CHAPTER TWO—GILT EDGES

Gilt Edges—Page edges cut smooth and gilded (covered with a thin layer of gold leaf).

For the record, I was impressed. Ducky has taste almost as eclectic as mine—and that's saying a lot.

Over the next weeks we went to an interesting collection of restaurants for lunch or dinner, depending more on his work schedule than mine; sometimes we had dinner at my place; sometimes, his. (Occasionally his mother remembered me from our first date and she was disappointed that I wasn't dressing quite to that standard any more; occasionally she was firing on more cylinders and remembered me as the owner of 'that delightful bookstore near Donald's work' and we'd have an animated talk while Ducky assembled another delicious meal. Regrettably, those memories were infrequent.) Ducky found a Scottish Highland Games/Celtic Festival going on (and I got to see him in a kilt—not shabby, by half); I countered with a silent movie festival, complete with musical accompaniment on 'the mighty Wurlitzer organ.' I love bagpipe music; he loves the artistry of the black and white films. Neither of us had to fake our enjoyment. We both were thrilled to see Paula Deen (and sons) in a charity cooking demo in D.C.—but I did have to force a smile when he took me to an Android Lust concert (tickets courtesy Abby). (Did I mention his taste is almost as eclectic as mine? Forget it. It's much more eclectic than mine.)

But as the days crept toward the end of the year, I still wasn't comfortable enough to join him for Thanksgiving.

My parents always drove into D.C. and I puttered down to join them at Ray and Barb's for the holiday. Abby had pouted to hear that I wasn't joining them at Ducky's, but she said she understood family dinners. I think Ducky had a better grasp of the situation. I adored his mother, Abby all but lived at the store, I enjoyed crossing paths with Ziva, Tony and I got along, it was making me crazy trying to figure out where I'd seen McGee—

And then there was Gibbs. Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

I know he was only doing his job when he hauled me in for questioning when my ex-lover was murdered. And he was only doing his job when he searched my business and house, looking for evidence that my murdered ex-lover had been passing me government secrets. And he was only doing his job when he brought my best friend into interrogation, forcing a confession from her that stunned me and forced her out of my life. He was only doing his job.

But it made for a shaky relationship between the two of us, to say the least. So I decided to forego breaking bread over the Thanksgiving table at Mallard Manor. (I did, however, join Ducky and his mom for leftovers the next day.) Maybe Christmas would be better. Maybe.

Days slipped by in a slow, pleasant haze. There were frequent evenings spent together—cuddling and kissing on the couch while his mother snored not-so-delicately in the other room… cuddling and kissing on the couch while Underfoot glared at us from atop the television. (I'm not sure if it was because Ducky had the scent of the Corgis on his clothes or Foot just felt displaced.) We didn't bother using the 'D' word any more. We'd even progressed to the 'L' word—frequently.

It's amazing. You can meet someone… and feel they've been in your life forever. You can fall in love, look at a calendar and count the scant days… and feel they've held your heart forever.

Maybe that's why I don't believe in love at first sight. When I look at Ducky, there's no feeling of "now." It's more a feeling of "as it is, as it was, as it ever shall be…"

Amen.

* * *

What I am to Halloween and Easter (I kick ass on Easter egg hunts, pardon me for boasting), Ducky is to Thanksgiving. And Christmas. I had always picked up a little tree for the store, something that would fit on the front counter, tossed candy canes and red bows on it and called it good. (Don't get me wrong—I love Christmas. I have a ball shopping for presents and finding 'just the right thing' for people, and I love seeing what other people find for me (often things that never would have occurred to me and end up being indispensable in my life). I just never got into buying and decorating trees after I moved away from my parents. It's one of the areas in my life where I'm very lazy.) When we went to the tree lot and Ducky saw my first choice, there was a flicker of—well, almost brokenheartedness that showed in his eyes.

I smiled brightly. "What would you suggest?"

"Well… that front display window—instead of books, put the tree there? I know, it's a bookstore, it's logical to display books—and you do have some lovely holiday books in the window…"

I cocked my head. Yeah; if I rearranged things, it would look pretty good with a tree out there. But a dinky 3' tree wouldn't cut it. "Okay. Guess we need a bigger tree."

