Never Can Tell (15 page)

“I don't know who the fuck Rick is,” Ty tells me. “But if I ever find out you kissed him like that, I'll have to search and destroy that son of a bitch.” I stare at Ty for awhile and he stares right back, meeting the intensity in my gaze with some of his own, matching me at every turn, complimenting but not overpowering. We could've gone wrong together since we're so similar, could've exploded and ripped out one another's hearts, left them to bleed out in the hot, hot sun. But we didn't. We got it just right. Just fucking right.

“I want to dance for you,” I blurt because as I'm standing there, fingering the fabric of a voluminous black skirt, I get a memory. Oh Noah Scott. I think of myself dancing for him, wanting to please him, loving him with my body. But I don't want my head filled with Noah Scott. All I care about, all I can think about, all I
want
to think about is Ty.

As soon as I say this, he gets really serious, sitting up and kicking off his boots before turning to face me. I can see sweat beading on his belly. Dancing has become this … thing between us. It has all of this meaning – the line he used on me when we first met, the stupid belly dancing video, the bar before we confronted Luis. Every time it gets brought up, something happens between us. And I want that for us, want our relationship to continue to change and grow, evolve so that it's always this passionate and fucked up and raunchy and sensual. I want to dream about his kisses every night and hold his hand every day. And I don't ever, ever want us to forget how good we've got it.

“Are you sure?” he asks me, and I know he's thinking about Noah Scott. But he shouldn't be. This isn't about Noah Scott. This is about him. Ty. Ty fucking McCabe, the man who stole my heart without meaning to, that crept into my life when it was at its darkest, lit up like the moon and showed me the way.

A light flush creeps into my cheeks which is so unlike me that I get pissed off.

“I'm going to have a fucking balloon for a belly soon enough, and I won't get another chance. It's now or Never,” I tell Ty, crossing my arms over my breasts, wishing his hands were on them. He looks at me again, that tenderness filling his gaze, and I find myself paralyzed. The lust I can handle, but this … Goddamn it. He had to go there. He knows it screws with my head and he does it on purpose, bashing me over the head with that love until I get it, until I know I'm worth it. It'll be awhile, but I'll come around. I always do.

“I'd be honored if you'd dance for me, baby,” he says and then his brown eyes start to sparkle, the love morphing into lust; desire creeping into the smirk on his lips. Even his dimples join along for the ride. “I was hoping you'd do this for me on our wedding night, but you know, there was the whole giving birth fiasco.” I flip him off and grab a handful of items from the box. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I'm going to dress up for him the way I did for Noah, but this time, when morning rolls around, I'll still be here beside him, always and forever. I bet we even end up in the same level of hell, buried side by side in matching fucking coffins. Or better yet, the same coffin, bones tangled up, scrambled into piles of who's who and whatnot. It's a morbid thought but somehow comforting at the same time. With Ty and me, it's not till death do us part. It's forever, just forever.

“I'm not promising I'll be any good though,” I warn him before I step into the bathroom and escape my cocoon, transform into a butterfly, and get ready to show Ty my wings.

19

Deep breath, Never.

I touch the handle of the bathroom door, pausing for only a split second to check my appearance in the mirror. My dark hair, the mirror to my spirit, an inky well of blackness escaping my soul is coiffed atop my head, wrapped around with a purple scarf that hangs down, kisses the freckles on my shoulders. I've draped silver chains over the top, pinned bunches of silk flowers and crescent moons. I run my tongue over my lips, dyed a bright red, a pop of color in my pale face, like a strawberry, waiting to be plucked and kissed. My eyes are pulled and pinched back with the illusion of smoke, hazy and mesmerizing, truthfully deceptive, shaded just so, just enough to bring out the blue and green flecks in the hazel color without taking away from the stark beauty of the gray.

My belly, still flat but full with Ty's growing baby, has a butterfly pendant pierced through it, danging low, teasing the hem of my black skirt which hangs heavy off my hips, tied up with a fringe belt. The white tassels hang low and aren't afraid to move, blowing around as I turn, catching an imaginary breeze and taking off to the sound of silver bells, a string of which I've draped around my midsection and let hang down my side.

