Love in San Francisco ; Unconditionally

by Shirley Hailstock

  Blake stopped the car in front of her small Colonial. It was barely fifty feet across, but ran back almost three hundred feet. The outside was painted yellow with white trimmings and a large front porch, where she often sat reading or enjoying the weather.

  Ellie didn’t immediately get out of the car. She hadn’t had that much to drink, although her brain was still in the twilight area. This had more to do with her companion than the amount of wine she’d consumed. Blake rounded the back of the car and opened the door for her. She put her hand in his and stood up. This time he put his arm around her waist, and the two mounted the five steps that led to the front door.

  Ellie opened it and turned to thank him for dinner. The words caught in her throat, and before she knew it, Blake had his arms around her and he was inside, with the door closed. His mouth descended on hers, and she could think of nothing except she didn’t want him to stop. The kiss began hard, the clamping of two mouths that needed to touch. Then it changed to hunger, something animalistic and raw. She had to have him, and he her. Ellie, pressed against the wall between door and window, moved one leg and Blake immediately found the space with his hard body.

  His mouth ground against hers, his tongue seeking and finding the erotic crevices hidden inside. Ellie gave up any pretense of not wanting everything from Blake. She wound her body around his, pressed into him, kissed and accepted his kisses. Their heads bobbed from side to side. Blake’s hands caressed her back as he embraced her, pulling her closer and closer to him. Together they drank of each other, savoring the taste and smell of the other.

  Hands ran around her waist. He cupped her breasts. Ellie’s knees melted and she slumped. Blake held her in place, his hands and mouth dancing over her skin, burning his touch into her.

  “Where’s the bedroom?” he asked, lifting his mouth only long enough to make the request. “If we can’t get there, I’ll take you right here on the floor.”

  Ellie didn’t say a word. She was incapable of speech. Pointing, she indicated the stairs. Blake grabbed her hand and started to run, dragging her behind him. Her bedroom had double doors and was at the top of the staircase. The doors were open, but Ellie thought Blake would have barreled right through them if they were shut.

  With frantic hands, they undressed each other, keeping their mouths pressed together, only separating their bodies to push a shirt or blouse or other item of clothing away. They took little care with their garments, throwing them haphazardly away from the body heat surrounding them.

  Blake’s hands touched her skin. Fire burned her, but it was a fire she craved. Her mind spun as Blake massaged her skin. Flames sparked from his fingertips, igniting the flesh beneath. Ellie’s head fell back and she breathed in. Blake kissed her neck. Her heart exploded. She felt it hammering against her chest.

  Ellie turned fully toward Blake, one naked body pressed against another. She felt everything about him—the roughness of his legs, the hard ridges of his stomach muscles, the smooth hands that caressed her. She could define the indentations of his arms, the bulge of blood that coursed through his veins, the way he could set her on fire, the way her body pulsed as if it knew it was making itself ready for him.

  Blake kissed her until she could no longer stand. Bare hands brushed across her nipples. Had she seen sparks before Blake’s mouth ventured down her neck and closed over the straining nipples? Ellie moaned at the pleasure she’d never felt, but had every right to want. And she wanted more. She wanted it all.

  “Blake,” she moaned into his hair. Her voice was low and hoarse. His arms circled her back, his hands cupping her and drawing the core of her toward the core of him. Contact was a small explosion, one that said this was not the last. This was only the first of many. The mother lode was yet to come, but here was a promise.

  And he delivered.

  Blake took her to the bed. He flung the comforter off it, and it followed the same plight as their clothes.

  “Do you know you drive me crazy?” He performed a dance. “And it’s been happening since the crystals on that dress decided to speak to me. And you.” He nibbled on her shoulder. “The sexy body carrying them around.” Another kiss. Each time his wet tongue brushed her skin, Ellie drew in a breath. “That sexy body homed in on mine.”

  Pushing her down, he straddled her and pushed himself inside her. Ellie thought she was ready, but the initial contact, the first brush of his sex against hers, the primary joining, was more than she thought possible. Passion, as liquid as a column of superheated steam, raced through her like a hot geyser, building pressure and searching for release. Ellie had to have it soon, or she would explode.

  Blake took her hips and lifted her. His strokes began hard and fast and got harder and faster as he went deep inside her. Ellie gasped at the pleasure bursting through her. Raising her legs, she circled Blake’s back and joined him in the primal dance. Everything around them seemed to build. Sound reduced to nothing, except the heated exchange of breath. Her heart pounded and her body writhed as the rhythm between them built, increasing a step higher and then one more and one more. Ellie was unsure she could sustain the feelings that elevated her, drove them up a mountain, where the inevitable had to happen.

  She went with him, taking his body into hers time and again, pushing and pulling, unaware of the moans that came from her throat. She pushed on, climbing, reaching upward until she heard the scream of pleasure as a rapture so replete took her over the edge and flung her into a place she’d never been before. Blake was with her, his voice joining hers as the two of them climaxed together.

