For a moment she lay in the darkness, curled up beneath a down comforter on Milo's living room floor. She barely remembered having crawled under the covers; it must have been sometime after three when she'd fallen asleep. The last she remembered, Ollie and Victor were still huddled in the dining room, discussing the photographs. Now there was only silence. The dining room, like the rest of the house, lay in shadow.
She turned on her back, and her shoulder thumped against something warm and solid. Victor. He stirred, murmuring something she couldn't understand.
'Are you awake?' she whispered.
He turned toward her and in his drowsiness enfolded her in his arms. She knew it was only instinct that drew him to her, the yearning of one warm body for another. Or perhaps it was the memory of his wife sleeping beside him, in his mind always there, always waiting to be held. For the moment, she let him cling to the dream.
She burrowed into his arms, into the safe spot that once had belonged to another. She took it without regard for the consequences, willing to be swept up into the fantasy of being, for this moment, the one woman in the world he loved. How good it felt, how protected and cared for. From the soap-and-sweat smell of his chest to the coarse fabric of his shirt, it was sanctuary. He was breathing warmly into her hair now, whispering words she knew were for another, pressing kisses to the top of her head. Then he trapped her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss so undeniably needy it ignited within her a hunger of her own. Her response was instinctive and filled with all the yearning of a woman too long a stranger to love.
She met his kiss with one just as deep, just as needy.
At once she was lost, whirled away into some grand and glorious vortex. He stroked down her face, her neck. His hands moved to the buttons of her blouse. She arched against him, her breasts suddenly aching to be touched. It had been so long, so long.
She didn't know how the blouse fell open. She knew only that one moment his fingers were skimming the fabric, and the next moment, they were cupping her flesh. It was that unexpected contact of skin on forbidden skin, the magic torment of his fingers caressing her nipple, that made any last resistance fall away. How many chances were left to them? How many nights together? She longed for so many more, an eternity, but this might be all they had. She welcomed it, welcomed him, with all the passion of a woman granted one last taste of love.
With a knowing touch, she slid her hands down his shirt, undoing buttons, stroking her way through the dense hair of his chest, to the top of his trousers. There she paused, feeling his startled intake of breath, knowing that he too was past retreat.
Together they fumbled at buttons and zippers, both of them suddenly feverish to be free. It all fell away in a tumult of cotton and lace. And when the last scrap of clothing was shed, when nothing came between them but the velvet darkness, she reached up and pulled him to her, on her.
It was a joyful filling, as if, in that first deep thrust within her, he also reached some long-empty hollow in her soul.
'Please,' she murmured, her voice breaking into a whimper.
He fell instantly still. 'Cathy?' he asked, his hands anxiously cupping her face. 'What—'
'Please. Don't stop....'
His soft laughter was all the reassurance she needed. 'I have no intention of stopping,' he whispered. 'None whatsoever...'
And he didn't stop. Not until he had taken her with him all the way, higher and further than any man ever could, to a place beyond thought or reason. Only when release came, wave flooding upon wave, did she know how very high and far they had climbed.
A sweet exhaustion claimed them.
Outside, in the grayness of dawn, a bird sang. Inside, the silence was broken only by the sound of their breathing.
She sighed into the warmth of his shoulder. 'Thank you.'
He touched her face. 'For what?'
'For making me feel...wanted again.'
'Oh, Cathy.'
'It's been such a long time. Jack and I, we—we stopped making love way before the divorce. It was me, actually. I couldn't bear having him...' She swallowed. 'When you don't love someone anymore, when they don't love you, it's hard to let yourself be...touched.'
He brushed his fingers down her cheek. 'Is it still hard? Being touched?'
'Not by you. Being touched by you is like...being touched the very first time.'
By the window's pale light she saw him smile. 'I hope your very first time wasn't too awful.'
Now she smiled. 'I don't remember it very well. It was such a frantic, ridiculous thing on the floor of a college dorm room.'
He reached out and patted the carpet. 'I see you've come a long way.'
'Haven't I?' she laughed. 'But floors can be terribly romantic places.'
'Goodness. A carpet connoisseur. How do dorm room and living room floors compare?'
'I couldn't tell you. It's been such a long time since I was eighteen.' She paused, hovering on the edge of baring the truth. 'In fact,' she admitted, 'it's been a long time since I've been with anyone.'
Softly he said, 'It's been a long time for both of us.'
She let that revelation hang for a moment in the semidarkness. 'Not—not since Lily?' she finally asked.
'No.' A single word, yet it revealed so much. The three years of loyalty to a dead woman. The grief, the loneliness. How she wanted to fill that womanless chasm for him! To be his savior, and he, hers. Could she make him forget? No, not forget; she couldn't expect him ever to forget Lily. But she wanted a space in his heart for herself, a very large space designed for a lifetime. A space to which no other woman, dead or alive, could ever lay claim.
'She must have been a very special woman,' she said.
He ran a strand of her hair through his fingers. 'She was very wise, very aware. And she was kind. That's something I don't always find in a person.'
'It's the same sort of kindness I find in you,' he said.
His fingers had slid to her face and were now stroking her cheek. She closed her eyes, savoring his touch, his warmth. 'You hardly know me,' she whispered.
'But I do. That night, after the accident, I survived purely on the sound of your voice. And the touch of your hand. I'd know them both, anywhere.'
She opened her eyes and gazed at him. 'Would you really?'
He pressed his lips to her forehead. 'Even in my sleep.'
'But I'm not Lily. I could never be Lily.'
'That's true. You can't be. No one can.'
'I can't replace what you lost.'
'What makes you think that's what I want? Some sort of replacement? She was my wife. And yes, I loved her.' By the way he said it, his answer invited no exploration.
She didn't try.
From somewhere in the house came the jingle of a telephone. After two rings it stopped. Faintly they heard Milo's voice murmuring upstairs.
Cathy sat up and reached automatically for her clothes. She dressed in silence, her back turned to Victor. A new modesty had sprung up between them, the shyness of strangers.
'Cathy,' he said. 'People do move on.'
'I know.'
'You've gotten over Jack.'
She laughed, a small, tired sound. 'No woman ever really gets over Jack Zuckerman. Yes, I'm over the worst of it. But every time a woman falls in love, really falls in love, it takes something out of her. Something that can never be put back.'