My mind was still reeling when we got back to the store. He had found the biggest tree on the Boy Scout lot (only Rock Center and the White House had larger, I'm sure) and they'd wrapped it in netting and managed to get it in the van. How we were going to get it through the door was going to be interesting.

It took a little work (okay, it took a lot of work) but finally the tree rested in the deep bay window in the front of what had been my very first store. At that moment I realized I didn't have a stand that would hold a tree that size—and I sure as heck didn't have enough ornaments. Back out we went.

We spent most of the day decorating that monster tree. Abby stopped by for several hours (turns out she's more of a Christmas nut than Ducky, hard though I found that to believe) and lent a hand. Two, even. She's a big believer in decorating the whole tree, putting ornaments all the way in as far as possible. Amazing how someone that tall can shinny into such tight spaces between branches. But between her assistance, help from staff and customers (along with kibitzing from same) and indefatigable, unflagging Ducky, we pulled it off.

And it looked spectacular.

When we went back out we had stumbled on a rummage sale with a ton of old Christmas ornaments for sale. People were too intent on getting holiday shopping done at the mall and the sale was virtually empty. The boxes were old and battered and each had a broken ornament or two, so the few customers were overlooking them. The remaining ornaments were 40, 50 even 60 years old. For what we paid for the lot of them a vintage store would have sold us two or three individual pieces. Maybe. Abby set Geoff and Alan to an unknown task; when they emerged, hours later, they brought with them strings of popcorn, cranberries and multicolored construction paper chains. (I absolutely goggled. They looked perfect with our vintage ornaments—but the idea that Geoff and Alan had sat, locked away, studiously threading berries and popped corn and pasting together bits of paper had me in mild shock. I figured they had sold their souls to Abby somewhere along the line. Nothing else made sense.)

I looked at the flickering candles (safe, ecologically-minded LEDs), the muted colors of the balls, the glittering 'icicles' (since the cats couldn't get into the window, it was safe to use them)… and was absolutely transported. "That's the most beautiful tree I've ever seen."

An arm slipped around my waist and squeezed gently. "I agree."

"Thank you." I turned and gave him a quick kiss. "That was a brilliant suggestion. Now…" I glanced at the clock. "I believe it was my turn to cook dinner?"

"I believe you are correct." He had left his car at my place, knowing we were going to need the van for the day—plus there was a Christmas special we wanted to watch, and my TV is bigger. We were halfway home when the horrible truth hit me:

I hadn't gone to the market for at least three days. Maybe a week. I had nothing with which to construct a decent dinner. I just couldn't dish up canned soup and tuna sandwiches. Hell, I wasn't sure the tuna was Star-Kist or 9 Lives, for that matter.

I confessed my lack of planning and Ducky just smiled. "We've both done quite a bit of work today. Let's be lazy and eat out." No argument from me.

Nothing exotic—we ended up at a homey little mom-and-pop coffee shop a few blocks from my place. They'd been there since the thirties (probably the same owners); nouvelle cuisine didn't darken their doors, but they made the best meatloaf in town. And the chocolate cake was to die for.

There was a light snow falling when we arrived—it was a couple of weeks until Christmas, but, hey, it was close enough. We traded stories of Christmases past, shared dinners (I went with the tried-and-true meatloaf; Ducky, the baked chicken) and lingered over coffee and dessert. It was one of those wonderful, cozy moments in time that just… happens.

As we walked outside, it wasn't very late—only about eight—but it was… quiet. For just a moment, it was one of those odd splinters of the cosmos where everything was utterly silent. No traffic. No passersby. The noise from the café abruptly cut off when the door shut behind us. The snow had stopped falling and it was cold, crisp, clear—and silent, almost eerily so. I turned, planning to say something witty—and my words caught in my throat. Ducky was looking at me as he so often did—sweet smile, gentle eyes, head cocked at just the right angle, somewhere between quizzical and impish. The same… and, yet… so different.

