He couldn’t even tell if she’d heard. He said, “Baby. Open your eyes.”
She did, and that about sent him to his knees right there. Shining gold, nearly blind with desire. He said, “Still OK?”
“I thought you were going to … spank me,” she said. “Some … talker.”
She still thought he wouldn’t. He could tell. When he rolled her hips to one side and shoved her legs up so her knees were bent, she tensed. And when he slowly pushed his way inside, one hand around her ankle, holding her leg up, the other hand on her hip, and just about lost it right there from the heat and tightness of her, she relaxed. But when he thrust hard and slapped that gorgeous ass at the same time? She jumped, and she cried out.
He stopped. “Too hard?”
“N-no. Do it. Please, Harlan. Do it.” She had that blind-eyes look again. Her breasts were rising and falling, and he had the perfect view. Of more than that, because he could look down and watch himself sliding in and out of that glorious pinkness, and there was no view in the world better than that.
She wanted it, so he did it. He spanked her some as he fucked her, holding her calves up against her thighs the whole time, keeping her tight for him. Keeping her held for him. He took it slow, and he drew it out. He told her she was a dirty girl, that he knew her secrets, and he was going to make her pay. He told her everything he was prepared to do to her, and she gasped and held onto that couch cushion and writhed and begged until he thought he’d lose his mind. And, finally, when she was convulsing around him, drawing that second orgasm all the way out of his body like she was dragging out his soul, she said, the words coming in gasps, almost in sobs, “Harlan. Please. I love you. I love you. Do it some more. Please.” It was a wail.
That was it. He was all the way over the edge. He was falling.
He fell.
53
Home Truths
She said, “Wow.” It was as much as she could manage.
He was on the couch with her now, and she was right-side up again. Nearly in his lap, in fact, his arms wrapped around her while he kissed the top of her head and stroked a hand down her arm. She was even slightly more dressed, as in, her underwear was back on and she’d fastened her bra, and she’d never managed to lose her robe. He was still naked, and that was just fine.
He said, “You all right? You’re still shaking.”
“Mm.” She pulled his arms more tightly around her, just because it felt good, and she was taking all the feel-good from him she could get. Greedy for it, and asking for it, in a way she’d never done in her life. “You’d be shaking, too, if you’d gotten all that.”
He kissed her hair again. “Tell me I don’t have to keep up that standard. My heart can’t take it. It’s voting for the bed next time.” His voice was amused, even though she couldn’t see him. “But it’s probably time to tell me what that was all about. Why you decided to set me free, since I obviously wasn’t attracted to you. I’ve got to say, baby … you’re never going to play football, because if that’s an example, you sure can’t read signals.”
She scooted back and turned to stare at him. “Excuse me. You said there’d be touching. There was no touching. There was barely any kissing. What was I supposed to think?”
“That I was being careful? That I was leaving the next move up to you? That I wasn’t going to push you into something you didn’t want and hurt you when you’re fragile already? What part of, ‘No way am I sleeping in your bed or even in your house, because we’re just friends, oh, wait, now we’re dating, except not really,’ did I get wrong?” He was scowling at her. He had a beautiful scowl.
“Sucks to be me, then, I guess,” she said, “since I just told you I loved you. Twice.” She tried to make it airy. It didn’t quite work. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to say it back. I still meant that other part, that I know it doesn’t go both ways. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
She was babbling, and she knew it. It was the intensity, and the intimacy, of everything they’d just done. She felt hollowed out, and like she had too few layers of skin for this. Too few layers of protection over her brain and her heart and her soul. All she wanted was to merge with him for a little while, to create their own sheltered, secret place together, safe from the world.
You’re going to be all right, she told herself, and knew it wasn’t true. Eventually, sure. Eventually, this would be just another wrong move where her insistent heart and undisciplined body had pulled her straight over the brink. She couldn’t think about that now. Right now, she was going to enjoy this.
