Authors: Shelby Rebecca
“I haven’t got around to the decorating part. That’s more your forte, right?”
What to say? What to say? He’s very clear about his intentions. I can’t tell him how I feel. If something goes wrong tomorrow at lunch, it’d break his heart.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says. And I believe him. He looks confounded.
“Here is where I’m supposed to be, I think.” I say it because I have to. It just tumbles out.
Now his bruised jaw is the one gaping open. “What did you just say?” he asks. I shrug my shoulders. “Sadie, what are you saying?” he sounds like he’s on edge, his voice cracking.
“I...”
“Darlin’ please. Say you’ll stay,” he says, grasping my hand to his chest. “I don’t ever want to think of you leaving this place. This...”
“This is where I belong. Is that what you were going to say?”
“Yes.” He nods, never taking his eyes away from mine. Try as I might, I can’t wipe the smile off my face. He takes the gun from my fingers wrapped around it, and places it on the intricately engraved fireplace mantle. “It’s okay, you’re safe here. I’ll set the alarm.”
If I wasn’t so enthralled with Dillon, I’d be inspecting the hand carved wooden mantel and ceramic tile. I want to promise him I’ll stay, but I don’t want to lead him on. Yes, I’ve decided but tomorrow is another day. I have to follow through with telling Donnie I have his voice recorded first.
“Can we look around?” I ask. He swallows hard and looks away, his jaw tensed. He puts his fist to his mouth and takes a deep breath. That wasn’t the answer he wanted.
“Of course,” he says, overly formal as he walks away, sets the alarm and then takes my hand in his, softly.
Live wires
. God, I hate hurting him. “This is the formal living room,” he says, his voice straining to stay straight.
“I thought so,” I say, trying to deflect with humor.
“All the floors are the original oak, as well as the oak panels and the wainscoting.” He’s still too serious.
“They are beautiful,” I say, as I run the tips of my fingers over the panels, letting my nails find the divots between the wood. “How big is this house?”
“Fifty-eight hundred square feet.”
“That’s twenty-five hundred more than my house in California,” I say, my eyes wide enough that they start to feel dry and I have to remind myself to blink.
“There’s seventeen rooms in all. It has seven bedrooms,” he says, and he squeezes my hand almost imperceptibly. “Plus, there’s a butler’s pantry over by the kitchen.”
“Wasn’t the kitchen added later?”
“Yeah, in the twenties.”
“I bet it’s lovely.”
“I’m not done with it yet,” he says, shyly. “I’m using a small kitchen that was put in when the house was a duplex.”
“Can I see it?”
“The new kitchen? There’s no power in that room. Can I show you in the morning? I’m sure you’re exhausted.”
“Sure,” I pout, sticking out my bottom lip.
“Upstairs, the master has a separate dressing room. Do you want to see?”
“Sure,” I say, as I start to get nervous again. The master must be his room.
As we walk along the bottom floor toward the stairs, I remember how puzzled I’d always been about the fireplaces. “How many fireplaces are there, Dillon?”
“Eleven,” he says, quickly. “They all have hand-carved wooden mantels. Most are in different styles. I don’t know a lot about ‘em but I’m sure you can tell me.”
I do a quick inventory. A formal living room, humongous dining room. Crystal chandeliers, oak floors, walnut window facings. The stairs are beautiful and look to be hand carved. I run my hand along the railing as I climb them. It feels as soft as a daisy petal under my fingertip.
At the end of the hall, passing by many other closed doors, Dillon leads me into the bedroom.
Our bedroom,
I think, and smile. Normally, I’d want to put on the brakes. I would have let my anxiety take over, but today, I’m a new girl—a woman now, or at least that’s how he makes me feel. I’m not afraid. I just want him to hold me again. I won’t be able to calm down until he does. He’s like my panacea—my cure all.
Once inside, I smell him—his distinctive scent, the one that reminds me of childhood, happiness, warmth, and yes, of love. He’s all over this room. This must be where he spends the most time. There is an intricately carved, hand painted bed in the middle of the room—our bed. It’s a canopy bed with a square frame. There are no fabrics hanging from it but it doesn’t look bare.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, walking over to the bed and running my fingers over the intricate details.
