Pucker Up (15 page)

“Have
I ever?”

His
hands moved to her hips, and he pulled her back against him, fitting all of her
curves against the hard line of his body.  “I can think of a few times.”  He
released her just as quickly as he’d grabbed her and reached around to cut the
butter into small cubes.

“So
to make a flaky crust you need to have pockets of fat.  That’s where the butter
comes in.  You need to smear it through the flour.”  He demonstrated, tipping
the butter into the flour and squishing it between his thumb and first two
fingers.  “You try.”

Faith
reached into the bowl and pressed against the butter.  “It’s cold.”

“It’s
been in the freezer – it helps if it’s a bit cold.  Then it won’t melt before
we get done.”

“Like
my heart,” she whispered, so low he didn’t think she realized she’d said it
aloud.  He resisted pressing his lips against her temple but just barely. 

“I
don’t think I’m doing this right,” she said.

“Make
a motion like you’re slowly snapping but use two fingers, not just the middle
one.  The point is to squish the butter into the flour, so don’t be afraid to
do it too hard.”  Dustin reached around her until both of their hands were in
the bowl.  Her wrapped his hands around hers, guiding her fingers.  Her body
shuddered against his – he swallowed but ignored it.  If she wanted to prevent
herself from melting, he’d try to oblige.  

“How
long do we do this for?” she asked, her voice breathless.

“Until
it’s done.” 

He
let go of her fingers, not able to resist running his hands up and down her
forearms in a light caress, watching as she worked the flour into dough.  He
could have stayed like that forever, Faith content in his arms as he touched
her.

“I
think that’s good,” he finally said, having to clear his throat as their bodies
drifted apart.

“That
does not look like any pie dough I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s
not done yet,” he said, sliding the bowl to the right and moving to stand in
front of it.  “Don’t you have any confidence in me?”  He poured ice water into
the mix and started to gently form the dough into a circle.

“I
have tons of confidence in you.  Always have,” she whispered.  He looked over
at her, his hands moving on autopilot, and their gazes crashed together.  She
held his eyes for a moment then looked away.  “What I’ve never seen firsthand
is your cooking.  Maybe Peter’s the one that makes tarts now.”

“Peter
couldn’t cook his way out of a paper bag.” Dustin harrumphed, wrapping the
dough in plastic wrap and putting it in the fridge.

“That’s
it?  We’re done?” she asked.

Dustin
gave her a stern look.  “Does that look like tarts?  No, now the dough has to
chill.  Of course, it just so happens I already have some dough chilling so we
can keep going.”

“Dustin
Andrews, if you already had dough, why did we even do this?”  Faith asked in
surprise.

He
came back across the kitchen and stood right in front of her, trapping her with
his eyes and not his arms this time.  “Faith West, you said you wanted a lesson
so I gave you one.  And the best way to learn is to feel your way.”

“Are
we still talking about cooking?”

“Are
we?”

She
closed her eyes for a moment and ran a hand through her hair.  “Yes.  What’s
next?”  Dustin walked her through the rest of the steps: kneading and rolling
out the dough, trimming it for the tartlet shells, parbaking them.

“I
change my mind,” she said almost an hour later as she was slicing apples with
the chef’s hat on her head.

“About
what?” he asked.

“Easy
as pie – it’s a lie.”  He laughed, and she looked up at him, not paying
attention to her knife.  She hissed as the blade nicked her finger.

“Let
me see,” he demanded, grabbing her hand to examine the cut.  It was superficial
but starting to gush.  He pulled her over to the sink and put her hand under
the faucet as he grabbed disinfectant and a Band-Aid.

“I’m
not sure I should be allowed in kitchens ever again,” she said with a wince as
he tended to her injury.

“Too
much déjà vu?” he asked.

“Something
like that,” she murmured. 

He’d
been trying to keep his hands to himself, he really had, but when she stood
there in front of a sink, a streak of flour across her cheek, looking a little
heartbroken, it was like their first kiss was standing in the room with them. 
He couldn’t resist the challenge any longer.

Dustin
brought her bandaged finger up to his lips and placed a kiss against it.  She
smiled and shook her head at his teasing before his lips moved to her wrist. 
The thrum of her pulse increased as his mouth descended, her breaths
quickening.  He placed her hand against his chest and wrapped his arms around
her.

“Easy
as pie if you know what you’re doing,” he said as his head dipped towards her.

