by Megan Hart
This time, he kissed her.
It was better than she'd expected. His hand slid up her back to cup the base of her skull, tugging at her hair, tipping her head so he could draw his mouth along the curve of her throat. She shivered, and against her skin, she felt the curve of his smile.
She'd called him here for this, but now faced with the idea of getting naked with this guy, Kathleen started to withdraw. His hand on her hip kept her still. She looked into his face.
If he was going to kill her, she thought, it wouldn't be the worst way to die.
She took his hand and led him to the bedroom, where she pushed him gently until he sat on the edge of the bed. She undressed herself in front of him until she stood naked. Jake said nothing, but he didn't have to. All he had to do was look at her.
"You have no idea who I am," she whispered, "so why do I feel like you're looking right into me?"
If he had an answer for her, he kept it to himself. At least with words. He replied with his touch. The stroke of his tongue against hers as they kissed. The movement of his lips and teeth all over her, making her sigh and tremble and finally, after a long, long, time, so long she'd almost begun to fear it wouldn't happen, he made her shatter.
Later, quietly, she pulled the sheets up over both of them to keep the chill from settling on their bare skin. He slept, or she thought he did, which was the only reason why Kathleen turned on the pillow to allow her fingertips to trace the edges of his dark hair.
"Who are you?" she whispered, not expecting an answer.
"Who do you want me to be?"
Caught, embarrassed, she withdrew her hand. He pulled her closer, tucking her against him so that her face pressed the side of his neck. He stroked her hair. When she tipped her face to look up at him, certain that in the dark all she would find was shadows, she saw instead the gleam of his gaze as he took her in. As he had that first night in the pub, Jake looked at Kathleen as though she were something precious to him. A treasure.
Again, she tried to pull away, but he didn't let her go.
"How would she live without him? With dreams all gone black and white, with bruised knees and bloody palms, with an open space in the puzzle of her life that only one piece would ever fit."
Her own words, spoken aloud, always sounded so strange even when she was reading them. Jake had spoken from memory. Kathleen drew in a long, shivering breath.
"You've read my book," she said.
Jake breathed into her hair and was silent for a second or so, before he said, "I've read all of them."
13
This was not love.
She wouldn't allow it to be. Not so soon, not with a stranger she'd met in a bar. That's not the way love grew. She didn't write romance novels, but she didn’t need to in order to know that.
Still, it was something, and they fell into it together as easily as slipping into a warm bath. He didn't ask much of her, for a start. When she was at her keyboard, typing as furiously as she could now that suddenly the block had broken and she had more words in her head than she could manage to get out through her fingers, Jake brought her tea and biscuits and left them on her desk without a word. If the tea went cold before she could drink it, he brought her a fresh cup. Sometimes, he brought coffee, always exactly how she preferred it, and she never asked him how he knew what she was craving. He just...knew.
This morning she had stumbled into the kitchen about eleven, eyes still gritty and hair tangle-tumbled all over the place. She'd been up until four am finishing a chapter that had never wanted to end. Now she yawned and accepted the mug of coffee he handed her.
"Morning." Jake leaned against the counter, one leg crossed over the other.
His bare feet killed her. So did the way his jeans hung low on his belly, exposing the tiniest hint of that V shape of his muscles. His chest beneath the unzipped hoodie. Mostly, the way he looked at her over the rim of steaming coffee, his hazy blue-green eyes taking in every inch of her dishevelment as though she were a goddess.
She sipped and yawned again. Then she put the mug on the counter next to him. She took his from his hands and set it on the other side of him. She put herself up against him, her lips on his, and his hands went at once to the swell of her rear beneath the silk kimono.
"Morning," Kathleen murmured into his mouth.
He was already hard, and this killed her, too. This swift and urgent arousal, rising heat between them. Constant. Consistent. Undeniable.
She tugged open his belt, then pulled down the zipper to get her hand inside. He wore no briefs beneath. Kathleen let out a low huff.
"You look like such a good boy," she said, "but you're so very, very bad."
Jake laughed, then groaned as she freed him from the confines of the denim. Her slow stroke pushed his hips forward. She shivered, watching his head tip back to expose his throat to her. She watched the ripple of his skin as he swallowed. Still stroking, she let the tip of her tongue trace along the knob of his Adam's apple and up to just below his ear. She let her teeth press his skin, offering to bite.
Jake twisted, sinking his fingers into her hair and turning them both so Kathleen was the one pressed against the counter, her hands flat on it. She leaned forward to press her cheek to the cool marble, angling her body in an invitation Jake wasted no time in accepting. He slipped up the hem of her kimono and was inside her a half a minute after that, so deep they both gave low, grinding moans.
Slow, slow, slow he moved, his hands gripping her hips. Fingers curling against her flesh. All she had to do was close her eyes and let him fuck her, just like that, she didn't even have to touch herself to get off, that's how good it was with him. Effortless ecstasy.
He said her name, over and over, toward the end. Low, urgent, whispered and rough. It sounded like a prayer. She could say nothing, form no words. All she could do was breathe as the pleasure consumed her. All she could do was give in.
