Just Come Over

by James, Rosalind

  Her throat had closed, and she had a hand on his arm. “Rhys—you were eight.”

  “Isaiah’s eight.”

  “Isaiah knows how to care for somebody. He learned it from me. And he knows he doesn’t have to be in charge. He’s not alone in the dark and the cold, feeling the panic of knowing it’s all on him. Maybe you could look at it this way. That you never left Dylan, whatever you think, anytime you had a choice. That you did your best, even if that was never going to be good enough, because you were eight, or nine, or ten, and you didn’t know how to do it better. And that you did take Casey.”

  “Yeh, I took her. She’s my whanau.”

  “But you didn’t tell me about her.”

  “She’s my blood. She’s not yours.”

  She reared back at that, and he shook his head like a frustrated bull and said, “That’s not what I mean. I couldn’t tell you. You were on your feet again. I wanted to make it better, not worse.”

  They sat for a minute in silence. It was getting cold, and she shivered. Rhys put an arm around her, sighed, and said, “It was a mess, eh. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you found out. I wish you’d told me on the phone. It’s been a bad couple of days. I thought something was wrong with you, or Isaiah. But I thought it was something wrong with you.” He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring into the bush instead.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess that’s happened a lot.”

  His throat moved convulsively, and the rest of him didn’t. “Yeh.”

  She found his hand and took it in hers. She’d never thought, somehow, of what he’d lost. “I’m here now. We’re both here now.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “And you still have more to say. Go on and say it.”

  She hesitated, but he was right. She said, “What I want to know, what I keep coming back to, is—why didn’t he tell you about Casey before, when he knew he was dying? Why didn’t he tell me? About the money, either? I was frantic, some days. Some months. He left insurance, but it wasn’t nearly enough. What must Casey’s mum have gone through? She didn’t have any insurance, and then she didn’t have any child support, either. I read her emails. And that money was just sitting there.” She beat the heel of her hand against her thigh, then did it again. She knew what Rhys had meant, because she was the one who wanted to put her fist through the wall now. “I hate that she felt that. I hate that she cried, and she worried. I hate that I didn’t know.”

  “He’d have had to tell you, or he’d have had to tell me, which would’ve been even worse. He didn’t want to be a disappointment again. He didn’t want me telling him he was useless, feeling like I was smacking him again. He didn’t want anybody looking deeper, because he couldn’t stand to look there himself. And I love you.”

  She stopped beating on her thigh. “P-pardon?”

  “I keep thinking—what is it? And I think it’s that.” He laced his fingers slowly through hers, then lifted her hand to his mouth and, his eyes still on hers, brushed his lips over her knuckles, and she could swear her heart melted. “I think it’s your courage. I think it’s your heart. I’m not happy I had to say all of that, but you’re the only one I could have said it to.”

  She rested her head against his shoulder, finally, he put his arm around her, and it felt like coming home. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “Everybody’s going to know about us.”

  “Yeh. Everybody’s going to know. Except about Casey. I think we keep Casey to ourselves. She doesn’t need to worry that she doesn’t belong to anybody, and that one more person will leave, and she’ll be alone again. She’s my daughter in every way that counts anyway. She’s my chance to get it right. And everything else? You and me? We’re going to say—” He grinned. Like a pirate. Or a dragon. “Fuck ’em.”

  She didn’t tell him she loved him, too, like another woman would have. Instead, she turned to him, put her hand against his face, and said, “Then—could you kiss me?”

  They were on a bench beside the visitors’ center. Only a few people around, but some of those few were watching. He didn’t care. He brushed a thumb slowly under one eye, then the other, catching the last of the tears, then moved his hand slowly around until his palm was on her nape and his fingers in her hair. And then he tipped her head up, bent his head, and kissed her.

  She tasted like ginger, spicy and sweet. She tasted like Christmas morning, and she felt like that, too. Her soft mouth opening under his, her eyes drifting shut. He kissed a slow, sweet path across her cheek, touched his lips to her temple, where her pulse beat, and thought of the words he’d read again and again in the dark hours on the plane, while exhausted men slept all around him, and he and the flight crew seemed to be the only ones awake on the black plane painted with a silver fern as it flew through the endless, lonely night.

  “O my dove,” he said, “that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice.” He kissed her temple again. “I read that, sometime in the wee hours, in the dark, and I wanted to be with you. In the secret places.”

  She had both hands on his shoulders, and this time, she was the one finding his mouth. Gentle, and slow, and sweet, but the heat was burning anyway. She buried her face in his neck and kissed him there, and he shuddered.

  “Take me home,” she said. “Please, Rhys.”

  He pulled his phone out of the pocket of his trousers, and she said, “I don’t want to wait. I want to be with you now. I need your hands on me. I need you inside me. Please.”

  Surely, there was a limit to what a man could take before he actually went up in flames. He said, “One second,” and texted Hayden, I will pay you five hundred dollars to stay with the kids until eight. Then waited, not quite holding his breath, while the screen said a response was being typed, tantalizing him, and didn’t form into words.

  Finally, the bubble popped up. No worries. Just be good to my sister.