She was thinking all of that so intently that it took a second for her to process what he said next. Which was, “What do you mean? I said it first. That’s why I figured you didn’t want more, because I said it first and it didn’t matter.”
Now, she was twisted all the way around to face him. “No, you didn’t. I’d remember that. You didn’t.”
More scowling. “Orbison. When you need him to say something, he shuts up.”
“What? Harlan, assume I have no idea what you’re talking about and explain.”
Something was happening in her body. The joy was rising in her like she was filling with helium. This couldn’t be true. Could it?
“I told him I loved you. During that phone call on your first day of work. What, he didn’t happen to mention it? He asked something like, what gave me the right, and I said, standing up for the woman I love. Everything else, he butts into, but that was too insignificant a detail for him to pass on? When you didn’t say anything, when everything stayed the same, I figured you didn’t want to know.”
“Oh.” She could barely speak. She could barely think. But she was laughing, too. And so touched. “So that’s why he keeps checking on me. He thinks I’m locked in this … this torrid affair with you, probably some kind of master/slave thing, from all his dark hints about letting him know if I need help, and here you’ve been, practically kissing me on the cheek! Oh, man. Blake. He can be such an idiot. Also, we’re not in junior high. Why are you telling him that you love me and not telling me? And seriously? You do? And if I hurt you—Harlan, I’m sorry.”
Now, he was laughing, and he was pulling her back into him again. “Seriously,” he said. “I do. At least I think that must be what this is. Either that, or I’m getting a brain tumor. It’s been a little hard to concentrate. And I don’t know why I didn’t say it to you. Felt scary, probably, putting it out there. I’ve never said it. And if we’ve got a master/slave relationship, baby, I’m not sure which one I am. That thing in the bathroom …”
“Who spanked who?” she asked. “Also, why is that so hot? Is it that way for you, too? It’s always sounded hot, but it actually was. Wow. Also, the way that position felt … you felt so tight in there. That was amazing.”
“If you don’t know why spanking a woman’s hot,” he said, “I can’t explain it. Trust me, it’s hot as hell. Possibly because you’ve got the best ass in the world. But I didn’t check enough. I don’t know if there are special … pregnancy things, what’s OK and what isn’t. I figured, keep you off your belly, but if it’s not comfortable, you have to tell me.” He shifted his hand so it was on her abdomen, and he was cupping it like he wanted to feel it. “The little guy doing OK in there? Not too traumatized?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “You put him to sleep. All that rocking.”
His hand stilled. “You can feel him?”
She put a gentle hand on his face and kissed his mouth. “Yeah. I can. It feels so good, Harlan. It’s magical. I never got to enjoy it the first time, I was so scared, and now … it’s magical. He’s active, I think, even though what I feel is just flutters right now, like butterfly wings inside me. In another month or so, though, you’ll be able to feel him kicking, too. He’s in there growing, getting strong.”
“So …” He hesitated.
“Oh,” she said, “go on and tell me. Whatever it is. Surely we can be honest now.”
“So when you go on Monday,”
he said. “And have the … the sonogram and all. See the doctor. Do you want me to come with you?”
She still had her hand on his face. “Do you want to come with me?” She wasn’t sure which way he was asking the question. Why he was asking the question. She knew, though, that they needed that honesty.
Your truth is your sword and your shield.
“Yeah,” he said, and smiled. “Yeah. I do.”
“I want that, too,” she said.
He smiled like the sunrise, and she laughed and kissed him and thought, I can’t stand this much happiness.
He said, “Well, good. Also, do you want dinner?”
She sighed. “I so want dinner, you cannot imagine. Please. Feed me.”
An hour later, Harlan was loading the dishwasher and Jennifer was pouring the leftover soup into a plastic container and looking sleepy, even though it was barely eight o’clock. Barefoot, in her pink PJs and robe, sweet as cotton candy. In his kitchen, and all he wanted was to keep her here.
As if she’d read his mind, she asked him, “You know what I want to do?”
