“Oh, come on!”
He laughed and shook his head. “No. These are nice. I just think we should leave them on,” he said as his fingers stroked me through the fabric. “Mmm, warm.”
“I’m wet! Now fucking kiss me.” I was practically writhing on top of him when his lips crushed against mine again. Our mouths were glued together, tongues twisting and caressing. His hands continued roaming, but I could feel him harder and harder against me as I moved. He finally pushed the fabric aside and slid his fingers in. I pressed myself deeper against his hand.
“Don’t stop, Jamie. I want you, please.”
“You are so sexy.” He removed his hand, and without caution, entered me, slamming my hips down until I was filled completely with him.
I cried out, arching my back, letting the feeling of him inside of me take over. It had been a while, and the lace fabric between us, although pushed aside, created the perfect amount of friction. We moved seamlessly together. He countered each one of my motions with perfect ease and resistance. I moved harder and faster on top of him. The whole time we were kissing and watching each other until we neared the end. He lifted his head up and closed his eyes and I did the same just as I felt the pulsing ache, then the electricity between my ears and down my spine.
“Katy . . . god Katy, I love you.”
Goddammit, if that didn’t send me completely over the edge, Jamie brought it all home when he leaned forward and kissed each breast with complete control and determination. The aftershocks were still blasting through me as he tightened his hold and nuzzled into my chest. I wrapped my arms around his head and neck and held him to my body as tightly as I could.
We stayed that way for what felt like days. I imagined the time-lapse version of those moments we sat embracing each other on the couch after we made love, still connected and still overrun with heat. The sun would rush up and blast us through the blinds and then sink down again, casting strange shadows on the walls, but we would be the same, tangled in each other. In the darkness, our connected bodies would burn bright enough to fill the room with a warm glow.
He kissed my mouth and then stood and carried me to the bedroom. We spent an hour lying in bed and talking.
“So you believe in God?” I asked.
“I believe something is out there.”
“Like what, aliens?”
“Yes, aliens. That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said sarcastically. I was lying on my side in the crook of his arm. He was sweeping his hand up and down against the skin on my back. “What do you think, silly girl?”
“I hope there is something more for the sake of everyone I’ve loved and lost.”
“I feel the same way. What do you think about family?”
“I wish I had one.”
“Me, too. Let’s make one.” It suddenly hit me what Jamie was asking.
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Screwing up my kids. I don’t even know what kind of person my father was.”
“Well, I know exactly what kind of people my biological parents are, and I have no concerns that their kind of slime has been passed on to me.”
I cupped his face and kissed him. “I don’t either, Jamie.”
“I believe that even though we’ve lost so many of our loved ones, we still have family around. They may not be blood related, but the people I considered my real parents were not blood related, either, and I don’t see them as anything less than family to me. I have Susan and Guillermo and Chelsea, and you have Jerry and Beth and Dylan, and we fucking have each other, Kate.” I nodded hesitantly. “Are you scared to do this with me?”
I shrugged. He grabbed my face and looked me right in the eyes. “How close am I to losing you?”
“What would it take for you to want to lose me, for you to want to leave?”
“It would take a fucking lot to drag me away from you. Don’t you see that?”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m broken or damaged.”
“I see this kind of splendor and innocent childlike wonder when I watch you. You’re always so curious about the world but terrified to be a part of it. You’re not broken just like I’m not cursed. I know that now.”
“I love you. Isn’t that enough?”
He scowled like it pained him to hear my words. “For now,” he murmured and then shut his eyes and turned away from me.
The next morning was Christmas Eve. After three cups of coffee, I was a jittering fool, so it might have been a bad decision to call Paul Sullivan back, but I did.
“Hello.”
“Thi—thi—this is Kate Corbin returning your call.” I couldn’t help but feel nervous. This guy knew my mother, but I didn’t know him.
“Hello, Kate. I was trying to find the whereabouts of Ann Corbin. I was going down a list of Corbins in the city, calling each one, and landed on you.”
“Ann was my mother,” I said quickly. “She died in 1994.”
“Oh.” He sounded stunned. “I’m so sorry.”
“Did you know my mother?”
“Briefly. In the Eighties.”
“How brief?”
“We dated right up until she met Samuel.” Who the fuck was Samuel? Was he my dad? Oh god. “Kate, are you there?”
“Can I meet you? I mean, can we meet for coffee or something? I don’t know who Samuel is. My mother never spoke of him.” Jamie was watching me from the kitchen with concern. He stood, eyes wide, with the coffeepot suspended in the air. I held my hand over my heart in some futile attempt to physically slow the rapid beats down.
“Yes, we can meet. Are you free this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, how about the Starbucks on State at three o’clock?”
“Perfect, see you then.” When I hung up, Jamie was at my side in a second.
“What did he say?”
“He just said he knew my mom and that they dated until she met Samuel. I never heard that name from Rose or my mom.”
He wrapped his arms around me and brought me to his chest. “Maybe this will be good for you. Maybe you’ll get to know more about your mother.”
“I asked my mom about my father once. It upset her so much she could barely speak. I figured he was a deadbeat or something, but maybe Paul will be able to fill in some of the blanks. Rose always said if my mom wanted me to know, she would have told me. That makes me think my father, whoever he is, is a very bad person.”
“You don’t know that, and you don’t know what your mother’s reasons were.”
“You’re right, but I wonder if I’m going against her by digging into this. I guess she’s gone, and it doesn’t matter now. But still . . .” I leaned up on my tippy-toes and pecked his lips. “I’m going to do some laundry. Do you want to get lunch before we meet Paul?”
“I can go with you?”
“Of course.” I slid my hand down the back of his flannel pj’s and squeezed his butt. “Wanna do it in the shower to take my mind off of things?”
He scooped me up and carried me to the bathroom before stripping my clothes off in record time. He turned the shower on, took a step back, and scanned me from head to toe. I pulled his pants down as I knelt in front of him. He shivered and then clutched the back of my head.
“Baby, you don’t have to do that,” he said and then moaned. After he was thoroughly turned on, he lifted me up and kissed me while he backed me into the shower. “Turn around, sexy,” he said. When I turned my back to him, he instantly grabbed my hands and pressed them onto the tiles above my head. He leaned in and whispered, “I love you,” into my ear. I parted my legs and gasped when he pushed into me forcefully.
“You okay?”
“God, yes, just go.” He slid his hands down my arms, reached around with one hand, and began circling the sensitive skin above where we were connected. He gripped my neck hard with his other hand and continued his strong thrusts until we were both breathing loudly and moaning. I threw my head back, and his mouth instantly went to my neck and sucked and kissed and tugged. Then he gently bit my earlobe, and I fell apart, shouting, “I love you, too!”