They fumbled a little bit, after, but in sync, him grabbing a clean dishcloth from the drawer while her robe fell back around her calves. Jake slipped a hand inside the folds of it to press the cloth against her while they both chuckled and he kissed her. Lightly at first. Then deeper. They fit together so right that even this, the aftermath, was comfortable and easy and effortless the way everything else was with him.
This was not love, she told herself as she watched him move away from her to pull up his jeans. When she listened to him talking about his plans for the rest of the day. When he turned to find her staring at him, and he kept speaking but he smiled, too, and his eyes caught hers and stayed there as though he would never stop looking at her.
This was not love, she told herself when later he put on some music in the living room and without a word took her hand to dance. When sitting next to her on the couch he pulled her close and let his fingers tangle in the tendrils of her hair that escaped the ponytail. When he made her laugh so hard she couldn't breathe and had to beg him to stop.
This was not love.
14
"You look different," Derek said.
Kathleen, who'd been carefully unpacking a bag of wrapped gifts for Callie's birthday, looked up. "I do?"
"Yeah. It's something in your face. It's like...you're happy in your eyes, or something." His lip curled, and he looked away from her. "I hope you didn't get her those dolls we talked about."
"She asked for a Little Miss Me doll, Derek. Specifically. With links." Kathleen set out another few boxes. Outfits and accessories for the doll. "Why, did you already get her one? I can exchange it, then, but the outfits should fit whatever one you got her."
When he said nothing, she paused in setting out the gifts to look up at him. "What?"
"Of course I didn't get her one. They're like, fifty bucks."
Kathleen hesitated, looking over the stack of carefully wrapped packages. She'd dropped close to three hundred dollars on this small selection of presents, and had thought nothing of it. She'd gone through the list Callie had sent and bought eve
rything on it.
"I know how much they cost. It's not an issue."
"For you," he said bitterly.
She didn't want to go there, not mere minutes before her daughter's birthday party. Their divorce, once it had been put into motion, had been swift and uncomplicated, mostly because Derek had been willing to let her walk away with next to nothing. She'd signed the contract for her first published novel two weeks after getting her final divorce papers in the mail. She’d been on her way to fortune and fame shortly after that, and he couldn't touch a piece of it. He hated her for a lot of things, Kathleen thought, but not being able to access any part of her success was probably the biggest.
Carefully, with exquisite slowness, she turned to face him. "She asked for the doll for her birthday. Surely you're not going to deny me the right to give her a present."
"You come in here with an armload of presents like it makes a difference," he told her.
She kept herself from flinching only because she refused to allow him one more time to see how easily he could slice her. "Would you prefer I arrive empty handed?"
"Why not?" Derek said. "Since most of the rest of the time you don't seem to give a damn about her, why should her birthday be any different? You really think a bunch of stuff is going to make it any better when you're not here, day after day?"
She had taken a lot of shit from Derek throughout the years. Disinterest in her writing. Taking her for granted. Later, the snide comments and constant criticism. She'd run hot with fury, spitting venom at him; they'd gone to battle, round and round, each of them wielding the weapons that would cause the most hurt and leave the worst scars.
She went cold, this time. Stepping forward, right up in his space, she pressed a fingertip to his chest, digging in. It surprised him, she saw that clearly enough. She pressed harder, moving him back a step.
"I cannot apologize more than I already have for everything that's happened," she told him. "But you cannot make me ashamed of wanting to give my daughter something special for her birthday. You can't make me feel bad for wanting to make her happy. I will not allow you to make me feel as though nothing I ever do can be enough, Derek. Do you understand me?"
He sniffed and turned his head as though he meant to spit. "You think anything you do can make up for --"
"This is not about making up for anything. This is about wanting to see my daughter's eyes light up. It's about love. That's all. Even if it's not to your standards." She took a couple steps back from him and watched him rub the place she'd poked.
He wouldn't look at her. His mouth set in a stubborn line. She waited for more insults. More scorn. But all Derek did was frown and shrug.
From the living room came the sound of voices and Callie's squeals of delight as guests began arriving for the party. Kathleen lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. When Derek looked at her finally, it was grudgingly.
"She'll love the doll," he said.
"Yes."
He shrugged. "It's good you could be here."
She didn't say something like "I wouldn't miss it," because of course she had, in the past, been absent for Callie's birthday and more than once. The devil had made her do it. But this year there'd been no tasks set to her. She hadn't, in fact, seen talons or forked tail of Lucifer in weeks.
Later, after the candles had been blown out and the cake and ice cream consumed, Kathleen was in Callie's room helping her change the doll in and out of its many outfits. Kathleen had played with Barbies as a kid, but Callie had never seemed to take to the fashion dolls. This doll, on the other hand, seemed to have as many accessories and clothing choices as Barbie and her friends had ever had. Kathleen knew because Callie had brought her the new catalog to look over while they brushed the doll's hair and arrayed her in her new wardrobe.
"Mom."
