16. Friday
FRIDAY
Several people woke up to shoot the green and lavender haze that made up the summer version of the Northern Lights, and the rest woke only three hours later to capture the first pink light of dawn on the still water.
By the time the boat arrived to pick them up, everyone was sleepy, hungry, and dirty from a night of shooting and curling up in sleeping bags in the woods. Only Kyle looked fully refreshed.
“Didn’t sleep once,” he announced as he followed the other workshop participants aboard the boat. “It’s all about focus.”
“Kyle,” Selassie said from where she was carefully resting her sore ankle on a cushion, “someone is going to murder you one of these days, and I’m not going to stop them.”
Ren announced that they would meet for a final photo review at five, then dinner at a local pub before a last night of shooting at a different beach.
Then he and Sarah drove back to the hotel together through the crisp early morning, stumbled back into their hotel room together, and put down their gear.
“I know I should download my photos,” Sarah said. “But I think I’m showering and then falling asleep.”
“Me, too,” Ren agreed. “But first…”
He stepped her backwards until she was against the wall and kissed her until she felt breathless.
“I’ve wanted to do that all week,” he said.
“Me, too. Every time I entered the room with you, I thought of that time in Las Vegas.”
“Me, too. That was the best kiss of my life.”
She ran her hands through his hair and he pushed her against the wall again, one hand on her waist, the other gently cradling her neck. It was so good that she almost didn’t remember that she was exhausted and tired. And dirty. And probably had sticks in her hair.
He ended the kiss gently before leaning over and whispering in her ear, “You can shower. I’ll put your camera batteries in the charger and get your card reader set up.” It might have been the sexiest thing a man had ever said to her.
When she got out of the shower a few minutes later, wearing her tiger pajamas, Ren had already set everything up for her and had started downloading his own images, too.
“My turn,” he said, standing up.
She crawled into bed. “I may not be awake when you get out,” she said. “But you can sleep in my bed if you want.”
He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, then just nodded once.
She was half-asleep when he finally crawled under the covers next to her and held her against him.
He was wearing a thin t-shirt and pajama pants, and her whole back felt warm when it was pressed against him.
He smelled like soap and like Ren, familiar and perfect.
She turned over, wanting to kiss him forever, her body stirring, but all she managed was to kiss his neck once and snuggle into him before she fell asleep.
She woke to mid-afternoon sunlight, wrapped around him, one leg twisted over his thigh. It should have been impossible to sleep like this, but she had slept deeply and without dreams.
When she stirred, he opened his eyes and smiled.
“What time is it?” he said quietly.
She looked over her shoulder at the clock on the nightstand.
“A little after two in the afternoon.”
“I can work with that,” he said.
“Is there something you have planned?”
He leaned over and slipped one hand gently along her neck and down to her collarbone. “I need to have a closer look at these tiger pajamas, first of all.”
He slid his hand down her waist, caressing her gently with one hand so that she shivered.
“I remember all your outfits,” he continued as he glided one hand along her ribcage. “The velvet coat. The red lace dress. The green corduroy skirt. The nonsensical t-shirt about demonic marshmallows.”
“That was my sexiest t-shirt.”
“I agree.”
As his hands slid over her, she thought of his comparison of sex and woodworking.
It wasn’t that he had perfect moves, exactly.
It was that his hands were exploring her, paying attention to every reaction, every place that made her melt against his touch.
She was afraid to look at how startlingly beautiful his eyes were.
She closed her eyes against his steady gaze.
On impulse, Sarah rolled them over so that she was looking down at him. She knew what she didn’t want, after hearing Ren’s stories. She didn’t want him feeling like he had to prove anything, like he had to act the part of an expert lover.
“I want to touch you first,” she said.
He nodded, looking vulnerable. “Okay.”
“And I want to tell you,” she said softly, “that you are lovable.” And she kissed his cheeks.
“And patient.” She kissed him again. “And you have very strong opinions that I love to hear even when I disagree.” She kissed him on the neck.
