A/N I felt there was more to this story, and so did a few others who asked me for it. So I've added a last chapter. It probably gets into M territory in places.
Dim coral light edged the closed drapes and dusted the deepening shadow in the room. Teresa snored lightly, arms thrown high and bent, a frame around her head, coral highlights in the fan of her hair across the pillow. To Patrick, propped on an elbow and watching her, Teresa seemed frozen in a dream ballet, one leg bent under the sheet as if preparing for a sweet jeté. Except for the snoring.
He smiled, filled with a tickling incredulity that he could be looking at the woman he loved, in their bed, soon to wake, soon to turn to him. What should he do? Longing to touch her, make love to her . . . trying to imagine it, was impossible after more than a decade of training himself to ignore the forbidden. He couldn't ignore it anymore and, truthfully, he was a little afraid. It was impossible that he couldn't please her . . . wasn't it? Or, what if . . . she didn't please him? Now that was impossible. Thinking made his blood feel as gelid as vodka in the freezer. When she stirred, he almost jumped.
Still asleep, Teresa dropped her arms and squirmed to comfort on the mattress. One hand fell against Patrick's thigh, the shoulder of her nightie dropping down her arm. Her skin looked so soft. Pale and creamy, even cast in fading rusty light, freckled everywhere. His fingertips hovered a fraction of an inch over the dip below her collarbone that led to the swell of a breast. He wanted his lips there. The competing desires of his fingers and his lips became a strobe of fantasy in his imagination and his male nature responded. Pulling the hand away, he maintained his vigil instead.
Teresa felt pleasant warmth along her left side and as she floated from sleep, she wanted to roll into it. Her hand rested on the heat source, solid. Her fingers tested it before she let her hand run lightly up and down . . . a leg! Patrick! She jerked her hand away, gasping, and moved her body slightly toward the edge of the bed, turning her face to see his tight smile and anxious eyes. "I'm sorry!"
His eyes darted away as the smile began to fade from his lips.
"No! Don't look away! I didn't mean it that way, Patrick. I, I didn't realize I was touching you. I was asleep."
He held his hand open to her. "I know. I was watching you. So beautiful, Teresa. I'm . . . I'm . . ."
She put her hand where he held his open, so large that her small one was completely hidden when he closed over it, squeezing gently. So warm. Like him. "I know. I'm a just a little afraid."
"Of me?" He kissed the inside of her wrist, holding the tiny hand as if afraid to let go.
"No. Never you. Of something new between us. I'm afraid I'll ruin what we already have. And, and maybe I've already ruined it by trying to leave you, going to marry someone else."
'Someone else,' she'd said. She planned to marry him! "You haven't ruined anything. You've made everything right, Teresa. It was me, pushing you away by refusing to tell you how I felt. I was terrified then. Now, I'm only a little afraid . . . of how to be with you, draw you close . . . never make you feel unloved again."
She freed her hand and stroked his cheek when he lowered his head. "I know how constant you are. What you went through . . . what it took for you to tell me . . . I could never doubt your love again, Patrick." Rubbing her thumb along his lips, she suddenly looked into his eyes. "I, I can't believe you allow me to touch you like this!"
He leaned into her, rubbing his stubbly cheek against her palm, hot breath streaming in short bursts through his lips. "Touch me any way you like. Anywhere. I love you and I want you to touch me, hold me, love me. I dream of it. I want to do the same for you."
"Part of your wish for me to be happy."
"Yes!" His breath stuttered as emotion overtook him and his tears filled the seam where she touched his face, running down her wrist to drip onto the pillow. "I'll do everything, everything, to make you happy, Teresa." He was dangerously close to sobbing.
"Shhhhh . . . shhhhh . . ." Her voice was so low, he opened his eyes to see if she was actually speaking. The eyes greeting him were a startling green under unshed tears. "I want to make you happy, too . . . my only love." She smiled to see his incredible eyes on her, blues and greens mixed together like the swirling sea. A bare two inches from her face, closer than she had ever been to him. His breath feathered her hair.
Their lips touched as they moved to each other, soft and exploring at first, then generating a passionate enveloping heat from an embrace that could not be close enough anymore. Patrick remembered the hollow below her collarbone and made love to it with his mouth, until he had to stop, Teresa moaning and gasping for breath.
"Do you want to see me?"
Without opening her eyes, chest pumping, she said, "Feel. Feel you."
Gently, he took her hand and brought it low to his body, his hand on top as hers wrapped him, moving, testing his flesh as her breath deepened and her skin took fire, igniting him. He groaned into her ear, "I want to feel you . . . feel myself inside you." Filling his hands with the breasts that pressed against his chest, he lowered his head and began kissing them. Everything about them was perfect and beautiful.
Teresa let his rigid flesh slide from her hand to grip his arms and press her breasts into his mouth, savoring its warmth and the wide tongue that laved the peaks of her flesh. She felt the full strength of his desire, almost inquisitive in the way he rubbed against her. "Patrick . . . please . . . will you get on top of me?" She rolled to her back while he moved over her, tugging the nipple still in his mouth and nudging her legs apart.
