Every Little Kiss (16 page)

By degrees, Abe pulled away from her skin. His eyes met hers. “That wasn't on your list,” he said, low and gravelly. She wondered suddenly what it would feel like to have the vibrations of his words on her breasts, to have him talk in that charcoal-and-fire voice of his while he was against her chest. She shook off the thought, trying to concentrate on what he was saying.

“Not technically it wasn't,” she said, “but you could infer that it's
leading
to things that are on my list.”

He kissed the tip of each breast gently. “I'm just saying, there are a lot of loopholes.” His warm breath heated her skin.

“I think you're being too literal,” she said, shifting underneath him. The hard length of him was right there. She lifted her hips. He closed his eyes, swallowing visibly.

“You're the one with the rules,” he growled, his hands unbuttoning her jeans almost before she realized it. He yanked them off her raised hips, leaving her on her back on the couch in nothing but a red lace thong. He cocked a brow. “A lot of thought went into this. Clearly. But maybe not enough.”

“The only thing I'm
thinking
is that you're wearing too many clothes.” She sat up, trying to lift off his shirt, but he pulled back.

“Oh, no you don't,” he said, pushing her back down. He kneed apart her legs, and settled between them. The heat of him was delicious. She wondered if maybe they'd make out some more, and then he'd climb off and undress slowly. Maybe he'd give her a little show. She shivered, thinking of his bare skin, his rippled muscles.

“We need to close these loopholes,” he said, trailing his hand from her knee, up to her thigh, then higher still. He snapped the band of her underwear. It bit her skin deliciously.
Do that again
, she thought. But he went one better. He slipped his fingers underneath the seam of the thong, touching her folds.

“Oh!” she cried out. Her back arched.

“Stay with me,” he said, a smile on his lips as he kissed her. “We're still discussing this.”

“I don't want to discuss anything.”

“But I do.” His finger trailed over her clitoris, down her folds and up again. She writhed against him. She was wet and wanting. She'd never hungered for anything like she hungered for Abe Cameron inside of her.

“There are technicalities we need to broach,” he said. His knee guided her legs apart farther. She let him. She'd let him tie her up if he wanted. He pushed aside the minimal fabric of her thong for more access. She moaned.

“Are you going to talk or fuck me?” she asked. The bold question felt dangerous, felt right.

“That's just it,” Abe said. “What if I do this instead?” He guided a finger into her, and her whole world went dark. She was blindfolded and underwater and knew nothing except the feeling of him gliding in and out of her. It didn't matter that it wasn't his penis. It was the most glorious thing she'd ever felt. Better than the nights alone with her vibrator. Better than the no-frills sex she'd had with Miles. Better than anything she'd imagined up until this point.

“Where is this on your list, Casey?” he growled into her ear. He rested more of his weight against her, angling himself perfectly. She opened her legs wider, grasping at his back for grounding. “Where does this fit?”

She couldn't answer. It was like being in the elevator all over again, only this time pleasure was shutting her down, not fear. He inserted another finger. Then another. She hissed in breath. He was stretching her.
Imagine what his penis will do
, she thought wildly. It was a flash of logic before she went under again, drowning in the sensations churning in the foundation of her body, building and building, until she was sure everything would come crumbling down around her.

His teeth bit her skin, his hand crashed against her. “I
will
make you come,” he said, his lips right up against her ear, his rock-hard shaft grinding against her bare thigh. “I'll make you come so hard you forget where you are. And you won't know what to do with it on your
list
.”

It was as if her body wanted the challenge, and was all too ready to meet it. The minute he uttered the words, she broke. Her orgasm stampeded out of the pent-up amalgamation that was her body—her skin, her cells, her bones, her marrow all flung themselves to the far reaches of feeling, barreling into the sensation as a ship might meet an oncoming wave.

She heard a noise and realized vaguely that she was making it. She wished she could say she was crying out like they did in the movies, but it was more like she was howling. She was animalistic, clawing at his shoulders, letting these wild nerves carry her deeper into the tangled forest of her own pleasure. She wailed and imagined moonlight and sharp branches, teeth and claws, shivering grasses and dangerous shadows.

Abe plunged into the primitive place with her. “Yes,” he hissed, his movements in synch with her pulsing, his breath in time with her own ragged lungs. “Go deep, go hard.” He didn't let up, he kept pace with her rocking pleasure, demanding her body give everything it had. He drove her, he pushed her—his body anchoring her and flinging her off some reckless cliff at the same time. She tumbled headfirst into it, savoring the wild falling sensation, letting everything go light and dark as she spun downward through her sparking pleasure.

