Lies in Blood (23 page)

“
You okay?” David asked softly into the crown of my head, his warm breath forcing my eyes closed.

I laid a hand across my belly, shaking slightly.

“
My love?” He lifted my chin. “What is it?”

It had all changed. Every reason I ever had for wanting to make love to him had changed. I could finally hope it would bring the blessing of a little girl, and I wasn’t scared, not about anything, not about being a young mom. Not about going it alone, without David. I wasn’t even scared that I’d mess it all up and fail as a parent.

I opened my eyes and smiled, melting the concern in his. “I can imagine it,” I said.

“
Imagine her?” His hand cupped mine.

“
Yeah. I can finally imagine what she’ll be like.”

His hand moved from my belly to wipe a tear from my cheek. “Let’s not imagine anymore, Ara.”

“
I . . . I’m afraid, though, David.”

“
Of what?” His green eyes searched mine, so intense with depth and wisdom and strength that I felt silly for feeling fear when I should be thinking of nothing else but this moment. I was afraid it wouldn’t happen, though—afraid our baby wasn’t possible, no matter what we did. But something in his eyes just made it all okay, like he’d take care of it. Like nothing was impossible while I had him.

“
Close your eyes,” he whispered in my ear, guiding my hand onto his heart. “Let me make love to you.”

“
Only if you let it last for forever.”

“
I can’t promise you forever, Ara. You know that.”

“
Then at least make it last until the dawn.”

“
That,” he said with a slowly shaping grin. “I
can
promise.”

I leaned back a little and took all of him in: he looked magnificent as king, as if he’d grown an inch taller since he was sworn in and maybe even jumped a few points on the sex-appeal-o-meter. The stubble tracing his jawline had grown in over the day, shadowing his face like immortality’s version of a Calvin Klein model. The white shirt he was wearing had been sewn from a fabric so soft it was almost a part of his body, falling over the contours of his chest like skin, leaving all the warmth on the surface as if he were naked already. I felt him under my hand, his chest moulding the cup of palm, the shirt parting at the buttons, inviting my fingertips inside.

David smoothed the tip of his thumb from just under my earlobe and down my throat, his lips softly pushing my nightdress off my shoulder a little. “I still can’t believe how well I know every inch of you.”

Gravity drew the fabric down the step he hadn’t, and my skin fell open to the warm summer night as the top of the dress bunched around my elbows, leaving everything from my hips upward exposed and tingling slightly with little bumps. Both his hands trailed firmly down my back, following its shape like a hand tracing a distant skyline of smooth rolling hills. I held my breath, afraid to breathe a moment of this realness. My hand sat against his chest, his body solid and alive beneath it, yet my mind floated along the memory of the first time I saw him smile—the gentle half-turn of his lip, the way he’d hide the thoughts he could hear, trying so hard not to give anything away about how they made him feel. I saw him as that boy I sat beside at the piano on my first day of school, felt the ache rise from my gut to my chest, knowing I could never go back. All that was gone. And those memories were all I’d have left soon, never to make any more.

When I looked up, the hold of his round, black eyes on mine nearly burned a hole in me, his tears clouding them, so restrained I just wanted to cry
for
him. But he blinked and they slipped past his lashes, falling eternally away to the land of forgotten things. In this moment, we were here, alive, and one day, he’d be gone. I’d stand here in this memory, touching the air as if I could feel him there, but I’d only be able to
imagine
what it felt like once to know his warmth, to feel the way his hands moved over my body in ways I couldn’t even dream up. And I knew he felt every breath of my pain as he read the thoughts that provoked it.

“
I’ll never be far away, Ara.” He drew me closer by the small of my back, and as my hands dropped to my sides, the nightgown slipped past, falling at our feet. “I’ll leave a part of myself behind in you.”

“
And every time I look at her, I’ll die a little more.”

“
No, you won’t.” He kissed my hair. “You’ll know what it feels like to love again.”

I stood on my toes, reaching up to cup my hands behind his neck, our lips connecting a breath later. But the kiss only broke my heart—the supple warmth of his lips, so lovingly wrapped up in mine, were so exquisite in their hold that the only emotion they could possibly convey was love: unending, unconditional love. The kind of love I would never have again.

I angled my chin so I could feel the slight prickle of his stubble, a feeling that always made him real, present—one I could always find when I closed my eyes, even if he wasn’t here. Every breath of that kiss would become a moment locked away—stored for the day it would only be something I opened at night, when I lay in bed with my eyes closed—our forever lived in a series of events that already happened.

“
But we have tonight,” he said, waking me from my thought with a firm hand cupping my cheek. “My love, don’t go there. Just be here, in this moment, with me.”

“
Okay.”

“
Okay.”

David’s hands went under my bottom, prompting me to jump up and wrap my legs around his hips. He carried me slowly to the bed, falling down on top of me; the sheets and pillows rising up like clouds around us. I felt the softness of them under my bare skin, each tiny inch tingling as if this was the first touch. And David’s mouth found mine again, the sweet kisses growing with the desire heating his blood, his hand folding around my breast, smoothing a path for his lips to follow.

“
There are so many things we’ve never done,” he said under the kiss. “So many I planned to do right now, but—” He leaned back and smiled down at me. “Tonight, I think I just wanna love you.”

Those words rushed into my heart, taking the thoughts and desires he showed me earlier, and tossing them aside. All I wanted now was to feel his bare chest pressed to mine, his hands on my hips, our bodies connected closer than humanly, or immortally possible.

