“Rebecca?” She turns back to me like an afterthought.
“Yes, sweetie?”
She shoves her hands into her pockets, a shy smile forming on her face. “Thanks for bringing those kites for me.”
***
As the sun begins to set, Michael seems quieter than usual, and I wonder at first if my time with Andrea troubled him somehow. When we have a moment alone on the deck, I ask him if he’s okay.
“I just wish I were getting more time with you,” he says, dropping into one of the lounge chairs. “Alone, I mean.”
“I thought maybe you were mad I didn’t try surfing earlier.”
“You kidding me? I don’t care if you never go out there.” I consider filling him in on the details of my conversation with Andrea, then think better of it.
“But it’s your thing.”
“I like it. Hell, I love it,” he says. “But I don’t need you to love it. Not really.”
“I’m still trying to picture your butterfly,” I confess.
He looks up, daring me a little with his eyes. “We can arrange for a viewing,” he says. “Sort of a ‘you show me yours, I’ll show mine’ kind of thing.”
“You flirt!” I laugh, feeling my face burn hot. And it’s not because of the hazy late-day sun.
He clasps my waist with both of his large hands, dragging me closer toward him. I feel so small comparatively, and think of his assessment that day on the lot: that I’m delicate and feminine. With an easy flick of his wrist, he unfastens the bottom button of my shirt. “I could peek right now,” he cautions, but I catch his hand.
“Or not,” I say.
The stormy eyes narrow like a cat’s. “I’ve waited long enough.”
“Then strip, Warner.” I command, taking a step back from him. “Out of that T-shirt.”
“Okay,” he answers easily. Too easily and in one swift move to his feet, he’s shirtless. Out here on Casey’s deck—the rest of our friends scattered down on the beach right below us—he’s half-naked.
I find myself eye-level with his strong, dark chest. No butterfly. But then he pivots, slowly, until I find myself staring at a bright, colorful monarch on his left shoulder. Without hesitating, I reach my fingertips and touch it; like I might lure it nearer, or capture it as my own. But it’s Michael’s warm, soft skin I’m feeling beneath my hand, not an exotic, winged creature.
“Beautiful,” I whisper, tracing my finger over the detailed design, not caring who sees. “You are so beautiful, Michael.”
I lean close, up onto my tiptoes. Until my lips press against his back and I kiss him, right on that shoulder, burning hot beneath the butterfly tattoo.
“I want to make love to you,” he says, the words spoken out into the ocean wind. “I’m crazy with it, Rebecca.”
“Me, too,” I agree, slipping my arms around his waist.
He turns, until he’s holding me close against his bare chest. “Everyone’s going out tonight,” he tells me. “Did you realize that?”
I swallow hard. “No. No I didn’t.”
“This could be the night we stay in,” he says. “Let’s ask Marti to take Andrea with them to dinner, but you and me, let’s stick around here.” He brushes my hair beneath his fingertips, and there’s something different in his eyes. Something I first noticed the other night at his dinner party.
Below us a tinny radio overlays the lulling sounds of the ocean and crying gulls. In the distance, there’s laughter.
This is freer than I’ve felt in such a long time.
“Michael,” I remind him quietly, “you should know that…I don’t look like I did. Before.”
“You’ve said that.”
“I want to be sure that, well, that you
know
.” I press my eyes shut, feeling the muscles of his arms, closed tight around me. Secure. “You know, just how it looks with the scars and all. I mean, it wasn’t
just
Ben—there were the surgeries to save my life.”
“Thank God,” I hear him whisper under his breath.
“It’s just not as simple as you think.” There, now I’ve explained the situation, I think. Still, it’s easier to keep my eyes shut than to see his obvious disappointment.
I feel him cup my face, tilting it upward, until slowly I have to open my eyes. “Rebecca,” he says, his voice quieter than usual. Like he’s trying to still all my raging doubts. “It
is
simple because I love you,” he says. “And it doesn’t get any simpler than that.”
Chapter Twenty-Two: Michael
Rebecca and I stand together at the large window of Casey’s bedroom, quiet, staring out at the dark ocean. The full moon reaches silver fingers across the surface of the water, reflecting all the churning emotions inside of me.
