Deeper

by Megan Hart

  “Bedroom.”

  It took more than two steps to get there, but they managed quickly enough. She hadn’t been in his bedroom before, which was off the kitchen. He had a dresser and an ancient TV on a stand and a wall of CDs and videos, but the only thing Bess cared about was the king-size mattress and box spring on the floor.

  Nick slid open his top drawer and pulled out a handful of square foil packages. They fell in a rainbow of colors to the bed. Bess was already pushing him down onto his back and crawling up over him. She straddled him, his cock hot against her crotch through her panties, and sifted through the pile.

  “Black Jack?” She lifted the first she came to. “Interesting.”

  Nick lifted his hips, rubbing himself against her. His prick whispered on the smooth fabric of her panties, and Bess had to put a hand on his chest to steady herself at the sudden, exquisite shudder of sensation.

  It was wrong to be here, and she didn’t care, and that not-caring was almost as much of a turn-on as Nick himself. She tore open the package and sheathed him, only a trifle awkwardly, with shaking hands.

  Nick watched her without moving as she got up and stripped off her underpants, then straddled him again. She took the base of his cock in her hand, but didn’t move right away. Bess breathed, slow and deep, her courage not quite failing her.

  Nick said nothing, but his dark eyes gleamed. His mouth had parted, his lips moist from the swipe of his tongue. He was breathing fast. He made no move to force her, not even a gesture. In his cock, the pulse beat hard and fast, like her own.

  She was going to do this. She was doing it, before she thought anymore. She lifted herself to guide him inside her, and slid slowly down. She gasped. Nick’s eyes closed and his back arched, pushing his cock deeper inside her than she’d been prepared for.

  It wasn’t perfect, but fantasy always boosts reality. Bess put both her hands on Nick’s shoulders, angling her body to put pressure where she needed it most. She was intent more on maximizing any position that felt good rather than concentrating on coming. She didn’t expect to have an orgasm.

  The small, sharp climax took her by surprise. Her eyes fluttered as she leaned forward. Her hands gripped his shoulders as his gripped her hips. She blew out a small moan as the pleasure coursed through her.

  She glanced at his face. Nick looked as surprised as she did, but only for a moment, because then his eyes closed and his face twisted in his own climax. He thrust once more, groaning, and stopped moving. He licked his lips and opened his eyes.

  They stared at each other in silence broken only by the sound of their breathing. Bess swallowed, aware of the clutch and grasp of her thighs, sweaty against his sides. She relaxed her fingers from his shoulders and rubbed the small spots she had left. She rolled off him and onto her back.

  Nick said nothing, and Bess wasn’t sure what to say or what to do. If she could do anything, that was, aside from try to catch her breath and return to being rational.

  She waited for guilt to stab her, but it didn’t.

  After a while the pattern of Nick’s breathing changed, got softer and more regular. She turned to look at him. Outside the window, it wasn’t even dusk. His profile was not yet familiar to her, and she studied it carefully. The slope of nose and chin, the shadow of dark lashes on his cheeks. The dark silk of his hair falling over his forehead.

  He was the loveliest sight she’d ever seen.

  Without looking at her or even opening his eyes, Nick said, “Bess?”

  “Hmm?” Languid from the sex and a little overwhelmed with emotions she hadn’t expected to feel, Bess rolled onto her side to face him.

  “Don’t ever think you know what I want.”

  It wasn’t until later, when beneath the hot water of her own shower Bess tried and failed again to find the guilt she knew should belong to her, that she realized something. They’d put their hands and mouths all over each other. They’d licked and stroked and sucked and bitten.

  But they hadn’t once kissed.

  CHAPTER 21

  Now

  Bess was used to the low mutter of the television plaguing her dreams. Andy had long been in the habit of falling asleep in front of the set, the volume turned low but still loud enough to carry through the house when all else was silent. Maybe that had been the first sign their marriage was failing, when Andy’d started choosing late-night talk shows instead of bed with her.

