When she peered around the partition, it all flooded back to her. Ah, yes. The man in the kitchen. The fast-becoming-familiar stabs of excitement and butterflies in her belly. Her hair resisted restraint but it was better than the previous explosion by far, and she felt her throat constrict, her mouth go dry, the manic panic, exponential increase in heart rate with each second she spent in direct proximity to him.
The melted-caramel of his skin was not from sun; his ripped-up (and no doubt favorite) jeans rode deliciously low on his boxerless hips, the first half-inch curve of his tight, round posterior exposed, and it was the same toffeelicious bronze as the rest of him.
Time to go, New York Leah warned, alarmed. Time to go RIGHT NOW.
But Puerto Vallarta Leah straddled one of the simple brown chairs at his kitchen table, facing him as he cooked, and he looked back over one bare, already sweat-glistening shoulder, and smiled. The first time she'd seen him genuinely smile. A wide, authentic smile. An irreproachable, blindingly white smile, teeth perfectly straight and gleaming against the golden brown background of his face.
"You didn't have enough to drink to be sick, did you? I'm starving, and I made extra."
“Excellent.”
“You fell asleep,” he said. “Up against my back.” And he turned and looked at her again, and she raped said back with her eyes before meeting his gaze, which was pleasant but this time unsmiling, with this sweet expression, unphased, as if he’d found the experience beautiful. “I was too drunk to do the porch steps so I put you in the extra bed…” He shrugged.
“Glad you did. Quite all right.” He nodded and switched off the stove, the steam from the eggs and bacon rising in a milky haze around him as he shoveled equal portions onto two plates and set one before her. “Thank you.”
And she just…didn’t leave. It was an unspoken agreement. He never asked her to stay, and she never implied that she’d like to. It was as if it was the most natural course of action imaginable. She cleaned up after breakfast and he sat with coffee and watched her. His eyes felt good on her. Felt easy and nonjudgmental and comfortable. They were the blackest eyes she’d ever seen, liquid ebony orbs, moving with the same fluid deliberation and grace as the rest of him. Even just crossing his legs, even just raising his coffee mug to his mouth, even nodding or shrugging or stretching. The man moved with the smooth, measured grace of a dancer. Strange, she thought, since he was built like a linebacker. Strange. But lovely.
Leah used his shower, washed with his soap, leaning against the wall. It was mid-afternoon, even though they’d just finished breakfast, and she wondered what she was doing. What he was doing. He was heart stoppingly attractive, the kind who came into a party and absolutely stopped the conversation, women tripping over each other for a shot at the prize. But it wasn’t uneasy. Again, it was comfortable. Even being completely nude in his home, even handing him her clothes through the cracked-open bathroom door, even wrapping up in his giant white robe and sitting in nothing but, on his white suede sofa. All of it. Comfortable. A settled ease she hadn’t experienced with Peter ever, even after two years of courtship and nine years of marriage.
She couldn’t get enough of looking at him, even as he just bustled around and gathered clean clothes for a shower. He handed her a book and told her to read it while he bathed and she waited for the drier to finish. He said the imagery in the book was astounding.
Astounding. The gravelly curl of his voice over her body as he said that word prompted her mind to repeat it several times as she turned the book over in her hands, smiling softly. Astounding. It was obvious the book had been loved, read repeatedly. The cover was missing, and some of the pages were falling out, and she struggled to read the worn-smooth blurb on the back.
This man had handed her a copy of A Farewell to Arms. And he’d called it astounding.
Twenty years ago in college in England Leah had read this book and had been bored to tears. She had always intended to give it another go, as a reasonably mature adult, but thus far hadn’t made time to do so. She thumbed through it, reading bits and pieces, the aged pages made golden by the light slanting through the giant windows. And as she turned to read the very last page, to cheat and read the ending, a single photograph fluttered to the floor.