“Moon’s almost full,” I breathe, kissing her exposed shoulder. It’s warm beneath my mouth, silver beneath the moonlight. Delicate and soft, and I have to bend low even to kiss her there. “Yes.” She shivers at my kiss. “No wonder we’re crazy.”
I run my fingers down the length of her bare arm. “Nope, been crazy for months now,” I murmur, feeling my groin tighten. “Moon’s no excuse. I’d say it’s all you, Rebecca O’Neill.”
That lacy little camisole she’s wearing with blue jeans isn’t hurting things, either. Thank God everyone is gone for a few hours.
Slowly she pivots until she’s facing me, pressed up against my chest. Her breasts are luscious and round, her nipples already jutting out with her arousal. I dip my fingers beneath the strap of her camisole, exposing a long scar along her breastbone. With a quiet gasp, she covers her heart with her hand, stepping backward from me.
“Rebecca, it’s okay.” Being naked with me is a safe place to be; she should know that.
She nods, swallowing, and cautiously drops her hand away. There’s a second scar, smaller beside the first, like an unequal twin.
Taking my fingertip, I trace the biggest one, following the thick length of it like a map to her heart. “Becca, I love you,” I reassure her. “
You
. Not some perfect Hollywood chick.”
She stares at me, her mouth open in shock, then begins to laugh. I frown, puzzled. “I’m serious,” I say.
“I know.” She touches my cheek, still giggling happily. “It’s just that everyone in Hollywood wanted me to be perfect,” she says with a gorgeous, sideways smile. “Until you.”
“I’m not everybody.”
She kisses me slowly, whispering, “I’m starting to figure that out.” For a brief moment, I remember my first kiss with Allie out on that dance floor, lights and sound and heat drumming through my body as his lips touched mine.
I have that exact same forbidden, upended feeling with Rebecca right now.
In an explosive flurry, we back toward the bed; I tug at my T-shirt, yanking it over my head. Together, we collapse in a heap of warm flesh, exploring every inch of one another.
“Show me that butterfly,” she groans in my ear, as I roll her onto her back.
I growl, “Later,” toying in frustration with the fly of her jeans.
“Let me help,” she whispers, and snakes out of them easily. Some more wrangling, then I’m down to nothing but my boxers and an achy hard-on, those lacy little panties of hers making me half-crazy. So I begin to kiss her…low.
Then lower even still.
Arching her small hips up against me, she tangles her hand in my hair. “Michael, no!” she cries out.
I’ve been kissing her navel, licking it—now I’m confused. See, I have plans in mind, and staring up at her in the darkness I wonder if she doesn’t
like
those plans. She reaches, tugging at the top edge of her bikini underwear where two very long scars are visible. But I don’t give a shit about that.
She needs to understand that my male self is focused on only one thing—my dark, warm prize, only slightly farther down from where I’ve been showering her with these kisses. One thought pounds hard through my body:
God, men are so much easier to figure out.
“You don’t want this?” I ask, swallowing hard. Blood rushes in my ears, loud. Hell, it rushes through my whole damn body.
She runs a shaky hand through her disheveled blonde hair, sinking into the pillows without another word. She’s given so much damn thought to these irrelevant scars; maybe now she’s realizing how insignificant they really are between us.
“Relax, baby,” I whisper, bending low and pressing a sweet kiss against her abdomen—against the largest scar of all. Very slowly, I trail kisses down the length of it, peeling back her panties until there’s only her. Letting her know I want to love every inch of her.
Once the lingerie is stripped away, and there’s only my mouth against her warm skin, she releases an aroused, happy sigh of feminine pleasure.
And with that one very girlish sound, I nearly lose it completely.
I go lower still, licking my tongue along that one long scar, pressing her thighs open a little wider so she’s ready for what I’m going to do next. Oh, man, it’s been a long time since I’ve tasted honey this sweet.
She lifts her hips the moment my tongue gives her a first stroke, her hands digging into my scalp, twining in my hair.
“Oh, Michael.” She’s tensed in reaction to what I’m doing, and moans a little. But I want to be sure she’s not uncomfortable, so I stop, looking up the line of her body as if I’m a sailor staring across a ship’s bow.
“You good with this, baby?”
