Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

"Do you want some ice for that?" she said, her voice quiet.

"No." He flexed his fingers into a fist and opened them again. "I want it to hurt."

She sighed. He heard the sizzling pan slide off its burner. He heard her bare feet as she crossed the floor. Then her hand settled over his, light and warm. "What did you come here for, Russ? Absolution?"

He shook his head. "I wanted to… make sure you were okay." He folded his hands on the table and stared at them. She hesitated for a moment, then touched his hair, her fingers stroking him like you'd pet a cat. "I'm sorry," he said. "I guess that was…"

She gave him time to finish, but he had no idea what he was saying. She sighed again. "I can't solve your problems, dear heart. I'm part of them."

He looked up at her, then. "No," he said. "Never that. It's me. I'm… stuck. I'm like an old truck up to its hubcaps in snow. I go forward, I go back, nothing ever changes or shakes loose, and the whole time I'm cold, inside and out. The only time I feel anything is when I'm angry. And that scares the crap out of me."

Her hand never stopped moving over his hair. "How do you feel now?"

He studied her face. Let himself feel for a moment. "Naked. Sometimes you scare the crap out of me, too."

She laughed a little. He pressed his palms against the table and pushed himself up. She stepped back. "I better head home," he said. "I think I've reached my maximum daily limit of honesty." He pushed the chair back into place. "If you hear or see anything, anything at all, that makes you nervous, call nine-one-one. And call me. We'd rather come out on a false alarm than see you get into trouble again."

She smiled, one-sided. "Thank you, Chief Van Alstyne."

He covered his eyes with one hand. "Christ, I'm pitiful, aren't I?"

He felt her arms go around him. She hugged him, something she probably wouldn't have done without the encouragement of the schnapps. "No," she said. "You're human. And someday, when you can admit that to yourself, you'll stop feeling so bad that you can't save everyone."

He looked down at her, about to say that sounded like a pretty damn accurate description of her, but her eyes were X-raying through him, and her pointed half smile said I know you .

He didn't let himself think. He kissed her. As lightly and briefly as one of her blessings. A thanksgiving and an apology. Then he lifted his head and saw her face, tipped back like the survivor of a long winter on the first day of hot spring sunshine. "Clare," he said, his voice thick. She opened her eyes, full of heat, and just like that the desperate desire he thought he'd never feel again flamed to life like blue gas jetting out of cold iron.

He dug his fingers into her hair and pulled her to him, kissing her, deep, hungry kisses that tasted of chocolate and peppermint. She moaned in the back of her throat and wrestled her hands free from around his waist to twine them about his neck. He bumped against the kitchen table and bent her back, kissing her, kissing her, her mouth and her jaw and the pulse trip-hammering in her throat. He felt something huge and powerful racing through him, sparking every nerve end, blanking out everything in the world except Clare, the taste of her, the sound of her, panting and gasping, the feel of her, oh, God, better than anything he had ever fantasized, as he yanked open her pajama top and pushed it aside and touched her, touched her, touched her.

She cried out, and he shut her mouth with more kisses, wet and dark, remembering they had to keep quiet even though he couldn't remember why. She pushed at him, tugging at his shirt, and he reared back, taking her with him, the two of them standing hip to hip and toe to toe, frantic to remove his uniform blouse without letting any space or light or air between them. She undid the two top buttons and he yanked the shirt off over his head, tossing it on the table, and it was Clare , warm and alive and half naked in his arms. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head from the feel of her skin on his.

Bed. Bed. Bed. He herded her toward the kitchen's swinging door, the two of them stumbling around and between each other's legs, Russ dropping kisses on her hair, her ears, her temples while she pressed her face into his chest, her mouth and tongue making him mindless. They rocked through the door and staggered into the dimly lit living room, and when she bit him, he felt his knees buckling. The bed was too far away, he would never make it. He was going to burn alive before then. He hip-checked the sofa and dropped onto its squishy cushions. She let the pajama top and the robe fall to the floor, letting him look at her, look at her, and then she crawled on top of him. He gritted his teeth to keep from whimpering and begging and singing hallelujah. He seized her hips and pulled her to him, so she could feel how hard she made him, Christ, like he was seventeen again.

"Russ," she said, her voice unrecognizable. "Oh, God." She fit herself around him, and he could feel the weight and the strength of her, the long muscles of her thighs and her back beneath his hands. He heard a groan tearing out of his chest as he rolled her underneath him, his arms shaking, the breath hitching in his throat.

A light snapped on upstairs. "Señora Reverenda?" The voice sounded small and scared and about twelve years old. He stilled as best he could with his chest working like a bellows. Dropped his forehead to hers. Goddamn. It really was like being seventeen again. Next, Clare's parents would phone to see how the babysitting job was going.

Clare drew an unsteady breath. "It's-" She swallowed. Tried again. "It's all right, Señor Esfuentes. Everything's okay. Um…" She looked at him helplessly.

He rolled off her, reaching out and snagging her robe off the floor. He handed it to her. " Es yo, Amado . Chief Van Alstyne. Acabo de venir cerca comprobar en usted dos. Vaya de nuevo a cama ."

"Okay," Amado said. " Buenos noches ."

"What did you say?" Clare whispered.

"I told him to go away, we were getting naked."

She whacked his shoulder, hard.

"Ow!"

She curled into a sitting position and put on the robe. He rolled onto his back, throwing his arm over his eyes, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. "You're going to toss me out, aren't you?"

There was a pause. "Yes."

"Christ, Clare…"

She twisted to speak to him; then, as if she thought better of staying within arm's reach, she stood up and stepped back. Her cheeks and chest were stained with high color, her hair a wild tangle, her lips red and swollen. He had to shut his eyes before he broke something.

"We can't do this," she said.

He could smell her from where she stood. "Come back over here," he said, his voice heavy and full. "I'll show you how it works."

She sat in one of the overstuffed chairs that faced each other across the coffee table. Her hand, clutching the edges of her robe together, was trembling. "And what happens when we wake up tomorrow morning with your wife's dead body between us?"

"Jesus Christ!" He convulsed upward. His feet, still booted, thudded to the floor.

"It's too soon, Russ. Even if we didn't have this…"-she waved a hand in the air-"this mess between us, it would still be too soon. She's only been dead five months. There's a reason the old mourning period was a year. People who lived with death knew it took time."

"What is this about? You want to make me wait? For what? Payback? To see if I'll jump through some arbitrary hoop for you?"

She bent over, twining and twisting her hands together, letting them dangle between her knees. She finally looked at him. "I love you," she said. "And God knows, I want you." She laughed a little, without humor. "I think we just proved that. But I deserve to have your whole heart."