Coming Home (60 page)

 
Finally
, she thought. 
Finally.
  And then he was in
her arms and they were rolling naked on soft goose down, on sheets that smelled
faintly of lavender sachet, and he was all hers to touch and taste and explore,
this man she knew better than anyone, this stranger she had never met before. 

They studied each other solemnly, both of them contemplating the
gravity of what they were about to do.  “Swear to me,” she said, “that this
won’t change anything.”

“Ah, baby, you know I can’t do that.  Ask for something easy.  Ask
me to tell you I’ve loved you since the first time I laid eyes on you.  Ask me
to tell you I’ll keep on loving you till the day I die.  That I can do.”

She kissed him tenderly, and they rolled across the bed, limbs
tangled, breathing labored, his breath hot against her neck as he whispered
ragged endearments, both tender and obscene.  “I’ve waited years for you,” she
said breathlessly.  “Don’t make me wait any longer.”

Gnawing gently at the taut cord that ran from her collarbone to
her ear, he whispered, “Tell me what you want.”

In response, she ran her fingers down his chest, past his flat,
hard stomach, and he made a soft, strangled sound in the back of his throat
when she boldly took him, hot and thick and rock hard, in both hands.  “This,”
she said.  “Inside me.  Now.”

He let out a hard breath and rolled her onto her back, and while
they watched each other’s eyes, he filled her slowly, exquisitely.  “Better?”
he said.

“Oh.  My.  God. 
Yes
.”

“Feel good, babydoll?”

“Oh, yes.”

She arched her back, eliciting a sharp gasp from him, and they
rocked together in sweet, fluid delight.  It had been so long since she’d known
the liquid pleasure of fusing with a man.  She didn’t remember it being this
good.  She didn’t remember anything, ever in thirty-three years, being this
good. 

She rolled beneath him, and he groaned.  “Take it slow, baby. 
Slow
.”

“I can’t.  Oh, God, Flash, I can’t.  You feel so good.”

“Ah, baby,” he said warmly, “so do you.  Touch me again, right
there.   It hurts so damn good.”

She laughed.  Had she ever before laughed in the middle of making
love?  “Here?” she said, touching him experimentally.

“Just like that,” he breathed.  “Jesus, woman, I love you so
much.”

“I love you, too.  Oh, baby, please. 
Harder
.”

“Any harder and it’ll be all over.”

“I don’t care.”

“Are you ready?  Already?”

“Yes!”

“But sweetheart, we just got started.”

“We can do it again.”

And he laughed.  “Listen,” he said, “I’ve waited thirty-five years
for you.  I don’t want a ninety-second quickie.”

“I’ll try.  I’ll try to slow down.  But I’m not promising
anything.”

Fingers tangled in his hair, she held his face between her hands
and they watched each other’s eyes as they moved together, hot and slick and
sweet, and this was love
oh god
like she’d never felt it before, the
pungent scent of lavender rising as they crushed the sheets beneath them, gasps
and soft, breathy moans as they rolled together,
oh baby yes do that again
sweet, languid thrusting, disjointed words of love evolving into wordless
sounds more eloquent than words, throaty sounds half uttered but fully
understood
oh stop please I can’t take it any more you feel so good don’t
stop
as they breathed in each other’s air, gasped and shuddered, sound and
movement quickening
oh yes baby hurry now hurry
until they exploded in a
violent, shattering climax and collapsed in a shuddering heap, slick and sated,
dazed and sticky and utterly, wildly, unabashedly happy.

They lay there in a chaotic tangle of arms and legs and bedding
for a very long time before the capacity for speech returned to either of
them.  Finally he regained his breath.  Nibbled at her earlobe.  “I think we
just broke some kind of land speed record,” he said.

Against his damp chest, she laughed.  “I’m sorry.  I tried.  I
really tried to take it slow.”

“It’s okay,” he said.  “I’m just a little embarrassed, that’s all.”

She ran her hands down his back.  “Why?” she said.

“The last time I came that fast was in the back seat of my dad’s
‘68 Galaxie, with Mavis Kirkpatrick, and I was seventeen years old.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Mavis?” she said.

He propped an elbow on the mattress and rested his chin on his
hand.  “She was one hot ticket, and I’d been chasing around her like a lovesick
puppy for weeks.  She finally said yes, but I was so worked up that the minute
I got inside her, I went off like skyrockets.  She wasn’t impressed.  It was
the first and last time she ever went out with me.”

“Poor baby.”  She wrapped a single golden curl around her index
finger, released it, and watched it spring back into place.  “But you’ve
polished your technique since then.  You certainly didn’t leave me behind.  I
was with you every step of the way.”

“I think you have it backwards, Fiore.  I was the one in danger of
being left behind.”

“It’s your fault,” she said, “for getting me so hot.”

He grinned wickedly.  “And I’m planning on doing it again in the
very near future.  But this time, we’re going to do it long and slow and
sweet.  Think you can handle that?”

“I don’t know,” she said.  “Keep talking like that, and we could
be in trouble.”

“I’ll try to keep my mouth shut.”

She kissed him tenderly.  “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut if
you tried, MacKenzie.  I believe you came out of the womb already talking.”

“Then you’ll just have to get used to it.  Starting right now.”

In mock astonishment, she said, “You’re ready again?”

“Sweet stuff,” he said, “I was born ready.”

***

The emptiness was gone.

The fading light of afternoon had been gradually replaced by the
shadows of an October dusk.  The restlessness was gone, the urgent voices
inside her silenced.  Casey couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this
content.  Everything she’d ever wanted, everything she’d ever needed, was right
here, packaged inside the heart of this man whose warm body was pressed snug
against her backside.  His love had taken her to heaven, and she still hadn’t come
floating back down to earth.

