Part 10 (1/2)
He was sitting on the floor outside her door, leaning against the wall, one leg stretched out before him, the other bent up at the knee, his arm resting on it. She had the whole top floor, so there wasn't really a corridor. More like a landing. He stood when he saw her coming up the last flight of stairs.
”Michael?”
His eyes caught and held hers as she climbed, but he said nothing until she reached the landing and was standing in front of him.
”You were right here. Right here.” His voice was deep and quiet, beautiful, but soft with hurt. They were the first words he'd said to her since that night ten years ago, and they hurt her to hear.
She nodded.
”Why?”
She knew what he was asking-why had she stayed away, knowing they were so close? Because there were things-there was one thing, a big thing-he didn't know. Because she'd been afraid she'd hurt him more if she'd sought him out. Because she couldn't get so close to her mother. Because she didn't know if he'd still want her.
”I don't know. Afraid, I guess.”
”Of me?”
”No, Michael. Never of you. Of...it. Us. What happened. I don't know.”
”Are you still afraid?”
Again, she nodded. She was still afraid.
”Me, too.” He laughed and smiled sadly-even sad, his was the most beautiful smile. It made the intensity and distrust that seemed a feature of his face disappear and left behind kindness and...well, faith, though Faith felt corny to think it.
”Will you come inside? Will you talk to me?”
Michael nodded and held out his hands for her bags. After she pa.s.sed them over, she unlocked her door and let him into her life.
As they came in, and Michael went to her table and set her bags down, Sly jumped down from his newly-designated favorite sill and meowed a threat. He came forward carefully, his body skimming the floor, his ears back.
”Holy s.h.i.+t,” Michael muttered. ”Is that...that's...”
”Yeah. He was at my mom's.”
Michael turned to her. ”You didn't have him with you all this time?”
She shook her head. ”Long story. My mom kept him.”
Giving her something like a scowl, Michael squatted and held out his hand to the cat. ”Hey, dude.”
Sly slunk forward, growling all the way. He sniffed Michael's fingers and swatted at his hand. It was his greeting ritual, and a test. Not many people pa.s.sed. As far as Faith knew, the only people who had were in this room right now.
The trick was to be steady. Not to flinch, not to run. Sly b.u.mped Michael's hand and came forward, relaxing. Michael picked him up and held him snugly.
He scratched Sly's truncated ear. ”He looks a little rough.”
”He always was a sc.r.a.pper. But he doesn't like being cooped up in the house. He probably took on the whole neighborhood.” They were talking like normal, like friends. As if the past ten years hadn't happened. It felt weird. And right, too.
”Are you keeping him here now?”
Faith didn't know the answer to that. She didn't know if she was keeping her here. It depended on her mother. And on Michael. And on more things than she could sort out at one time. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ”Michael. What are we...?” She'd meant to finish the question with the word 'doing,' but it wouldn't come. But it sounded right as it was: what are we. That was really the question, wasn't it?
He put Sly down, and the cat sauntered off, content, toward his fancy china bowls, already the master of this place.
Michael took the three steps that put them face to face. ”I can't talk, not about...before. I thought I could. That's why I'm here, I think. But I can't. I don't know what to say. There's too much.”
Faith looked up at him. He was so strong and broad, so beautiful. His fair hair and beard were close-cropped, not shaved. She missed the smooth cheeks and s.h.a.ggy mess of pale hair he'd had. The scruff over his head and face now made him look older. Wearier. But he was still so very beautiful. His deep blue eyes were intent, locked on hers.
”Then what do you want, Michael?”
He looked at the floor between them, and Faith got the sense that he was steeling himself. Then he met her eyes again. ”You. I want you. We were wrong before, but maybe we can be right now. I love you, Faith. I never stopped. I don't know how you feel, but-”
She put her hand on his mouth to dam up his words. ”I love you, stupid. I never stopped, either.”
His expression showed the perfect relief that Faith felt herself. He put his hands around her face and murmured, ”I won't stop. I'll never stop.” Then he kissed her, and she leaned in, curving her body to fit with his, moving her tongue with his, holding his head in her hands as he held hers.
Kissing Michael, even after all this time, was perfectly familiar. They understood each other's bodies, even though they hadn't had long to be together, and they hadn't been together in a long time. But he kissed differently now, too. He was more confident-but maybe that was simply a feature of their age. He was thirty-two; she was twenty-seven. They both had more experience. And whatever they might have now, next, it wouldn't be something they had to keep in the shadows. They needn't feel guilt or apprehension now.
What had happened before couldn't happen now. They were safe now.
That realization, and the way it swept her fear right off the edge of her consciousness, sent a fire through Faith's blood. She grasped Michael more tightly, pulling herself up on him, getting as close as she could. She wrapped her arms around his head, and he groaned and moved his hands to her waist, enclosing her in his arms and standing up straight, lifting her off the floor.
He walked across the room, straight to her bed as if he'd known where it was. When he laid her down on it, his knee on the mattress between her legs, Faith felt a brief flash of memory that, irrationally, brought her fear back.
They'd only ever been on a bed together one time before. The last time. When they'd made at least one terrible mistake.
As that memory dragged its claws over her heart, Faith pulled back with a gasp. She opened her eyes and found Michael looking down at her, his face flushed, his eyes worried. ”Faith?”
She shoved the past away. They were safe. ”I love you,” she said, to have a reason for having pulled away.
”I love you.” He smiled, and she believed they were safe.
They were both still fully dressed, and that would not do at all. She shrugged out of her leather jacket and pulled her long t-s.h.i.+rt over her head. Michael stayed where he was, looming over her, and watched, his eyes vivid with l.u.s.t.
She went for her bra, but he put his hand on her chest, splayed so that his thumb and fingers hooked over her collarbones, and held her down. Kneeling, his legs framing one of hers, he hooked the fingers of both hands into the straps of her bra, then slid them down and into the cups until the backs of his fingers brushed her nipples. The touch made her muscles go tight and hard, and she arched up as high as she could, wanting more, wanting him to make her feel everything. A decade's worth of everything.
His hands went back up the straps to her shoulders and then pulled the stretchy satin down her arms, pulling until the cups folded down, too. And then he bent down and took a desperate nipple into his mouth.
”Oh, f.u.c.k, oh f.u.c.k,” she breathed, needing to make an utterance but trying to be quiet. Michael had always been quiet when they were like this, silent except for anguished groans when he finished. He'd seemed distracted, almost disturbed, by the sounds she'd made. He'd been her first, and their short time together had built in her a shyness about making noise during s.e.x-but her natural inclination was to vocalize. To this day, she fought those two impulses always.
This time, instead of flinching or even pausing in his attention to her breast, he answered her quiet words with a low groan, and the hand he wasn't propping himself up with slid down, over her belly, and into her leggings.
Just as his fingers pushed over her pubic bone, he lifted his head abruptly and stared down at her, his fingers moving over her mound, into her folds, exploring. It felt good, so f.u.c.king good, and she could feel him feel how wet she was. He was surprised, though, and when his fingers returned to the bare skin over the bone and brushed back and forth, she understood. Feeling breathless and a little shy, she smiled. ”I've been doing that a while. Everything feels more intense shaved.”
Before, she'd been pretty natural, just shaving what showed around her bathing suit and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the rest. He returned to her folds and let his fingers move lightly over the bare, delicate skin. His touch made her twitch and gasp.