She sat up on one elbow, head propped in one palm, her face a delight. “I sit across from Declan, Andrew and Terry McCormick once a year. It’s hardly the same as what you do. You probably run period errands for their wives and girlfriends.”
The bed convulsed as he shifted, staring at her in shock.
“How did you know?”
She just laughed. “I assumed. Plus, you have no shame. Remember that time at the BX when you bought lube and a dozen donuts and asked the poor clerk about proper technique?”
“That was on a dare.”
“A dare you won.”
He shrugged.
“You do know what they’re like, though,” he insisted.
“Once a year I sit across an enormous boardroom table and drool at those hot, gorgeous, smart, intense men who—hey!”
He pinched her ass.
“I don’t need to hear that,” he growled.
“You asked,” she said in a low, chiding voice. “If you don’t want to hear the truth, don’t ask.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “I’d forgotten that about you.”
“What? My pinchable ass?” She rubbed the spot where he’d zinged her.
“No. That I could never forget.” His feelings deepened. “You tell the truth. Always. But you also face it.”
“Can’t live any other way, Gerald.”
His entire body tensed, like a stadium of sports fans doing the wave, one muscle at a time, in sequence. It was a slow motion shiver.
“I know. It’s what captivates me.”
“It scares the hell out of most men.”
“I’m not most men.”
“No,” she said, in a voice that was half sigh, half regret. “You’re not.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it.”
“You ruined me for other men.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. The gesture seemed intended to be casual, but it broke something inside him.
His hands slid up from her shoulder to cup her jaw.
“I wish I’d understood back then how your unflinching willingness to face the truth in any situation could have saved us.”
“It would have saved us.”
“And I’ll regret not connecting that to reality for the rest of my life.”
“I don’t want your regrets about the past, Gerald. I want you here. Now. In the present. And I want to talk about how we’re going to be in the future. Together.”
“C’mon, Suz. Don’t be shy. Tell me how you’re really feeling.” He kissed her then, an awkward, sudden move that she broke, eyes blazing.
“You always used to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Cover up talking about feelings with sex.”
“Sex is a feeling.”
Her eyebrows shot up, then curled down, like a silky beige caterpillar being tickled. “What?”
“Sex is a feeling,” he insisted. “It’s how I express feelings.”
“I want you to express your feelings with your mouth.”
He began to crawl under the covers, prowling toward her body. “Yes, ma’am....”
“Gerald!” He could hear the laugh in her voice as she struggled to stay serious. Soon, though, she stopped.
This was serious.
He needed to have as much of him touching her, and not just through sex. The affinity they shared transcended the pain he’d caused her, the confusion he’d lived through, the emotional muck and mire of so many years lost. As he kissed her, so many thoughts raced through his mind, most of them fragmented and nonsensical, soon replaced by instinct, by touch, neurons firing as he used his hands to find her, to find them.
The feel of her hands on his hip, curving around to find a better grip, the sharp sound of his reaction, the dull blade of need inside making the wound of separation bleed a little more. All these pieces of pain co-existed inside him, shards of himself he’d collected over the years, tossed in a small bag he wore on his back.
As she smoothed his skin, kissed his abs, slid her cheek along the thickening thatch of hair on his belly, he found himself dropping the bag, wondering why he ever needed to carry it at all.
Lighter now, carried off by the wind, he crashed into her and they traveled so high, where no one could see them, above the clouds, his body over hers, her legs around him again, his mouth on hers, the boundary between them gone.
Just air.
And then they closed that gap, too, until the only barrier left was one that only time could dissipate.
She came with a quiet sound of pleasure, her openness so sweet, his own finish one of excitement, their bodies well worn after spending the night together but his thirst for her unquenched. Suzanne was luminous, cheeks pink, eyes wide and searching.
“I love you.”
“I never stopped loving you,” he said, giving her a tiny piece of herself back, one he’d withheld from that bag of shards.
“Thank you.”
The light shining through the cream-colored sheets made her body take on a matte finish, her skin being played with by the light as if she were a toy for amusement. Rays and particles danced in concert to find the most beautiful arrangement of bisecting points and angles, lines and slope. Her body was a mathematical equation, a calculus problem to solve with his hands, his mouth, his body.
His heart and soul.
Computing the area under a curve required deep study.
Very deep.
So deep you lost yourself.
And never wanted to find your way out.
Chapter 15
“I can’t believe it’s been eight weeks already,” Agnes complained. “And there aren’t any more classes for three weeks!”