She pulled her head back far enough to look into his eyes. “I do love you, you know,” she promised him. “No matter what it seems like lately, I love you.” And before he could reply, she covered his mouth with her own again as her clever hand toyed with one of his small nipples.
Dave was beyond words as she pulled her mouth away to explore the ridges and crevices of his ear with her tongue and was only able to gasp in pleasure as she pulled on his earlobe with her lips before trailing a course of small love bites down the side of his neck. He slid his hands down her back to move themselves against her buttocks as he pressed his all too willing sex against her. She winced and pulled back a little. “That zipper between us isn’t very comfortable,” she told him. “Can I take off your pants now?”
He nodded and arched his hips to let her removed the offending garments, jeans, briefs, and all, watching her through half closed eyes and breathing hard. Sitting up, she realized that he’d undone the catch of her bra, and so, she slid her bra straps down her arms, pulled it off, and pitched it onto the desk chair. “Did you bring a condom?” she asked.
“In my wallet,” he panted. “It’s in my jacket pocket.” He hadn’t brought it in anticipation of their lovemaking; he’d simply been in the habit of carrying one since their first time together, and he thanked God for that now.
She frowned, then leaned forward to press a quick kiss on his lips before getting up to retrieve the protection.
Instead of putting it on him, she slipped it under the pillow. “For later,” she told him.
“It won’t be long,” he told her. “I’m ready to go off just like the Fourth of July.”
“I know, lovey,” she told him, touching his chest. “Tell me when it gets to be too much. I want to take care of you.” And she leaned forward to tease the closest nipple with her tongue while her other hand gently manipulated its partner.
It didn’t take Dave long to lose himself again in her touch. It had always been that way with Denise, and he gave himself up to the feeling she started inside him. He shuddered as she laid herself out fully across his trembling body and he slipped his hands inside the back of her pretty white panties, pressing her silkily clad front against his erection. Denise ground herself against him as she nuzzled her face against the side of his neck. “Denise!” he gasped. “Oh, God, baby! Don’t ever stop. Not ever!”
She responded with a purring sound and reached down to cup him in his most tender place. Dave hissed and tossed his head back as she caressed him there with a fairy’s touch, feeling the inexorable build of pleasure/pressure and struggling to control it. Then her weight on him shifted as she moved down his body, still stroking his testicles with just the faintest whisper of a touch.
The warm wet of her mouth surrounding him was nearly his undoing. He arched, then let himself find his ease as she messaged his hips with a slow rolling motion. His hands found her hair and she let him guide her rhythm, stroking his sensitive underside with her tongue as she alternately pulled and released his pulsing member.
“Neesie?” he interrupted in a choked voice as his hands pulled her head away. “Sweetheart? Now. I need you now or I won’t — ”
Rapidly, she released him and slipped her hand under the pillow. Tearing open the square packet with her teeth, she removed the condom and slipped it over him, opting for speed over sensuality because she knew he was very near the breaking point. When she had him covered, she quickly shucked her panties and straddled him, positioning him with her hands. She bent forward, leaning over him, pressing their bodies together. She paused for a moment to look down at his face. Something indescribable passed between them then — it was neither joyful nor bleak, explicit not mystic. Maybe it was just understanding, an acceptance of something neither of them had wanted, but that both of them would accept.
And then he nodded, ever so slightly. Grasping his hips, she brought him into herself as they watched each other’s faces the whole time. She bent forward to press her mouth to his and their eyes slid closed as both gave up all thought except to let the sweet sensations of their lovemaking carry them away.
• • •
Denise nuzzled Dave into the curve where his neck and shoulder met. “I can’t believe you’re really here,” she murmured against his flesh.
“I can’t believe we just made love in a canopy bed,” he replied, tightening his hold on her just a little. It was a good thing that he held her: with him lying on his back, there was just enough mattress space for her to lie on her side against him.
“Complaints?” she asked, lifting her head to look at him.
He used his free hand to push her hair back from her face. “No. Just … astonishment.” He smiled.