Slowly she lets her hips drop to the mattress, leaning back into the pillows. With an audible swallow, she nods, eyes shining bright.
“So you liked that?” I can’t help but feel a little wicked, and with my hands wrapped about her thighs, and my mouth just inches away from my gleaming prize, I feel powerful, too. I bend low, flicking my tongue. “You like this?”
She releases a kitten-like moan of pleasure, blinking, but her thighs tense again. Maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve been with a woman, but am I getting the right reaction here? I’m not sure. “You’re not uncomfortable?”
She gives a little shake of her head. “It’s…Jake never did this.” She swallows, hard. “I’ve never done this before.”
Oh, now I get it. Wow. I’m going to be the first to pleasure her like this? A flare of fiery heat chases down my spine at the thought of being special like that. And with a possessive growl, I realize I don’t ever want another man to touch her again. No one else besides me.
“Your dentist lover back in Georgia? No?”
She swats me on the shoulder and I dip my head low again, working my hands over her hips, down her thighs—while my mouth works a sweeter, warmer place. With every flick and motion of my tongue, Rebecca makes the most erotic little cries and it’s like they shoot into me, driving me harder. Making me want her even more.
Then her hips jackknife upward, and I feel the pulse of her pleasure against my tongue. I take firm hold of her buttocks, squeezing, urging her to ride out her release.
“Yeah, baby, that’s it,” I murmur, and slowly her hips drop back down to the mattress. “Oh, sweetness, that’s it.”
She’s breathing heavy, and I crawl up her body like a prowling bobcat until I’m positioned atop her, heavy and totally male. And my erection is also heavy and totally male as I push it greedily between her thighs.
My heart is pounding like it might explode as I settle my hips against hers, feeling the soft, curving shape of her against me. It’s hard not to feel like I could shatter her, she’s that small and delicate. But it’s part of what turns me on, too, that she’s feminine…different from me.
I prop my elbows around her on the pillows, and simply stare into those eyes of hers. That’s when it happens. This strange, hushed moment. As if the ocean just beyond the patio stops roaring; as if Rebecca herself stops breathing; as if I am caught in a timeless spell, captive to this woman.
I never thought I’d get here again, but I am. I’m in love with this woman, and at an almost desperate, fevered level.
“I’m in love with you,” I murmur softly, brushing my lips against hers. She wraps her small, muscular arms about my neck. “God help you and me both, but I am so damn in love with you.”
She takes hold of my face, breaking our kiss and forcing me away. Then our eyes meet, and that sacred, beautiful stillness descends upon us again. Over our moment, over this joining. It’s as if all separation or the possibility of it vanishes, and even though I’m not inside her yet—even though my whole body is trembling—we’re one. We’re already one.
“I want you, Michael,” she whispers on a heartbeat. “I really, really want you.”
I move my lips against the column of her throat, teasing my tongue along her fast-beating pulse. “Good thing, baby. ’Cause I’m dying to get inside of you.”
Her hands roam and move across my shoulders, fingers spread wide over the exact spot where I have my tattoo. I flash on the image I had before, of her mouth trailing over it, licking my shoulder, body grinding up against mine.
“Kiss it,” I groan, and her hands stop their exploration.
“I don’t…”
I lift off of her in a push up, knowing we’ll have to change positions. With eyes narrowed and my hard cock jutting toward her, I fight the urge to beg. “My tattoo, baby. Kiss my tattoo.”
I move onto my stomach, a position that could be achingly familiar, but I send those memories out to the horizon at the first flick of her warm tongue against my skin. She slides atop me, the lightest slip of a thing. Damn, she’s like a butterfly herself, I think. My miraculous, healing creature. My Rebecca.
But then she’s straddling me, and I can feel that warm dampness between her thighs as it touches my lower back, as she bends again and slowly kisses the stretched wings of my tattoo.
“Like this?” Her voice is thick and husky, lost to what’s happening.
“Yeah, baby. Good. That’s good.”
Warm hands move along my nape, slide across my hips, and I keep thinking I should take control here. But I feel more confidence and seduction in these strokes of Rebecca’s than any other time we’ve been together.
