* * *
Again, Clay held George after dinner in a slow, candlelit dance. Then they washed the dishes before heading upstairs for a cooling shower and finally her bed, where his body enveloped hers and his lips trailed hot and hungry across her skin.
The room was dark, the only light streaming in from the hall. He was intimidating above her, his beauty all the greater for being slightly off, ragged with skin that had seen better days, hair starting to grow out from that short, almost military cut he’d sported when he arrived.
George let her eyes rove across the landscape of his skin—a map of his past. From his crushingly lovely face to where his feet hung off the foot of her bed. If only she understood what he’d been through, then maybe she could help him, maybe she could make him forget.
“What does this mean?” she asked, letting her fingers ghost over the face on his shoulder.
“It’s an Inca death mask. From Peru. Like my father. Me and my sister.”
George stilled.
“Why do you have that on your body?”
“For the same reason I have all the others.”
She raised her brows but didn’t ask, waiting him out instead.
“The other side’s the Gosforth Cross, and inside, it’s Víðarr slaying Fenrir, taking vengeance for his father’s death.”
“And this one?” George asked, touching the skull but fairly sure of the answer now.
“Santa Muerte. Safe delivery in the afterlife.”
“For Carly.” She leaned back to take in his body in its entirety. “Every single drop of ink is for her, isn’t it?”
Another slide of her eyes stopped halfway up, on the patchy, red burn scar on his side, the melted swirl of skin and ink. With some fractional ablative laser resurfacing, she could help him. Laser scar therapy could make it—
No. He wouldn’t want that, would he? This man would want to keep it. To remember.
“But the worst is this,” she said, letting her fingers linger. When he didn’t answer immediately, she realized he couldn’t possibly feel with that level of damage. She remembered the story he’d told her and winced. “You did this one.”
His eyes opened. They were hard, almost black tonight as they focused on her face. The air sparked with their connection. “I did.”
She pictured him doing it and her body jolted. All thoughts of lasers and therapy obliterated by the harsh image. There was nothing pretty about this man’s existence.
Leaving one hand on his side, George nudged up closer to his body, letting the other palm rest over his heart, which beat fast and strong.
“Is that where you go?”
“What?”
Her trailing fingers explored the topography of that traumatic scar, this time as a woman, not a doctor. “When you have your…attacks. Do you go back to that moment?”
He jerked once with what might have been a snort of laughter. “Hell no. The burn was nothing.”
“Oh.” She continued to touch him, stroke him—so, so very gentle. He seemed to sink into it, vibrating on a different level, a different plane almost. She wet her lips. “And what about when I touch you? Where do you go?” she asked.
“Go? Dunno,” he responded, already dreamy, already gone.
“But it’s good, right?”
“Told you, baby. Best thing. Ever. But I can’t hold my shit together.” He shook his head, stopped, and pulled her to him, her face tucked into the soft part of his neck. It felt intimate, but George suspected he’d moved to hide, rather than to bring her closer. “And it kinda hurts.”
George tried to pull away, to look at him, but he held her close. Her words were muffled. “It still hurts? Your skin’s—”
“No, baby. It hurts other things. If that makes sense.” His mouth opened against her temple, the wet heat of his breath oddly arousing. “Of all the shit I’ve gone through, the worst part’s when you touch me. The pain, I can handle; the other shit’s fine. It’s the…the soft stuff I’m not built for. You know, the feeling that something could be better. Something like hope, I guess, which everybody knows is, well, hopeless.”
George opened her mouth in protest, but he cut her off, his voice hard. “Can you honestly look at me and say you see someone with a future?”
“You don’t think you deserve a life?”
He lay flat back on his pillow, pulling her even tighter to his side. “I think we’re all allowed a certain number of mistakes. I’m pretty sure I’ve reached my quota.”
She let that sink in, wondering just what he’d gotten up to that made him feel like he didn’t deserve another chance.
“Who were you before?”
“What?” He blinked at her, not understanding.
“Before your…before Carly died?”
“Doesn’t matter, babe. That kid’s gone.”
“But maybe it does matter. It does! If you want to have a life again,” George said, her voice a little too close to pleading for comfort. “Like, maybe you’re supposed to forgive your young self for his stupid mistakes.”
“Have you?”
“What?”
“Forgiven your young self?”
George stilled. “Sure.”
“Yeah?” he said, his breath moving the hair close to her ear. “You all good with your past mistakes?”
It took a minute for George to realize she wasn’t actually breathing. Another second to force her body to start up again, to take in air.
“You must’ve been perfect, though, right? An angel.” He shifted back and caught her eyes with his. “Perfect little Georgette Hadley.”
“Jones.”
“Huh?”
“Georgette Jones. Hadley’s my married name.”
“Oh.”
“No, she wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect.”
“You’re damn near perfect now.”
She snorted. “Right.”
“Can’t imagine you being bad.” He settled back, maybe seeing the walls she’d thrown up between them.
“Yeah, well… Would you change who you were?”
“Me?” he asked. “Hell yes.”
“What about now?”
“What do you mean?”
