Fall Semester

by Stephanie Fournet

  Mark extended a hand to Malcolm, and Malcolm hastily shook it.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir. I only wish it were under better circumstances,” he said, sincerely.

  “I’m just glad we’re getting the chance,” Mark said. “I know you’ve been a good friend to Maren, and I’m grateful she has someone like that right now.”

  Malcolm spoke from the heart, seeing no reason not to.

  “She deserves every goodness, sir,” he said, savoring the release of confessing such truth to someone else, someone who cared for Maren and knew what a blessing she was. “I’m very glad that I know her.”

  Mark Gardner’s face suffused with pride, and he took his daughter’s hand in his again.

  “I agree, completely.”

  Both men watched Maren roll her eyes, blushing slightly, but she smiled.

  “How are you feeling, Dad?” she asked, clearly trying to change the subject.

  The sick man shrugged.

  “I had a headache earlier, but that has gone. I’m not in any pain.”

  Maren frowned.

  “Has the pain been much worse the last few days?”

  Mark Gardner looked intently at his daughter before he spoke.

  “I’m not afraid of the pain, Maren. I’ve been managing.”

  She’s such her father’s daughter, Malcolm thought with a stab of recognition. It will be so hard for her.

  Maren leaned down and kissed her father on the cheek, whispering something in his ear as she did. Her father’s smiling eyes stayed on Malcolm.

  “Maren, would you please go get your sister?” he asked. “I’m not sure how long I can stay awake, and I know Laurel will be rather put out if I don’t tell her goodnight. Let Malcolm stay with me while you go.”

  Malcolm knew that surprise showed on his face when Maren’s eyes locked on his. Still, he gave a slight nod of assent and let go of her hand.

  “Alright, Dad. But no more drama for tonight,” she said, giving him another hug. “I love you, Dad.”

  The father held his daughter a moment longer.

  “I love you, dear one,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning. Get some rest.”

  He kissed her on the forehead before releasing her.

  “I’ll be right back,” Maren whispered to Malcolm over her shoulder.

  Malcolm turned to the dying man, fearful of what he would say.

  “She thinks the world of you,” Mark said. “I daresay she’s in love.”

  Oh, God. Malcolm closed his eyes and sighed.

  “Judging by the look on your face, I take it that this isn’t what you want,” Mark said, frowning.

  “Sir, forgive me—” Malcolm started.

  “It’s Mark. Neither of us is a child, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm met the older man’s eyes, recognizing the righteous fire in them as the very same he’d seen in Maren more than once.

  “Mark,…” he began again, nodding respectfully. “I care for her more than I can say. I just doubt my ability to give her what she needs,…to make her happy.”

  Mark studied him a moment.

  “Do you want to know what I think?”

  “Absolutely,” Malcolm said, honestly.

  “I’d say you shouldn’t doubt your ability to do what you’ve already done,” Mark leveled, grinning. “Besides, I think Maren is the expert on what is best for Maren. I’ve watched her long enough to know that.”

  Malcolm gave a wry laugh.

  “So she would have me believe.”

  Mark’s lips pressed together and his brow folded into a frown.

  “Malcolm, I’m not afraid of dying, truly,” he said with feeling. “I just wish it would be easier for my family….The next few weeks will be hell for them….If you care for her as you say you do, please be there for her through what is coming.”

  “She won’t be alone. I promise,” Malcolm said, unable to mask the emotion in his voice.

  “Good. I—”

  “Daddy!” They were interrupted when Laurel charged into the room and crumpled at the foot of the hospital bed.

  “There’s my girl,” Mark said, opening his arms to his youngest child. “It’s alright, angel.”

  Malcolm stepped back and saw Maren and her mother hovering in the doorway.

  “I’m glad I got to meet you, Malcolm,” Mark said, over Lauren’s quaking shoulders.

  “It was an honor to meet you, Mark,” Malcolm nodded to the older man. “Thank you.”

