Chapter 26 #2
with him; he was witty and charming in his way, and often had a good story to tell. She was so concerned with sorting out
her own emotions and identifying what love was that she’d spent no time considering what friendship with him would look like.
She mostly assumed he’d be riding off into the sunset without her.
But Lee was right. From her end, there was no reason she couldn’t be friendly with Cody. She wished him well.
She felt like she’d found her way into a complicated math problem. She didn’t have a solution, but she could see the path
forward. She could proceed with confidence.
“I said unkind things about you at Juniper,” she said.
“Being harangued by the restless spirit of your dead uncle put you on edge. You weren’t yourself.”
Thora didn’t want to take the easy way out. “Yes but we will face stressful situations. How can I be sure I won’t lash out
again?”
“We can learn from this. When things are feeling high stakes or too much, we figure out a way to turn down the heat.”
“But not so cold you freeze to death.”
Lee smiled. “We don’t have to know exactly what that looks like now. It’ll be a part of what we build together.”
Building something together. This was his refrain and it sounded like her wildest dream. Not one person on the other’s shoulders,
but side by side, with a common goal.
“I thought I was coming here to convince you to give me a chance, and now it sounds like you who’s doing the convincing,”
Thora said.
“Seems like it’s settled then. Can I convince you to come upstairs with me?”
Was it foolish? To sleep with Lee when they were only starting to find their footing?
Hell no. What better way to find her footing than getting off her feet entirely for a while?
Lee took her by the hand and pulled her up the stairs.
His bedroom had gorgeous furniture, all antique. A colonial-style dresser with shiny brass hardware stood on sturdy little
legs. A mirror hung over a side table holding a beautiful porcelain ewer and bowl. And a stunning Jenny Lind bed with turned
spindles at the head and foot invited her in. Lee had sourced a blue coverlet similar to the one from the Blue Room. It made
her instantly nostalgic for what she had only a couple short weeks ago.
This time, she wasn’t sleeping with him to work out some anger, or to claim power amidst the chaos at Juniper. This time,
she wanted to express something tender. But she was also curious about the room.
“Did you restore all this furniture?”
Lee stood straight. “I did. All part of my learning process. Don’t look too closely at anything or you’ll spot the mistakes.
Not too bad for a house painter, huh?”
A wooden bowl on his nightstand caught her eye. She recognized his treasured piece of sea glass, and one of George’s wooden figurines, a little tree person. There were two rocks in the bowl with them.
“What are those?” she asked. She picked the first rock up, a rusty orange chunk with a rough surface. It looked like a fossil
chunk Cody gave her. “I assume Cody gave you this? I have a similar one.”
“He did indeed. It’s a piece of dinosaur bone from the summer we worked on a dig together.”
“Did he sneak them off his digs?” she asked. He was such a rule follower, that Cody; she didn’t think he’d take such a risk,
not for her or for Lee.
“No, he bought them from a rock and gem shop out there. Can you imagine? Free fossils everywhere, practically no oversight,
but he spent money on them for us? Such a goober.”
He was a goober. This rock captured something about him that Thora could also find the charm in. She placed the fossil back
in the bowl and picked up the other rock.
This one was flat and smooth, gray in color, and shaped like a heart. Lee told George in a letter that Thora handed Lee the
heart-shaped rock she pulled from the bottom of Devil’s Cauldron. This must have been the same one, knowing Lee’s sentimental
streak.
“I gave you my heart,” she said.
“You didn’t know it at the time.”
She handed the rock back to him, looking into those expressive eyes of his.
“I’ll do it again. Here, I’m giving you my heart.”
“I’ll take good care of it.”
This man could fix any situation with a single sentence. He should win the Nobel Prize for Literature for these sentences. Novelists wrote volumes, poets wrote epics, trying to express what this man could with these perfect little sentences. She wanted to collect them in a bowl to treasure.
She had a sentence of her own that could do a lot of work. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She felt sure this time. The wanting was there. And she could see the wanting in his eyes as well.
She couldn’t say who kissed who. Their lips were apart, and then they were together. Not with fire or urgency, but definitely
with hunger. He tasted like sweet coffee, or maybe that was her. It was delicious and slow, the way their tongues moved together.