  Now she clawed her way up from a nightmare and woke, wide-eyed, without knowing at first where she was. Bess blinked rapidly and ran her fingers over the sheet half tangled around her waist. The pillow beneath her cheek was damp—whether with sweat or tears, she couldn’t be sure. The doorway, through which she glimpsed the blue-white flicker of the TV, was in the wrong place. So was the bed. She turned to look at the ceiling as waking finally claimed her.

  The beach house.

  She was at the beach house, and the man in the living room watching something with a canned laugh track was not Andy. Bess pushed herself onto one elbow and stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. Her dreams, as awful as they’d been, had fled, leaving behind nothing but a slightly sour stomach.

  She untangled herself from the covers and slipped on her nightgown, then padded into the living room. Nick sat, elbows on his knees, staring at the tube. He didn’t look at her when she came in, nor when she sat next to him, thigh to thigh. He wore only boxers.

  “Hey.” Bess kissed his bare shoulder.

  “Hey.” Nick blinked, then looked at her. “Jesus, Bess.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder as she looked at television. He’d been watching the news channel. “Turn that off.”

  Nick didn’t move. “So much stuff…”

  Bess grabbed up the remote from the coffee table and clicked off the TV. The darkness fell around them, and she closed her eyes to help them adjust. Next to her, Nick still didn’t move.

  “I know what you said, about the time. But I just didn’t think about it.” Under her cheek, his shoulder lifted and lowered with his sigh. “Damn it, Bess.”

  “Shh. You’ll get used to it.” She took his hand, linked their fingers. Squeezed.

  Nick didn’t pull away, but he didn’t squeeze back. He shook a little, and Bess put her arm around him. She held him tight, but he didn’t soften to her embrace.

  “I’m going to make some toast,” she said after a few minutes had passed in silence.

  She kissed his shoulder again and got up. In the kitchen, the light seemed too bright, hurting the back of her eyes until they adjusted. She pulled soft white bread, a guilty pleasure, from the freezer, where she kept it to protect it from the constantly damp sea air. She put two slices in the toaster and rummaged in the fridge for real butter and strawberry jam. By the time the toast popped up, beautifully golden, she’d poured a mug of orange juice.

  Nick came into the kitchen as she was buttering the toast and spreading it with jam. He hopped up on the counter to watch her. Bess stood to eat, the formality of a chair somehow ridiculous for a simple piece of toast.

  “The smell of toast makes me think of sex.” Nick grinned faintly.

  She tucked a bit of crust into her mouth and licked her fingers. “I seem to remember you telling me that.” She held up the last crust. “Want a bite?”

  Nick shook his head. “What’s the point?”

  He was right, but Bess didn’t pull back her offered crust at once. She didn’t eat it when she had, but instead tossed it into the garbage pail. She’d lost her appetite, too.

  Nick slid off the counter and put a hand on her shoulder to turn her toward him. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry.” She shrugged, not looking at him. “You shouldn’t do something you don’t want just to—”

  “To seem normal?” Nick spoke softly. His fingers curled, bunching the fabric of her nightgown on her shoulder. “Would it make you feel better if I pretended to eat? Maybe I could lie all night beside you like I’m sleeping, just so
you don’t feel you’re fucking a freak.”

  “I don’t think you’re a freak!” She glared at him.

  There was always heat between them. Heat from Nick’s skin, the heat of their passion, the heat of anger. Now the heat of his fingers burned her through the flimsy material of her nightgown, and Bess jerked away. She swept the crumbs on the counter into her cupped palm and dusted her hands into the garbage pail.

  Nick was there when she turned. “I’m sorry.”

  Bess looked at him then, her chest heaving from breathing too fast. Nick’s gaze was dark and solid, unreadable but familiar. He’d looked at her that way before, as if he were dissecting her inch by inch and giving her nothing in return.

  She’d hated it then and hated it more, now. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  His direct gaze faltered a little as the corners of his mouth tilted. “How about if I put something else in your mouth, instead?”

  Bess crossed her arms over her chest and backed up a few steps. She didn’t smile at him. “You can’t have it both ways, Nick.”

