Again

by Sharon Cullars

  David held her hand as he forced the key to turn in the lock. He always had trouble with the knob and it usually took two hands to maneuver. But he refused to let her go, and had to put some extra single-handed muscle into the tug before the knob finally turned. This was on his to-do list, but with everything going on, he hadn’t had time for minor fix-its around the house. At the moment, he had other matters on his mind.

  He had been careful not to pressure her. In the car, he simply asked whether she would like to see the house he’d built for his mother that he was temporarily living in. Because that was how he saw it. A temporary arrangement until he could finally convince his mother to take his gift—or sell it.

  She hadn’t answered right away. He had taken her silence as a flat-out “no.” But then she turned to him, and said so softly he wasn’t sure he heard her, “Yes.” Both of them knew she was answering the tacit question hidden beneath the spoken one. For the rest of the ride, they were quiet, simply listening to the local jazz station, each lost in anticipation.

  Now he studied her as she studied the living room. He was pleased at the awe he saw in her eyes.

  “You designed and built this? God, I’m impressed. It’s beautiful, David, it really is.”

  He liked the way she said his name. “I actually built it for my mother, but she said that it was more me than her. I don’t see what she’s talking about.” He thought about fixing her a drink, decided against it.

  Tyne nodded. “I do. I see exactly what she’s talking about,” she said as she swiveled around, looking at the wood beams, the bay windows, the hardwood floors. “There’s just something, the strength of the lines, maybe even the antiquity.”

  He shook his head. “That’s just it. I’m Mr. Modern. Give me clean lines and surfaces, a bareness and minimalism.”

  “Which explains the Victorian furniture,” she said teasingly. “I can see the minimalism in the detail of the brocade here, the finely detailed carving of the wood”—she traced the material of a wing-backed chair, looked around—“the oriental rugs, the hurricane lamp.”

  He chuckled. “Well, it’s not exactly Eero Saarinen, I have to admit. Actually, I did buy the furniture with my mother in mind…but it’s kind of grown on me.”

  He walked up to her, caught and deliberately held her eyes, traced a finger along her cheek.

  “Well, I like it,” she said softly. Her eyes were warm, liquid desire.

  “What else do you like?” he asked, his breath shallow, his throat constricting. He heard the pounding of blood in his ears. The pace quickened as she smiled. He throbbed with need, resisting an urge to rush. He wanted to savor every second, to take it so slow it hurt.

  “About what?” she whispered, her voice breathless.

  He didn’t answer. Instead he lowered his lips to hers, tasted the tart and sweet, the sugar and spice, deepened the kiss to taste more and was rewarded with a soft moan that vibrated through him. He drew her into his arms, pressing his growing tumescence into her stomach. The discomfort only added an edge to the pleasure. His hand wandered down the arch of her spine, settled on the roundness of her behind, squeezed lightly. Heat emanated from her flesh, seared through his own.

  It was as though he were drowning again, only this time he eagerly welcomed the death that awaited him. She was pulling him into her depths with her lips, her hands that moved along his back, the feel of her body yielding to his.

  He stood there for more moments than in a span, entirely lost in her. When he pulled back, it was to get much needed air. He saw that her state was not much better than his. Her eyes were glazed and hooded, her breaths soft pants, her lips moist from the kiss. She stepped back unsteadily.

  “Tell me if I’m going too fast,” he offered between his own quickened breaths.

  “No. The pace is just fine.” She smiled, then became serious. “I have some—I mean in my purse.”

  He knew where she was going. “I have my own upstairs. Ready to see the other parts of the house?”

  She chuckled. “Now why do I have the feeling you’re not inviting me to see your kitchen?”

  He smiled back. “Your call. I got a real sturdy table…” Then he stopped. “Sorry, that was crude.”

  “Only if you’re a prude, which I’m not. Look, I want to do this just as much as you do. So, let me see whatever room you got to show me.” He heard an avidity in her voice that matched his own. He hadn’t realized until this moment how starved he had been.