“And even though you’ve sometimes hurt me, I have never doubted that you were a good person. ”
He caught one of her wrists with his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Telling you how I feel.”
He took a breath. She’d found the thing that scared him. Being a skilled lover—he was good at that. He wasn’t good at being loved.
She kissed him softly. “And you are supportive of my work and of everybody who shows you their photography. And you’re a good father.
” She kissed him again. “And I don’t mind waiting a year for you to move closer to me.
And if that doesn’t work out, I don’t mind finding a way to move to Las Vegas to be with you. ”
He blinked up at her, then reached for her and pulled her down into a kiss.
“Sarah,” he whispered. There was wonder in his voice, surprise, and joy of arriving here at last. “I’m so scared I’ll mess this up somehow.”
“What part?”
“Everything. Dating you. Going to bed with you.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Someone once told me that sex can be very healing.”
He laughed against her hair. “I can’t believe I tried that line and thought it would work.”
“You mean it’s not true?”
He grinned as he rolled on top of her, taking her wrists and placing them above her head, looking down at her, making her meet his gaze.
“Stay like this for a moment,” he whispered. “I have very specific things that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.”
He kissed down her neck, across her shoulders, and then he paused to take her pajamas off slowly and carefully, taking his time, until she was completely naked and he was looking down at her, taking her in.
He leaned forward and kissed her breasts and let out a low groan that surprised her, like he had been waiting forever to touch her.
Her hands scrambled for the bottom of his t-shirt like she was a teenager, trying to figure out how to get him undressed, and he pulled it off in one swift motion and returned to kissing her, another hand sliding between her legs.
She could feel him still smiling against her skin as she arched her back. “Stop smirking,” she whispered. “You know you’re good at this.”
He leaned into her ear and whispered, “I have to make up for your high school years.”
“Ivan was pretty bad, too,” she whispered back.
He stilled for just a second. “I fucking knew it,” he replied. “I knew it about that guy.” And then his skilled hands were touching her and her whole body arched back.
“We should have been doing this the whole time,” she said.
He nodded.
“Maybe not when you were married,” she added.
“If I’d known how to be with you, I wouldn’t have gotten married.”
His hands didn’t stop touching her until her breath was shallow and her fingers were clutching his shoulders. He watched as her breath grew faster, picking up on every sound she made, every movement. She came in a sudden, sharp crest that echoed out like waves on a pond.
When she came back to herself, he was smiling down at her. “You made a mistake back then too, you know,” he said. “You should have let me make love to you that night. You would never have gotten back together with Ivan if you had.”
“You’re very confident.”
“I’m very confident about belonging with you.”
When he was at last inside her, he pressed his face into her shoulder and kissed her there, looking close to tears.
Beyond the physical sensations, her heart felt so ecstatic just to be with him, to know that they had time, that this wasn’t a one night stand, that this was a beginning rather than a goodbye.
He kept murmuring romantic things into her ear that seemed so deliriously perfect that she struggled to believe he meant them.
Ren was opening his heart at last, and she held his face in hers and kissed him again and again.
She felt the moment that his control slipped, the moment he drove forward until his body shuddered and he collapsed against her.
“That,” she said into his ear, “was a very long time coming.”
He laughed silently.
Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms and she felt pleased to see that he looked as dazzled as she felt, his eyes on the ceiling, one arm carefully tucked around her as if to make sure she couldn’t slip away.
One of his hands grazed her breast like he was fascinated with it.
She had never thought of him as being into women shaped like her; he had always seemed interested in the French gamine types, slender as reeds.
“You never dated anyone who looked like me,” she said after a moment.
“Why would I have wanted someone who looked like Sarah but wasn’t Sarah?”
“I thought you only liked me for my brains.”
He smiled. “If you’re worried that I wasn’t objectifying you, I used to have a whole list of things that I wanted to do to you if you ever broke up with Ivan. Even before I realized I had feelings for you.”
She rolled over to look at him. “When did you know you had feelings for me?”
“It took a few months. It was around the time Ivan forgot your birthday.”