  “We’ve discussed it, and Laurel and I are staying through the night,” Erin said, looking between Malcolm and Mark. “Malcolm, could you please give Maren a ride home? She’ll come back in the morning with her brother.”

  Malcolm eyed Maren to ensure that this was what she truly had chosen. Her nod was all he needed.

  “Of course.” He met the eyes of everyone in turn. “And if there is anything else I can do, I hope none of you will hesitate to ask.”

  As he stepped out of the room, Maren dashed in again, crowding her sister to share her father’s hug.

  In the doorway beside him, Malcolm witnessed Erin quietly brushing away tears as she watched her daughters. He hesitated a moment, but then he lifted a hand to pat her on the shoulder. He felt like a robot, like an idiot doing it, but he knew that he would have felt worse to do nothing.

  “Thank you, Malcolm,” she whispered.

  He only nodded, not knowing what to say as Maren made the rest of her goodbyes.

  Once they were in the corridor together, Maren clutched herself, lost again in her misery as she walked, so that when he put his arm around her waist, she seemed to regain consciousness. She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him, her face streaked with tears. Wordless, her features collapsed in on themselves before him, grief, fear, and pain feasting on her, and he pulled her into his arms. She let go completely, sagging against him as the sobs shook her.

  “Maren,” he breathed into her hair, her suffering piercing him to his soul. Malcolm held her tightly against him, thinking that if he could, he would make a deal with the devil to take her torment on himself. He encircled her delicate frame, braced the softness of her shape, and cradled her impossibly light weight, knowing that everything that mattered in the world was pressed against his heart.

  Like a thunderstorm, after a few moments, her distress exhausted itself, and she took a few shuddering breaths before righting herself and pulling away. She pressed a hand to his tear-soaked shirt.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she hiccupped.

  “Shhh,” he murmured, shaking his head, stroking her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Are you ready to go?”

  She bit her lip and nodded, still leaning into him as they walked to the elevators. In silence, they made their way out of the hospital and to his car. The November night air bit at their skin. Malcolm pulled her closer and checked his watch. It was almost 1:00 a.m. He settled her into the passenger seat of his car before jogging around to the driver’s side, starting the engine, and kicking on the heater.

  They did not speak until they turned right onto South College Drive.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  Malcolm had reclaimed her hand as soon as he’d started the car. The thought of not touching her now seemed foreign.

  “What scares you?” he asked.

  She sighed.

  “What if something happens tonight? Again?”

  He thought a moment.

  “I don’t expect anything would happen. The doctor seemed to think he was stable,” he reasoned. “But if it would make you feel better, you can keep my car.”

  He could feel Maren watching him out of the corner of her eye. There was something on her mind that she wasn’t sharing. He waited until after they turned onto Johnston Street and stopped at the light at Cajundome Boulevard. He turned to study her. She met his eyes, but she was giving away nothing.

  “What is it, Maren?”

  She looked tired, afraid, and still so beautiful. She blink
ed rapidly, drew a breath to speak, but then clamped her mouth shut.

  “What?” he prompted.

  She shook her head.

  “Never mind,” she murmured, looking down.

  She doesn’t want to be alone, you moron!

  And he did not want to leave her, drop her off in her small, empty house to face her fears and sorrows alone. The words were out of his mouth before he even dared consider how crazy and inappropriate his offer was.

  “My guest room is very comfortable if you’d rather not be alone tonight,” he said, making her look up again. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  Her eyes filled with tears again, but she smiled and nodded, quickly brushing the tears away.

  “Thank you, Malcolm.”

  So, it was resolved. A sense of relief suffused the car, and Malcolm knew that it wasn’t just Maren’s. Beside him, Maren leaned back in her seat and covered her mouth to yawn.

  “I’m so tired,” she whispered.

  “We’re almost home,” he said.

  Chapter 23

  Maren

  Maren startled awake and knew exactly where she was.

  Malcolm had offered her his guest room, but when they’d arrived at his house, he’d given her the choice of the spare room or the daybed in his study. Without hesitation, she had chosen the latter. And he had been so sweet and attentive, producing a brand new toothbrush and giving her extra pillows and blankets.

