kissed her. Took a step away but then stopped and kissed her again.
“Go pack,” he said.
Friends offered their lake cabin outside Bangor, Maine so they made it their first destination.
They had been easing back into sex for a little while. Slow and careful and conscientious. Tonight they coupled with a savagery. It wasn’t making love. More like trial by fire.
It burned bright in the hearth, the charred logs slipping and crackling and popping. The clear yellow flames throwing shadows on the walls and the shadows throwing waves of heat onto the bed.
The bed was dead center of the cabin, like an altar. Erik lay on his back and Daisy was on top of him, going at him with a vengeance. They were still fully dressed, only what was necessary had been bared or undone. Over him, she was burning, too. Burning hotter, harder, and he was buried in the immensity of her need. She writhed under his touch, a wild and dangerous thing. Her lips were open, her throat strained, but still no sound came from her. Under normal circumstances, this would indicate she had reached the pinnacle of pleasure and he would coax her with his voice.
Come. Come to me.
But now the soundlessness only signaled how desperately she was still trapped in grief.
He took her hands in his. “Cry,” he whispered. “Cry to me.”
Her head lolled, her skin burned, something in her seemed to crumple and she came down off him, crashed gently down into the pillows. He rolled to her, ignoring the tangle of his clothes, slid his hand to the back of her neck, into the hot dampness of her long hair. His mouth found hers. He pulled his arms from his sleeves as she unbuttoned him, lay back long enough for her to pull his pants off. Then he was on her again, her mouth in his again. His hands were stripping her clothes off sure and strong. He wanted to throw them at the hearth, consign them to the flames and burn them. Burn all of the hurt away, reduce it to ash so he could show her who he was.
On fire with fearless purpose, he moved over her, held her down and pushed deep into her, kissed her open-eyed.
“I need you,” she whispered against his mouth.
“I’m here.”
“Help me.” Her teeth chattered by his ear. She clung to him, her face in his shoulder, limbs trembling as the storm rolled through.
“I’ve got you, Dais. I’m not afraid of what you’re feeling. I can’t love you without loving this too.” Gently but firmly he took her head in his hands, took it off his shoulder and made her face him. “Look at me now.”
She tried but could not focus on him.
“Look at me,” he said. “Look in my eyes.”
She breathed in, deep, held it a moment, her eyes trying to settle on his.
“Look at me,” he said again. “Look only at me.”
It took a few minutes, her breath hitching in and out of her lungs, but gradually her eyelids ceased flickering. Her gaze locked into his and her body grew still. His hand caressed her face, thumb running beneath her eyes and over her mouth.
They stared. They breathed. The heat of the room coalesced into a bubble, sealing them up in peace. Time relaxed. The flames were dying down to embers. The cool blue of a fire a thousand times more powerful. He kissed her, nudged her lips open with his and moved into her mouth, finding her tongue. He grew hard inside her again, reared his hips back a few inches and then settled deeper into her. She spread her legs further and her hand pressed the small of his back. He slid into her, out of her, feeling himself disappear into her body, down into the core where their halves had made a whole.
It was the most love we ever made. A new spire on our cathedral. I don’t have to tear it down. It can stay there and be beautiful.
An almost triumphant desire surged in him, strong, bright and true. It crashed through the roof of his mind and the fabric of time slowly split down the center.
“Come back to me,” he said, throwing out the hook.
“You,” she said, caught and drifting toward him. “Only you.”
He tried to keep looking in her eyes as she rumbled beneath the plate of his desire and bucked him up. He held on until the long line of her throat opened to the ceiling and her edge