After (35 page)

And it's true. Eva—who, her second time, took control of John, who coerced Smith their first time together, who handled Riggs like a horse under reigns and a whip—trembles and blushes and catches her breath as Smith brushes his lips against hers in a soft hint of a kiss, as his breath and the faint touch of his lips mingle to stir nerves along her jaw, her hair line, as he strokes the soft bare skin of her neck, her arms, as he moves close, enfolding her in his heat.

* * * *

“James?”

He looks up from the baby in his lap. Eva smiles.

“What are you thinking about?” Her voice is gentle.

Riggs shrugs. “Nothing.”

“Sometimes, when you look at him, you look so sad.”

“I guess I was just thinking, when they're little like this, it's easy. You feed them and change them and hold them, smile at them, and they love you.”

“Yeah.”

“When he gets older, though, he'll learn stuff. I guess maybe he won't love me, when he learns the things I've done.”

“You've done bad things, James. And there's no hiding from that, from your past.

Not really. All you can do is choose to be a good person, now. The way you've been good to Hope. And me. And Gareth. He'll grow up, seeing that every day. I think it would be awfully hard to undo his love for his father, after a lifetime of knowing you, being good and kind.”

* * * *

“How did I miss it all this time?” John laughs, nuzzling into Eva's neck, making her squeal and giggle.

Now that she's wound up, wiggling with laughter, squirming under John's kisses and little bites, every inch of her body seems to be unbearably ticklish. When she's panting hard, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, John relents, waits, takes her in a hot, deep kiss. But when he touches his lips to her belly, just inside her hip bone, she writhes and gasps and is laughing again, all her nerves taut and ticklish now.

They laugh and struggle and come together, her tormented writhing driving them both crazy as they fuck, John pinning her wrists against her desperate flailing as he licks and bites her neck, riding her like a bronco, holding on for dear life. When they finish they collapse, lax, sweaty, panting, laughing at themselves. Neither notice the pale face, the green eyes, wide, intent, or hear the door close softly as they come unjoined and settle into mirthful whispering.

* * * *

When Eva opens her sweater and lifts up her tank top to give the baby her breast, Riggs turns away. Eva smiles, but doesn't say anything.

“I can't believe how big he's getting,” Riggs says.

“He's a big boy.” She beams down at her son, eagerly taking her milk and grasping her finger. “James.”

“Yeah?” He's still got his back to her.

“You don't have to be embarrassed, watching him nurse.”

Riggs turns around. “I'm not.” But his eyes evade the bared breast, the suckling baby.

After a while, Eva switches the baby to her other breast. Gareth fusses for a moment when she takes the first nipple away, but soon he latches on and settles down, sucking contentedly.

“Kid's sure got a thick head of hair,” Riggs says.

“Mmm Hmm.” Eva strokes the fine, dark hair. “And notably lacking his mother's kinky curls.”

“That's kinda too bad.”

“Yeah?” Eva laughs. “Think he'd look cute running around with a little 'fro?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling, “I do.”

“Do you want to burp him?” she asks, tugging her top down when Gareth has grown bored of nursing.

Riggs smiles, throws a blanket over his shoulder, and takes the baby from Eva.

Long for his three months, and plump, the baby that looked huge in Eva's arms seems tiny in Riggs's giant hands, and curled over his massive shoulder as Riggs pats him gently on the back.

Another night, Riggs fidgets, but doesn't get up and turn away as Eva unbuttons her nightgown to nurse the baby.

“I'm kind of glad now I didn't burn these hideous things when I first got here,” she says, tugging at the fabric with an air of mild disgust. They're kind of gross as lingerie, but they make decent maternity-wear. I guess there's something to easy access, after all.”

Riggs turns a little red and gives her an uneasy smile. They fall quiet as the baby drinks his dinner.

“You want to put him down?” She asks Riggs.

“You go ahead,” he says, looking off somewhere to the right.

Eva laughs. “Come on, James. Take your son and tuck him in.”

“Please, Eva. I don't want to.”

“Okay,” she gives in, giving Riggs a sympathetic smile.

Kissing the baby ten or twenty times on his crown and his tiny palms, she lays him in his crib and drapes his blanket over him. Then she sits on the edge of the bed, and pats the spot next to her. Riggs reluctantly comes and sits beside her.