  “OK, then.” He took her hand, led her to the stairs. The trip was the longest he had ever taken, and it seemed they would never reach the top. As he passed the picture of Mantle, it seemed as though the man winked at him. An illusion. Yet the smile appeared brighter than usual.

  “Here it is,” he said with unneeded fanfare as he pushed the door open and hit the light switch on the wall. He stood at the entry to let her enter first and he followed. He stopped, wondering at the scent of Tabu in the air. He thought of his mother, then shook the thought from his head. Another illusion. Yet the smell seemed strong, and it threw him for a second.

  “Hhmm, smells good in here,” she said, turning to him. “But it’s a little lighter than what I’d expect you to wear.”

  Then he knew. His mother had been here. He only parsed the thought for a second. He would deal with that later. But for right now…

  “My mother. She has a key. She must have dropped something off,” he said quickly, maybe too quickly because her right eyebrow went up a little.

  “You don’t have to explain. Your business is your own.”

  “I don’t sleep around,” he said, feeling defensive now.

  “Neither do I,” she countered. “As a matter of fact, it’s been awhile.”

  “Oh?”

  “About two years,” she said cautiously, looking at him to gauge his reaction.

  “It’s been a few months for me, which, for a man, is saying something. I came out of a long relationship. It was a bad breakup.”

  She nodded. “Me, too. But I’d rather not talk about it, not now anyway.” He understood and closed the space between them. His fingers played with a tendril of hair that fell over her eye. Then a finger trailed down her cheek, her chin, detoured down her throat, to the crevice exposed by the opened top buttons. The finger paused as he waited for a protest that didn’t come. Instead, there was a small catch of breath. A breath of anticipation.

  He let the finger travel down the warm chasm between the soft mounds of her cleavage. His other hand began to maneuver the buttons, to free her flesh. With each opened button, the blood rushing in his ears, his head, became louder until he thought that she must hear it, too. Every motion was new; every motion familiar, resounding with the echoes of his dreams and something else.

  He released her from the constraints of a lacy, low-cut bra, caught his breath as he stood enthralled by the sight of cinnamon tipped with cocoa. A temptation for the lips. His mouth closed eagerly over a nipple, eliciting a soft gasp, a small wave in the ocean pounding in his head. He suckled like a newborn babe tasting his first milk. The taste was exquisite. Hands raked his curls, pulled his head in closer. He had to steady himself with his hands straddling both her hips. She pushed into him, nearly knocking them both over. He released the nipple, only to begin a slow baptism of the other one.

  After several excruciating moments in which he didn’t know that time still moved, he reluctantly released the nipple, but eagerly found her lips again. Unlike the first kisses that had been firm, but controlled, his exploration now was almost brutal. His tongue grappled with hers, advancing like an invader instead of a guest. Melded together, he deliberately backed her to the edge of the bed, then moved his weight to force them down onto the mattress, which gave way with a slight groan.

  He buried his head in the crook of her neck, his lips leaving a trail of moisture as he moved to the luxuriant softness between her breasts, his hand busying with the button on her slacks. He found the zipper and eased it down, th
en sat up as he pulled the pants over her hips, tugged them until they came off. Then he eased fingers beneath the wet crotch of her panties, found a pool of viscous moisture, a well of hot silky cream. He softly touched the soaking lips, moved up to the clitoris, began moving in a purposeful rhythm.

  “Ohhh, God.” He heard the tortured sound from far away, from a distant shore. He pulled down her panties, then navigated southward, his lips moving along the island of her taut stomach, to the curly thatch that teased his nose, his tongue. Her scent was sweet, sweaty. He touched her clit lightly with his tongue, felt her hips jerk. He held them steady, holding her prisoner to his ministrations. He grazed her with his teeth, alternating nibbles with licks around the tiny orb until he felt tremors moving through her. Her gasps sounded like the sobs of the tortured, but he would not stop. Her cream was oozing into his mouth and he drank liberally, slaking a thirst he had let go unquenched too long. He pushed his tongue inside her.