  There was a blockage in his throat. He typed, Always. Then he put the phone back in his pocket, took her hand, and said, “Let’s go.”

  It wasn’t even ten minutes to his house, and once again, they didn’t talk. He drove, and she put her hand on his hard thigh, felt the muscle bunch under her palm, and didn’t think at all. It wasn’t even sunset yet, and all she wanted to do was to fall across his big white bed and feel his hand in her hair and his mouth on hers.

  They didn’t make it.

  He pulled off the road, rolled down the curved drive to his house, pushed the button for the garage, then drove inside, turned the car off, and pushed the button again.

  The rattle and crash behind them of the garage door closing, the faint light illuminating his hard face, and she leaned across the seat, pulled his head down, and kissed his mouth, letting her hunger free, and her hand, too, as she tugged his T-shirt up, found warm skin beneath, and ran her palm up his hard torso. He made a low noise in his throat, and she had her tongue in his mouth and both hands on his body, greedy to touch all of him, yanking at his shirt. She couldn’t get it over his head, because his hands were wrapped around her head, pulling her into him.

  She needed to feel more. She needed to see all of him, and to feel him, too. She dragged her mouth away from his and said, “Take your shirt off,” even as she tugged some more, and he pulled it over his head impatiently and dropped it over the back of the seat. Which meant her hands were free to roam.

  Above them, the garage light winked out. The darkness was heavy, absolutely complete, but she stroked her hands over the bunched muscle of Rhys’s shoulders, down the planes of his heavy chest, over his solid sides, the ridges of his abs, feeling her way. Silken skin, the roughness of hair, and the hard muscle beneath. She could hear his harsh breathing, feel his hands on her, now, yanking her own shirt up.

  “Get it off,” he said through his teeth, so she did. Then he was reaching around, unfastening her bra with one hand, pulling it down her arms. His hand was on her breast, cupping it, teasing a
nipple with his thumb, and she was shifting in the seat, forgetting that she was meant to be exploring him. That would be because he was dragging her halfway across the leather console between them, turning her face-up, lifting her for him, and sucking her nipple into his mouth while his other hand found the snap of her jeans and pulled down the zip.

  She shifted, trying to get her balance, but he had his hand inside her bikinis now, and his mouth was still at her breast. She tried to say something, but all that came out was a moan. His finger was inside her, plunging and retreating, while his palm ground against her. A big hand, and the long middle finger was pressing on that perfect spot, the one that made you twist and turn. She cried out, and his mouth shifted until he was kissing her again, his tongue plunging to the rhythm of his hand. She had one foot against the door, was trying to get him further inside her, opening her mouth wider, taking him deeper, and now, he was swallowing up her cries. The blood pounded in her head, and the hand that held her up was hard as iron, but his other hand never stopped moving inside her.

  She wanted to say, “Rhys.” She wanted to say, “Wait.” She couldn’t say anything, because he had her mouth, and her words. Then he set her head on his thigh, got his other hand on her breast, began to pinch the nipple, and kept on doing it. Now, she could call out, and she did. Her hips were pumping, and she was keening.

  His hands stopped, his finger slid out of her, and she uttered a sound of protest and said, “Rhys. No. Don’t stop.”

  “Get your shoes and jeans off.” His voice was harsh, but his hands were gentle, lifting her back over to her side of the car again. She could barely see a silhouette of his body, but she could hear his breathing, and the rustle of fabric as he took off his own clothes. She had her shoes and socks off, was tugging her jeans down, trying to get them down her calves, over her feet, when the flash of light, bright as neon, announced the opening of his door. She cried out and flung a hand up, the door slammed shut, and she could see him coming around the front of the car. Naked and huge, a warrior advancing. Her door opened, and he pulled her up with one hand, wrenched her clothes the rest of the way off with the other, and pulled her out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

  Her legs went around him, and so did her arms, and he turned her against the car and held her there. She gasped, yelped, and said, “Cold,” and he said, “Yeh,” as the light in the car winked out and plunged them into blackness again.

  She’d forgotten, surely, how big he was. He stood stock-still a moment, sucking the air in between his teeth. She kissed his mouth, moved her teeth over his neck, and said, “Come on. Please.”

  “Condom.”

  “I can’t wait. I can’t. Now.”

  He swore, carried her around the car as the light vanished, and they were in the blackness again. He set her down on the bonnet, the metal hard under her bottom, and said, “Put your feet on the bumper. I’m going to lay you down.”

  A surge of excitement, and she found the bumper in the dark, felt his hands on her shoulders, and went down onto her back.

  He said, “Grab behind your knees. Pull them in,” and she whimpered, unable to stop herself, and did it.

  His hands, in the darkness, stroking down the backs of her thighs, over her bum, then spreading her wide, opening her up. A shift of his weight, and something else touching her. His tongue, and he was shoving her legs higher again, holding her thighs in hard hands.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  “Rhys.” It was a moan.

  The hard surface was still warm under her back, the sound of cooling metal ticking in her ears, the darkness around them complete, and Rhys was going so slowly, not letting her climb the way she needed to. She was trying to move, and she couldn’t do it, because he was holding her too tightly. Her hands slid across the surface of the bonnet, trying to find something to hold onto, and failing.