She arched and twisted and yelled for what seemed like full minutes and also no time at all. By and by, the shadows retreated from her periphery, and the light slowly lost its edge, returning to the warm glow of her living room. She came back to her body, remembered she was on her couch. Naked. With Abe Cameron. She opened her eyes.

His hand had quieted. He was staring at her with a cross between amusement and something else. Awe, maybe. She was dazed, wondering if she had somehow imagined all this. Had she really just let herself come undone so fully, so unabashedly in front of a man she hardly knew?

Of course, that was sort of the point. She'd just taken the first step toward getting some things checked off her list.

Or not, as Abe seemed to want to remind her. “That was anomalous,” he said, easing some of his weight off of her. She felt the absence of him keenly. He made up for it by kissing her shoulder, her clavicle. “That was not on your list. It can't count as one of the twelve orgasms, since it didn't result from sex.”

She sighed contentedly, hardly caring. “I'm not sure it matters,” she murmured.

“It means everything on your list is still unchecked.”

“Do we need to get hung up on a technicality?”

“Possibly.”

“Why?”

“You constructed this plan. So if I'm going to be part of it, I want it to be clear-cut.”

If.
Like he was on the fence, still deciding. Even after what they'd just done. Her heart hammered. Maybe he would, after all, just walk away from her after one brief encounter.

“It's easy to rectify,” she said, trying keep the worry off her face. Even her concern couldn't stop her hunger from building for him already, all over again. “Let's have sex. Now. And when I come from
that
, it will count.” She placed her hand on Abe's groin. His thickness jumped at her touch. But instead of surrendering to her and taking her to bed, he clenched his jaw. Everything in him tensed.

“It's more than tempting,” he said, “but there's still too much gray area for my taste.” Abe smiled, but there a sharp note in his tone—a sliver in a sea of silk. He sat up and handed over her pants and shirt, everything crumpled and wrinkled.

“So let's work on it together,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “Come on.” Playful. Light.
Just stay here and keep having fun
, she thought. She fiddled with her clothes but didn't put them on.

“Don't get me wrong. I liked tonight. A lot. I'm just saying, the list is imperfect. Incomplete.”

“So?”

“So, it means that if I do something to you and it's not on the list, where does that leave us? Tonight, for example.”

“I'm not sure it matters. Think of the list more like guidelines than rules. Like the pirate code.” She smiled but he didn't return it. Her neck prickled with unease. She didn't understand why he was so frustrated.

Audrey's words came back to her then, about how she should just throw away the list and see what might happen with Abe. But no, she didn't want that. And a player like Abe surely couldn't want that from her, either.

“What if,” she said slowly, “I modify the list a bit? Make sure we've got more…
specifics
covered? Would that help?”

He ran a hand over his jaw. “I'm not sure—” He stopped himself. Took a deep breath. Casey watched him, unable to decipher what was really going on with him, what thoughts were churning just underneath the surface.

“That's a good idea,” he said finally. “Precisely what I was thinking.” He stood to his feet and pulled on his clothes. She watched, wishing they were headed toward her bedroom instead.

She grabbed a nearby throw blanket and wrapped it around herself. She stood next to him.

“You look like you just got out of the pool,” he said. The bridge of his crooked nose crinkled as he grinned.

“I feel like I just got dunked into the ocean, then left on the beach.”

Abe stepped close. He ran a finger across her cheekbone, to the edge of her face, around the lobe of her ear. She shivered with the impossible deliciousness of it.

“If you wanted, you could…” he trailed off, his eyes not moving from hers.

“What?” she asked, her heart pounding.
He wanted to take her back to the bedroom.
Surely that was it. He hadn't had enough of her yet.

He shook his head. “I was just going to say that if you wanted to text me the revised list, that would be fine. Once you get more specific.”

I thought I was specific
, she mused as he kissed her and melted her on the spot. His kiss was a perfect mix of soft and spicy. How did he know how to
do
that? Before she could think to ask, he had pulled on his coat and grabbed his keys and was heading for the door.

“See you soon,” he said, his boots crunching cold snow as he walked into the December darkness.

Once again, it wasn't a question.

When the door closed behind him, Casey leaned against it, feeling spent. And confused. Had Abe really just refused sex with her, claiming to want more…guidelines?

