by Ruth Wind
"Really? You'll watch Dr. Zhivago?"
"Sure, why not? We might lose power, but we might not."
"That's not what I meant." Juliet handed him the case. "I am so not going to argue with you. Pop that baby in before you change your mind."
He chuckled. "I won't change my mind." He headed into the kitchen, and came back with three fat candles on saucers.
Settling on the couch in her socks, Juliet plucked a marshmallow off the tray. "If I ever told my friends that a guy watched Dr. Zhivago with me there would be a line of women from your door around the block."
"Yeah?" He put the DVD in and came around the coffee table to sit next to her. "All this time, that was all I had to do? Tell women I loved sappy old movies?"
Juliet thought about it. "Yes. Pretty much."
"Damn. Somebody should have told me." He held the remote control in his hand, put his other hand on her leg. "Are you okay now?"
"Yes. Play the movie."
He did.
* * *
She knew it was just a distraction, a way to keep her mind off Desi, but Juliet loved Dr. Zhivago. Loved everything about it—the music, the costumes, the handsome, tortured face of Omar Sharif, the beautiful landscapes, the sad, sad story.
It was delicious to be curled up on the couch in front of a fire, watching it with Josh, too. They nibbled cookies and popcorn, drank hot chocolate. At one point, he put his arm around her, and Juliet did not object. She snuggled into his broad side and let the smell of him fill her, enjoyed the pleasure of his body next to her own, so warm and real. It was both comfortable and arousing to be so close.
It felt wonderful, and she tried to remember a time she simply watched a movie on video with a guy.
When the movie ended, so tragically and so poignantly, Juliet was wiping tears away surreptitiously when Josh handed her a tissue and stood up. "I'll be back with your pillows. Do you want anything to drink?"
Disappointed that he was headed off to bed so abruptly, Juliet shook her head. The lights flickered, and she suddenly wanted them to go out, for the room to be plunged into blackness only lit with the embers of the fire and candles. She wanted to kiss him, to explore his mouth and those broad shoulders and—
Well, whatever else.
And really, what was stopping her from taking the initiative?
Did she dare? She did. Standing up, she turned off the lamp, then lit the candles on the coffee table. The fire had gone low, and she padded over to it in her stocking feet to see if she could figure out how to feed some more wood to the flames.
"This is nice," Josh said, coming back into the room with pillows and blankets. He had to step around and over dogs, who groaned in pleased ways when he nudged them, and dumped the linens on a chair. "Does this mean you might not be ready to go right to sleep?"
Juliet smiled over her shoulder. "Maybe. I just kept wishing for the lights to go out and I decided maybe it would be okay if I just turned them off." She held a smallish log in her hands. "Is this the right size to feed it right now?"
"Perfect." He came around the coffee table and knelt next to her, picked up the poker and sent sparks sailing up the chimney. "Put another one on, too, in case we do lose power."
Juliet felt a low singing pleasure rising through her veins as she put the log on the fire. Flames began to lick the new wood and heated her skin on the front of her body, and she leaned back on her heels, putting her hands on her thighs. "Beautiful, isn't it?" Juliet said.
Kneeling next to her, Josh brushed hair away from her face. "Yes," he said, and leaned down to kiss her.
Juliet met his lips eagerly, and they kissed for a long time, just that. Lips weaving together, sliding, sipping. Tongues dashing out, dipping in, lacing together. Just lips, his and hers, and the languorous rise of sap in her blood, delicious and almost forgotten. The rush of sensation over her spine, the softening of her thighs, the catch in her breath as she imagined his hands on her. She shifted, raising a hand to his jaw and he made a low, pleased noise, and tumbled her sideways to the floor. They laughed a little as they landed.
"If we're going to make out in front of the fire, maybe we ought to get a blanket," Juliet said, amazed at the throatiness of her tone.
"I just happen to have one right over here," he said, and leapt up, grabbing the thick down comforter from the chair and spreading it in front of the fire, then kneeling down and pulling Juliet onto it with him. He tossed a pillow down and Juliet nabbed it, smiling up at him.
