I Shall Not Want

He looked down at her, about to say that sounded like a pretty damn accurate description of her, but her eyes were X-raying through him, and her pointed half smile said I know you.

He didn't let himself think. He kissed her. As lightly and briefly as one of her blessings. A thanksgiving and an apology. Then he lifted his head and saw her face, tipped back like the survivor of a long winter on the first day of hot spring sunshine. 'Clare,' he said, his voice thick. She opened her eyes, full of heat, and just like that the desperate desire he thought he'd never feel again flamed to life like blue gas jetting out of cold iron.

He dug his fingers into her hair and pulled her to him, kissing her, deep, hungry kisses that tasted of chocolate and peppermint. She moaned in the back of her throat and wrestled her hands free from around his waist to twine them about his neck. He bumped against the kitchen table and bent her back, kissing her, kissing her, her mouth and her jaw and the pulse trip-hammering in her throat. He felt something huge and powerful racing through him, sparking every nerve end, blanking out everything in the world except Clare, the taste of her, the sound of her, panting and gasping, the feel of her, oh, God, better than anything he had ever fantasized, as he yanked open her pajama top and pushed it aside and touched her, touched her, touched her.

She cried out, and he shut her mouth with more kisses, wet and dark, remembering they had to keep quiet even though he couldn't remember why. She pushed at him, tugging at his shirt, and he reared back, taking her with him, the two of them standing hip to hip and toe to toe, frantic to remove his uniform blouse without letting any space or light or air between them. She undid the two top buttons and he yanked the shirt off over his head, tossing it on the table, and it was Clare, warm and alive and half naked in his arms. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head from the feel of her skin on his.

Bed. Bed. Bed. He herded her toward the kitchen's swinging door, the two of them stumbling around and between each other's legs, Russ dropping kisses on her hair, her ears, her temples while she pressed her face into his chest, her mouth and tongue making him mindless. They rocked through the door and staggered into the dimly lit living room, and when she bit him, he felt his knees buckling. The bed was too far away, he would never make it. He was going to burn alive before then. He hip-checked the sofa and dropped onto its squishy cushions. She let the pajama top and the robe fall to the floor, letting him look at her, look at her, and then she crawled on top of him. He gritted his teeth to keep from whimpering and begging and singing hallelujah. He seized her hips and pulled her to him, so she could feel how hard she made him, Christ, like he was seventeen again.

'Russ,' she said, her voice unrecognizable. 'Oh, God.' She fit herself around him, and he could feel the weight and the strength of her, the long muscles of her thighs and her back beneath his hands. He heard a groan tearing out of his chest as he rolled her underneath him, his arms shaking, the breath hitching in his throat.

A light snapped on upstairs. 'Senora Reverenda?' The voice sounded small and scared and about twelve years old. He stilled as best he could with his chest working like a bellows. Dropped his forehead to hers. Goddamn. It really was like being seventeen again. Next, Clare's parents would phone to see how the babysitting job was going.

Clare drew an unsteady breath. 'It's-' She swallowed. Tried again. 'It's all right, Senor Esfuentes. Everything's okay. Um…' She looked at him helplessly.

He rolled off her, reaching out and snagging her robe off the floor. He handed it to her. 'Es yo, Amado. Chief Van Alstyne. Acabo de venir cerca comprobar en usted dos. Vaya de nuevo a cama.'

'Okay,' Amado said. 'Buenos noches.'

'What did you say?' Clare whispered.

'I told him to go away, we were getting naked.'

She whacked his shoulder, hard.

'Ow!'

She curled into a sitting position and put on the robe. He rolled onto his back, throwing his arm over his eyes, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. 'You're going to toss me out, aren't you?'

There was a pause. 'Yes.'

'Christ, Clare…'

She twisted to speak to him; then, as if she thought better of staying within arm's reach, she stood up and stepped back. Her cheeks and chest were stained with high color, her hair a wild tangle, her lips red and swollen. He had to shut his eyes before he broke something.

'We can't do this,' she said.

He could smell her from where she stood. 'Come back over here,' he said, his voice heavy and full. 'I'll show you how it works.'

She sat in one of the overstuffed chairs that faced each other across the coffee table. Her hand, clutching the edges of her robe together, was trembling. 'And what happens when we wake up tomorrow morning with your wife's dead body between us?'

'Jesus Christ!' He convulsed upward. His feet, still booted, thudded to the floor.

'It's too soon, Russ. Even if we didn't have this…'-she waved a hand in the air-'this mess between us, it would still be too soon. She's only been dead five months. There's a reason the old mourning period was a year. People who lived with death knew it took time.'

'What is this about? You want to make me wait? For what? Payback? To see if I'll jump through some arbitrary hoop for you?'

She bent over, twining and twisting her hands together, letting them dangle between her knees. She finally looked at him. 'I love you,' she said. 'And God knows, I want you.' She laughed a little, without humor. 'I think we just proved that. But I deserve to have your whole heart.'

'I'm not going to stop loving her just because she's dead.' His voice was harsh.

'I know that. I don't expect you to. I meant you need to love me wholly, not half want me, half blame me for Linda's death.'

'I don't-' he began.

'Oh, for God's sake!' She glanced toward the stairs and continued in a lower tone. 'Can't we at least be honest about that? If you hadn't stopped to get me out of trouble, if you hadn't been with me, Linda would be alive right now.'

He shook his head.

'It's true!' She jumped to her feet. 'Admit it! Admit it!'

'All right, dammit! Yes! If I hadn't gone into that goddam barn, my wife would still be alive.' He surged to his feet and grabbed her by the upper arm. 'But don't you see? You would have been dead. You would have been the one to die. And that's what's killing me. I can't regret that. I can't be sorry. Christ, I can't imagine a world without you in it, Clare. But that means Linda was an acceptable loss. It means I chose you over her.' He dropped her arm and ground his fists into his temples. 'If you knew how many times I've replayed that afternoon over and over and over in my head, every decision I made, every word I said… and the hell of it is, I never, ever make the right decision. Because there is no right decision. I'll never be right on this. And if I just… come to you with open arms and a big smile on my face, it's like I'm spitting on her grave.'

He turned away from her. Ran his good hand over his face. It came away wet. She touched his back, pressed her palm between his shoulder blades. Skin to skin.

'Don't,' he said, not sure what he was forbidding her. Don't love me? Don't comfort me? Don't touch me, because I don't know how many of your touches I can withstand before I break?

'Dear heart,' she said, 'you have got to see a therapist.'

It was so practical, so Clare, that he almost laughed. Instead he made a noise. 'I don't need a goddam therapist. I just need some time to figure things out.'

Her hand dropped away. 'Because you're doing such a good job of it.' Her voice was dry.

He looked at the reddened flesh on his knuckles. The bruises were starting to emerge. 'I