He continued to move his fingers inside of her. She told herself it wasn’t enough, but of course it was. Tension seized her again and she found herself convulsing around him. She felt the spasm of her release, and from his expression of satisfaction, knew he did, too.
He watched her climax at least half a dozen more times, then he moved up a step or two so that when he pulled out his fingers, he pushed in his erection.
She screamed with her release. The sound of her pleasure filled the old building. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. She went willingly. Despite the tremors rippling through her body, she managed to draw her legs around his hips.
They clung to each other as they made love there on the stairs, surrounded by fermenting wine and echoes of the young couple who had matched their every move so many years before. Brenna found herself watching Nic as he watched her. She climaxed with nearly every thrust. They were naked and joined in the most intimate way possible. She should have felt embarrassed or awkward, but everything about this felt exactly right.
Suddenly he stiffened. He pulled her closer still, then shuddered. She felt the convulsion of his muscles as his body surged through its climax, and then they were still.
15
Reality returned in the form of stiff muscles and a growing sense of the cold. Brenna dropped her feet to the stairs and felt the first flicker of second thoughts. Could they really have done this again? She expected Nic to pull away, but he didn’t. Instead he brushed his fingers against her face, as he had when all this had started.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I will be when my heart rate returns to normal. Currently it’s in the active range for a hummingbird.”
“Let’s check out the damage.”
He slid out of her, then pushed to his feet. Brenna tried to straighten her legs, but she wasn’t used to being so pretzellike, and everything hurt.
Nic rubbed the small of his back. “Me, too,” he said. He held out a hand to her.
She took it and let him pull her to a standing position. They both hobbled for a couple of seconds, then Brenna started to laugh.
“We’re so old,” she said. “Ten years ago this was nothing. I can’t even remember all the positions we did it in.”
Nic started to look insulted, then he shook his head and chuckled. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. She snuggled against him. He kissed her forehead.
“Speak for yourself,” he said. “I’m not old.”
“Ha. You’re going to be limping tomorrow because of this.”
He glanced down at her. “So are you and not because your legs are stiff.”
She ignored the flush that heated her cheeks and his satisfied male “I pleased my woman” expression. “Go get my clothes.”
He handed over her bra and panties, then picked up her jeans and shirt. He pulled on his jeans but simply tossed his T-shirt over his shoulder.
They didn’t speak. By mutual agreement they walked out of the building together. She turned off the lights, and he closed the door. After wrapping his arm around her, he led her toward her car.
Once there, he brushed her hair off her face and kissed her. She clung to him as long as she dared, then sighed.
“I should go,” she said.
“Okay.”
She’d half hoped he would ask her to spend the night. A part of her wanted to go to sleep in his arms and then wake up in them. But even as the vision of how they would actually spend their night formed in her head, she knew it wasn’t possible. Her? Here? If her car wasn’t parked by the garage when the Grands woke up, they would call in the FBI.
Her mouth twisted. When exactly was she going to grow up enough not to care what her family thought of what she was doing?
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Just me. I think I need therapy.” She raised herself on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’m saying good night.”
“Me, too.”
She smiled, then got into her car. He stood watching her drive away. As she turned onto the highway, she glanced in the rearview mirror. He was still standing there, as if making sure she was safe. Or was that just wishful thinking on her part?
Lorenzo wrote slowly on the lined yellow pad in front of him. Since turning seventy, he’d endured the steady encroachment of arthritis, first in his knees, then his hips, and now in his hands. Brenna insisted a computer would be easier for him, that tapping the keys would hurt less than writing, but he had yet to find out. Despite the fact that a large, ugly machine had been installed in his office, and that his secretary turned it on for him every morning, Lorenzo hadn’t used it for more than a place to drape his jacket. He ignored the flashing cursor and the occasional clicks and whirs that drifted from the rectangular box on the floor. The new ways were not for him. He was too old to want to change so much.
Tessa, his wife of over fifty years, disagreed. She enjoyed new technology. When Mia was at her language school in Washington, Tessa had e-mailed her every day, then printed out the responses and read them to him before they went to bed.
Women dealt with change better than men, he acknowledged grudgingly. Perhaps because they were born knowing that time was liquid and always moving. They understood that the babies to come from their bodies would eventually grow and leave. Hearts were broken and then mended. For women, the world was shades of gray. Men saw only black and white.
He finished writing and carefully tore off the page. His secretary would type up his letter and send it out, but first she would remind him that even if he didn’t want to use the computer, he could simply dictate into a tape recorder. She would transcribe his words, saving him the pain of carefully forming each word. He did not bother to tell her that he’d used his tiny handheld recorder to prop up an unsteady table and that when Mia had later sat on the table, the small machine had been crushed.
He read over the letter, then dropped it into his out basket. Now that he was finished, he slowly flexed his aching hands, then opened the top drawer and reached for the pain medicine he kept there. At his age, pills were tangible markers of time. Each hour or two meant another medication, another glass of water, another aftertaste left on his tongue. Whenever he complained, Tessa reminded him that the alternative was no pills, no bitter taste, only darkness and the earth reclaiming his body. Then she would pull the rosary from her pocket and take a quick trip around the beads to ward off any inadvertent invitation of death brought on by their conversation.
He smiled at the thought of his wife. He was an old man, and yet he loved her more today than on the day they married. God had blessed him in many ways. His son, his grandchildren, the bounty of the earth.
Lorenzo shook his head. Was his mind to go next? He refused to become maudlin about his good fortunes. Despite his complaints, his doctor assured him he would probably see eighty and beyond. Plenty of time to annoy those he loved most.
A knock on the door to his office distracted him. Lorenzo glanced up. “Come,” he called.
The door opened and Joe entered.
Antonio, Lorenzo thought sadly. That was the name he had picked out for Marco’s firstborn son. There had been so many hopes and plans. So much that went wrong.
“You come to see me,” Lorenzo said, trying not to sound too pleased.
Joe crossed to the chair in front of the desk and pulled it out. He moved like a man used to trouble-carefully and with purpose. Lorenzo liked that. Joe was young and strong, all the things his heir should be.
“I’ve come to say good-bye,” Joe said as he took a seat. “I’ve reached my limit of family bonding.”
Lorenzo frowned. “You cannot go. Your life is here now. With the vines.”
Joe shook his head. “Not my style. I told you, I’m a beer drinker.”