For one minute, he looked demolished and overwhelmed. "Juliet, you are so beautiful."
"Am I?"
"Oh, yeah." He kissed her lips, lightly, and her chin. "Can I ask a question?"
"Sure."
"Do you have any issues with sex? I mean, not that we have to do anything but lie here and kiss, but if there are things I should know, maybe you should tell me?"
Juliet gazed up at him. "I don't have any that I know of. All I know is that I feel something when you touch me, and that's new."
His eyelids grew sleepy. "Yeah? What do you feel?"
"Kiss me again and let me see if I can tell you."
He made a soft noise and covered her mouth with his own, a hot tongue and hot lips lighting tiny explosions of peppermint fire over her brow, and a smoky surprise at the base of her throat, and an electric zing down her spine. "Oh," she whispered, "I feel like kissing you for about a hundred years."
"We can do that," Josh said, and kissed her again. "And if I kiss you here?" he said, pressing his lips to her throat. "How is that?"
"Oh, I don't know," she said, her breath coming a little higher in her throat. "You might have to do it again."
"I can do that," he said, and opened his mouth and dragged his tongue down the column of her throat, lingering in a circle over the hollow between her collar-bones. Slowly, slowly, he made his way back up, his tongue making lazy circles on her flesh, his mouth pausing to take little sharp sucks. Juliet closed her eyes and luxuriated in the pleasure he gave, letting her hands move on his broad shoulders. The fire warmed her feet and lent a quiet counterpoint to the sound of their breath and the little exclamations of surprise and discovery.
He worked his way back to her mouth and plunged this time with barely concealed passion, his tongue thrusting, his body hard against hers, his hands on her shoulders.
Juliet ached to feel his chest, taste his skin, and she pushed away enough to put her hands on his shirt. "I need this off," she said. "I want to see."
He rose on his knees and stripped the shirt off, his eyes fixed on her face. Pale orange firelight spilled over his naked torso, illuminating his broad shoulders, his lean waist. She lifted a hand and traced the round of his navel, and the silky hair against her finger sent a shock wave through her body, straight between her legs. With a boldness that was unlike her, she sat up and kissed his belly there.
"Now you," he said.
Juliet knelt, too, and started to unbutton her blouse. "Let me do it," he said, and she dropped her hands. He reached up to unfasten the first buttons, then the next, the next, and spread the cloth open to show her belly, her bra. He did not move fast, seeming to relish every moment of revelation, and Juliet felt a wild wave of desire washing over her, wave after wave making her dizzy and hungry. "Touch me," she whispered.
His smile was very small. "All in good time." His hand glided beneath the fabric of her blouse, across her shoulders, then down her sides, skimming the shirt off of her. The bra was a back closure, and he reached around and undid that, too. Juliet arched her back and held her arms down so he could take it off, feeling her breasts spill into freedom, into firelight.
He tossed the scrap of fabric aside and put his hands on his thighs, simply looking at her toplessness, at her eyes, then her shoulders and neck, then her breasts. She gazed back at him, at the black crown of his head, the beauty of his well-formed shoulders, the sleek nakedness of skin just inches away, and thought she would faint dead away of desire. It buzzed through her m
ind, through her forehead, her groin, pearled in perfect, beaming lights at the tips of her breasts which wanted—
He bent and opened his mouth around her right nipple and suckled lightly. Juliet cried out softly. He raised his head. "Is that okay?"
"Yes." The word was a breathy whisper.
He bent and did it again, opened his hot, wet mouth and settled it with no hurry and great skill on her nipple. He sucked lightly, and wound his tongue around it, and let go, and started again on the other side. At just the moment she felt she would fly away if he didn't somehow ground her, capture her, he raised his hands and cupped her flesh in his big palms and kissed them all over.
"Your breasts are beautiful, too," he said with a raw sound, "as beautiful as your hair and your eyes and your mouth." He gathered her up into his lap and kissed her lips, and Juliet cried out at the explosion of feelings that brought, flinging her arms around his shoulders, pressing them close together. He pulled her hips down and into his aroused member, thrusting slightly upward. His hands skimmed up and down her back, buried themselves in her hair, and Juliet felt as if she was a being of pure light, radiating heat and desire and relief.