He leaned over and kissed me, the lightest of caresses. Compared to evenings where we had gone exploring in the privacy of our own homes, discovering kisses and touches that thrilled and delighted each other, this kiss was absolutely chaste. Prim. Proper. Tame.

But there was so much more beneath it.

From miles away the chimes at Kellerman College rang eight times. As if it signaled the end of a spell, traffic began to flow, chattering teens spilled out of the used CD store down the way and the city came back to life around us. I didn't say anything. Neither did Ducky.

Somehow… we didn't need to.

We drove back to my place, tuning in to the ten year old Boston Pops Christmas Special on PBS and settling on the couch. I snuggled against Ducky's side, his arm around my shoulders and sighed contentedly. This… whatever it was we had… was right. It was good and strong and solid and… right.

He tipped my chin up and kissed me. "I love you."

I ran the side of a finger over his cheek. "And I… love you." I kissed him back, feeling that already familiar tingle that started burning deep inside as he deepened the kiss, gentle explorations designed to up my interest. (A design that never failed.) His hand slipped up beneath my sweater and I made a little purring noise when he cupped my breast, gently rubbing his thumb across the nipple. It quickly hardened, pushing almost painfully against my bra. I reached up and tugged free his ubiquitous bow tie (I was actually starting to think of them as quite stylish) and worked open the buttons of his shirt. He has far nimbler fingers and managed to open the front catches of my bra with one hand, giving him free range to stroke and caress and pet and oh, damn, it felt great. I don't know (and, frankly, I kinda don't care) if it's his medical training or just innate talent, but he can do fabulous things to my body. And with our clothes on, too. Well… mostly.

Instead of my usual button-down-the-front blouse or flannel shirt since the weather had started to turn, I'd opted for a Christmas-themed sweater. A pullover sweater. Until this point, our necking sessions on one couch or the other had been almost reminiscent of high school—heavy kissing, cuddling and petting, fingers stumbling into 'oops, what is this?' buttons that lay opened in their wake, but no disruption of clothing so severe that it couldn't be made right before the parents came downstairs (or, in our case, the time his mother awoke and went wandering at one a.m.). No buttons. No laces. Any removal here would be with permission.

His hands slid behind me, rubbing my bare back while he nuzzled my throat, that deliciously erogenous area right at the curve that makes me go weak and press my thighs together. I pulled in a shuddering breath. "Oh, jeez, Ducky…"

"You don't like…?"

"You know I like."

He pushed the sweater up and moved down so he could kiss and lick and suckle my breasts. Breathing was starting to get a little difficult. Oh… he is good. I wriggled in his grasp—he was pushing me closer and closer and… "Oh—ohhhhh…" His tongue flicked back and forth over the hard pebbles at the center of my breasts, sending me into a sweet orgasm that flowed over me in waves. He was beyond good; he made my body respond in ways I'd never known it could, almost from our very first meeting. "That's… ohhh," I sighed. The hell with words.

"Mmh." He smiled up at me from where he was dropping lazy kisses over my chest. He flicked a glance at the sweater pushed to the tops of my breasts and then at my face; yes…?

My breath was still shaky. Yes? I sat up slightly and slowly pulled the sweater off the rest of the way.

Yes.

He reached up and eased the bra straps off my shoulders; it slid down my back and puddle on the couch. "Come here." He tugged at my hand.

"Uh-uh." I pulled my hand from his gentle grasp, finished unbuttoning his shirt and tugged it from the waistband of his slacks. No undershirt, I noticed with a smirk. The first time I'd gone, ah, exploring and run into his heavy-duty cotton jobbie I didn't say anything. But, then, my look of irritation probably said it all. Since then, the only times the utilitarian undergarments showed up were when we had a totally spur-of-the-moment get-together… though I'm sure he still wears them by habit to work. The man takes a hint well. I lightly raked my fingernails over his skin, trailing my fingers through the hair on his chest. He shivered; I grinned. "You look sexy when you shudder like that."

He quirked an eyebrow. "You find that sexy?"

"Well…" I leaned closer and ran my tongue around the curve of his ear, eliciting another shiver. "I find a lotta things sexy about you."

