by Karen Grey
The need for her to feel what my words don’t seem to be communicating has me cupping her jaw with both hands and leaning in to brush my lips over hers. She shudders. I think it’s a good shudder, so I press my lips to hers, sliding my hands to cup the back of her head. I let the tip of my tongue run over her top lip. She gasps and pulls away slightly, but when I catch her gaze, her pupils are dilated, almost displacing the light brown of her irises. In slow motion, her mouth floats back to mine. I hold my breath. She nips my lower lip. And holds on.
Immediately, the kiss deepens. Her hands dive into my hair; my hands roam down her spine. A shiver moves through her again, and I pull her in, sucking on her lower lip.
She moans and presses her chest to mine, then kisses her way across my jaw to my earlobe, nipping lightly.
Arms still around my neck, she leans away slightly and tips her chin toward the obvious bulge in my shorts. “Well, I guess I can’t deny the attraction.”
I grin before nuzzling back in. “I’m not that good of an actor.”
Her arms tightening around me, she nestles up against me, and I kiss my way up her neck. She finds my mouth again and kisses me softly, then more hungrily.
My hands have a mind of their own, stroking every bit of skin they can reach. Her toned body and adventurous mouth are making me wonder how sturdy that bed is in Thoreau’s cabin and if he’d mind if we borrow it, when a high-pitched whoop startles us apart.
“Gross, dude!”
“Oooh, oooh, oooh, look at ’em go at it, man!”
A pack of teenaged boys howls past us on their bikes. Remembering what a little dick I’d been at their age, I cover Kate with my arms, where she shakes in my embrace.
“They’re gone, don’t worry,” I say softly in her ear, before craning my neck so I can see her face. “You okay?”
Pushing away from me, she bends over, hands on her knees, making a strange noise.
“Kate?”
She waves a hand in the air and gasps for breath. “Sorry!” She looks up, her face red, but her smile huge. “That was hilarious.”
I shake my head, enjoying the show way more than I probably should.
When her laughter subsides, she blows out a breath. “Hoo boy. I guess we should go find that ice cream you promised.” Her brows waggle up and down ridiculously, and she tips her head toward the cabin. “Unless you want to scandalize Thoreau’s ghost too.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. And blush. “It did occur to me. But I think I’d like some privacy for any further… activity.” I step back in and trace the line of her jaw. “Dairy Joy is about five miles away.” I pull an over-the-top pout that any acting teacher would call me out on. “I might need one more tiny kiss if I’m going to make it there.”
She reaches for my neck and leans, seeming to trust that I’ll keep her from falling. “I guess I can provide one more. But this ice cream had better be good if I have to work so hard to get it.”
“Believe me, it’s worth it. The place is almost as much of an institution as Walden Pond.”
I pull her close, kissing her until we’re both hungry for anything but ice cream. Unfortunately, the sweet creamy treat will have to suffice as a substitute.
For now.
KATE
As Will promised, we’re soon seated at a picnic table, cones in hand. Smooth sweetness chills my tongue while the sun warms my face. Heaven. “This is the best thing that’s happened to my mouth in some time.”
He stabs himself in the heart with a mimed knife and does a dramatic death scene.
“Kidding.” Of course. At the moment, I can’t think of anything that could compete with Will’s lips on mine. When he rights himself, I nudge his thigh. “Seriously though, maybe it’s the bike ride making me hungry, but this ice cream is amazing.”
He nods, brow furrowing. “Ya know, I think I’ve only ever ridden my bike here. But it is one of my favorites. Who needs crazy mix-ins? I’m all for plain vanilla in a perfect soft serve.”
He lifts his cone in salute, and I bump it with mine. “Maybe that’s why you like me.”
“What do you mean?”
I pick at the wrapper on my cone. “Well, you know, like you said. I’m no exotic beauty. Maybe you’re drawn to my vanilla kind of looks.” I lick my ice cream and swallow it quickly. I’m not fishing for a compliment. He’s obviously attracted to me, but he also pretty much said that my face and body are… run-of-the-mill.