His hair. Heavy and cool, like the skirt of a bridesmaid's dress she'd worn once. Juliet lifted her arms so she could feel it on her skin and kissed him, over and over.
A huge noise slammed into the placid moment, and both of them grabbed on to the other, looking to see what happened. The lights did go off.
"What was that?" Juliet cried.
Josh grabbed the quilt and tugged it around her shoulders, wrapping them up closely. "I don't know." He was still, listening, and Juliet listened, too, hearing only the fire and the wind outside. "I should go look around," he said.
She nodded, climbing reluctantly off his lap. He kissed her head and moved away in his bare feet. Juliet watched him go round the house, beautiful and strong and gigantic, a man she could fall in love with.
But with a rush of disorientation, she thought, how did I get here? With a man she hadn't even known existed a few weeks ago, taking off her clothes with him, getting ready to—as they used to say to each other—go all the way?
One of the dogs got up, Jack, and wandered over to sit with her, falling down beside her with a great, wuffling sigh. Juliet put a hand in his fur and stared at the leaping, crackling flames, feeling suddenly dizzy. She'd broken up with her fiancé. Her sister had been arrested. Claude, who had been her brother-in-law for more than ten years, was murdered.
"A tree fell over in the street," Josh said, coming back into the room.
Juliet looked up at him. Nodded.
He sat down beside her. "You okay?" He put a hand on her back, just one flat hand.
It was enough. As if someone flipped a switch, Juliet felt the panic rise up in her, the unreasoning need to flee, and she gripped the dog's fur more tightly than she intended. He yelped and gave her a wounded look, and Juliet, horrified, let go. Blindly, she reached for Josh. "Help!" she whispered.
He grabbed her hand and held on tightly. "It's all right, Juliet. I'm here. I'm right here."
And this time, it faded fast. She took a breath. "You must really think I'm wacko."
He put his arms around her, the blanket between them. "No. I wish I knew how to help."
Juliet didn't speak for a moment, letting herself rest against his broad chest, feeling the solid strength of his arms around her. She raised her arms and put her hands on his wrists, and they stared into the orange-and-yellow fire. "I feel safe with you," she said finally, and pressed her lips to his wrists. "But in general, I'm so afraid, all the time, and I'm so tired of it. It's exhausting."
"I know." He nestled his head close to hers, kissed her shoulder. "Do you want to tell me about what happened?"
Juliet paused. "People don't really want to hear about it, Josh. You think you do, but then the reality is boring and ugly and it changes the way you look at me."
"That might be true of some people," he said, "but I'm a cop, remember? It won't shock me and it won't make me think differently about you." He made his legs into a diamond that fit around her knees, so she was entirely protected with his body. "All that said, if you don't like or don't want to talk, it's okay. It just kinda seems like maybe you've got a boil that needs lancing."
"Maybe so," Juliet said. She took a breath and said, "I was on a business trip for my firm. I'd just had dinner at the hotel restaurant and I went outside."
In a steady, plain voice, she told him the story, factually and without elaboration or hysterics. As she got to the end, when she was finally home, two days later, and could not go to sleep in her own bed, she realized tears were streaming down her cheeks, and Josh was ever-so-gently rocking her, side to side.
She was half-naked beneath the blanket. Her sister was in jail. Claude was dead and she'd broken up with Scott, and nothing seemed the way it should … except Josh. There was something so unbelievably, perfectly right about his arms around her, his gentle rocking, the feeling of his nose in her hair as she wept. Wept and wept and wept, for all the darkness in the world and all the women who had ever been raped and her sister who had a broken heart and Claude, who was dead.
And all through it, Josh held her. A blessing.
* * *
When Juliet was finally spent, her tears leaking out of her in a long, slow stream, never noisy, never hysterical, but steady and seemingly endless, he helped her into a T-shirt from his closet and put her to bed in his own bed.
Exhausted, she said, "Thank you," and fell asleep so hard he thought she'd probably be there a long, long while.
