masculinity. But he could detect no anger or doubts. She truly seemed to find pleasure in his arms. She truly seemed to believe that his impotence was temporary, and that together they would overcome it.
He couldn’t discuss his failures with her again. He couldn’t find words to tell her that he had given up hope that he would ever make love to her. There was no woman more seductive, more entrancing than Garnet. He couldn’t imagine desiring anyone more. The fault lay somewhere inside him, in some dark, terrifying part of his mind. And nothing, not passionate nights in her arms, not years of therapy or prescriptions for miracle drugs, not meaningless hours of prayer to a God he no longer was sure of, would uncover the reason for his impotence.
With the end of the Thanksgiving weekend came the beginning of the Christmas season. The despair that gripped the Corners seemed to lessen with each store display and Christmas tree shining bravely through a living room window. A city crew appeared one morning and strung lights in Kensington Park, and surprisingly, they weren’t vandalized. Thomas could see them from his apartment window at night, a secular symbol of an approaching holy event.
Once Christmas and Easter had been his favorite times of the year. They had been busy times, busier than any other for a Christian minister, but they had been days filled with wonder. He had felt humbler, more in tune with the son of God at those times than at any other. His days had never seemed fuller or more miraculous. His life had been touched by the Holy Spirit.
That feeling was gone now, even though he desperately wanted to bring it back. The approaching holiday season was something to get through, one day at a time. A committee was formed by enthusiastic, devoted members of the congregation to plan a celebration. He faithfully attended all meetings, but for once he couldn’t provide leadership. He had no idea how the small church could make Christmas special for its members.
He was staring at a blank study wall one afternoon, taunting himself for his lack of inspiration, when Garnet appeared in the doorway.
“What are you doing off so early?” he asked.
“Have you noticed Christmas is coming?”
He knew she had noticed. Her white knit dress was festooned in ropes of green and red glass beads. Miniature Christmas tree bulbs swung merrily from her ears.
“Did Finn walk you home?” he asked.
“Yes, yes and more yes. I’ve got more protection than an armored truck. I’m here in one piece. No bullet holes, no psychological traumas. Just an overwhelming urge to buy a Christmas tree.”
“A tree?”
“Yeah, you know. Green. Bushy. Symbolic. Something to drop needles on the rug?”
“Did the clinic close early?”
“It’s your fault I’m home. You told me I wasn’t indispensable. So I’m taking the afternoon off.” She grinned. “But don’t get cocky. We’ve got three nurses in training from the hospital giving shots today, and Tex is watching them like a hawk. They needed my office. I was in the way.”
She walked to his desk, perched on the edge and brushed her shapely legs seductively against his. “So, how about it?”
He didn’t want a Christmas tree. He didn’t want a Christmas celebration. At that moment he didn’t want to be the minister of a church that needed faith and wisdom he no longer possessed.
He looked at Garnet’s shining eyes and knew he couldn’t disappoint her. “Fine. I’m just drawing a blank here, anyway.”
“No sick to visit? No lame to heal?”
“Your job, not mine.” He stood.
She slid against him as she stood, too, and clasped her arms around his neck. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you’re up to this? We could do something else.”
He was afraid the something else she was going to suggest would be even more torturous. Even now his body betrayed him, as it always seemed to when she was in his arms. Yet he knew that if he took her upstairs and tried to make love to her, he would fail.
“Where did you want to look for a tree?” He unwound her arms, but he pressed a kiss against her palm so she wouldn’t feel rejected.
“Somewhere I can stroll around the lot without having to duck bullets.”
“Let’s just drive out of the Corners and look.”
“Do you have any decorations?”
“No.”
“Mine were destroyed in the fire.”
“Then we’ll buy some.”
“Good. I like the idea of starting over
together, anyway. Let’s get a smallish tree and just pick out a few things that we really like. We can add to our collection every year.’’
He looked away. She was planning for a future together that he couldn’t envision. The time was as good as any to tell her not to hope for the impossible, but he couldn’t find the words. Not now. Not when her eyes were sparkling with Christmas spirit.
“I’ll meet you upstairs in a minute,” he said. “You’ll probably want to change your clothes first.”
“Why, are you going to make me haul the tree to the car?”
“It was your idea, wasn’t it?”
“Which simply means I’m the creative end of this project, and you’re the muscle.” The door closed behind her with a cheerful bang.
He was left to count the days until January.
Garnet made hot chocolate while Thomas struggled with fitting the tree—not a small one at all—into the tree stand.
The stand was new, the lights were new and the ornaments, two boxes of them, were new, too. Somehow, they had been of one accord on everything they had chosen. At heart she guessed they were both traditionalists when it came to Christmas. The lights were replicas of old-fashioned bubble lights, and the ornaments were colored glass copies of antiques. She had splurged on a dozen hand-crocheted snowflakes to fill in the emptiest spaces.
It would be a tree the children in the Sunday school would love. She planned to ask their help next week, when they came upstairs for their class. She would buy colored foil to cut into strips. The children could make chains to wrap around the tree, and they would feel that it belonged to them, too.
The thought of busy little fingers and innocent faces glowing with Christmas excitement gave her a funny pang. She missed her nieces, although she was fervently thankful that Ema had escaped Ron’s abuse and was making a new life for herself. Ema was in Florida, Garnet knew that much now, and she had managed, with their mother’s help, to find a job as a receptionist in a doctor’s office. She and the girls had rented a tiny house just miles from the beach, and each time Garnet spoke to them they seemed happier than the last.
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