Her list was supposed to be a road map, nothing more. She was glad she'd left out the part where the entire Knots and Bolts crew helped craft it.

The question of whether Abe actually wanted her nagged at a corner of her brain. Had he said all that about the loopholes just so he didn't have to get entangled with her? It was a distinct possibility. And yet it hadn't seemed that way when he'd looked at her. And certainly not when he'd touched her.

So why had he left her tonight?

She chewed her lip, wondering how in the world she was going to fix her list to satisfy him. Satisfy
them
, when it came down to it. Abe touching her had been an explosion of feeling she'd never known before, and she would do just about anything to get it to happen again.

She walked to her pile of clothes, her muscles deliciously slack, thinking that she would paint a precisely detailed picture of her needs for Abe, down to every last position and possibility. He'd have no wiggle room.

Her heart constricted. And if he balked then, she'd know he didn't want her.

Either that, or he wanted
more
.

She blinked. Was there a possibility he was finding flaws in her list so he wouldn't have to play by the rules at all? So that they could have an actual…relationship and not a to-do list?

No. She pushed the thought aside. That was nuts. Abe Cameron didn't want a relationship. That was why she'd propositioned him in the first place.

The reality was that the rule-prone firefighter just wanted more…well, rules. And that was fine with her. She could get very, very detailed indeed.

Casey smiled as she flipped off lights and carried her tired body to her bedroom, thinking that she couldn't wait to introduce Abe to her bed. She flipped back the covers, where her crisp, freshly washed sheets had been at the ready. There had been scented candles on top of the nightstand, and body oil tucked into the top drawer, along with a multi-pack of condoms.

More for next time
, she thought, yawning as her body relaxed into the sheets. She tried to think of the ways her list could be more specific, tried to get her mind humming with options to shore up the loopholes, but her ideas were blurry and unspecific. She couldn't get ahold of them.

Except for one, sharp and clear, as sleep overtook her:

What happened tonight might not have even been on her list, but Abe Cameron had made her feel extraordinary.

T
he next morning, the streets were quiet and muffled from a fresh dusting of snow as Abe drove to the White Pine Retirement Village to see his folks. Outside all was peaceful, but inside Abe's head, the noise was as loud as one of his station's engines.

The previous night with Casey Tanner had been a jumbled series of contrasts he couldn't make sense of. Wild and restrained. Sleek and barbed. Flaming hot and ash cold.

And
he'd
caused the variations. Casey had been specific and focused about what she'd wanted. But he'd made their night so muddy it would be a miracle if he ever saw straight through the whole situation.

Never mind that what he could still see, clear as day, were Casey's breasts, tight and high as he ran his tongue over them, her back arching as she came in his hands. She'd fallen apart so beautifully that his chest had ached all over again from something he couldn't put his finger on.

What was even happening to him?

He slammed an open palm against the steering wheel, hating how edgy and indecisive he felt. He was never this way about women. He always knew what to do, always knew what he wanted.

But not this time.

He steered his Jeep into the village's parking lot and pulled into a parking space. The lemon yellow structure with white trim rose cheerily above the snow. He spotted a Christmas tree decorated with colored lights through the large bay window at the front. Cardinals darted into and out of the bird feeder on the main lawn. Their crimson wings flashed against the surrounding white.

Abe killed the engine and took a deep breath. He was going to have to get his thoughts together about Casey Tanner.

But that was just it. He didn't know
what
to think.

On any other woman at any other time, her list of five things would have been the greatest invitation of his life.
I am a beautiful woman, and here are five sexy things I want, no strings attached. Give them to me.
He could imagine his former self clicking his heels and saluting. Yes ma'am. Ninety-Eyed here, proud to do my duty for the good of all.

But Casey was different. And, yeah, maybe it was the phantom chest pains talking and, fine, so he was pushing forty and thinking about whether or not he should get his shit together and start a family. But it was more than just that.

Casey was smart and funny, resourceful and kind. He loved that she didn't want to throw Carter under the bus for those fires, and that she was trying to help him. He respected the hell out of how she'd pulled herself—and her sister, for that matter—from an unfortunate situation and made sure they turned out okay. He dug her logical, practical mind, which was so much like his own.

And when it came down to it, he admired how she'd been bold enough to write down a list and say, “This is what I want.” So many of the women he'd been with would put a screen over their lust, as if he couldn't see right through it. They'd talk about wanting to take it slow, and then they'd jump him on the second date. They'd pretend to be shocked in the bedroom when he tried a different position or two, even when he could see their eyes narrowing with want.