  Moonlight poured into the room from the three windows that defined Malcolm’s favorite spot in his home, and Maren reached for her phone on the floor to check the time: 2:23 a.m. Though she had fallen asleep exhausted, she had slept only a little more than an hour. To her relief, there were no missed calls or messages. All was well. For now.

  She sighed in the darkness. This was it. Hospice would come tomorrow once her father was released from the hospital. They had reached the point in the Cancer Story when people at the epicenter of the tragedy stopped sharing the grim, frightful details. What lay ahead was a murky, cold strangeness, one with a promised unhappy ending.

  Maren rubbed her eyes, which stung from her night of crying. She didn’t want to cry anymore. Not now. What she wanted lay under the same roof, just a few feet away. She thought about the events of the last 24 hours, of how much Malcolm had done for her. Not loving him seemed impossible. How many times in one day could a man prove himself worthy? Did he still not see it? Even her father on his deathbed saw it.

  Maren threw back the covers and sat up. She pictured herself tip-toeing down the hall to his room. And it wasn’t loneliness or fear or a need for comfort that gave her to such thoughts. It was because he was the man she loved, and she wanted him. She wanted to touch him, to bare herself to him, to kiss every inch of him.

  If she went to him now, would he send her away? If he tried to send her away, would she go?

  Not this time.

  Her will was too strong. Any shame she might have felt for her past boldness evaporated in the knowledge that Malcolm deserved to feel loved and desired. Maren shucked off her yoga pants and panties and stood with her heart thundering in her throat. The wood floor was cold, and in nothing but the oversized sweatshirt, the cool air tickled her bare thighs and bottom.

  She stepped lightly into the hallway, but the floorboards of the old house whispered her passage, a deafening sound it seemed to her against the silence of the house. She crossed the hall and passed the bathroom. Malcolm had left his bedroom door open, telling her to wake him if she should need to leave again during the night. She stood in the doorway and stared into the shadows. A muted light from street lamps edged the curtains, but the rest of the room was almost complete darkness. Maren could only just make out Malcolm’s shape in the bed across the room.

  It was too quiet. No one could sleep so soundlessly—without the steady rhythm of breath. Malcolm was awake.

  “Maren?….Are you okay?” he whispered.

  She took a tentative step into the room. Her pulse beat wildly in her throat. It wouldn’t matter this time if he told her no, but she didn’t want him to.

  “No,” she whispered back. She heard him sit up in bed, and she feared that he would turn on the light, so she sped across the floor until her thighs met the foot of the mattress, crawled until her knees bumped his legs, and she found his hands in the darkness. Maren held on for dear life, panting now.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice growing more concerned, more alert.

  Maren drew a slow inhale, willing her heart to settle. With it came that heady scent of lemongrass and leather, an opiate rising up from the bed sheets, from his body. Her nervousness quelled in a wave of desire.

  “I want you,” she said, placing a hand over his heart. To her delight, his chest was bare, and her right pinky brushed a nipple. She heard his breath catch in his throat. “I want to be with you.”

  She gave him no time to respond but closed the distance between them, sealing his mouth with hers. For a long moment, he didn’t move, and one half of her mind braced for the inevitable battle while the other catalogued the softness of his lips, the acceleration of his heartbeat under her fingers, the grip of his right hand around her left. She felt it the instant he let her in. Everything melted; everything cemented. His mouth opened against hers, and a moan escaped from his throat. Her tongue swept into his mouth as his arms wrapped around her, and she rose up on her knees, still kissing, and gently straddled him.

  “Oh, God…” he spoke into her mouth, and she smiled against him, her fingers threading through his hair at last, grabbing the nape of his neck.

  I love you. I love you. I love you.

  She could not let the words come from her voice, so she spoke them with her fingers in his hair, her breasts crushed against him, the squeeze of her thighs around his. She didn’t dare let herself imagine that the words of his body spoke the same, but he was hardly silent.

