After (29 page)

“Eva.”

She smiles. She's been waiting.

“I wanted you to come. I thought, hoped you might be here,” he says.

He closes in on her, cages her between his body and the wall. Her smile fades; her lips soften, part. But he doesn't kiss. When she leans forward, he fades back.

Already, they are breathing faster.

For thick, heavy seconds, they merge without a touch, Eva holding and opening him with her eyes, Smith breathing her in, the breath from her parted lips, the scent of her skin, her cheek, her ear, her throat, her hair.

Finally he lets her have his mouth, just touches her lips with his, lingering, lingering before he draws her full upper lip into a mere taunt of a kiss. Eva's gaze is seeking, her breath is stopped, caught, in suspension. Then, slow, slow, he sinks into her, giving her everything in that deep, lasting kiss.

They kiss like they are feeding. Like they are drawing life from the heat, the contact between them.

When she tries to touch him, Smith catches her wrists and pins them to the wall.

“Please. Avery,” she breathes.

“Not yet.”

Now he won't even let her have his mouth. He just holds her pinned, leaves her untouched. Except where his fingers shackle her wrists.

“Do you know, Eva, this pain, this aching need for you, when you're so close I can smell you, when I can feel the heat of you on my skin, when I see you looking at me that way, like you'll die if I don't touch you,” he draws a deep breath, pulling in her scent,

“except for having you, this pain is the most delicious pleasure I've ever known.”

The next morning, Eva wakes before Smith. For a while she lies still, gazing at his sharp features, less fierce in sleep. Then she draws the white sheet down, baring his pale body, his finely-muscled chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm of his sleeping breath. His lean belly, the skin there so smooth, so soft, a valley of tender flesh between those marble hip bones. And that thatch of light brown wool. And his cock. Pink and half-hard, full, heavy against his long, lean thigh. The heat and scent of him rising up to her.

He is still asleep when she takes him in her mouth. By the time he opens his eyes, he is moaning. When he stirs, when he sinks his fingers into her hair, whispers her name, says, “give me your hand,” she looks up into his seeking, startled eyes, takes his hand, then coaxes his thighs apart so she can caress his balls as she goes on sucking until that alabaster belly flexes, those lean thighs quiver, and he calls out, “Eva, Eva,” and she nurses his climax from him.

“Come here, come here,” he pleads, and still shivering, pulls her into his arms, seeking her eyes, their faces touching.

When he's calmed, he kisses her forehead. Her lips. Then, after a long, deep kiss says, “That's quite a way to wake up. What got into you?”

“I wanted to do that. Feel you harden in my mouth. Feel the shape of you. Taste you. You never let me.”

Smiling, Smith says, “I just always want you close. Here, with me. Where I can see your face, what my touch is doing to you.”

“I know.”

* * * *

“I don't want to.”

“What?”

“Have sex.”

Eva smiles, and Diego smiles back. Then his smile fades.

“I'm sorry for what I did, before. I mean, I feel bad. Holding you prisoner.”

“Don't feel bad. Almost anyone else, I would have been terrified. I'm glad it was you. You were very. . .” she pauses, “reassuring.”

“I'm glad.” Diego's eyes fix on her baby bump.

“Do you want to feel it?”

Diego looks startled. Nervous. But he doesn't say no. When Eva puts out her hand, he takes it. She presses his palm to her swelling middle. Diego's mouth spreads in a wide, warm smile. And then, again, his smile fades.

“Are you happy?” he asks her.

“About the baby?” She laughs. “Weirdly, yes. I mean, I wanted to. For a lot of reasons. But I'm surprised how deeply good I feel about it, just for myself.”

Diego's warm smile is back, all dimples and white teeth and lit-up brown eyes.

“How are things with you?” she asks, her voice soft, tentative.

“Okay,” he says, cooling, drifting away.

Eva reaches out, takes his hand. “Obviously, you don't know me. And I know you have Evan. But if you want to talk. About whatever. You can talk to me. Vent.”

He shrugs. “Things are okay. Better lately. Because of you, I think.”

“Really better?” She searches his face, his eyes.

“Before, you said that John told you about everyone.”

“Yes.”

“What did he tell you about me?”

Eva levels her gaze with his. “That some of the men here have hurt you. You and Evan.”

