Heart and Home

by Jennifer Melzer

  “Gossip,” he brushed his lips over mine, “major events, what’s the difference?”

  I laughed and turned my face away from his. “There’s a huge difference.”

  He kissed my cheek, drawing me back into his waiting lips.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day,” he admitted. “That look in your eyes,” and there he leaned backward again to look inside me, all the while grinning in such a way that made me feel strange and molten inside. “And your skin,” he traced a finger down the side of my cheek. “The way you smell.” he leaned into me and closed his eyes, breathed me in, and then he lowered his lips against mine again and whispered, “The way you taste.”

  I quivered and tilted my neck into the play of his lips across my skin. The stubble on his chin was like a sensual counter attack that followed the smooth dance of his mouth back toward mine.

  “God, where’ve you been all my life?” I moaned into his kiss.

  “I’ve been here,” he lifted me against him and wrapped my legs around his waist before he started back the hallway.

  So wrapped up in the moment that I didn’t even look around the bedroom once we entered, I closed my eyes and sighed when he lowered me carefully onto the bed and leaned in above me. He rested on knee between my legs and held himself in place with an arm above me, and that was where the kissing games began.

  We were two bodies completely clothed but tangled together as we writhed and stretched into perfect position after perfect position in attempt to stoke the slow fire building between us. There were moments when we played so rough that we wrestled against the instinct to yield or dominate, and then he would just yield and tenderly pause to stroke my cheek whispering, “I never want to stop kissing you.”

  For more than an hour we worked at each other until the pain of desire ached in every one of my muscles. At last, I pinned him beneath me and straddled his hips. His want for me was evident in the way he pushed against me, in the heaviness of his eyelids when I traced my finger down the soft trail of crisp hair lining the tight muscles in his stomach. He’d lost his shirt some time ago and the warmth of his skin was soft against my palm.

  He leaned upward, his hands falling softly on my shoulders, circling around the back of my neck to draw me into another kiss. This was it, I realized. Half of the expectation and wonder was about to be met, and though I didn’t want to turn back now that we had already gone so far, a part of me feared that I wouldn’t be good enough to sustain the tender measures he had already taken to make me feel so special.

  The butterflies that tormented me all week were in full effect now, almost to the point of nausea and pain. My face was so hot, it felt like I was on fire. He rose again, this time sitting up and holding me over his lap as his hands moved slowly down my back. He lowered his cheek against my chest and I laid my head atop his, my fingers lost in the thick curls at the back of his neck.

  It was too soon to feel as strongly as I did, too soon to be so intense.

  “You’re heart,” he whispered, a fingertip tracing down the side of my arm. “It’s beating so fast.”

  I swallowed; my hand trembled against his shoulders. What if the things I was feeling were just that fear and confusion from my mother’s death? What if I was only turning to him because I needed someone to comfort me and make me feel safe?

  Troy turned his face upward to look into mine, his eyes the most amazing color of blue I had ever seen and they made me feel calm for a moment. “Are you scared?”

  I nodded and drew my lower lip between my teeth, looking away from him.

  Cupping my face in his hands, he tilted it downward and looked into my eyes. “We don’t have to do this, Janice.” A lock of my hair fell over his hand. “I would be more than content to just hold you here in my arms all night, if that’s what you want.”

  “Troy,” his admission brought tears to my eyes, and feeling like a complete and total fool, I blinked furiously to keep them from swelling and falling. “I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more than I want you right now,” part of me feared the repercussions of having spilled that admission so easily.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

  I lifted my hand to touch his face, and he turned his kiss against my palm. “I don’t want to hurt you either,” I said. “But if we go through with this, I am not going to be able to just walk away from here.”

  “Even if we don’t,” he said, “I don’t think I can let you just walk away again.”

  I descended into his waiting mouth. It was like his kiss breathed new life into me, a life I hadn’t even known existed before Troy. In a slow maneuver he rolled me onto my back, and then he hovered in above me, just looking into my eyes.

  “I want this,” I said. “I want you.”

  His only answer was another kiss, deeper and more intense than all the others. The final pieces of clothing separating our bodies were peeled away and the only time our focus on each other was broken was during the moment that Troy opened up the bedside table drawer and rooted around for a few seconds for a condom packet. Condom within reach, he turned off the light and resumed his place in my arms.

  In the dark, I didn’t need to see him. I could feel every flex of muscle as he came into me with a slow moan that made my already racing heart beat even faster. I gasped with pleasure, rolling my head back along the pillows behind me and arching my body upward into his.

  We fit together perfectly, just as I’d imagined we might. We answered each other’s every move as if we’d been anticipating it, or as though we’d been in each other’s arms a thousand times and knew exactly how to move to please one another perfectly.

  Sure, I’d gone into making love with Troy with mixed emotions, but not a single one of them was regret. I didn’t know how much more this would actually complicate things once it was time for me to head back to my other life, but for the moment there was nothing difficult about the way our bodies moved together.