He turned so he could kiss me. Hard. "Good." He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. "The feeling is mutual." He shifted slightly so that the hair on his chest rubbed against my breasts, a delicious sensation.

I reached up, slipping my hand along the back of his neck, holding him in place so that I could kiss him thoroughly. (Not that he was going anywhere.) I have a private theory that you can gauge a person's ability to kiss by their smile and laugh. Ducky has a delightful smile that goes from sweet and shy to naughty and back to shy in the blink of an eye and has the warmest, most 'gathering in' laugh I've ever heard. The first time we kissed my theory was proven very, very correct. And he has delighted in proving it correct over and over again.

Hands were roaming (somehow my jeans ended up over the back of the couch and his pants were undone; don't know how that happened, honestly…) and kisses were being pressed to mouths, cheeks, throats, hell, any available body part and I started to think we weren't going to make it into the bedroom where there were a couple of condoms from a few months ago before things came to, er, a head when he abruptly froze. Suddenly thinking about protection, I figured, and opened my mouth to assure him all was good in that area.

"He's staring at us."

Hunh? I turned around and saw Mr. Underfoot sitting on the top of a short bookcase. Staring. Kinda reminded me of a fat version of a statue of Bastet. (Or a feline version of Snoopy playing "vulture.") "He always stares at us." I went back to nibbling his neck.

He was still distracted. "Not like this."

I sighed in frustration and sat back, looking at him evenly. "Well, when we're making out at your place, those dogs line up across the way and stare in concert. Four pairs of eyes!"

"Oh, they're not that bad—"

I held up my hands. "Let's not get into 'your kids versus my kids,' okay?" I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "We can shut the bedroom door."

He smiled slowly. "True."

"And…" I took a deep breath. "Since the subject of kids has come up… I'm not on the pill. But I do have one or two condoms in the nightstand. And, hell, you know my blood work is clean." After we'd only been dating a couple of weeks he had ragged on my eating habits—we do a lot of pizza and fast food at work—and I had pulled out my blood test from the month before and flashed it in triumph. My cholesterol was excellent, he grudgingly admitted (while giving me a mild scold about my iron level). I'm sure he didn't miss the ELISA test, if nothing else.

"Is pregnancy a concern?" One nice thing about having an affair with a doctor: conversations that make other men squirm are treated as a matter of fact. (Which they are, really.)

"Well… not as much as it was a couple of years ago, but… vaguely," I admitted. Mom was the first generation to stop at two kids. Her maternal line starts early and runs forever. Grandma had Mom when she was forty-nine (FORTY-NINE!!!) and I really don't want to beat her record.

"Then caution shall be our watchword."

"Let's go where we don't have an audience." I hopped off the couch and backed away, wearing only my panties. (And I was soooooo glad it wasn't the pair with the half-dead elastic and the frayed hem, my I-really-need-to-do-laundry emergency underwear.) I wriggled my finger in a "c'm'ere" motion, still backing across the room. Grinning, he followed me (his pants were undone, but still up—it could have been a disaster, otherwise); I continued to walk backward, secure in the clear path to the bedroom.

You know how seduction scenes work in the soaps? The woman sprays perfume on the bed, the bed is made with satin sheets, mood lighting and music are cued up, and she's dressed in a slinky black negligee or something of the sort. The sacrificial lamb succumbs to her charms and they fall into a passionate pile on the bed. It generally doesn't work that well in the real world. A college roommate tried that trick; her sweetheart went into an asthma attack that almost killed him and she found out (the hard way) that he was severely allergic to perfume. Another femme on the prowl went out and bought beautiful silver satin sheets and a sexy nightie in complementary lavender and discovered what she had missed in physics class: satin-clad ass on satin-clad bed slides at the speed of light. She spent that night in the ER, getting her leg plastered.

I took a hint. I never tried for a scene out of Young and the Restless, lest I become Young and Damaged.

We walked into the bedroom—I, still walking backward; Ducky, still following my coaxing finger. And suddenly—

Ducky laughed.

