by Hart, Megan
“Well, don’t you worry, Mr. Wilder,” I tell him. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” If I weren’t so sated and languid, I’d be far more annoyed.
“Nothing.”
I give him a narrow look and sit up against the headboard, arms crossed over my chest. “You’re being vague.”
He sighs heavily. “God forbid I be vague, Priscilla.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
With a low snort, Joe gets out of bed and pads toward the bathroom. I hear water running in the sink. I’m not pleased he walked away from me. I get up and follow him. He’s brushing his teeth, and I see he’s left the cap off the toothpaste. Again.
“What is your problem?” I demand. “Are you jealous?”
Another snort from him turns my mouth down. I put my hands on my hips. He slides his toothbrush back into the holder and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He turns to me.
“No, Priscilla. I’m not.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on with you, Joe.”
“Nothing’s going on with me.”
I study him, making note of his posture. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah. Got to be up early tomorrow.”
“I thought you were going to stay.” There’s no harm in being sweet to him.
“I can’t.”
Except when he refuses to let me.
Cross, I scowl. “Well, fine, but don’t forget we have dinner with my parents tomorrow night, and the meeting with Father Harris on Friday.”
“I won’t forget.”
“Good. Let’s not fight, baby, it makes me upset.” I stand on tiptoe to kiss his mouth.
Joe turns his head.
Caught flat-footed, my mouth skips along his jaw before it lands on his cheek. I pull away.
“Kiss me.”
He does nothing.
“Joe!”
He sighs heavily again, but he doesn’t move.
“Look, Joe,” I say. “I’m sorry you’ve got a burr in your briefs, but you don’t have to be so immature about this.”
Joe says nothing. He leans against the sink, arms crossed, and I am so irritated have to stomp. The tile floor is cold and hurts my toes.
“Don’t you ignore me!”
“What’s my favorite color?”
“What?” I’m at a loss for words, a situation in which I rarely find myself.
“What color,” Joe says slowly, patiently, “is my favorite?”
My hands fist on my hips. “Why?”
“Your favorite color is beige. You like vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, but you hate walnuts in your brownies, when you eat brownies, which is almost never. You wear a size seven shoe. Your middle name is Anne.”
“And?”
“What’s my middle name?”
I gape, catching sight of my reflection, which reminds me that it’s not a flattering expression. My jaw shuts with a snap. I don’t know Joe’s middle name. He never told me he had one. There isn’t one on the invitations.
“It’s Maxwell.”
I do not like where this conversation is going. “Fine. Is this about the invitations? Because if you wanted your middle name on them, you should have said something before.”
“No, Priscilla. It’s not about the invitations. I could not possibly care less about the invitations. Or the food. Or the music.”
“I knew it!” I cry. “I knew you didn’t care!”
Joe scrubs his eyes with the tips of his fingers. He’s not looking at me when he says, “I care about the things that are important.”
There is a long silence I break with a sniff and an icy reply. “If you are saying I don’t care about things that are important, then maybe you should just go!”
I meant it as a threat, but Joe seems to take it as a gift. Still silent, he doesn’t need to speak because his face says it all. Stunned, I can’t say anything either as he pushes past me. I find my voice when I see he’s already dressed.
“How can you expect me to know these things if you never told me?”
No answer.
“If you walk out that door, don’t think you can come back!”
He pauses in the doorway, but doesn’t turn around.
“You’ll be sorry!”
My threats are coming fast and wild, but how dare he? How dare he leave me? Even if I’m the one telling him to go?
“You just…get out!” I scream.
And he does.
* * *
“You can say I told you so,” Joe said as soon as he’d finished.
“No. I don’t want to say that.”
We sat in companionable silence. I didn’t ask him how long ago the story had taken place. It didn’t seem to matter.
“Why didn’t you ever tell her?”
“She was happy with me the way things were. She didn’t seem to need to know those things.”
