She yanked up the hem of his button down to get at his pants.
“Wait,” he said in a harsh tone.
Fiona stopped. Her hands fell away from him and she stepped back. Tears fell. Daney’s heart broke all over again at the misery on her face.
“I didn’t mean to yell,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” He pulled her close and squeezed her hard. “Play a game with me.”
Fiona stopped crying. “A game?”
He nodded, sucking her top lip softly between his as he lifted her and began to walk toward her bedroom. For a long lush moment he gently reacquainted himself with the shape of her lips and tongue. He shouldered the door open. “You don’t wanna play with me anymore?”
“Yes,” she breathed, arching in his arms. “Yes, yes, I do, pretty,” she breathed, tugging her clothes off as she watched him.
She laughed when he hopped on one foot pulling off a sock. He cursed and took a visible breath then stood there grinning as he stripped, theatrically tossing his shirt over his shoulder before he pressed her back onto the bed and licked the tears from her face. Fiona flexed her hips, and her mouth reluctantly left his, but she was unable to keep from caressing his throat with her lips.
They came together that first time as though they had indeed been separated by war. Fiona’s tears began to fall again, but this time in gratitude for how good he felt in her arms, inside her body. She was grateful for everything. Shivering at his scent, his sweat, his presence, she shook as the pleasure seeped through her. She whispered, thank God, when her climax came, and cried out his name.
Daney, who’d been dreaming of her for months and had not had any lovers, found it surprisingly easy to stop making love so she could rest. Before he brought her up again, he toyed with her on the edge of that feverish pitch they inevitably reached together. He entertained himself by touching her, nibbling her lips as he stroked her hair and tugged the shape of her ears between his thumb and pointy finger. He drew the scent of her forearm deep into his lungs, and the difference between that skin and the even better scents to be found on her succulent neck just under the chin held him in thrall for long moments. It was like old times.
She smiled as his formerly gentlemanly penis stirred against her. When he thrust that first time in their second round and felt the pleasure wash over him, he realized they’d made love without a condom. They were doing it again right now. It was the first, second time they’d ever done it raw. No wonder it had been so good. There had been no barrier between them, nothing to separate them from touching in the most intimate of ways.
He opened his eyes and found her looking at him, his sudden realization shining from her steady gaze. She kissed him gently, and her big brown eyes drifted shut. Her hips began to move, slowly, carefully, as though she was testing out the new feelings, refitting her whole self against him.
“Do you like it?” he asked softly, his hips rolling impossibly smooth inside her warmth.
“Yes,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against his beard. “Yes, I do.”
“Me, too,” he swallowed. “You feel, amazing. I missed you, Fiona.”
They made love again, then sat in the bathtub talking while the water cooled and their fingers and toes pruned. She made them bacon and eggs, and he told her about the meeting with the Clinique people. How the artistic director had loved him but the creative director hadn’t been sure.
“Look at him,” his advocate stressed, throwing expressive hands over Daney’s 6’4” body standing in front of them in his underwear. “He’s perfect.”
“I don’t know,” the woman said, thoughtfully. “I think he might be too pretty for what we’re looking for. We need a very masculine, manly look.”
“Look at the jaw,” the man stressed, pointing sharply at Daney’s cheek. “When the beard comes in a little more you’re going to feel differently. When did you shave?” he asked Daney.
“A few hours before I came here?”
The man cursed. “What if we go to lunch, will it have started to come back out do you think?”
“It’ll take a few hours,” Dane said apologetically, but pointed on the table at his portfolio. “I have a few pictures with beard if that helps.”
The man pounced on the pictures and began to flip dramatically. He quickly found one. “Here, look at him in this suit with that 5 o’clock shadow.”
In the shot Daney was modeling Calvin Klein with a slinky blonde draped over his front. He was holding her around the waist, his hands big on her small frame, his lips parted as though about to capture hers in a fiery kiss.
“I see what you mean,” the woman said, staring at Daney with new eyes. “Can you do something like that for us?” she asked pointing at the picture.
“Sure,” he grinned, speaking softly and deliberately as his eyes lazily caressed her neck, mouth and face. She blushed. “I can do anything you want.”
“You didn’t do that,” Fiona insisted.
“I most certainly did,” he said. “Got the job too.”
“If I did that my reputation would be ruined.”
“And my heart would be broken.”
She froze, his words too close to the truth to hide her reaction. Then she cringed when she realized that he’d realized she was frozen. She didn’t breathe through a few erratic heartbeats and wondered what to do.
“Are you gonna break my heart again?” he whispered.
She shook her head no.
“Say it,” he ordered.
“I would never hurt you, Daney. I never did.”
He shut his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. Seconds seemed to tick audibly by. “You never slept with him.”
“Never even kissed him off the set.”
Something loosened inside him, and he laughed. “Jesus, I wanna believe you.”
“Then do,” she said, and she wore the most serious expression he’d ever seen.
He stared at her, but her gaze never wavered. Finally he sighed. He leaned in to kiss her gently, but gripped her as if she’d slip away if he didn’t hold tight. Fiona wrapped him in her arms, whispered all night, and somehow managed to convince him what she said was true.