She feels so bold because she knows I can’t see her or the scars. I realize it then, my heart slamming, and I don’t know if I should flip her onto her back and
make
her accept my love—or if I should go with this current, very sexy groove, this power that’s starting up between us. A power that is intimately linked with my own past, not just Rebecca’s, I think, as I lay spread face-first beneath her body.
But what happens between us now, it’s got to be about the present—about who we are in each other’s arms, not the embrace of the past.
“Becca?” I ask softly, arching my back and lifting my head so I can look over my shoulder at her. The glimpse I get in return tightens my throat. Her blonde hair is disheveled and wild, her lips swollen from my earlier kisses, and a flush has hit her Irish cheeks that makes me want to claim her now.
“Becca, now it’s my turn.”
“For what?” Her hair falls over one shoulder, another heavy lock over her eyes.
I smile, moving up onto my knees and reach for her. “To shatter every one of your defenses.”
***
I’m the one who’s shattered, I think, snuggling Rebecca a little closer. We’re both sweaty and sticky, but definitely very satisfied. I’ve got a smile on my face that just won’t fade. How could I have forgotten what it feels like to be inside a woman? Lying here afterwards with Rebecca, staring at Casey’s ceiling, I can’t believe I ever forgot. The softness. The warmth, all close around me. It’s like I just lost my virginity all over again; I’m seventeen, all dewy-eyed and invincible. Like my very first time with Katie back in high school, I’m filled with innocent wonder. Amazement. Rebecca is tiny and curvy and soft; she’s everything Alex
never
was. I guess somewhere along the way I forgot the difference.
Beside me, she’s nestled close within the crook of my arm. The bathroom light spills over our bed, and I can’t stop watching her, even though I’m sleepy as hell. Between surfing today, and now sex, I’m flattened.
She’s so beautiful, the gold in her hair shimmering in the near dark; I swear I could get going all over again. She rolls closer, splaying her palm across my chest. She rubs me there, running her hand over the curling dark hairs.
“That was really incredible,” she says, a sweet, tender smile forming on her lips.
I stroke her hair, holding her close. “Definitely incredible.” Worth the thirteen-year wait, I want to say, but figure I’d better keep
that
to myself. Closing my eyes, I wait for her to say something about how she’s falling in love with me, something dopey to satisfy the seventeen-year-old she’s brought out to play tonight.
But she’s silent beside me, for a long while. Alex was way more talkative than this, and he was a
guy
.
So getting nervous, I finally ask her, “You okay?” Maybe I’ve lost my touch, too long out of the saddle and all that. My heartbeat becomes wild and unsteady inside my chest when she turns to me. Her face is clouded with uncertainty.
“Mm…can I ask you something?”
I nod my encouragement. “Sure, baby. Anything, you know that.”
She rolls onto her side, staring hard into my eyes. “Don’t get mad, okay?” Those words almost always preface something that will make me
furious
—I know that much from twelve years in a committed relationship.
“Sure.” I swallow, clearing my throat. “Go on.”
“Okay, this is going to sound lame, but I still need to ask…or I’m afraid that if I don’t ask, that I’m being naive.”
My stomach knots hard because I suddenly have a feeling I know what’s coming; I brace for it like a swerving, oncoming car. “Go on.”
She sighs. “I realize I asked this before…” Her voice trails into nothing.
“Oh, I get it,” I say. “You’re still worried if I’m healthy.” I try to laugh it off, but this moment was all about the romance for me, all about committing myself to her—now it’s all about the Dark Gay Cloud. “A little late for that, Becca, don’t you think?” I ask, feeling sad. “But yeah, sure. I’m healthy.” I try to hide how damned much she’s hurt me.
She told me she was on the pill last week, so I didn’t worry about other forms of contraception. Never even crossed my mind that she would.
“I know this is stupid,” she stammers. “It must
seem
really stupid, but given your lifestyle…”
“Lifestyle,” I repeat dully, watching the ceiling fan whir soundlessly overhead. “Good euphemism.”
“Okay, I mean that you were
gay
. For a long time.”
“Baby, if I were
gay
,” I bark, turning to face her, “then I sure wouldn’t be here in bed with you right now.” I can’t believe that something so sweet—our very first time together—has taken such a lonely turn. I feel defensive, too, like she’s become an outsider pointing the finger at me and my past choices.