Dance of the Rogue

by Cris Anson

  How he’d eventually persuaded her to marry him even though she didn’t know if Erik was alive or not, convinced her that no one in the lower forty-eight would know their business, but he wanted to protect her in the event he was another statistic in his dangerous occupation.

  But the only protection he’d left her was a tiny cabin and a tinier nest egg. At least she’d had a roof over her head all this time, with no one legally able to evict her.

  Rolf wondered if his mother had been hiding even worse experiences and had only skimmed the surface in her revelations. Yes, Kronk hadn’t abused her physically, the way Erik had. But leaving her alone among strangers on a remote island for long stretches of time, wasn’t that a form of abuse? And then dying at sea, and leaving her to her own resources again.

  At last conversation wound down as evening stretched into full night. Finally Rolf said, “Come on, Mom, you’re exhausted. Time for beddy-bye.” He offered his hand. With his help she struggled out of the wing chair. He didn’t like the strain he saw on her features. It seemed to him that, reunion notwithstanding, she’d shrunk into herself since he’d first seen her in the airport’s wheelchair.

  He didn’t like it at all.

  So he hoisted her into his arms as he’d done at the airport, ignoring her halfhearted protests and the good-natured comments of the sibs and partners. He silently blessed Nonie for having allowed them the run of her home for this reunion for as long as they wanted to stay, whether she was there to preside over them or not.

  He carried Alana upstairs and deposited her on Randolph’s bed, her feet barely touching the floor. “Now you be sure to yell if you need anything,” he said, kneeling before her while keeping her hands enfolded in his. “The bathroom’s right next door. Magnus and Kat will be in the next bedroom. Anything you need, we’re right here, okay? Don’t hesitate. Don’t be shy. We’re all here for you. You’ll never have to handle anything all by yourself ever again.”

  Rising to his feet, he bent forward to kiss the top of her head. “Mom. I missed you so much.”

  “And I you.” She lifted her face, closed her eyes, gripped his hands tighter. “My son. My Rolf.”

  He stood there for a moment, reluctant to let go of her hands. But he noticed the twinges she tried to hide, the slight wince here, the clenched jaw there, and knew she needed to rest, and perhaps take pain-killers she didn’t want him to know she needed. “If you need help—” he flailed his arms around helplessly, “you know, getting into your pajamas or anything, you have three willing sets of female hands downstairs.”

  She smiled and her eyes turned almost luminous as she gazed at him. “I will. Now go so I can get started.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” With another quick peck on her cheek, he left, closing the door behind him.

  It was too much for him to absorb. He felt scraped raw. All his life he’d reviled his mother for leaving him, and all that time she’d been suffering, physically and emotionally, in near isolation. He understood, now, what it meant about walking in another man’s shoes. What would he have done in the same situation? How would he have felt if he’d been the one unable to reach out to anyone in his family? It was hard to imagine not even having phone connections to the outside world.

  How could he not forgive her?

  He’d make it up to her, he decided as he headed for the stairway. He’d open his heart to her the same way that he’d allowed Nonie to fill his heart with…

  Shit. His mother, his Nonie, his Fantine, how did one love so many people at the same time? His knees gave way and he sat with a thump on the top step. Love. He’d never associated that word with himself as the giver. Yeah, there were his brothers, but they had always been there for him, like an appendage he took for granted. And, he realized, that’s exactly what he’d done. Taken advantage of their love without any thought of reciprocating. And still they’d stood by him. The thought made the lump in his throat seem as big as a grapefruit.

  Now he felt like a juggler, finding it necessary to keep his attention on everyone who needed him, who loved him.

  Loved him. How blind he’d been. So busy feeling sorry for himself in his own little me-first world that he’d missed seeing it. And that situation, he decided as he took hold of the railing to hoist himself up, was about to change.

  With a spring in his step he went downstairs, following the voices into the sunroom. The smell of freshly brewed coffee and cookies greeted him. Crystal’s chocolate chip cookies. Yes!