“But…you knew them about her. Did she tell you? Or did you just pay closer attention?”
He sighed. “It doesn’t matter, now.”
“Will you tell me something?”
He looked into my eyes. “Sadie. I think you know I’ll tell you just about anything.”
We both laughed, and oh, it was so good to feel that my grief didn’t need to be all I had. “Did you want her to not know?”
“Are you asking me if I wanted to fail?”
“Yes.” Our hands were close together on the bench, not touching, but close. “Did you?”
“I didn’t think so at the time.”
“Someday, Joe, you’re going to run out of stories.”
He laughed, shaking his head, and got to his feet. “I don’t think so. See you next month?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”
Joe put his hands in his pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet before answering. “I hope I do, Sadie. I really do.”
I looked up at him. He smiled. As always, I did, too.
“Thanks.”
He nodded and silence that wasn’t quite sure what it wanted to be fell between us. Then he took a step back. I got up. We faced each other, no bench separating us. Nothing but air and uncertainty.
“Thank you,” I said.
Joe leaned closer, just a hair. “You’re welcome.”
We left at the same time but in different directions. Yet when I made to cross the street, Joe stood on the corner. We laughed, self-conscious, before parting again, and I tried not think about how different paths had led us to the same place.
Twenty
March
A dark and rainy night seemed perfect for a long, hot shower, new pajamas and a pot of Earl Grey tea to go along with a brand-new release by my favorite author. I was in the kitchen pouring boiling water over the loose tea, secure in its strainer ball, when the doorbell rang. I stopped, startled, my eyes going automatically to the clock. It was just past eleven on a Saturday night.
And I was alone.
For the first time since Adam’s death, having the house to myself seemed a disadvantage. I set the kettle back on the burner and listened, body tense. I’d half-convinced myself I’d imagined it when it rang again. I crept down the hall. Through the curtained windows on either side of the front door I saw the faint black shape of my visitor.
I snagged the poker from the fireplace and held it close to my side as I unlocked the door and eased it open. Outside, rain lashed the trees on the street. Faint blue-white lightning lit the sky above the rooftops, followed shortly after by the far-off rumble of thunder. The streetlights silhouetted my guest from behind, keeping his face in darkness, but I knew who it was at once.
“Joe?”
I stepped back, and he came forward. Rain slicked his hair over his forehead and dripped off his nose. His clothes hung, sodden, the white shirt made sheer. He carried a bottle of whiskey. He made a puddle on my rug and gave no greeting, no wo
rd of explanation, made no noise but the slightly raspy hiss of his breath.
I was already reaching for him when he put his arm around my waist and pulled me against him. The rain was cold. He was hot, burning beneath the wetness, his skin a furnace burning with such fury I expected to see steam. The whiskey bottle was hard between my shoulder blades.
I drank the taste of smoke and whiskey from his mouth. He didn’t smell as good as he always did, but better, with a tang of musk beneath the scent of soap and water not even the rain could wash away. He kicked the door shut behind him without leaving my mouth.
We made it to the stairs in three steps, but got no further. The ridge of the step bit into my back as he pressed me down. He swallowed my gasp, sipped my breath and stole my air, then gave it back to me with his next exhale. He was wet and cold and hot, and so was I, shivering under his touch. The bottle slipped to the steps beside me, the solid thunk of glass on wood an exclamation mark we both ignored.
“Sadie, Sadie, Sadie…”
I tasted my name on his tongue. Joe’s hands were everywhere. They cupped my breasts, my sides, reached down to slide the hem of my nightgown up over my thighs. His hand slid against my bare skin without preamble. I needed none.
There were buttons on the front of the nightgown from the high neck to the hem, but it was easier for him to push it up than to open it. The fabric, damp from the kiss of his clothes, bunched up around my neck and caught under my ass. Joe bent his head to my breasts, and I arched in anticipation. He didn’t disappoint me. He kissed my breasts as he cupped them together. His breath skated hot over skin his clothes had made moist. He licked and sucked my nipples, each one, until I cried out.
