Closer to My Heart

by Moore, Becky

  They laid quietly for a few minutes, looking at the ceiling, out the windows; they watched Pop Tart bathe Penny’s face as they prepared for sleep. They looked anywhere but at each other.

  Lucas spoke first. “Jane, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin our evening. I can go back to Amber’s apartment if you’d like.” The offer nearly tore his heart from his chest.

  She caught him by the wrist. “No! Don’t go, Luke. I don’t know what happened, and you don’t ever have to tell me. It doesn’t really matter, but I would like to hear it if it would give you peace to get it off your chest.”

  He took a deep breath and nodded. He let her burrow against his chest, closer to his heart, and turned over their conversation in his head, like she said kids did when they read her books. He could feel the tears burning the backs of his eyes.

  After a few minutes of lying quietly in the darkness, he asked: “Why do you write stories for kids now? Did you get tired of traveling?”

  He could feel her smile against his collarbone. “You mean, why stay at home to write instead of traveling the world as a top-notch, kick ass journalist?”

  He squeezed her in appreciation. “That’s exactly what I meant. Thank you.” He kissed her on top of her head. A tremble jolted her body, and her breath hitched. But she forged ahead.

  “I told you that I worked for Condé Nast for a couple of years, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I was, I guess twenty-five. I was working out of my office in Manhattan, which was really more of a base than a home. Assignments kept me out of the states most of the time and certainly away from my family in North Carolina. Anyway, I had a younger sister.” She paused to wipe the tears out of her eyes.

  “Well, she was mom and dad’s little surprise. Samantha—Sam—was her name. She was only fifteen. Oh, God. Yeah, that’s right. Just fifteen. She was in the tenth grade, taking driver’s education. Sam had her first boyfriend, but apparently, he used to date her best friend, Martha. Well, Miss Martha was not a generous enough friend to fully forgive Sam for stealing her boyfriend, Donald. It seems Martha was sort of stringing along Sam as the weeks went by. You know, let’s go to the football game…let’s head out to the mall. Stuff like that.”

  “But Martha was having trouble keeping up the façade. Donald took Martha’s virginity over the summer, but hooked up with Sam when the school year started, and by Christmas Martha was having trouble hiding the baby.”

  “No shit?”

  “Nope, no shit.” He rubbed her back in long, soothing strokes. He ran his fingers down the graceful curve of her slim back, resting his palm atop the twin indentations at the base of her spine, drifting them back up to her shoulders, as she settled back against his chest.

  “Well…”

  “Yeah, Martha was pretty pissed when Donald and Sam got together. She was lashing out, I guess trying to prove Donald would be sorry for leaving her behind. And because she didn’t want to cop up to the pregnancy, the other kids teased her for gaining weight. She was miserable. But since she’d been keeping up a friendly face with Sam but dragging her name through the mud behind her back, Sam just got caught up in that stupid pettiness. Before my parents knew it, my sister was really depressed—nearly unreachable. When the kids went back after Christmas break Sam was on anti-depressants and Martha was missing school regularly. Of course Sam knew about the pregnancy, but everyone thought it was another boy she’d dated right after Donald dumped her.”

  She paused and let out a big sob. Lucas kept his hand moving gently down her back and waited for her to begin again.

  “I was so busy that I was only home for Christmas Eve and half of Christmas day before I flew out to a shoot in Fiji for a once-in-a-lifetime assignment from National Geographic Traveler. My job was very important then, you see. But while I was home Sam had lots of questions about boys and peer pressure and why girls her age could be so bitchy. We talked, but I had to go. She said I always had the right words for everyone else … but—but not for her. God, I didn’t even have time for her.” She whimpered, but forced herself to finish.

  “When it really counted I wasn’t any help at all. During spring break in March Martha told the kids at school that the baby was Donald’s, and took the bus to my mom and dad’s. She shot Sam a minute before she turned the gun on herself. The baby died, too.”

  Oh, no. Lucas was shocked into silence. Jane wept in huge gulping sobs that wracked her whole body. He lay on his back and pulled her to lie across his chest.

  “And you figured you could share the right words with other kids so they’d know how to deal with things like that, right?”

  Jane lifted her face and looked at Lucas. She couldn’t believe he figured her out so easily and so quickly. Nobody, not even her parents, truly understood her compulsion to shift her writing to a children’s audience. How important it was to empower kids of all ages to know how to deal with bullies, or peer pressure, or the stress of school, or bickering friends. God, or something awful like teen pregnancy.

  She grabbed him by the neck and squeezed him tight. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said over and over, raining kisses all over his face and neck and shoulders. She pushed herself up and sat across his belly. Tears still ran down her cheeks, but she was getting a little color back.

  “Nobody has ever gotten that before. Mom and dad humor me and tell me Sam’s death wasn’t my fault…and I know that. I do. They know the books are good and they’re important to children, but they don’t really see my need to get the words out. You know, I am a commercial artist by education and a journalist by experience. But mostly I’ve always been a writer, and I like to connect with my readers. My life was moving so fast there for a while. It was hard to find my place in the world. These books have helped me, too.”

