her. He continued to plunder her mouth as he crossed the threshold with her all wrapped around him, her hands sifting in his hair, her thighs pressing him tight, her kiss as open and eager as her sweet face, her willing heart.
He swung the door shut with his heel. Laughing a little against his mouth, she instructed, “Wait. Back up.” He did, and she reached out behind him and engaged the lock. “That way.” She kissed the words onto his mouth and pointed over her shoulder down a windowless hallway.
He took her to the bedroom at the front of the apartment. Outside the arched windows that faced the street, snow was falling, thick and steady, reflecting light, filling the room with a silvery glow. The space was crowded with furniture—sewing machines, a wide table, adjustable dressmaker forms. Weaving his way to the bed took some doing, and she didn’t help a lot—she was kissing him so hard and deep, moving against him, arousing him, making soft hungry sounds that thoroughly distracted him.
A good thing he was determined. He skirted the second dressmaker form and he was at the bed at last. Easing his fingers under her thighs, he peeled her away from him and gently laid her down.
She stared up at him, softly smiling, eyes wide and so bright, as he undressed her with the ease and swiftness born of years of undressing women. She wore black leggings, a big green sweater that went halfway down her slim thighs and thick socks. He had all that off of her in no time. Underneath, her bra was red lace and her little satin panties were pink. He rolled her over and unhooked the bra and whipped it away.
“Dami...” She rolled onto her back again, laughing a little. Incomparable. Everything about her—the complete lack of pretense or artifice, the small slanted white scars on her rib cage and the longer one, pale as milk, that ran straight down between her breasts. She had no shyness about those scars, no embarrassment. She made them beautiful by her complete acceptance of them.
He bent close, kissed the long one that bisected her above her heart. “You are like no one else I’ve ever known.”
She wrapped her arms around his head, pulled him closer. The scent of her claimed him. “I hope that’s good,” she whispered.
“It is very good,” he replied against her skin.
“Dami.” She held him closer. “I have missed you so....”
He clasped her arms and gently peeled them away so that he could straighten and get out of his own clothes. That took even less time than getting rid of hers.
She reached for him again. “Please. Come down to me. Let me hold you.”
He grabbed the condoms he’d stuck in a pocket and set them on the nightstand. Then he joined her on the bed.
She wrapped herself around him again. It felt so good, her flesh to his, the scent of her gone musky now, sweeter even than before.
He kissed her some more—starting with her mouth and then moving on, tracing the shape of her jaw with his tongue, trailing his lips down her throat into the warm dip where her collarbones met.
And lower.
He lavished attention on her breasts and her belly, then settled in between her thighs, easing her legs over his shoulders, guiding her knees wider to claim better access. She clutched his head and moaned broken encouragements as he kissed her long and slow and deep. He caressed her with his fingers at the same time, enjoying the feel of her as well as the taste, his mind a hot whirl of excitement and lust for her. At the same time, he remembered to be careful with her, to gauge her readiness. Her body was still new to this, inexperienced, in need of gentle handling.
New but so eager. She was a natural to loving.
It didn’t take her long to reach the peak. He felt the quick, hot flutter of her climax against his tongue and she held him tightly to her, crying out, then whispering his name. Her body lifted, bowing up. He stayed with her, kept on kissing her, pressing his tongue at her core, his hands beneath her, cradling her, lifting her closer to his eager mouth.
She shuddered, cried out again and then, with a sigh, went loose. For a little while, he rested his head on her belly and she gently stroked his hair.
In time he rose above her again. Gathering her close to him, he settled her head against his shoulder.
She sighed and whispered, “I want you, Dami....”
“Shh.” He kissed her temple.
But she pushed up on an elbow and met his eyes. “I want all of you.” Her upper lip was damp with sweat.
He took her face between his hands, pulled her closer and kissed her. “Soon,” he said against her mouth. “Shh...” He stroked the short wisps of chestnut hair back from her damp forehead.
“Now,” she argued, catching his lower lip between her pretty teeth, biting down a little so that the fine ache of wanting her intensified and he groaned. And then, more firmly, she commanded, “Now.”
Who was he to refuse her? Whatever she wanted, he would make sure that she had.
She watched him, her hair a wild tousle of short curls, her eyes low and lazy, looking equally satisfied and determined, as he took one of the condoms from the table by the bed. He had it out of its wrapper and on him in a quick well-practiced series of actions—and carefully, too, so as not to rupture or tear it.
She put her hand to his cheek then, urging him down to her until his mouth settled on hers and they shared another long, sweet kiss.
And what a kiss. She did learn fast. Kissing her now, it was hard to remember how very innocent she had been such a short time ago. This kiss was a woman’s kiss, a kiss she took, a kiss she owned. And while she kissed him, she was moving under him, her hands all over him, urging him to cover her.
He gave her what she wanted, burning to have her, impatient as any green kid by then. She made him so hot and needy. She stole his jaded, world-weary nature, gave him back all this urgency, this greed, this heated, hungry tenderness.
He settled above her and she opened to accept him. He tried to go slow, to be careful, be mindful.
But there was no mindfulness for him with her. There was only the welcoming wet heat of her, only her soft hands all over him, pulling him down to her.
Into her.
She took him, she owned him, she moved beneath him and he was the one following, giving back what she gave to him, taking her cues and answering in kind without conscious thought, without calculation. His mind was a whirl of impressions and images. And all of them were of her.
Lucy, too thin, too pale the first time he saw her, running down the steps at her brother’s house, her smile blooming in greeting for him, a stranger. Lucy in his arms for a dance that same night, the tip of the scar between her breasts fresher, deep pink. Lucy in her workroom at the house in California, her head bent over a sewing machine, feeding bright fabric under the humming, swift needle....
And Lucy now, beneath him, flushed, sure, powerful.
He gave himself up to her. She took him and she opened him and she turned him inside out.
* * *
A little while later he made a quick trip to the loo to dispose of the condom. He returned to her
