He didn’t sound too put out. “Oh yes?” Staying in bed with him until the house warmed up sounded wonderful.
“Yeah.” He nuzzled her temple with his nose. “Might take hours.” He sighed, his voice filled with regret as his hand touched her breast. She was somehow primed for this, because all he had to do was touch her, and the skin of her breast warmed. When his thumb glided over her nipple, she felt it, intensely, between her legs. She tightened around him, helplessly. His penis surged inside her, giving her a little electric shock.
Caroline smiled and lifted her arms back around his neck. His shoulders were so broad it was almost impossible for her to embrace him.
“Might,” she answered. “Tough luck for us.”
His mouth had moved to her neck, running his lips up and down the sensitive tendons. She arched her neck to give him better access. It was beyond delightful, feeling his mouth on her neck, giving her little biting kisses.
“So…” He started nibbling on her shoulder, delicate little nips. “What can we do in the meantime? Hmm? Talk?”
“I don’t—” Caroline took in a sharp breath. He’d pulled out of her so far she could feel the huge bulbous head against the lips of her sex, then thrust slowly back into her. She laughed breathlessly. “I can’t talk while you’re doing that!”
“Doing what?” He pulled out again, slid slowly back in again. He was moving with ease. Caroline could feel the wetness of his semen and her own arousal.
In…Out…
“That,” she gasped.
“Tell me about your family. What were they like?”
It took her a moment to realize what he’d said, she was so distracted by the feel of him sliding in and out of her, so slowly she could feel every inch of him.
But then she stiffened and pushed at his shoulders, a chill running through her. She couldn’t talk about her family, not now. Not ever.
“No.” She pushed at his shoulders again. It was like pushing against a steel wall.
He entered her again fully and stopped moving. “Talk to me.” That deep voice was lulling, almost coaxing. “The cab driver coming in said that you lost your parents on Christmas Day five years ago.”
“Six. Six years ago.” Caroline’s throat felt raw. She felt raw everywhere, all her emotions suddenly right there on the surface, horribly vulnerable. She didn’t have her usual protection around her, he was demolishing it with kisses, slow runs of his fingers over her breasts. With sex.
“Talk to me, Caroline. It helps to talk. Tell me what they were like. Start with your dad. What was he like?”
“Funny. He was very funny, but he only allowed us to see it.” The words were out before she could stop them. “Everyone thought he was this sober businessman, but he had a very ironic take on life. He hated hypocrisy and politicians. He did a wicked imitation of the governor, but only in the family and only when he’d had some whiskey. I knew exactly when to take things seriously and when not to, thanks to him. I could always count on him to put things in perspective when I was a girl. Once—”
She stopped, a tear trickling from the corner of her eye. She couldn’t wipe it away herself, her hands were on his shoulders, so he did, with his thumb. “Once?” he asked quietly.
She sniffled a laugh. “Once this candidate for the Senate came to the house, trying to get Dad to become a fund-raiser for him. He was a businessman, real rah-rah, and dumb as a rock, only less interesting. He thought that since Dad was a businessman, all he’d care about was tax cuts and deregulating. So he and his horrible wife sat there smugly talking about incorporating in the Virgin Islands to avoid taxes, and how he’d raided his company’s pension fund to pump up the stock price and how he’d eliminated five thousand jobs.” She gave a little laugh, remembering. “So Dad met Mom’s eyes and started talking about their plans to liquidate, give everything to charity and move to an ashram in India. The candidate and his awful wife were so horrified they didn’t stay for dessert. Mom and Dad opened a bottle of champagne when they left and drank it all in front of the fire. I caught them necking and laughing.”
She met his eyes. “I’ve never told that story to anyone. And now I’m the last person to remember that.”
He wasn’t smiling, the deep grooves bracketing his mouth dug even deeper. “Why haven’t you told anyone that story? It says a lot about your dad. It’s the kind of story that automatically makes you like the guy. I think I would have liked him a lot. I like no-nonsense people.”
“Maybe.” It was an unusual thought. But who knew? Maybe they would have gotten along. Jack seemed the opposite of her father, who’d been a man who’d liked to live large, who’d liked his comforts and his pleasures, who’d enjoyed life with gusto, even better when it was first class.
He’d enjoyed elegant clothes, fine wine and cooking, expensive Cuban cigars, single-malt whiskeys. Her dad flew first class, always stayed in five-star hotels and always got the best seats in the house when they went to the theater.
Jack was a soldier, a hard man, a man used to living rough. He wore old clothes and down-at-heel boots, and had been so incredibly grateful for the meal, she was sure he didn’t eat well on a regular basis. Not much in common there.
But her father had hated bullshitters and snobs and plastic people. He’d despised Sanders once he got to know him, though at first he’d tried to hide it.
Dad might have liked Jack, after all. Jack never pretended to be anything he wasn’t, hadn’t tried to impress her in any way.
“And your mom? What was she like?”
“She was wonderful. Ah!” He suddenly changed the angle of penetration, doing something with his body, his hips, so that he bore down on her clitoris with every slow stroke into and out of her. The pleasure was almost electric in its intensity. A couple of those honeyed, electrifying strokes, then he stopped.
“Tell me more. She was wonderful. What else?”
“Beautiful.” Her body was so pleasured, she didn’t have the energy to weigh her words. They came from somewhere deep inside her. “Mom was such a beautiful woman—inside and out.”
He bent to nuzzle her neck. “I know,” he whispered against her skin. “I saw the pictures. You look just like her.”
Caroline smiled. She’d been told that often enough. It pleased her.
“Dad loved to show her off. He loved pampering her, buying her expensive gifts, it made him happy. And I think Mom loved making a nice home for him. Toby and I would catch them kissing when they thought we weren’t looking. I’m glad they died together. That’s what they would have wanted.” She tightened her hands on Jack’s biceps and looked deeply into his eyes. “You know, after—after the accident, no one would let me talk about my parents. No one wanted to hear me grieve, and no one wanted to hear me reminisce. I’ve heard every possible permutation of ‘find some closure’ that exists. It was as if talking about them was somehow…in bad taste. I could just see it in people’s eyes, they’d listen impatiently, then change the subject as soon as they decently could. All I wanted to do was—was remember them, and no one would let me.”
“And Toby? What was he like?”
This was without a doubt the weirdest conversation Caroline had ever had. He’d started moving in her again, the movements slow and heated. Her entire lower body was taken up with the sex. But then he was engaging her head, too. They were having two conversations at once. Heated sex below the waist, their bodies talking to each other loud and clear, and a deep conversation above the neck.
“Toby. Before the accident, Toby was a real little boy, you know? A scamp. He was always getting into trouble and getting out of it because he had this big wide grin, and you just melted. You forgave him everything, until his next trick. I even forgave him the frog in the bed that nearly gave me a heart attack.” Caroline watched Jack’s face as he listened to her. No one had ever listened to her so intently before, completely focused on her.