Adam held the door open for me. I passed him and walked over to the counter. I sighed. I needed to feel better and maybe I needed to do something unlike what I was used to if I wanted to force myself to feel something other than total heartbreak and devastation.
Adam took a bottle of wine from the pantry and flipped a switch to turn on the radio. Another oldie, familiar and romantic, filled the room. I took two glasses from a cabinet and set them on the island. He smiled, seemingly happy that I knew my way around his kitchen. I smiled, too. It felt like we were moving in time to the music. Like even gathering supplies for a drink could be a dance if you had the right people and the right music.
He poured us each a glass and we took the first few sips without speaking. I leaned my elbows on the island and rested my weight on the counter. When I looked over to Adam, I caught his eyes zooming back up to my face and I remembered the lower than usual cut top on this dress. I'd basically put my cleavage on display.
I stood up and downed an extra large gulp of wine, not taking my eyes from his. He'd taken off his jacket and now he was wearing only the white shirt with the first few buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up. His hands had some grease streaks on them, probably left over from helping the stranded motorist. His face was almost foreign with the beard gone, and I studied him without feeling subconscious about it. His pale eyes studied me, too, and I kept returning my gaze to them because they were the only familiar part of him left. Now that the beard was gone, I realized how attractive he truly was. Had we met on a street in NYC, I would have averted my eyes because the truth was he was so hot and attractive he was out of my league.
But we didn’t meet that way. I knew the truth about Adam. I knew the substance beneath the show.
I walked around the island until I was standing in front of him. I put my wine glass on the island and he downed the rest of his and placed his empty glass next to mine.
"Adam—" I swallowed the fear. "I want you to kiss me."
I'm not sure what I expected, but I suppose it was hesitation because when he swept his large hand behind my neck and pulled my face close to his, I lost my breath from surprise. He tilted my head in the direction he wanted it and then stared deeply into my eyes for what seemed like a long tense moment before diving in. It was slow and deliberate, but I sensed he was intentionally holding back. He was pacing himself.
He moved his soft, strong lips against mine and gave me the sweetest, hungriest kiss of my life. His other arm slid around my waist as we both became engrossed, tangled. I'd never felt so fully enveloped by a kiss, like I was swimming underwater and I didn't know which way was up. I breathed him in, letting myself drown.
He lifted my body and sat me on the counter, then moved between my legs and pulled away, resting his forehead on mine.
He closed his eyes and I started to worry. The tension wasn’t imagined. It was there in the kiss, in the moment. Had I already disappointed him?
"Ina, are you done with him?"
I looked down, floored by the question when I shouldn't have been. I'd asked that question quite a few times already. It was fair, but why did he need to know the answer? What did it matter to him right now at this second? These were hard questions, and the answers could wait.
"I think so." I pushed my mouth back to his, wanting more.
"You don't sound sure."
I sighed. Screw it. Maybe the new me should be unapologetically honest. "I still think of him. I'm not sure when or if that'll end, but it's not a pleasant thought. It's like a knife that won't stop stabbing me. No matter how much I bleed, I can’t just die and be done with it."
He nodded.
"Stop thinking about him. I wasted so much time, so much love, on the wrong woman." His eyes searched the wall behind me.
I tried to slip my arms around him in a comforting hug, but as he spoke, he had moved into a position that made him hard to approach, as if he was closing himself up before a storm.
But then he opened slightly, his eyes implored mine. "Don't forgive him, Ina, for what he did. He doesn't deserve it. He had a true, innocent, perfect love and he had it easily and early. You are a gift, Ina, and the son of a bitch just kept on taking."
There was so much anger in his voice that I knew it couldn't be about only Michael and me. There was years of pain in his tone as if the sores of his sadness had been festering. He was infected, hurting.
"Out there," Adam nodded to the window, "they're all like that. It's what I couldn't take anymore—the selfishness, the disconnect from what makes us human." His hands were slowly reaching out now, not to me, but to emphasize what he was saying. "You're young, Ina, but it gets worse the older you get, I swear."
I watched him intently as he revealed some of his hidden self to me. I still wasn't sure how we had finally kissed and how it had led to this. The sweet song playing behind us faded into silence and dead air buzzed for a few seconds before the announcer came on to read the current news.
Today's events rambled on around us. Another poor country suffered a tragedy. Unemployment was up, spending down. None of it mattered until the end, when the announcer told us the escaped convict known as Roadsie had not been spotted in more than forty-eight hours. Relying on witnesses who had reported seeing him, investigators suspected he’d fled the area and they were widening their search.
"Do you think he's fled the area?" I whispered.
"Who?"
He hadn't heard any of it. He was too focused on me, on him.
"Adam, I don't know who or what I will want tomorrow. I may get in my car and leave tomorrow."
He began to argue, but I held my hand up to silence him.
"But I don't think I will. Right now, I want this place and you."
"I'm not going to leave here, Ina. I am this place." His arm slid around my waist and I realized he was shifting out of his protective stance more and more. Minute by minute, he was pulling me in further. I let him. I went. We tangled our arms around each other, grasping for each other's skin, finally touching what we’d long been admiring.