  He felt it when she came, felt her walls spasming, heard the unintelligible gurglings, as though she were ululating in some unknown language. He reluctantly released her to stand up and quickly shed his own clothes. As he took off his layers, he watched her, taking in her beauty as she lay prone trying to recover from her first orgasm. But he wasn’t about to let her.

  She could barely move. The pleasure was too paralyzing. She heard him taking off his clothes, felt the air vibrate at his approach. She lifted her head, saw him hovering over the bed naked. He wasn’t the specter of her dreams anymore. He was here, flesh and blood. Blood moved through his flesh now, suffusing his penis until it stood erect from his body, turning the head a reddish purple.

  “I’ve waited for you,” she thought she heard him whisper, but quickly dismissed it as something she’d misheard. There was too much going on in her head, not the least of which was that she was about to make love with someone she barely knew—and yet she did know him, knew him just like this, as he stood now reaching inside the drawer of his nightstand. He pulled out a square package, tore it open with deft fingers, and she watched in studied fascination as he pulled and stretched the latex over his elongated member. She throbbed with a renewed need.

  He sank his knees into the mattress on either side of her, positioned himself until there was no view but his face. He filled her visual world as he would soon fill her. The nerves in her body called out to him, and she knew he heard. Knew he smelled her anticipation. She saw moisture on his face and didn’t know whether it was his sweat or her juice. Slowly, he lowered his body and shifted until the head of his penis pressed against her opening.

  “Are you ready?” His breath tickled her lips. She didn’t have a chance to answer as his tongue pushed into her mouth, as his penis pushed into her body. A double invasion. He lay still for a second, his body embedded in hers. Then slowly, slowly he began to move inside her. The bed springs echoed his tempo, trilling a chorus as he began moving a little faster, thrusting a little deeper. She had known the feel of men inside her before, but what she felt now defied the history of every lover she had ever had. The sensations were too varied, contradictory. Inside, the ribbed sheath of his penis raked against her walls, causing a friction so good it bordered on pain, while his thrusting punished her clitoris with nerve-screaming pleasure. He sucked her tongue, swirling the taste of her sex in her mouth, while his fingers clutched her ass, his fingernails imprinting themselves in her bountiful flesh. There was no relief, no chance to catch a breath, to escape the rapture.

  His thrusts demanded her capitulation, her temporary relinquishment of her humanity. Trembling beneath him, she was no longer Tyne, an educated, self-possessed, independent woman. Instead, she was an extension of his body, a capillary through which his need, desire, even his life, flowed. He was the same for her. His hunger scared and exhilarated her. Her hunger frightened and enthralled her. She clutched the firm mounds of his ass, unceremoniously pushing him even farther up her canal. The moan that escaped this time was from him.

  They drank each other, grinding their hips together, demanding a denouement that was swiftly rising, threatening to sweep both of them out on its tide. Saliva, sweat, heat, tears mixed and fused the air with the smell of sex, an amalgam of their essence, a child born of their desire and need.

  A sensation started moving from her crotch, moving upward to her stomach, outward to her limbs. It was more than she could hold in her body. She released it through the scream against his lips, through the nails that ran streams of red down his back. Soon, the smell of blood joined the other smells. She didn’t care to see sunlight again if she could keep this moment. No food or water would ever sate her. Just him inside her.

  A violent convulsion shook his frame against hers, and he buried his face in her nape, his rapid breaths burning through her skin. His weight went dead and settled fully on top of her, making it hard for her to draw in breath. But if she had to die like this, so be it.

  An eternity of seconds passed before she realized she would have to move or suffocate for real. She began to sidle from beneath him, and he responded by shifting his weight off her to lay beside her. His breathing sounded like an asthmatic foraging in a field of poppies. Or the screeching blurt of bellows. For a moment, she wondered if he was going to hyperventilate.

  After a few seconds, his breathing became less agitated.