  Fantine’s eyes met his the moment he stepped inside. The emotion in them hit him like a dump truck full of firewood being unloaded. This was the sweet he wanted most. Not cookies. He took the vacant spot on the loveseat next to her and pulled her to him in a rough, possessive hug.

  Magnus cleared his throat. “Okay. I know you all have questions that Mom didn’t address. I’ll fill you in as much as I can.” He let his gaze touch on each of them, his two brothers and the women in their lives. “There’s more than she told even me. The emergency room at the Kodiak hospital was a bare-bones affair. You’ve seen the pain in her eyes that she’s tried to hide. You’ve seen her fatigue. It’s not just from the demands of the four-day trip. They came up with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Most common symptoms are extreme fatigue, pain in every part of the body like a really bad flu, stomach problems, impaired coordination. She has every one of those symptoms.”

  He ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “At least they gave her a prescription for pain-killers. But I want to make sure it’s not more. When she’s strong enough, I want to take her for a full work-up. Fantine, you’ll find out what’s the best hospital in a hundred-mile radius. We’ll try to get her admitted in, say, a week, after she gets grounded a bit. It’s been a long trek. For both of us.”

  Magnus looked at Kat, and Rolf saw the spark leap between them, husband and wife. That was truly love, he thought. What they had together, the mental connection, the need to be with each other, physically and spiritually. To make love with eyes and voice and body and know the need, the connection, was shared and returned tenfold.

  And he knew he needed Fantine that way too. He stood up abruptly. “You’re exhausted, Mags. We all are. It’s been an emotional day. Let’s all get some sleep.”

  Fantine rose, began to gather coffee cups.

  “Leave it,” he growled. “It won’t kill them to be dirty overnight.”

  They said hasty good-nights, each brother eager to find a calm port after the storm of emotions that had laid them all bare.

  The door to Fantine’s bedroom had barely snicked closed behind them when Rolf grabbed her into an emotional bear hug. “I need you,” he croaked. “I never knew how much I could need someone, a specific someone. Get out of that outfit before I rip it off you.”

  A flurry of arms and garments and they were both naked, Rolf slamming her against the wall with little preliminary, his cock ready and rampant, and Fantine wet and welcoming as he hammered into her, taking her with brute force, thrusting hard and deep. This is what I need, he thought. Fantine. Her fingernails raked his back and she gave as much as she took. When he lifted her for a deeper angle of penetration, she wrapped her legs around his hips, squeezing that hot, sweet cunt around him until he thought he’d go blind with want.

  “You like it hard?” he grated out. “You like it out of control? Because I’m damn near at the end of my rope.”

  “God yes, give it to me, Rolf.” Her voice was as harsh as his, her breathing shallow and gasping. “Give me all of it. All your emotion, all of you. As hard as you can.”

  He pounded into her with even more ferocity, his arms and legs trembling from the effort, and reared back just enough to look into her eyes, her pupils pushing back the green so only a thin line showed, so dilated he thought he could dive in and lose himself inside her. And then he did just that, lose himself. His balls curled up tight against the base of his cock, forcing his cum like jet propulsion up and out of his Magnum and into her welcoming body, giving her eve
rything he had, all the love and need and pain and joy, knowing she would welcome it, cherish it, cherish him.

  I love you, he thought. You. Fantine. I love you. I never knew it could be like this…

  His knees buckled and he staggered backward, still snugged inside her, still clenching her ass, and did his best to land on the bed and not on the floor.

  They lay there, entwined, one each of their legs and arms flopping off the mattress, too stunned to move.

  Emotion swamped him again. Love. Fantine. I love you.

  “I know.”

  Rolf’s eyes snapped open. Did he say that aloud? He tried to keep the panic at bay. What did he know about love? “What?”