I didn’t have to move, not to shift, not to ready myself for him in any way. Joe did it all. He left my breasts, his hands already parting my thighs, and not even the steps biting into the back of my neck and back kept me from arching my entire body when he put his face between my legs.
I thought of nothing, but everything. He parted my curls with his thumbs and found the sweetness of my clit with his tongue. It was not as I’d imagined it would be.
It was better.
Pleasure surged inside me when Joe traced my body’s curves and lines with his mouth. I felt lips, tongue, a hint of teeth that made me gasp and lift toward him. It wasn’t soft, not tender, not even graceful, the way he went down on me. It didn’t matter.
Thunder rumbled outside, closer. His mouth left ecstasy like lightning in its path. My body tensed, electric, humming with it.
I looked down. He looked up. He licked his mouth. Swallowed. He got up, and I was sure he meant to leave. It was in his eyes, that knowing he should go.
He stayed. He leaned in with a hand on the stair behind my head. The other went between my legs, his palm pressed to my flesh. He kissed me, and I tasted myself mingled with his flavor.
His eyes had specks of gold around the pupils, which had gone large and dark. Each eyebrow seemed perfectly groomed, each hair like a golden wire. Faint freckles dotted his nose, invisible at a distance but deliciously plain at this close range.
He slanted his mouth to capture mine again and kissed me slowly as his hand moved on me. I drew a breath and held it.
We didn’t move. Locked in his gaze with the taste of myself mingled with him on my lips, I let out the breath I held. Slowly, slowly, and slowly too I drew in another. My chest rose with it. My body shifted. Joe pressed the heel of his hand on me.
That was all it took. Pleasure overtook me. We were looking into each other’s eyes when I came, and neither one of us looked away.
The world shifted back into focus around me. The storm outside, the awkward folding of our limbs, the whiskey bottle as it got nudged from its place and fell down the final step to the floor, where at least it didn’t break. I’d opened the door less than ten minutes before.
“Sadie.” Joe’s whisper brushed my face as he put his forehead to mine. “Don’t make me leave.”
He wasn’t as drunk as I’d first thought. Maybe not even drunk at all, despite the half-empty bottle. He slipped a hand between my body and the steps, easing my discomfort. When I stood on the step above him, I could look him in the eyes.
His tie, already askew, came off with barely a tug. The tack at his collar gave me a moment’s fight, but was soon undone, as were the rest of his buttons. His jacket made a wet noise as it hit the floor, but kissing, neither of us looked to see where it had fallen.
Stepping back, I led him up the stairs and left a trail of clothes in our path. We didn’t bother with the buttons on my nightgown. I pulled it over my head. By the time we got to my bedroom, I was naked and Joe wore only a pair of damp boxer briefs.
I’d never imagined hesitation from him, but he held back when I led him to my bed. I pulled. He stepped closer. Goosebumps pebbled his skin, and his fingers linked in mine were cold.
If I’d had any doubts about what I was doing, they disappeared with his reluctance.
“Joe,” I whispered, reaching to stroke his arm, also grown cold. “Come to bed with me. It’s all right.”
Still, he hesitated.
“Your favorite color is blue,” I said. “You hate tomatoes and love cucumbers. You love a good red wine and sometimes drink whiskey, but you hardly ever get drunk. You smell like soap and water because you never wear cologne. I know you, Joe. It’s all right. Come to bed with me.”
I’d suffered months – no. Years. More than a year of guilt for wanting to go to bed with Joe, but at the moment I let go of shame. I needed him. I thought he needed me. Right and wrong, good and bad, the lines are blurred when it comes to matters of the heart. Anyone who has never felt that has no right to judge, and anyone who ever has won’t have to.