A family, of some sort. A big family, and all the members seemed to be of the same age. He was at the center, unsmiling, but the rest of them were laughing. His family. His posse. A tall man with dark hair and eyes, a scrawny teenager with a broad grin and a beer in each hand, a guy in a black ski cap with a tattoo of an Indian chief covering his shoulder, a willowy girl with straight waist-length black hair, an American Glory, captain-of-the-everything-team type with gleaming golden curls, a svelte hellcat in a black leather micro skirt and a silvery tank top with dark hair and well-defined shoulders and biceps. Her smile was reserved, and her eyes were glued on Him.
“Forgot that was in there.” The husky wash of his voice over her body came altogether unexpectedly, and she jumped a little, turned to look up at him. He held out his hand, and the photo gleamed as she placed it in his upturned palm. He glanced at it for a brief moment, then, with a flash of brutal anger, tore it in half, and in half again, slamming the pieces into a little ball. And then, as suddenly as he’d begun, he stopped, staring down at his hands where they were closed over the picture. Slowly he opened them and looked at what he’d done, shaking his head, swallowing hard, meeting her gaze.
“Who are they?” Leah asked quietly, rising to her feet and approaching him tentatively, frightened and saddened in equal amounts by his outburst. He had slipped, suddenly and without warning, into this deep, mute depression. The open despair on his face knifed through her, wounded her to the core, because she was familiar with that hopeless helplessness, with a life gone drastically and bafflingly awry, with lacking the power or conviction or knowledge required to do a damn thing about it. He was trembling, let the bits of obliterated pain drop from his hand and covered his face, sighing shakily and finding his voice.
“I need a drink.”
“I don’t think so, love.” Leah made her voice soft and soothing, taking his hands and pulling them down from over his eyes. It was utterly silent, there in that golden, sun-bathed moment, only their hands touching, her pales locked on the ethnic void of his, her brow creased with an authentic concern, his furrowed by some past injury that she was no longer confident she could remedy. He was so beautiful.
She wanted to make him a beautiful life, a beautiful warm little life for him to be beautiful in, and take it all away. He was so beautiful.His skin absolutely glowed from the lingering heat of a shower and the recent hasty assault of a towel, and he’d shaven his head almost clean bald. Shirtless, the waistline of his boxers glared off of his bronze skin as it peeked over his khaki canvas cargo pants. He shook his head slowly back and forth, drawing a deep breath. And she watched as, with tantalizing hesitation, he moved his hand free of her grasp and tugged one end of the soft white robe tie.
A cool flood of air rushed along her bare body, awakening the perpetually neglected skin of the tops of her thighs, the milky feminine plane of her belly, the rosy buds of her nipples. She watched incredulously, detached, as if from across the room, as he drank her in, as he slipped his hands in between the terry and her torso, as he cradled her ribcage with a compelling tenderness, as the robe was nudged open by his wrists and slipped down over her shoulders, baring them to the warmth of the sun, and catching on the crooks of her arms. It couldn't be happening. It was unreal.
For a moment, as he stood there, as she watched him as he stood there, and as she watched herself as she watched him as he stood there, she wondered, with a dizzy confusion, if perhaps he'd merely undressed her to strip her of her defenses, to make her as vulnerable as she'd made him. But it proved he had not.
His shoulders shape shifted as his grip on her became firm, supportive, and he dipped his head and his whole upper body and pulled one of her nipples into the damp heat of his mouth with practiced, pillowy lips.
And dizzyingly fast, in an abrupt, yanking, downward motion, she was sucked back into her body, wholly and completely, mind and matter slamming together as one and loving it. Her legs went boneless and her hands flew to rest on his forearms as his tongue traced a deliciously rhythmless, maddeningly lazy circle around the throbbing rise he now had pinned between irreproachably gentle teeth.
He released it and pushed his face in the valley between her breasts, and when he slipped his mouth over her other nipple, Leah felt as if he had the absolute root and core of her, tugging back on it lightly, her body quaking from the center outward.He pulled away and let her breast fall back from him, the moisture he'd left making the pointed, blood-filled peaks gleam like multi-faceted diamonds in the heady blonde slants of mid-afternoon sunlight.