My left hand is a match for Ty's right, covered in twelve rings that I've borrowed from his grandma and my arms tinkle with bracelets. I smile wickedly at myself, biting my lip and letting my eyes trail down, across the deep line of cleavage, the turquoise top and the black half-vest that goes over it.

Ty is going to fucking flip.

I take another breath, close my eyes and imagine that the music I hear from the bedroom is taking me far away, to a different place, pulling Ty and I away from the world, so we can focus on each other and nothing else. He's the raven to my crow, and I couldn't imagine haunting this heavy world without him by my side.

I open the door and the thick, cloying smell of patchouli wraps around me.

“I found it in the dresser drawer,” Ty tells me as I move forward, into the darkened room, lit up by two single candles on either side, framing the stage and the small area Ty's cleared of boxes for me. I know immediately when I fall into his line of sight, feel his eyes rake me and penetrate me, kiss and caress me.

I center myself as best I can and turn away from him, my eyes falling onto our sleeping baby, his soft face, his rosy cheeks. I lift my chin high and raise one hand over my head, palm up towards the ceiling, the other out at my side. And then I wait.

The room is so still, vibrating with electricity, even though I haven't moved, even though nothing's happened between us yet. The current song ends and the next begins. A deep hum buzzes through the speakers follow by the tabla. I let my lashes rest against my cheek and then I begin to move. I don't think about what I'm doing, I just do it.

My hips sway and my belly contracts, muscles sliding around, their memory better than my own. They know how to dance, and they're angry at me for denying them. Soon I'm spinning around and my hands are sweeping out before me, drawing back while my hips undulate in a slow circle.

I open my eyes and see Ty McCabe naked on our bed, legs crossed at the ankles, butterfly tattoos melting onto his shoulders. With the dim lighting and the flickering candles, I can almost imagine that they're alive, moving over his skin and inviting me over.

A breeze from the open window sneaks through and teases my heated flesh, draws goose bumps over my body. I imagine that it's Ty that's touching me with his calloused hands and his rings, holding me, possessing me.

I move for him.

My eyes close again, so I can reconnect with the music, feel the power of a hundred women, a thousand, a million, coursing through the earth, rising into the foundation of the house and finding its way to my bare feet. I feel powerful dancing there, my heart in my throat, my pulse wild. I feel real and organic and female. And I feel Ty's masculinity calling to me from across the room, from the bed where his hand's just dropped to his cock and he's stroking and pleasuring himself to thoughts of me and my heated warmth.

It's obvious to me then why I haven't danced for so long. To dance, to really show the world the sound of your soul through your body, you have to be whole. Where before, I was empty, I am now complete. Where before, I was barren, I am now full.

I open my eyes again and take a step closer, my skirt flowing free, teasing my calves, the bells on my waist jangling in tune with my bangles, with Ty's bracelets as he slides his hand up and down the length of his shaft, wishes for me with every part of his being. His moans join the drone of the music as I turn and my fingers move outwards, beckon him close. I tuck them against my chest and let my head fall back. Vaguely, I'm aware of my hair falling out of its bun, flowing free behind me as I spin in a tight circle so fast that I get dizzy.

“Come to me, baby,” Ty says after awhile, voice husky, the sound colored with charcoal heat, like a fire long since left burning, still hot but not flaming. Now, it's sizzling. Now, although it isn't raging, it's at its hottest, its most sensual point.

But I don't go to him, not yet. I want to be possessed by him, but I'm also in control, and he knows that. The music asks me to show him with my hips what I'm feeling, so I dip the right side, then the left. I rise to my toes, and I tip my pelvis back and forth, sinking back down into a crouch and exploding out of it into yet another turn. I can't seem to stop making them, feeling that rush of blood to my head.

Ty starts forward, crawling across the bed, but I come to a sudden stop and lock my gaze on his, forcing him back against the pillows where he begins to beat at his cock with a ferocity that's almost frightening. A wicked smirk eats at my lips as a shimmy builds up from below, teases my body with small vibrations.

The song slows.

The tabla trails away.

I pause there in the pregnant silence, watching Ty, listening to him growling in his throat, waiting for me, wanting me.