“And
do you know what you’re doing?”  The question came out a little breathless.

“You
tell me.”

He
kissed her upturned face, swallowing her reply.  The first time they’d kissed
in front of a sink it had been spontaneous and unfamiliar.  Now her lips felt
like a dream, like coming home, a part of him that had been missing.  His
tongue coaxed her mouth open as her hands came around his shoulders.  He knew
what she wanted and lifted her off the ground, their faces level as her elbows
rested against him. 

Dustin
didn’t know how long they stood there, reclaiming old memories, or how long
they would have, if the timer hadn’t gone off.  He reached a hand over to stop
it but didn’t put her down right away.

“You’re
burning your tarts,” Faith said with a grin, prompting her release.  She leaned
against the counter as he opened the oven.  “Hmm, maybe you don’t know what
you’re doing.”

“You’re
going to pay for that,” he said.

“Am
I?”

“Oh
yeah,” he said with an impish grin, “I’m not going to give you any of these.”

“But
I bled for them.”

Dustin
shrugged a shoulder and hid a smile at the aggrieved look on her face.  Faith took
a towel from the counter and snapped it at him, connecting with his hip.  He
reached out for it, but she skirted out of his grasp and snapped it again,
laughing.  He finally grabbed the end of it and pulled her towards him, placing
a quick kiss on her lips.  “I could be persuaded to change my mind.”

“Oh
really?” She raised an eyebrow at him before looking away at the shells on the
oven.  Her hand slipped under his shirt and made its way to his ribs, the exact
spot she knew he liked to be stroked.  Her touch had too many wicked thoughts
running through his mind.

“Maybe
you can have one,” he said.  She stood on her tiptoes and placed her lips just
under his ear.  “Or two.”

Faith
knocked lightly on the door as she opened it, not giving him a chance to refuse
her entry.  Dustin looked up from the bed with surprise.  There was a book
leaning against him, obscuring his bare chest, but he obviously hadn’t been
reading it. 

“You
came to me last night,” she said, crossing the room to kneel on the corner of
his bed, as far away from him as possible, “I figured it was my turn.”  After
waiting over an hour for him to come to her.  He’d demanded she stay; she
wasn’t planning on staying alone.

He
closed his book.  “What are you wearing?”

“Harmony
gave them to me.  See this one here?”  She pointed at her calf, on it a
superhero with purple hair to match her purple outfit.  “This person is
currently staying in my guest room.  It’s a little weird to wear clothes with my
friend’s face on it.”

“Tell
me about it,” he murmured.  He had bought every single piece of her merchandise
when she was in that girl group.  She’d seen her face staring back from his and
Peter’s chests too many times to count.  And their slogan.

Their
eyes met, and his mouth curved in an impish grin.  “Pucker up.”

“Oh
yeah?” she asked, surprised at the words but only attitude in her smirk.  She
shouldn’t have been though – that’s where her mind had gone too.

“Yeah,”
he said, moving his book to the nightstand and crawling towards her.  She
shrugged before leaning forward to meet him halfway.  She stopped with only a
whiff of space between them, running her tongue across her bottom lip in
anticipation.

Dustin
slipped a hand behind her head, into her unruly red curls, and pulled her
slowly towards him until their foreheads touched.  His hot breath wafted across
her check, sending shivers of anticipation, of need, screaming through her. 
She closed her eyes against the sensation, and that’s when he closed the little
space between them and kissed her.

His
lips were soft, unsteady for a moment before his tongue darted out to run along
her smile, exploring the curve and coaxing her mouth open to him.  He changed
the angle, deepening the kiss and capturing the small moan she couldn’t stop
from escaping.  When she pulled away, his teeth still nibbling along her bottom
lip, she could see the look of satisfaction on his face.

He
leaned back against the pillows and studied her with a raised eyebrow.  “Why
are you all the way over there?” he asked, motioning her over.  A small shot of
relief spread through her as she slipped into bed beside him; rejection always seemed
to remain a possibility between them. 

He
had asked her to stay; that was the opposite of rejection.  And they’d fallen
into a comfortable routine after that.  A cooking lesson with simple caresses
and quick kisses.  Peter and Harmony had made themselves scarce until the smell
of tarts filled the house, and then they’d descended.  It wasn’t hard to see
their happiness at this new comfortable demeanor, the house no longer a
battlefield. 