He looked on them as if dazed, then stepped to her again, and again slid his forearms into the robe, this time circling them around her and pulling her flat against him. His bare chest was beautifully rough, his arms obscenely large, his embrace strong and safe, and she wrapped her arms around his head, which he had resting on her shoulder, eyes screwed shut, face buried in her throat.
"There," she said, the reassuring calm returning, grounding her, and she shoved the dripping, hammering arousal he'd stirred in her aside. "You're all right." He was trembling, violently, bent there to her level, and only when she felt the scalding trail of a tear over her clavicle did she realize that he was crying. "Easy," she whispered, kissing the top of his shoulder. "Easy, baby."
He straightened his back then, without releasing her, pulling her so her feet dangled off the floor and her body was as weightless as her mind. His ensuing words were all boyish hesitation and soft humility.
"Can I take you to my bed?"
"Of course," Leah whispered, and closed her eyes, resting her forehead against his cheek.
The mattress was cool and soft, well worn, and she was cocooned in the obvious indentation from his large brown body. He avoided her eyes as he knelt between her legs and pulled a single white cotton sheet up onto his back. His shyness was disarmingly charming, and she took his chin in one hand, turning his face to hers for a moment and smiled warmly, reassuringly. As he settled on top of her the sheet rushed over his head to cover them completely, and she was lost in a world consisting only of the deep, warm tone of his skin and a pure, airy white. Her lids were unbearably heavy, and the contrast was striking, and she had to give in, let her eyes fall closed as his mouth sought hers, his dark, curling lashes tickling her brow.
She massaged gently up and along his flanks, absolutely drowning in the abysmal oblivion of his kiss. And she opened her mouth to his increasing ardor, and when his tongue touched hers, it moved her. Jolted her. And he must have felt it, because he smiled against her mouth, taking her top lip in both of his and pulling it in, sucking and tracing over it.
He sighed breathily and eased all of his weight onto her, lacing his fingers in hers, the heavy canvas fly of his pants rasping against the naked, hypersensitive flesh between her legs, and she arched up to meet the delicious roughness of it. Something large and firm grazed her inner thigh without warning, and she moaned, inadvertently and almost inaudibly. Her heart became almost sluggish, but astoundingly powerful, each drubbing beat battering through her body, and her skin was afire, searing, in the heat and humidity, the solitary whiteness of their clandestine world beneath that sheet.
Leah slipped one hand up under his arm, around to his front, and ran a curious, intentionless thumb lazily over the hard point of his nipple. The smile dropped from his lips then and he pulled his face back a few inches. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, against the dazzling backdrop. His face was expressionless with the exception of his eyes, midnight pools holding a breathtaking intensity she’d never seen the likes of. Sorrow, regret, passion, hesitation, imploration. Asking and telling all at once, teaching and learning, too old and too young, and she could only affirm it all by nodding.
“It’s alright,” she whispered. He returned her nod after a motionless silence, just a short jerk of his head, and did not put his lips back to her mouth, but to the hollow at the base of her throat, dipping the molten pinnacle of his tongue into it and descending, leaving a fiery thoroughfare as he went, kissing her sternum, flicking with infuriating brevity at each of her nipples. Her hands worked free of his and dropped of their own accord to the abrasive satin of the back of his head and rested there loosely as it moved down, down, with his mouth. He paused at the fading scar of a cesarean and closed his eyes, drawing in a ragged breath, touching his lips to it and dragging them, dryly, along the length of it. The gesture reached down into her, took tight hold, and she felt a lump rise in her throat.
And then, like before, out of nowhere, and soundlessly, he was crying. Soft, searing splashes against her inner thighs were her only informer, and he gripped her hips in big, fine hands. This time he didn’t stop the tide of his tears. Couldn’t stop it. One after another, his forehead pressed between her hips. He kissed the smooth rise between her legs and shook his head, choking a half-laugh, half-sob.
