38. Hildy #2
There was a faint pressure, followed an instant later by the relief of the band loosening.
“Smooth.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
“Department store mannequin?”
“My apartment is full of them. I hope you don’t mind a little competition.” His arms came around her from behind so she could feel his laughter against her back.
Being wrapped up in Walter made her whole body feel like softened wax. She’d been right to think they needed to shed those last scraps of restraint, so they could finally come together like this, skin to skin, slow and careful so they both knew it was a deliberate choice, not a momentary madness.
Or maybe her libido talked a good game when all it really wanted was to get him naked. Sometimes Hildy was a mystery even to herself.
Whatever. It was working out well. “The end justifies the means.”
He kissed the back of her neck, a slow press of breath and lips. “I’m glad you think so.”
When the rest of Hildy’s clothes had joined Walter’s in a pile on the floor, she turned in his arms, watching him lose the battle not to stare at her breasts. She hadn’t really expected him not to enjoy her body, but Walter’s transparent admiration felt like bathing in milk and honey.
“Hildy.” He pressed his face against the curve of her neck, inhaling deeply. “I’m afraid you’re going to wreck me. In a whole new way.”
She knew exactly what he meant. Because it wasn’t just today they were looking at. Once they broke through the dam of old wounds, the only thing stopping them was … them.
“I don’t want to screw this up,” she whispered, as if that would keep him from hearing the vulnerability in her voice.
“Sex?”
“All of it.”
Walter shook his head. “It’s you and me, Hildy.”
“What does that mean?” If he was referring to their track record, it wasn’t exactly an auspicious sign.
“Have you ever felt this way about anyone else?” He looked right into her eyes.
“No.” There wasn’t even a close second.
“Me neither.” Walter slid his hands down to grasp her hips. When he pulled her closer, a familiar heat flared, her body craving more of his touch. “Don’t think of it as a shocking twist. Maybe we were always headed for this moment.”
“It took us long enough.” Hildy shook her head at the thought of their mutual bumbling. “What were we thinking?”
“Maybe the problem is that we weren’t thinking.”
“Or thinking too much.” The back-and-forth felt like slipping on a favorite sweater.
Walter took her hand, turning it over to press a kiss to her palm. “Hildy.”
“Walter.” She tried to copy his inflection but wasn’t sure it had the same panty-melting effect.
He brushed his lips over the pulse point in her wrist. Was he planning to dismantle her inch by inch?
“Are you teasing me?” she demanded. “I thought we put that behind us.”
“This is the fun kind of teasing. Not that it wasn’t fun before,” he added, when she started to protest.
Hildy summoned her sternest expression. “Okay, but we don’t have all day.”
“I’ve been waiting half my life for this. I was planning to take my time.” As if to illustrate, he gently bit her earlobe.
“What if we get interrupted? Again.” It felt weirdly freeing to mention the past so casually after all these years pretending their history was dead and buried.
He wrapped his arms around her, lips finding hers in an open-mouthed kiss. “We should have a few hours at least. It’s still early.”
“How about this?” Hildy countered, holding his chin in place with her thumb and forefinger. “One time fast so I don’t lose my mind, and then you can go slow.”
“If that’s what you want.”
She should have known he was capitulating too easily. It turned out Walter was humoring her when he promised not to make her wait. Then again, it was hard to complain while reclining on a bed of rose petals as he kissed his way down her body.
Hildy felt like a goddess. Except this goddess was very much on the physical plane as opposed to floating in some distant Olympus.
A goddess on vacation! She thought of a line from the old-fashioned wedding vows that had always struck her as surprisingly racy for a church: with my body, I thee worship.
As his mouth ventured to ever more sensitive places, she felt cherished—and insanely turned on. “Walter.”
“Hmm?”
“What are you doing?”
“Living out my teenage dreams.”
That distracted her. “Is it— I mean, am I like you imagined?”
He lifted his head. “How could the real you ever be less than the fantasy?”
“I don’t know. But I’m kind of a competitive person.”
Walter grinned. “You don’t say.”
“Just trying to be honest.”
His palm traced the curve of her waist. “Nothing compares to the Hildy I can touch. The Hildy whose heart I can hear beating.” He brought his cheek to rest against her chest. It probably sounded like she had a hummingbird trapped inside her rib cage.
“What if you let me be in charge?” Walter lifted his head to kiss her collarbone. “Just for a few minutes? Then you can go back to ruling the world.”
It was an intriguing proposition, especially when his tongue flicked the hollow at the base of her throat.
Walter hadn’t told her to calm down or loosen up.
He was offering to take care of her, because he understood how she was wired.
When was the last time Hildy had yielded control to someone else?
Somehow she knew this wasn’t a power play.
Walter wasn’t trying to score a point or assert his dominance.
He was asking her for permission. Could she rely on him to take over for a little bit, so she could concentrate on the feeling of his mouth traveling inch by torturous inch from her hip to the delicate bones of her ankle?
What would it feel like to let go?
Walter sat back at the end of the bed, settling her leg on his lap. His thumbs massaged the ball of her foot as if he knew she was still holding on to a last thread of tension and was determined to work out every scrap of resistance. “What do you say, Hildy?”
It took a few seconds for her to access her verbal abilities. “About what?”
He kissed her instep. “Do you trust me?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? The big one, lurking behind everything else two people might ask each other.
She felt a fleeting impulse to close her eyes or turn her head, going inward to avoid his searching gaze, but it wasn’t time to hide.
There was no more winning or losing side, no advantage to claim. They were in this together.
After all these years, the answer turned out to be simple.
She smiled at him. “I do.”
They both knew how powerful those two little words could be.