“It had better not be having sex,” he said, finishing with the dishwasher and closing it up, then starting to wipe down counters. “I’m good, but I’ve got a limit.” He didn’t. It was more about whatever crazy ideas she might have about what she was now required to want, seeing as she was the most conscientious woman in the world and he was a football player.
How the hell did a sweet, conservative, monogamous woman get that good at oral sex? And why the hell would a guy not want to give a woman like that everything he had?
Never mind. He had her now, and he could take care of it.
If you asked him, though, she just looked tired. Also, he wasn’t positive that doing it again would be good for her, or the baby, either. You bet he was going to be at that doctor’s appointment. He didn’t trust her to ask the embarrassing questions, and he needed answers.
She smiled at him, still soft and sweet, and said, “I want to lie in your bed with you and watch a movie until I fall asleep. If you have a TV up there. If you want to.”
“Ah,” he said. “We cuddling? That it?”
“Well, yeah. I’m trying to be honest here, Harlan.”
She looked so serious, and so damn cute, he had to cuddle her a little right now. “You bet we can do that,” he told her. “You in my bed works for me.”
In the end, it took her twice as long to choose the movie as it did to fall asleep. She didn’t even manage to scoot down in the bed, just conked out then and there, her head on his chest, his arm around her, sitting up against the pillows. He turned off the set, put a hand on her belly in the dark, felt the roundness under his palm, and imagined his baby boy in there. His eyes closed, one little fist clenched, his legs kicking. Sucking his thumb, maybe.
His son.
He whispered, “Pretty safe place in there, little guy. She’ll take good care of you.” And thought about his mom when she’d been pregnant with Annabelle.
One morning, she’d put his hand on her stomach to feel the baby kick. What had he been, twelve?
Probably, looking back, she’d been looking for somebody to share her excitement with. Looking for some sweetness. She’d held her hand over his and said, “She’s lively, huh? I think she’ll be strong, like you.” She’d smiled at him, and he’d been embarrassed, had taken his hand away as soon as he could, muttered an excuse about meeting the guys to play ball, and got out of there.
Now, he cradled his own son, sheltered there so safely, and wished he could have that moment back. That he could tell his mom that she’d been right. That Annabelle had grown up to be strong, and brave, too, and that she was happy. That he was taking care of her, and he’d be doing it from now on. He wanted to tell her that she was having a new grandson, and that he was going to do his best to be the kind of dad she could’ve been proud of. That he’d found a woman who knew how to be a mom, and maybe that was because he’d known, somewhere inside him, what a good mom looked like. Because he’d had one.
But most of all, he wanted to tell her he was sorry.
Why hadn’t she told him, if she was planning to leave? Why hadn’t she asked him to come home while she told his dad? He could have been there. He would have stopped it. He could have helped. Why hadn’t she asked?
Would he have come, though, if she had? Would he really? Would he have driven those ten hours, or would he have thought, I have a game. I’ll see her at Thanksgiving?
He wanted it back. He wanted it back.
His chest ached, and so did his throat. He hadn’t known that grief could hurt like that. That it could be a physical pain, like a jagged black stone in your chest. How scared she must have been, telling his dad she was leaving, and then how terrified. It was like he could feel her fear, and her pain.
He felt the tears rise, and then they spilled over, hot and wet.
The sobs hurt so badly, it was like his chest was ripping open. He lay there and held Jennifer, felt his baby swimming inside her, already wanted, already loved, and cried because he was happy. Because he was having a baby, and his mother would never know. Because she’d died afraid and hurting, and he was never going to be able to make that go away.
Because he hadn’t there to help.
54
Your Own Tao
Harlan jerked awake to the sound of somebody hammering. Who would be hammering? It was dark.
Oh. At his bedroom door. Knocking.
Beside him, Jennifer stirred sleepily, made a little noise, and fell asleep again. And Annabelle’s voice called from outside his door, “Harlan?”
