But what if I showed him what we’d had? What if I could make him remember himself, remember us, by loving him?
I was afraid. Not so much that he’d figure out what I was doing and kill me as he’d threatened, but that I’d be captured more thoroughly by my feelings than I’d been by this building of marble and glass. If I let myself love him, would I ever be able to get over him again? Would I be able to kill him if I needed to?
If I didn’t do something and quickly, I’d be dead or wishing I was. I had to take the chance no matter the cost.
His lips moved against my skin; he whispered words I couldn’t understand, softly, like a prayer. I knew that couldn’t be true.
“Shh,” he murmured, as if soothing me, and kissed the well between my breasts before rubbing his face over me, as if memorizing the plane of my soul.
He mouthed my nipple, no tongue, no teeth. He didn’t suckle; he didn’t kiss; just a quick caress and he was gone, trailing those lips—so deliciously cool amid all this heat—over my stomach, my hip, then lower still. He rubbed his face in my soft curls, trailed a thumb over my center; then before I could protest, or agree, he fell back on the bed, taking me along.
My gasp of surprise turned into a tiny squeak when he rolled, pinning me beneath him. I expected a change— the gentleness gone, the monster returned. He’d roughly thrust; he’d make me come. I wouldn’t be able to deny him any more now than 1 had before. But he surprised me. He forever surprised me.
His chest pressed into mine, naked and slick, like fine marble. If I turned on the light would I see the trace of veins beneath the surface—blue beneath pale brown, instead of black tracing white?
He lifted his head; I captured his face in my hands and kissed him. Sweetly, like the first time. Tentatively. Mouths only, tongues later. Much later, when I couldn’t wait any longer for a taste.
The first touch of my lips and he opened. I didn’t delve inside. Instead I made my way downward, savoring his jaw, his neck, his chest. When I couldn’t go any lower, a tiny shove at his shoulder, and he fell back; he let me take the lead and the top.
His nipples pebbled beneath my tongue; my fingers traced the ridge of his ribs and belly. I forgot he was different, that I was, and concentrated on the things that were the same.
He still liked it when I rubbed my mouth over the fluttering muscles in his stomach. He still moaned when I reached into his loose cotton pants and closed my palm around him. He still gasped when I eased the elastic waistband clear and swirled my tongue over his tip.
If I were a slave he’d grab my head, push himself into my mouth, and make me stay there while he pumped harder and faster, while he grew larger and larger, the tight, slick heat making him spurt.
Instead he let me do anything that I wanted. Did he trust me that much? Probably not. He merely trusted that there was nothing I could do that would hurt him— at least not permanently.
In the old days, we’d had to sneak around. Ruthie would have killed us if she’d caught us together. So there’d been a lot of back-seat sex, quite a few blow jobs in the closet. One of the few times we’d ever done it on a bed had been our first time.
Ruthie had taken the little ones to the zoo; Jimmy had come home a day early from the farm, and I’d just gotten out of the shower.
Afternoon sun through the window, just-cut grass on the breeze, my body wet, my skin flushed. Jimmy had walked by my bedroom, his footsteps slowing, the door creaking back. His shirt unbuttoned, the top of his jeans too. I can still feel the jab of lust that had hit me when I’d seen the paler skin beneath the sweat-darkened jeans and licked my lips, wondering at the flavor.
We’d come together like thunder in the middle of a summer night. He’d tasted like danger. Hell, he still did.
While I’d been reminiscing, he’d lost the pants. He no longer bothered with underwear or socks, which only made things easier for me.
I took him all the way in, then let him slide almost all the way out, swirling my tongue around the tip, then down to the base; my palm cupping him, at first gently and then more firmly still.
His fingers clenched in my hair, then released just as quickly. He didn’t want me to stop, didn’t want me to slow. He wanted this, and he wanted it my way.
Increase the rhythm, the pressure, a scrape of the teeth, so close, a few more strokes and he’d be mine.
But he wouldn’t give in; he wouldn’t give it up. Instead he entangled our legs and did some fancy wrestling move, flipping me onto my back and sliding between my thighs.
“Hey.” My protest was cut short by his mouth. He kissed me as if he wanted to crawl inside me forever. He hadn’t kissed me like that since we were seventeen.