  This seemed to set him back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” Bess said unevenly, “I can pretend there’s nothing strange about this. About us. You. I can pretend without a problem that you’re my much younger lover. Or I can acknowledge that this entire situation is fucked up, that you came back from…from somewhere—”

  “From the gray,” Nick interjected in a low voice.

  “That you were gone and came back,” Bess said more loudly. “You were my lover twenty years ago and you’ve shown up out of nowhere—”

  “Not out of nowhere!” Nick snapped, advancing on her. “Fuck, Bess! How can you pretend anything when you know where I was? What I am? How can you just act like that doesn’t matter?”

  “Because I love you!” she cried.

  The words spun into silence. Outside the windows, the sun was rising. A new day. New waves would rise from the same old sea and break upon the same old sand.

  “I love you,” Bess repeated, and took Nick’s hands.

  She’d never said it to him before. He’d never said it to her, and she didn’t expect him to now. His fingers tightened on hers, but he didn’t surprise her with words. His mouth thinned, clamped shut, but his eyes no longer held a wall between them. Plenty of emotion swirled in his gaze, and though much of it might still be unreadable, none of it was unreachable now.

  “I love you,” she whispered, and pulled him two reluctant steps closer to her. She put a hand on his cheek. Her thumb caressed his mouth. “I always did.”

  Nick closed his eyes and turned his face just enough to kiss her hand. He put his arms around her and held her close to him. They stayed like that for a long time, though Bess didn’t bother counting the minutes.

  Pressed to Nick’s chest, his skin hotter than her breath, she closed her eyes.

  “I don’t care what you are,” she said. “I’m just so happy you’re here.” She pushed away from him to look at his face. She took a deep breath. “But if you’re not—”

  “No.” Nick shook his head and pulled her to him for a long, slow, deep kiss. “No,” he said again. “I want to be with you. I just needed to know you were sure about me. No matter what.”

  “I’m sure.” Bess kissed him. “If we have to pretend to the world we’ve just met, I don’t care. If we have to say you’re something else, I don’t care about that, either.”

  Nick smiled. “What about your kids?”

  Bess sighed. “They don’t need to know we’re sleeping together. Not right away.”

  She hoped he’d understand, not take it the wrong way, and to her relief, Nick nodded.

  “Sure. I get that. Don’t want to freak ’em out. But what will we say I am?”

  “A boarder.” Bess ran her hands down his ribs. “You can have my old room. You’ll have your own bathroom and entrance. If they ask, I’ll tell them the truth. It costs a lot of money to keep up this place, and my financial situation is more precarious than I’d like.”

  Nick waggled his eyebrows at that last bit. “Ooh, fancy. Will they buy it?”

  The way he put it made it sound like a worse lie than Bess wanted to admit it was, but she nodded. “Yes. They’ll buy it.”

  Nick slipped his hands around to her ass and squeezed as he bent to nibble at her neck. “So, will you sneak down at night to my lonely slave quarters and have your way with me?”

  Bess giggled as his lips and teeth found sensitive spots. “We’ll see.”

  “And when the summer’s over?” He asked the question almost lightly, but Bess didn’t mistake it for anything but serious. “What happens then?”

  She put her fingers in his hair and made him look at her. “I’m not leaving at the end of the summer.”

  Nick straightened. “You’re not?”

  Bess shook her head slowly. “No. I’m not.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m not going back to my husband. We’re officially separated.” It was the first time she’d said the words aloud. She was surprised at how they could still hurt. Bess swallowed hard and cleared her throat, tipping her chin. “Connor goes to college in the fall. Robbie will stay here, with me. Andy’s staying in the house in Pennsylvania. He hasn’t admitted it, but I know he has a mistress.”

  Nick scowled. “Fucker.”

  His indignation on her behalf lifted some of the weight from Bess’s shoulders. “As if what I’m doing is any better?”