  She rolled across his body and onto a more secure position on the mattress. It allowed him to turn onto his side, up on one elbow, facing her, all appendages tucked in close. He met her gaze, a lazy, sultry, satisfied look in those leaf-green eyes that stirred his cock all over again.

  “You’ve grown up.” She framed his face with her palms. “The world doesn’t center around you anymore. I can see all your emotion on your face. I think Nonie woke it up, and Alana reinforced it. It’s a beautiful sight.”

  “Maybe they did. But all that emotion that you see now, it’s for you. I—” He couldn’t panic now. He wanted her to know. Sure, he’d said it in the heat of the moment. But how could he just come out and say it deliberately?

  She pulled him down gently until their lips met. He tasted her sweetness, her caring, her softness.

  “Fantine,” he breathed. “Yeah. I can say it out loud. I do love you. I want to be with you. But I have no idea why you’d want me around. I have nothing to offer you.”

  “Oh, but you do. You have the potential for great compassion, and you’re just starting to realize it. You will make something of yourself, Rolf. You just needed to grow up first.”

  “And you think I did?”

  She looked at him intensely, as if nothing else in the world was more important at that moment. “I think you just graduated from summer school and are ready for the big time.”

  Rolling back toward him, she aligned her lush body with his, her soft breasts pillowing against his chest, one leg slung across his hip. “And speaking of big time, I think you owe me an orgasm. You were so wrapped up in yourself that—”

  His kiss stopped her speech. Then all thought stopped as he took care of that omission.

  * * * * *

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  Fantine opened her eyes and saw Rolf hovering above her, leaning on one arm, his other arm casually draped across her waist, the expression on his face serious. They’d finally fallen asleep after a most thorough cure to his recent “omission”.

  “About what?”

  “What to do with my life. I never realized it, but I’m a lot like Mags. I used to help him, after the trees were felled, to cut them into chunks for his sculpting. I remember one time, when he was trying to get Kat out of his system through physical labor, we split apart damn near every chunk in his storage yard looking for a particular shade of spalted wood. You know, so it would look like Kat’s hair.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve been a lazy carpenter, but why did I choose that instead of being, say, a plumber? I just now realized how much I always enjoyed working with wood. I like the smell of it, the solidity of the logs and beams I used to handle. The feeling of, I don’t know, permanence. I think I might want to—”

  He stopped and ducked his head, as though he might be ashamed of his thoughts.

  “To…what?”

  “Well, it sounds silly. I keep thinking of Kev. You know, the pistachio ice-cream kid who stays with Mrs. Maldonado downstairs in my apartment building? He’s, like, lost. I bet if I got him started working with wood, he’d like it.”

  “And I’ll bet other kids would like it too.” Kids who needed an outlet, like the one he’d sparred with in the hospital hallway.

  Rolf’s gaze flicked back to her, thoughtful. “Other kids. I never thought about that. Yeah. What about—” He got out of bed, magnificently naked, and walked up to the windows that faced the carriage house tucked into a corner of the property. Four garage bays and an entire second floor available for a workshop.

  “Nah, forget that. I’m presuming Nonie would help me. No. I need to do it myself.”

  He came back to sit on her side of the bed. She slid over to make room. “What I need first is to upgrade my education. I skated through high school. I got C’s mostly, but I never studied. If I applied myself, it would be a snap to learn the math I’d need. You know, to become a building contractor. Or maybe a shop teacher.”

  He rolled over her, settled between her open thighs. “Who knows, maybe I’ll become a tenured professor someday too.”

  “I know you can do anything you set your mind to.”

  “Fantine.”

  “What?” She wondered if she’d ever get tired of gazing into his melting brown eyes, so serious now.

  “You humble me.” He frowned. “No, that’s not quite what I want to say. I’ll never be humble. What I meant is, I feel unworthy of the faith you have in me. Like I don’t deserve it but maybe, if I try hard enough, I might be able to live up to your vision of me as I could be. As I want to be. You make me want to do more. To be more.”