“James.” Her voice is soft. Gentle. “It's okay that you get aroused, sometimes, seeing me nurse.”

His eyes are fixed on the wall opposite.

“It's not just you. It's normal. So you should feel embarrassed. Ashamed.”

Riggs is quiet. Just breathing hard.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” His voice is tight, and his eyes stay fixed on that wall, as if he's wearing blinders and Eva is invisible. A disembodied voice.

“You don't sound okay.”

“I don't like it. Making this dirty.”

“Is that what you think? That sex is dirty?”

“No. But it's perverted, thinking that stuff about you when you're nursing.”

“Why?” she asks. “Sex is how he got made.” She laughs. “You know what I read in one of the medical books?”

“What?”

“Some women have orgasms, just from nursing.”

“Nah.”

“Really. I haven't, but I can definitely see how it could happen,” she tells him.

He laughs and finally looks at her. His face goes red again, and he gets up, goes across the room. Eva's gown is still unbuttoned, her swollen, heavy breasts partly visible between the gapping fabric. She looks down, blushes, laughs. Looks over at Riggs huddling in the corner like a punished schoolboy.

“James. Come here.”

When he sits down beside her again, she touches the bare back of his arm, just below he sleeve of his tee.

“I don't want you to ever feel bad for feeling aroused, from looking at me, or for thinking about me. Your desire isn't bad. It isn't bad, if you get hard, or if you fantasize things about me. The only bad thing is making people do things they don't want.”

She strokes the back of his arm, caresses his back. His heat, his muscles scantily veiled under the thin t-shirt.

“You shouldn't do that,” he says.

She pulls her hand away.

“You don't like it? Being touched?”

“It's not that.”

“What is it, then?”

Silence.

“Are you afraid you'll want to hurt me?”

“No.”

“It's okay,” she whispers. “You don't have to be scared.”

She touches his hand, traces up his arm, brushes her fingertips over the nape of his neck, combs them into his hair. He sits there, shaking, breathing hard, his eyes going red. When she touches his cheek, his jaw flexes. It seems like he's stopped breathing.

“Is it so strange,” she whispers, “being touched like this?”

He's quiet for a long time before he unclamps his jaw and breathes, “Yes.”

“But, does it feel nice?”

“Yes.”

“It's okay. You can touch me,” she whispers.

He stays still for a long time, as she goes on stroking his hair, caressing the bare skin above the collar of his t-shirt. Then, finally, he reaches over, and his fingers light on her hair, so carefully she can't even feel his touch. Again, he seems not to be breathing.

After a long while, his thumb brushes lightly against her cheek. Then he pulls his hand away.

“I shouldn't,” he says.

“Why, James?”

“I think it hurt you, before. Letting me touch you. In the storage shed, those times.”

She gives him a smile, but he's dodging her face again.

“James. That was a long time ago. We weren't friends, then.” He turns a little farther from her gaze. “We're friends now. Aren't we?”

He nods his head.

“It's okay,” she says, bringing his hands to her neck. “I want you to.”

She touches her lips to his cheek. Riggs closes his eyes. Lets go of a shuddery breath. Touches her. Fingertips trailing feather-light over her throat. Out to her shoulders. Down, tracing the outcurves over her breasts. He freezes.

“Eva.”

“What?”

“I won't be how I was. In the shed. I promise. I want it to be nice for you.”

She smiles. Catches and holds his gaze until he smiles back. Then she draws the front of her gown open, fully baring her breasts.

Riggs brings his palms underneath, gently cups the weight of her full breasts.

Faintly caresses the taut flesh. He scrupulously avoids her dark, swollen nipples. She brushes her fingers over one.

“They're tender. But if you kiss gently, it'll feel nice.” He blushes and shoots a look at the crib. “He won't mind,” she says, grinning.

Riggs kisses, and after a moment or two, gets a deep, breathy moan.

“Take your shirt off?” she asks.

He gives her a sheepish smile, as if he's embarrassed not to have done it sooner, and tugs his t-shirt over his head. While he caresses and kisses her other breast, she touches and teases up and down his brawny chest. When she cups her hand over his hard-on, he groans out loud.

When they're both naked, when he's holding himself over her, poised between her parted thighs, she kisses his cheek, strokes his hair, puts her arms around him. He lets out a strange, startled whimper as he enters her. As he moves, he trembles. She can feel the shuddering quivering of his muscles as she holds him, as she caresses his back.

