other, turned perfect by love. The kiss resumed, gentler than before, now that the first desperation was gone. Their hands began roving. His back was smooth cotton, hers was rough terry. They explored with palms spread flat, reacquainting, thrilling each other with the simplest of touches. Time flowed into the wee minutes of the night while they remained near the door where only dim light found them from the lamp across the room. He reached to untie her belt, but she caught his hand between them and looked into his eyes.
'I have to know first… about you and Faith.'
He said, with neither smile nor regret, 'I've asked her to take her things out of my house. It's all over between us.'
'Really? All over?'
'I'd never lie to you, Tess, not about that.' Then he added, 'Not about anything.'
She knew he wouldn't. He had never been anything less than truthful about himself and Faith, right from the beginning.
She released his hand and a moment later the belt dropped to the floor. He reached inside and found her warm skin. Fragrance lifted from it as his hands caught her waist and his wrists parted the terry robe. He gave a gentle tug and she bumped up against him, resting there lightly while their bodies formed a wishbone and their eyes engaged in playful approval, just this side of full intimacy. She was supple and compliant, catching him behind the neck and leaning back while they swayed a little, all hurry gone.
'You smell good,' he murmured, still gripping her waist as if to lift her into a carriage where none waited. Only her bed waited in the other room. And they, in this one, pretended nonchalance.
'I put something on for you. Freesia.'
'Freesia. Where?'
'Everywhere.'
They took some time to flirt with the suggestion, to let it play upon their libidos while their bodies swayed in a lazy figure eight. She thought he would bend down and kiss her, perhaps between her breasts, but instead he gathered her close once more, and putting his face to her neck, threaded his arms inside the robe, caressing her sleek warm back not only with his hands, but with his starched sleeves as well. He ran them along her sides, a crisp contrast to the smoothness of his palms as they slid down the slope of her spine to her naked buttocks. And from there one hand shifted at last to her breast and held its precious weight like a fruit warmed by the sun. It seemed forever they'd been imagining this first naked touch. Now it was here, better than imagined, spreading warmth and want deep within them. For a long while they paid homage to the moment, holding still everywhere else, absorbed in the pleasure of nothing more than his hand cupping her breast. Then her head fell back, her eyes closed and she put her hands in his hair, holding his head while down the gap in her robe he fit her bare body to his clothed one.
'I missed you so much,' she told him.
'I missed you, too,' he said, bringing his other hand into play. 'So much…'
'After I left Wintergreen it was…' His thumbs moved and she shuddered once, and lurched, then let herself fall forward against both of his hands. 'It was…' The word escaped her. All words escaped her. 'It was…'
'It was hell,' he whispered for her.
'Yes… it was hell.'
Her forehead rested against his chin and his breath beat against her uncombed hair. Her hand dropped between them, playing over the worsted wool of his trousers, learning his shape within his clothing.
'Tess…' he breathed, before silence became their ally. Only silence, mingling with his disbelief that he was here with this woman, doing this incredible thing, feeling her hands on him after all the years she had been far, far beyond reach.
'Take me to bed, Kenny,' she whispered.
He was struck by a broadside of awe, realizing who she used to be-the Tess from his past. Who she'd become-Mac, the superstar, adored by millions. And who he'd become-the man she wanted as fully as he wanted her.
She sensed a change in him and looked up. 'Kenny?' she whispered, 'What's wrong?'
'Nothing. It just…' He appeared momentarily beleaguered. 'It just hit me where I am, and who I'm with, and what you just said… and I'm human enough to be a little stunned by it, that's all.'
'Don't be too stunned,' she murmured softly. 'It's just me, Tess.'
'Just you, Tess. The girl on the school bus. Then you became Mac, the woman so far beyond my reach that all I could do was cut out pictures of you. And now you're Tess again, and you want to go to bed with me. I don't think you can quite realize how incredible this seems sometimes.'
'No more incredible than you are to me. Kenny Kronek, the boy next door. Who'd have believed it?' She smiled and repeated, 'Take me to bed, Kenny… please.'
He picked her up like a groom carrying a bride from a church and headed for the brighter light of her bedroom, her arms coiled around his neck and her mouth pressed to the warm hollow behind his jaw. His skin smelled like sandalwood. She tasted it, made a small wet patch on his smoothly shaved neck, and the scent became flavor on her tongue.
'You taste good,' she said.
Above her head, he grinned. 'You're getting ahead of me.'
'Hm-mmm,' she singsonged, meaning,
He was still grinning as he reached their destination and released her legs. She landed on the foot of the bed, kneeling, the robe puddled around her, and lifted her hands to the black onyx studs down his shirtfront. While he began freeing his cuffs he let his knuckles bump her breast-a pebble over a washboard-bringing them both smiles.
She smiled at his shirtfront.
He smiled at the top of her hair, then kissing it, bent at the waist and got rid of his shoes.
'We both knew this would happen tonight, didn't we, Kenny?'
'Yes, we knew.' He found a condom in his trouser pocket and tossed it onto the bed behind her. She undid his waist button, he the zipper, and together they got rid of everything but his shorts. They were silk. Green silk with orange cats on them.
'You wear silk shorts?' she said, surprised, delighted, sitting back on her heels to ogle them. 'With
'They're new. I figured that's what a guy should wear to take Tess McPhail to bed.'
'Don't say that as if all kinds of guys have figured the same thing, because there haven't been that many.'
'We can talk about that later, Tess, okay?' he said, drawing her back up to kiss her.
'There are lots of things we've got to talk about later.'
'Mm-hmm.'
He was naked and she was just about as he went down on one knee and plunged his face into the gap of her robe to take his turn at tasting. A very slow sweet turn before pushing the robe off her shoulders and tumbling her sideways onto the smooth ecru sheets. They fell in one swift motion at the same moment that they touched each other intimately for the first time-a sweep, a fall, a lunge-it was all of these, and silent except for their harsh breathing.
They explored with a shared sense of wonder, first with their eyes open, then with eyes closed, kissing tenderly, then not so tenderly as some primal force took control.
Once he whispered, 'Oh, Tess…' because there were no other words in this foolish man-made language to do justice to what he felt.
And she answered in kind, repeating his name, 'Kenny… Kenny…' because she, too, found no other words adequate.
Much later, he whispered, 'Like this?'
And she breathed, 'Yes…' arching her throat.
And later yet she found the foil packet in the sheets and said, 'Put this on now… please,' and watched, unashamed, as he did.
As he knelt to her she reached up and touched the hair at his temple, feeling a compulsion to say to this man
