Page 45 of Just Say Christmas
“Says he decided, though,” Kevin said. “He doesn’t want to be a dancer, even though you should’ve seen his grand jetés while they played tag. Getting coordinated, eh. He wants to be a rugby player, though. Maybe. Or a fireman. One or the other.”
“Rugby-playing fireman,” she said, then was quiet for a moment.
He said, “You know what you never do?”
“Mmm?” She opened her eyes and turned her head toward him.
He hesitated a second, and she sat up a little straighter. It wasn’t easy. The bath was too relaxing. “You never do the diva thing,” he said. “Ask me what I thought, how you were, even though I think you may want to know. Why is that?”
“Oh.” She sank back down again and put a hand over her heart. “You had me worried there, trying to think what I never do. Going over my shortcomings, trying to decide which one was pushing you to the limit.”
“Wait,” he said. “What?”
“Oh, you know.” She tried to make a joke. Shewastoo tired, maybe. It had been a long week. “That I don’t give you oral sex often enough. That I don’t fold your socks the way your mum did. Who knows?”
“Wait. Chloe.” He smiled, a twist of a thing. “If I want to say something like that, I won’t say it after you dance your eighth show of the week. And in case I haven’t mentioned it—I like the way we have sex. No complaints.”
“Then,” she said, “Maybe come get in here with me? If we’re going to have a talk . . . come get in.”
He didn’t take any more persuading than that to strip the jersey over his head, yank his shorts down his legs, and climb in opposite her. He said, leaning back against the slanted wall of the tub with a sigh of his own, “We missed out last night, I guess, not being at Nyree and Marko’s thing. They did a couples massage class. Sexy, I hear.”
“Oh.” She digested that for a minute. “That’s a bit of a surprise, isn’t it? More of a dancers’ thing to do.”
“That’s what they said,” Kevin said. “Surprised.” He smiled. “But they did it anyway.” He picked up her foot under the water and set it on his thigh. “Course, I already know what you like.”
“To have my ugly feet rubbed.”
“Exactly.” After which, he set in to do it, which made her sigh some more. Dancers’ feet carried all the effort and pain that the rest of their bodies weren’t allowed to show, but Kevin knew how to rub all that away.
She said, “Remind me what I don’t do enough of, again. I’m feeling like I owe you something. Maybe . . .” She opened her eyes a fraction and smiled at him. “Something good.”
He said, “Ah . . .” looking a little distracted. “That you’re never needy.”
“Oh.” She had to digest that. “Do you want me to be needy?”
This time, he was the one considering. He had the other foot, though, so he could take his time. She rubbed her own free foot along his leg, up from his ankle to his knee, then on up his inner thigh. “My toes are so strong,” she told him, “they’re nearly prehensile. I can write with them. Did I ever tell you that? Wonder what else I can do with them.”
“You’re distracting me,” he said. “We’re having a . . .” He sat up straighter as she found a good spot. “Serious conversation.”
“Yeh,” she said. “I want to know what you think. Of course I do. If I don’t ask . . . it’s because I care too much. I’m not needy because I’m . . .” She had to breathe in order to say this. “Afraid of how needy I could be.”
“Ah.” He looked satisfied, and not just because of the bodily contact. “So I should assume you’re holding your breath a bit after I’ve watched a performance, waiting to hear.”
“Yes,” she said. “Please assume that.” She was going a little boneless under here. “Just like I love to tell you how proud I was when you scored that try or made that tackle. That’s what I want to hear, too. Or it’s what I need to know.”
“Then I’ll say,” he said, “that I thought . . . inappropriate things today, watching that dance. The sexy one, the one I like. Coffee. I wondered if you were doing it better, doing it like you were, for me. And I’ll also say that I’ve been waiting for you to come home for an hour, to see if I was right.”
She pushed herself off the wall of the tub, flipped her body so she was on her hands and knees, walked across to him that way, and saw him lose his breath. She straddled his body the way she’d done Michael’s today, but absolutely differently, got her hands on his shoulders, bent down, and licked into his mouth like the temptress she’d never been, offstage, before Kevin. After that, she kissed her way to his ear, felt the smoothness of a jaw he’d shaved for her, so he wouldn’t mark her skin when he kissed her everywhere, and whispered, “You were right.”
He pulled her up against him. Suddenly, which made her gasp. His hands had slid down her back, and, now, his tongue was the one inhermouth, taking it over. Like he’d had those inappropriate thoughts, watching her dance with another man, and for everybody else. Like he wanted her to know she was his.
When he stood up and stepped out of the tub, she was wrapped around his waist, the same way she’d been on stage, but this time, she was naked, and this time, it was real. It was real when Kevin lowered her, still dripping, onto the bed, and real when he came slowly down over her, strong enough to hold that press-up until the very last second. Again, like Michael, and again, nothing like him at all. And when he was sliding inside her at last, holding himself still there for a long, long moment, waiting until she couldn’t stand it any longer, burning so hot?
It was absolutely real.
* * *
KEVIN