He still has trouble looking at her, meeting her eyes. But she smiles as he nuzzles against her neck, kisses her shoulder, caresses her hair. All his touches, all his movements are gentle. Careful.

When she makes a little whimpering sound he goes still and whispers, “I'm sorry.”

Now Eva cups his face in her hands and makes him look at her. She smiles.

Kisses his forehead.

“Don't be sorry. It feels good. You feel good to me.”

“Oh.”

He is trembling again, his hands shaking as he pulls her close against him, moves with her the way he was before, and now each time she makes that noise, that little whimper, a shudder runs through him. His eyes closed, his brow furrowed, sweat sheening his back, he drives that little whimpering sound from her again and again until she keens and writhes up against him, shuddering under him, clutching him against her and he groans, deep, guttural, then pants, practically sobbing his breaths.

“I wish I'd known you sooner. When I was younger,” he says to her later, when they've dressed and he's kissed his son goodnight. “Maybe I'd be a better man.”

She gives him a sad smile. Shakes her head. “I was just a spoiled kid, before the dying. Besides, I haven't made you a better person. You have.”

He shrugs. “Well. I should go.”

Not long after, there's a soft knock, and Smith comes in. He gazes down at the sleeping infant, and a melancholy smile widens his mouth. Then he finds Eva in the shower. As Eva watches, he strips down. Joins her. He comes to her slowly, and in a cautious, tender voice, asks her if she's all right. Eva smiles. Takes his hands.

“I'm fine.”

He pulls her to him, wraps her up close in his arms.

“God, Eva. Why?”

Eva breaks the circle of his arms, backs away, gets his gaze.

“I want him to be happy.”

“You think he deserves that?”

She's quiet for a bit.

“I don't know,” she says, finally. “I don't even know if that question makes sense.

But he's the father of our baby. He's a member of this group of survivors. It can't do us any good, shoving him out to the margins, keeping him an outcast. Treating him like a leper.”

“There's a lot of room between ostracizing someone, and taking them to bed.”

Smith sounds wounded.

“I know that,” Eva says, a crack in her patient voice. “Avery, I haven't forgotten what he's done. What he's capable of. But that's not all he is.”

Eva pulls in a deep breath and sighs as she lets it go.

“Don't you see it, sometimes? How scared he is? I'd guess that every awful thing he's done, he's done with the feeling his back was against the wall. And when he's with Hope, and sometimes when he's with me, that fear that I see in him fades, a little. I think it's good for him. I think him feeling...cared for, included, is good for all of us. For the whole group.”

“So, what? It's not enough, now, that you give yourself to every man on base, give them all their ration of comfort? The special cases get you for a part-time wife, as well?”

“Don't.” She pulls him to her, strokes his wet hair, his wet back. “You're susceptible, too,” she says gently, still stroking him. “Don't let your fear, this irrational fear of yours, turn you ugly.”

* * * *

“Avery.”

It's a plea. He has her pinned. Immobilized. Wrists caught in his fierce grip, her torso pressed into the hot damp sheets under the weight of him, her legs caught, helpless, wrapped up in the twist of his shins, ankles, feet. Like this, trapped under him, she can't touch, can't writhe and flex with him. Can't give pleasure, or seek it. Eva is at his mercy.

For minutes at a time he keeps her in suspense, makes her feel him, hot, deep, quivery, but only a tease, a hint, provoking her need, over and over, holding her open, keeping her full, swollen, careful never to rub out the itch he stirs with every little movement.

And all that time he holds her, caught in his gaze, probing her through every twitch of need, seeking, catching every glint of hope, of surrender.

“Please, Avery.”

When he gives her one small taste of mercy, of real, deep pleasure, her taut straining ruptures and she howls, sudden, loud. Smith clamps a hand over her mouth, smothering her next startled cry of pleasure.

He makes her come like that, her wrists caught and pinned under one hand, her mouth covered by the other so she can cry her pleasure with abandon, her body straining, helpless under him, her only pleasure, all her pleasure given to her, none of it taken for herself. And he, so caught up in the rapture he is working on her that he loses himself to his own ecstasy almost at the moment her body succumbs to the spasms his body provokes at last.