They touched and kissed for hours, and when Daney finally dropped off, he slept contentedly for the first time in months. But in the morning, even with the warmth of her body right next to his, the doubts returned. For the first time ever in her bed, he pulled away.
He shook her awake. “What about Natty?”
Fiona sighed and covered her eyes with her forearm. “I’ma tell him.”
He pulled her arm down. “Today?”
She nodded.
“Did you sleep with him since you’ve been back?”
She nodded again. Raised a brow when he glared at her. She propped herself up on her elbow. “I know you don’t think I was supposed to sit up in this bitch and pine for you,” she laughed mean. “I had no idea you’d ever come back. None! I was still comin’ down off seein’ you when I was sick, and realizing how much I still loved you. Then he called.”
Daney wondered if she knew that was the first time she’d ever told him she loved him. Well, she had one other time, but she’d got him to say it first. He hated himself, but he had to ask,
“How could you find someone to replace me so quick? Were there others?”
Fiona wasn’t expecting that question, and Daney knew it. He sprung it on her deliberately, watching heartlessly as she gaped. She shook her head and said nothing, but he wouldn’t let her off the hook.
“Well?”
Fiona sighed. “Well what?”
“Tell me.”
“No!” Just Natty. But she instinctively held the words back.
“How could you replace me so fast?” he insisted, some devil prompting him to push her.
“I don’t know!” she said irritably. “He knows me. He’s my friend. I find him very attractive. We were in each other’s company a lot, and you made me lonely,” she accused. She unkinked her n
eck and rolled her shoulders. “He’s a good man. Sweet and smart. He loves me.”
“You don’t love him.”
“No,” she said slowly. “Not the way I love you.”
“But you kept fucking him.”
“Of course! He’s great.”
A vein ticked visibly in Daney’s jaw.
“I’d always rather be with great than be alone thinking about you and how you left me. Or maybe you think I should just look at pictures of you with other women, and read how you out havin’ a good time gettin’ on with your life?”
He ignored that. “So, was it just sex?”
“No!” Fiona shook her head stubbornly, hopped up before he could grab her and stalked to the desk and her ash tray. “Natty talks to me. We talk to each other. We have a lot in common.”
“You’re talking about race.”
Fiona shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s not all. He’s a musician. We’ve known each other for years. We know a lot of the same people. We talk,” she repeated.
“We talk,” he said after awhile.
“Not as much,” she said coldly.
He stared at her, loving and hating the way she leaned against the bureau, joint dangling, naked breasts pushed up by crossed arms.
“We fuck,” Fiona told him bluntly. The rasp of her lighter seemed loud in the silence. “That’s our best thing.”
“That’s a shitty thing to say.” His voice was quiet and flat, hurt.
“It’s the truth though,” she laughed softly. “Natty’s big on the truth,” she said deliberately.
“Truth?” He glared at her coldly. “What the hell do you care about the truth? I haven’t slept with anyone,” and his voice rang with honesty.
She sighed and shivered, turned away to fetch a robe. “I don’t know what you want me to say. When I came home, I was low. I’d been thinking about you nonstop. How you looked sittin’ on the side of my bed. How you saved me. Bringing that doctor when I thought I’d go out of my mind. I was so exhausted, practically crazed. I felt like shit. All those months apart and I realized I was still sprung, and I was alone.”
There was a long pause as she inhaled. “Then I came home, and he was so happy to see me! So worried about me. I was lonely,” she said again, looking off into space. “I couldn’t resist him.” She raised her head and caught his eye. “I didn’t want to. Not even when I was thinking about you,” she added. “Wondering if I was cruel to keep this lovely man when my heart was somewhere else.
“And I decided, yeah,” she said, tossing her head and displaying a trace of the steel that had helped make her what she was. “I’ma keep him, ‘cause I don’t intend to live my life alone.”
“Now, I’m back,” he said, voice even colder and flatter than before.
“Yes.”
“And you’ll tell him today.”
“Yes.”
******
Natty kissed her when he let her into his apartment later that morning and knew instantly what had happened.
“You’re back together.”
Fiona sighed and turned away. God, she didn’t wanna do this. What the hell was gonna happen?
“Is he here?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you stay with him last night?”
Fiona cleared her raspy throat. “Yeah.”
“You sound like you’ve been smoking,” he said, leaning back against the wall.
“I haven’t, much,” she said, voice breaking. “I’ve been crying.” And the tears began to fall again. She turned away but he turned her back and forced her chin up to face him.
“Open your eyes and look at me, girl.”
Fiona obeyed, her brown eyes awash with tears, lower lip actually trembling she was so upset.
Natty took her in his arms. “It’s okay,” he soothed, pulling her close. “It’s not that I’m not sad. I fuckin’ am,” he laughed, cradling her gently. His hips bumped smoothly against hers, his knees automatically dipped so he could catch her right where – he caught himself. “I’m probably gon’ kick myself later for takin’ the punk ass high road and making this easy for you, but I knew you were in love with him.”
“I love you,” she said, clutching the front of his shirt.
