Chapter 11
Folie a Deux
Bobby wasn't expecting anyone. Really, the only possibilities were a neighbor, the Super, Lewis, or Eames. He checked the peephole. It was her. Bobby scratched his head, then his beard, then he unlocked the door and swung it open. He gestured at the room, "Come in," he said, almost a mumble.
She stepped inside, tucking the door shut with a gentle lean of her backside. "Hi, Bobby."
He looked up from the floor and she caught a gentle smile hidden away inside his thick beard. Alex turned around and latched the deadbolt, then went to his side. "I wanted to talk," she explained. "You weren't… you didn't have plans…?"
"No, no plans." As if it wasn't obvious. He was barefoot, in the pair of jeans with the hole at the corner edge of his butt-pocket. His wrinkled black tee had a tear in the seam under his armpit. "You want something? A drink?"
"Yeah." He went to the kitchen and she sank down onto his couch. Alex kicked off her shoes and curled one leg so she was turned toward the middle of the sofa, and hopefully, him.
He brought her a glass of iced tea. "I haven't made a beer run this week," he explained with a shrug.
She smiled and took a long swallow. As she wished, Bobby dropped onto the other end of the couch. He turned toward her, tucking one leg up onto the cushion, mimicking her own posture. Bobby drank from his glass and twisted to set it on the end table. Then he turned back to Alex. "What is it?" he asked, though he already knew what she wanted to talk about.
What he didn't know was how she wasn't going to pussyfoot around. Alex set her glass of tea down, scooched close enough for her foot to touch his, and said, "I want to try again."
Bobby didn't flinch, but he blinked twice and chewed on his bottom lip, which made the whiskers on his chin stick out.
"And I don't know for sure why you put the brakes on everything, except that somehow you think you're going to turn into… him."
"No, you don't know, you can't know."
"That's right, I can't. Because you're locked up so damn tight I couldn't get in with a pry bar."
"You don't want that, Alex. You don't need to know."
"Whatever it is, Bobby, it took… it took my love away from me." Her eyes were boring right into him. "I'd like to know what in hell could be that important."
"I'm… I can't be the way you want me to be."
"Which is what, exactly?"
"Kind. Tender."
"Do you think I'm living in a fairy tale or something, Bobby? Nobody's perfect all the time, I know that."
"It's more than that. It's the way I felt."
"The way you felt. Okay, how?"
"The last time," he said, and those bottom whiskers jutted out again. "I don't know, I was losing myself in it, and I…" He raked his fingers through his hair, turning his head away and closing his eyes with the memory. "I wanted…" he stopped again, and swallowed hard. "I could have hurt you."
"I can hold my own."
He met her eyes again. She was doing it right now, holding her own. "In all my life, I never felt like that, Alex. Not about any woman."
"What makes you think you would have hurt me?"
"I wanted you so bad, I almost couldn't stop myself. I would have done anything."
"And yet you did. Stop. You stopped the whole world, Bobby."
"Yeah, well what happened to 'it is what it needs to be?'"
"I have needs, too." She stared him down, and then she shook her head. "And I've been thinking, maybe that's what's been wrong all this time. I've spent all this time thinking of you, and doing for you, and tiptoing around you, and maybe I should have spent, I don't know, at least a few minutes on me. Maybe that's selfish, but I don't think so."
"I don't know if I can give you what you need."
"You did before."
"But I could never… maintain…"
Alex reached forward and grabbed his bare foot with her hand. "You can. And you won't hurt me. You would never hurt me. I've been with you long enough to know."
He spoke through gritted teeth, and she slowly massaged the arch of his foot with her thumb. "But that feeling."
"For normal people, that would be a good feeling. Flattering."
He scoffed. "Normal. There, you see?"
Alex grinned and let go of his foot to crawl over him. She stopped when his whiskers tickled the skin around her mouth. "Neither one of us is normal, Bobby. Time to give that up."
And she closed her mouth over his, warm and soft, her tongue lifting his. When she felt his arms cross over her back, she knew she'd succeeded.
He broke the kiss when his foot fell asleep. He used his hands to set her upright and stretched his leg out, massaging it to get rid of the pins and needles. Then just as quickly he turned back to her. He led this time, one hand cupping the back of her head as the other slid slowly up and over her breast. As he came up for a gulp of air, he breathed, "I need you, Alex. I love you."
His lips moved away from her mouth and trailed down her neck, the beard tickling and scraping, making her heart race. "I'll give you what you need," he whispered. "Tell me what you need."
All at once, she reached out and clutched his t-shirt with both hands, pinching some of his chest hair in the process. His head snapped up and she took him in a deep, hard kiss. "You," was her reply. "I," her lips were desperate against his, "need," her tongue dove deep and stroked along the side of his, "you." Alex wriggled as they pawed at each other, and she managed to get her leg against the swell in his pants.
"Oh, Alex…" He was finding it hard to form the words in his mouth. He was in a delicious fog, and he had no desire to escape it.
In minutes, the pants were gone and he was crawling over her half-clad body on the couch. Alex gasped in pleasure as his fingers probed inside her, priming her for something much bigger.
She was buzzing with anticipation when his fingers slipped away. Bobby bent over her and delivered a blazing kiss before slowly, tenderly making them one.
She made a noise, a squeak of sorts, and he froze over her, waiting for her to give him a signal. Alex's hands roamed and she clutched at his tensed forearms, pulling against his hands. She twisted her hips, and he began to move.
The couch wasn't the most comfortable place to be tangled with another body. Bobby, all six-foot-four of him, was the first to recover. He sat up slowly, dropping a few reassuring kisses as he pulled away. He stood over her, tracing two fingers along the skin of her belly, up through the twisted fabric of her shirt. The last few buttons were open, leaving an arrow of skin exposed, as well as the gentle curve just under one nipple. He ran his fingers there, as well, and a smile appeared on her relaxed face.
He dropped down to his knees beside the couch. He caressed her gently, watching her as she came down from the heights of her orgasm.
"I know who you are," she whispered.
It shouldn't have provoked anxiety, but it did. Bobby stopped what he was doing and held his breath.
"Just trust in me when you're not sure," Alex said, and leaned up on one elbow. She reached for him, and he obliged her with a kiss.
"I'll try," he promised.