“What,” she said, softly, crooning, kneading the tense muscles at the base of his neck, moving to his shoulders. “What is it, sweetheart.”
Her voice, scarcely above a whisper, spread easily over him like a thick salve, and she knew it. It touched him, just as the scar somehow had, and he didn’t hold back then, let it all flood out of him, moving fluidly to lie atop her again, kissing her and crying, and his tears drenched her face and mingled with some of her own. One of those great hands cupped her cheek now, and another made its way down her belly, covering her mons, two of the bronze fingers slipping up between her lips and stroking gently, deftly as he allowed himself to weep while he kissed her.
He silenced, his breathing becoming hushed and quick, and not from crying. His muscles tensed and Leah knew it was time, watched as he got up on his knees and worked at the button of his pants, keeping her eyes on his face, and he sighed, shaking his head and meeting her gaze.
“One second,” he said, face flushing a little but still solemn. She nodded and smiled, as he disappeared, the sheet was torn back and the pale, pretty demeanor of the room washed over her in a sudden, unexpected flourish. She propped up on her elbows and watched the outline of him, his profile, the way his body moved; feline liquidity, absolute deliberation. He grasped the knobs of the dresser drawer and pulled it back, moving aside cottons and silks and withdrawing a small square packet.
Kneeling between her legs once more, he dragged down his zipper, eyes downcast, and Leah rose to sit, one leg on either side of him, tugging her arms out of the robe, resting her hands over his as he shoved his pants down around his thighs.
He was shaking, fumbling with the wrapping, and Leah placed one hand on the plane of his stomach soothingly, just holding it there a moment. She took the package from him, tearing it easily and taking him in her hand, her heart skipping at the size of him as she slid the sheath down to cover. He moved forward then, urging her back, taking her mouth in his briefly, checking again to make sure she was ready. His attention to her was endearing, and she grasped him once more, guiding him up to the beginning of her body.
“It’s been a long time,” he grunted, that voice throbbing through her. “I don’t know how long I’ll…”
“Shhh. It’s all right. Just come inside.”
He was slow, expert, gauging her reaction as he pressed into her body in one long, drawn-out movement, a fraction of an inch at a time. She was holding her breath, hands clamped on his shoulders, his respiration irregular and trembling, and she was deliciously weak throughout, heady and reeling and wordless.
Such a beautiful lover.
But she’d known he would be.
When he was buried to the hilt in her body, he sought the silky security of her mouth once more, not moving his hips at first, only kissing her, allowing for Leah to accustom herself to him. He knew his size and was humbled by it rather than arrogant over it, and his compassion was touching. Leah nudged up at him, her hips brushing his, and he nodded, biting his bottom lip and obscuring his face in her throat, his back arching, and she let her eyes roll back and close, tilting her face heavenward at the surreal, sublime sinking of this man inside of her, the drag of him along the interior of her body, and the hot, whispered curse against her ear.
All movement ceased and he sucked in a heavy breath, waiting for the danger to pass, then raising up a bit on his elbows and grinning down at her, boyish suddenly, a shaky sort of easy smile.
“Almost lost it.” Leah couldn’t help but laugh, lightly, although the rumble of his voice shook her to the core, and she trailed her nails down his sides to rest on the small of his back. She closed her eyes as he sobered and kissed her. Her normal logic and practicality were mercifully absent, and she gave herself over to this, body and soul.
***
Much later, when he was asleep, she lay facing him. He was sprawled on his side, face pillowed on one hand like a child, features in utter repose. There was a delicious ache pulsing from her hips to her knees, and her muscled felt loose, her entire being sated by this creature. This glorious nameless Adonis. He’d dropped into slumber while she had touched him, running her fingers along his ribs, over the chiseled stack of his abdominals, tracing the line of his jaw, massaging his temples and his brow, sponging up his pain with soft hands and softer words. She looked at her own hand now, resting motionless on his hip, cream colored blanching against a warm, multi-racial stretch of satin.
