“Walter, I didn’t come here to talk about this chemistry thing that always gets out of control between us. I came to tell you that I was leaving for a job. I’m going away. I need some space from this town and. . .”
you
, Jane wanted to say, but couldn’t without talking about things she wasn’t ready to discuss. She fisted her hands at her sides, practicing self-restraint as best she could.
“So this is a serious goodbye then?” Walter whispered, dipping his mouth to hers to nip at her bottom lip, wishing the moan that escaped delighted him more. Instead, it only scared him. He was too worried that Jane might truly never let him pull that reaction from her again.
“It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. I dated over the last few weeks too,” she said.
His hands were on her waist then, lifting her to her toes so she’d have to meet his gaze. “I’m not turning into a jealous idiot again, because I know those dates were my fault. Did you sleep with them? You can tell me. It won’t change anything. But don’t start lying to me just because you’re trying to prove that what’s happening right now is a bad idea. Tell me the truth, Jane. I’m listening this time and not running away.”
Jane closed her eyes. She was dizzy with tension and sick with wanting to just be in Walter’s arms one more time without thinking about what she should or should not do. Is this what she was going to remember about Walter for the rest of her life? That he had some mysterious power to make her feel like the only woman in the world for him?
“There’s only been you, Walter,” Jane said at last, sobbing when his mouth slid over hers with deliberate intent and tons of approval. Her tears fled as the pressure of his mouth increased and increased. His hands covered familiar territory once more and she was melting everywhere their bodies touched. When he pulled his mouth from hers, his hands were still gripping hard as if he couldn’t bring himself to let go.
“I guess this chemistry between us is our reality for just a little longer then,” Walter said. “Floor, couch, or bed, Jane Fox. You have two seconds to choose.”
Jane shook her head, her forehead rubbing against Walter’s chest. Where was her willpower? Where were all those promises she made to herself that this wouldn’t happen again?
“Brain shut down yet?” Walter asked. Bending, he scooped her up under her knees. “I’m about to show you more of my faults, starting with the fact that I don’t take no for an answer very often. You can blame Harrison. Everyone else does.”
Jane’s sigh of resignation stopped his trek across the floor. “Are you going to hate me if we do this?” he asked.
“No. I’m weak-willed about sex with you, but I’m not a hypocrite,” Jane said. “I want this too.”
“Damn good to know,” Walter said. “By the way, I’m in love with you. It’s not infatuation and it’s not going away.”
Jane snorted as her backside hit his bedcovers. “This is leftover lust, Walter. You were jealous of my brother, which means you don’t trust me. You don’t even know what love is.”
“Well let me see if I can change your mind about that,” Walter replied, his mouth drowning out the rest of her rationalizations about why it couldn’t work.
***
Several hours later, Walter woke up alone and naked, with no covers in sight. He could only assume they had gotten pushed over the edge of the bed and were on the floor. Sighing, he rolled from his stomach to his back to stare at the ceiling over his bed. He tried to remember if he had done anything that might have shocked Jane or scared her.
Because of their fighting, their lovemaking had been pretty rocky in the beginning, but after the second time, he’d started to believe that Jane was going to be okay after all. He was replaying both in his head trying to figure it out. It was the best effort he could make at being logical, before he went tearing over to her place demanding to know if she hated him after all.
Then he heard his toilet flush. It was the happiest sound he could imagine hearing. Harrison would have laughed his ass off at the sheer amount of relief he felt to know Jane was using his bathroom. His grandfather was so much wiser than his parents ever gave him credit for being.
Moments later, Jane appeared in the open doorway, wearing his sheet wrapped around her like a Roman toga. She surprised him further by coming right back to the bed and sitting beside him. His smile of welcome was so wide it hurt his face, and her hand running over his chest made him feel invincible.
He tried imagining that Harrison had felt this way about his grandmother. Since he’d grown up catching them kissing every time he turned around, it wasn’t a hard reach. Then he remembered what his dad has said about his mother being the only woman he’d ever wanted to keep in his life. That was exactly how he felt about Jane. Now he just hoped he could find a way to convince her of it. Sex with him convinced her body, but nothing so far had convinced her mind that he was worthy of a second chance.
