Reason Enough Page 4

  He looked at the soft cotton pajama bottoms. “Take them off.”

  I stood. “You take them off.”

  He grinned and hooked his thumbs in the sides, but I held up my hand. “No. Not like that.”

  I took a seat in the rocking chair and gestured at him to stand up. “I want to watch you.”

  The pajamas were already tenting when he got out of bed. “Do you want me to put on some music?”

  “No.” I kept my face stern even though I wanted to giggle. I didn’t want to laugh; it would ruin the mood.

  Dan stood in front of me, thumbs hooked in his waistband. “You want me to just strip ’em off or what?”

  “Surprise me.” I parted my legs so the hem of my short nightgown rode up. I was naked beneath.

  I loved the way his eyes gleamed and the way his tongue snuck out to swipe across his lips. Dan didn’t have to worry about extra curves. He had been blessed with good genes. Now he eyed me, one hip cocked.

  I inched my hem higher and ran a hand over the soft patch of hair between my legs. I wasn’t stroking myself. Not yet. But there was definitely the promise I might start.

  He had such a playful side. It was sexy. Now, watching me, Dan ran his hands over his chest. Up and down, then over his belly. He traced the lines of muscle in his abs and the indentations of his ribs. He licked the fingertips on both hands and circled his nipples. It should have been silly, but my throat tightened.

  He didn’t do a bump and grind. It was more like a slow, easy exploration of his body. He kept his gaze locked on mine the whole time, too. My hand slid again and this time found my clit. I moved my finger in small circles as I watched him touch himself the way I wanted to be touching him.

  He turned around to slide the waist of his pajamas down just far enough for me to see the small patch of hair at the base of his spine. I loved to lick that spot. He loved me to lick it. He eased the elastic a little lower, then lower again, to reveal the crack of his ass. He tossed me a look over his shoulder and turned, pulling the waistband up again.

  “Tease,” I murmured.

  He laughed softly and pushed the cloth down in front until the first fluff of his pubic hair showed. He’d offered once to shave down there, but I’d protested. Now he just kept himself trimmed. I held my breath as he pushed the pants lower, lower…

  “You are a tease!” I told him when he let go and the elastic snapped back up around his hips.

  “You told me to surprise you.” He hooked his thumbs into the fabric but didn’t pull it off.

  I couldn’t deny it. Instead, I parted my legs wider and gave him a full glimpse of my body. I slipped my fingers down low enough to find slippery fluid. He licked his mouth again.

  “I love to watch you touch yourself,” he said.

  “Let me see you do the same,” I breathed.

  Dan put a hand over the bulge in his pants. He stroked himself a few times through the cloth. Then he reached inside and stroked again. His face tightened and he bit his lower lip a little.

  “No fair!” I said.

  Dan’s laugh came out a little strangled. “Fine.”

  He pushed his pajamas down, finally, and stepped out of them. His gripped his erection as he kicked away the bottoms. When he stroked down, slowly, I couldn’t decide where to look: at his face, taut with desire, or at his cock, so deliciously hard.

  My body responded. My breath came faster, my pulse sped up, my clit grew harder beneath my fingertips. The curved wood beneath my bare ass had warmed to my skin, smooth, and I slid on it as I set the chair to rocking.

  We’d fucked on this chair, more than once, and I thought of that now. Of how Dan’s prick felt inside me as we rocked, of how good it felt when my clitoris rubbed his stomach. How easy it was to thrust and move with the chair helping us.

  Dan’s hand moved up and down on his erection. I did love watching him. There was something singular in him jerking himself and in watching how he moved his hand to bring himself the most pleasure. He added a twist to his wrist as he stroked the head of his cock. I caught a glimpse of pre-come glistening as he stroked. He stood with his feet spread apart to anchor himself, and it was easy to imagine myself on my knees in front of him.

  I knew how he’d taste and the sound he’d make when I closed my lips over his penis. I didn’t, though. I watched him stroke himself, instead, as I brought myself closer and closer to climax.

