I hear laughter from the kitchen. “Kickstarter campaign. Donations. I board some dogs. I hold training classes and I’m thinking about releasing a book.”
“A book?”
He moves through the kitchen doorway, a bottle of chardonnay and two glasses in hand. “I’ve got an outline and four thousand words done. It’s about our foundation, our rescue operations, and the world of illegal dog fighting. When it’s finished I’d like you to be the first to read it. Everyone says the key to success is to market in multiple channels.”
He’s talking as though what we’re doing is not a one-time thing and my heart takes off racing again. Still, I feel a little worried that we haven’t covered any of our issues, not our breakup or that night or details of exactly what this is.
I watch as he sets the wine on a table and puts Tiki into her cage.
“Why are you caging her?”
“She likes it in there. It’s her safe zone and, like I said before, she isn’t used to sharing me.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “You don’t have to pretend you haven’t been with anyone else since we broke up. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
Bobby steps closer to me and starts to speak, but then his mouth is on mine before I can take in air. I am suddenly lost to everything but the feel of him and he is moving us toward the bedroom. He plunders deeply in my mouth and I find myself opening all parts of me to him.
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed that.” He kicks closed the bedroom door behind us. “We can talk as much or as little as you want later. I’ll tell you anything, everything you want to know. But I am not going to bed one more time without you.”
He is staring at me with hungry eyes and I am just as anxious to make love to him and to kick from the room anything that might interfere with us loving each other forever.
I lean in closer as he starts to unbutton my dress. It may be the wrong time, wrong moment, but I can’t stop myself and I say, “I love you. I may have made a mess of us, but I have never not loved you.”
My dress is gone and Bobby sweeps me up into his arms. “I’ve always loved you and I’m going to love you the rest of my life. That’s what I figured out in two years without you.”
“Me, too,” I whisper, kissing his neck and feeling myself being lowered onto the bed. “Make love to me. I can’t wait another moment.”
And then we are not waiting, we are naked in bed together, my flesh pressed to his flesh, my lips are being devoured by his, and the urgency of our bodies is capering in the air and making the room electric. All my parts awaken at once. How have I managed to survive two years without this?
The bed smells of fresh washing and Bobby, and the two scents together are rightly so. Fresh sheets. He planned this. Everything below my waist begins to throb madly. He wanted me even before I followed him here.
His kisses run over my mouth, my cheeks and neck as if he’s reclaiming the feel of me and I am just as frantic to reclaim the feel of him.
He turns me beneath him on the bed and lowers his mouth to flick at my nipple. A violent shudder rolls down my limbs and I moan, arching into him, filling my hands with his soft, chestnut waves. I move against him in aching demand, feeling his hardness against my urging softness, and wanting him inside me without delay.
My body is boiling and I don’t want to come before he’s inside me. Later, we’ll take each other with leisure, but this yearning I feel is too greedy for play right now. His lips move from my breasts. His thumbs gently stroke my nipples as his kiss roams downward to my navel, his tongue swirling the acutely receptive flesh there. My muscles below clench and Bobby moans, moving downward, always downward in his kisses.
“I love the way you feel against my fingers and my lips,” he whispers, knowing exactly how to tease, tempt and get me to beg. “I love the way you taste.”
I arch upward on the pillow. “Then taste me, Bobby, and get in me fast.”
His laughter vibrates against my lower abdomen. “Not a chance. I’m taking my time with you. Having you my way.”
With lips and hands he lowers to that spot desperate for release. A light blow against me. A kiss near and not there. My flesh is burning, I am throbbing and ready for him. I want to jerk up and force him to that part of me aching for him. I hold myself back, letting him guide me there. This time I’m going to let Bobby take me his way…
Something pulls me from sleep—a cell phone?—and I slowly give myself over to waking when all I want to do is snuggle deeper into the sheets and sleep. Every part of my body is limp and sated for the first time in two years.
Bobby’s way was slow, glorious, torturous, and magnificent. I’ve always been the more eager and aggressive one, and Bobby’s preference for slow savoring of the senses used to make me secretly wonder if his leisurely self-control meant he wasn’t really turned on by me.
How paranoid and insecure I used to be at times. I always wanted a frenzied rush to orgasm as confirmation that he was totally into me. If the guy fucked me hard and fast it meant he couldn’t contain his desire for me.
Boy, did I get that one wrong. His unhurried, sensual play is more potent and erotic, more deeply connecting than anything I’ve ever known with Bobby. The man made a symphony out of making love to me. All of my senses have been blissfully fed and I am consumed by my love for him in a peaceful intensity that is so very right.
I pull a little more out of grogginess and realize that Bobby is talking on the phone. I open my eyes. The bedroom is dark, it’s night, and the light is on in the adjoining bathroom. I check the clock: 2 a.m.
I pick up my panties and his shirt from the floor, pull them on, and am just about to go into the bathroom to see what’s up with that middle of the night call when Bobby steps into the bedroom.
My eyes widen. The call has ended and he’s dressed. OK, what’s up with that? He crosses to me and plants a fast but fevered kiss on my lips.
He smiles. “I’m sorry that I woke you. I need to go out for a while. I shouldn’t be long.”
I sit down on the bed as Bobby sinks into a chair and begins to pull on a pair of hiking boots.
I frown. “Where are you going?”
He doesn’t look up and continues to lace. “It’s no big deal. Just something I’ve got to do.”
I tense. Why isn’t he just telling me? He’s purposely not being specific and I don’t like that, not one bit. Bobby never withheld anything when we were together before.
“You’re not going to tell me where you’re going?” I ask, beating off the rising temper and suspicion hopefully to a point where he can’t hear it in my voice.
“No, not telling you.” He stands up and reaches into the closet for a jacket. He pulls it on, then turns to lock his gorgeous green eyes on me. “You either trust me or you don’t, Kaley. That part of us I’m not doing again.”
My face heats with a burn. “I hardly think wanting to know why you are leaving me at 2 a.m. is a trust issue between us.”
“It’s not. I’ve always trusted you. It’s your issue, Kaley.”
The heat on my cheeks grows more intense. He goes to the dresser for his keys and wallet.
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
His eyes lock on mine, direct and unwavering. “Every problem we had before comes from you having difficulty trusting. Even Graham Carson.”
Oh shit, not now. Not that part of our history when I’m not prepared or expecting it.
I bite my lower lip and struggle for words. “That was a mistake caused by too much alcohol and too much fighting. It was never about trust or not loving you.”
The pleasant lines of his face relax into an expression of patience. “I know it wasn’t about not loving me, but it was about lack of trust. You don’t trust me. You don’t trust anyone completely. You need to control everything because you don’t trust.”
My entire body grows cold. This observation is something Bobby has never said to me before and I don’t know how to handle it, let alone analyze it to figure out why he’d say that to me now.
I turn my face so I’m no longer looking at him directly. I feel a displacement of air and know he’s moving toward me. He crouches down in front of me, his hands on my thighs, the heat of his gaze hitting my face and making me look back to him.