The Lucky Ones(27)

She sighed his name and he lifted his head to smile at her, pleased with her pleasure. This was a new smile, too, an erotic smile. Allison licked the hollow of his throat as she moved her hips in a slow oval. The breath he took stole hers. She should have come back years ago.

“That was obscene,” Roland breathed, his head falling back on the pillow.

“Sorry,” she said, grinning and unrepentant. “I’ve waited a long time to do that.”

“What else have you waited a long time to do?”

“So much,” she said. “This...” She traced the lines of his shoulder blades with her fingertips. “And this...” She scoured his stomach with her fingernails from neck to hip. “And this...” She lifted her hips into his as slowly as she could, making him feel every inner muscle that held him inside her and surrounded him with heat. He said something that might have been “God help me,” but she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that it was good so she did it all again. She moved harder against him, faster, and Allison gave herself up to him, let go, surrendered entirely. She came first, lost in waves of pleasure and happiness, and he came shortly after, shuddering in her arms and breathing her name.

It was over. She knew it was over when Roland turned off the lamp and the room was plunged into darkness. But he didn’t leave. She’d expected him to leave, but instead he lay on his side and pulled her back against his chest.

He kissed the back of her neck and pulled her a little closer. They were silent for a few seconds before Allison thought to ask him a question she’d had ever since she’d received his letter.

“Why do you think of me when it rains?” she asked, wondering if it was for the reason she remembered.

“You don’t remember? I guess it didn’t rain much where you grew up,” he said. “And rain out here right by the ocean can be loud. Whenever it rained, and the wind was blowing, it shook the whole house. So you would come crying to me, asking if you could sleep in my bed.”

Allison grinned. She recalled those autumn storms, those winter squalls and the wind wild enough to make you wonder if you would wake up in Oz. Sometimes they could only tell the day from the night from the color of the rain—gray by day, black at night. And in January the ice would come and frost The Dragon so that his green scales shone like silver.

“I don’t know why me,” Roland said. “But it had to be me. Not Dad, not Thora, no one but me. And you’d always fall asleep about five minutes after I let you in bed with me. And then I’d pick you up and go put you back in your own bed. Every single time it rained. Finally when you were about ten you grew out of it.”

“You want to know a secret?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“I was never afraid of the rain.”

“You want to know my secret?” Roland asked.

“Sure.”

“I always knew that.”





Chapter 10

Roland fell asleep in seconds, it seemed. Allison listened to his steady breathing, so peaceful and contented. She envied that contentment.

Carefully she eased out from under Roland’s heavy arm and went to the bathroom to clean up. She was on birth control so she wasn’t worried that they hadn’t used a condom. She never kept any on her, and she doubted a monk, on medical leave or otherwise, would, either. Roland, a monk. Roland, her first love. Roland, her former brother. The whole thing was so utterly surreal that she couldn’t bring herself to go back to bed yet. That would mean treating what had happened as nice and normal, and she wasn’t yet sure if it was either of those things.

She slipped back into her pajamas and snuck out of the room. In the quiet, dark house, she tiptoed down the stairs and walked out onto the deck. Calm hit her at the first kiss of night air. The breeze blew through her and over her, tickling every inch of her bare skin. Her toes tingled in the cool of the night and chills passed through her, delicious chills like the gentle touch of a handsome stranger. She leaned against the deck railing and stared out at the water, breathing in the air, breathing out her confusion. With the vast horizon shrouded in darkness, it seemed so much smaller, like her own private ocean. She was tempted to walk out onto the beach and go wading. The ocean was always warmer by night, wasn’t it?

She went to the steps and started to walk down.

“Leaving already?”

She turned around and saw Roland coming out the deck door.

“I was thinking about going to the water.”

“You’ve been gone too long,” he said. “You need a flashlight or you might step on something.”

“A rock?”

“A jellyfish.”

“Oh,” she said. “I should wait till morning, then.”

“Not a bad idea,” he said. He’d thrown on his pajama pants again but he was shirtless, and she fought off the urge to wrap her arms around him and steal his body heat.

“Are you okay?” he asked, shutting the deck door behind him and walking over to her. She returned to the deck railing and resumed her night watch.

“Seems I’m not supposed to sleep tonight,” she said.

Roland stood next to her, his elbow touching her elbow at the railing.

“I saw you out here,” he said, “in your little white pj’s with your hair down, and I remembered something.”