Another song begins, slower this time, building momentum as it carries out the artists' wishes, twirling around the room and teasing the spirit the way good art always does. Whether it's a book, a painting, or a symphony, art is the dictation of the soul, the piece of beautiful blackness inside of all of us, and when it comes out, truly shows its face and breathes life into the beautiful air, there is nothing in this world that can compare.

“Babe, I need you,” Ty says and this, this I can go to.

So I pad across the floor towards him, light as air, the vibrant, beautiful butterfly wings that are attached to my soul keeping me afloat.

Ty watches me hungrily, eyes sparkling dark, mouth twisted into an expression to match mine. We're just two little wickeds, me and him, just two nasty little wickeds.

I climb onto the bed and press my hands to his sweaty flesh, straddling him, pushing my bare cunt against his erection. His hand finds my hair, his lips my lips. He holds me in place while he kisses the fuck out of me. His tongue and mine dance to the music, pressing into each other hard, trying to blur that line between us, so that we're just one. Just one, fucking, twisted bit of soul in love.

Ty's other hand unhooks the vest in the front, unties the choli in the back. My tender breasts spill free and he drops his mouth to them hungrily, like he can't wait even a second longer or he'll explode. I wiggle into place and he helps guide me, dropping his hand from my hair to my hip, positioning me, so that my heat presses against his cock, invites him into soft wetness.

Ty enters me with a guttural groan, forcing me to grab his hair and hold him back. I'm afraid he's going to come too quick. I need him to wait for me, to feel every part of my body, taste every bit of my heart.

My slickness glides along him, teasing him, capturing him with that essential womanliness that is my fucking right, that bit of me that I betrayed by jumping from partner to partner. I abused her, stuffed her full but forgot to please her, and she's angry with me. Ty soothes this side of me.

While he kisses my breasts, bites my nipples, sucks them into his mouth, I spill words for him. I don't know what I say exactly, but I know I tell him I love him and his hands clamp tight on either side of my hips, guiding me, grinding me into him. When he pulls away from them, leaving them sore and wanting, he looks up into my face and breathes against my mouth, gazes at me with that careful tenderness I have to look away from. This time though, he grabs my chin and pulls me back.

“You deserve to be loved,” he says which is so unexpected that I pause in our dancing rhythm. Our push and pull grinds to a halt with Ty buried inside of me, my skirt flowing around us like a flower. “You deserve it,” he repeats. “And I'm going to be the man to prove that to you.”

Ty pushes us over gently, falls against me and presses me into the bed with hot heat. My legs go around his back and cross at the ankles while he moves slowly, sweetly, carefully. Ty and I make a different kind of music that lasts long into the night, past the moment when the stereo goes quiet and into the early hours when the sun rises outside the window, kisses our bare flesh.

Like dancers in a choreography, we switch positions and taste each other, find solace in one another's flesh, keep the memory of our love alive and floating in the air like the incense that's long since burned out.

Ty spills himself inside of me again and again, and I drench him with my heat, and we mix saliva and sweat until we're just covered in each other, until the sheets are damp and the room is humid with the scent of our lovemaking. We go until we can't go anymore, until we fall to pieces together and glue ourselves back together in a tangled heap with his body still inside of mine, my hands around his neck, his forehead against my throat.

We stay that way until our baby calls out to us with a gurgle, brings us up and out of each other with a smile and a breath of fresh air that beckons in the new day.

20

The morning before we're supposed to load up and make the three hour drive to the cabin, Ty convinces me that I should tell my family about the baby. I'm not very far along in the pregnancy, so I don't know how great of an idea that is, but Ty seems pretty adamant about it. I wonder if it's because things are … different now. That night, that dance, seems to have woven a spell around our family, and I don't feel so afraid of Noah anymore. I have a long way to go, sure, but I notice that I kiss his face more, hold him tighter, love him deeper. It's amazing how that works, isn't it? You think you can't love someone anymore because you love them an infinite amount of times more than you love your own soul, but then it happens. Miraculously, spontaneously, it happens and it's so fucking perfect that it makes you want to cry. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Love is an all consuming thing, a well of infinite possibilities that stretches the limits of our own, individual universes and carries our spirits farther than we ever expected to go.