Bring on the Rain (18 page)

“
He came by, and explained
things. I can’t say he didn’t hurt me. It is over now. I don't see
any point in him worrying about it anymore.”

“
They told you lies, about
me?”

Her whisper matched his, “That
and…Well, things.”

Mitch dropped his tone even more and
gave up any pretense. Dovie had been dead a short half-hour, and
the past two weeks had been hell. He had knocked the shit out of
Jude and didn’t seem to be able to comprehend what the hell had
gone wrong. “I need to know it all….”

Seeing the lines of anguish in his
face, Madeline realized, she had to tell him now. At least, that
much of it. “They told me you didn’t love me. That you were playing
round with a lot of girls ‘cause you had cold feet. Ronda was
indulging you. Dovie lit into me.” Madeline admitted, “She scared
the hell out of me and called me names. She told me not to come
back.”

Madeline sighed and rushed on, “Like I
said, Jude came here to the house and told me you wanted me to back
off. Deena came to the school and was waiting for me. She said you
didn’t love me and-…” she couldn’t help the hoarseness of her
whisper, “I was making a fool of myself, and you were laughing
about it with your buddies.

They all told me you were trying to
find a way to break it off, but I was. I was clingy and immature
and you…” Madeline could not sit there any longer. She walked to
the kitchen, concluding after clearing her throat, “They said you’d
been engaged to Ronda for some time. You felt sorry for me, and
wanted them to end it, so you wouldn’t have to deal with
it.”

~*~

Staggered, livid, completely numb with
it, Mitch heard himself say as if from a distance, “They told me
that you came to them and said you wanted to break up. You were
afraid of me physically. Said…you didn’t love me.”

Madeline came back, took the chair
across from him, and surveyed his face saying, “I didn’t read your
letter. As far as I was concerned, the message was delivered.
“

Mitch murmured, “I had written and
asked you why. I needed to know why. How you could—I was begging
you—” Mitch whispered roughly past the pain in his throat, “No, I
know I was. I wrote my twenty one-year-old heart out in
it.”

Madeline told him then she believed
him.

Mitch glanced away after that, and was
slow to meet her eyes again. “I let Dovie push me into marrying
Ronda, because I was furious. I was hurting. Hell, I wanted to die,
but I couldn’t.” He swallowed.

He was hurting right now for both of
them, for the anger and the cruel way things had happened. “You
didn’t know?”

“
No. I had my own life to
deal with. Mother killed herself, remember?”

Mitch closed his eyes for a second then
stared at her, aching. When he spoke, his voice was betraying. It
was too rough with raw emotions that burned through him.

“
Do you know what my gut
feels like right now? How it’s burning because I can’t scream it
out of me? Do you know how?” He stopped, looked down, got his
breath, and muttered, “They took the life out of me. I’m passed
fucking angry I could…I want...”

“
It’s history,
Mitch.”

Disbelief was in his voice now. He
cussed, explicitly. ”Fuck that! Damn them to hell, Madeline.
“

“
Let it go, bury it with
Dovie.”

He set the soda aside and slid to the
edge of the sofa again. This time running his hands through his
hair. Finally holding his head and propping his elbow on his
thighs. He was trembling.

Mitch ground his palms against his eyes
once, still looking at the floor until slowly raising them to see
her, he murmured deep and harsh, “Goddammit ” His eyes were
shimmering, wet, and he couldn’t help it. “Goddamn them to hell.”
Mitch felt his throat lock.

Looking away from his vulnerable face,
her whole body suddenly trembling too, Madeline rasped, “It’s been
many years and a marriage or two ago. Let it go, Mitch.”

“
Madeline, please.” His
whisper was absolute torment.

Tears burned, spilling. She shivered
all over. Nevertheless, Madeline couldn’t, it was not that simple
for her. There was much more to it. Oh God, she thought, feeling
herself falling apart with the pain and grief and confusion. Why
now, why couldn’t it have stayed in the past?

