All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(94)

“Oh my God, that’s him? That’s him,” Renee said. “What are you going to do?”

I opened the car door, but she grabbed the sleeve of my raincoat.

“Wait. Should I wait for you? What should I do?”

“I don’t know.” My heart was moving too far ahead to think about that.

“Well, I’ll be at the library. Just let me know everything’s okay.”

Kellen was already through the apartment building door. I ran across the street, splashing through puddles, and my hand shook on the door handle. I was all the things I’d almost forgotten how to be—nervous, excited, happy. I wanted to run up the stairs, but my legs could only manage one step at a time.

There was no doorbell, no peephole.

I knocked and Kellen answered.

Water dripped out of his starling-wing hair. Embroidered over the pocket of his wet uniform shirt: Jesse Joe. Three buttons undone, showing the tops of the arrows and the calumet on his chest.

“Wavy,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t thought about that at all. Did I have to say anything? I never had before. I took a step forward, wanting to be in the same room with him. To breathe his air. His eyes weren’t soft. They were hot and frightened. He was afraid of me. I was afraid of me.

Sunlight broke through the clouds and rain stopped pounding against the windows. Kellen’s breath hitched. Anything could happen. Everything. I pressed against him, smelling him. His sweat.

“Wavy, you can’t be here.”

I tried to will him to kiss me, the way I used to, but he frowned down at me with his mouth closed. I turned my back on him, and a spiraling hot thing in my chest said, Leave. Behind me was the kitchen table. Grabbing the closest chair, I carried it to Kellen and stepped up. Then I was the Giant, towering over him. I took his face in my hands the way he did on the morning I knew he loved me. I lifted his mouth to mine. Would he resist? No.

He opened his lips and I knew Val had been right. People could get into you that way. I was creeping into Kellen. He wanted me to. He kissed me, but he wouldn’t touch me, so I took off the raincoat. I unbuttoned the dress myself and dropped it to my feet. The slip, all slippery silk, whispered off me. The panties, which I wanted him to ease down the way he had the first time. The last time. This time my hands did it. My hands for his hands.

Freeing his mouth for a moment, I looked into his eyes, to see if he would come to me.

“Kellen,” I said.

“Are you real?”

I nodded. His hands came to rest on my hips, and he lifted me off the chair. I wrapped my legs around him and he carried me to the bedroom. I’d always imagined it on the kitchen table, or the desk at the garage, but a bed was good, too. Everything I needed was there. His shirt off quick, his arms cool with rain and his chest sticky with sweat. I ran my hands over him and found a long puckered scar that split the skin over his ribs. Something they had done to him in prison.

I was eager to rub my tits against his, to show him mine were finally bigger. His hands were all over me. My hands everywhere else. His mouth laughing, even while he tried to kiss every part of me.

“Goddamn, these are some boots. How do you get ’em off?” he said.

“Slowly.”

He gave up on unlacing when I slid my feet over his shoulders.

His tongue felt good, going into where I was already wet for him. I’d been wet there for him for seven years. His tongue was good but not enough. Pulling him to me, I found less belly to slip my hand past to reach his belt.

“Orion.” The same buckle, the one I knew how to open, and he was in my hand. We could go fast now. He shoved his pants down only as far as we needed. That was how much he wanted me, he wasn’t even going to take his boots off.

He was so heavy my breath caught in my chest. That was pleasure, being pinned under him, where the air was thin. His cock was as hot as I remembered pressed between my legs.

We could move time. Go back to that day. Undo seven years. I opened my eyes, to let him into me everywhere.

That first moment, when he pushed against me, hardness against softness, was wonderful. The next moment, when he pushed into me, burning pressure and a tearing pain. It hurt more than I thought it would. Kellen was in me everywhere. Inside my nerves. He moaned against my ear.

“Oh, Wavy. I love you all the way.”

I pressed my face into his neck and held on, not breathing, thinking the pain would stop, the way it had when he put his fingers into me. I waited for it to go to burning pleasure, because it couldn’t go on being unbearable. But it did. The pain cauterized my throat. I thought I might choke until the seal broke open, let out the sob I’d been keeping in.

Kellen stopped. I knew he was looking at me, but I couldn’t look back.

“Are you okay?” he said.

I nodded but the tears I’d been holding back escaped. He jerked out of me, as painful as the going in.

“Oh, Jesus, Wavy. You waited for me?”

“Who else?” I said.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d wait for me. I never thought—after all that mess, I never thought you’d want me. You didn’t come to my parole hearings, and I figured I’d ruined everything.”

He was pulling away from me, but I dug in, my nails into his shoulders, my heels into his thighs.

“Hold on tight. Don’t let go.” I learned that from him.