by Mara Jacobs
She saw his strong Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. She knew how he felt, she couldn’t seem to keep her throat from closing up either.
His steady gaze remained on her. “What is it you do want from me, Elizabeth?”
“All I’ve ever wanted from you. All you’ve ever wanted from me. Just to…be together. Just for tonight, no past, no future, no kids, no friends…just us, Finn. Alone, with no limits, no good-girl tears, no cold showers of frustration. You and me together. Finally.”
The song ended and segued into Willie Nelson’s “You Were Always On My Mind”. They remained on the dance floor, encircled in each other’s arms, entranced by each other’s eyes.
Indicating the song, she said, “There’s an oldie.”
Finn smiled, his strong cheekbones rising. “But a goodie,” he finished for her. He put his head close to hers and hummed along with Willie, even sang a line or two.
She had a strong suspicion that he was trying to say more than he was able to with a little help from Willie. It could be just wishful thinking on her part. A giant rationalization so she wouldn’t be jumping into the sack with someone who hadn’t given her a moment’s thought in the past eighteen years?
It was a rationalization she was prepared to live with when Finn said, “This song could be about us. For those first few years after we broke up, you were always on my mind. Probably longer than that, if I’m really honest. After I got married, though, it just didn’t seem fair to think about you at all, even if it was only as ‘the one that got away’.”
She had no response to that, it was more than she’d ever hoped to hear from him. She thought she was more aptly the one he’d tossed back than the one that got away. She chastised herself for starving for the few crumbs he threw her way, but there it was.
Finn had thought about her, and that made her happy.
She slid her hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck. His skin was warm. One finger moved slightly into his wavy hair, and another swept softly just beneath his collar. His hand tightened again on her back. He dislodged their joined hands, taking them apart, and placed hers around his neck to join her left hand. His hand moved to her waist. Dancing like you did as kids, because you hadn’t yet been taught how to dance like proper grown ups.
Most of her contemporaries still danced this way, the man’s arms around the woman’s waist, the woman’s around the man’s neck, just going in circles. No steps, no time or rhythm to keep. It allowed for much closer contact, and that was what they were after.
She pressed her body into his, physically approving with his decision to change their dancing technique.
“It feels so good to hold you like this.” His breath grazed across her neck as he spoke.
She didn’t trust her voice, could only nod her agreement. Her cheek nuzzled closer to his shoulder.
“We fit so well together. We always did, you were always a perfect fit for me.”
“You know,” she quietly said, “my summer fling’s half over and I haven’t even…flung yet.”
Finn nuzzled her neck. “You know how bad I want to…fling you.”
“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered as she pressed herself against him.
He didn’t answer, only grabbed her hand and started walking to the exit, not even slowing when people tried to catch her eye to say hello.
He walked her to her Navigator then zeroed in for a kiss, but stopped. “Let’s not start here, we always seem to be interrupted in parking lots. I’ll follow you to your parents’.”
Lizzie only nodded, her disappointment at not being kissed evident in her half pout.
He chuckled and gave her a quick kiss – on the cheek! “It’s only a five minute drive, Liz, you can hold out that long.” He shut the door behind her as she got into the Navigator and turned toward his Jeep. She revved her engine and he turned around and waved at her, then got into his Jeep.
She pulled out of the rec center and headed through downtown Hancock, her mind racing to the moment when she and Finn would be totally alone – with no chance of interruption.
Always prepared - those rascally Boy Scouts had nothing on her – she’d prepped her bedroom once Clea had made her generous offer to free up Finn for the night. She supposed making love in her parents’ king-size bed would be more comfortable but Lizzie hadn’t entertained that idea for more than a moment before discarding it and setting up the seduction scene in her own bedroom, unchanged in its decor since she’d left for college.
She’d added candles on the dresser against the far wall from the bed, wanting as little light as possible, but ready to be lit if Finn balked at total darkness. She’d changed the sheets from the floral ones her mother had put on to crisp white cotton, fresh off the line this afternoon. That was another thing she missed about the Copper Country, climbing in bed at night and drifting off to sleep amidst the smell of freshly hung sheets. She could just see the hissy fit her toney condo association would pull if she strung up a clothesline in the back yard.
She didn’t think more was needed in setting her seduction scene. Finn wouldn’t be looking for toys or whips, at least not tonight. No, tonight was all about fulfilling a promise. About recapturing something thought lost forever.
About setting free the past and looking to the future.
Obesity, poor self-image and sexual hesitancy were her past. Lizzie didn’t expound on her thoughts of what the future would hold. Her vision of that wasn’t quite as clear as it had been when she drove to town just over a month ago.
Not only foregoing food at the dance, she also drank only water for the entire evening, wanting to have her wits about her. This was do or die night for her and she wanted no impairments.
The physical sensation she’d felt dancing with Finn still coursed through her body.