His family had lied, what they’d had
was real then, and both of them had been lied to all these
years.

Mitch came to her, leaned down, and
cupped her cheeks almost roughly, making her look at him. His voice
was still raw as he confessed, “I loved you! I loved you. Please
believe that. I would drop you off here and go home physically
hurting, hoping I could sleep, and make the night short, until we
could be together again. You were my everything and
more.”

His emotion-filled eyes searched hers.
“Making love was the closest I could get to putting myself inside
you, where I wanted to stay. It was never enough. No matter how
much or how many times…because it ended. And I never wanted it
to.”

Openly crying now, Madeline couldn’t
speak. How she had felt that too. How the empty years had just
stood in contrast to what they’d had. He had been her
life.

She closed her eyes but didn’t hold
back the tears or the sobs that suddenly tore from her throat. The
sound echoed through the room. Her hands came outward. Madeline
kept thinking in her mind, Mitch had loved her. Someone back then,
in her lonely life, had needed and wanted her just as much as she
needed them.

Mitch squatted down by the sofa and
then gathered her against him and held her unyielding. Both
weeping, both holding each other in anguish and mourning. It
surpassed anything they’d felt in their lives, because unlike their
past together, this was a pain that every echoed heartbeat from
their close bodies blended. And it hurt. It hurt, even to let it
out.

Madeline had thought she was done with
it years ago, but the knowledge that they’d both hurt, both cried
back then, it just made this so much harder.

He was comforting her and she him, and
he was telling her he was so sorry. Madeline wept with open sobs
that jerked through her. Mitch was silent, rubbing his face against
her hair, tightening his arms, if to hold her together and to be
the stronger one.

Time advanced, extended, moments
intermingled. Until they finally reached the other end. She knew
they could feel each other physically, but were hollow, raw,
bruised in their hearts, and too vulnerable with every defense
lowered.

Gradually Mitch was letting go of her
and she him. Distance parted their bodies, allowing their arms and
hands to slide across shoulders, backs, until they were separate
people again.

Mitch retained hold of her hands
though, looking at her in the same fog she gazed at him. “Don’t
send me home yet.”

“
Dovie. You’ll have to make
the arrangements a—”

“
Two hours. Let me come to
your bed.”

Madeline swallowed thickly. “I’m having
my period, Mitch.”

“
I don't care.”

“
I do, it’s—”

Mitch squeezed her hands lightly. “I’ll
hold you. Nothing more, please. Please it’s been so long, so
empty.”

Madeline sighed and moved her hands,
cutting off his words. Arising shakily to lock the door and turn
off the light. Taking him by the hand, she led him into her room
where the moonlight glimmered on the rumpled white
sheets.

Madeline crawled in while he was
stripping down, seeing him in a pair of boxer briefs, snug, and
black, cupping his hips and buttocks. A brief display of his tan
body then he was under the blanket.

Mitch was on his side, head on the
pillow. He was gathering her close to him, rubbing his lips against
her hair.

The clock was ticking. She didn’t know
how she’d work a shift now. She needed sleep.

He was silky hot and firm, his solid
body warming the bed in radiating waves. The natural scent of him
mingled with breezy cologne. It smelled of lakes, waterfalls, and
outdoors. Mitch had one arm around her, the other hand on her
stomach, rubbing in an absent way that also exposed a tremble in
his callused fingers.

Madeline needed to sleep, she did. She
closed her eyes and tried to. However, he moved sliding down in the
bed and slowly peeled off her T-shirt. He laid his head on her
stomach.

Touching his cool, crisp hair, she
sighed. Her muscles were contracting. Her whole being was aware of
him. He began to chafe his face against her skin, before he turned
his head and found her breasts.

It drove enough shock through her, when
he opened his mouth on them, Madeline hissed, arching beneath him.
Then…she started weeping mutely.