  Nick gave her a solemn look before taking her face in both his hands. He’d kissed her many ways before. Tenderly, roughly, passionately. This was the first time he kissed her thoughtfully. When he pulled away, Bess’s heart had begun its familiar hammering as her body responded.

  “Do you feel bad?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “No, Nick. I should, but I don’t.”

  Just as she should’ve felt guilty back then, but never had.

  “Good.” He kissed her again, then rested his forehead against hers. “So. What’s the story?”

  “Morning glory?” Bess teased. He didn’t get it. “Sorry. It’s from Bye, Bye Birdie. What story do you mean?”

  Nick kissed her lightly and stepped back, then around her into the living room. “My story. What’s my name? What do I do? If we’re going to keep this up, I need to have a name.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. “What’s wrong with Nick Hamilton?”

  “Junior,” Nick said with a grin over his shoulder. “I’m my own son? Daddy-O ran off and left me and my coke-whore mama when I was a kid?”

  “Maybe he didn’t leave you,” Bess said quietly. “Maybe he died.”

  Nick turned, grin fading. “You think so?”

  She nodded after a moment. “Just because I didn’t know doesn’t mean nobody else did, Nick. I…I could find out. If you wanted to know.”

  Nick said nothing. He went to the sliding-glass doors and out onto the deck. The bright morning sun cast glints of gold along his skin, tawny and not pale no matter what his corporeal state. Bess followed to lean on the railing. The breeze ruffled her hair.

  Nick stared out to the sea. The Atlantic would never compare with the placid blue of the Caribbean, but today the water looked less green. The whitecaps were frilled lace along the edges of the waves. Even the sand seemed to shine brighter.

  “And I came back to town to work for the summer.” The hitch in Nick’s voice was the only indication of emotion.

  Bess put her hand on his shoulder. “Yes. And you needed a place to stay. And I…”

  He turned to look at her. “You’re renting me a room in your house because you knew my dad.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “And anything else we’re doing isn’t anyone’s goddamn business.”

  She smiled at that. “Exactly.”

  Nick looked back out to the water. “I’ll have to get a shit job. I don’t have any ID. Get paid under the table until I can get hooked up with
something.”

  She wasn’t surprised he’d know how to get a fake identity. She reached to squeeze his arm, which was as solid as anything. Since the moment he’d come back, he’d been nothing less than fully real, even if he didn’t eat, sleep or breathe.

  “It will be all right,” she told him.

  Nick smiled, still looking out to the ocean. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  It would have to be. Who would believe anything else? Who would believe Nick Hamilton had died and come back from the dead to spend his time fucking her?

  “Why don’t we get dressed and walk into town? We’ll go along the beach. You can ask around. I know those places hire kitchen staff under the table. We can do a little shopping. Make a day of it.”

  “Make a date of it?” He shot her a grin she felt all the way down her spine.

  “Oh, yes.” Bess wiggled her eyebrows in an imitation of his earlier expression. “A date. How scandalous.”

  “It’s the shore. Nobody’ll be scandalized. They’ll all be jealous. I’ve got a smokin’ sugar mama and you’ve got yourself a hot superstud.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, I don’t see how anyone could possibly be scandalized.”

  Nick laughed. “Have I ever cared about that?”

  “I don’t think so.” She had. Quite a bit. But maybe not so much anymore. “C’mon. Day’s wasting.”

  “It can waste a little longer,” Nick said, the swipe of his tongue across his lips leaving no question as to what, exactly, he meant.

  He took her into the master bath shower, where he pushed her up against the back wall. He unhooked the handheld showerhead and passed the spray of pulsing water over her entire body. Kneeling in front of her, he lifted her foot to prop it on the shower’s built-in seat. Then he moved the stream of water back and forth over her clit.

  Bess had used the showerhead before, but the sensation of warm water, like a hundred flickering tongues, under someone else’s control became immeasurably more erotic. She pumped her hips forward, seeking to capture the elusive tickle, and was rewarded with a spurt or two before Nick shifted the stream. Her clit pulsed as she looked down at him, kneeling with his cock in his fist.