His cone dances below my nose, teasing my gaze up until his gold-flecked blue eyes hold mine. “That may be. But there’s a range of vanillas. Like there’s Dairy Joy vanilla on a perfect spring day eaten in the sunshine after a ride through the woods. And there’s boring old Star Market vanilla with freezer burn. If you’re vanilla, Kate, you’re the Dairy Joy kind.”
A chill dances through me, and it’s not from the ice cream. I nudge his knee playfully to release some of the energy. “Pretty good metaphor there, Shakespeare.”
He laughs and I clear my throat. “Anyway, you hardly even know me.”
“But what I do know intrigues me. You’re pretty impressive. In fact, your work intimidates the hell out of me. When it’s not pissing me off,” he adds.
I take the opportunity to opt out of the looks discussion. “Come on. My job is not that big of a deal. It’s just paying attention to details. Digging deep for information other people might ignore. Then making connections between things. Looking at patterns. That kind of stuff.” My work isn’t anywhere near as interesting as his. “Oh, and lots of math.”
“Yeah, well, math was never my strong suit.” He takes a big bite of his ice cream, decimating it.
“Ugh! How can you bite the ice cream? That makes my teeth hurt!” I shudder and lick mine, catching a drip. “Anyway, wanting to be onstage mystifies me, so we’re even.”
His grin is wicked. “It’s a good thing opposites attract then, huh?”
I carefully peel the wrapper off my cone. My entire face must be a ridiculous shade of pink. “Do they now?”
He leans in, eyes on my mouth. “I think so.”
I hold my cone away from him in such a way that my body shifts closer to his. Not on purpose or anything. “You can’t have any of my chocolate.”
He scoots closer. “I just want this bit, right… here.” His lips brush the side of my mouth, then he licks just below my bottom lip. “Mmm. That’s good chocolate.”
“Ice cream kisses.” My tongue may be cold, but the rest of me is heating up fast.
“I’ve never had an ice cream kiss before.”
“Me either.”
Together we each lick our ice cream and then lean in to kiss, but I can’t keep it together and I snort in laughter instead.
He sits back, laughing, and grabs napkins from the dispenser.
I’m still giggling as I accept a napkin and wipe the ice cream off my chin. “Yeah, that was kind of gross.”
“Kind of,” he agrees. “Maybe the ice cream kisses don’t have to be so literal.”
We finish our ice cream, grinning goofily at each other. This is even more fun than sleepovers with my best friend in high school when we’d bake cookies and howl with laughter at Roseanne Roseannadanna and Mr. Bill on Saturday Night Live.
Will just makes me giddy. I want to kiss him again and do all the other things with him that I’ve been fantasizing about. Standing with him in Thoreau’s cabin earlier, I’d had to make a quick exit or I would have embarrassed myself by jumping his bones then and there.
However, my impatient libido needs to be sidelined, at least for the time being. “So. Tell me about your Shakespeare theater. It’s your company, right? You own it?”
“I know you’re teasing me, but yeah, sort of. It’s a nonprofit, and I’m on the board.” He sits up taller, balling up his ice cream trash and then shooting a basket at the trashcan. “And he scores!” I clap dutifully.
He bows and then shifts to straddle the bench, his gaze on the woods. “Well, it’s three years ol
d. This summer we’re going to be performing at an outdoor amphitheater on the Charles River. Uh… what else? It’s called Shakespeare Boston.”
“Very original,” I tease.
“I wanted to call it the Boston Globe, but that was taken.”
“You were going to name it after the newspaper?”
“No—I mean, that’s kind of the joke.”
I wipe my mouth one last time and get up to throw away my napkin. “I don’t get it.”
“We were naming it after the original Globe Theater.”
I cross back to his side of the table. “There was another theater in Boston called the Globe?”
“You weren’t kidding when you said you didn’t know anything about Shakespeare, were you?”
I plop back on the bench, facing him. “Well sor-REE. I wasn’t a theater major in college. I studied American history.”