“Look at you lying there with your muscles all hard and rippling. You look like one of those ads for a men’s fitness magazine, except you have hair on your chest,” Jane said with a laugh. “It makes being with you very surreal for me, Walter.”
“Why? You don’t like hairy chests on guys?”
Jane snorted at the lack of concern in his question, even when his gaze held a mirror of the very insecurity she was feeling herself. Since she couldn’t even deal with her own doubts, it was doubly hard to deal with Walter’s. Muddled with afterglow, she couldn’t even tell if his insecurity was about his age or just something about Walter himself. Whatever it was, it was too much trouble and too much heartache to devote her energy to fixing it for him. She’d had enough complications to last her a lifetime.
“The question wasn’t meant to be a joke, but I like the way you laugh,” Walter said.
“Stop with the faux humility. I like everything about you, Walter. It’s my body I don’t like, which is why I’m walking around in a sheet. I’m a product of the media’s constant spoon feeding to women about an ideal body image only a few will ever achieve. I keep in decent shape, but I look at my body and see cellulite, sagging breasts, and wrinkles. The discrepancies between your body and mine are pretty dramatic. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Walter scooted upright, pulling Jane toward him by the end of the sheet where she had tucked it. “No. I haven’t noticed any discrepancies, as you call them. When I look at you, I see a woman whose body and mind are just enough out of sync for me to scramble her thoughts when I kiss her. She’s soft and warm and willing, and way more talented in bed than me. Sinking into her is like coming home and taking a new journey, all at the same time. Any lines she has anywhere on her are just a roadmap showing me a road I’ve yet to travel. You know I desperately want to travel all the roads, Jane. You have to at least know that by now. We’ve traveled one road twice tonight, and I’m ready to go again.”
Jane breathed out a sigh. “Well, successive orgasms do make a really convincing argument to support your beautiful speech. You’re also pretty talented in bed for a guy who swears he’s inexperienced.”
“Any guy could be outstanding with a partner like you,” Walter said, meaning every word.
“You truly excel at pillow talk, Walter Graham.”
“Then share my pillow for the rest of my life and I’ll talk this way to you every night,” Walter said. “At least stay for the rest of this one, Jane. We’ll have coffee and ice water tomorrow morning and debate the stock exchange changes. Then we’ll call up Brenner and tell him to get his crew back to work.”
“Sounds like fun,” Jane said, smiling at the Greek god statue Walter was. She had to look for him through the dim shadows cast in the room by the bathroom light she’d left intentionally burning. She wanted to see him as clearly as she could tonight. She wanted to memorize what he looked like until the vision of him lived inside her.
“Stay with me,” Walter pleaded, dragging her sheet-clad body across his lap. “I need my sheet back anyway. The weather is changing. I’m getting cold chills.”
Jane laughed at Walter’s teasing, unwrapping the sheet and throwing it over both of their heads while she freed the rest of herself from it. Walter slid down until he was lying completely under her.
“Jane, I really do love you. Are you ever going to believe me?”
She let Walter’s declaration wash over her, pretending for just a few moments that he really might know what he was saying. While she pondered the possibility, her lips moved across every row of muscle until they finally dropped to explore what was in his lap. She took her time with what she found there, drawing out every lick and nuzzle, pleasing herself as much as him.
Walter was squirming and thrashing around by the time she finally took him into her mouth. His guttural cries of sexual anguish pounded inside her as loud as any jungle drum. Her determination grew. She set all the other concerns aside while pleasing the man who had already spent an incredible amount of his time and energy pleasing her that night. When Walter was done but still panting, she slowly kissed her way back up his body to lie peacefully across his chest. Contentment spread and warmed her on the inside. His arms weaving tightly around her and pulling her closer were the perfect response.
“Jane, you are truly the most amazing woman in the world,” Walter said finally.
“Thank you, Walter. That’s what you should always tell a woman after oral sex. It makes her feel appreciated instead of like a skank,” Jane said wisely, chuckling at her own honest statement.
