"Mal?"
"Yes, love?"
He ought to have been reading a book or maybe working a crossword puzzle. Making a grocery list. Something, anything, other than merely sitting and watching her work.
"Nothing." It was her choice to clean, not his. He didn't have to help. But...she shook her head at her own odd thoughts. He usually would have pitched in or found someplace else to be. He wouldn't just...watch.
She set the pail in the sink and began to fill it again with clean water. In the next moment, she felt his lips against the back of her neck. His kiss sent a pleasant chill down her spine and she shivered. "That tickles."
"I've got something else that would like to tickle you, too."
She felt it against the small of her back and she pressed herself harder against him. "Oh, really?
Now his hands came around to cup her breasts. The nipples sprang instantly erect under the attention of his thumbs. He nuzzled the back of her neck some more, and she felt the wet heat of his tongue. It was answered instantly by a wet heat between her legs.
His hand went there next. He lifted her dress and his forefinger stroked the outline of her cleft, then slipped beneath the waistband of her panties to circle her clit. He dipped a little lower to smooth his way with her slickness and up again to rub her button. He pushed her panties off her hips and she stepped out of them.
She heard the sound of his zipper as he pulled it down. She gripped the edge of the ancient porcelain sink as Malcolm pulled her hips toward him. He pushed her legs apart with his thigh. Claire tensed, waiting.
"Ahh." The wordless sound burbled from her throat as he entered her. She couldn't have formed words if she'd tried. She stood on her tiptoes to ease his way.
How many times had they made love? She would never get enough of him. Claire moaned as Malcolm slid his fingers over her clit. His cock pumped in and out of her. His soft pubic hair brushed her ass and she smiled. He was tickling her, all right.
His teeth nipped the curve of her shoulder and neck exposed by the collar of her sundress. The tiny pain only intensified her pleasure. Her clit pulsed.
"I can feel you getting bigger down there. I can feel you open to me." Now he tickled her ear with his breath. "You take me in all the way." He stroked her again. "Come with me, Claire."
She did, with a long shudder that made her legs tremble. Wetness splashed her. For a moment, she thought it came from her, and her eyes flew open, startled.
"The sink!"
"Leave it," he growled, his passion evident by the way he thrust inside her.
The sink was overflowing. The pail had blocked the drain, and once it was full the water had begun to fill the sink. Now it ran over the sides, onto Claire, the counter and the floor.
She climaxed again, anyway, even as she reached for the faucet but turned it the wrong way. More water flowed and faster. Malcolm thrust into her one more time and cried her name. Claire forgot about the water as the pleasure swept her away.
Water poured onto the floor with a noise that sounded as loud as the crashing of the ocean waves. The noise filled her head and made it ache. Malcolm kissed her neck once before he pulled out of her. Her dress fell down to her thighs again.
"Oh, what a mess!" Claire looked around the kitchen in dismay. There was so much water. Water everywhere. Her entire front was soaked. She turned the faucet off with a vicious twist that hurt her wrist. "Damn it."
"It's all right."
She faced him as he pulled up his pants and zipped them. "You're going to help me clean this up, I hope."
He rolled his eyes but nodded. "I'll help."
"I knew there was a reason I love you." She kicked a little water in his direction, but he didn't smile.
"You do love me still?"
"You know I do. How could you think I don't?"
He sounded almost desperate, but she didn't know why. "And you'll no stop?"
"I don't plan to." She wiped fruitlessly at the front of her dress, then gave up.
"Claire, I want you to know I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm desperately sorry. I never want to hurt you again."
She didn't like the sound of that at all. "Hurt me?"
"I have to tell you something, love."
Claire gave him her back and fussed with draining the sink. The gurgle of the water made her headache worsen. "Let's get this cleaned up first."
"No, Claire. I think you need to know this now."
She took a deep breath and clutched at the porcelain only moments ago she'd been gripping in passion. She forced her fingers to loosen their grip. "I don't think I want to hear."
"You have to."
She whirled to face him. "Who says? Who says I have to? It's something awful, Malcolm. I know it is! What could be so awful that would make me feel this way? I don't want to know!"
He spoke softly. "How do you feel?"
"Cold!" she cried, and realized it was true. "I feel cold all the time. The only time I feel warm is when we're making love."
His gray-green eyes filled with tears. "I know, love."
She took a breath and put on a brave face. "I hope you're not going to tell me you've been unfaithful. Because...because you know I could not forgive you."
"I know."
Her voice faltered and she forced it to be strong. "I would never speak to you again probably."
"God, how I know that, too."
She had to concentrate on her breathing, in and out, to fend off the faintness and nausea threatening to overwhelm her. "I wouldn't make a scene, you know. I wouldn't want to ruin everyone's time. I wouldn't make it hard for anyone else."
"Just for me." He ran his fingers through his hair, and she saw his hands were trembling.
She sloshed toward the drawer that held the kitchen towels and grabbed up the entire pile. "Here. Help me clean this up before the others get here."
He shook his head and made no move to take the towels. She dropped them to floor, where they instantly began to soak up the water. She moved them around with her foot, but it wasn't enough. Everything was still wet.
"The others aren't coming, Claire."
"The hell you say!" She put her hand on her hips and glared.
His voice broke as he spoke, and he moved toward her palms up. "Do you no remember, Claire?"
"Remember what?" She spat the words like they burned her throat. "No. I don't."
"I didn't want to tell you. Not when you loved me again."
"Again? What do you mean...again?" Shudders made her body jerk.
