by Tracy Brogan
He pulled at the first button of her shirt, and it popped through the opening as if it had been waiting for his touch. He nudged the fabric with one finger and leaned down to kiss her skin at the gap. She sighed with the certainty of delicious things unfolding and ran a hand over his hair.
Then another button, and another kiss. Lower and lower until, at last, her shirt dangled open, the cool air a delicious contrast to his warm lips and her sizzling skin. He bent low and kissed her belly button, circling his tongue around it. She stepped back from the tickle of it, but he wrapped his arms around her, under her bottom, and picked her up.
She was floating, with Tom her only anchor to the ground. She bit his earlobe as he walked down the hall to the bedroom, and he let out a low rumble deep in his throat.
The room was small and uncluttered, just a big bed, nightstands, and a dresser. The evening light came through the windows, casting shadow fragments across a faded quilt.
He loosened his hold, and her body slid down his, her skin taut with anticipation. He was so solid, everywhere. She wanted to surround herself with him, and surround him in return.
Tom looked down at her, lips parted, breath erratic. “Are you absolutely positive? Because I’m just about at the tipping point here.”
“Absolutely positive.”
She had been ready for this since the first time she’d heard him laugh. She just hadn’t known it. She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a foil packet. “Marti made me bring this. Just in case.”
A smile spread across his face like water flowing. “You brought a condom?”
“I brought two. Presumptuous, I know, but Marti insisted.” She pulled out the second one and tossed them on the bed.
Laughter bubbled up between them.
“Remind me later to tell her thanks.”
“How about you thank me right now?”
Desire chased away the laughter on his face as he pushed Libby’s open shirt down her arms. It landed on the hardwood, buttons clicking. His fingers tangled into her hair, tugging, tipping her head back. A happy moan escaped as he lavished her throat with kisses.
Libby tugged at the waistband of his jeans. “Still too many clothes.”
Tom picked her up again and slid with a bent knee over the bed, tipping until they fell together across the foot. He landed on top, pressing the air from her lungs in a pop, and pulled her wrists above her head. She couldn’t breathe, and she didn’t care.
Tom smiled with the patience of a Sunday afternoon driver. “Libby, I haven’t done this in a while. I’m not going to hurry.”
His words sent her heart tumbling over itself with sublime expectation. She was dazzled.
“Sorry. Carry on,” she whispered breathlessly.
“I intend to.” He kissed her again, a tiny shallow kiss, teasing her with nips and nuzzles across her jaw, until at last his own breath deepened and he kissed her deeply, with slow sweeps of his tongue. He pressed his body down, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, denim meeting denim, friction increasing.
Tom let go of her wrists and rolled to the side. His fingers traced a path along her collarbone and skimmed over a breast. The sensation was electric, and she arched in reflex, her sigh ardent, even to her own ears. Tom watched her face, his eyes on hers as tantalizing as his touch.
The frenzied passion of the kitchen had transcended into a maddeningly seductive meander over her body as he kissed her neck and pressed soft lips against the hollow behind her ear. Her hunger doubled as he bit her earlobe, and when his fingers splayed against her stomach, she wished with all her might that he’d keep going. But he slid that hand up and underneath her instead, to unhook her bra. She sat up so he could slide it off her arms, and soon it joined her shirt in a twist on the floor.
She turned his way then, pushing him, unresisting, to his back and straddled him. He wasn’t playing fair and so neither would she. She leaned over, letting her hair trail over his chest. He was all man beneath her, smooth skin over sleek muscle. “I haven’t done this in a while either, you know.”
She pressed her lips against his belly and moved upward. She felt the thumping of his heart beneath her hands and knew its pace matched her own. Frenetic and wild.
“God, Libby.” His breath came in waves. He threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her face back to his, time and again, for another searing kiss. But when she trailed her fingertips down his belly and pressed her hand against the obvious swell in his jeans, he groaned and flipped her back over before she could resist, pinning her with one leg.
“Still in such a hurry?” he whispered.
“Stop teasing me.”
His smile was full of mischief as he ran his hands down her sides until they reached her waistband.
“Seriously, stop teasing me.” She’d never been so desperate to be naked in her life.
He popped open the button of her jeans, and she bit her lip. His eyes stayed on hers as he tugged down the zipper. She lifted her hips, and his teasing stopped as he eased the fabric down. He caught the waistband of her panties with his fingers and pulled them, too, over her thighs and knees and ankles, until at last she was as bare as she longed to be. What little modesty she had left fled. His gaze slammed into her like a heat wave. He slid his hands up her legs and body, pausing to kiss her stomach before lying down, half-covering her with his body.
She pulled at his waistband. “These, too.”
“Soon.” He reached between them then, and her arguments faded against his lips as his palm pressed against her. Her knee rose up, granting him access, and she thought she might explode right then and there as his fingers sought then delved inside her. She rose up against his touch, her body melting with a quivering ache. Longing seized her under the pressure of his touch. She got lost in it, the sound of his breath rasping against her neck faint behind the roar growing in her ears. Sensations swelled and retreated, and swelled again.
“You’re so beautiful.” His words floated past her on a reverent sigh.
