“What is it?” Julia asked, kneeling next to him. “Talk to me.”
“Just… a wave of pain,” Chapel told her. “Nothing too serious.”
“From your bullet wound?”
He gave her a weak smile. “I might have been a little acrobatic when we went to get the guns. I kind of had to tackle a guy.”
Julia helped him up onto the bed and then started unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ll take a look. I don’t think you opened my sutures, but let’s see.”
“I’m fine,” he told her. It was even true. The pain had passed, and he was breathing all right again. Nothing to worry about.
She got his shirt off and then she unwound the bandage around his midriff. She palpated the wound and then she looked up at him. “I think you’re okay,” she said.
“I could have told you that much.” He stood up and unlatched his artificial arm. Inside the shoulder there was a retractable cord that allowed him to plug it into any wall socket to charge its batteries. He had it set up on an end table before he’d even thought about what he was doing. It just needed a charge. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Julia might be freaked out by watching him do that. But of course she’d seen him do it before, back when they lived together.
This time, though, she came over and studied the arm as if she’d forgotten it wasn’t real. “Are these bullet holes?” she asked.
He bent over it with her and prodded at the silicone flesh. “I guess so.” The Vulcan cannon back in the warehouse, he thought. He’d thought it was just a miracle he hadn’t been torn to pieces. It was hardly the first time the arm had saved him from otherwise certain death. “Huh.”
She turned and looked at him. After a second, he started to move away, but she grabbed his face and held on.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Memorizing what you look like. So if you get killed tonight, I won’t forget.”
“Julia,” he said, “you can’t think like that. I can’t make you any promises that I’ll be okay, but—”
“Shush,” she told him. “I wasn’t looking for any. I know what you’re going to do tonight. I know it’s dangerous. I also know it has to be done.”
“I know that I’ve hurt you in the past,” he told her. “Disappearing on missions when you couldn’t even know if I was alive or dead. That’s no way to live, and—”
“Are you even listening to me?” she asked.
He focused on her eyes. “Yes,” he said.
“I’m saying it’s okay.” She let go of his face. “You’re right. It sucks. The not knowing. The waiting for you to come back. Taking your shirt off and finding new scars all over you.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I don’t like it. But it’s the price I have to pay for being in love with you.”
He leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
“I’ve been asking myself,” she said, “what would have happened if that asshole Moulton hadn’t come between us. Whether I would have broken up with you on my own. I mean, that was a real possibility.”
Chapel closed his eyes. “I told you then, I would do anything you wanted. I would take a desk job. I would come home every night at six and cook you dinner.”
“If I wanted that, there are plenty of guys in the world who could give it to me,” Julia told him. “No. I wanted you. And I still do. Jim — I made a lousy mistake when I broke up with you. Will you have me back?”
“You know I will,” he told her.
He kissed her, deeply, putting his arm around her shoulders. Pulling her close to him, unable to contain what he was feeling.
She reached down and unbuttoned his pants.
She turned her head to the side and he kissed her neck, his lips grabbing at her pale skin, his tongue darting out to touch the freckles in the vee where the top button of her shirt was open. She reached up and opened her shirt farther. He slipped his hand up inside her shirt from the back and slipped the catch of her bra.
That made her laugh. “Most guys can’t do that with two hands,” she said.
“Practice,” he told her.
She shimmied and shrugged and her bra fell down across her arms. Her breasts spilled out before him, just as he remembered them, firm and beautiful. He kissed the tops of them, touched his lips to her nipples until she shivered. She reached down inside his pants and grabbed his cock and it stiffened instantly. He buried his face in the warmth of her stomach, kissing around her belly button, making her laugh again. Reaching down, he unbuckled her belt, but clearly she didn’t have the patience to let him strip her. Jumping off the bed, she danced on one foot as she kicked off her jeans, then pulled down her panties in one quick yank so that she wore nothing but the open shirt.
He reached for her, but she pushed him back onto the bed. “Lie down,” she told him. His hand stole between her legs, but she slapped it away. “No need for that,” she said. “I’m ready. Just relax and let me do this, okay?”
“Sure,” he said, smiling up at her.
She pulled his pants off, one leg at a time, nearly falling over as they came free, positively giggled as she jumped up on the bed and kissed his chest, then his hip. Bending low, she kissed the tip of his cock, then opened her lips and took him deep into her mouth. She knew exactly what that did to him and he groaned, his head tilted backward against the pillows, his hand grasping at the sheets. Apparently he was more than ready, too — if she didn’t stop that he was going to come in her mouth, but he didn’t want that, he wanted more. He reached down and grabbed at her.
“Enough,” he gasped. “No more—”
She pulled away and laughed and then swung one leg up over him until she was straddling him, her hands planted on his chest. She slid her hips backward, then a little forward, her wetness gliding along the length of him and he ached to be inside her. He needed this, needed the confirmation of what she’d said, that they could start again. That they could be partners again.
She kissed him, deeply, her breasts crushed against his chest. Then she sat back up. Reaching behind herself, she grabbed his cock.
“Just tell me you’ll love me forever,” she said. “That’s all I’m going to ask.”
“Always,” he told her.
She lifted away from him for a second, then sat down again and his cock slid inside her, so deep inside.
“Oh, God,” she breathed. “I almost… forgot how… how good…”
“Yeah,” he groaned.
He expected her to thrust against him, to grind her hips against his body, but instead she just stayed there, hovering on top of him, his cock just inside of her, so hard he could barely stand it. Then she moved with excruciating slowness, sinking down until he went deeper and deeper, the tiniest bit at a time. His eyes opened wide and he saw her shaking, her shoulders quivering with how good she must be feeling. Her eyes were closed but her mouth fell open, red hair framing her perfect lips.
“Oh, Jim,” she said. “Can you — is this — okay?”
She slid just the barest fraction lower on him, but every slight motion, every tiny increment was so much more intense than he expected it to be. “I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “You just — you do what you need.”
“This is — this is going—” she gasped as she slid lower, even deeper, “going to make me come. I’m going to… I’m going to…”
And then she sank all the way down on him, collided with him, and he could feel how much he was filling her up, filling all of her, and she cried out, literally screamed as her whole body vibrated on top of him. He reached up then and grabbed her to support her, then to bring her down closer until she was lying on top of him, her head buried in the crook of his neck as her hips started to move, really move now. And he knew it wouldn’t be long before he joined her, before he came too. She groaned a little every time she slammed her hips against him, held her breath as she slid back and he could tell she was lost inside that rhythm, that even if he called her name she wouldn’t hear him, couldn’t hear, and he was so close, and—