  “You’re all right?” she asked between her own shaky breaths.

  He said nothing but she felt him nod. A sliver of sexual pride ran through her at the damage she had done. He was a quivering mess beside her. But then again, she wasn’t in any better shape.

  She raised up to get off the bed, but he reached out a hand to still her. It slowly moved up to cover a breast, began a slight caress. The twinge in her crotch took her by surprise.

  “What?” she asked incredulously. He couldn’t possibly…. But then she noticed he was no longer limp, the crown of his head growing darker.

  He winked, smiled, then reached over and licked her lower lip—and began where he left off.

  New York—July 1879

  It was just a rose. A beautiful yellow rose waiting for her on the doorstep. Thankfully it was early yet, too early for Lawrence to have come home and discovered it there on the porch to their brownstone. She would not want to raise his suspicions when she could not name her suitor, nor allow for a time for the two men to meet. She picked up the flower and looked around, knowing that he was no longer there, but wishing that he were. She smelled the flower. The scent was heady in the heat of the early afternoon. It would die soon.

  The gesture was sweet and unassuming, somewhat contrary to what she had come to know of him in the three weeks since he had found her again. He did not seem one for simple gifts. He had been very disappointed when she refused the emerald necklace he tried to give her on their last meeting. There had been other attempts at gifts, none accepted.

  He did not seem to understand that this could not be, this association he was so desperately pursuing. Anything between them, any more than what had already gone before, would be the unraveling of them both. They had their places in this world…and it wasn’t together.

  And yet…She stroked the petals. So soft, one slightly bruised, but this did not detract from its beauty.

  She must put a stop to this courting.

  Because it could not be. This hope for more.

  Still, she couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips, nor the warmth that ran through her as she remembered how first his hand, then his lips had covered hers, and how his brown eyes had nearly swallowed her whole.

  The ringing phone pulled her reluctantly from her dream. Half asleep, Tyne wrestled with the sheets, blindly reaching for the nightstand lamp. The clock said two-forty. She picked up the receiver, hoping bad news wasn’t on the other end.

  “Tyne?”

  The sound of David’s voice woke her fully. She sat up, pulled the sheet around her, feeling self-conscious, wondering why. Then remembered the very intimate dream she’d be
en having about him, in a place that seemed from another time.

  “David, hi…what…what’s going on?”

  “I know, I know…it’s late…too late to be calling, right?” He laughed softly, warmly.

  “Well, no…is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, it is. I just…I was just dreaming about you and I woke up needing to hear your voice.”

  Tyne felt a warm surge. “Funny, I was just dreaming about you, too.”

  “Was it a nice dream?” The purr in his voice made her take an unsteady breath.

  “Very nice. So what were you dreaming about me?”

  “It was strange, really. I couldn’t see your face clearly, but I knew it was you. We were talking about books, some of the classics, and you were laughing at something I’d said. It was such a wonderful sound, your laughter. And I woke up wanting to hear that sound again. Only thing is, even though I knew it was your voice, it was different somehow. I know this must sound weird.”

  Tyne heard the uncertainty in his voice. She wondered about her own dream, the man who was David and somehow wasn’t.

  “So, what did you dream about me?” he asked.

  Suddenly embarrassed, she didn’t want to tell him the intimate details, even after last night, or especially after last night. And there was something about her dreams that still brought a chill to her. Even though she hadn’t dreamed about the knife in a while, yet whenever she was with her dream lover, the dream David, there was a sense of danger, a sense that she wasn’t safe. Sometimes there was an overwhelming need to get away. Although that hadn’t been the case with tonight’s dream.

  “It was nothing really…”

  “That bad, huh?” he teased.

  “No, nothing like that. I’d just rather not talk about it. But, it’s nice that you called though.”

  A silence then, “Sometimes I just want to talk to someone. Reaching out isn’t always easy. And when you do, you hope you don’t get burned. That’s why I want you to know, it wasn’t just about the sex…I mean last night.”