She kissed his mouth, hungry. She reached down, the need to touch the length of him all-consuming. He didn’t stop her as she yanked against the zipper and slid her hand inside his pants. His skin scorched her fingers as they wrapped around and stroked him. His erection thrummed against her hand.
Tom groaned into her mouth and pulled away to strip off his jeans. He grabbed a foil packet and tore the wrapper with his teeth. Libby held her arms out to him, impatient as he rolled the condom into place, and finally he rejoined her. At last there was nothing between them but sweat and desire.
He pressed between their tangled legs, and rose up on his elbows. He looked into her eyes, and she could sense the breadth of his craving. She felt it, too, and arched her hips upward against him.
“Please.” A breathy plea whispered from the depths of her longing.
He pushed into her then, sinking deep and settling in, with a labored breath and a long, slow blink.
“God, Libby,” he said again.
He moved against her, and nothing before had ever felt so good, or so right. The certainty of this moment was spontaneous and powerful and impossible to ignore.
“I know,” she whispered, and pulled him tight with her arms and her legs, wanting to lock him in that place and bring him closer than physically possible. They moved, and swayed, and found a rhythm, pleasure building and cascading.
He reached between them again, finding that spot, and she moved, pressing against his exploring fingertips until he understood just what she needed. His hand was gentle but sure, just as she’d known it would be.
He stroked and circled until tendrils of release eased out, slow at first, building in her toes and coiling inward until, at last, she burst forth with her climax and tumbled into ecstasy. Hot, sweet perfection, so ridiculously good. Libby started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. Her joy bubbled forth, and Tom paused his movements, gazing down at her.
She covered her face with her hands and squeezed he
r legs around him. “I’m sorry,” she said as she floated downward and laughed harder. “I’m sorry. I’m just really, really happy.”
He pressed his hips against her and plunged a little deeper. “Me, too, almost.”
He moved again, a little more abrupt, deeper still, again, and again until she caught up with his need. The muscles of his back were taut and tight under her palms as she pulled him close, his breath a primal rhythm in her ear. She arched her hips to meet his strokes, encouraging his pace. She pulled the soft hair at the nape of his neck, and his teeth grazed her shoulder as he came, exhaling in a fevered rush of incoherent pleasure.
Tom thought maybe he’d imagined it—the glory of making love. After the accident, he’d thought it was just grief that made his memories of it so compelling. But no, it was every bit as magnificent as he remembered. Libby was marvelous and wicked. Hot and sweet. Demanding and responsive. Her laughter at the ending had caught him completely by surprise, saving him from what might have otherwise been too vulnerable of a moment.
She was, after all, only the second woman he’d ever made love to.
“Why are we at the foot of the bed?” Giggles still trembled through her limbs as they lay sprawled out on top of the covers.
“I was in a hurry.” He chuckled, happy.
“God.” Libby rolled against him. “If that was you hurrying, we’d better start right now for the next time.”
The next time. His body quickened at the thought. There could be a next time, and a time after that. He could spend the next one hundred days in bed with Libby Hamilton and not miss the world going by.
Except for Rachel.
The complications he’d neatly tucked away in the back of his mind inched forward again like ants across a picnic blanket, but he flicked them aside.
“Get under the covers. I’ll be right back.”
He made a quick trip to the bathroom, then trotted into the kitchen with his bare ass and his good idea, and grabbed the pie and the forks, returning to the bedroom just as Libby slid under the sheets and blanket.
“Hungry?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You want to eat that in bed?”
“I think in the spectrum of reckless behavior, this is lower on the scale than what we just did.” He set the pie on the bed and slipped in next to her. He handed her a fork after she adjusted the pillows behind her head.
She frowned. “‘Reckless behavior’? Why would you say that?”
“What?”
“That what we did was reckless. We were careful.” There was an edge to her voice, and he tried to rewind the last fifteen seconds to see where he’d made the wrong play.
“I didn’t… I mean, we’re not…” He stared at her. “It just was reckless. I’m not saying I regret it.”
She glared back with love-tousled hair and her arms firmly crossed. “Oh, good. I’m so relieved you don’t regret it.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. “God, Libby. You remember the collage. Don’t get frustrated with me now for not knowing how to explain something.”
Her face relaxed a little. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to feel guilty about this. I was really, really happy, and now you’re acting like I made you do something bad.” She pulled the sheets up tighter over her breasts.
He shook his head. “That’s not how I feel at all. Of course it wasn’t something bad. And you didn’t make me. You compelled me, though. And I mean that in the most flattering way possible. You’re a force of nature, Libby. Don’t you know that?”
“No.”
“Well, you are. And I’m glad. You’ve woken me up.” He leaned over and kissed her, because her lips were lush and pink and he just couldn’t resist. Then he leaned back against his own pillows. “It’s just… a little terrifying, you know? Sometimes you look at me and I worry that you think I’m a much better man than I am. I’m just trying to keep the bar set really low, I guess, so I don’t disappoint you.”
Libby pushed the hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “Can I ask you something personal?”
He pulled the pie closer. “We’re a little past that point, don’t you think?”