She thought of him saying how well they’d always fit together. She knew nothing was further from the truth. They might have fit perfectly physically - though they’d never gotten the chance to know if the ultimate fit was perfect - but they were different in every other way. He was rough and hard, had no use for the niceties that she so enjoyed. He’d seen the harsh realities that humanity and fate could dish out. She’d worked hard, but had basically had a very drama-free life, no major losses, no deranged ex-spouses.
No wheelchairs.
She wondered if she would have had the strength to go through what Finn had in his lifetime? She’d like to think so, but realistically the only challenge she’d been faced with in her life was losing weight. And even that had been because she’d been so weak in the first place that she’d become crazy fat.
She knew she needed to let herself off the hook for that, for the weight gain. She had gone to see an expert on compulsive eating when she was first starting to lose weight. She wanted answers, she wanted to pinpoint, she wanted to be able to say with complete confidence, “This. This is the reason I put on weight. Because of X, Y and Z.” Once a culprit was clearly defined, it would be dealt with and disposed of.
But it wasn’t that cut and dried as she learned while working through the eating issues. The therapist was patient with Lizzie’s need for an explanation but offered none. “You may never know why you became obese. You may just want to think of it as something you felt you needed at the time but don’t any longer, such as a child needs a security blanket but then can discard it. Usually there’s tears and tantrums and the removal of the blanket is painful and not done lightly, but once done, the child can then move forward.”
“But if I don’t know why, can I hope to change?” she asked. She was already losing weight and the thought of a backslide terrified her.
“Think of it as a journey that you are driving. Suddenly you realize you are going in the wrong direction, have been for some time. Do you pull over and spend hours trying to figure out why you went the wrong way? No, you turn the car around and start to drive in the right direction. Along the way, you start to think about the reason you got off course, but you do
that as you’re headed toward your destination.”
It was a mini-breakthrough for Lizzie, and her progress took a positive leap. When she likened her obesity to a security blanket, the analogy made sense. The same could be said for her “epiphany”. She simply no longer needed the shield that obesity gave her. Now, if she could just figure out what she had needed shielding from.
The obvious choice was sex, of course. But it was more than that.
She neared the turn to her parent’s place. The radio played the Dixie Chicks singing an old Stevie Nicks song. Talking about fear of changing, and what you build your world around.
It felt like a light bulb suddenly going on above her head. The unnamable emotion that had hung on the fringe of her psyche the past three years suddenly had a name. Fear. That was what had her running to Taco Bell at midnight, undoing a great week of dieting. What had driven her to one step forward and two steps back.
Fear.
And it was because she had built her life around being fat. And that was changing.
She’d watched enough self-help shows to know the difference between body image and self-image. How intertwined they can become if you let them, but how they are indeed separate entities. She had done a great job – maybe too great of a job – of not allowing her body image to rule her self-image.
Her full relationships with her friends and her family. Her successful business. All accomplishments that led Lizzie to have a very healthy self image even if her body image lingered in the cellar.
But that body image had been her closest companion for fifteen years. It was who she woke up with, who she left in the car when she entered the office, who was waiting for her at the end of the day, and who she shared a pillow with every night. It was scary to say goodbye.
But say goodbye she must. And tonight with Finn would be the final wave to her old compadre.
Chapter Fifteen
√ Get new bra and panty set
√ Get rid of bedside lamps
Call Sybil
It started like it had so many times before. The physical yearning, the need to be together, their differences swept aside as the attraction grew palpable. The setting was also similar. They had once been in Lizzie’s bedroom when her parents had been gone overnight.
He brushed his hand across the flowery canopy. “I was only here that one night, but it’s exactly like I remembered it.”
She smiled, pleased he remembered something she would have thought to be insignificant to him. “That’s because nothing’s changed.”
His eyes swept the entire room. “Really? That’s nice, I guess. Something familiar when you come home to visit.”
“I think so, too. Or I did. It’s a little eerie though, I step through this door and suddenly I feel fourteen again.”
A devilish grin arose on his mouth and his brows crinkled. “Funny, you stand in that door and suddenly I think you’re eigthteen again.”
A small tremor of discomfort assailed her. “I’m not eighteen, Finn. I don’t think like that anymore. I don’t feel like that anymore. I’m not that naive anymore. And I’m certainly not that innocent anymore.” It was as if she needed to impart full disclosure to him. He wasn’t getting the sweet virgin he had so desired. Not to mention an entirely different body. She had told him so before and he’d been glad to hear it, but she wanted to drive the point home.
He crossed to where she still stood in the doorway, and placed his arms in the doorjamb, not trapping her, she needed to only step backward into the hallway to be free of him, but more as if encircling her. “I know. I’m no boy of twenty, and you’re a woman who’s been through eighteen years of living. And I’m sure we’ve both got the scars to prove it.”
She thought of her physical scars - her stretch marks - and Finn’s emotional ones, and wondered which cut deeper.
“But one thing hasn’t changed. I still want you as badly as I did then. And I think you want me.” He leaned into her, his hands still on the doorjamb, his chest brushing across her breasts. His mouth gently skimming her jaw.
She breathed in deeply and was lost. This room. This man. That god-awful Brut. How could she ever think she’d be able to maintain a cold, clinical view to this sex experiment?