When she caught herself reliving the moment of walking in on Nathan with some woman other than her on her knees over him, it wasn’t hard to understand what thoughts the negative term had leapt from. In Walter’s inexperienced hands were both the heights and depths of loving, but she would rather have nothing with any man than to risk being hurt again.
“Advice noted for all future dealings of this sort. So have you felt like a skank often?” Walter asked, listening carefully to her answer.
“Some, but I’ve never felt that way with you,” Jane replied. “Never with you.”
“Thank God,” Walter whispered sincerely, running his hand over her hair. “Right now, I’m ready to go beat up on whoever made you feel that way. I’ll take your brother along with me. He can scare them into standing still while I pound them into the floor.”
She laughed at Walter’s fingers gently massaging the back of her neck while he made violent plans to beat up her mental torturer. The offer held a certain appeal, but wouldn’t change all the humiliation she had tolerated while trying to save her marriage.
“I appreciate the offer, Walter Graham. More than you know,” Jane said, her throat tightening with tears she wasn’t going to let fall. There would be plenty of time for them later.
Jane felt Walter pulling her higher until he could tuck her by his side. Then he threw one massive arm and leg across her, trapping her next to him. He fell almost instantly asleep, with no lines of worry marring his still unwrinkled face. It was hard not to start weaving dreams around what his body language meant, so she closed her eyes and worked to blank her mind.
Somewhere in the last couple of hours she had spent with Walter she had begun to believe that he had truly never meant to hurt her. It was good to feel forgiveness come at last, but that didn’t mean she was in good enough emotional shape to deal with being Walter’s learning curve. His gaze full of disgust and disbelief that day in the fire station had made her feel just as bad as any of Nathan’s scathing remarks about her lack of expertise. Taking on the insecurities and the doubts of the younger man beside her was simply more challenge than she could handle with all the other things going on in her life.
But she was grateful for this evening, grateful for one more night in his arms. No matter how many men the future brought her, she was never going to completely get over this one. He’d taken from her and he had given, more than he even knew.
The next morning when Walter woke up, he could tell Jane was really gone because all his senses were flat lined over her lack of presence. There was no use in getting up to look. He was not going to find any grumpy, adorable woman with wild bed hair in his kitchen. He would not be hearing her humming because of great sex while she made her coffee.
He sat up in bed, covered now by the sheet he’d stolen back from her, and mourned.
Jane was all around him. Everywhere he smelled. Everywhere he looked.
She had been truly loving again last night. It had been like their first time again. Her arms had held him close and she had willingly given him the gift of her body over and over again.
But if it had been as great as he thought it was, then why wasn’t Jane still here this morning? What was he missing?
***
“Throw away everything I asked you to keep from the crazy women. I was being a nutcase,” Walter said.
“Already done. Daniel told me about the brother showing up to harass you over your mistake,” Amanda said with a smile. “Glad to see your head back on your shoulders this morning, Walter. I was worried there for a little bit.”
“Yeah, well, Daniel knows a lot but don’t forget who signs your paychecks,” Walter said, grinning back.
Amanda giggled. “By the way, Brenner and his team are back and hard at it this morning. Seems they were here and working at six. I came in to a slew of complaint calls. Better tell him to dial the start time back to seven-thirty.”
Walter laughed. “No. The residents need to get used to the noise for a while. We have some ground to make up with the project.”
Amanda nodded. “So. . .how are things between you and Jane? You seem in a very zen-like mood this morning, better than your usual even. Made any ground up with her?”
Walter shook his head, his smile fading, but his intention to win her back was still in place. Last night just made him more determined “Ask me again some other time.”
Amanda sighed and nodded.
***
“What’s the deal with the suits, Walter? Did you end up sleeping with the photographer after all? I thought you liked older women, not older men,” Eric declared, checking out the perfect lines of the athletic cut suit he was wearing. “Dude, I hope he’s not expecting me to do that too. Now I wouldn’t mind a go with the lady friend you pissed off the other day. She was nice looking.”