"Yeah, baby." Kathleen closed the tiny buckle of the doll's black patent leather shoes and held her up. "All done."
Callie came to sit next to her, nestled close. "I'm glad you came for my birthday."
"Me too, honey."
They sat in silence for a moment or so while Callie toyed idly with the doll's hair and shoes, the minuscule buttons on the front of its vintage-styled dress. She touched the doll's painted eyes, the real lashes, the rosebud mouth. She snuggled closer, and Kathleen didn't press her for any more conversation, just reveled in the quiet connection. She stroked a hand over Callie's hair and breathed in the warm, slightly soapy scent of her.
"I love you, Mom."
"I love you, too."
Callie looked up at her with a grin. "Let's put her in the bathing suit and pretend she's going to the beach!"
"You got it."
They played for another hour before Callie started to get that cranky, up-too-late look on her face. She didn't resist bed or cling to her mother the way she had in the early days when Kathleen left her. That made it somehow harder for her to go.
"I'll see you in a few weeks," she said, but Callie had already closed her eyes and turned her face away.
Downstairs, as Kathleen gathered her things, her phone buzzed with a text from her purse. She pulled it out, thumbed the screen, smiling when she read Jake's message. She typed out a quick reply that she was going to be on the road soon and would see him in a few hours, then slipped the phone back into her bag. She looked up to see Derek staring at her.
"Oh," he said. "Now I get it."
"Get what?" Kathleen asked.
Derek gestured toward her bag. "Now I understand why you look so different."
She didn't know what to say to that. Derek had gone through a girlfriend or two since they'd split up. Nice enough women, soccer moms with blunt haircuts and a penchant for yoga pants. Nobody permanent. Not that she'd have cared, so long as whoever it was managed to be decent to her child.
"What is he, a writer?"
"He's not a writer. He designs computer apps."
Derek actually looked impressed for a second before his expression turned sour again. "Nice. So he's not just a boy toy?"
"Derek." Kathleen sighed and shook her head, thinking of all the ways she could cut into him again, if she tried, but in the end deciding to simply say, "Thanks for inviting me to the party. I'll be in touch."
The sound of her name caught her at the door. Turned her. The father of her child, the man to whom once upon a time she had pledged her life and love, looked...sad.
"Good luck," he told her. "I hope you can make it stick."
15
In bed, there was only the two of them and nothing else in the world mattered.
More than the sex, though there was plenty of that and it was so good every time that sometimes in the midst of it, Kathleen had to stop for a moment or so, convinced she was inside a dream. She'd have thought she was inside a book, if she wrote that sort of story. When Jake touched her, everything else melted away.
Better than that was after they'd finished and she lay on her back staring at the ceiling while he traced circles on her bare skin and told her stories to make her laugh. Or he listened to her as she shared with him the sorts of things lovers find fascinating in those first hours, but later will no longer want to hear. Her first pet, how she learned to drive a car, her first boyfriend. They could get into bed at eight in the evening and be awake at four in the morning, still talking.
"Go to sleep," she whispered now, facing him on her side. "It's so late, Jake. You have to go to work in a few hours."
"I'll be fine." He twirled a length of her hair between his fingers and tugged enough to make her smile sleepily.
"I have to work in a few hours," she told him.
He kissed her mouth lightly, then pressed his face to the curve of her neck and shoulder, his hand on her hip pulling her into the curve of his body. "You make your own hours."
"Just because I don't have to punch a clock, that doesn't mean I don't have to answer to someone else." So tired her words slurred, saying this aloud woke her up a little. They hadn't talked much about her sch
edule, though they'd spoken often about what it was like for her to work. She wriggled against him.
"Watch it girl. Don't do that."
She turned to look at him over her shoulder, all false innocence, and wriggled a bit harder. "What? This? You mean this?"
He groaned and his hand moved from her hip, over her belly, between her legs. Pressing against her. Finding her heat.
"No fair," Kathleen said as she arched into the touch.
Then they said nothing more, but spoke with hands and teeth and the soft whispered sighs of their pleasure until the room grew light and finally, they slept.
16
The Morningstar smelled of sulfur and black soot and something beneath, like rotten flesh and blood overlaid with the tangy, bitter stink of ammonia. In sharp contrast to this, he wore a white suit with pale pink stripes, a matching pink bow tie and a pair of white patent leather shoes. He had a clutch of dead flowers pinned to his chest.
"Prom," he said, as though this explained anything.
Kathleen had been sifting through the mail, tossing the junk and setting aside the bills and the few physical fan letters that made their way to her. With a mug of hot tea in front of her and a plate of muffins, she'd been prepared to spend an hour or so tinkering with the minutia of her life. At the devil's appearance, however, she set aside the stack of paper and folded her hands in front of her.
"Your face will freeze like that, if you're not careful," the devil said.
She smoothed her expression. Her heart had started up an irregular thumping that echoed in her ears. Something bad was coming. She tasted it.
"What do you want me to do?"
The devil leaned in with a smile like a corpse. "Come closer, my dove, and allow me to tell you."
17