  She said, “Hurry. Please. Please.” And he slowed down, his mouth lazy, like he had all day.

  She was trying to climb, and he wasn’t letting her. She said, “Please.”

  “I’m putting your feet on my shoulders,” he said. “Keep them there. Hold still for me.”

  She reached behind her, found the indentation where the bonnet met the windscreen, and held on tight. And he got that finger inside her, spread her wide with the other hand, and ate her up by slow degrees. And when his little finger slid back to circle her, she sucked in a breath and moaned.

  He held her there, breathless, trembling, for aching minutes, until her cries were bouncing off the hard walls of the garage, until she was burning. Until she was shaking. Then he sat back, pulled her feet off his shoulders, and said, “Not yet.”

  “Not . . . yet?”

  “Spin around, baby. Put your feet on the windscreen.”

  Her entire body was throbbing. She had to come so badly, she was almost sobbing with it. He was helping her, though, repositioning her in the dark, when she was disoriented, pulling her down by the shoulders so her head hung off the edge of the bonnet and her legs were up high. He stroked her face, pulled her hair back, ran his hand down her neck, over her breasts, played there, and said, “Do you want to take me deep?”

  “Yes.”

  His fingers were on her chin, tilting it up. “Open up,” he said. And, slowly, slid inside.

  She was frustrated as hell, and he knew it. She was burning, and she was about a centimeter away from exploding. And he pushed his way slowly into her mouth, testing her limits, tried not to groan, and failed.

  He still had his hands on her face, tipping her head back, and he wanted to shove all the way inside. Instead he said, “Put a . . . hand around my thigh and hold on, so you can control how deep you take me. If it’s too much, if you want me to ease off . . . punch me. If you don’t want me to . . . come in your mouth . . .” It was hard to get the words out. Her mouth was so hot, and his eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough that he could see her pale body spread out on the car, one foot flat on the bonnet, the other one stretching up onto the windscreen. He said, “Take your other hand and . . . let yourself come. Suck me hard. Show me how much you . . . missed me.”

  Her mouth. Her mouth. She started to shift, to rock as the orgasm built, hard and fast, and with every centimeter she went higher, she took him deeper. He wrapped his hand in her hair, held on, held still, and thought, Let her do it, mate. You’ll be too much otherwise.

  It was torture. It was going to kill him. She was making some sounds deep in her throat, where he was lodged, was gripping his thigh tighter, her own hand moving faster, and then, between one breath and the next, she was coming. He could hear her hips slamming against the metal, could feel the suction increasing as the sound of her breathing through her nose reached a frantic pace, and he had both hands in her hair and was yanking her head back and emptying himself down her throat. Like she was his, and he was her king.

  Groaning. Cursing. Shaking. Gone.

  Her legs were trembling so hard, she couldn’t control them. The blood had rushed to her head, because she was tipped nearly upside-down, and Rhys was salty-sweet in her mouth. He pulled out of her, and she kept her hand around his thigh and tried to get her breath. And still, her legs shook. He said, “Fuck,” which pretty much summed it up, leaned over, pulled her into his arms, carried her into the house, down the stairs, and into the bedroom the same way he had the first night, came down over her, and kissed her mouth.

  “You were . . .” she said. “That was . . .” She couldn’t think how to go on.

  “Mm.” He had her arms up over her head, was running his hands from her wrists to her shoulders, slowly, then back again, as he kissed her again. Still. “You’re beautiful. Taku toi kahurangi.”

  “I don’t know what that . . . means,” she said, glad that she didn’t. Glad that this was just for her, just between the two of them.

  “My precious jewel. I mean to be gentle, every time. I mean to be . . . sweet.”

  She laughed softly against him and ran her o
wn hand over the swell of biceps and rock-hardness of triceps. “You were a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘sweet’ was one of them.”

  “Mm.” He kissed her mouth again, twined his fingers in her hair, and asked, “Anything I did that you didn’t like?”

  “No. I love the way you surprise me.”

  He stilled over her. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  He laughed, now, and pressed his forehead to hers. “You never asked if I brought you a present, too.”

  “Oh.” She was laughing some more. “Never mind. I wasn’t expecting a present. You offered me a roof. How would you do better than a roof?”

  “And you wouldn’t take my roof. Wait here. Don’t move. Or—wait. You can move. Sorry. Bossy fella. But stay here.”

  He left, and she sat up in the dark, found the top edge of the duvet, and climbed inside. She should be going into the bathroom and washing up, but she wanted to wallow in this for a few minutes more. And after that, she wanted to take him into the bath with her, to lie over him, feel him reach around to kiss her, and to let his hands stroke over her and wash her clean, the way he’d wanted to do that night on the phone.

  He came back into the room bare-chested, but in his track pants, and she said, “Clothes aren’t fair.”

  “I told you. It’s hotter if you’re naked and I’m not.” He rested a hand on the light switch and said, “Put a hand over your eyes.”

  “I’m OK.”

  “No. Seriously. Put a hand over your eyes, and close them.”

  She did it, but saw the darkness decrease anyway, then heard his footsteps retreat and come back. He said, “You can open them now.”