Lazlo’s Last Stand

and the sensations that shot through her were so bright and sharp they were almost like pain. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, lost all track of her body and of time and space. Nothing existed for her but that terrible sensation and the pressure it was building inside her. She was sure she couldn’t bear it-and just as sure she would die if it stopped.

And then inside her, under her, all around her Corbett’s body seemed to grow bigger, stronger, more powerful, and she felt as if she were being lifted higher and higher, her body no longer hers to control. She tore her mouth from his and gave a single cry of panic as forces she’d never imagined seemed about to hurl her into oblivion. Except now it was that same body, Corbett’s body, that held her, that caught her and cradled her in safety and kept her from falling, and his voice that crooned and comforted with words she didn’t know but nevertheless understood. Words that meant love…only love. Always…love.

Slowly, her shaking stopped. And as all the parts of her came drifting back from the far corners of the cosmos and fitted themselves into their proper places, she began to be aware of other things, as well. Such as the fact that Corbett had turned them slightly to their sides, so she wasn’t, as was her immediate fear, lying against his injured ribs. And although he hadn’t withdrawn from her body completely, their legs were now entwined in a different and much more relaxed way. She felt entirely comfortable lying where she was. In fact, she never wanted to move from that place, with her ear resting right over the rapid but steady thumping of Corbett’s heart.

After a while, afraid she might actually doze off, Lucia found the energy to murmur sleepily, “La petite mort…”

“‘The little death’?” Corbett’s voice and chuckle were gravelly. “Why do you say that, my love?”

“I’ve heard it’s what the French call orgasm. Although I’ve never heard them say it myself.”

She felt his lips graze her temple, felt them form a smile. “Hmm…what interesting bits of flotsam you have floating around in this pretty head of yours.”

“It did seem something like that. Not that I know what dying is like…” She snuggled closer to him, loving the way his arm tightened around her, almost instinctively, it seemed. “But it was pretty overwhelming. Frightening, even. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

His body tensed and his head lifted. “You don’t mean to tell me that was your first…”

“Well…no, not technically. I’m not quite a virgin.” She paused, but he didn’t say anything, so she went on. “I did some experimenting, when I first got to college. It was so nice not to be automatically labeled a nerd, I guess. It didn’t last long, once I discovered that although I liked the attention, I didn’t much care for the sex. I thought it highly overrated, if you want to know the truth.” Finally becoming uneasy with his silence, she tilted her head back to look at him. “Should I not be talking about this? You’re being awfully quiet.”

He laughed softly. “There’s nothing you can’t talk about with me, my love. It’s just that every time I begin to think I know you, you find some new way to astonish me.” He paused, then asked in a carefully neutral voice, “What about after college?”

“I met you,” she said.

“Come now-you can’t mean to tell me you’ve been celibate for ten years. You’ve been living in Paris. I know you’ve dated now and then. I know, because I considered having any man you went out with shot. Thought about it quite seriously, in fact.”

She giggled, then kissed the underside of his jaw. “That’s very sweet of you, dear. But quite unnecessary.” The water rippled with her shrug, and she added softly, “I just found it impossible to make love with one man when I was madly in love with another.”

He was silent for a long time, letting his hand glide slowly up and down her body. Then he stirred restlessly and muttered, “How could I have been such a bloody fool?”

She rolled onto her stomach, floating free, now, of his embrace. “Don’t say that. I mean, okay, I thought that, too, for quite a long time, before I knew about…But now I wonder…” She paused, suddenly aware of how hard it was going to be to put her new perspective into words, and how dumb it could sound if she didn’t get it right.

“Yes?” Corbett prompted, frowning, an edge of his old imperiousness creeping into his voice. “Wonder what?”

Knowing his impatience wasn’t with her, she smiled crookedly. “There’s a song called ‘Somewhere’-I think it’s from West Side Story-about ‘a time and place for us.’ Corbett, I think maybe this is it for us-the right time. Our time. I mean, before, there was Cassandra. The terrible way things ended between you, the way you felt about it-”

“You mean, the guilt,” he said dryly.

She nodded, searching his face, trying to find the Corbett who’d just made such unforgettable love to her. Finding him in the eyes that pleaded with her for understanding. “I don’t think you could have let yourself love me, then. You had to deal with her first.”

His mouth spasmed briefly, as if he’d felt a sharp pain. “I haven’t dealt with her yet, have I?”

“No, but the wound is open. It can heal, now. It’s begun already.”

He touched her shoulder lightly so that she floated closer to him, and he was completely her Corbett again. His smile made her ache. “If it has, you know, you’re the one responsible. And, though it’s sweet of you to acquit me, I still think I’ve been a bloody idiot.”

With one finger touching just under her chin, he floated her closer still and kissed her a long, lazy time…a kiss so light and delicate at first she held herself utterly still, as if it were something magical, something that would vanish if she so much as breathed…then slowly, slowly deepened, became a different sort of enchantment, like a drug she craved with every ounce of her being. By the time he let her go she already felt a clenching deep down low in her belly, and the parts of her still swollen and sensitized from his earlier attentions had begun to throb.

“Nem szabad, edesem,” he murmured, smiling tenderly. “As much as I would like to stay here with you awhile longer, we are both beginning to prune. If we don’t get ourselves out of this pond soon…”

“We may both discover what the other will look like when we’re very, very old,” Lucia said with a shiver. “And since I would very much like you to stick around that long…” She kissed him quickly and levered herself onto the edge of the pool.

She heard him say, “You may count on that,” as he followed in a somewhat more complicated and cautious manner. He came to join her at the rock bench where she was toweling herself dry and trying not to think about the future at all.

She turned to him, and he took the ends of the towel in his hands and used it like a net to bring her close without touching her. She lay a hand, lightly as a breath, over the bruises on his torso and looked into his eyes. A tiny smile flicked at the corners of his mouth, but he didn’t say anything, and she knew he was as reluctant as she was to burst the bubble. He released the towel and folded her into his arms, and with a grateful sigh she lay her head on his shoulder and let his musky heat warm her body as his whispered, “Edesem…” nourished her soul.

The world and all its uncertainties could wait just a little while longer.

Corbett left Lucia at the bedroom door and went on to the cottage to change into clean clothes. He was grateful not to encounter either of his old friends-it was choir practice night for Kati, and Josef would be working late in his shop, this close to Christmas. He couldn’t have said why, but he didn’t feel up to sharing the feelings he was certain he must be wearing, bald and naked on his face. Not yet. And Kati and Josef had eyes like hawks, particularly since they’d had matchmaking on their minds since the moment he and Lucia had arrived. And not all that subtly, either.

“Egy szep barna kislany…”

Little brown girl, indeed!

He was humming the tune under his breath when he walked back into the cave-house kitchen and found Lucia standing in the doorway of his study, waiting for him. One look at her face wiped every trace of music from his mind.

“Problems?” he said as he crossed the room to her, keeping his voice calm and his movements unhurried.

Her brow furrowed with a puzzled frown. “I’m not sure. I mean, it could be nothing, I suppose.”

He thought, Yes, and tomorrow the earth will turn out to be flat, after all. “Tell me,” he said softly.