His hands go up in the air. “I’m with other theater people so much I forget not everyone knows this stuff.”
I pretend to choke back tears. “That’s okay, I’ll survive the humiliation.”
He rests his chin on his hand. “History, huh? I’d have figured you’d be an economics major or something.”
“Actually, that doesn’t really help you do what I do. Econ majors tend to be a little too in love with their models.” I look around the picnic area next to Dairy Joy before whispering theatrically, “Don’t tell anybody, but I never even took statistics.”
“‘Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, and breath of life, I have no life to breathe what thou hast said to me.’”
I point at him. “Hamlet! I remember!”
He golf-claps.
“So, back to the few places my knowledge is lacking,” I huff, pretending to be offended. “What was the original Globe Theater?”
“The theater in London in the 1600s where most of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed.”
“Ohhh, I get it now.”
He nods, his face mock serious. “You’re such a good student. Almost like you went to a decent college.”
I whack him and he grabs my hands, wrestling playfully, bringing us closer together, which sets off a shiver deep in my belly.
“Anyway, we obviously weren’t really going to name it that. I mean, I wanted to, but no one else did. Then it was Boston Shakespeare, but the initials to that were problematic.”
“I do get that one.”
He leans in even closer, his grin wide. “The depth of your intelligence is truly astounding.”
My desire to lock lips is barely edged out by my need to have the last word. “I’ll try to keep my brain in check, you know, so you don’t get overwhelmed.”
“‘Affection faints not like a pale-faced coward, but then woos best when most his choice is froward.’”
He punctuates every few words of this talk of wooing and affection with a featherlight kiss along my jaw. On the last word, he slides his hands beneath my thighs and lifts them over his, scooting me close in one smooth move. I let out a yip of surprise but rebound quickly to capture his grinning mouth with mine. His hands rove over my butt, sending a pulsing need zinging everywhere. Ankles crossed behind his back bring me even closer. When he growls and nips my lower lip, my hands find the curls at the base of his skull, and he pulls me in until I’m plastered to his firm chest. His tongue sweeps my mouth and its hypersensitive roof and—
“A-hem.”
We freeze, but a disapproving female clears her throat again before asking, “Is this table free?”
I manage to get my leg over the side of the bench and away from Will to face the woman, who stands next to the table, hands on hips. Three kids flank her, mouths agape, ice cream cones forgotten.
I swallow a laugh as Will steps gracefully away from the bench and bows with a flourish. “‘Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.’”
“All right, kids, show’s ovah,” the woman says in a broad Boston accent. “Your cones are melting!”
Shakespeare to the rescue.
Will pulls me over to our bikes. Out of sight of our audience, I let the giggles escape. “Wow, we’re scarring all the youth of Boston today.”
He kisses me softly, whispering, “‘In thy youth wast as true a lover as ever sighed upon a midnight pillow.’ As You Like It.”
I’d like to sigh on a pillow with him but that has to wait for the third date at least, so I throw back the only reply I can think of. “To bike or not to bike, that is the question,” I say, eliciting a well-earned groan.
Swaying with the movement of the T later that evening, finally on the way home after plugging away at the office for several hours, my first real date with Will plays through my mind. Despite the one awkward moment where it felt like he was saying he didn’t find me attractive—which his body quickly countered—it was pretty much ideal. Hours on our bikes on a magnificent day, getting to visit a place where history was made, a first kiss that still has my toes curling, topped off by the best ice cream in Boston.
So what are the downsides, Kate? There’s always something.
You’d think our schedules would make seeing each other regularly challenging, but he wants to make dinner for me on Monday. Just two days away. Which breaks all the rules. I can’t wait to tell Alice. Apparently actors always have Mondays off, which makes sense since weekends are prime time for both the entertainment and service industries. In fact, he’d been all apologetic about having to go to work tonight, but a page from Roland had me at the office on a Saturday evening anyway. Hopefully, the report I pulled together will give him what he needs for his networking golf game tomorrow and someday soon he’ll recognize the extra work with a promotion.