His words started to blur and lose their meaning. I was only feeling, not thinking, as I ran my hands needily down his chest, pushing against the solid muscle and feeling his breath rise and fall as I grabbed and smoothed my fingers over different parts of him. I let my hands freely explore the body that until now I hadn't let myself fully admit I wanted.
He seemed to sense that I wasn't hearing him anymore. Maybe he asked a question and realized when I didn’t answer. But he didn’t press me. He didn’t try to pull me back to that place of logic. For whatever reason, he let me sink down into the abyss of pleasure. He stopped trying to make sense.
His hands unabashedly explored my body too. My hands roamed his chest again, pulling the buttons open on his shirt so I could feel the skin. I leaned in, pulled down his undershirt, and licked his chest. I peeked up at him and saw him gasp. Meanwhile, my fingers fumbled at his fly. I wanted release. I wanted this ocean of pleasure to consume me until I passed out delirious from euphoria.
But like an alarm clock at the climax of a dream, cool air suddenly surged between our hot bodies as he backed away and left me panting, seeking out his body with my eyes.
"Adam?" I asked.
He swallowed, closed his eyes. "We have to stop."
16
In the morning, a hangover greeted me when I woke. I couldn't think, couldn't hear, couldn't sit up without telling myself I had way overdone it last night. It was partially alcohol, but mostly an excess of information, realizations, and the physical burn of rejection.
Then the remembering started. The memories crashed into my mind in flashes of last night. I'd called Michael. I'd cried to Adam. My eyes still felt swollen and my face hot. There must have been so much crying.
And then I remembered the kissing and I felt chills. I ran to the kitchen, grasped the counter, and prepared myself to lose the contents of my stomach into the sink. I didn't throw up, however. I just salivated and waited.
I guess I wasn't that kind of sick after all. Regret and confusion may have been plaguing my stomach, but they weren't coming up.
I made my way to the kitchen and poured a glass of ice-cold water. I sat at the table and slowly began drinking it. I was parched, but too much water on my sensitive stomach was bound to come right back up.
I laid my hand down on the table and spread my fingers out, tracing the shape of my hand on the table. In my head, I retraced one of last night's kisses frame by tantalizing frame.
Adam swung open the shower door and came out wearing nothing but a towel slung low around his hips. His chest was beaded with water from the shower. His wet body forced back another memory. I thought of us skinny dipping. How we'd both been standing there nude and even that hadn't motivated him to make a move. Although we had been interrupted that time. Maybe he would've made a move if someone hadn't been lurking. Still, it felt like I had almost given myself to him a few times now, yet I never got the all clear on his end.
He pushed his hand back through his wet hair. I wished I'd gotten up and taken a shower first. I still wore the dress from last night and I hadn't looked in a mirror yet. I’m sure I looked horrible.
"About last night," he said. I fumbled and knocked my glass over sending the icy water across the table, onto my knees, and down my legs.
He raced over to help me, pulling a towel from the counter as he ran. He bent down at my feet. I shot straight up and looked down at him. I was breathing hard.
His eyes sought out mine as he slowly stood. My eyes lingered on his chest and I found it hard to concentrate. I thought of him reaching out and pulling me to him last night for a kiss, how good and easy and natural it had felt. I felt a pull to him now. I wanted to lean in and slip my arms around his waist and lay my tired head against his hard body. I wanted that feeling of all-encompassing pleasure, but I so feared his inevitable rejection. I swallowed and held back. I must have looked as uncomfortable as I felt.
"I'm sorry," he said as if he wanted to help, but he just couldn’t. He appeared worried.
"For what?" I shot back, desperate for a clue.
"I shouldn't have kissed you while you were drunk. I was drunk, too, or I never would have. You were vulnerable and that wasn't the right time." He shook his head as if trying to reset his thinking.
"You don't have to apologize. I asked you to kiss me. You were only doing what I asked."
"But I wanted to kiss you." His eyes darted to mine, pale I noticed, pulling me in. "In case I'm not making that clear," he said with a shy grin. "When I came here, I left everything behind because I didn't want to be a part of out there anymore." He nodded his head to the window, his usual move to signify the big bad world outside the mountain. He swallowed. "You're confusing me. I was so sure I didn't want certain things, like a relationship, and now I don’t know."
My heart started beating fast. I was so afraid of what he was going to say. I needed to stop it. I had to get away from this moment of truth before he said something I was afraid to know. I closed my eyes for a second. Why did my body react this way? It was as if the truth was an uncontrollable fire, and my body’s instinct was to avoid it for my own safety.
"It’s the ultimate vulnerability, isn’t it?" he asked, tilting his head, but keeping his opalescent eyes focused on me.
I swallowed, unable to answer. I nodded, urging him to go on.
"Opening your heart to someone is like living in the wild without a gun." He moved toward me, filling up my senses with his scent, his heat. I stared up at him, and tried to ignore the passion heating up inside of me, the need.
"I should go back to my cabin," I said in an unconvincing weak voice. It wasn't that I didn't want to know what came next. It was that no matter what came next, I was afraid of it. I was afraid of taking our attraction further, and I was afraid of ending it here and not indulging in the deep dream of losing myself in his arms.