She couldn’t. She must have known that somewhere in the back of that planning-within-an-inch-of-your-life mind of hers.
It was an unnerving realization, but it was not enough to pull her out of her haze of desire for Finn. A loud exhale full of her tumultuous emotions sent his head away from her neck so that he could see her face. “Tell me you want me, Liz.”
Her nod was not enough for him. “Tell me,” he prodded.
She could see how important this was to him. For him to know that she wanted him. So wrapped up in her own implications of this evening, she hadn’t thought about how potentially momentous Finn could see this occasion.
Now or never. Three years, numerous pounds, and it all came down to this. She tried to ease up on herself. Life would still go on if she blew this. She would learn from this experience and get better where she needed to so she’d be ready when she entered into a meaningful relationship. As she’d said all along, it was only Finn. It didn’t really matter what he thought of her, did it?
So why did she want this to go well more than she’d wanted anything in her life?
She laid her hands on his chest, felt his strong muscles tense underneath and met his gaze. “I want you.” It was a near whisper. She started to lower her eyes, unaccustomed to such frankness when it came to passion, but stopped herself. Find out now what you can and can’t handle, Lizard. Test your limits. This is your chance.
With a sense of boldness usually reserved for business negotiations, she lifted her chin, almost in defiance, and repeated with more conviction, “I want you.”
His hands left the doorjamb and settled on her waist. “Good. I’ve waited eighteen years to hear that, Elizabeth.”
She was shocked to feel tears begin to well up in her eyes. Oh, man. Just what she did not need now. Emotions. Not when she wanted to have sex!
He squeezed her waist and she was saved from messy emotions by thinking of the still slightly jiggly flesh he must be feeling. It worked. The moistness in her eyes quickly dissipated. It was part self-preservation that caused her to take his hands in hers and move them from her waist to her breasts. Mostly, it was because she thought she’d explode if he didn’t touch her there. She was pretty sure she’d explode if he did, too, but that explosion would be a good thing.
His mouth crashed down on hers. She opened with no coaxing. Their tongues tangled and she thought that she might have just found something that tasted better than chocolate. It was sweet and soft and lasting. She caught his rhythm right away, matched his movements. His hands stroked her breasts with a soft touch that seemed out of place with his strength. She felt her nipples pebble under his hands, and the sensation thrilled her. He slid a hand around her back and gently pushed her to join him as he took a step backward, into the room. Toward the bed.
She gladly followed, but reached out and turned the light switch off as she took her first step. He stopped abruptly, causing her to crash into his chest. Through all this movement, their mouths remained completely fused together. He reached back behind her and turned the switch on. It was as if there were a power surge because just as suddenly she turned the light back off.
“No. I want to see you, Liz,” he gasped, managing to take in some badly needed air and resume his penetrating kiss once more.
She tensed at his words, but let it pass, knowing she had thought this scenario through. She reluctantly broke from the kiss and moved to the dresser by the door and lit the candle she’d placed there earlier. Her foresight had once again saved her. Hah! Let Alison make fun of her lack of spontaneity all she wanted. Lizzie would never be caught unawares.
“There. That’s better than that harsh light, isn’t it?” she asked, and led him away from the wall, and light switch, before he could answer.
The room was cast in a warm glow that allowed them to see each other, but was faint and soft. “I don’t know. I want to see you very clearly when you’re beneath me and coming,” he said, his voice low.
The comment put her back on her game. She could verbally volley with Finn like there was no tomorrow. Probably because up until now that was all she’d allowed. She gave him a wicked smile. “You’re assuming you’ll be on top.”
His grin split his hard face. “Oh, I’ll be on top all right. That’s always how I pictured you, beneath me, squirming, calling my name, holding my face in your hands like you do…” He cut himself off and she could tell he had said more than he’d intended.
He lightened his tone. “Of course, after the first time, you can be on top…” He took her hand and led her, stopping at the side of the bed. “Or on the bottom…” He turned her around, her back to him and unzipped her dress in a swift motion. “Or on your side…” He brushed the shift from her shoulders, down her arms, easing it past her waist and hips and let it drop to the floor where she stepped out of it and he nudged it away. “Or on all fours…” He turned her around to face him and his eyes swept her from head to toe. “Or hanging from the canopy for all I care.”
She felt her knees almost go out from under her, but caught herself. She musn’t show how affected by Finn she was. She needed to keep her cool on the outside. Even if she was burning up – and soaking wet – on the inside. “You’re assuming there’ll be more than the first time,” she said but only met his impish grin with one of her own. They both knew once would not be enough.
She watched as his gaze traveled over her. It took great will power not to visibly suck anything in or stick anything else out. She wore a white lace and satin bra and panty set. It had intricate beading along the top edge of the cups and the vee inset of the panties. Normally she wouldn’t wear white undergarments with a black dress, but she did tonight. She had chosen white knowing that Finn still harbored that good-girl innocence thing he’d always pinned on her. Rightfully so, at the time.