  We could have finished that way, watching each other. But when my cunt gave its first spasm, hovering on the edge of coming, I pulled my hand away. I wanted to squirm on the chair. I wanted to push my cunt against the air, or squeeze my thighs together, keeping myself from tipping into orgasm but only barely.

  “Dan,” I said.

  That was all it took. He crossed to me in two strides. I almost came when he pulled me to my feet. The world tipped a little as pleasure swooped over me, but I breathed deep and managed to hold it off. Dan took my place on the chair and pulled me onto his lap. I slid onto his prick, my clit against his belly, our mouths locked. I cried out, the sound lost against his lips. He fucked upward as his hands cupped my ass.

  I was already coming. My body jerked. My fingers dug into his shoulders. He thrust harder as the chair rocked. The floor squeaked. He said my name. My orgasm became all-encompassing, immense, enormous. The world. The universe. Pleasure overtook me.

  Dan yelled when he came. His final thrust lifted me up and when we settled the chair kept rocking, though we’d stopped. He put his arms around me, tight. I felt him throb inside me as my cunt fluttered in climax. I couldn’t always feel it, and tonight it seemed especially appropriate that I could.

  I thought of him spurting inside me. Dan’s body had made sperm, small wriggling and invisible, that even now were swimming mightily up the convulsing corridor of my vagina to seek the cavern of my womb. Would it welcome them? Had my body created an egg, waiting, even now to be conquered? It wasn’t likely, but neither was impossible. Many women who’d counted themselves “safe” had ended up getting pregnant.

  Dan had buried his face against my chest with a happy sigh. His hair tickled my nose. Our bodies glued together, sticky from sweat, as the chair rocked to a stop. I didn’t move, too content to bother.

  We didn’t have secrets any more, and I was glad for that. Even so, I didn’t tell him I’d forgotten and then deliberately not taken my pill. I wasn’t sure there’d be a point in telling him we may or may not have made a baby.

  “I love you.” Dan kissed my collar bone.

  “I love you too.” So easy to say it, now.

  Easier to mean it, too.

  Chapter Seven

  “FUCK ME WITH A BARBED WIRE DILDO!” Marcy’s voice echoed through the tiled hall, and nobody blinked an eye. “Where the fuck is Wayne?”

  “I’ve left a message with his secretary, on his voice mail and on his cell,” I told her. “He’ll be here.”

  Marcy let out a low, guttural groan. Sweat had plastered her hair to her forehead. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and the corners of her mouth had cracked a little. She gripped my arm with fingers like talons, but I didn’t dare show a wince. I wasn’t the one getting ready to push a bowling ball out of my body.

  We’d been walking for an hour as she labored. Marcy had called me when her efforts to get in touch with her husband had failed. She’d driven herself to Harrisburg Hospital and I’d met her there, not because I had any burning desire to watch my friend give birth, but because she’d had nobody else.

  Funny how Marcy hadn’t considered me her last resort, though. She’d hugged me fiercely when I got there and chattered on and on in a bright, happy voice as we got her settled in. It took me twenty minutes of listening to her babble for me to realize Marcy was terrified.

  Her water hadn’t broken yet, so she’d been encouraged to walk up and down the halls to help with her labor. The first half an hour had been fine. She’d been upbeat, if still a little manic, but as time wore on and the contractions got harder and
Wayne was nowhere to be found, Marcy had ceased with the little Susie Sunshine act.

  “God damn him,” she said. “I fucking told him to keep his motherfucking phone charged…Fuck!” She clutched her belly and stopped, hunching. She breathed in a series of rapid, whistling breaths while I stood by, helpless to do anything but watch.

  “He’ll be here,” I repeated. Please God, I prayed. Let him get here. Soon.

  When the contraction stopped, the tears started. Marcy turned to me with a desperate look. “Thank you for being with me, Elle. Thank you.”

  Guilt stabbed me. “Of course I’d be here for you, Marcy. You know that.”

  She gripped my hand as another contraction rolled over her. Her lips thinned to pale lines in her face. “Fucking hell!”