  With one hand, Malcolm held her against him while the other caressed her face, her ear, the slope of her neck. He moved down her left shoulder past the curve of her breast. When his hand found her bare hip under the hem of the sweatshirt, he gasped and broke the kiss. Their eyes sought each other in the dimness, black on black, whites shining. Malcolm palmed her hip and ran his thumb over the sharp bone of her pelvis.

  “Maren, mi tesoro,…are you sure?” he rasped, sounding near strangled.

  “Yes. My God, yes!” Her mouth found his neck, and she kissed his pulse point, tasting salt and heat. She rode her tongue down to his collarbone, smiling at the joy of finally making introductions. She would have savored it longer, but at that moment Malcolm’s mouth met her neck, and she was lost.

  “Oh, Malcolm,” she managed, dizzy with sensation.

  Saying his name seemed to ignite something in him, rending another moan from his lips. Maren did not know how much she could stand. Drawing back, she reached behind her. In one swift motion, she pulled the sweatshirt over her head and threw it to the floor.

  “Holy fuck,” he gasped. His right hand found her left breast, and when his mouth closed over the puckered nipple, a bolt of pleasure struck from there to her sex. She arched back, tilting her hips, and, through the tangle of covers beneath her, she felt him.

  Holy fuck.

  This time, she moaned—loudly.

  And before she could recover, Malcolm’s hands dug into the flesh of her hips, her knees lost the mattress, and she was on her back.

  “Wow…” was all she managed before he was above her, kissing her again. Kissing her with so much hunger. Her hands sailed over his back, feeling the ripple of muscle as he devoured her. His tongue was an outlaw, an anti-hero. His tongue was fucking Lord Byron, claiming her mouth, saturated in carnality.

  She wanted him inside her. Vaguely, the thought struck her that it was where he’d belonged all along, and how silly it was of them not to see this sooner. She reached for the band of his boxers and struggled to tug them down. Malcolm came to her rescue, lifted his hips, taking
his weight on one elbow, and slipped them off. Before she could grasp him, he moved out of her reach, pressed her shoulders to the bed, and kissed a path down her body. Over her breasts, laving each nipple lovingly, across her ribs, down to her navel. She cradled him between her legs, and he moved his right hand down to her bottom, stroking the curve of her, down behind her left thigh to the inside of her knee.

  Maren swallowed a scream when she felt his teeth graze her pelvic bone. Malcolm swirled his tongue around the point and then ran it slowly, so slowly across her belly to its twin.

  Are those little cries coming from me? She wondered. Yes, yes they are.

  Malcolm’s fingers traced their way back along her thigh, tucking in to the apex of her legs. He circled a finger over her pubic bone before dipping it into her sex.

  Both of them drew in a sharp breath at the contact.

  “Oh, God!”

  “You’re so wet!”

  She would have responded about wanting him for months, but the deft finger stroked her clitoris, and she lost the power of speech.

  “I need to taste you, Maren,” he whispered.

  She gave another little cry of assent as she gripped handfuls of the bedding.

  And his mouth was on her, merciless, famished. When the outlaw tongue nudged her clitoris, she felt the tiny muscles inside of her quiver and clasp. Her hips bucked when fingers joined his mouth, slipping inside of her and drawing against her front wall.

  Maren fought to control herself, but she was almost at the point of no return, and she wanted this first climax to be shared.

  “Malcolm,…please!” She tugged his hair, and he was above her again. She was so relieved, she almost laughed.

  “You taste like heaven,” he rasped against her mouth. “Here, mi todo, taste heaven.” He gave her his tongue and, on impulse, she sucked it, tasting her desire, his desire. She felt his moan vibrate against her teeth, down her throat.

  She reached between them and grabbed him, confirming the holy-shit-almighty she’d felt before. Malcolm pulled out of her mouth with a smack.

  “Condom…Let me get a condom,” he panted.

  “Hell, no,” she breathed.