26. Bonnie #3
I make a sound I would be embarrassed by anywhere else.
He answers it with a rough one of his own, low in his throat, right by my ear, and that sound goes through me worse than anything his body is doing.
My heel slips on the sheet. My thigh starts to cramp and I don’t care.
I rub myself under his hand and say his name, and he says mine back.
He says other things, that he thinks about this in the truck, that he thinks about it at the barn, that he wants me every single day.
“Say it again.”
“I want you.” His thrusts lose their rhythm. “Every damn day, Bon.”
I come with my hand trapped under his and his cock deep inside me and my other hand in his hair. I bite his shoulder. My legs shake. I say something that is probably not a word.
He follows me. His face changes, his eyes shut, and he shudders against me with a sound I have missed for months without letting myself think about it.
Then he lies heavy on me, and I let him. I keep touching his arm so he understands I do not want him to move away.
He kisses my hair, then my cheek when I turn toward him. I lie close without trying to arrange my body into the shape it had before pregnancy. He draws the quilt over us and leaves his hand where I can reach it.
For several minutes we say very little. His heart is slowing under my ear.
The radiator ticks. His breath stirs the hair above my ear, and I match it without meaning to, in and out, until I am nearly asleep.
I have spent months explaining what hurts.
The quiet after pleasure is a relief I did not know to ask for.
I move his arm where I want it and settle more comfortably against him. He lets me arrange us, then kisses the top of my head.
“I thought I might cry,” I admit.
He moves enough to look at me. “Do you want to?”
“No. That’s what’s surprising me.”
He smiles, and I press my face against him for a moment because I cannot bear how tender I feel and how much I like it.
“I liked that,” I say into his chest. It comes out shy, and he laughs, and the laugh moves under my cheek.
My ears go hot, and I stay where I am. I was braced for something complicated.
I have spent so long wondering whether I could let him close that I barely considered what I would do if I enjoyed myself.
Now I keep thinking of things I could tell him, then deciding to enjoy the memory privately a little longer. I lift my head for another kiss.
He gives me one.
“Was that for anything?” he asks.
“I wanted it.”
“That’s a good reason.”
I trace the seam in the quilt beside his hand. This is the same quilt Beryl sent from Texas. I cried when I unpacked it. For a long time I slept with one edge tucked beneath me so the bed would feel less large.
I do not tell him that tonight. I pull the edge over his shoulder because he has given me too much of it, and he draws me closer until we both fit beneath it.
Outside, somebody closes a car door. We listen to Cleo calling goodbye to a boarder. The sound brings the cottage back around us, with its ordinary evening continuing while we lie here.
My thigh jumps where it cramped. He feels it against his hip, and his palm closes warm over the muscle.
“How long’s that been going?”
“Since you put my hand between us.”
“You should’ve said.”
“I didn’t want you to stop.”
He works his thumb in above my knee until the muscle lets go. My breath leaves me in one long, unsteady line, and my toes curl against his shin. Sweat is cooling at the small of my back. My pillow smells of him already.
“I want this again,” I say. “Soon. I don’t want to wait a month for it.”
His thumb stops moving. “Say when.”
“When I can get another evening. I’ll ask Cleo tomorrow.”
“Ask her.” He says it into the damp hair at my temple, and his voice comes out rough. “I thought about you the whole drive over tonight. I went straight past your lane and had to turn around in somebody’s gate.”
My face goes hot all over again. I hide it against his neck, and he lets me stay there.
Gage shifts his shoulder and winces.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing serious. I’ve been lying on my own arm because I didn’t want to move you.”
“Next time, shove me over.”
“I liked where you were.”
I move enough for him to get comfortable, then return to nearly the same place. His relief is so obvious that I kiss his shoulder in sympathy.
“We’re going to have to get up eventually.”
Neither of us moves. I close my eyes and let him hold me until I am ready to open them again.
Then he says, “I should’ve made more bread.”
I begin laughing and cannot stop. He looks toward the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
“A little.”
“There are crackers.”
“I’m not getting up yet.”
I move closer. “Good.”
Later, we get up and find the crackers. We eat them standing in the kitchen, wearing clothes we put on without much care. He washes the dinner plates while I dry them. I bump his shoulder with mine because I want to, and he turns to kiss me with soap still on his hands.
When I go next door for Cricket, he comes with me. Cleo gives me the baby and asks only whether dinner was good. I tell her it was. Gage admits about the bread himself, and Cleo looks pleased with him.
Back at the cottage, he stays while I put Cricket down for the night. He kisses us both before going to his own house. I kiss him at the door for longer than a goodbye requires, then watch him walk to the truck.
In bed, I leave the quilt the way we rumpled it. I am still smiling when I turn out the lamp.