  Troy was attentive and accommodating, resting on his elbow above me so he could look down into my eyes in the dim illumination of the nightlight just inside the bathroom door. I couldn’t look away, even when he felt so good the only thing I wanted to do was bite my lip and tilt my head back to feel him. I rolled upward and kissed him, sweetly nibbling at his lips before darting my tongue between them in a teasing gesture he responded to in kind.

  And for the satisfying time that our bodies were tangled together I didn’t think about anything but us. There was no trepidation about how I was going to feel when it was actually time to go home, no worry about what my mother’s ghost was trying to tell me. I didn’t think about my tangled emotions about the town I’d fought so hard to get away from, but was suddenly starting to feel strangely attached to.

  I only thought about Troy and the distinct tenderness of his touch, the calloused palm of his hand cupping my backside, fingers squeezing my flesh as he guided me above him after rolling onto his back and positioning me in his lap. We found our rhythm again with ease, and with me in control all I could think about was how freeing it was to be with him, how uncomplicated and rare it felt, even though I knew there would be complications that might very well change my entire life.

  In that moment, it didn’t matter.

  All that mattered was Troy and the heat of his body as he rose into me, the two of us sitting face to face, him still buried deep inside me. When he kissed me again, his arms tight around me, my entire body trembled and shuddered in ways it had never done before.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There was a nightlight in the bathroom that provided just enough illumination that long after Troy fell asleep I lay awake beside him in the dark watching him sleep. I scolded myself several times to keep from reaching out to touch and make sure he was real, not that my body hadn’t believed every minute of him.

  A natural born cynic, I couldn’t help the fear I felt. In the aftermath of making love with him I expected to wake up any moment and find that none of it
ever happened. Troy was too perfect and had to be a dream.

  Hours passed as I lay facing him in the dark. The unfamiliar surroundings made it difficult for me to fall asleep. Every time the heater kicked on or Troy moved, I woke again and it took forever for me to fall asleep. The hot water moved through the baseboards with loud bangs and clangs that disturbed me until Troy finally draped his arm over me and drew me close, nestling his head next to mine on the pillow. The comfort of his arms was enough to finally put me to sleep so deeply that I didn’t even remember dreaming.

  When I finally woke to the sun’s fingers prodding through the curtains, I rolled in hopes of cuddling close to him only to find the bed empty. I half sat and listened to the silent apartment for signs of movement, but none came.

  Rolling onto my back, I drew in a deep breath and replayed every moment of the night before. I dozed in and out of euphoric sleep until I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs outside. I listened as he let himself in, keys dropped onto the table and boots across the hardwood floor. I lay still as he came into the room and sat with a sigh on the edge of the bed. One boot dropped, followed by the other, so I rolled toward him and laid my hand on the small of his back.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” he leaned over his shoulder to look at me, a half smile lighting his eyes. “I had chores to get done early. I thought I’d be able to sneak back in before you even noticed I was gone.”

  “It was lonely in here without you,” I whispered, holding the blankets open for him to crawl back into bed.

  He stood and stripped out of the clothes he’d worn to work, and then he slipped back into the bed beside me. He smelled like outside, crisp and fresh and I could feel the cold on his skin. I cuddled close so I could warm him and tangled together again, we dozed in and out of sleep for the next hour.

  I opened my eyes and found Troy perched above me watching me sleep. I blinked, a slow smile touching the corners of his mouth.

  “Good morning,” he reached out and traced a fingertip down my cheek. “Again.”

  “Again,” I chuckled. “I could just stay in this bed all day.”

  “That can be arranged,” he lifted an eyebrow. “I was thinking actually that since it’s your last day before heading back to the big city…”

  “No,” I closed my eyes at the mere mention of it. “Ugh,” I groaned, “don’t remind me. I was having such peaceful thoughts.”

  “We should do something special today,” he said. “What would you like to do? We can do anything you want. Today is your day.”

  “Whatever I want to do?”

  “Anything you want.”

  “But don’t you have work to do?”

  He shook his head, “Did most of it while you were sleeping.”

  “What about the hayride?”

  “Ernie’s turn to drive the tractor,” he explained.

  “Anything I want?” I tested him again.

  “Anything at all.”

  “And what if I want to just stay right here all day? Just you and me?”

  “I was hoping you might say that,” he lowered his lips against my brow, his warm hand moving against my stomach in such a way that I quivered and closed my eyes.

  Tangled in the sheets together, we made love as the clouds rolled in outside and rain pounded away at the windows. When our bodies grew sore and tired, we lay together in the bed just talking. We treaded the dangerous, talking about past romances, and Troy assuaged my jealous curiosities about his last serious girlfriend. She broke up with him a little more than two years earlier, ending things when he refused to move to South Carolina with her.

  “Why didn’t you want to move?” I propped my chin in my hands and watched his face.

  “What? And give up all this?”

  “Was it your mom?” I traced my fingertip along the muscular curve of his arm.

  “A little bit, I don’t know, I’m happy here now.”