He, too, was exhausted, and slipped between the covers next to her, cradling her curvy self into his belly. She shuddered in post-weeping release, and allowed herself to be cuddled, lifting his hand to her mouth before falling back over the cliff to her rest.
And then, he too, was asleep, carried away into a restless world of vivid, violent dreams where a cat was tearing apart a rapist, where Desi was sitting in a jail cell crying out his name, where the silence seemed vast and endless and terrifying. Over and over, he surfaced the slightest bit to discover the Juliet part of the dreams was real, that she was still in his bed, still sleeping soundly, protected and safe in his arms.
When he started awake suddenly to find that circle empty, it was light outside, and he heard Juliet in the bathroom, running water. She came back out, and when she found him awake and looking at her, she paused.
"You look so beautiful," he said, and it was true. Her hair, the shimmery color of the lemon crayon in Glory's box, was mussed and tumbling over her slim shoulders in the plain white T-shirt and a pair of underwear.
"Do I?" she said with a laugh and looked down. "I was coming back, if that's okay. I didn't mean to wake you."
Wordlessly, he flipped the covers back and made a place for her. As she crossed the room, her breasts, bare beneath the T-shirt, swayed and bobbled, a sight that made him instantly, furiously hard.
At the edge of the bed, she showed him a small foil packet. "I hope you don't mind," she said, "but I found this in the bathroom cabinet."
"I don't mind," he said. If there was any more blood in his organ, it would explode, but more surged in when she reached down, grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and pulled it off over her head.
For one moment, she stood there, pink and white and blond, her skin smooth and pale, her tummy slightly rounded, her shoulders delicate like butterfly wings, and her breasts, white and round and full, tipped with pearly pink nipples.
He pulled the covers further back, showing his bare upper body and the raging hard-on in his briefs. Lightly he touched himself and said, "See what you're doing to me?"
One impish eyebrow lifted. "Very nice."
Josh said, "Come here."
She did, flowing forward to put her body against his, naked chest to naked chest, legs tangling, mouths open to absorb, inhale, meld. Hands tangled in hair, his and hers, hers and his. He tasted her lips, her chin, her neck. S
he straddled his erection and he groaned at the heat and pleasure of her rubbing against him. He held her hips and rose up, bending her slightly backward in his lap so he could take a nipple into his mouth and play with it, teasing with his tongue, sucking and letting go, using his fingers on her other one, until she was whimpering softly in longing, her hips moving restlessly against him, hot and damp and ready.
But not as ready as she would be. He slid his fingers between them, beneath her panties and into the layers of folds beneath, all trembling and shivery. His organ throbbed in furious desire as he rubbed her, slowly, deeply, bringing out a rhythm of cries, a bucking hunger. When he knew she was very, very close, he stopped.
Her blue eyes flew open. "Josh," she panted. "I've never … this is—"
He kissed her, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth, and rolled them over until he was on top, it took a moment of fumbling to get rid of the fabric between them and another moment to sheath himself properly, but Juliet was like cake falling to pieces beneath him, and when he nudged her legs apart, reached down to ease himself into her, she cried out in guttural pleasure, that rich, panting sound of mindless, pure, physical enjoyment. His own flanks quivered at the pleasure of her around him, the beauty of that tousled hair on his pillow, her pink and white breasts straining upward for his mouth, her legs wrapping around him and pulling him home with surprising strength. She pulled him in with strong arms.
They kissed, and it was a rocket of sensation, touch, sound, movement, a pleasure so profound and rich and earthy Josh wanted to stay right there, an orgasm building in his loins by degrees. Go go go go, nerves, lips, legs, hands, tongues. Her hair tangling in his fingers. Her breasts, her belly, her sex pulsing like a squeezing fist around him as she came, crying out with a high, blistered keening. He tumbled right after her.
And then it was the next best thing, the first moments afterward. He kissed her and kissed her, her breasts all sweaty against his chest, their breath still coming fast, his organ doing that last little throb, uh uh uh, and she was pulsing around him now and then, the little aftershocks.
"Wow," Juliet said, blinking up at him.
