Besides, the girl wasn’t even free. She was already spoken for,
her wedding just a month away. The thought left a sick taste in his mouth.
She was going to throw herself away on that bloodless Jesse Lindstrom, and
there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
He left the Chevy at the curb and strode purposefully up the front
walk and rang the bell. The drone of the television floated through the open
window, and a moth thumped at the light fixture over his head. Rob’s father
came to the door and peered out at him through the screen. “Danny,” he said,
holding the door open. “Come on in. The kids are downstairs.”
The murmur of voices floated up the cellar stairwell. Casey was
sitting beside Rob on the couch with the faded chintz cover, one leg folded
beneath her, all that lustrous black hair falling loose to her waist. When she
saw him, her eyes widened. “Danny,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
He wondered if she could hear the hammering of his heart. “I came
for you,” he said.
He’d come armed with a half-dozen arguments in case she turned him
down, but she just nodded mutely and stood, running a hand through her hair,
her slender fingers gleaming white against its darkness. “Good night, Rob,”
she said, “and thanks.”
She sat primly in the car, hands folded in her lap, hugging the
passenger door as though he were about to take a bite out of her. Tightening
his grip on the wheel, he said, “I’d like to apologize.”
“For what?” she said.
“For being an asshole.”
She could have politely demurred. Most women would have. But
Casey Bradley was not most women. “Apology accepted,” she said.
“I’m not very experienced at this. I don’t know what I’m supposed
to say.”
“I don’t believe there are any rules of etiquette,” she said,
“that apply to this situation.”
“Lindstrom’s insane.” He stopped for a red light and stretched
his cramped fingers. “If you belonged to me, I’d never let you out of my
sight. You can’t imagine how I felt when I saw you sitting there with Rob
tonight.”
“It’s not Rob I’m interested in.”
Her words, so simple and direct, hit him like a blow to the gut.
“Can’t we start all over again?” he said. “Just for tonight? Forget Jesse.
Forget the damn songs. Forget everything but the two of us.”
“How on earth are we supposed to do that?”
The light changed. He wheeled the car into an empty lot and
slammed it into park and took her hand in his. “Hello,” he said. “My name’s
Daniel Fiore, and you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I want to
hold you in my arms and dance with you all night.”
For a moment, her hand remained limp. Then she curled icy fingers
around his. “Hello,” she said. She smiled, and all the air left his lungs.
“My name’s Casey Bradley, and I’ve been waiting eighteen years for you to come
walking into my life.”
***
The bar was small and dark and smelled of beer and stale tobacco.
Danny pumped quarters into the jukebox and together they selected a dozen slow
songs, and while the ice melted in his bourbon and her Coke, they danced in the
dark beneath a blue Schlitz sign with half its letters burnt out. As Joe
Cocker wailed his own peculiar version of the blues, she felt each tiny nuance
of Danny’s body, felt its damp heat through the fabric of his shirt. She
closed her eyes and filled her lungs with the scent of him, with that
combination of bourbon and cologne and perspiration that was uniquely Danny.
He spoke near her ear. “I bet you thought dancing was done with
the feet.”
Amazed at the control she heard in her own voice, she said, “I
suppose you’re going to tell me it isn’t.”
“It’s done,” he said, pressing close enough to leave her
breathless, “with the body. Like this.”
Trying to keep the conversation light, she said, “Travis warned me
to stay away from you.”
“He’s worried about your virtue. That’s what brothers are for.”
“And is my virtue in danger of being compromised?”
He caught her hand in his and turned it to kiss the underside of
her wrist, sending a shiver through her body. “It’s in grave danger,” he said.
He was much too close. She could see each pore in his face, could
see the tiny white scar near his left eyebrow. His hands on her were liquid
fire and his eyes were telling her things better left unsaid. They drank each
other in, feasting upon each other like ravenous beasts, while in the
background Bette Midler crooned,
Oh, baby, do you want to dance?
There’ll be nothing beyond tonight,
she told herself
. Can you live with
that?
She harbored no illusions about him. There would be no forever.
One night with him was all she would be allowed, a single night with no
promises and no commitments, one that would have to suffice for the rest of her
life. He would surely break her heart, but tomorrow, no matter how much it
hurt, she would walk away without a single regret.
“Take me home,” she said. “Take me home and make love to me.”
***
Danny knelt to spin the tuner knob, and Bob Dylan sprang to life,
knock
knock knocking on heaven’s door
. The muted glow from the dial cast deep
shadows into the corners of the room and formed an indistinct halo around his
head. In the dim light, she explored his bedroom.
It was neater than she’d expected, the bed made, clutter minimal.
A battered Fender acoustic stood in one corner. Casey picked up the
silver-handled hairbrush that lay atop the dresser and stroked its smooth
handle. In a jumble beside it were several dollar bills and change, a single
subway token, and a broken guitar pick, and she inventoried them like an
archeologist who had discovered lost treasure.
He spoke somewhere behind her. “What the devil are you looking
for?”
She moved to the open closet door, touched the sleeve of a blue
silk shirt, held the soft material to her cheek. If tonight were to be both
beginning and end, she would have to squeeze a lifetime into a few short
hours. Turning, she studied his shadowy face. “You,” she said.
In the shadows, he seemed ten feet tall. She flattened her back
against the wall, grateful for its support. Something was terribly wrong, for
she was having difficulty breathing, and the shortage of oxygen sent a searing
pain through her chest. It took him a year to cross the room to her. He
rested both palms on the wall above her shoulders and leaned close, enveloping
her in the heat from his body.