I looked at him, torn between being hurt and pissed. "What—"

"Oh, dear god, Cassandra, I am so sorry!" But he was still laughing. I turned around to check out what he was looking at… and flinched. And groaned aloud.

With the coming of winter, I had dug out the quilt my niece, Sharon, had sewn by hand and given me the prior Christmas. I had totally forgotten that the bed of an otherwise sane, sober middle-aged woman was adorned with a quilt of almost psychedelic hues and decorated with scenes from said OSSM-AW's favorite show:

Pinky and the Brain.

(Okay. My favorite cartoon, anyway.)

The absurdity of the situation hit me and I began to laugh. "Have I utterly ruined the moment?"

He closed the gap between us and wrapped me in a bear hug. "Never." His kiss was reassuring (and hot). "I love the fact that I'm constantly surprised by you." He bit back a laugh. Sort of. "And this was definitely a surprise."

I wriggled from his grasp, scooped up Underfoot (who was sneaking in behind Ducky) and unceremoniously dumped him out into the living room and shut the door. "Let's see what surprises we can find out about each other."

Over the past almost-forty years I've had a few serious relationships. More than five; fewer than ten. (About five years ago we hired a part-timer from the local community college. She had a tendency to share way too much information about her private life at the drop of a hat, and I was both fascinated and appalled to discover that after joining the sexual revolution in her sophomore year in high school (I wasn't even allowed to date at that age!) she had had more partners in five years than I had had in over thirty. She had had more partners in the prior two years, for that matter.) So I don't want to come off like Rhoda Roundheels, but I have a pretty good idea what goes on in the bedroom. I know what good sex is. (Unfortunately, I know what mediocre and even bad sex is, too.) I even know what great sex is.

Well, I thought I did, anyway.

Clothes ended up in a pile by the bed—well, his clothes, anyway, since most of mine now decorated the living room couch—and he had no objections to slipping beneath the Pinky quilt. I joined him, and he pulled me close, molding our bodies together. We'd done plenty of exploring up to now but there's a big difference between that and being totally naked in bed with the man you love. Even if all he's doing is holding you.

And that's all he did for a while. Hold me. Hold me, slowly stroke my back, rub his cheek against the top of my head. The relaxing, comforting things you hope for after you've made love (as opposed to kiss, roll over, snore). Only Ducky was serving them up as an appetizer, not for 'afters.' I smiled and kissed his chest; I had a feeling snuggling was part of every course at his table.

I reached behind him and slowly worked the drawer out of the left-hand nightstand and pulled out the condom packets. Ducky smiled. "Six?" His smile grew. "Optimistic much?"

"We don't have to use them all—well, not tonight." My look was plain: I don't see this as a one-night-stand.

"True." He stroked my face, cupping my cheek and turning me toward him for a kiss. "I love how you kiss."

I grinned. "Funny. I was just thinking, 'I love how you kiss.'"

"Our minds do seem to run in the same path."

"Amazing." The last syllable disappeared in a gasp; his hand had quickly fluttered from my cheek to my hip, slipping between my legs. Another sharply drawn breath as he very lightly stroked me, just brushing his fingertips back…. and forth. Our minds were definitely running in the same path.

I already mentioned my long-held theory about smiles and laughs equating to kisses. I have another theory: a man who's a good kisser—I mean a really good kisser—is going to be talented with other, ah, oral pleasures, shall we say. I'm usually right about things like that (even if I miss the clues that the gentleman in question is no gentleman).

Holy, shit. Sometimes I'm really, really right.

Surprise number one… not a surprise: he likes foreplay. Lots of foreplay. Not just the 'yeah, yeah, honey, I like it' that some guys (a lot of guys) give you in the hopes that after a couple of times you'll shut up about it. He is more than willing to spend plenty of time snuggling and cuddling and kissing and touching and building a slow, hot fire. He is really, really interested in it.

And he is really, really good at it.

We spent quite a bit of time letting our fingers do the walking—ah, talking. Sure, we'd had several (mucho several) make-out sessions up until now, but this was different. This one was for all the marbles.