A group of girls laugh loudly at the other end of the train. Hair sprayed to defy gravity, eyes and lips popping with color, they’re ready for a night out on the town. I run a hand through my limp, unbendable hair. I didn’t shower after the bike ride, I just changed my shirt and splashed water on my face before heading to the office, so I probably look more like a crack addict than a finance junkie.
When the Madonna look-a-likes howl with laughter again, a woman in scrubs catches my eye and rolls hers. At least I’m not the only one working long hours on the weekend. She’s probably heading home to her cat, too.
Or maybe she has a nice husband and a couple of kids waiting for her.
When the train screeches to a stop in Central Square, I lurch to the doors. An image pops into my mind of Will greeting me when I walk in my front door. Or me swinging by the bar on the way home from the office so we can go home together. Fairytale ideas. In real life, I can’t afford to risk what I have: an even emotional keel and no guy to answer to if I choose to work day and night instead of paying attention to him.
After a quick walk from the T station to my apartment, I drop my bag, heavy with industry reports, by the front door. My butt is stiff from all the time in the saddle today. Maybe a hot shower will help.
A little chirp signals that Frankie’s heading my way. With a grunt, I scoop up my overweight Persian and carry him to the kitchen. Noticing the blinking red light on my answering machine, I push the play button. When my mom’s voice starts in, I pause the message.
My parents mean well but they don’t understand why I chose to stay here after college, when I could be home in Virginia working a steady job at a bank or something until I meet a nice man and settle down like a normal girl. And they worry about me. They’d had reason to before, but I’m good now.
I take a breath deep into my belly. Will would be so proud. After a couple of them, feeling a bit calmer, I push the button again.
BEEP
“Kate, honey, this is Mom. I wanted to make sure you got the invitation to Rachel’s wedding July 4th weekend. The whole family will be there, so you need to get on your plans. Well, all right then, I hope you’re out having some fun. Maybe you have a new beau? You could bring a guest to the wedding. But you do have to RSVP, so don’t forget. Call me, sweetheart. This is
Mom. Oh, I said that.”
I take great pleasure in deleting the message. I’d received the invitation earlier in the week and had filed it in my To Do Much Later pile. Family weddings are a special kind of torture. With or without a date.
A few moments later, hot water pulsing onto my skull, I entertain a fantasy of sharing this shower with Will. My hands wander over my breasts and on to other regions. The feel of his hands on my body is surprisingly easy to recall. Within seconds my entire body’s shuddering with pleasure as I lean into the water, one hand propped against the tile in front of me, the other sliding away from my lower belly.
Whoa. That was unexpected. I’ve let off steam in the shower before, fueled by fantasies of the usual suspects—JFK Jr., Mark Harmon, even Scott Baio when I’m feeling nostalgic—but imaginary Will sent me to my happy place in record time.
Gotten off, cooled off and dried off, I’m ready for bed shortly thereafter. Carefully wiggling under the covers so as not to disturb Frankie, I set my alarm and pick up the May Athletic Wear Trade Journal, then read an article on running shoe trends until I’m going over the same sentence three times. At eleven thirty, I turn off the light. Like a good, responsible girl.
Unlike a good, responsible girl, my mind returns to images of Will. His eyes the color of Walden Pond, his mouth and its wicked grins, his roughened bartender hands. My hand drifts south and plays across my lower belly.
“Dang it!”
I won’t get any sleep unless I give in to my apparent need for another Will-inspired orgasm. When I roll over to pull a drawstring bag from the bottom drawer of my nightstand, Frankie jumps off the bed with a yowl. Collapsing back into the soft mattress, my mind quickly supplies an image of Will suspended above me, his strong arms by my sides. My trusty vibrator goes to work, and before I know it, I’m exploding again.
JFK Jr. has nothing on Will Talbot. What would happen if I ever found myself in bed with the actual man? It’s been so long since I’ve had an orgasm with another person I’m not sure I remember how it all goes. My time in bed with my ex had been okay, but I never had a climax with him that was quite so… thorough.
