18. Blue
blue
The tea went cold. It went cold because Wolfe held me in his arms as though he never meant to let go, and the angsty spikes that had formed inside me as I’d watched him take off on his snowmobile in the icy cold air, spikes that had been folding in on themselves and reforming, a phalanx in my gut, was turning in on itself with plans to go away forever.
You’re exactly the someone, I’d told him. And he would be, even if my memory came back. I hoped it never did.
“What are we—” Wolfe began.
I pulled back to look at his face. To see the tasks count themselves behind his eyes because that’s who he was. He was going to earn money to buy a lace cutter, each step in the plan following along in an orderly fashion. That’s how he kept his world together. The work that kept his hands busy.
And here I was. A stranger who he’d opened his doors to.
Who he’d sheltered and fed and taken care of.
I cupped my hands around his face, a little cool to the touch.
Watched his eyes flicker half shut, as if he were prepared to hold his breath for a long, dark time.
Where maybe he imagined I was gone and he was all alone.
“I should get my special order off the snowmobile,” he said with a sharp gasp, as though he was reaching for anything he could cling to.
“Will it keep?” I asked. He was still shivering. He was chilled through. No matter what was on the snowmobile, I didn’t want him going back out into the cold, not yet.
“Yes.” His eyes flickered again. “It’s just stuff.”
I didn’t care that he’d been to jail, though I didn’t imagine there were words that could convey this that he would believe. He’d been so despondent telling me his truths. As if the wound of my going were already fresh.
“Then let it keep.” I felt wiser than him in that moment.
Knowing everything could wait. I wanted it to wait.
And I wanted him warm. I stood up and pulled him to his feet.
He was careful with me, looming over me by half a foot, even in his socked feet.
Shoulders wider. Stance heavier. Thighs thicker.
As I looked up at him, his eyes softened.
“Come on,” I said, and led him the short distance to his bedroom, where the bedclothes were still rumpled, the blinds half drawn, slivers of sunlight laced with slats of darkness.
“We should talk,” he said, pulling back, resisting.
“We did talk,” I said, tugging.
We stood in the open doorway of the bedroom, the air still, musty with sleep.
“I know everything about you,” I said. “Everything. Everything important.”
In his eyes was his response. That he didn’t know everything about me, and neither did I.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “I left home. I must have left home for a reason.”
He winced as though I’d struck him. Seemed intent on pulling away.
“Maybe I left to find you,” I said, my voice cracking wet over the words.
“Are you fey, now?” he asked, touching my cheek, his eyes softening. He must have seen confusion on my face, because he added, “That we were fated to meet?”
It seemed foolish to hear it out loud like that.
But if it kept him near, kept him from pulling away, as though the workshop had more to interest him, I would say it.
A hundred times I would declare it. And it had to be true in a way.
That I’d been on a train and fallen off where he could find me.
Fallen there and not anywhere else. Found by him and not by anybody else.
I slid the flannel shirt off his shoulders. Tugged the Henley from the waistband of his jeans. He stood still for me, watching me with careful eyes, breath hard in his chest. A sudden pause, and then his cool hands were on my arms.
I thought he meant to stop me, to stop what had started between us.
He reached for his shirttails and pulled the Henley off, then pulled my t-shirt off and hugged me close to himself with a sigh.
He shuddered as he breathed. I tucked my face into his neck as I felt the warmth of my body soak into him.
This was what I’d wanted, without having specifics to guide me, this closeness. His fingers along the back of my neck beneath my hair. The sigh that followed his swift kiss on my temple.
His hands went to my hips, clasping them. Holding me still, as if he wanted to absorb the moment.
“I would never hurt you,” he whispered in my ear.
“I know.”
Movements soft. Touches slow. He held me to him as he kicked off his jeans.
His bare thighs felt cool to my hands, his arm around my waist as, shivering, he pulled me into bed, sloughing off my sweatpants as he went.
Our legs tangled, his feet were freezing.
I didn’t move away. Moved instead into the curve of his body, tugging at the waistband of his briefs.
“Where’s your underwear?” he asked, whispering the words against my skin, his hands on my naked hips.
“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t care.
He touched me gently, his hand moving up my waist, the coolness of his skin turning to warmth, heat building between our bodies.
I managed to get his briefs off, but only because he let me.
I tossed them to the floor, somewhere. We’d find them later.
What mattered more was the scent of him, musky, low, up close, and the tender, sweet sweep of his lips across mine.