Casey did away with all that. She was honest. She was straightforward. And Abe should be meeting everything on her list with aplomb.

Except he couldn't.

He sighed as he pushed open the car door, thinking that her list was like Dr. Frankenstein's monster—wonderful and horrible at the same time.

It wasn't that he didn't want to do those things with Casey.

It was that he didn't want to do
only
those things with Casey.

He pulled open the door of the village, and signed in at the front desk. A nurse with square glasses smiled at him, said something about the weather. He could barely respond. His mind was still on the damn list. He saw that list in the curve of the furniture in the cozy meeting room, where families and village residents sat and chatted. He saw the list in the sparkle of the snow beyond the large, wide-paned windows. He saw the list in the stacks of books and games piled in the library, where a faux fire crackled happily.

The list was everywhere.

And at the same time it was nowhere. He'd made sure of that, because he'd told Casey to change it.

As he ascended the elevator to his parents' apartment, he wanted to kick himself. Last night he'd thought finding the loopholes in the damn thing was the smartest thing he'd ever done. He'd pinpointed them so that he wouldn't have to be chained to her rules. He wanted to put a wrench in her game and hint at the possibilities of them as something more than just those five things.

But he'd pushed it too far. And now she was going to alter the list to make it expanded and specific. In other words, iron clad. He'd see her again and her five things would practically be a notarized legal document, with clearly stated facts there'd be no way to get around.

Once he was presented with that, he'd have to tell her if he was in or out.

He'd have to decide if he could give her what she wanted—and only what she wanted—or if he'd need to walk away because he wanted
more
.

The thought was jarring.

Was it possible he wanted an actual relationship with Casey Tanner?

He turned over the notion in his brain.

Not ninety days. Not a hundred and ninety days. But as long as she'd give him.

His gut twisted. The answer was yes. It was the first time he'd ever felt this way about anyone. And he'd never been more miserable. No wonder he'd been single for so long.

He rang his folks' bell, wondering what in the world he was going to do. Was there any way he could convince Casey to commit to him when all she wanted was five things? He respected her choice to create her list. And yet he wanted to shatter those five things and tear through to her heart, begging her to trust him with it.

His mom opened the door, took one look at his face, and pulled him into a hug. “Oh, Abe. Come on in and tell me all about it.”

Abe hugged his mom back and almost smiled. How did parents always know?

Half an hour later, Abe was sitting with mint tea steaming from a mug, and his mom's paint-splattered hand was patting his gently. His dad had been cutting up a ginger snap with a spoon moments before, until Abe had reached over to help. “Let me get that for you,” he'd offered. When his dad had started to protest, they all decided to cut their cookies with spoons. Now the floor was littered with crumbs from their clumsy efforts, but their cookies were in bite-sized chunks and, more importantly, his dad was happy.

Abe allowed the happiness to be enough. Even though his dad was already more childlike now than the last time Abe had visited. Even though his eyes had a paleness to them that hadn't been there before, like his gaze was becoming as misty as his brain.

It would continue to get worse, Abe knew. Happiness would come only in blips, in flashes. He would hold on to whatever he could get.

“What's happening at work?” his mom asked, distracting him. Flyaway hairs from her gray-blond ponytail curled around her lined face. “Everything okay there?”

She was trying to get at the root of what had been eating at him when he showed up. But she was too polite to ask about it directly.

“Things are okay. I caught a kid lighting fires. He's young. Just ten.”

“My.” His mom's face fell. “That
is
hard. What will you do?”

Abe fiddled with the string on his tea bag. “A group of us are going to meet with his guidance counselor, his social worker, his foster parents, maybe. The nonprofit where he set the first fire—they're going to be in the mix as well. The idea is to talk to him, give him some counseling, to help him deal with his issues differently.”

“Have you done this kind of thing before?”

“Sort of. Kids play with fire, you know? I've talked to lots of dumb teenagers who weren't using their heads and almost got hurt. Little kids, too, who didn't understand what they were doing. But this feels different. This kid feels—on the edge of something, you know? Like, if we don't get this right, we might lose our chance at helping him. Period.”

Behind his mom, the curtains rustled slightly as the heating ducts blew warm air into the room. Abe should have been sweltering, but instead he felt clammy. Most arson was committed by kids who were eighteen or younger. Anger was always a motivator, but the fury was usually a result of something else. Abuse, maybe, or humiliation, like if Carter was being bullied at school. Given Carter's family history and the fact that he was now in foster care, anything could be driving him to burn.