She returned his smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
She searched his eyes with her own. “Dave, are you sure? I mean, where does this relationship go from here?”
His shoulder rose and fell just a little. “We take it one day at a time,” he said, “and don’t take a single day for granted.”
“Will you be all right with that?” she pressed.
“As long as I have you, I’ll be just fine.”
To be perfectly honest, Denise wasn’t sure she really believed that Dave would be able to go back to the way their relationship had been before his ill-fated proposal, but in the days and weeks that followed, she had to admit that he gave it a hell of a try. They fell back into their routine of him bringing her dinner during her shift and then spending part of their weekends together. They still made love regularly, and were a couple in every sense of the word. If she hadn’t known him as well as she did, she might have actually believed that he was content to have gone back to their somewhat less than committed relationship. He truly seemed happy to be with her. Except that every now and then, she’d look up suddenly and catch him watching her with a longing, wistful expression on his face. He’d look away from her as soon as he saw her looking, but Denise knew in her heart of hearts that she had seriously hurt him, and he was still feeling the pain.
But, God love him, he kept going through the motions. He took her to shows and to restaurants. He accompanied her on a couple of Saturday promotional appearances. He asked her along when he took his sister’s kids to a church fair and he cooked her favorite foods for her. They still shared quiet, intimate moments, sitting on her mother’s porch swing or walking hand in hand through her neighborhood after dinner, or even just sitting cuddled on his sofa talking about nothing in particular. For all intents and purposes, it should have been like it was before.
Except that it wasn’t.
Denise couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d let Dave down. And that bothered her. She was a nice person. Honest, she was. And it went against the grain to have rejected him the way that she had. But she had to be true to herself. Wasn’t she more responsible to her own needs and desires than she was to Dave’s?
Still, though, she felt pressured. Presley made a frequent point of expounding on Dave’s virtues. And while her mother hadn’t said anything more than “Are you sure?” and “Poor Dave” when Denise had told her about the misguided proposal, Denise sensed that Judy would not have been at all disappointed if Denise’s answer had been different. In fact, she probably would have been happy at the prospect of having Dave DiSciullo as a son-in-law.
So Denise went through the motions of having a normal, loving relationship with Dave and felt as guilty as hell about it.
Other than her misbegotten romance with Dave, Denise’s life was better than she’d ever dreamed it could be. She had her career, a close relationship with her mother, and financial security. She was on a first name basis with some very influential people in Boston and beyond. She was one of Boston’s elite, and she had made it there all by herself.
So why did she still feel so unfulfilled?
In October, she went with Dave to a cookout at his parents’ house in Everett to help celebrate his mother’s sixtieth birthday. It was one of those beautiful, crisp days where the colors were at their peak and the sun shone brightly. Dave had told his sister about their estrangement, but not his mother. Diane was as friendly toward Denise as she had ever been, and Carol still treated her like potential daughter-in-law material, regaling her with stories of Dave as a little boy and telling her what a wonderful son he was. She knew that it embarrassed Dave to have his mother going on about him, but she thought it was rather sweet. And she was fascinated when Carol dragged out a photo album of pictures of Dave as a child. He had been a beautiful baby — chubby, curly haired, and with a smile that lit his whole face. She’d bet that he’d had a hell of a belly laugh as a little guy.
When Carol put the albums away, Denise wandered out of the house in search of Dave. She found him outside in his parents’ driveway with Tom, trying to teach little Mattie how to throw a ball through the basketball hoop that was mounted over the garage door. She smiled as she watched him pass the rebounds of missed shots to the little guy again and again, offering advice to the determined six-year-old, who was shooting with his lower lip tucked behind his teeth. She had to give Matt credit, though. He kept on trying. Dave glanced up and caught sight of Denise up on the porch and smiled at her, but remained at his station. He loved sports, and he really loved being an uncle. It warmed her heart to see him so happy.
At last Tom lifted up his son by the hips and held him high so that he could successfully sink a basket. The little boy beamed as the adults cheered his efforts. “Hey, Denise,” Dave called. “Wanna play a little two on two? You and me against Tom and Mattie?”
