Chapter 26 The Taste of Morning
His fingers moved first.
Not with the desperate urgency of that night against her apartment wall, when the world was ending and they had nothing to lose. This was slower. Deliberate. The tremor in his right hand wasn't from weakness—it was from reverence.
Marlene felt his calluses drag across her hip. The ridge of her pelvis. The soft skin of her inner thigh.
"You're shaking," she whispered.
"I know."
"Good shaking or bad shaking?"
His answer was a breath that caught somewhere in his throat.
His fingers traced the seam of her underwear—cotton, plain, the drugstore kind she'd bought in Germany when she still didn't know if he was alive.
The fabric was damp. She'd been damp since the moment she'd pulled his shirt over his head and seen the lamplight catch the hollows of his chest.
"Good," he finally said. "Good shaking."
She parted her thighs. Just slightly. An invitation. His fingers slipped beneath the elastic.
The first touch was electric.
Marlene's spine arched off the mattress. Her hand—the one draped across his chest—curled into a fist against his sternum. She felt his heartbeat kick beneath her knuckles.
"Marlene." Her name came out of him like a prayer. "You're so—"
"I know."
"Wet. You're so wet."
"I've been wet since the hearing. Since you wheeled yourself into the center aisle and told the whole courtroom you wanted to survive."
Her voice cracked on the word survive. "I've been wet since you handed me that letter in Landstuhl. Since the voicemail. Since the moment you walked into my diner and ordered coffee at midnight."
His fingers explored her. Not pushing inside yet—just tracing. Mapping. Learning the shape of her with his eyes closed and his jaw slack.
"Tell me if I hurt you," he said.
"You won't."
"My hand—the tremor—"
"Gideon." She caught his wrist. Pressed his palm flat against her. Held it there. "Feel that? That's me. That's what you do to me. That's been there since Oklahoma, and it's still here, and it's not going anywhere. So stop worrying about your hand."
His breath shuddered out of him. His fingers curled. One slipped inside her—just the tip, just enough to make her gasp—and then withdrew, slick and glistening in the lamplight.
"Look at that," he whispered.
She looked. His index finger shone.
"That's you," she said. "That's what I want."
"I want—" He swallowed. "I want to taste you."
The words landed between them and stayed there.
"No one's ever—" She stopped. Started again. "I've never—"
"I know. You told me. The first night." His thumb found her clit. Circled it. Once. Twice. Three times. Her hips bucked. "You told me no one had ever touched you the way I did. No one had ever made you feel the way I did."
"I remember."
"Then let me." His voice was raw. Not demanding. Not desperate. Just raw. "I can't do everything I used to do. I can't pick you up. I can't press you against a wall. But I can do this. Please. Let me do this."
Marlene looked at him—at the sharp jaw, the wet brown eyes, the scar on his collarbone that had caught her attention the very first night.
His left arm lay useless at his side. His legs were dead weight beneath the sheets.
But his right hand was still her, his fingers still moving, and his face—his face was the face of a man who had spent three years believing he would never touch anyone again.
"How?" she asked. "How do you want me?"
His breath caught. "I—" He looked at the bed. At her body. At his own. "I can't move much. But if you—if you came up here. If you—" His jaw worked. "If you sat on my face."
The words were rough. Unpracticed. She'd never heard him say anything like it before.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"I've never been more sure of anything."
"Your breathing—the sling—"
"The sling's off. My breathing's fine. My face works." A ghost of a smile. "That's the one thing that still works. Remember?"
She remembered. She remembered everything.
Marlene rose onto her knees. The lamplight caught the curves of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the damp patch darkening her underwear. She hooked her thumbs into the elastic. Dragged the fabric down her thighs. Kicked it free.
His eyes tracked every movement.
"Tell me if it's too much," she said. "Your chest. Your spine. Tell me and I'll stop."
"I won't tell you to stop."
"You don't know that."
"I know." His right hand reached for her. Found her hip. Guided her. "I've been dreaming about this since Landstuhl. Since the voicemail. Since I thought I was dying and the only thing I regretted was never getting to taste you."
She straddled his chest first. Carefully.
The mattress dipped beneath her knees. His skin was warm beneath her thighs—warmer than she'd expected, the heat of his body radiating up through her.
She braced one hand on the headboard. The other she kept on his shoulder, her thumb pressed to his collarbone scar.
"Higher," he murmured.
She rose. Shifted. Her knees bracketed his head now, her hands gripping the headboard. She could feel his breath on her inner thighs—warm, uneven, trembling.
"Gideon—"
"Lower."
She lowered herself. An inch. Another. His breath hitched. She felt it.
Then his mouth found her.
Marlene's head fell back. Her spine bowed. The headboard creaked beneath her grip.
He was tentative at first. Exploratory. His tongue traced the shape of her like he was learning a new language—one stroke at a time, one sound at a time.
The sounds she made were not words. They were nothing like words.
They were sharp and breathless and rising, and she couldn't have stopped them if she tried.
"Like that," she gasped. "Right there. Right—"
His tongue flattened. Broadened. Found her clit and stayed there.
She bucked. His right hand clamped onto her hip, steadying her. His left arm stayed at his side, but his fingers twitched—she saw them from the corner of her eye—as if even that useless limb was trying to reach for her.
"More," she whispered. "Please. More."
He gave her more. His tongue circled. Pressed. Flicked. His breath came in hot bursts against her skin. The tremor in his hand had stopped—or maybe she'd stopped noticing, because everything had narrowed to the point where his mouth met her body.
The bedroom disappeared. The duplex disappeared.
The hearing and the restraining order and the forty-eight hours and the subpoenas—all of it dissolved into the wet, rhythmic sound of his tongue and the creak of the headboard and the way he said her name against her skin like it was the only word he remembered.
"I dreamed about this," he said, pulling back for a breath. His lips glistened. His eyes were wild. "In the hospital. In Germany. I dreamed about you. Like this. Just like this."
"Don't stop."
"I'm not going to stop. I'm never going to stop." His mouth found her again. His tongue slid inside her—deep, searching—and then back to her clit. His hand tightened on her hip. "Come for me. Please. I need to feel it. I need to know—"
His voice broke.
She came.
Not a wave. Not a crash. A slow, rolling unspooling that started at the base of her spine and radiated outward—through her stomach, her thighs, the arches of her feet.
She arched back. Her grip on the headboard went white-knuckled.
A sound ripped out of her that she didn't recognize—a sob, a cry, his name tangled in something primal.
He didn't stop. His tongue kept moving through her climax—gentler now, softer now—milking every last tremor until she sagged forward and pressed her forehead to the headboard.
"Oh god," she breathed. "Oh god, Gideon."
His voice came from between her thighs, muffled and reverent. "I felt that. I felt all of that."
She lifted herself off him. Collapsed onto the bed beside him. Her body was liquid. Her mind was static. Her thighs were slick with him—with her—with both of them.
He turned his head on the pillow. His face was wet. His eyes were wet. But he was smiling—a real smile, the first she'd seen since the diner, since the deployment, since everything.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi."
"That was—" He swallowed. Licked his lips. "I don't have words."
"Then don't use them." She reached for him. Her hand found his chest. His heartbeat. Still steady. Still strong. "Just be here. Just be with me."
"I'm here." He covered her hand with his. "I'm not going anywhere."
The furnace cycled on. The streetlamp flickered outside the window. The November dark pressed against the glass, but inside the duplex—inside the bed, inside the circle of lamplight—there was only warmth.
"Now we know," Marlene murmured.
"Know what?"
"That part of you works too."
His laugh was quiet and raw and beautiful. "I guess it does."