I took his face in my hands and kissed him, once for the good. Once for the bad. Then I took his hand and pulled him with me to my bed, where I laid him down amidst the softness and warmth of flannel sheets and a down comforter. Under the blankets, I took off his briefs and tossed them out. Then I aligned my body with his until we’d warmed each other enough to stop from shivering.
In the darkness of the cave I’d made, nothing could touch us. I learned the lines of his body, all the places I thought I already knew and all the ones I didn’t. My fingers traced his collarbone and slope of his shoulders, broader than they appeared when he wore clothes. His chest and the smooth, crisp curling hair around his nipples tickled my face. He groaned when I tasted him. His heart thumped faster under the pucker of his nipple. Lower, lines of tight muscle gave my fingers places to play. The jut of his hipbone gave my mouth a spot to land before I discovered the bulge and curve of thigh and knee. His cock fit the curve of my fingers with perfect precision. I felt faint at the noise he made when I stroked him, head to base. He pushed into my hand when I tested the weight of his testicles in my palm. He was warm, alive, this part of him no longer secret or imagination. It was truth. He was real.
We spoke in murmurs and sighs. His fingers threaded in my hair, but he didn’t try to direct my exploration of his body. The shivering stopped, though occasional trembling replaced it.
I took him in my mouth, my tongue eager for his taste. Joe gripped my shoulders, his hips lifting. His cock nudged the back of my throat, and I took him down it for one brief moment before we both moved again. Up and down, slow, soft sucking, and rapid strokes of my tongue. I was a woman starved. For touch, for pleasure, for the taste and touch and scent of a man, but even then, it was not just a man I did my best to please. It was Joe. All along, right or wrong, it was Joe.
At last, gasping, I had to throw off the blankets. Moonlight painted Joe’s face, turning his golden countenance to silver. Cool air washed over us, and I drank it interspersed with his kisses.
As though I’d given him permission, he put his hands on me, pulled me on top of him. Connected at mouth, chest, hip, cunt and cock, our feet tangled, hands exploring, I was no longer sure where I ended and he began. Sweat sealed us. Saliva glistened on his th
roat where I kissed him. He found the soft, tender spot at the curve of my neck and sucked gently, bringing blood to the surface and a moan to my throat.
He rolled us, covering me. I arched and writhed, hungry for him, but though he moved against me with increasing urgency, Joe didn’t push inside me. I reached between us to touch him, and he buried his head in my shoulder with a low cry.
I whispered his name. “I want you.”
“I want you, Sadie…but…”
He was bare in my fist. Of course. Not even in the stories had Joe ever been incautious. He would never take the risk again, and I knew why. I kissed him, pumping his cock in my fingers and he grew even harder.
“Wait.” He rasped the word. “Sadie, wait.”
I waited. Hearts thumped in time while our breath became a perfect give and take. He moved a little against me.
“Give me a second,” he said. “Just…don’t move.”
“You mean, don’t do this?” I closed my fingers, stroking.
Joe jerked, groaning. “Ah, Sadie –”
I pulled him down against me, his cock on my belly. I traced the line of his ear with my tongue. I put my hands on his tight, firm ass and I urged him to move against me.
His hips pumped forward. Sweat slicked our bodies and let his cock slide without sticking on my skin. I pulled him toward me again and hooked my ankles around the backs of his calves.
“I want to be inside you so bad.”
“I want that, too.”
Sex is rarely elegant. It’s bodies slapping, and mess, and the awkwardness of placing hands and limbs where they need to go without pinching, of poking only places meant for poking. It’s getting your partner off on your stomach because you haven’t got a condom. It’s making the best of what you have into something pretty damn good.
He moved against me. Although I ached for him to fill me, and this was not the way I’d ever imagined it to be, I couldn’t stop myself from twitching in reaction when he thrust harder. Faster. When he moaned my name. When his teeth found my shoulder, I cried out. He bit into me. I felt his cock jerk on my belly, felt heat and liquid warmth. I smelled the sweet tangy musk of his come, and I tipped over the edge into my own startled orgasm.