  With that he rolled off the bed and onto his feet, glancing down at his erection. “I know we make fireworks in bed. This thing never behaves when I’m around you. But I want to show you that I’m more than just a stud who thinks with his cock.”

  Turning to the corner where their clothes had been scattered, he retrieved his T-shirt and wrapped it around his hips, tying the sleeves into a loose knot then adjusting the drape so the bulk of it fell across his front. “There. See? It’s forgotten.”

  She struggled to keep her mouth from turning up at the corners as he continued. “I want to be a man you can count on. I want to be in your life, Fantine. Permanently. But it’s not fair to ask you to make a commitment until I have something to offer you.

  “Just answer me one question.” He came back to kneel at the side of the bed, crossed his arms over the edge of the mattress. “You do feel a little something for me, don’t you? It’s more than just sex, isn’t it? Maybe? A little?”

  She’d never heard him so unsure of himself. It was both endearing and unsettling.

  “A lot,” she said, reaching out to cup a palm around his jaw. “Yes, the sex is phenomenal. But I see much more than that in you. And it’s a pleasure watching it all come out.” She leaned forward, pressed her lips softly against his. “I’d like to be around to see what develops.”

  Rolf jumped to his feet and swatted a high-five in the air to an imaginary partner. “Yeah!” Then he spun around and reached for her arm. “Come on, lazybones, let’s get started. We gotta see how Mom’s doing then go tell Nonie all about the reunion. The rest of it, we’ll work out a day at a time.

  “Oh. Wait.” He rummaged around in his jeans, withdrew a quarter. “I’ll flip you for who gets the shower first. I guess we don’t want to smell like sex when we have breakfast with Mom, huh.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay, you’re right.” He let out a theatrical sigh. “Ladies first.”

  With a gusty laugh, Fantine stepped off the bed and onto the soft area rug. “How about a compromise? We’ll both use the bathroom at the same time. You can shave while I’m in the shower.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Satisfaction seeped through every pore as Rosalie Dwyer rechecked the trays of food and drink the caterer had set up for the two housewarmings. As usual, Fantine was right. That old house had been too big for an old lady to rattle around in alone and she’d been clinging to all the memories it held.

  But now. Now, she was making new memories. She and Alana had just moved into adjoining, mirror-image duplexes in a posh adult community, five rooms containing all the necessities on one floor, plus a partial second fl
oor with two guest rooms and a second bath.

  She and Alana had divided the furniture and accoutrements between them, and movers had packed and moved everything. The Thorvald men had unpacked and stowed everything but unmentionables, hung draperies, polished floors, made beds and generally followed directions with amazing good cheer.

  Randolph’s wife—for she strongly believed they would have been married had not fate brought down his plane—looked totally different from the sickly, emaciated woman she’d first met almost ten months ago. Radiant in the knowledge of her three sons’ love, Alana had blossomed to a maturely beautiful woman. She wore her white-blonde hair short, like a halo. Her eyes sparkled. Good food, and plenty of it, had put curves over her bones and a spring in her step.

  One of her better decisions, Rosalie thought, was insisting Alana live with her after they’d both been discharged from their respective hospitals. Not only had she been a delightful companion to her mother-in-law, they had, as the young said these days, bonded. Rosalie had cried on reading and rereading the letters Randolph had sent to Alana from Alaska.

  But the strongest bond between them was Rolf.

  As if she’d conjured him from her heart, he knocked boisterously on the front door and burst in. “Happy housewarming,” he boomed, as excited as she’d ever seen him. “Have I got a present for you!”

  Leaning on the four-pronged cane she’d had to use ever since her fall down the stairs, she hobbled into the front hallway to meet him.

  “Guess what I got?” He fairly danced in place. The twinkle in his eyes warmed her. Rolf was in his irrepressible mode, one she loved.

  She looked behind him, but Fantine’s smile gave nothing away.

  Shaking her head, Rosalie raised her cane in a mock threat. “I’m too old for games. What do you have?”