Unfortunately, he was naked. He called, “One second,” grabbed the throw from the bottom of the bed, wrapped it around his waist, and went to the door just as Jennifer sat up and said, “Wha?”
“Go back to sleep,” he said.
“Uh … Dyma,” she said. Annabelle was knocking again, and Jennifer half-fell out of bed. And Harlan sighed and opened the door.
“Oh,” Annabelle said, looking beyond him. “She’s here.”
“Well, yeah,” Harlan said.
Dyma said, “Geez, Mom, you could leave a note. Here I am, trying to follow the rules, and you’re gone, meaning we have to get all awkward.”
Harlan said, “Excuse me. What?”
Jennifer said, “Oh. Sorry. I forgot. Uh … what time is it?”
“Excuse me,” Dyma said. “Midnight? As in, we’re checking in with you, like you always say?” She told Harlan, “This is where she kisses me goodnight, pretending it’s because she loves me, when she’s actually smelling my breath.”
Jennifer said, “You knew that?”
“Well, yeah,” Dyma said. “I’m not stupid.”
“Oh.” Jennifer was still blinking. Still looking pregnant and sleepy and messy and sweet. “How was the concert?”
“Great,” Dyma said. “So are we just supposed to pretend that we don’t notice that you and Harlan are suddenly sleeping together again? Like we weren’t supposed to notice back in North Dakota? Because all this not-noticing, no-relationship, yes-relationship is getting exhausting.”
Jennifer said, “Wait. You knew about North Dakota?”
“If you want to be sneaky,” Dyma said, “you’re going to have to be quieter.”
“Oh.” Jennifer appeared to consider that. “Well, that’s embarrassing,” was what she finally came up with.
“Nope,” Harlan said. “It’s not. We made a baby already. Our secret’s out there. How long are we supposed to stand here and have this chat? Because I’d like to go back to sleep.”
Annabelle said, “Sorry. I wasn’t sure what to do. It’s just that Dyma said her mom’s always waiting up for her, and it would be a big problem if she didn’t check in … And then she wasn’t at home, so I figured …”
“Yep,” Harlan said. “Good job checking in. I’m shutting the door now. Good night.”
“Wait,” Jennifer said. She did kiss Dyma, and she held her head,
too. Presumably smelling her breath. “All right,” she decided. “You can go to bed.”
It had been an interesting weekend. She’d kept meaning to move back into her apartment, but somehow, she hadn’t. It had just been so … nice to be with him. To have him supervise her workout, because, oh, yeah. Still hot. To cook dinner with him. And going to bed with him? That had been more than nice.
He’d said he had a limit. So far, she hadn’t seen it. She’d seen plenty, but she hadn’t seen a limit.
But then on Sunday night, he’d said, “Maybe bring your toothbrush over here. Shampoo. Like that.” In a casual way she hadn’t quite known how to interpret.
She’d wanted to say, What happened to the moving-on guy? Because I can’t forget that. She’d also wanted to say, But I’m going to love you anyway. I’ve got no choice. She’d decided, though, that as long as her clothes were still at her place, it was temporary. She could slide on out of here anytime.
Besides, he had a really nice bathroom.
She wasn’t going to guard her heart. Not possible. Her heart was all-in. She was going to guard her expectations, though. She wasn’t living in the future anymore, or in the past. She was living in the right-the-hell-now. Which was why, when Dyma had asked her yesterday afternoon, when she had been at the apartment, showering and changing after another exhausting workout, “So what’s the deal with you and Harlan, exactly?” she’d answered, “I don’t know. I’d say we’re taking it one day at a time.”
“Mom,” Dyma had said. “You aren’t. You always worry. You know what I think it is? You’ve always been so focused on taking care of me, and of Grandma, too. And now that I’m graduating and Grandma’s gone and Grandpa Oscar wants his meatloaf sampled, you don’t have anybody to take care of anymore, so you’re focusing on Harlan instead, since the baby isn’t here yet. Like, everybody needs an object.”
Shame the Devil (Portland Devils Book 3) Page 41