Diego's mouth turns down, his chin dimples. “What else did he tell you?” Eva shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears. “Sorry,” Diego whispers. “Sorry.”

“No.” When she touches his arm, he flinches away. “It's okay.” She reaches out, like she might try again to touch him, but she pulls her hand back. “Tell me. Anything.”

“There's nothing to tell.”

While Eva watches, Diego seems to melt, softening, shrinking down, smaller and smaller until he curls into himself, silent, shaking. Eva puts her hand on his shoulder.

“Get away from me!” he howls.

Eva leaps back, away from Diego's bloodshot glare.

“You're wrong,” he says, barely audible, now. “I don't have Evan. And the men never hurt me. I don't have Evan because the men never hurt me.”

“What?” she breathes. “What do you mean?”

For a minute, two minutes, he stands there, his body a knot of quivering strain, panting as if the life is ebbing out of him. “I'm a coward,” he finally says, not to her, but like an admission to himself.

“No. Diego—“

“You don't know!” he growls.

“Tell me.”

“What? Why?”

“Whatever it is, you can't carry it. Shouldn't.”

“I just came to be nice. To get to know you.”

“I know.”

“You're not my priest.”

“No. But...”

“What?”

“I'm not one of the men. The other soldiers. And I'm not Evan. And I'm not a man.”

He fixes her in the heat of his glare, and like he's working to burn away her kindness, her forgiveness, he tells her, “They all hurt Evan. Not me. I just kept my mouth shut while they all hurt him, and left me alone. I could have said three words, and half of them would have left him alone. But I didn't. I stayed quiet.”

Diego isn't crying. His pain is beyond crying.

“God, they hurt him so bad. And now he'll never...”

“You don't...” she breathes. “You and Evan don't have sex anymore.”

“No,” Diego chokes out a bitter laugh. “No. But I was going to say, now he'll never love me.”

“Oh, Diego.” His pain settles on Eva's face like a mask. “You're wrong. You're wrong.”

That night, Diego finds Evan in his room. The room is small, but Evan is far away.

Cold and quiet.

Until he sees. Diego is shaking, his big brown eyes are red and swollen.

Evan comes close, looks into the eyes of this man who was his friend for such hard, long years, who was his lover for such brief, joyful weeks, this man who has been almost a stranger since the night in the barracks latrine, and his fair face pales, his blue eyes pink.

“What did they do?” he asks in a shattered voice. Diego just shakes his head, tears rising and spilling. “Diego.” Evan reaches to touch the other's cheek, but pulls his hand away. Diego watches Evan's hand recede.

“I'm sorry,” he chokes out. “I'm so sorry, Evan. All this time, I never said it. All this time, you've been...you've been...” Diego moves to touch Evan's arm, but stops short.

Drops his hand.

“Don't, Diego. Fuck. Don't apologize to me.”

“What else can I do? I know what a coward I was. I know. I deserted you. I know I can't make it up to you. Undo that night. And now I find out, it wasn't just that night.

You've been... Over and over, all this time. Saving me. After I betrayed you like that.

Why, Evan? Why do that? Hurting yourself for a coward like me?”

Evan's eyes go cold, hard. “What are you talking about?”

“Please, stop it, Evan. I know. I know what they've been doing to you. I saw Eva today. She—“

“You went,” Evan breathes, his body shrinking. “I wondered if you would. Since you won't, I mean, you can't...”

“What?”

“Forgive me. Be with me.”

“Forgive you?” Diego's sorrow-inflamed eyes fill with confusion. “For what?”

“For what I did to you that night.”

“Did to me? God, Evan. You saved me.”

“That isn't what it felt like.” Shaking, Evan opens his mouth like he'll speak. Stops.

Swallows. “It felt like I raped you.”

“Oh, god,” Diego sobs. “Oh, god. Please. Evan. You haven't been carrying that for all this time?”

“After,” Evan says, “you helped me. That night. For days after. But you were so far away, you know? You'd be right next to me. And I'd look, but it was like I couldn't find you.”

“No. No no no.” Diego's hands twitch like they want to touch, but he reigns himself in. “Never. I never blamed you. Oh, god, Evan. I was only ever ashamed. So ashamed for what I let happen. You saved me from them, and I just stayed silent. I should have said it. I should have said it,” Diego sobs, melting. Even now, both of them contrite, both forgiving, Diego drowning in his tears, when Evan reaches out to touch, he can't quite penetrate the barrier between them.