Without breaking the kiss, he guided her to the bed. She lay on her back and he climbed on top of her, propping himself up
on his elbows. She loved how big he was. This close, he was everywhere: his chest against hers, his tongue in her mouth, his
fingers in her hair. She parted her legs to make room for his, and he pressed into her more. There was so much of him, all
hers. She wanted to take good care of his heart, too.
They kissed for what seemed like hours, deep and slow, as Thora let her body do as it willed. Her hands gripped his shoulders.
Her whole body rolled in time with the kisses, pushing herself into him as he grew harder and harder.
Even through the layers of clothing, he was nudging her in a way that took her to maddening heights. All she wanted was to
tear her clothes off so she could have him inside her again. That want was crowding out every other thought in her mind.
“If you don’t fuck me soon, I’m going to scream,” she said, pulling back from him.
“What if I fuck you soon and you scream?” he countered.
First their shirts came off. Thora caught a flash of Lee’s burned hand as he pulled his shirt over his head. She pulled the
hand to her mouth and kissed it.
He responded by taking her scarred hand and kissing it the same way, showing affection to that ghostly countenance on her skin.
“I like our matching scars,” he said.
“You don’t think they’re fucked up?”
“They’re fucked up and I like them.”
Thora pulled him in for another kiss. She was always coming from a place of “despite.” Despite being fat, despite being histrionic,
despite all sorts of things about her, someone might still be able to love her. And here was Lee. Always wanting all of her.
She finally got it.
She held on to the spindles of the bed as he worked his way down her body with his mouth. When he flicked his tongue over
her nipple, she gasped. When he did it again, she turned her head to the side, overwhelmed with the sensation. That’s when
she saw how he’d arranged the mirror in the bedroom. She watched in the mirror as he pulled her nipple into his mouth and
sucked, hard. She saw the pleasure washing over his face.
Then he caught her eye in the reflection.
He held her gaze as he slid down her body, pulling her pants and underwear down her legs. When he buried his face in her,
he broke contact, and so did she, because she closed her eyes as every stroke of his tongue sent waves of pleasure crashing
over her. He looked up again to smile at her, his face glistening from her arousal. The need in her crested. She pulled on
his biceps to bring him back to her face, kissing him.
She’d never tasted herself on someone’s mouth before. It was almost as shocking as seeing herself naked and writhing in the
mirror. She liked it all.
Lee pulled off his own pants and handed Thora the condom. She’d never put one on somebody before, but the high school health class banana lesson was indelible in her mind. She giggled as she rolled it onto his cock. “What’s funny?” he asked.
“I’ve never done this. I had to remember the health class banana.”
He looked down at her work. “You did a great job.”
She’d never laughed like this, naked and vulnerable. Everything felt new with Lee but also as if she didn’t have to be perfect,
because there would be many more chances in the future.
They lay back down as they were before and kissed more. This time, when his cock slid against her, the sensation was more
intense and so good. Every moment of pressure on her clit was opening her to someplace beautiful.
Sometimes they stopped kissing to look at each other from this close, foreheads touching. Lee was striking, those big eyes
she wanted to get lost in, that sly smile he saved for only those closest to him.
When he pushed into her, he did so slowly, letting them both savor every inch. When their bodies were flush against each other,
they stilled for a moment. It felt wondrous, to want something this badly and then to get it, only to find it surpassed every
hope.
He slid his hand between their bodies to touch her, and he started to move. Her eyes fluttered close again as she drank in
the feeling, his fingers circling her most sensitive flesh while filling her full. She could do little more than vocalize,
little gasps and moans at each slow drag in and out.
When he brought his mouth to her nipple again, she turned her head to the side, overwhelmed by the sensation. She caught another
glimpse of him in the mirror.
He was giving everything to her, with his mouth, his hands, his cock, and he was lost in the pleasure of it.
They locked eyes again in the mirror, and he pulled back, smiling.
“Here, get on top,” he said, tugging her by the hips as he fell onto the bed. His feet were directed toward the edge of the
bed nearest the mirror.
“Get on top and look over your shoulder,” he repeated.
She positioned herself atop him and sank onto him, leaning over so her hair circled their faces, a perfectly private little
enclave for the two of them.
She moved her hips, finding her rhythm.
Lee placed his hand between them again. It was hot and slick where their bodies joined, and it felt positively glorious. As