  Marcy wasn’t the only woman in labor. I could hear the burble of television sets in some of the labor and delivery rooms, and an occasional grunt or cry. There were women giving birth all over the place here, the air was thick with the odor of blood and fear and joy; my stomach kept trying to turn and I wouldn’t let it.

  “I’m so glad you’re here.” Marcy gripped the wooden hand rail along the wall. “You’re always so together, Elle. You’re always so calm.”

  I was anything but calm, but hell, Marcy was expecting me to be something for her and I could give her that, at least. “It’s all going to be okay.”

  She nodded and then looked up at me, her face a mask of surprise. I didn’t know why until a second later when the rapid patter of liquid hitting the tile floor caught my attention. We both looked down, though I doubted Marcy could see past her belly.

  “My water just broke!”

  “It’s okay.” I gripped her hand. “Let’s get you into your room.”

  It all happened very fast after that. Nurses and midwives showed up to do their jobs. Wayne, tie askew and hair windblown, arrived with a story about traffic and dead cell batteries. Marcy forgave him at once. The looks on their faces when he held her hand and kissed it was like something from a movie.

  Wayne’s eyes rolling up in the back of his head and him hitting the tile floor with the sound of a pumpkin breaking open was somewhat less glamorous.

  I’d been edging my way out of the room at that point, preferring to leave them to their privacy, but when Wayne hit the ground Marcy shrieked my name and I found myself at her side in a second.

  “He’s okay,” I told her. Two orderlies got him to his feet and into a chair, where he promptly put his head between his knees.

  “Get ready to push,” the midwife said. “Elle, can you hold her leg for her?”

  Did I have a choice? I positioned myself at the foot of the table with Marcy’s knee lodged firmly in the stirrup of my hands as I kept it pulled back to help her push. She screamed. Wayne looked up, face pale but determined, and got to his feet. They slapped a gown and gloves on him as fast as a pit crew changing the tires on a racecar. The midwife cooed soothing phrases I didn’t hear.

  And Marcy’s baby was born.

  I saw the head, crowning, the sleek dark hair wet and the skull pulsing. She pushed again, in silence this time. The baby slid forth in a gush of blood and liquid, the smell of it ripe and indescribable. Wayne held out his hands and his son slid into the welcoming cradle of his arms. He was crying. So was the baby, and Marcy.

  So was I.

  Ten minutes later she held him, dried and buffed and wrapped in a blanket, to her breast. She didn’t care who saw her nakedness, or that strangers were wiping her body clean, or that she needed three stitches to repair a tear.

  “Look, oh look,” she said in a voice full of wonder. “How beautiful he is.”

  And he was.

  Chapter Eight

  My phone buzzed in my pocket as I washed my hands at the sink of the main restroom on the labor and delivery floor. I’d left Marcy and Wayne to share their son without witness. They hadn’t even noticed me leaving.

  “Elle?” Dan’s voice sounded strained. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Harrisburg Hospital.” Elation made my voice shake. “Marcy just had her baby. Where are you?”

  He was silent so long I thought we’d lost the connection. When he spoke again, he didn’t sound like my Dan, the man who always made everything all right for me.

  “I’m at the hospital, too,” he said. “My dad just had a stroke.”

  * * *

  Dotty Stewart wrung her handkerchief in her hands over and over until the fabric twisted. Then she’d let it unwind, only to twist it again. She didn’t hold herself the way my mother would have. Dotty didn’t care how she looked to anyone else just then.

  “Have you called your brother?” She asked. “Did you call Sam?”

  “I tried. I left a message.” Dan’s voice was still strained, but he’d pulled himself together for his mom.

  “Oh, I wish Sam were here,” his mother said before she went to sit again by her husband’s side.

  I don’t think she meant it to be hurtful. If Dotty had favorites I’d never seen evidence of it. Then again, I’d only met his brother very briefly at our wedding. Dan and his brother got along fine with distance between them. Though they’d never said it, I got the impression Sam’s moving to New York hadn’t exactly made him the favorite son.