“Don't, Diego. Don't say that. Don't wish it. Please. I couldn't have lived through that night if they'd touched you. You saved me. By keeping quiet. I asked it of you. I needed you to do what you did.”

Still they don't touch. But for the first time since the rape, they stay together, in the same room, close, talking.

“Evan?” Diego asks later. “What have they been doing to you?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It does.”

“No. It's stopped, now. Since she's been here.”

Evan is telling the truth, excepting one small omission, the night John intervened.

“Really? You promise?”

“I don't know why. All too scared Smith would cross them off the list for the next lottery, I guess. At least at first. Now, though. She's made it so they really have something to lose.”

“Yeah.” Evan's blue eyes darken, like seas under clouding sky.

“Evan,” Diego whispers. “I didn't go to her like that. For sex.”

“It's all right, Diego. I want you to. You deserve some joy. Some pleasure.”

Diego gives Evan a sad smile. “I don't want her, Evan.”

Later, much later, when it's time for lights out, they still haven't touched. Evan asks, “Do you want to stay?”

“Yes.”

Diego moves in close, until they can feel the heat of each other's bodies. With both hands he reaches forward, and with just the tips of fingers, touches Evan's hands.

That tiny connection, fingertips to fingertips, and they are reunited.

For a while they stand there, barely touching, basking in their nearness, eyes locked. Diego waits, stays still, lets Evan come to him. Slow. Their lips touch in a faint, gentle kiss. Lingering and soft. Then slow, quiet, they drift apart, strip to their shorts, and both nervous, both trembling, they go to bed.

That night they only relearn how to touch and be touched, remembering the scent and texture of each other's hair, their skin, how their bodies fit together when they hold one another. How Diego's smooth forehead and rough cheek feel under Evan's lips, how hot and soft and quickening Evan's belly is against Diego's palm.

Remembering want and warmth and whispers.

It's weeks later, after they've laughed together, after they've slept and woken in each others' arms, when Evan says to Diego, “Is it all right if I really touch you?” and Diego says “Yes,” and Evan holds his lover's gaze as he curves his fingers over his stiff cock and slow, soft, moves his touch over him, their bodies faintly writhing, barely rubbing, their excited breaths mingling.

They take everything slow. That first tender caress to climax. The first time, a night later, when Diego takes his lover in his mouth and kisses him to his first bliss since the night they were taken from each other. And, long, tender weeks later, when Diego asks, pleads, and takes Evan in, kisses and whispers and holds him as Evan makes love to him for the first time.

* * * *

“Your daddy does a mean two-step. At first you'll be too little, but when you're bigger, I'm gonna teach you.”

Eva laughs. Riggs pulls his hand away.

“I'm not laughing at you,” she says gently, pulling his hand back to her big belly. “I just think it's funny, people from California doing country western dancing.”

“It's big where I'm from. Was big, I mean.”

“I never learned any of that,” she says. “When I don't look like I've got a beach ball stuffed under my shirt, maybe you'll teach me, too.”

“Sure.” That moment, Riggs looks at Eva. Really looks at her. And smiles.

His hand is up under her nightgown—a couple of the more voluminous nighties are the only things that fit her, now. Eva rolls onto her side, fits her back against Riggs where he's lying next to her, propped on his elbow, facing her. Under the now-taxed billows of sheer white fabric she finds his hand and guides it, down the swell of her belly to her ribs, up the swell of her breast. Behind her, Riggs goes tense. His breathing changes. Eva guides his hand over her breast, fuller than it was seven months ago, her nipples bigger, darker, more sensitive. Already her flesh is responding to his warm touch.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice strained.

“Do you want to?” she asks.

He doesn't say anything back. Still holding his hand to her breast she shifts against him, writhing back against the erection straining for her through his slacks.

Riggs yanks his hand out from under her gown. Jumps off the bed.

“Don't do that,” he says.

Smoothing away her surprise, Eva gives him an understanding smile. “It's fine if you don't want to. I realizes I look more like the pumpkin than Cinderella these days—“

“It's not that. That's not even true,” Riggs says, backing away toward the door.

Eva rises from the bed, smoothes her gown down over her heavy belly.