Dinner
was more of the same, full of laughter and sly looks.  They regaled Harmony
with stories of the old days.  They tried to stay away from anything too
romantic, but Faith shared too many conspiratorial glances with Dustin,
remembering things that Peter didn’t know.  She’d sat in her room, waiting for
Dustin to come to her, and thought about what Peter had said.  Was there any
part of Dustin and Faith still intertwined?

Faith
laid her head against his chest, right over his heartbeat, as his hand curved
around her hip, his thumb making lazy circles.  She draped an arm around him as
he murmured, “Peter said he’d give me a black eye if I slept with you again.”

“The
Panda is cock-blocking me?”

Dustin
laughed, and she held him a little tighter, like a moth to a flame.  His other
hand came to rest against her, brushing fingertips along the arm wrapped around
his chest.  “I’ve been told no one in the house needs their carnal education
expanded.  If I have any ideas, I’m to go outside.”

She
shivered, and he pulled the comforter up over them.  “Outside?  It’s cold out
there.  No thank you.”

“Since
when are you opposed to outside?”  She heard the teasing in his voice as he
raised her hand and laid a kiss against the inside of her wrist.  She knew the
memory he was thinking of and shivered for a completely different reason.

“Thirty-year-old
women are no longer turned on by the beds of pickup trucks.”

“Pity. 
Thirty-year-old men have plenty of them.”  His lips brushed against a curl on
the crown of her head.  “You were turned on by my truck?”

“Not
nearly as much as the man in it.”

“I
was quite a catch, wasn’t I?” 

Faith
laughed at that.  “Oh, the catchiest.”

“Peter’s
probably still a little heartbroken you chose me.”  His lips rested against her
temple, and her heart started beating faster.

She
knew Dustin was looking at her, could feel his eyes on her, but didn’t move. 
“I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“Really?” 

“Yes,
really.  I am exhausted after last night; I can barely keep my eyes open.  I
just want to sleep.”  She paused for a moment before adding, “With you.”  Stay
wrapped up in his arms where it was safe and warm and peaceful.  She hadn’t
felt so relaxed in years.  Nights had always been the best, when they could
just be and shut out everyone and everything else that followed them during the
day.

“I
can probably swing that,” he said after a moment, turning off the lamp and
plunging the room into darkness.

She
sighed with gratitude, nestling herself closer.  His fingers still caressed her
arm, hypnotically lulling her to sleep.  She was close to surrendering when he
whispered, “What do you think she would have been like?”

Faith
was too relaxed to stiffen, the comment not completely unexpected.  “Exactly
like you, I think.”

“Stubborn.”

“Kind,”
she elaborated.  “Adventurous.  Lover of nature and the outdoors.  One hell of
a time trying to get her off a horse.”

“Curls
just like you.  Blond ones,” he added, “and the same smile that I can never
refuse.  Your singing voice.  Hopefully not your fashion sense.”

Faith
smiled at the teasing tone of his voice, so different than the one he’d had the
last time they discussed her.  “What’s wrong with my fashion sense?”

“The
last magazine looked like a fabric store threw up.”

“So
a tomboy then, completely unimpressed with the world of fashion or her mother
the pop star.”

“Her
favorite color would be yellow,” Dustin said.

“Her
favorite color would be dirt,” Faith corrected.  He chuckled at that.  “She’d
be thick as thieves with every single animal she came across.  I imagine a few
frog pond rescues sneaking their way into the house, aided and abetted by your
nieces of course.”

“They
would have loved her,” he murmured.

“Of
course – everyone would.”

He
didn’t respond, and Faith wondered if he’d fallen asleep.  Just as she was
about to drift off, he spoke again.  “How is it possible to miss something I
never had?” he asked softly, his voice full of emotion.

“You
had her,” Faith answered in a whisper.  “Just for nowhere near long enough.”

Faith
awoke feeling content and incredibly well-rested.  Dustin was a column of
warmth at her back, their hands clasped together against her chest.  She’d fallen
asleep in his arms, and they were still wrapped around her, making her feel
like something good had come out of her vulnerability.  It had been the first
time she had ever voiced thoughts of their child; ten years of silence broken,
and she felt freed.

Lips
brushed softly against her shoulder.  “Morning,” Dustin murmured.

“Morning,”
she responded, with a smile he couldn’t see.  His fingers moved beneath hers as
he tried to shift away.  She hooked her ankle around his and pulled their
tangled legs closer.  “No, no, no.  I’m comfortable.  Don’t move.”