  * * *

  The float back to earth had never been so satisfying, Blake thought, cradling Ellie to his side and pulling the covers up. He wanted to keep holding her for the rest of the day and tomorrow as he envisioned it. What had happened to him? He’d never been this mesmerized, this intense in a relationship. Not even with... He stopped. He wouldn’t let his mind go back ten years.

  Ellie moved against him as if she knew his thoughts were wandering, and she could bring them back to her. Blake kissed the top of her head. Her eyes were closed and her breathing even, yet he knew she wasn’t asleep. Words were not necessary now. They had spoken. With their bodies and their minds. With the touch of fingers and the deep-throated moans of time, they had found a place that only existed for them.

  Blake would have previously denied there was such a place. It was women who manufactured these invisible places they reached during lovemaking. But he’d just found one. Maybe there was only one. Maybe he would never find it again. The thought produced a physical pain in his chest. He heaved a breath. He had to go there. He had to know that this night wasn’t a onetime deal. He wanted to go, and he wanted to go with Ellie.

  She was still hot next to him. Blake ran his hands over her smooth skin. He loved the feel of her, the softness of her belly, the erotic smell of sex. Pushing her hair back, he kissed her temple, then her ear. She lifted her head and he found her mouth, open, seeking. Pushing her onto her back, he once again straddled her.

  “So soon,” she stated, her voice low and husky, her hands running over him, surrounding him and brushing her thumb teasingly over the tip of his penis.

  “It’s not soon.” Blake’s voice was barely louder than a croak. “At least a millennium has passed since the last time.”

  She continued the pleasure pain she was subjecting him to, yet he didn’t stop her. His erection was rock hard. He’d withstand it, allow it to go on until the need within him was so great, he had to release it. Did Ellie know that?

  She placed him at the entrance of her sex. Her body didn’t open to grant him access, but he played at the entrance, gently brushing him against her like a gentle fan swinging back and forth. The action was so slow, so methodical that it could have been a game if she wasn’t driving him toward complete satisfaction.

  Blake reached the breaking point. Taking Ellie’s hands, he jammed th
em above her head and pinned her to the bed with his body. His mouth clamped over hers as if some demon drove him. In seconds, he’d joined them, and just as before, Blake found he could not control himself. He wanted her, all of her.

  And he was determined to go all the way. He sank into her heat. She closed around him, taking him in and pushing him out to the brink before pulling him back inside. Heaven was the only word he could use to describe what her body was doing to his. He felt the wave that rose inside him each time her legs crunched his sides. Then she would push him back, holding him until he was on the edge of release. But she wouldn’t let it happen. Need rose with the heightened race of his blood and flexing of his body. He reached inside himself, forcing their rhythmic beat to step up a notch, then a notch higher.

  Blake couldn’t say when the explosion came. The rush of need within him was lightning fast. All at once, he couldn’t stop the coming climax. Ellie couldn’t stop him this time, either. It overcame him, took the two of them higher than he knew the boundaries to be. The shout that was thrust from his throat released the pent-up emotions he’d held back. Ellie’s scream coupled with his as they both shot over the earth and climbed, their climaxes reverberating into the electricity as release satiated them.

  The kitchen table was set for two. Orange juice, toast and marmalade were already waiting. Ellie turned an omelet in the pan and pulled a tray of bacon from the microwave.

  Blake grabbed a piece over her shoulder and played hot potato with it before putting the whole thing in his mouth.

  “I love breakfast,” he said between bites. “Especially when someone else cooks it.”

  “Don’t you cook?” she asked, her voice a little flat.

  He shook his head. “I can do spaghetti and eggs, but that’s it for cooking. Now, baking—that’s something I excel at.”

  Ellie looked at him. She placed the omelet on his plate and took her own seat.

  “Tell me the kinds of things you bake.”

  “Anything you find in the store bakery, I can reproduce almost exactly.”

  “Almost covers a lot of territory.”

  “Mine are better.”

  Ellie smiled. “Maybe we could put that to the test one day.”

  “Another challenge?” he asked.

  “I’m sure I’d lose.”

  “Just as we all learned the retail business, we had to have a stint in the kitchen, too,” he explained. “My mother insisted that if we were going to manage stores, we needed to know about everything the store sold.”

  “So you know clothes, gowns, jewelry, shoes and cooking.”

  “Appliances, books, exercise equipment, furniture, to name a few,” he said. “We have experts in each department, but she wanted us to be able to discuss intelligently all aspects of products.”

  Ellie nodded. “I knew your mother was a great businesswoman. I guess she taught you well.”

  Blake was talking about cooking, but Ellie’s comments had a different interpretation. She waited until after they’d finished eating. Piling the dishes in the sink, both of them got a cup of coffee and walked to the living room.

  Ellie found it difficult to keep up the facade she was presenting. It had nothing to do with their lovemaking. That had been beyond words. Blake was a perfect lover. Ellie could find no fault with him. She wasn’t looking for any, either.

  It was after their loving that Blake had fallen asleep and talked. Ellie took a sip of her coffee.