“
Okay.” I guided him gently backward and rolled onto my knees, sweeping his shirt up his waist. “Then we need you naked.”

“
You read my mind.” He tossed his shirt aside and brought his arms back down to his sides—his ribs expanding, showing the skeleton beneath.

“
You’re so thin now, David.” I cupped his ribs with both hands and kissed the hollow between his breastbones.

“
That happens when you’re stressed about leaving the love of your life.”

I stopped kissing and just rested my brow against his soft belly for a moment, feeling my hair sweep off my face under David’s fingertips.

“
Don’t be sad, my love. Remember? Tonight isn’t about the future.”

“
It’s pretty hard to ignore.”

“
I don’t know.” I heard a smile shape his words. “I think I can take your mind off it.”

I laughed breathily and, with tears wetting my lips, began my important task of kissing every inch of his skin from his ribs to his jeans again. As I reached his belly button, he drew his stomach in, trying not laugh. “Does that tickle?” I asked.

“
Yes, but don’t stop.” He smoothed both thumbs down my head, resting his fingertips gently to the base of my skull, and I felt him grow harder near my throat—pushing against the zipper of his jeans.

I could smell him, almost taste him—the sweet chocolate mixed with the familiar but very slight scent of the day’s sweat. He’d never let me get this close before, never opened himself up this way. It was as if there were no walls between us now; we were finally free to explore all those things we’d been afraid to share. He’d even stopped waxing all his hair off, his chest now sprouting a few hairs around his nipples—my tongue noticing the fine trail from his navel downward.

I pinched the top of his zipper then and slid it down, rolling the waist of his jeans and briefs past his hips, seeing the head of his penis grow as my fingertips brushed past it. And my blood boiled with a naughty idea.

“
I can see what you’re thinking, my love.” He stopped me.

“
I want to know what it feels like,” I said, half suggesting, half asking.

“
Ara, you know how I feel about that.”

“
I know.” I looked at the patch of dark hair below his V of muscles. “But I just want to try it, just once.”

The thoughts in his mind flickered like a broken light for a second, finally deciding that it was better if I satisfied my curiosity with him than with another man after he was gone. “Okay.” He exhaled, and tangled his fingers in my hair, guiding my mouth toward him.

I had no idea what to actually do, and wasn’t really sure what to expect, either, but as I delicately wrapped my fingers around him, following his length to the base, I was no longer afraid I’d do it wrong. None of it mattered. There was no self-consciousness here. Not between us. We were in love. We were married, and if I wasn’t perfect, it just didn’t matter anymore. I knew he’d love me anyway.

I wet my lips and guided him closer, closing my mouth around him as he let out a quiet gasp.

His hands shook against my head, his thighs clenching to hold himself up on the squishy bed, and my naked skin tightened with bumps, cooled by the air from his nose, the draught deeper, stronger each time my tongue made circles.

“
That. Feels—” He drew tight breaths through his teeth. “Amazing.”

My shoulders relaxed a little then, and as I moved my grip down the length of him, I felt him grow harder—the salty liquid thickening slightly under my tongue.

“
Aw, Ara.” His hips pressed closer to my face, his hand cupping the back of my head as he went deeper into my mouth, stopping where my tongue blocked my throat. “I’m not sure I can take anymore,” he said, and slowly eased himself from my mouth, leaning down to kiss me softly after. “That felt way too good.”

“
Really?” I straightened my spine to meet him face to face, and leaned back a bit, sliding my tongue across the moisture left behind.

He nodded, gently moving me backward on the bed. And I saw the thoughts in his mind then—saw him imagine sweeping me down onto my back and sliding my underwear off, tossing them across the room—both of us laughing as he pictured them landing on the lampshade. “Lay back so I can taste you,” he ordered sweetly.

I tucked my thumbs into my undies and slid them off as I landed on my back, parting my legs for him.

But his eyes moved to my belly instead, his hands flowing swiftly to land under his gaze, stopping there for a second. “I’m going to do this right for once, Ara, and we’re gonna have a baby.”

“
I feel that, too,” I said. “I think this time it’ll happen.”

He leaned down and kissed my stomach, pressing his lips firmly into the skin just above my pubic bone. I held onto him, winding my fingertips through his hair.

“
God, your scent is so familiar,” he said in that deep, David-y tone, moving his lips down a few inches, stealing my breath as his tongue parted the hairs in one long sweep upward. “And you taste so lovely I could kiss you here for hours.”

My whole body shivered, my legs spreading wider than I knew they could. I felt his finger slide in and brush a part that sent the shiver deeper, expanding the muscles inside me. I could smell it—the scent of sex and desire, like a cloud of heat in the dying summer air around us. And as I drew a breath, committing it to memory, felt it suddenly on my lips, tasted it on my tongue under David’s mouth against mine. It didn’t really have much of a taste, or maybe I just didn’t notice it, but it left my mind as soon as it entered, because David gently guided himself inside me, filling my body with the hardness that had been in my mouth only minutes ago.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, digging my fingertips into the skin on his back, bunching it up tightly—my own little handful of David. For once, I owned this moment—owned the love, the energy, the truth finally between us. All the lies, all the secrets had come undone, and all that was left was his love for me, and mine for him. I didn’t need to guard my thoughts. I didn’t feel angry or resentful to him for keeping things from me. I felt closer to him than I ever had before, and I, finally, closed my eyes and prayed to the gods to bless us—bless this moment with a little baby girl.