She wanted to move that hand and touch all of him, rub her hands over that lovely skin, memorizing every dent and imperfection, and have him kiss her…He was the most stellar kisser, and his mouth was so gorgeous, sculpted and sensuous and communicative.
He opened his eyes, blinked, and rolled onto his back, yawning. Turning his face to her after a moment, he smiled warmly, studying her with those hooded black eyes.
“What time is it?”
“Mmmm.…” she groaned lazily and lifted her head, struggling to focus on the face of her watch. “Seven.”
“Fiesta at nine,” he said. “Mexican grill-out and a salsa band. And I’m starving.” His smile hadn’t left, and it was confident and comfortable on her body.
“You’re starving?” She raised and eyebrow, and he laughed and the bedding rustled as he climbed up onto her, gentle, soft and harmless. He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth to hers, moaning quietly, and she could feel that moan rumbling in his chest against hers.
“Always.”
She laughed lightly.
“Excellent.”
And suddenly an amused sort of confusion came across his face.
“What’s your name?” he asked, and a peal of pretty laughter burst out of her.
“Leah,” she replied, still laughing. “What’s yours?”
“Dominic.”
“That’s a beautiful name.” He cocked his head to one side.
“Leah.” He repeated the name slowly, pensively, tasting it for the first time. “You look like a Leah.”
“I do. I know. You look like a Dominic.”
“Yes,” he chuckled, and gave her a lingering kiss. “I know.”
Leah sat with him at one of the little round tables in the cabana, not touching him, just sitting. The breeze was amicable and moist against her face, coming in off the unified iridescent stretch of placid sea. The pale yellow hem of her sundress lapped at her bare ankles, and she kicked off her sandals, pulling her feet up on to the chair with her and hugging her knees to her chest. Dominic was watching her…She felt his warm brown study move over her, sensed his smile.
“Leah,” he murmured, and she lifted her chin from her knee to look at him.
“Hmm?”
He looked flustered then, dropping his gaze.
“Nothing. Just…I was just saying it.”
She reached over and took one of his hands and squeezed it.
“You’re gorgeous.”
“I’m gorgeous?” he echoed.
“Yes. You are.”
The food came, a giant platter of spicy, sizzling marinated meats and gloriously bright vegetables, sautéed pineapples dripping with brown sugar, kiwifruit sliced and lined up like dominos. Leah hadn’t been hungry, but the food was too beautiful to resist. She picked at it a little and laughed with him over the obscene amount he was capable of putting away.“Can you cook?” he asked, vague crinkles creasing his smiling eyes.“Of course I can cook,” Leah replied.
“Can you cook for me?”
She smiled.
“I think that might be arranged.”
“Excellent.” The word hitched in his throat. “I can cook for you, too.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“And what are your specialties?”
“Umm…Anything on the grill. Anything. And Italian food.”
“Italian food, huh? Are you Italian?”
“Oh yes.”
“Ooooh yes,” she repeated, a bit breathless, and he laughed, leaned in, and kissed her.
They ordered tacky frozen drinks, one after another, and when they got buzzed they danced, off-rhythm and helter-skelter, through the other desks and at their tables, spilling drinks and upsetting one older man, until they were escorted back to their bungalows by the resort security force. They stood in the dim light cast across the sand by a lamp in Dominic’s bedroom, properly chastised and repentant. But when they met each other's gaze it was all over. Leah's humiliated smirk split into a broad irrepressible grin, and Dominic let loose a hearty laugh.
They laughed with reckless abandon until the guiltless mirth overwhelmed Leah and her laughs became sobs. Dominic only nodded, his smile instantly replaced by an all-encompassing understanding. He staggered toward her in the sand, pulling her hard and fast up against his body, holding her tight, rocking her slowly."Let's go inside," he said, his own voice choked and distorted.