“You sound so concerned,” his mom said. “Do you know this boy well?”

“Hardly at all. But this friend I have at Robot Lit—she's going to ask him if she can take a peek at his journals, see what's going on.”

“Ah.” Her tone was like a detective who'd just found the clue she needed at a crime scene. “Tell me more about this friend.”

“Who is this?” his dad asked, suddenly taking interest in their conversation.

“Someone I met recently,” Abe said, avoiding his mom's all-knowing gaze. “She works at that place I used to go to as a kid. Robot Lit.”

“With the tables. You used the tables.”

Abe nodded. Now that his dad's word retrieval was getting worse, he often substituted “table” to mean just about anything. “They have lots of books and they help kids to read and write. It's a great organization.”

“And your friend? What's her name?” His mom wasn't letting him off the hook.

“Casey. She's an accountant there.”
And I like her. More than I should. Only I can't figure out what to do about it.
He clenched his fists, wishing he could confess everything. Only the words stayed lodged in his throat.

His mom stood up, probably sensing his frustration. She knew him better than himself, some days. “Pete, you want to come with me while I show Abe my new painting?”

“No, that's all right. I have the—the table here. And I'll just do that.” He motioned to his unfinished cookie and tea.

“Holler if you need anything,” Mom said, kissing the top of Dad's head. To Abe, she said, “Come on, then. Let me show you what I've been working on.”

He followed her down a short hallway lined with family pictures. Abe and Stu in swim trunks, leaping off the edge of a dock. Mom and Dad, grinning at the camera with their arms looped around each other's necks. A family portrait the year they'd driven all the way down to the Grand Canyon. In the background, the red stone layers were stacked in jagged pieces, slicing and sloping their way into the horizon.

Abe's mom led the way to a small second bedroom at the end of the hallway. Light poured in from south-facing windows. Along the wall was a smattering of canvases resting on easels. A small desk was cluttered with tubes and brushes sticking out of Mason jars. Abe smelled oil and paint thinner and thought of his childhood, sitting at his parents' sides and watching them translate the world to a small square—a bit of life, frozen and beautiful and timeless. His dad painted less now that dementia had become more symptomatic, but his mom had kept on. He wondered if pictures of Freiburg would help his dad, would jog his memory back to a place he had loved. Back to a place where he'd
found
love.

“Is this the latest one?” Abe asked, staring at a painting of a small boy flying a kite on the beach. The sand was gray, the sky was churning. The waves were frothing and roiling against a jagged shoreline. It was downright ominous. But the boy was steadfast—holding his kite aloft, the red of the windswept toy like a scarlet burst among all the muted colors. There was an expression on the boy's face like a cross between joy and longing.

“Finished it just a day ago,” Mom said with a small smile. “Do you like it?”

Abe stared at it, feeling the bite of the wind, the tension of the string, the shimmy of the kite above. He could all but hear the roar of the waves. “It's beautiful, Mom. Stunning.”

“I call it
Abe Aloft
.”

He raised his eyes from the canvas. “Why is my name in the title?”

His mom was backlit by the winter sun. He could hardly see her face. “Because you anchor us to the shore so we can fly.”

Abe shook his head. He was used to his mom's poetic language. She was an artist, through and through. But he didn't know what in the world that meant.

“Care to elaborate?”

“You're so literal, Abe. Why not just stare at the painting and think about the title and see what comes to mind?”

This was what his parents had been asking him to do since he was in diapers. To them, there were no answers to things. Not literally. Just gauzy ideas that you could maybe put a loose wire-frame around.

Abe had grown up without much faith in their abstracts. He liked knowing what the rules were, where the boundaries stood. When it was getting dark and other kids' parents called them in for dinner, Abe found himself still wandering in the deepening dusk, longing for a normal meal like the other kids might eat, maybe even the chance to watch some television afterward. His parents, not great about time in general and distrustful of most electronics back then, threw granola bars on the table and Popsicles into the freezer. There was always peanut butter and jelly for Abe and Stu to make sandwiches. But there wasn't much routine, much order.

Some kids thrive in that environment. His brother, Stu, for example.

But not Abe.

Reason number four thousand, eight hundred and ten why Robot Lit had been a godsend.

He studied the painting. The longing on the kid's face. The way his lean arms struggled to hold on to the string.
Abe Aloft
.

Shit. He had no freaking clue.

“Can you just tell me, Mom? I'm not good at this.”