George asked, “Today. Right now. Are you who you want to be?”
“You want the truth, George?” With a creak of springs, he rolled into her, pulled her body toward his, forced her to meet him head-on. “I’d want to be somebody you’d like.”
“I already like you,” George said in a voice she’d never heard herself use: husky and warm and clearly from the lungs of a far sexier woman.
“Yeah? Not sure I’m worthy of that.” His lips curled down, and he rolled back again, his hands covering his face, his voice coming out hollow. “But then, who the fuck am I to think I’m allowed to be happy? Huh? To be normal when my little sister’s all alone, rotting six feet underground?”
That sentiment was so close to what George felt that she could hardly breathe. Yes, she thought. Who the fuck am I to be happy again with Tom dead and buried? And what about my baby?
Rather than talk again, rather than try to convince him with words that he was worthy of happiness and other good things, she leaned over and grabbed one of the hard, plastic zip ties from her bedside table. Slowly, affectionately, she wrapped it around his wrists, met his devastated eyes, and tightened it so he couldn’t move. In theory, because they both knew how flimsy the ties were in the face of his strength.
After that, it was easy to put her arms around him, to take a little of his weight. It was simple to press him onto his back. Slowly, she crawled down his body, ignoring the way he tightened up, ignoring his protests and soaking up his sighs.
“Let me, let me,” she said, nosing around his compliant hands to kiss his flat, lightly furred belly, nuzzling him there. “Plea
se. Let me.” She shushed him, and he shut his eyes on a sigh.
God, his body. The warmth and the energy of him, pliable flesh and compact bone, then the in-between firmness of muscle. She loved it all—every little bit of him, every scar, every tiny indentation was licked and suckled and made love to. At first, he shut his eyes and bore it, like torture, but eventually, he joined her there, in her room, on her bed, in his body. His protests turned to pleasured moans and begging.
“Untie me,” he finally said in a hoarse voice.
Their eyes met over the landscape of his body, and she shivered at the lust she saw there—and something else. Something like fear.
“You going to behave?” George asked.
“No,” he said with a smirk.
She shivered. “Then I guess not.”
Back to the table for a condom, which she rolled down his erection, watching the way his mouth opened and his eyes burned, his cheeks hot to the touch.
Slowly, so deliberately, George straddled him, taking care to keep her weight on her knees, her eyes never leaving his face.
His penis was hot in her fist, searing at the entrance to her body, but his expression was hotter. It burned a hole in her soul, ate her up, and she wanted that, wanted to help shoulder his pain. She sank onto him, slow enough to enjoy it, to recognize the fit, the way their bodies came together then slid apart, that first friction unbearably sweet.
“So good,” he muttered, his eyes up, on her face. “How d’you do that? Slays me every time.”
All George could do was nod as she worked her thighs, clenched and rose, up and down, watching Clay strain at the zip tie, wondering if he’d decide to bust out of it. It was almost a game now, unlike before. She knew he could get out, but maybe he didn’t want to. Maybe he liked her foisting tenderness on him.
Eventually, when her legs started to give out and his face lost its clarity, George reached down and rubbed herself to completion, the climax so languorous and full of love that she leaned down and kissed him, enjoying the clench of his jaw and the guttural noises he made as he came.
It took forever to come down from whatever transcendental cloud they’d disappeared on, but Clay’s voice finally broke through.
“Got scissors up here, or am I gonna have to dislocate my shoulder to get outta this thing?”
She cut him out, and they lay together for a bit, this new thing between them. Fresh and raw, unfinished, but gleaming with potential.
After a bit, Clay got up and went to the bathroom. He was quiet when he came back in, and it took her a while to notice him standing stiffly in the doorway, looking…regretful? Sheepish? Oh, no. No, no, no, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Not anymore.
“Condom broke,” he said, his voice tight.
She swallowed, not quite getting it at first. That wasn’t what she’d been bracing for. “What?” She ran a hand down between her legs to where she was, admittedly, soaking.
“Didn’t just break. The damned thing tore in half.”
“Oh” was all George said as her fingers ran through the wetness, lifted it to her nose, sniffed, and… Yes. It certainly did appear to be… “Oh no,” she gasped, her throat too small for air, much less words. It was Tuesday. Tuesday, which made tomorrow…
He was talking, words floating to her, saying things like “safe” and “tested” and “screening.” But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered, because here she was, her ovaries rife with eggs, flourishing like the weeds in her garden, and she’d gotten herself possibly impregnated by this man.
This man, instead of the man she’d been married to. The man whose baby she was supposed to have.
“Are you on birth control?” His words sank in, and George lifted her head, blinking, still fuzzy.