And he kissed her.
Nothing in eighteen years of living had prepared her for that
first taste of him, for those hot, wet kisses flavored with Kentucky bourbon
and Coca-Cola. The world was shattering into tiny pieces, melting into all the
colors of the spectrum, and all of them were one, and that one color was
Danny. And she was lost, and didn’t want to ever be found.
She curled fingers in his tawny hair, and it was like silk, and
she’d known it would feel that way from the first moment she saw him. With her
fingertips, she explored the back of his neck, learning the feel of his heated
skin and the way the fine hairs grew. He gathered the hem of her sweater in
both hands, peeled it up and off over her head. Cool air rushed in to raise
goose bumps on her exposed flesh. She shivered, and he ran warm hands up and
down her back. “Cold?” he whispered.
“A little.”
“Let’s get under the covers.”
Beneath the handmade quilt, their bodies fit like interlocking
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Hard and soft, convex and concave, man and woman.
He tasted of heaven, this beautiful, blue-eyed stranger who had walked into her
life and redefined the parameters of her universe. He teased her with warm,
wet kisses from ear to navel as she shuddered in delight. Mouth to her belly,
his breath warm on her skin, he whispered, “Touch me.”
Uncertainty made her hesitate. “Where?”
“Anywhere. Everywhere.”
She started with his hands. One by one, she kissed those long,
slender fingers. She unbuttoned first one cuff and then the other, learning
the shape of the bones in his wrist and the smooth, muscled flesh of his
forearms. His chest was hard and muscular and silken smooth, and she stroked
and explored, admiring the sleek, hard planes of his body, memorizing it for a
future time when she would take out that memory, like a precious jewel, and
savor it. He caught his breath as she traced with a fingertip the fine line of
hair that ran from his breastbone to his navel. She paused there, and he drew
her hand down to the front of his Levi’s and taught her the shape and feel of
what was inside. His breath came out in a sudden heated rush. “Come here,” he
said hoarsely.
They devoured each other with feverish intensity, touching and
tasting, exploring forbidden places as they impatiently discarded clothing
which had become an impediment to closeness. His skin against hers was hot and
sleek and damp, and she shuddered at the exquisiteness of his touch, at his
hand on her breast, and then his mouth. He cradled her head in his hands and
tasted the hollow at the base of her throat. Against her heated flesh, he
whispered hoarse words of love in Italian. Understanding none, understanding
all, she answered in English.
He buried his face in her hair. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he
said. “I’m not in the habit of deflowering virgins.”
She raised her chin and met those blue eyes head-on. “What makes
you so sure I’m a virgin?”
“The way you looked at Lindstrom,” he said. “And the way you look
at me.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said.
“No,” he said. “You wouldn’t be.”
Even though he was gentle with her, the pain took her by
surprise. She uttered an involuntary gasp, and her fingertips dug into his
shoulders, but when he would have pulled away, she held him fast, biting her
lip hard as the pain momentarily took her breath away.
He stilled against her. Cradled her head in his hands and began
moving slowly, carefully, his eyes searching hers for evidence of the pain she
hadn’t been able to disguise. But it was gone, replaced by a faint, delicate
pleasure that was spreading throughout her body. She uttered a soft whimper
and he kissed her, a tender butterfly kiss that deepened when she opened her
mouth and his tongue found hers.
And she tumbled off the edge of the world. She moaned aloud, and
his cool control vanished. He was no longer gentle, and she no longer wanted
him to be. Hot and wet and gulping for oxygen, she followed his lead in a
pagan dance, seeking, soaring, until without warning the universe exploded around
her, sending her spinning off into space in a violent, shuddering burst of
rapture.
Dazed, they lay face to face, restless hands stroking, touch more
eloquent than words. “Daniel,” she breathed, loving the sound, the feel of
his name on her tongue.
He kissed her throat. “What?”
“Is it always like this?”
He studied her somberly with those blue eyes. “No,” he said.
Dreading the answer, she still had to ask the question. “Have
there been a lot of women in your life?”
“Yes,” he said.
She felt an insane rush of jealousy. “I hate them. I hate every
single one.”
“Don’t,” he said. “There’s no need. Nobody’s ever mattered until
now.”
***
“You learn fast on the streets. You learn fast, and you learn
early, and that’s how you survive.” He picked up a slice of toast, buttered
it, and cut it in half.
“Oh, Danny,” she said softly. “What an awful way to grow up.”
He shrugged. “My grandmother tried to control me. But I liked my
freedom.”
She toyed with the handle to her coffee cup. “It sounds to me like
a good way to get into trouble.”
“Some kids do,” he admitted. “I didn’t. There was always
something to do.”
She rested her chin on her palm and gave him a bemused look.
“Like what?”
“Hang out. Play a little pool. Stand in doorways with the guys
to watch the pretty girls go by and see who could be the most vulgar. Smoke a
few cigarettes. Talk about getting laid, lie about the details, and hope to
Christ the other guys wouldn’t see through my sophisticated facade to the
scared kid underneath with his woeful ignorance of all matters sexual.”
She smiled. Softly, she said, “Tough guy.”
“You have to understand,” he said. “The sisters have control of
your life until that final bell rings at three. And then, no one’s in charge
but you, and you’re out on the street, and it’s yours.”
He fed her the last bite of scrambled egg. “If you’re lucky,” he
said, “you go to work for your Uncle Vito, unloading crates of vegetables off a
truck. If you’re not so lucky, ten years goes by and you’re still hanging
out.”
She helped herself to half his toast. “You’re not still hanging
out.”