He stroked her back tenderly, sadly. “I know it.” He spoke slowly, dragging out the moment when she’d say goodbye. “And I love you, but you’re in love with him.” He sighed and rubbed her bottom lip with his thumb. “I make music, honey. I hear about this shit all the time. I know the difference.”
She laughed shakily, and kissed the pad of his finger. Her hands ran over his flesh, and his skin fairly sizzled in response. He wondered if she had any idea how good she felt in his arms. Fiona did things to his blood. She always had.
“I’m gon’ miss you,” she said sadly, and his heart thumped in thanks.
“You have no idea. But you’ll see me during the day when we’re working,” he said, kissing her forehead like a brother. “And it will feed your heart’s obsession with me,” he said, in a vampire’s lisp, and squeezed her not like a brother at all.
Fiona issued a strangled sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry, and whispered against his lips, “I feel so bad.”
He pushed her way and rolled his eyes. “Don’t do that. You know me. Don’t play me, woman.”
“You can’t tell when I’m tellin’ the truth?”
Natty snorted and walked away, both hands making silky curls stand on end atop his head.
“Why should I make this easy for you?” He said, mean, but she could see the sad smile in his eyes.
“’Cause you love me.”
“So?”
“So, it ain’t just about sex, or me goin’ elsewhere to get it.”
He closed his eyes, nostrils flaring when she walked back into his arms. “You know I hate yo’ ass for bein’ right, right? As much as I want you for me, it ain’t about that.” He smiled slightly, stroked her face with his large, warm palm. “I’m so tempted to run some game right now, you have no idea. I ain’t no little nigga, you know.”
She laughed, watery but real.
“But it wouldn’t do me no good. You love him,” he said. “He treats you good. He makes you happy. That’s all that matters.”
“I love you,” she whispered, leaning her head against his chest. “I love you,” she repeated.
“Good,” he said, and with a bruised and heavy heart beneath his smiling face, he prepared himself to send her back to Daney.
“One last kiss?” she asked, not waiting for an answer as she sank into him. Her breath left her on one of those tuneful sighs that never failed to stir his cock. He couldn’t help but kiss her back. He kissed her for some moments before pulling away.
Fiona rested her forehead against his.
“You make me feel so good,” she whispered, her kiss gentle against his nose, familiar on his eyes. “We got something special. You know that?”
He nodded and his hands came up to hold hers.
“You were not a convenience. It wasn’t proximity while we were working. It wasn’t rebound. What we had was real.” Her voice broke, and she tipped her head back to let the tears run into her hair. “It was sudden, but we fit. It was real,” she repeated. “Maybe it was always gonna happen,” she laughed, and he smiled back mirthlessly.
She held him like she couldn’t help it. “You push me and hold me at just the right time.” She inhaled deep to capture his smell this close.
“You do the same for me,” he admitted, quietly reveling in her touch. This was something he loved about her. Fiona held him completely. Not just with her arms and body, she used her neck, face and legs, her flesh rolling over his as though she would squeeze him into herself. Sometimes it felt so right when they touched he’d have sworn he could feel her spirit through her skin.
He pulled her closer, cradling her with hips and erection. “Everything with you is so natural and easy.” He rubbed the baby soft hair at the nape of her neck, kneading away the
tension he felt there.
This will probably be one of the last times I ever get to touch that soft secret hair.
His fingers clenched unconsciously around the strands. Fiona winced, then grinned when he murmured an apology.
He held her close. He could have been lying down beside her a week ago so content was his body. His blood, his skin, had wandered away from what the embrace meant. His mind flashed back to a concert DVD she’d done a few years ago. There was one song, “I Promise,” a very sexy, up tempo love song, heavy on the bass and heated innuendo.
When she performed it the music seemed to take over her body. Loose, each limb, each gesture seemed to have words. In through the eyes and ears she’d cast her spell, but her body signed the deal.
Now, as she gently rubbed herself against him, he knew he would never forget her. His heart clenched, and he cleared his throat softly to clear away the sadness. She must have felt it because for a moment she squeezed him tighter.
“And you’re very sexy,” she teased.
He massaged the base of her scalp where he’d pulled her hair and slowly leaned down to rub his nose against hers.
“You don’t get this kinda connection very often.” She stroked his chest, her short nails scratching gently, fondly through the soft hair there. “If he didn’t have my heart, there’s no way I’d let you go.” Fiona nuzzled his neck. “I’m gon’ miss you,” she said again, trying to smile through a fresh bath of tears.
He nodded, but couldn’t manage a smile. “Out,” he told her, with a firm smack on her ass. “Before Hallmark tries to sue us for stealing some of their cheese. Lemme know when you’re ready to come back to the studio.” With a last lingering kiss on her parted lips, he put her gently out, and shut the door.
******
She called Daney as soon as she left Natty’s place. “I told him.”
“Come over.”
Fiona caught a cab to Daney’s hotel. He’d gone there to pack his things. She atomized her face, neck and hands quickly and chewed hard on several Altoids to cover Natty’s taste. She sniffed her hand sadly, rubbing her nose gently against it, then sprayed perfume to cover his scent. She wondered if she should have stopped and got something to drink. But they were here, and it was too late, so she paid the cabby and strode past the reception desk to the hotel elevators.
Fiona Love Page 21