“
I...I’m sorry,” Mitch
whispered as he loved them, petted and rubbed his lips on them for
a long time. He stroked her sides, her stomach. He suckled her,
softly and pulling laved them slowly. When he spread his lips from
tip to globe, it was like moist honey sliding over them. As he
pulled back easily, it pulled craving from within her.

“
Mitch, it hurts…” Madeline
gasped and bit her lip. Each inner contraction hurt worse. It had
been way, way, too long. Her body had not been touched in too many
years.

Mitch stopped and slid up again.
Holding her. Soothing them with his hand and lastly, pulling the
blanket over them. He whispered low and husky, “You taste even
better as a woman. Feel sweet in my mouth.”

She was hurting. The sexual
contractions ached all the way to her womb. Madeline whispered
painfully, “We’re different people now, please don't think we
can—”

He hugged her a bit tighter.
“Shhhh…Just let me hold you.”

Madeline sighed, eyes tightly closed,
her breathing shaky and unsteady. They were motionless a long
time.

Madeline felt like a rubber band,
twisted to the limit inside. She was on the rag, padded up to her
elbows, she thought with morbid humor-how the hell could I be horny
now? She knew part of it was the crying, and what he’d said to her,
but most of it was that damned chemistry and temptation was
horrible when you added all the elements into it. She thought
someone up there either had a warped sense of humor, or knew her
better than she knew herself…and knew she had enough shit to wade
through still without complicating things.

~*~

Mitch didn’t want to leave. He was
rigid against her, so hard and aroused he was seeping against her
hip through the material. His body recognized her, every sense
welcomed her. No amount of thinking could fight that. She had
changed physically. It didn’t matter, every part of him wanted to
open up to her.

He was ready to go just from kissing
her breasts. He wanted to talk to her like a lover, to say touch
me, and to be able to slide down into the bed and bury his mouth on
her, to taste her there again and to drink her in brand new so that
he could feel alive.

Mitch couldn’t switch his mind off
after the tears and confessions; he couldn’t go back to being a
stranger and thinking like one. He hadn’t told her what those years
with Ronda were like, how seldom he had been with women over the
years. That didn’t matter; he could smell her powdery fabric
softener mixed with a flowery perfume. He could feel the contours
and soft curves against him, still taste her nipples, and feel the
unbelievably tender skin of her breasts on his lips. Madeline was
having her cycle, and he did remember how rough they were on her.
He should be ashamed of himself, but he just wanted any part of
her. He was so needing her.

Mitch watched the nightstand clock,
feeling her stiff diminutive breaths. He was aware that Madeline
had to work. He was certain that when he let go of her, she wasn’t
going to let him back in easily again. Her guard had been down.
They were both vulnerable and weak from the emotional
exoneration.

He also realized with maturity now,
that she wasn’t running across those bridges like he was. She was
not stopping him, sure, but she had yet to turn and to meet him
half way.

Mitch released her carefully and raised
gazing downward at her in the muted light.

Her eyes were wet, lashes still holding
a tear or two. Her face seemed defenseless and shielded at the same
time. He leaned down rubbing his lips across hers slowly, before
Madeline could prevent it. His eyes never left hers when he lifted
his head again.

His whisper broke the silence yet
didn’t shatter the tension, “You’re beautiful. I love you,
Madeline.” He got up slowly, and began to dress. He was aware she
couldn’t say it back. That maybe…she hadn’t even heard
him.

Mitch saw her slide up, sitting against
the headboard, knees up, arms around them, as if forcefully holding
herself together. He had his jeans and boots on. The snap was still
unfastened below his navel. He slid his shirt on, not looking away
from her, and still feeling the ridges and muscles of his body taut
with need.

A fine sheen of sweat covered him, and
his skin was so sensitive to air he felt his hard nipples standing
out against the veined skin. He could feel the heat of his blood
moving through every vein. Damn, it had been years since he’d felt
this much of anything.