  “You seem distracted,” Blake said. “Is something wrong?”

  “You talk in your sleep,” she said, not bothering to ease into the discussion.

  “I do? What did I say?”

  “You called Alexis.”

  Blake sighed. “Did I call you by her name?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He seemed relieved.

  “Who is she?” Ellie asked the question, but she already knew who Alexis was. She should have let the subject go. Blake hadn’t called her Alexis. He was obviously dreaming, and he’d called the name in his sleep. Ellie was already out of the bed. She’d planned to go to the kitchen and make him breakfast, which they would share, among the rumpled sheets and in the morning-after glow. But the name paralyzed her for a moment and she was in no mood to go back to bed.

  “Come here,” Blake said. He put his cup down and opened his arms, inviting her in.

  Ellie hesitated before going to him. He took her hand and pulled her down next to him on the sofa and put his arm around her.

  “Ten years ago I was in an accident,” he began.

  His voice was low and seemed to be coming from ten years back.

  “Alexis was my girlfriend. She died in that accident.”

  Ellie swallowed hard and leaned against him.

  “It was raining and we were coming back from a movie. She was driving. Things hadn’t been going well for weeks. That night we were arguing. And then there was a truck on the same side of the road. Between the rain, the headlights and Alexis crying, we were hit head-on. The other car didn’t even try to return to the other side of the road. Not until it was too late.”

  “What were you arguing about?”

  Blake was quiet for so long, Ellie didn’t think he was going to tell her.

  “She’d found someone else. She was breaking up with me.”

  “And you didn’t want that?”

  “I’m not really sure. It was more the other thing she said that had me so angry.”

  This was something Ellie didn’t already know.

  “What was that?” She made her voice low and slow.

  “She was pregnant.”

  Ellie sat up straight and turned to look at Blake.

  “It wasn’t my baby. It was the man she was dumping me for.”

  Ellie wouldn’t ask who that was. She wouldn’t know him anyway. They didn’t live in the same town or go to the same schools.

  “I was taken to the hospital. Four days later, I woke up and was told I’d been in a coma.”

  Ellie’s father was pronounced dead, but she’d walked away with practically no injuries. She had a few cuts from the broken glass and several bruises on her legs, but nothing serious. The only serious thing was the fact that she had lost her father. If he’d let her drive, the outcome might have been different.

  A tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away. Blake gathered her in his arms and held her there. She knew he misinterpreted her emotion. She felt compassion for him and for Alexis, but her tears were more for herself and the loss of her father. One single decision, and the outcome of their lives had changed in a split second.

  Alexis might still be alive. She and her mother might never have moved back to San Francisco. She and Blake would never have met.

  “When I woke up, Alexis had been buried and I didn’t remember the accident,” Blake said.

  “That’s pretty normal for a head injury.” The trace of tears was still in her voice. “Your memory returned, right?” She was afraid of this answer. If his memory had come back, then he should know who she was.

  “It took months for everything to fall into place, but it did return.”

  Ellie stiffened, then forced herself to relax. What did he remember? Did he know who she was? If so, why hadn’t he said anything? They’d been seeing each other for at least a month. Blake hadn’t dropped any hints that he and Ellie knew each other before the gala.

  Heat burned her skin.

  This was the perfect time to confess. Ellie wanted to. She wanted the weight of knowledge she’d lived with for the three years since she discovered he was the manager of the San Francisco House of Thorn lifted from her shoulders. She wanted to clear the air, tell him that she was the young girl in the truck. That her father was at the wheel and had suffered a heart attack and died.

  She wanted to expunge
the guilt she felt at the loss of life and the way it had changed them all, but she also wanted a repeat to the way he made her feel. Giving up one for the other was something that she needed more time to decide on. She wanted to be alone, without the need for his warm body to connect with hers.

  Ellie needed to come to terms that if she spoke up, if she told the truth, Blake would be gone from her life. This, too, was like that decision of her father’s to drive—a life-changing moment. And she didn’t want it to happen. She wanted to hold on to what they had, even if it was temporary. Even if eventually she had to tell him. She didn’t want to do it today.

  She didn’t want their lives to move from the track they were on. They would, sometime in the future. It was inevitable.

  But not today.

  * * *

  There should be a song called “Ellie On My Mind,” Blake thought. Because she was always on his mind. He spent more time walking the floors of the store or sitting at his desk and staring into space, wondering where Ellie was and what she was doing, than getting his own work done. Was she out with one of the girls’ programs? Even though she was the executive director, she was a hands-on person, someone who loved interacting with the girls and not just making sure the office ran efficiently and costs were within budget.

  He knew she had a positive effect on people, and he was one of them. If not for her, he wouldn’t be getting past Alexis and the effect her death had on his life. She knew nothing about that, but Ellie was the one person in the last ten years who had caused him to greet the day with a greater enthusiasm. He loved the store. Going there was fulfilling, but it didn’t hold his hand or wrap its body around him in a way that gave him a glimpse of heaven. It didn’t run its legs up and down his and caress him in the most intimate way.