“I stink at basketball,” she called back.
“Then you’re on Dave’s team,” Tom informed her. Denise laughed but came down the steps, going around little Marie who sat on the bottom step playing with a baby doll. Dave kissed her on the cheek when she arrived. “If you want, just pass the ball to me every time you get it,” he told her, then added with a wink, “Try not to let Mattie intercept it, okay?”
She smiled, realizing that the game was a set up for Mattie’s benefit. At least if she played really badly, she could always claim that it was to make Mattie feel good about his own playing.
She wasn’t sure just when Marie got up off the porch and moved onto the driveway. She only knew that one minute Dave was trotting backwards with his hands up to receive the ball, and the next Marie was directly behind him. Dave didn’t see her and ran her over, knocking her down and falling backwards over her in the process. She and Tom both gasped and ran forward, and Dave was already gathering the crying three-year-old up in his arms.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” everyone asked repeatedly, but both Dave and Marie were too distracted to answer. Tom took Marie from Dave’s arms and carried her over to the porch, leaving Denise to help Dave up. He was crushed at the thought that he’d inadvertently hurt his little niece. “I didn’t see her,” he told Denise.
“I know,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. Are you okay?”
He nodded. “I landed on my well padded side, but Marie … ” He accepted her hand and let him pull her up to his feet, then hurried over to where Marie sat crying on her father’s lap. She had scraped knees and elbows, but it didn’t look any worse than that. Tom rubbed her back as he soothed her. “You okay?” Tom asked as Dave approached.
Dave nodded. “Christ, I didn‘t even see her. Is she okay?”
“Just a few scrapes,” Tom said. “That’s what happens when you wander into a basketball game uninvited.” He looked down to get a better look at the bloody patches on her elbows and knees. “Does Nanny have any band aids?”
Dave nodded. “I’ll go get some.” He bounded into the house to get them, returning moments later with a wet cloth and a box of band aids. He knelt down in front of Marie. “Hey, princess,” he told her. “We need to wash off the blood. Do you want to do it? You’ll know just where to touch it so that it won’t hurt.”
Marie sniffed and nodded, taking the washcloth from her uncle and dabbing gingerly but effectively as her injuries. The worst of her crying seemed to be over, and ceased altogether now that she had something else to do. When she was finished, Dave took the first band aid and opened the wrapper, then peeled off the plastic backing and put it on the injured knee. “Is that okay?” he asked, and Marie nodded, surveying his work critically. He bandaged the other knee, and then each elbow and told her that he was very sorry. Then he reached into his pocket for something. Denise couldn’t see what it was until he showed it to Marie. It was a sticker of a fat panda. “This is a magic sticker,” he told her. “Is it okay if I put it on your bandage?”
Marie nodded and he applied it carefully, then kissed the knee and smiled up at her. Marie was smiling back at him.
“Why is it magic?” she asked, glancing from her uncle to her newly decorated knee.
“Because when people see it, they smile,” he told her. “And everyone feels better when they smile, don’t you think?”
She nodded.
“Do you feel better?” he asked her hopefully. She nodded again. “See? Magic!”
“I want to show Mommy,” she announced. Tom laughed and thanked Dave, and they went inside with Mattie in tow, leaving Dave sitting alone with Denise on the porch steps, holding a dirty washcloth and handful of wrappers. He smiled at her. “Another disaster resolved,” he said. He looked down at his hand and she noticed for the first time that it had been scraped when he fell. She took the cloth from him and wiped off his hand. “It’s too big for a band aid,” she told him.
He shrugged. “It’s not that bad, anyway,” he told her. “But I’d settle for a kiss to make it feel better.”
Denise looked at Dave, this wonderful, whimsical man. His calm, quiet manner had gone a long way in reassuring Marie, making her feel safe. It was the same way with Denise. She trusted him. He would help to keep her safe and would make the bad things better. And she suddenly realized that Dave had done more than just settled in reconciling with her; he had put her needs before his own, just like he had taken care of little Marie before he’d even let anyone know that he was bleeding himself. She knew that he would always do that.