"If that's what you want," he said, but I could see the hurt blazing through his expression. His face flushed and I felt stupid. His eyes, drooping to the floor, showed me what I hadn't let myself believe until this moment.
He kissed me because he wanted to—not just because I begged him. He was as attracted to me as I was to him. I always thought the sudden understanding of a complex conundrum, the Eureka moment, would be enjoyable, but I felt one thing—scared to death. Michael was all I knew. Was I ready to move on from him—completely? I wasn't sure, and I could already feel my emotions backing away from this fire before it got out of hand.
"I need to go back to my cabin," I said again.
Without a word, he stormed into his bedroom and shut the door, coming out a few moments later with his clothes on. I'd used my fingers to brush through my hair and I smoothed down my dress, but he didn't look at me as he prepared.
He tied his boots and slipped a backpack over his shoulder. "Ready?" he asked.
I nodded and followed him outside. His truck still sat in the clearing, but he made no move toward it. I followed him on foot down the familiar trail to cabin three in silence.
When we arrived, he held his palm out and I dropped the key into it. After opening the door, he took a sweeping glance around inside and turned to me.
"I'm sorry again," he muttered, "again, and again, and again," he whispered to himself. He spoke aloud, but it also felt like I was overhearing his interior monologue, as self-deprecating as mine. I recognized in him what I saw in myself: total fear of rejection…realized, but not because we didn’t want it, because we were afraid of the vulnerability it brought. "Do you still have the gun?" he asked.
"Of course." I opened the drawer to show it to him.
I wanted to say something that would take the awkwardness out of the air, but I couldn't think of anything. I watched him walk out and down my porch steps and back to the trail to his cabin. Suddenly it felt like letting him go was so, so wrong. It was similar to all the other wrong things I'd ever done in that I was playing it safe, an old tactic that had yet to work for me. Taking what I wanted, no matter the consequences suddenly seemed the much better choice.
"Adam!" I called out just as he became somewhat hidden by the trees. He stepped back out to where I could see him and turned back to me. Hope danced in his eyes, relief.
I didn't know what to say after that. I kept opening my mouth and then shutting it when I realized I had no words to explain everything I’d been thinking, no clue what I was doing except for following the tiny, barely noticeable voice in my heart that kept telling me not to let him get away.
It seemed quieter. All the wild animals were watching to see what stupid thing we'd do next.
"What?" he asked.
More silence as I tried to develop a coherent answer.
"Ina?" he pushed.
When I didn't answer, he pushed again. "What do you want?"
Leave it him to ask the most basic question and yet the hardest to answer. That was the point of everything—that was the ultimate thing I needed to learn on this mountain. I'd wanted Michael and I'd wanted a lucrative career in advertising: that was it. As far back as I could remember, I pictured my grown-up life in casual business attire and lunches in the city with clients, my name spoken in a respectful tone. I imagined myself as the person called when no one else could do the job.
But then Michael had shown me that maybe none of those things I wanted were real enough things—because what were clothes and a job? They were exterior things that could change, that could slip through my fingers if I said the wrong thing. It was like those were the symptoms I wanted, but not the disease.
The main thing was that I wanted to be appreciated and needed and loved. The main thing was that I wanted to be something I could be proud of.
"Ina," he said one more time.
I still couldn't answer. No words would come. I sensed that he was becoming impatient and I had to say something. And I knew what had to be said—but what had to be said was a huge, complex, confusing understanding that I couldn’t pu
t into words.
But it all drilled down to one thing. If I could just say that one word, I could kick-start myself into killing another fear, taking hold.
I knew what I wanted. If I couldn't ask for it, how did I expect to get it?
I dropped the backpack, jumped down the stairs of the porch, and sprinted to him. "You!" I screamed. It sounded loud in the forests and set off an explosion of birds taking flight and animals scurrying away from the sudden noise.
I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. He didn't respond at first, out of confusion or surprise. His hands cupped my arms tentatively as he searched my face. I could feel him trembling, panting under his breath. He tried to form words, but they only came out as one-word questions, whispered into my hair. "What? Why? How?"
Then he broke through the invisible barrier that had restrained him. His arms gripped me tight, the muscles solid and protective. He kissed me back. He grabbed my butt and lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him. He didn't seem the least bit burdened by my weight. He welcomed it. He kept me hoisted with one hand while he deeply kissed me, and pulled my face closer with the other.
We kissed there for I don't know how long, outside in the green, in the fresh air, natural and meant to be. Every time my over-thinking brain pushed in with some annoying critique, my raging hormones took over and told it to shut the hell up.
"Are you sure, Ina? Are you sure?" Adam asked between kisses. The words swum around us, biting at us. There was so much hope and confusion in his voice, but what an impossible question. I didn't know if I'd ever be sure of anything again.
But then I wondered if all these times we’d asked each other these same questions, it was also because we were also asking ourselves, so I told him, and I told myself. I declared it for both of our sakes.
"I’m so sure, Adam. I want you. I want to hide with you out here and lock ourselves away from the world. I want you, Adam, only you." I pressed against him, tried to show him with my movements that I was completely his—body and soul.
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