I Shall Not Want

He looked at the floor. 'When I say I don't want you to go, I mean I don't want you to die.'

She went to him then, wrapping her arms around him. He folded her into his embrace and rested his chin on her head. They rocked together.

'You're cold.'

'It was a long walk. And I'm a little scared.'

'Burns told me it was Iraq. He didn't say how long your tour is going to be.'

'A year. I've got two weeks to report.'

His arms tightened. He breathed in. In the quiet, she could feel him silently enumerating everything that could happen over the course of a year in a war zone. When he finally spoke, he surprised her. 'I went to Linda's grave this morning.'

She looked up at him.

'I had this idea of-I don't know-talking to her. Like people do in the movies? So I got there, I stood around in the cold, I felt like a posturing fool: then I realized; I don't need to do this. She knew the truth. About how I felt about her. She was headed back. Headed toward me. She forgave me before she died. I just had to-I don't know-forgive myself the same way.' He ran one hand through his hair. 'It sounds stupid when I try to say it.'

Clare shook her head. 'No.'

He smiled, one-sided. 'There were already fresh flowers against her stone when I got there.'

'Ah.'

'Much nicer than the ones I managed to get for you.'

She laughed.

He tightened his arms around her. 'I don't want to spend another year kicking myself for what I should have done or not done. So tell me what I can do for you, love. You want me to go away? Help you pack? Take care of your house while you're gone? What do you need from me?'

No more waiting, she thought. No more time. She smiled slowly. 'Make love with me.'

He stared into her face for a heartbeat, then let her go to strip off his shirt. 'Ma'am, yes, ma'am!'

She was still laughing when he hauled her against him, bare-chested. He kissed the corners of her mouth and her jaw and her neck, yanked her sweater over her head and flung her bra across the room; kissed her shoulders and breasts and nipples until she was gasping and incoherent. She trapped his face between her hands and brought him back up to her mouth, exchanging deep, drugged kisses that made her head spin.

She tried to tell him, The bedroom's upstairs, but he was tugging at her skirt, saying, 'I want you naked,' and the fire was hot against her back, and his hands were running between her legs and she thought she was going to die if she didn't have him right now.

He kicked away his pants and shorts and there they were, face-to-face and skin to skin. Everything stopped. His hands were shaking. Hers were, too. She touched the fading pink lines and puckered circles marking the violence that had nearly killed him.

'Not very pretty,' he said.

'No.' She looked into his eyes. 'But it's you.'

'Yes.'

She didn't smile. 'Yes.' She stepped into his arms, listened to the hiss of his breath as they pressed together, his skin hot against hers.

'Oh, God, you feel good.' He buried his face in her neck.

'Um.' His hands were moving over her again, making it hard to think. 'I should let you know I'm on-oh, God-birth control pills. To regulate my cycle.' He moved down her body, using his tongue and teeth now, as well as his hands. 'But I don't have-oh, yes, do that again-any condoms or anything.'

He looked up at her. 'Clare, the last time I was with someone new I was twenty-three years old. I'm not worried about diseases, I'm worried I've forgotten what to do.'

She laughed, then gasped. 'That's okay. I've forgotten what you're supposed to do, too.'

He laughed against her belly, a low rumble that sank into her bones. He got off the floor and half sat, half sprawled onto the sofa. She climbed onto his lap. Leaned forward. Kissed him. Teased him, with her mouth and breasts and hands, until he was clenched and trembling. 'Now, please.' His voice was heavy. 'Please, now.'

He looked into her eyes as she took him inside her. 'Oh, God,' he breathed. 'Clare…'

'With my body I thee worship.' She didn't know if he recognized the words.

'I do,' he said. 'I will.' Then she moved, and he moved, and every thought fled like sparks up the chimney as he kissed her and licked her and stroked her with his long, clever fingers, over and over and over again. Her slick-wet skin felt taut, fever-hot. She clutched at him, closed her eyes, opened her eyes, watched his face glazed with pleasure, a face she knew like her own and had never seen before.

He slid down, braced his legs, thrust hard into her. She cried out.

'Tell me.' Rough and hard.

'I love you.' She didn't recognize her own voice.

'No. Tell me you'll come back.'

'Russ-'

'Promise me. Promise me you'll come back.'

He battered at her. Fingers moving. So good. 'I can't-'

'Promise. Me.'

'Oh, God!' She broke, snapped, arched, tore open to him. 'I promise, I promise, I'll come back to you, I'll come back to you, I'll come back…'

EPIPHANY January 6

Russ woke up in his lover's bed alone. He sat up. She was at the other end of the spartan room, kneeling at her prie-dieu. Morning prayers.

'I was that good, huh?'

Without looking at him, she raised her voice. 'Bless, also, O Lord, the aged and infirm, especially your servant Russ Van Alstyne…'

He threw a pillow at her. She laughed but continued on silently. He tossed the covers back and padded downstairs to get the coffee going.

Her duffel bag was already by the door.

After he put Clare's fancy French press to work, he went back upstairs, hip twingeing as it always did these days, and got dressed. Her shower was running. He cracked open the door, letting out a rush of steam. 'I'm going to get my truck,' he yelled.

'Okay.'

For the past two weeks, he had parked his truck overnight in Tick Solway's lot across from the church, in the driveway of a couple of snowbirds, and on Washington Street, two blocks up and one block over. He guessed more than one of Clare's congregation had an idea she hadn't been spending these last nights alone, but no one seemed inclined to judge a woman headed for a war zone.