“Yes, it is,” he says, his voice carnal and heavy. When I look up, he’s looking at me, not the bed.
“Is it original to the house?” I say, and swallow hard. I feel like a fine delicacy in his sight.
“Yes, it was Captain Page’s bed. I had it painted white to make it feel more like it’s mine,” he says, serious again. Good to know he’s not a purist with his antiques. I love mine painted, too.
I can’t look away from him. As I watch, the serious look on his face turns back into the smolder. I step forward and grasp his other hand in mine. We must look like a bride and groom standing next to the altar. Me in my long robe, he in his dark pants and shirt.
“Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires,” he says.
But I do desire.
I blink and shut my eyes. Where do I know those words? When I open them, he looks like he’s in pain. Someone could be burning his feet with coals or slicing his heart open with a paring knife. That’s how much pain I see on his face.
“What is that quote from?” I ask, bewildered.
“The Song of Songs in the Bible.” He sounds like living water on a rainy day.
“Oh, yes. The Song of Songs is about...”
“It follows King Solomon’s marital relationship from courtship through consummation.” I have to shake my head. That’s not what I was taught.
“I thought it was an allegory for the relationship between God and Christ.”
“No, darlin’ it’s about making love for the first time,” he says, staring into my eyes, my rosebud is growing, pushing its way up into my belly. I try to squeeze my thighs together to either make it stop or not make it stop. I can’t decide.
“That’s what your tattoo says. It’s from the Song of Songs,” I say, finally realizing where I know the verse I read on his arm. He nods his head yes, and swallows hard.
I reach up to his face, and he leans into my touch, even though it hurts him when he does. There’s nowhere to touch that isn’t bruised. He leans into me. Pressing his body to mine. And he starts to speak, mesmerizing me.
“My beloved spoke and said to me,
‘Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me.
See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.’”
He’s quoting the Song of Songs again. Speaking them to me as if I were the woman—the wife in the verse. Does he mean that the worst is over? Does he mean that the flowers are the happy life we deserve to experience together? And the singing. It is time to sing again.
And then I remember the line that fits our relationship. I’d heard it often enough that parts had been embedded deep in my memory. I’m glad I haven’t forgotten because it means I can reciprocate.
“My beloved is mine and I am his;
he browses among the lilies.
Until the day breaks
and the shadows flee,”
I say.
His eyebrows shoot up and he pulls me to him, scooping me into his arms, allowing our bodies to touch. From this movement, I know how much he wants me, too. A man’s body never lies.
“You remember.”
“Yes, of course. Daddy taught me. He said it wasn’t for the novices.”
“Or maybe it is,” he responds, seductively.
“What better way to get rid of shadows that come in the night...” I say, breathy, looking at him through my lashes. My tummy clenches uncontrollably now, and I push my body back into his so that every place that can touch him, does— as if we were made by the Creator just to fit together. Without taking my eyes off his, I pull on the end of the tie around the robe, let it fall, like shedding petals from a flower, to the floor, “...than to browse among the lilies all night long?” I am the lilies. My body is. It all makes sense now. He looks confused. He puts his hand up to his forehead.
He closes his eyes. “But this isn’t going to be enough for me, Sadie,” he says, running the tips of his shaky fingers up the small of my back, causing me to catch my breath and close my eyes. “Once we give ourselves to each other, I’ll never be able to let you go,” he says, as I open my eyes to see his pained expression. “If you left me again, after this, I...I couldn’t take it,” he says, taking his hand from his forehead and running his finger along my jawline. A chill runs through my whole body.
Just tell him the truth
, I say to myself. I don’t want to hurt him anymore. Touch me, my body is saying. It hurts for him not to. It’s as if deep in my belly, I’m blooming, spreading out, and throbbing. I need him to quench it. Fill it up. I’m shaking now, and so is he. I’m gripping his arm so tight my fingers hurt.
“I want more,” he admits.
Yes, more. More. Everything more
. Everything that he wants, I want. I swallow so hard I hear it and so does he.