Don't ask me how many times I envisioned our first time making love; I have a bookkeeper to take care of high numbers for me. Sometimes you picture way, way better than what reality serves up. (The first Star Trek movie comes to mind.) Sometimes you hedge your bets and you're blasted out of your seat when reality outdistances your dreams like Secretariat at the Triple Crown. (The second Star Trek movie comes to mind.)

I don't care how much time I had between meeting Ducky under the most awkward of circumstances and now—a month and a half, a season and a half, a year and a half. Wouldn't matter. No matter what I dreamed up, I wasn't remotely close to our first night together. And, cross my heart, I will never look at a porn movie the same way; women really can be brought to the point of screaming, bouncing-off-the-wall orgasms that rattle pictures and chip the paint.

Details available to the right parties under the right circumstances. Just don't tell my mother.

Not a surprise, number two: he's a gentleman. Ladies first. I didn't have to hint that I'd like to find out what oral sex would be like with him (from either side of the equation); I have a feeling it was kind of a given in the back of his mind. And… ladies are first.

And frequent.

Words are my living. I sell bound words, I use them to coax payments from some people and track down long-delayed orders from others; I can describe a dinner to the point that you can taste it over the phone and love hearing how one or another writer turns a child from a book hater to a book lover. I love words.

For the first time in a long, long time… I am without words. I can't come close to the feelings that rippled through my body, the feeling of—well, completeness that came with making love with Ducky. I've never felt so perfect. I wasn't just filled physically; I was filled emotionally, psychically, mentally.

I cried.

Ducky held me, not asking, "What's wrong?" every two seconds. He knew it wasn't a matter of something being wrong—but something being right. I clung to him like a drowning swimmer to her rescuer—and I kind of was, and he kind of was. This was the beautiful, perfect moment that people romanticize your very first time ever having sex into. I remember that first time—it wasn't for me. It wasn't for most of the people I know. But now—now, it was.

(Please. How many people ride a two-wheeler perfectly the first time out? Training wheels don't count.)

I rubbed my cheek tiredly against his chest. I love listening to the beat of his heart. Steady. Strong. Soothing. "Feeling adventurous?"

He laughed, a nice rumble under my ear. "How adventurous?"

"I have a waterbed in the spare bedroom. I like to sleep on it during the summer."

"Ah—I'll pass. For now. Next summer… who knows?" He kissed the top of my head. "I'll just say it's been many, many years since I made love in a waterbed. My balance might be… questionable."

"We'll work up to that."

He hugged me with one arm and tugged the quilt up with his other hand (we had tossed it aside when we got too rambunctious). "I look forward to the 'working up.'"

"So do I."

I fell asleep to the tune of his heart and the gentle stroking of my hair.

* * *

I knew he was awake before I opened my eyes.

We'd changed positions during our few hours of sleep—now Ducky lay half-sprawled over me, his head nestled between my breasts. (I liked it. His hair is really soft, like a silky kitten.) One hand was curved over the side of my ribcage and his thumb was brushing over my skin, barely moving an inch to and fro.

I gave a long, deep, contented sigh. The thumb stilled. "Did I awaken you?"

"Nah." My voice was as soft as his, even though there was nobody to disturb. Foot hadn't even yowled to get in all night. (All night being from ten 'til three.) "Just… enjoying."

"Enjoying?"

"Yeah. Best teddy bear I've ever slept with."

He snorted faintly. "I've never been called a teddy bear," he said drily. "Far from it."

"Oh, you might be a tough nut at work…" I ran the tip of my finger over the curve of his cheek. "But you're a big, marshmallow teddy bear inside." I hugged him lightly. "I happen to be very fond of teddy bears."

"Good." He twisted around to drape an arm just below my chest and prop his chin on it. "In that case, I don't mind being called a 'teddy bear.'"

I wriggled down and kissed him. "Teddy bear," I teased.

He grinned and growled lightly—not as dangerous-sounding as a polar bear, definitely more the teddy variety. I giggled at his silliness; he peppered an amazing number of kisses over my breasts, then swooped back up to kiss the curve of my neck he knows so very well. I sighed and rubbed against him; the night was going to be long… and fun.

It was a lovely evening. Thanks for asking.

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