From the shadowy twilight, his voice said softly, “You awake?”

She nestled closer to his warmth.  “Mmn.”

He kissed her shoulder, his mouth lingering at the ridge of her
collarbone.  “So, dollface,” he said, “now that we’ve had carnal knowledge of
each other, are we still okay?”

She turned in his arms, ran a hand along the line of his jaw,
delighting in the rasp of whisker stubble.  “Oh, yeah,” she said.  “We are
so
okay.”

He played idly with a strand of her hair.  “You hungry?” he said.

She ran her fingers in an exploratory course down his rib cage,
investigating every ridge, every indentation.  “It’s always food with you,” she
said, “isn’t it, MacKenzie?”

“I’m a growing boy.”

“We could just stay here forever,” she said.  “And live on love.”

“Sooner or later, they’d probably throw us out.  Or find us, two
skeletons, dead of malnutrition but still grinning.”

She smiled into the darkness.  In the distance, a fog horn sounded
its eerie echo.  “Tell me your stories,” she said.

After a moment, he said, “What stories?”

“There’s a part of you,” she said, “that I don’t really know.  I
know who you are now.  But I don’t know how you got to where you are.  What it
was like growing up in your family.  What your dreams were as a child.”

He wrapped his lanky thigh around hers and settled her more
closely against him.  “I wanted to play for the Red Sox.  I was going to be the
world’s greatest first baseman until I found out it meant I had to practice
every day.”

“Ah,” she said.  “You discovered that play meant work.”

“Yep.  And then, when I was nine, my brother Pat came home one day
with a secondhand Gibson he’d picked up somewhere.  Somebody put the idea in
his head that it would attract girls.”  He shifted his hand on her breast. 
“The only problem was that Pat didn’t have a musical bone in his body.”

She lay her cheek against his shoulder.  “But you did,” she said.

“But I did.  One day when he was at work, I snuck into his room
and wiped the dust off the Gibson and just started playing.  Jesus, was he
pissed.  Here he’d been working at it for months, and in his hands it sounded
like a cat in heat.  Then I waltzed in, this skinny little snot-nosed
nine-year-old kid, and played it like I’d been born with the damn thing in my
hand.”

“And the world’s greatest first baseman,” she said softly, “died
that day, unrecognized and unmourned.”

He tasted the skin of her shoulder and adjusted the bedding around
them.  “Pretty much,” he said.  “I was hooked.  I did Pat’s chores for the rest
of that summer to pay for the guitar.”

“Sounds like he got the best of that deal,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t know.  How can you put a price on what he gave me
that day?”

“You have a unique way of looking at life, my love.”

“Well,” he said, “the way I see it, there are two kinds of people
in the world.  Pragmatists and dreamers.  The pragmatists keep the world
running smoothly.  But the dreamers,” he said, “they’re the ones who feed our
souls.”

“And you’re a dreamer.”

“So are you, pudding.”

“Me?  A dreamer?  I’d say I’m more of a pragmatist.”

“Only on the surface.  Scratch that surface and underneath the
pragmatist you’ll find a genuine, hundred-proof dreamer.”

“Ah, Flash,” she said, “where were you when I was eighteen?”

“I was right there.  You, on the other hand, were a little
preoccupied.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?  All my life, I’ve needed someone like you. 
And there you were, standing right in front of me all along.”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her.  “Imagine that,” he
said.

It was a Saturday in early November, and Rob was leaning against
her bathroom door frame, watching as she pulled a towel from her head and shook
her hair free.  In one hand, he held a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  “Trish is
downstairs,” he said, scooping up a spoonful of Cherry Garcia.  “She just
waltzed in, plastic in hand, ready to singlehandedly slay the dragons of a
depressed economy.”  He held out the spoonful of ice cream, and Casey took a
bite.  “She uttered the word mall,” he added, “and I ran for cover.”

She ran brisk fingers through her wet hair.  “It’s been ages since
I’ve been shopping.  Want to go?”

“No, thanks.”  He scooped up another spoonful of ice cream.  “This
is one of those female bonding things, isn’t it?  I know about this stuff.  I
have five sisters.”

She lowered her eyelids.  “I’d rather bond with you,” she said.

He licked the spoon clean.  “If we do any more bonding, Fiore,
neither one of us will be walking upright for a week.”

“That’s a shame,” she said, “because I was thinking of stopping by
Victoria’s Secret.”

“Of course, I’ve been known to be wrong.  By the way, purple just
happens to get me hot.  In case you’re interested.”

“Everything gets you hot, MacKenzie.”

“Only if you’re in it, sweetheart.  Or out of it, depending on the
circumstances.”

“Aha,” she said.  “Brownie points.”

He flashed her a grin.  “How’m I doing?”

“Pretty good so far.”

“So there’s a little leeway,” he said, “in case I feel some urgent
need to be bad?”

She stepped closer to him and rested a hand on his sleeve.  “When
you’re bad,” she said, looking wistfully into his carton of ice cream, “your
score goes up.”

“That’s not all that goes up.”  He offered her another spoonful of
ice cream.

“Ah, Flash,” she said, “I love it when you talk dirty.”

They exchanged a damp kiss that tasted of chocolate and cherries. 
“Go ahead,” he said, “go shopping.  Have fun.”

“What will you do all day?”

“I’ll probably sit around watching soap operas and drinking beer
and imagining you in something purple from Victoria’s Secret.”

She found Trish standing at the kitchen sink, finishing the
breakfast dishes that she and Rob had renounced in favor of more pleasurable
pastimes.  “Hi, hon,” Trish said.  “I was starting to think you were dead.  I
haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I’ve been intending to stop by.  I’ve
just been busy.”

Trish dried her hands on a dish towel.  “Doing what?”