I felt he was sensing me, learning me inch by inch, and surely had I any memory at all, the memory this was making right now was emblazoned with gold.
“Can I?” he asked.
My heart was beating so hard in my chest, a rhythm so fast, that when I opened my mouth, no words came out.
With my arms around his neck, I pulled him close.
Felt the muscles in his chest against mine, the broad span of his shoulders.
I could feel the slight curve of his belly, and the scratch of pubic hair. Into my hollow places, all of him came.
“Yes,” I said, managing only a single word. “Anything.”
He tipped me onto my back, looming over me, his hand between my legs, thick fingers around my cock, gentle and cool around my heat. His strokes were slow. Sure. Slick with the moisture coming from the tip. A flip of his finger around the crown. Repeated.
The sounds coming from me, they were not words.
It was as though he was casting a spell or weaving a prayer into my skin.
When I came, the sensation of floating, of flying, washed over me, his face in my neck, kisses to my cheek, his tongue in my mouth, and I knew this memory, the one he and I were making together, would stay with me forever.
My breath came in pants that slowed and went slower, and when I opened my eyes, my hand flung back on the pillow, he was there. Close. Watching me. Making sure of me, or at least that’s what it felt like. A wash of his warm gaze swept over me, feeling like pure love.
“What do you need?” I asked him, the words husky, whispered.
A flick of gaze, his eyes casting away from me. I rolled onto my side, my hand on his cheek.
He didn’t want to ask, perhaps because it would feel like making a deal between us, like he said it had been for him before, and he didn’t want that. I didn’t want it for him, either, so I eased close, half on top of him, the sweat on my ribs making me slip a bit.
His arm came around my waist, hooking me close, and I was still. I could feel his heartbeat, see the moisture on his lower lip from our kisses. And felt his hardness against my thigh, a small bit of cotton top sheet tangled between our bodies.
Had I ever taken a man in my mouth to give him pleasure?
I doubted it, and there certainly were no memories of it, just images of a dark-haired Nimble, somewhere, standing next to a copper-haired Star.
A wind swirling around them as we discussed something.
A destination, maybe. A high bridge. A low valley.
A restaurant with the best sandwiches ever eaten.
Shoving this away, I focused on Wolfe. My fingers in the cluster of chest hair, tugging, bringing his attention to me.
I tugged the top sheet out of the way, and he was naked beneath me, winter pale, dark hair between his strong arms, along his sturdy thighs.
Tufts of dark curls between his thighs. My hand went there, a long stroke along his belly, as I held myself steady, weight on one arm, palm planted in the mattress on the other side of him.
“You don’t have to,” he said. It was almost a grunt.
“I want to.”
Leaning down, scooting back, I sensed him close his eyes, his head pressed into the pillow, one hand reaching for me, the other digging into the top sheet, a handhold in a shifting sea.
Nuzzling his belly, I inhaled his scent, up close, sweet and deep, and traced the line of hair beneath his belly button with my tongue.
Then I tasted him, the wild male taste of him, my tongue at the base of his cock.
The silky skin sizzled against my tongue, wet against dry.
My mouth watered and, letting go of his hand, I curled my fingers around his hardness, running my tongue along his length.
Heard the sound he made, uttered from behind clenched teeth, and thought of all those times, all those men, faceless, nameless, Wolfe’s passion and tenderness a thing to be traded for noodles. It made me want to scream.
Instead, focusing on the moment, I licked a swirl around the head of his cock, tasting the slick that had formed, savoring it, then took him in my mouth. Then pulled off, leaving a trail of spit behind, smiling as the sounds from his throat deepened.
What I was doing would erase what they’d done to him.
I would do it every day to make sure it did.
I licked him up and down, sucked hard and then soft, gripped the base of his cock, and loosened my grip.
Tightened it. His cock was hard and red and he writhed beneath me, head thrown back, mouth open, wordless sighs coming from him.
This was pleasure. This was giving. A new memory I would keep in my heart: this moment between us as he came in my mouth, hard, salty pulses, his thighs trembling, sweaty beneath my palm as I stroked him to soothe him.
I pulled my mouth off gently, swallowing, wiped my chin with the back of my hand and waited a breath, perhaps several, before starfishing over his chest, my head tucked in the curve of his neck, half on his body, half off, hearing him sigh as his breathing slowed.
His arm was around my waist again, tucking me to him, as though making sure I wouldn’t leave. As if I would. As if I would.