  His eyes widened. “So that’s why those kids were so crazy about you at Ben & Jerry’s. They know you’re talking to them, not just building up your bank account.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sitting atop Lucas, Jane’s tears finally stopped. She smiled and bent down to kiss him, her heart in her throat.

  “What was that for?” he asked. Though, in truth, he was no dummy. He’d take it where he could get it. He rested his hands on her hips.

  “That’s because I feel so much better talking to you about it. I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone about Sam’s death and I’ve been feeling guilty since right after the funeral. Mom didn’t even have the guts to talk to me about it.” She petted Luke’s chest, twining her fingers through the crisp, sparse spattering of dark blonde hair across the broad planes of his pectoral muscles. With her pointer finger, she traced the sharp groove along his sternum and down the centerline of his body.

  He chuckled and grabbed her wrist. “Stop,” he said lightly. He eased his command with a kiss to the inside of her wrist.

  She moved her hands to hold the sides of his face and whispered, “Lucas, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  He stared at Jane without blinking. His heart stopped beating in his chest, and then kicked back in triple time. She smiled and went on.

  “I definitely know that I don’t want Amber to come back and finish out her last couple of weeks. I can’t stand her.”

  Lucas laughed at that. “No, I don’t imagine you would like someone like Amber.”

  “Have you met her yet?”

  “Nope, but Andy had pictures of her in his wallet.” He whistled. “Did she ever go anywhere without two inches of makeup on her face?”

  “Ah, no. She’s a kindergarten teacher. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah.” He was vaguely following the conversation now since her unrestrained breasts garnered more of his attention. He cupped them in his palms and just held her while she spoke. She was so animated with her arms and hands, and her facial expressions. What a delight.

  “. . .and my friend Jacob said he’d seen her somewhere before, but I told him it was just an excuse to look at a pretty girl. But he said
he could always look at me if that’s what he wanted.” She stopped for a second and shrugged her shoulders. “And then one day when I was picking up lunch to go he remembered. He’d seen her on Playboy TV. On a show about amateur home videos. So I started watc—”

  “You what!” he yelled, clearly startled out of his reverence. He tried to sit up but Jane pressed her palm down to his breastbone and he stayed down.

  “Could you repeat that last part, honey?”

  “Well,” she started with a furious blush that crept from her chest up her neck and onto her cheeks. “Okay, first I want to tell you that I never met Andy until he stopped by to pick her and the suitcases up. And then I realized that he wasn’t the same guy I’d seen her in the video with. On Playboy TV. Uh, on my Tivo.”

  Luke’s face was turning red, mostly with anger she supposed. His fingers dug a little deeper into her hips and she winced.

  “Yeah, she was getting the hell banged out of her by a humongous black dude all while, um, concentrating on the woman straddling her face.” She kept her hands still on his chest and waited for his reaction.

  At first, it seemed that he would explode from the blood rushing to his face. But he did the unexpected. He arched his back and roared with laughter. He laughed so hard tears streamed from his eyes.

  It took him a few tries to shut up long enough to tell her what was so funny.

  “Oh my God, that is so fucking funny. My brother is such a dumb shit. His biggest goal in life has always been to nail as many women as possible before his belly turns to pot. He swore he’d never fall in love, yet he fell really hard for Amber because—get this—she was a good girl. She was the woman of his dreams, all sunshine and innocence. You know, a kindergarten teacher. The kind of woman he wanted to be the mother of his children. God, this is great. Oh, if I could only tell mom.” He cracked up again.

  Jane swatted him on the chest lightly. “You cannot tell your mother that her new daughter-in-law is a fan favorite on Playboy TV.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth for a second and then asked, “You wanna see it?”

  He wrenched his face in disgust. “Hell, no! Why do you have it?”

  “Oh, I just figured I’d keep it on file in case I ever needed it…you know, ‘bad renter’ and all. That, or to have it available in case the school system was itching to get rid of her. I mean, I know that kindergarten teacher doesn’t equal nun, but good Lord, she should try to be a little more discreet.”

  “Yeah, but discretion was never in Andy’s vocabulary. I doubt it’s in Amber’s. Uh, you haven’t ever been on Playboy TV have you?” He looked a little alarmed.

  “No! First of all, what if someone told my parents. Good God! What if my dad and his friends watched it during poker?” She shivered and made gagging sounds.

  “Anyway, I would never want my partner to be ogled either. I mean, you’re mine. I don’t want any other women lusting after you. I certainly don’t want them getting a good look at your big, uh…ego.” She could feel him stirring against her bottom.

  He growled. “Honey, you’re asking for it.”

  “Ooh,” she moaned. “I can’t. I’m too sore.” But as she spoke, he was lifting her by the hips and settling her tender, swollen flesh over his thickened shaft. It stung for just a second as the engorged, weeping head pressed inward through her sensitized, swollen tissue, but once he was in he easily slid as deep and as far as he could go.