  “Really?” I squinted in disbelief.

  “Believe it or not, City Girl, there is happiness to be found here.” He rolled onto his side to face me, a lock of his hair falling across his eye. I watched as he blew it out of the way and couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “Contentment even.”

  “Are you happy running your daddy’s farm?”

  “It’s not so bad. Besides, it’s what I have to do.”

  “Because your daddy said so?”

  “When he died I was young and arrogant,” he shrugged, blowing at the renegade curl of hair again. “Really, I was born to it, it’s something in your blood, and I just didn’t want to believe it at the time.”

  I thought about the furniture he made with his hands, the photographs on the wall in the other room. “What about being a great architect?”

  “Eh,” he seemed distant for a moment. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life now. I just don’t want to pass it off on my own kids one day and make them feel like it’s a burden. It’s so much more than that.”

  “You make it sound noble and sexy,” I drew my legs up and crossed them behind me.

  “Yeah?”

  I laughed and leaned in to kiss him. “Who’ll take care of it after you?”

  “Who knows,” he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Maybe I’ll be a better father than mine was to me, and I’ll inspire my kids to follow in my footsteps and if not…” He lingered on that thought, and for a long time we were silent. “I don’t know, maybe Ernie will get married and have kids someday and they’ll take it over.”

  “You want to have kids?” I tried not to make it sound like I was baiting him into talk of a serious relationship. “Someday, I mean?”

  “Oh yeah,” he was grinning when he turned to face me again. “And what about you?”

  “You know, I never gave it much thought until this last week. Being around Becky’s boys, and thinking about everything my mom did for me,” I paused and shook my head. “Now I can’t imagine not having kids one day.”

  “Doesn’t that interfere with your career plans?”

  “Women can have careers and still be mothers,” I pointed out.

  “Well, yeah, but you just seem so serious about your career, out there taking over the world one exposé at a time.”

  Laughter came so easy when I was with him. I reached over and shoved playfully.

  “I’m just really focused,” I explained. “When I want something, I focus on it one-hundred percent. When I’m ready to have a family, that will be my focus and I will put as much of myself into being a wife and a mother as I do my work.”

  “Good answer,” he nodded. “I’d hate to see you fade away because that’s what society wants you to do as a mother and wife.”

  “You spent a lot of time with the libbers in college, didn’t you?”

  Troy chuckled, “Hardly. I just think it’s important to stay true to the things you want. Too many women let their roles define them. Like my mother. She is a mother, that’s all she wants to be, even though she had other dreams before she met my father. After that she became his wife, my mother…”

  “My mom too,” I noted.

  “You’re a damn good writer,” he said. “I’d hate to see you give up something that has driven you as far as that talent has because that’s what’s expected of you. The girls here, that’s what they do, that’s who they are.”

  I thought about Amber Williams, how she once made so many promises about how big and important she was going to be one day, only to turn out just like all of the other girls stuck in that town. No identity beyond the fact that she had given birth. She would flex her personality at play dates and PTA meetings, but beyond her kids, she was no one. But not Becky. Becky was different, and then what Troy said hit me.

  “You’ve read my articles?”

  “Of course I have,” he said. “There isn’t a curious soul in this town who hasn’t read at least one of your articles, thanks to your mom.”

  I sighed and dropped onto my
back, “That woman.”

  “She had every right to be proud of you, Janice. You’re good at what you do, and you followed your dream.”

  “I guess,” I closed my eyes, holding them closed for a long moment as the stinging of emotion passed. “It’s still so embarrassing sometimes when I think about her tacking up my articles on the grocery store bulletin board.”

  “It’s that small town mentality,” he said. “Your successes are the town’s successes.”

  “I guess. Did you ever feel strange when they made you the town’s football hero?”

  “Sometimes,” he shrugged. “But that’s small town life, small town thinking. They want a hero here so badly they’ll cling to any one of us that brings a little glory and light to the town.”

  “Again, you make it sound noble and sexy,” I grinned over at him, and he started to laugh.

  It wasn’t long before the two of us were caught up in the freedom of that laughter. The muscles in my stomach ached from it, but it felt good and when one thing led to another, I found myself on the receiving end of his embrace again.

  God, I was already in over my head. I could tell by the way my heart started to flutter whenever he looked into my eyes, and while I stopped fighting the inevitable, going home to the city suddenly loomed over me like an impossible task bent on making my life miserable.

  It was just around sundown when we finally hit the shower together and made plans to go out and get something to eat. Troy followed me home to drop off my car, and then the two of us headed out for pizza. With very little action in such a small area, we decided to catch another movie after diner, but it was obvious that we were both distracted. I actually spent more time studying the perfect fit of our hands together than I did the screen, and from time to time I felt his eyes on me. We were silent when we left the theatre and even quieter on the drive home.

  Two blocks from my house, he finally reached across the truck and touched my hand, “I wish I could get you to change your mind about tonight.”

  “Dad will want me to go to church with him in the morning,” I said.