She took a step and the water splashed around her ankles. Water. Everywhere. Water, and the scent of berries, a smell that should have been pleasant, but instead, made sickness lurch to her throat with an acid sting.
"I do remember." She turned to face him. Her eyes felt wide and staring, her mouth stretched tight in a grimace she couldn't seem to force away. "I remember. We were all coming to Nonesuch for our week. Our week. The Fellowship. Like always, like every year. But you came a day early, didn't you? And you weren't alone."
He had the decency to meet her eyes without hanging his head. "No, Claire. I wasna alone."
More chills spread through her body. "You brought her here. To our place. And you fucked her out there, on the beach. You didn't know I had planned to get here early, too."
She swallowed the burning in her throat. The more she talked, the easier it got. "You came in here, to the kitchen. We...we fought. I asked you if you'd been with someone else, and you lied. But I could smell her on you. Not my perfume. The smell of raspberries."
He groaned, but she continued, her voice rising as the memories washed over her.
"And then I ran out to the beach. She was gone, but that didn't matter.The ocean was there, and I ran to it. I wanted to swim, to get away from the anger and the pain. A storm came up. I swam out too far. I couldn't get back. I was drowning..." Now she turned to stare at him, her wet dress clutched in her fists. "And you swam out after me."
"I did." Malcolm
shivered. "I swam out after you, Claire."
"But the waves were too high." Her voice was calm, low. The sickness had passed. "You caught me by the hair. I remember that."
"Your lovely hair."
"And you pulled me above the water. I could breathe again."
He nodded, slowly. She saw the hems of his trousers had gone dark with wetness. He sighed.
"But then you left me!" she cried, stricken with the memories. "You left me anyway, didn't you? But I did what I said. I didn't ruin it for everyone else. I didn't speak to you, no. And I didn't forgive. But I didn't make it hard for the others to be around us. I wasn't like Joe when he broke up with Candace, and it was so awkward to be around both of them. I tried so hard to pretend, for everyone else, that I was okay. But it didn't matter, did it? After a while you stopped coming."
A sob burst from her. Tears slid in burning trails down her cheeks. "I tried so hard!" she cried, and swung at him. He didn't even move away. Her palm cracked against his cheek with a sound like deadwood cracking. "I tried!"
He enfolded her in his arms, though she struggled and fought against him. "I know you did, Claire."
"But you left me anyway, you son of a bitch!" She sobbed and pounded his chest over and over. The blows hurt her hand, but he didn't even move. "You left me!"
"No, Claire," he said softly in her ear. "Don't you understand, love? You left me."
* * * *
Warm and dry beneath the covers of the bed in the upstairs room, Claire snuggled close to Malcolm. She felt burned out from crying, an empty husk, but better for it. The memories had been poisoning her for too long, even when she didn't remember them.
"I pulled you out of the water," Malcolm said. "But you were already gone."
She didn't remember that. She remembered years of this place. Dinners with her friends and nights spent alone in this room, this very bed. She did not remember lying in the ground. But she did remember being cold.
"We all came back here for a while. For years. And at first, nobody wanted to tell anyone else the things they'd seen. By unspoken agreement, we all avoided this room because we knew how you'd loved it best. We didn't want to sound foolish for saying we'd seen you at the table, or heard you laughing with us when we joked. Eventually, they began making excuses for why they couldn't make the trip. First one year, then another. The place spent more time as a rental than it did as ours."
"But you kept coming back." She listened to the sound of his heartbeat through the softness of his shirt.
"I came back. But you never saw me. I kept coming back, hoping. But you never did."
"Until today? Yesterday? Last week?" She still wasn't sure how long they'd been here. She let out deep sigh. She would have wept, but had no more tears. "I wanted so badly to make sure nothing was ruined for the Fellowship. And it was. I ruined it."
"Hush." He squeezed her closer to him. "You didna ruin it for them on purpose."
"But it was ruined anyway." Grief for the pain she had caused her friends stabbed her. "If I could take it back--"
All at once, another memory flooded through her. "You said that same thing to me. Here. When I finally saw you."
"And you told me I couldn't take it back." He gave a soft laugh. "But then you changed your mind. You decided to give me a second chance. And every day, I watched you forget more and more of what had happened. I didn't want you to remember, not if it meant I'd lose you again, but Claire, I love you too much to lie to you any more."
"I'm not sad I remember now."
He sighed then kissed her hair. "It had been so long, and so many years of me watching you while your eyes slid by me like I didn't exist for you. I didn't realize what it would take to get you to see me again."
"You told me you'd gone swimming."
"I did. The water was high. I swam verra hard. But I got tired in the end."
The implication of what had happened during that swim hung between them. Claire waited for something. A bright light, a tunnel, a spectral voice telling her it was time to let go. All she heard was the beat of Malcolm's heart and the sound of his voice.
"The past is gone, Claire. It's like a sand castle washed away by the waves. We can remember what it looked like, but even if we build it again, it won't be the exactly the same."
"I'm glad you came back to me," she whispered.
"I'm glad you gave me a second chance," he whispered back.
Malcolm's arms around her were strong. He held her tightly. As he kissed her, Claire realized something bright and important and wonderful.
She wasn't cold any longer.
Some things change.
And some things don't.
#####
About the author:
I was born and then I lived a while and I did some stuff. Then I did some things and whatnot. Now, I mostly write books.
Connect with Me Online:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Megan_Hart
website: http://www.meganhart.com
blog: http://www.readinbed.net
photo credit: Scott Church
Megan Hart, Castle in the Sand
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