“I don’t want to be let go of,” I say, because I have to, my eyes darting back and forth between his. “I want to stay. I never want to leave you again,” I say.
“Then why do you have to?” he asks.
“Why do I? It’s fear. That’s all,” I explain.
“All I know, Sadie, is that I’ve loved you all your life. Nothing will ever change that. I bought this house for you, in the hopes that you’d come here and we’d make this our home, fill it up with babies.”
“That’s what I realize I’ve always wanted, Dillon.”
“You do?” he says, smiling.
“I want more, too, Dillon. I do. I want everything you want. I promise you, I’ll never leave you again.” I mean it, too. I won’t leave, no matter what Donnie does tomorrow. This is my life. This is where I’m meant to be. His eyes shut and his head moves back abruptly as if I’ve just hit him with something he wasn’t ready for.
“You’ll stay. You’ll marry me?” he asks.
“Please, one thing at a time,” I caution him before he takes me up in his arms and swings me around. The feeling of being weightless, free of burdens and fear for a moment takes my breath away. I hear my own giggle floating around, trying to keep up with me. He stops, holding me around the waist in midair so we are eye to eye.
“That, I can work with, my darlin’,” he says, before he takes my lips between his and moves his hand down, passing over my bottom, and landing on my thigh. We feel like electricity together. Live wires, again, everywhere. He sets me on the edge of our bed, and pulls up the hem of my white nightgown, slowly so that his thumb gently grazes up the length of my thigh.
This is close to his dream,
I think in consolation. It is a white gown, after all, and this is our room. My throat is dry, and I feel dizzy. I have to hold onto the ropey muscles in his arm for support.
“How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes are doves,” he says, quoting the Bible once again.
“How handsome you are, my beloved!
Oh, how charming!
And our bed is verdant,”
I respond, before I’m speechless and so is he.
Chapter Seventeen—I Am The Lily
He plays me like a stringed instrument—picking softly and strumming, cultivating a reaction under his skillful touch. His long thin fingers know the right song to play over my skin to have me quavering like one of his dulcimer strings. While he sits next to me on our bed, I draw his shirt over his broad shoulders, and knot my fingers under his t-shirt, pulling it over his head, baring the tattoo of a lily over his heart. I knew he had two of them.
Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm;
Oh, it all makes sense. The tattoos’ placement comes from the Song of Songs. I am the lily; I am the ‘great laurel’. I run my fingers over the ink mark, it feels smooth, and not raised as I thought it would. His heart beats through his skin, bonding us even more. My lip trembles and then I smile.
“You are my flower,” he says, before smiling back. He pulls my nightgown over my head, letting me feel brazen under his blistering stare.
“You’re so perfect, so beautiful,” he says, through hitched breaths. I feel him running his nose up the full length of my neck, stopping just there behind my ear. “Your scent. Do you know what you do to me?” he says, into my ear. I feel a shiver that runs down my spine down to my core. It aches and grows. As we lie back together, he moves his right hand under my head. His other hand grasps my waist. I feel cherished, cradled in his arms.
His lips are on my mouth, grazing over my chin, soothing my neck, sinking into the rise and fall of my breasts like little mounds coming up to meet him. He’s moving, wet and soft, achingly slow, down the center of my stomach as he unstraps my bra, wet from his mouth having just been there, and frees me. I am almost naked, but I’m not embarrassed. I want him to look at me—and he does. He drinks me in, every inch, like he’s thirsty for me.
His left hand moves up my stomach until his thumb is just under my breast. I close my eyes as he’s scooping me up so that I fit perfectly in his hand.
Don’t stop
, I beg him silently by pushing back against him as his fingers clasp and his mouth makes peaks over my skin— my back bowing, my knees coming up like fleshy arches in the dim light.
Who knew I’d be so excitable? So natural at this. It’s him. Our history together mingles with this, now, making it so pure, so right. A moan escapes from the back of my throat. It startles me. My hands are in his hair, pulling his mouth to mine, daring him to keep going. I need him to touch me. It hurts when he doesn’t.