  Dan paced in the waiting room and drank cup after cup of black coffee. His mother kept up her vigil by Morty’s side. I would have held Dan’s hand, if he’d wanted, but instead I sat and watched him traverse the linoleum floor. I’d have gone in his father’s room with him, too, when they came to get him, but he shook his head a little.

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “If you need me, Dan, I’ll be there.” He’d been there for me when my father died. I’d needed him to be. I reached for him and pulled him close for a kiss, both of us ignoring the nurse sent to fetch him.

  “It might be uncomfortable for you.” He spoke in a low voice against the side of my neck. His arms tightened.

  I thought what he meant was that it might be uncomfortable for him to have me there. To see him upset, maybe even crying. I held him a little closer.

  “If you need me, I’m here.”

  He nodded and gripped my hands. He looked into my eyes. “I know you are.”

  I’d never had to be strong for him before. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. Together we went to listen to what the doctors had to say.

  It wasn’t entirely good, but it wasn’t all bad. His dad had suffered a stroke, but a mild one. He was expected to regain consciousness within a few hours, and they didn’t think there’d been much damage to his brain. It meant another few hours of waiting, though, in which we visited the cafeteria and Dan tried calling his brother again. We waited another hour in the small hospital room before Marty opened his eyes. Dotty had stepped out to use the bathroom. Dan had heard from his brother and was even now out in the corridor talking to him.

  “Heya,” Morty said and licked his lips. He gestured at me to come closer. “Heya, girlie.”

  “Hi, Morty.” I took his hand. The skin felt like onionskin. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not so good, not so good.” He coughed a little, but the monitors didn’t beep erratically and I didn’t think I needed to holler for a nurse. “How’re you?”

  I hadn’t known Morty that long, really. A couple years. But he’d been more of a father to me than my own had been for a long time. My throat closed as I squeezed his hand ever-so-gently. I didn’t want to lose him, and yet my grief would be so much less than Dan’s.

  “I’m okay, Morty. I should go get Dotty.”

  He shook his head a bit. I’d always seen a lot of Morty in Dan, but now I saw a bit of Dan in Morty. “Not yet. Sit here with me for a minute.”

  I did, without letting go of his hand. We didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Morty looked as though he wanted to say something important, and my heart beat faster as I anticipated some sort of last words. It wasn’t my place to hear them, if this were his final
speech.

  “You’re good for my boy.”

  “He’s good for me.”

  Morty smiled. His fingers twitched in mine, not quite a squeeze but a valiant effort. “Me and Dot, we always wanted a girl. She couldn’t have another, you know. After Sam. We tried, but she lost ’em. Finally, the doctor just said, no more. You’ll kill yourself. So that was that.”

  I hadn’t known. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Morty shook his head a little again. His grin was a ghost of its normal brightness, but still there. I could so easily see how Dan would look in another thirty years. “We got our daughter, didn’t we?”

  I smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Our Sam, now, he might not ever settle down. But Danny, he’s a smart one.” Morty shifted in the bed and looked a little pained. Alarmed, I made to move, but he shook his head again. “Now, it’s not my way to push.”

  Not compared to my mother, that was for sure.

  “But it surely would make me happy…me and Dotty both, you know….”

  “If we had a baby?” I said quietly, leaning forward though there was nobody to overhear us.

  “Yes.” Morty’s eyes gleamed.

  I leaned even closer, conspiring. “I think we’re working on it.”

  He laughed and the laugh trailed away into a weak cough. “Good. Does Danny know that?”

  “He was there,” I said, which wasn’t quite the right answer but made him laugh again. I’d never have said such a ribald thing to my mother, but Dan’s dad was different.

  “Good,” he said again and closed his eyes for so long I was afraid he wouldn’t open them. Then, “good.”

  Chapter Nine

  “C’mon. You’ve had a very long day.” I bent over the bath and turned on the faucets. We had a nice, big bathtub put in by the previous owners. They’d obviously been obsessed with the bathroom, since it was the only room in the house to have been completely renovated. I added some lavender-scented oil. “You need this.”