“No,” she said on a giddy burble of laughter. “No, I’m definitely not on birth control. Definitely, definitely not.” The laughter morphed into something less pleasant, and she considered rolling up into a ball on her bed but realized she’d do better to get up, walk around, run to the bathroom, where she peed and then got into the bathtub, ignoring the big, sweaty, crushed-looking man standing in the doorway as she ran the shower. She’d clean herself. She’d clean it, and then tomorrow, she could go to her IUI appointment and—
George stood in the shower, staring dully at the tiles, her eyes dry in their sockets, despite the water running over her and the tears throbbing to get out, knowing how badly she’d messed up. She’d let her libido rule her, allowed the momentary madness with this wholly inappropriate man to decide her future and that of the baby Tom Hadley would never, ever have. The baby she’d promised to his parents, the baby she’d prepared for in every way—her job, her house, the garden, the spare bedroom, painted pale yellow and ready to furnish. Somewhere in the craziness, Clay got in with her, said words that she couldn’t hear through the throbbing guilt and shame, and held her in his strong arms.
* * *
Clay turned off the water, wrapped George up in a towel, and led her back to her room, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind them as they went.
“You wanna talk about what just happened?” he asked.
She shook her head and walked into her closet to get dressed. She was hiding from him. Hiding, after everything they’d done.
“We done sharing for tonight?” he asked, going for cavalier but sounding silly instead.
“Yes.” The closet was big, one of those old ones with the slanted roof, and George’s words echoed from within. “No.”
Standing by her bed, in her perfect, ladylike room, tainted now with the smell of sex, he voiced his main concern. “Was it something I did? Did I hurt you?”
“What?” There was a pause before she emerged from her closet, in a stained UVA Cavs T-shirt and a threadbare pair of plaid boxer shorts, to give him a hug—sorely needed, he realized—with her arms finally around him. “Oh, no, Clay. No. No.”
“Good” was all he said, but that one word was just the tip of the iceberg of relief that swept through him. Not only because he hadn’t hurt her, but also thanks to the hug. The hug felt damn good after everything that had gone down between them tonight.
Her head pressed to his chest, she asked, “Is there any wine left?”
“About half the bottle.”
“Good. I could use a glass right now.”
“I’ll go get—”
“No.” She stopped him. “You get dressed. Come find me when you’re done.”
Clay let her go, pulling on his clothes with a sort of finality he hadn’t thought he’d experience anytime soon, like he’d better not leave a sock behind, because he wouldn’t be seeing it again if he did. The way she was acting didn’t feel right. It felt like he’d fucked up, with that condom breaking. Which made sense. And it was fine, of course, because who the fuck would want his baby anyway, right?
She’d told him to get dressed, which sounded an awful lot like good-bye.
He padded downstairs in his socks, saw his filthy work boots where he’d left them beside the front door, and considered slipping them back on and just taking off. That was probably what would happen anyway, he reasoned. Why sit through the painful conversation they were bound to have if the endgame would be the same regardless?
“I’m going out back. I’ve got your wine,” her voice called from the kitchen, and instead of taking the cowardly route and leaving—which she’d no doubt ream him for anyway—he moved toward the kitchen. He’d miss this place, he realized with a twist of something new in his gut, something sharper than the churning that had been his constant companion.
The screened porch was empty, but beyond it, at the far end of the garden, came the bright flare of a match, followed by the glow of lanterns being lit. By the time he’d crunched his way over the flagstones and past the chicken coop to the back of the yard, she had a few of those tiki things going, the flames me
smerizing in the night.
“Never been this far back,” he said, checking out the seating situation. “Smells like lemon.”
“Citronella. Against the mosquitoes.”
“That shit actually work?”
She shrugged, the movement barely visible in that enormous T-shirt she hid beneath like a tent, but he could see her lips, plush and sweet, turn up in a smile. “Even if it doesn’t, I like the smell. And the idea.”
He nodded, leaned forward to take his wineglass off the low metal table between them, and peered around. “Nice out here.”
“It’s where I come to think,” she said, sounding dry and sad.
“Is that a fountain?” he asked, latching on to anything besides the pain in her voice.
“Yes.”
“Hardly hear it with that ruckus.”
“The cicadas, you mean? Do they still upset you?”
Clay considered her question. Did the bugs upset him? He hated them and their constant racket, but he wouldn’t say they upset him. And then he remembered the night he’d come out here with her, the overwhelming swimming-in-it shrieking in his ears, so shrill it had rattled his veins; how happy the stupid things had seemed to make her—how completely overwhelmed he’d felt by it all. By her, more than the bugs.
And now, today… “No,” he answered in surprise. “Guess I’ve gotten used to the little bastards.” Something sparked in the air above him, and Clay blinked. “Whoa.”
At George’s raised brow, he asked, “You didn’t see that?”
Her head turned in the dark, seeking out whatever it was, and finally came back to him. “Fireflies?”
“That was a firefly?”
“You’ve never seen one?”
“Guess not,” Clay said, taking a gulp of wine and sitting back. I don’t belong here, he thought with an unexpected jolt of pain. “Look, I’m sorry about the condom. I…I didn’t know. It wasn’t like I—”
“It’s not about you, Clay.” George took a deep, audible breath, then leaned back to look at the sky. Above her head, stars—actual stars—twinkled, and something swooped by. “I’ve been on hormones for a couple of weeks now.” She did a weird laugh that came out small and choked. “So I could have my dead husband’s baby.”
By Her Touch Page 27