He
chuckled, his breath wafting across her neck, and she shivered.  “My arm is
asleep underneath you.”

“But
I’m cozy, and you’re so warm.”

“I’ll
still keep you warm.  I promise.”

She
sighed in response, and he moved, laying her back against the bed in the warm
pocket where he had just been. He shook out his arm then propped himself up on
his side beside her.  He released her hand and pulled the comforter up over
them both.  “Isn’t this cozy?”

“Yes,”
she said, not taking her eyes off him.  His fingers skimmed over her hair
before continuing down her arm, their gazes never faltering. 

And
then all at once, as if a shade lifted, everything was clear.  A hard-working
family man committed to building things.  An expressive singer struggling to
find the place she belonged.  The artist and the anchor.  They saw each other
as they were, simply but with resounding clarity, past the persona she always
wore to the person she was underneath.  And with unquestionable possibility.

Tears
sprung to her eyes, and he shushed her, wiping them away as they fell.  He let
his forehead rest against hers, closing his eyes against the power of the
moment.  Something had changed, something they couldn’t explain, but they both
knew it.

Dustin
ran his knuckles along her jaw, letting his thumb rest against her chin.  He
parted her lips ever so slightly before kissing her, his touch both gentle and
commanding.  Faith wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tender hug
when their lips parted.  Letting her embrace tell him all the ways that she was
sorry, all the ways that she was wrong, just as his kiss had.

Peter
looked up from the kitchen counter towards the stairs, and his heart stuttered
in surprise.  Dustin and Faith were coming down, together, still in their
pajamas looking both well-rested and content. 

“Good
morning,” he said, confusion lacing his tone.

“Good
morning,” Faith answered, coming forward to survey the food he’d laid out. 
Dustin stopped beside her, and it looked suspiciously like his hand settled on
her lower back.  Peter tried to catch his brother’s eyes, but he was not
complying.  “This looks delicious.”

“Thanks.”

Faith
shivered slightly, running her hands up and down her arms.  “Are you cold?” Dustin
asked.

“A
little,” she responded with a smile.

“Here,”
he said, removing his shirt and handing it to her.  Peter’s mouth dropped open
as she pulled it over her head with a grateful look.  Dustin pulled a stool out
for her, and she took a seat, propping her feet up on the one next to it.

A
timer went off, and Peter turned to grab the coffee cake out of the oven.  What
was going on?  What year was this?  Was he still asleep?  He peeked over his
shoulder to look at them.  Faith grabbed a slice of bacon, broke it in half,
and offered some to Dustin.  His hand was definitely stroking her back as he
took it, and she leaned into him, against his bare chest, as she ate. 

Ten
years Peter had been treating this day the same way – waiting on Dustin, always
close to breaking, trying to chase the haunted look out of his eyes with
exhaustion, trying to forget.  But he had been wrong; they both had. 
Remembering, it seemed, had brought the peace Dustin had been searching for. 
And maybe something more.

Peter
set the pan on the counter and stared at them.  They smiled back at him, their
free hands tracking back together, fingers entwined.  He started to speak but
was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs.  “Good morning, all!” 

“Morning,
Peaches,” Peter responded with a pointed look at his twin.  Dustin grabbed a
hoodie from the jacket hook and slipped it on, zipping it all the way up.

“Good
morning, Harm,” Dustin said as he reached for the carafe of orange juice. 
Harmony had just stopped at Peter’s side, and he felt her stiffen in shock at
those words.  This morning was never good, the greeting never verbalized, the
tone never light.  Her eyes got wide, and she looked at her father.  He knew
what she was thinking; he was thinking the exact same thing.

“I
didn’t realize how hungry I was until I smelled all this good stuff,” Faith
said.

Dustin
smiled at her as he handed her a plate.  “Peter makes the best breakfasts. 
You’d love his chocolate raspberry French toast.”

“Oh
my God, I would.”

Her
eyes met his, and she smiled sincerely.  “Be nice to the Panda, and maybe I’ll
make it for you some time,” Peter said. 

“Want
to meet any musicians?  I also know a superhero or two.”  Her eyes sparkled
with joy, and Peter knew why his brother had spent a decade trying to forget
her.  An invitation impossible to resist lounged behind them.  Peter watched as
she looked at Dustin, and they shared a smile.  He couldn’t stop himself from
smiling either.