Secret Shared

Oh, Will. I wanted to crawl down there, wrap my arms and legs around his pain. Instead, I said, “What’s your truck doing out there?”

“Took that bend at Saint Ferdinand,” he said, using a hand to trace the truck’s path. “And there was this huge possum in the middle of the road and bam—”

He clapped and mashed his hands together.

“Poor possum.”

“Possum’s fine. My truck is wedged in the ditch, stuck between fence posts near the lumberyard. Had to smash the back window to get out. At least, I hope the truck’s still there. Actually, it might be worth more if I claim it was stolen.”

He laughed softly, but I couldn’t. Should I ask? Where have you been and what are you thinking and can you be mine now? Can we be each other’s?

“But you’re okay, right?”

“Okay? I’m fucking great. I’m a damn country-western song, Cassie. Guy loses everything he thought he had in one day. Losing my truck kinda rounds out the chorus, don’t you think?”

There it was, the sarcasm hiding the sorrow, that man I knew so well. The one I loved so much. Here is your opening, Cassie. Say it.

“You haven’t lost everything, Will.”

“That’s true. Day’s not over yet. Or is it? I can’t tell with the curtains shut. What do you think of them? They’re pretty nice, aren’t they?”

“They’re beautiful. See? You have the curtains … and …?”

His eyes moved from admiring the curtains to studying me.

“What else do I have?”

He sat up on an elbow, his gaze heavy.

Say it, Cassie.

“You have … those marble tables. They’re g-gorgeous,” I stammered.

“That’s true. They are gorgeous,” he said.

I was nervously fidgeting with the edge of the bar.

“And … what else do I have?”

For chrissake, say it.

Say it now.

“You have everything, Will, right here in this room—”

“Do I have you?”

Enough, Cassie. It’s here, all of it, right in front of you.

“Yes, Will.”

“Are you sure, Cassie? Because I really want to have you, and earlier, when that guy drove up to the hospital parking lot, and it didn’t look like I could have you either, that’s when I thought—”

“Will. You have me.”

I don’t know if I dove to meet him or if he reached up to pull me down to the mattress, but soon I was kneeling in front of him, letting him pull off my T-shirt, my stupid bra, my dumb belt, kicking off my awful jeans, both of us hating every single thing that still stood between us, even if it was just our clothes.

Now astride him, our fingers entwined, I felt lucky and so, so grateful.

“You should see your face right now,” he whispered. “So beautiful.”

I was going to say, You make me feel beautiful, but it wasn’t true. I felt beautiful before he said it, a miracle in and of itself.

“Thank you, Will.” My fingers graced his sternum. He was all I ever wanted.

He reached up, curling a firm hand around the back of my neck, pulling me down on top of him until my breasts were pressed against his warm chest. His eyes were calm, his hair a tangle of anguish and sleep. I smoothed it back.

“Kiss me, Cassie. Kiss me like you meant what you just said. That I have you. That you’re mine.”

His mouth was slightly open and I sank down on it with mine. We weren’t urgent, nor ferocious. Not yet. There was no hurry. I kissed him roundly, fully, once, then suckled his bottom lip, savoring him, kissing him again as his tongue darted hesitantly between my teeth, tasting me too.

“Will,” I said between kisses, “I missed you so much.”

He sat us both up, my legs still wrapped around him, his erection insistent between us.

“I missed you also … as you can see,” he laughed, flicking my hair away from my eyes.

My hand instinctually reached for him, and I rolled my fingers over his smooth, round head, feeling him stiffen more. His eyes took in the parts of my body he now reached to savor—my neck, my shoulder, my breasts. His tongue circled hot around my nipples, his lips gently tugging them into tense peaks slick with his kisses. Satisfied, he nudged my torso away from him so I rested on my palms behind me. Suddenly, I didn’t even like being this far away from him, but it was to allow his hand to slip beneath me, to tease out my wetness with a few feverish strokes of his fingers.

“I’ve wanted you for so long, Cassie,” he whispered, sending two fingers higher still, curving up to hit a spot so sensitive, so perfect, I felt my eyes go wide. “I want to look in your face while you come. While I make you come,” he said, licking his fingers quickly and covering my clit, now aching, under the soft pad of his thumb.

“I’ve been wanting to do this to you for so long, Cassie.”

His lips curled as he increased the speed but not the pressure, hitting my perfect spot with an insistent, delicious tempo. “Come for me, Cassie. Come for me.” Oh and I did, right then, right there, throwing my head back, pressing my knees out, my whole body arching towards him. I came, releasing all the ache, all the pain, all the longing into that dusty, perfect room upstairs, the one that grew more and more beautiful each and every time we found ourselves alone and naked in it. His fingers continued thrusting, as I moaned for him, until I had to beg him to stop, desperate to catch my breath, desperate to come down, to come back to him, my Will.

My whole center heaving, I reached to stroke his sleepy, stubbly face, vowing silently to take care of this good man better, to never let him go again. His mouth found my thumb and he sucked and swirled it, bucking slightly as I reached my other hand between my legs to take him in my hand.

“I’ve missed this too,” I said, wrapping my hand around him as he rested back on his hands.

He watched my fingers flutter up and down, loosely, but quickly, my grip tightening with his obvious appreciation, my fingers moving faster, until that became too much for him, and he rolled his eyes heavenward. I quickened my pace still, leaning forward, my mouth next to his ear, my nipples grazing his upper arm.

“It’s you, Will, it’s always been you. It’ll always be you,” I whispered, as he moaned, saying my name.

He patted around for his wallet, stuffed in his jeans nearby, stopping my hand so he could slide a condom on. Then he gathered my legs around him again, arms encircling my waist tightly. “You feel so fucking good,” he said, as he eased me down onto him, all the way to the end of me, filling me up more completely than anyone ever had or ever would. We stayed still for a moment, joined like that, my hands on his cheeks, my wet lips sliding sweetly across his, breathing in his breath, my hips grinding him slowly, feeling him all the way in me, one strong arm braced behind him, the other around me, holding my hips down. He moved beneath me, lovingly at first, reverently watching my face. Then his thrusts increased in intensity, and my hands braced on his shoulders as I felt him plunging up and into me, as I drove down onto him.

“Oh god, Will.”

“Cassie … oh, I love you, I love you like this,” he said, his face twisted in sweet agony as I rode him, my whole being focused on squeezing him, my hips rocking hard enough to finally pull the ecstasy right out of him. He came. I made him come, and then he fell backwards, panting for a few seconds.

I savored my beautiful victory until his body missed mine, and he pulled me down against him, gathering me close again. We spooned, my ass tucked in his sticky lap, his hard thigh thrown over mine, quivering from what he had just done to me, from what I had done to him, from what we had done to each other.

“Promise me something,” he said.

“Anything.”

“Promise me we’ll never let anything or anyone come between us again.”