He felt where her body opened to him, fingers petting and exploring gently until she thrust against his hand with a moan. Eyes watching each other, they both cried out as he slowly pushed in, her heat and swollen pressure making his scalp tingle. Teresa started to hyperventilate and Patrick covered her mouth with an oxygen-depriving kiss, bringing her back to him and to their bodies winding for release.
"Come with me, Patrick!"
"Yes," he breathed.
He began a strong rhythm and she moved with him. Only a couple minutes later, her breath caught and she bowed up, jutting her hips powerfully. He moved harder and faster, sending them over the edge together, calling each other's names.
Our first time, the sexual flush on Teresa's skin took my breath away. It covered her throat, chest and succulent breasts like endless shades of pink petals. It even painted the tender flesh inside her upper arms. Looking at her, the sensitivity, the responsiveness of it excited me and I couldn't stop kissing her. She loved it, laughing and sighing, arching her neck to the side and splaying her arms wide, thriving in the worship I felt and gave.
Everything she did drew me in more. We had the most wonderful first night together imaginable. And many, many days and nights since. She is lusty and adventurous, sometimes feral and wild, gentle and sweet. She pleases me endlessly. I think I please her, too. It makes us very happy, and that happiness carries into every part of our lives, makes even the hardest things easier, softens any anger. It's rarely just sex, and it helps keep everything in perspective even when it seems we can't get along about anything else.
Dinner was on the bed at midnight in the light from the sun lamps shining through the open bathroom door. Their trays were loaded with steak, salad with slices of crunchy crouton on the side, and fries so crisp they snapped when bitten. Ravenous hunger and thirst limited conversation. Patrick chose the wine, a red deep enough to mimic blood and bruises, but silken delight on the palate. It unwound Teresa's muscles like the aftermath of another fine orgasm and put a loose, easy grin on Patrick.
He looked good, a towel wrapping his waist when he opened the door and set their trays outside for pick-up. Sneaking behind him, Teresa grabbed the tucked end of the towel and whipped it off of him. He pivoted to face her and when he caught the serious look as she studied him slowly from top to bottom, stood still. He turned for her and she studied him from behind.
"Turn-about!" His voice was low, maintaining the seriousness between them. She stood calmly, turning, warming under his appreciative eye.
There were no words for a while as they satisfied newly awakened curiosities.
The hours between dinner and breakfast were a series of tender ministrations and declarations of love, caring for one another in every way possible, whether it was talk, affection, bathing one another, napping or deeply satisfying sexual exploration. Waking up sore, they worked through their newly stressed and heavily used muscles by taxing them again.
Patrick groaned when he shifted his hips to move closer after a short nap. Maybe it was a brief blackout.
"Just get right back on that horse." Teresa grinned at him and her dilated eyes had a warm, predatory look.
"I'm the horse this time." Patrick lay flat against his pillow. "You have to get on top and ride me."
By now, their initial self-consciousness had been overtaken by a relaxed, permissive curiosity and simple desire.
She snorted a laugh and obliged, teasing her ride expertly until he was working hard underneath her, chasing his pleasure as she took hers.
When they woke from their last nap, early daylight streamed through the edges of the drapes. They ate breakfast on the balcony, a banquet under a blue sky bright with sun in the mild weather, opening for forkfuls offered from each others' plates and slurping down huge quantities of coffee and tea which they kept to themselves. A shower after breakfast was hot and lengthy because of their sudsy mutual physical attentions. They emerged more happy and satisfied than rested, but it was a delicious languor.
Counteracting a shared level of melancholy at leaving the room, they allowed themselves to seem glued together as they checked out.
"Hold hands?" Patrick asked after they'd buckled into the convertible.
Teresa quickly slipped her hand into his, smiling. When she let him go so that he could shift out of the parking space, he immediately picked up her hand and settled it on top of his, closing on her hand again when he was through. Sometimes she rested her hand on his thigh, squeezing lightly with her fingers. They kissed at red lights and stop signs. Even on the plane that brought them back to Austin, Patrick and Teresa were always touching somewhere, and happy for it.
We laugh now, but when we first returned to work I overreacted about public displays of affection. What a soldier I was! Poor Patrick. I chewed his ass and rebuffed familiarities that we'd shared for years as friends! It hurt him and everybody noticed. I got the dirty looks and Patrick the sympathetic, comforting ones. I was an idiot, hurting him. Everyone knew we were together. Everyone wanted us together. No rules were being broken. I was trying to enforce an illusion of professionalism that was not only false but completely unnecessary. We were perfectly capable of accommodating our romantic relationship in a professional setting. Most of the time. Oh, Patrick got lots of good make-up-. Well, let's just say it took a long time to assuage his feelings. And I loved coddling him for the hurt I'd caused.
We didn't know what our living arrangements would be ultimately, only that we wouldn't live apart anymore. We promised each other another love nest soon. That's a promise we kept then. We still manage it. And family treks in the Airstream, too. Four of us are the perfect number.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would be, had I gone on to Marcus and left Patrick behind. What sadness. What waste. The destruction of three lives. I would have wasted Patrick's life, too. He could never be happy without me and what I bring to his life. I know because he tells me all the time. I believe him because I feel exactly the same way about him. I can't imagine such happiness with anyone else. It's the best thing I've ever done.