  “Sshh,” he crooned. “I’m not going to hurt you, baby. I just need the connection, okay?”

  He could be pressed into gentleness, but he was on a mission, she knew, and wouldn’t be deterred. Jane gasped and held her body still, waiting for the pinch to subside. When she let out her breath, he lifted her gently.

  Lucas watched the pull and glide of her nether lips squeezing him like a fist. Her skin was flushed a deeper pink and weepy, and totally bald. He broke out in a sweat with the effort not to plow into her as deep and fast, and hard as he could. His tension was palpable and she found it unbelievably sexy that he was beyond denying himself any longer.

  She could feel herself quickening, but overriding that was another, more pressing sensation. “Wait! Please, wait just a second, Lucas.” She grabbed at his hands resting on her hips.

  He looked up at her dumbly.

  “I have to go to the bathroom first! We’ve been in the bed forever.”

  He blinked and then smiled because she was tired and fussy, but he let go of her and she eased herself off his body.

  She laughed all the way into the bathroom because her muscles were sore and her bones were popping, and she was walking a little funky. Luke had ridden her hard, but she’d used his body just as ruthlessly. Unfortunately, their activities were coming back to haunt her.

  She sat down on the toilet and left the light off so it wouldn’t bother their sensitive eyes. Lucas came in and grabbed a washcloth from under the sink and ran hot water on it. They were quiet as she finished up and he wrung it out.

  He moved her over to sit on the side of the tub, and then knelt down on one knee so he could wash her body off and soothe her tenderness. He kissed her sweetly on the flat of her stomach, beneath her belly button, and laid his face against her belly. Jane cradled his head gently and closed her eyes.

  When he was done, he stood up and turned her to face the mirror. She was standing in front of him, her smaller frame dwarfed in height and width by his larger body. They stood quietly and watched each other in the darkened room. Their breaths quickened and stirred. Damn, but she was one gorgeous woman. She did it for him. Every. Time.

  He laid one palm flat, low on her belly just above her mound, rubbing his fingers softly back and forth. His other palm rested between her shoulders and pushed her gently.

  Jane laid her hands on the counter as they watched each other through the mirror. The house was silent but for the occasional shifting of wood and their heavy breathing. Penny and Pop Tart were asleep. Lucas used one hand to guide himself to heaven and the other covered Jane’s right hand on the counter. She nodded and he pushed inside. They both groaned loudly.

  This coupling was just as intense as the previous times they’d made love, but there was an understated sense of urgency—of claiming one another—that filled their thoughts. He pressed her shoulders farther towards the mirror and she moaned low and long, so close. He knew her body now and knew the closer she got to orgasm, the louder she became. But after one particularly enthusiastic thrust, Jane’s hands slipped and her torso crashed against the sink, painfully smashing her slender ribcage. She cried out and tears sprung to her eyes.

  “Oh, baby! I’m sorry.” He lifted her away from the sink and started to pull out, but she pushed her bottom tighter against his groin. He had pushed her beyond her limit of control and she was frenzied in her plight for completion. “Janie, you’ve got to stop. Let me look at your ribs to make sure they’re okay.” She thrust her body against him frantically. “Janie, stop!”

  He grabbed her by the hips to force her to be still. She looked a little disoriented in the mirror’s reflection. “Don’t stop,” she said a little hysterically. “Finish it!” she shouted.

  Lucas lifted her left foot to the edge of the sink, then lined up their fun parts. Her thighs were spread almost painfully wide, and her body was completely open to his sight in the mirror. She gasped when she looked down and saw their bodies joined just above the sink ledge. It was pornographic and turned her on like nothing she’d ever seen before. She bit into her bottom lip while she concentrated on keeping her right leg from giving out.

  Lucas was taller than her, and while the sink normally hit her just below the belly, it hit Luke mid-thigh. She reached her arms over her head to grab him around the neck, then shifted her balance and dropped her weight into Luke’s hands cradling her bottom. He lifted and lowered her body, moving her up and down his length. His face rested against the outside of Jane’s right arm so he could watch the action in the mirror.

  “Jesus Christ
! I’ve never seen anything like this.” The sight made even him whimper and pant.

  But she couldn’t respond. She was too caught up in the visual of their lovemaking and the feel of his breath rasping against her body, and the almost painful stretch of her skin at this angle around his body. Everything combined was too much. Her breath sawed in and out of her body and she burst into tears.

  Lucas couldn’t take the time to comfort her. Their orgasms were too close to stop; his baser, animal instincts had taken over for this race to the finish. He moved his hands from the lifting position so they could grasp her around the waist. With each descent, he slammed her against his body. And with each lift, her feet nearly came off the sink. He was having trouble controlling his strength.

  When Jane came, she screamed and nearly ripped his head off. Because she’d come so many times since the afternoon, her latest orgasm was thick and opaque, and showed in stark relief against the vibrant shade of his penis. The sight pushed him over the edge.