“No, I’m being serious here. You talk about disappointing people, but I’m just not sure who you’re referring to. I mean, I see how hard you’re trying to make things right with Rachel, and it seems like if her grandparents weren’t telling her otherwise, she’d see that, too. So who else have you disappointed? Honestly, Tom, I get the distinct impression you confuse accidents with failures. You’re a little hard on yourself.”
He took a bite of the pie, not because he wanted it now but because it was easier than giving her an answer. “You sound like Dr. Brandt,” he finally said.
Libby twirled the fork in her hand, then scooped up a bite. “Well, I’m very smart, and obviously so is she. And if my dad were here, he’d say you were like a blind man trying to describe an elephant.”
Tom laughed around his next bite. It was tangy-sweet, like Libby. “And what the hell would your dad mean by that?”
“He’d mean that you can only feel the part that’s right in front of you and not the whole elephant. Everybody else can see it’s an elephant, but all you know is the trunk, or maybe a foot.” She took another bite.
“Help me out here, Lib. I still have no idea what you’re saying.”
She stared at him, direct and guileless. “I’m saying that the rest of the world can see the whole you. The helpful guy, the smart guy, the hardworking guy. The loving-dad guy. We can see all of that, all at once. But all you see is the guy who crashed the car.”
The pie was suddenly too sticky and too sweet. He set the fork down.
Libby’s eyes were big, luminous in the fading light. She reached out and touched his arm. “You’re all those good things, Tom, so stop focusing on just that one part.”
He looked away and wished he knew what to say to that, but he didn’t trust his voice just then. Her words had touched him, the same way her hands and her kiss had, gentle but insistent. And she was right. He only saw those dark bits of himself, the scars that had faded to everyone else but were bright and rough and raw in his eyes.
He set the pie on the nightstand and turned back, gathering her close. She wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her lips against his in a honeyed kiss, a kiss that asked for more.
He rolled her back against the pillows and showed her without words just how he felt.
CHAPTER sixteen
Tom woke up the next morning smelling like peaches but feeling like a man. He smiled at the empty pie tin next to the bed. His memory of the evening sizzled, and his body responded before he could even blink. He’d made love to Libby twice before they’d finished that pie, naked and laughing in the bed. She’d stayed a few more hours and went home looking thoroughly satisfied, and Tom enjoyed the best night’s sleep he’d had in over a year.
He stretched and wondered why he, of all men, should get a chance in life to feel this good. It made him want to accomplish things today. He jumped out of bed, brushed some pie crumbs off his arm, and got in the shower.
Twenty minutes later his sipped his coffee and dialed a number on his phone that he called far too infrequently.
“Hello?” Her voice was raspy.
“Rach, it’s Dad.”
“Yeah, I know. I have caller ID. Do you know it’s, like, eight thirty on a Sunday morning?”
“Sorry. I thought you’d be up. I was hoping we could have breakfast. Or lunch. Can you? There’s some stuff I want to talk to you about.”
“Today?”
“It doesn’t have to be today, but I’d like to see you. I’ll take you to that place with the chocolate-chip pancakes.”
He heard her snuffled giggle on the other end, and his hope lifted. “Dad, I don’t eat chocolate-chip pancakes anymore.”
“All right, well, we can go wherever you want. Is that a yes?”
She sighed. “Yeah, okay. Brunch. Pick me up at eleven. I’m not done sleeping.�
�
He hung up the phone and felt like he was standing on the tip of a knife. One wrong move could leave him in shreds. But at least he could feel it.
His daughter was waiting outside her grandparents’ house when he guided his truck up the driveway. He hadn’t been inside there since before Connie died. Since his recent talk with Dr. Brandt, he knew that was something he needed to fix. But not today. Today was just for him and Rachel.
She climbed into the truck wearing a red beret and a sparkly scarf. She’d loved to play dress-up when she was little. Always a flair for the dramatic.
“Hey. Nice hat. You hungry?”
She shrugged. “I guess. That was the whole idea, wasn’t it? To go eat?”
“And to spend some time together.”
She looked at him, but she wasn’t scowling. Practically a declaration of peace.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Someplace with good soup.”
He didn’t know of any place with particularly good soup, since soup was what he ate while he waited for his meal.
“How about Flanagan’s?”
“No, their soup sucks. How about Licari’s?”
“If that’s where you want to go, that’s where we’ll go.”
She looked at him, eyes narrowed with what looked very much like suspicion. “You’re agreeable this morning.”
“I’m just glad to see you.”
He was. It wasn’t just his night with Libby that had him smiling. It was also the fact that Rachel had said yes and not found some excuse to avoid him.
They arrived at the restaurant and ordered their meals without much extra chatter.
“Have you finished your collage?” he asked as they sat down with trays of food.
“Mostly. It’s kind of cheesy, though. Are you done with yours?” She took a slurp of soup.
“Almost. It’s pretty awful, I have to warn you. But I tried hard. I even asked Libby to help me. She said my cutting and pasting skills were substandard.”
Libby hadn’t really said that. He hadn’t let her help with that part. He was just trying to make Rachel giggle because he loved the sound of it more than anything else in the world.
