Chapter 20: Skin and Bones


She rolled back from atop me with a subdued moan, settled into my spread arm and caught whatever breath she could find, same as me. The only difference being, that Roxanne giggled between inhalations.

I let myself relax, thinking the whole time, only my girl.

After a short while in silence, biting her lip and sucking on impossible air to speak, she turned over to face me again, twisted into the crook of my arm and kissing the curve of my shoulder. That's what I had been missing. That was what I almost let get away and it killed me to have to think it then.

"Tired yet?"

I glanced down at her through my crooked glasses and sighed with a grin.

"No way."

"Good."

I felt her hand creeping under the sheets until her fingers danced over the head of my reawakened cock. Poor bastard, I smiled and closed my eyes to the touch. He has to pull all the weight of making up with her. With a silent apology to the stifling appendage that she had no problem bringing back to ready position, I also felt her crawling over my chest again.

"You know what I think?"

I pried open my eyes and caressed her arms, "What's that?"

"I think that you're better now than you've ever been before."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah," she laughed, playing with the small hairs on my chin. "Maybe you should let me catch you with your pants around your ankles more often."

At this I simply rolled my eyes and then rolled her beneath me to the other side of the bed. I pinned her hands over her head and traced circles over the faint sharpie words still left on her stomach from days before.

"Only if you're the one pulling them down to my ankles, baby."

"I can do that I think."

I chuckled against her navel and licked the sweat clean from it as I felt her freed fingers weaving through my knotted hair. It was a sentimental few moments, where I laid stretched across her, tasting as much skin as I could and nipping at other places that made her wiggle with laughter. It felt good just to be back home, back where I knew nothing could stand in my way of having her.

But shortly, the peace was broken, when she asked me in a whisper, "Do you think we'll ever figure out who's doing all this?"

I stopped to gaze up her body as she inquired again.

"Don't you think they know we're here yet? Whoever they are or she is?"

The she part struck me a second time, same as it did when I'd talk to my mother about what had happened. I still couldn't understand what any other woman here, back in the States, could have against my wife. Sure, there were the incessant fan girls at the signings, none so different from Catalina, but I doubt any of them had the guts enough to do the things that were occurring all around us. The high speed, intentional car crashes, the firing of bullets off of cliffs only my girl was on, or the attempt to kidnap our children. None of my fans, or hers for that matter, would dare to pull that sort of thing.

Or I rather hoped they wouldn't at least.

"Rox," I sighed, hovering over her mouth and soft, all too perfect form, "I wish I had the answer. I wish I could understand all this shit. It sucks, because I don't know any more now than I did when we first left."

"Do you think that's how they want it?"

"What do you mean?"

She leaned up a little to stare me directly in the eyes. "Maybe the person doing this doesn't want me or you to know anything before it all ends. Before they finally just do it, and kill me."

"Hey, don't you say that."

She didn't waver in staring, or in holding her own with the statement.

"We've been through this. No one's going to kill you."

"How do you know that, Mort? If they want it to happen badly enough th--"

I stopped her from going on the only way I knew how. I held her mouth captive with mine and kissed away as many words of that morbid nature rolling around on her tongue that I could. I was tired of having to think about the sickness inside someone, enough to convince the fucking New York Times that a bestselling author had died, the same night that she was wrapped up in my arms, three thousand miles away. I was tired of having to convince her of something that she rightfully knew, I didn't have a clue wouldn't happen for sure. I was tired of watching her be a martyr to the cause.

My mouth slid away from hers and she was smiling, thank God for that much. She slowly opened her eyes and brushed my cheeks with the backs of her hands.

"Is that the only way you know of trying to change a subject?"

"No." I nipped at her chin with teeth and soft lips, "There's another way."

"Teach me then," she teased, running her nails down my back.

"As if you need an instructor, Roxy Love…"

Her legs spread wider beneath the sheets and my body came ever closer to the growing heat which resided and waited for me in the middle. With one hand, I situated her thighs around me perfectly, draping her ankles down on my lower back where they'd made a lifelong indent.

"I remember the morning you tried to keep me here and make me quit my job."

The heated desperation of my flesh rubbing against her inner thigh made her coolly laugh and hold me as near as possible to her.

"I never wanted you to go," I whispered against her lips. "I knew then I had to have you. It wasn't even a possibility anymore. I needed you so bad."

"…Like I need you right now."

Anytime she said that, I need you, I was a complete goner to the world around me. I became worthless to anyone or anything but her. So I moved my hand between where our bodies meshed to gently rub at her wet throb. She shivered under me, her fingertips pinching the skin on my arms with an arch into the palm of my hand. And I watched as a tiny gasp escaped her lips with the weaving way my fingers were replaced by something more to her liking.

I felt myself falling into the damp folds of her body, pushing through the simplest of barriers to get to where everything eventually crashed together. Five, I chanted in my head, round five with the most beautiful creature I know.


My hands immediately flew to his hair and the nape of his neck, pulling his face down to the side of mine, buried in the curve of my neck as he thrust deep inside of me for only the hundredth time that morning. Luckily, I had the freedom to scream as loudly as I wanted or needed. Mort's parents had taken the kids to town about a half hour before, to collect things for New Year's Eve. I could have my husband as many times as I needed for the next hour at least. And I could shout his name without two five year olds thinking someone had died.

Although there was a good chance I might, just from being all too content.

He bit my neck softly and drove hard against my thighs. The burn was welcomed as I moaned out incoherent epiphanies for him.

"God, you feel so…" a screech beckoned from the back of my throat as he pumped harder, rougher, not worrying about anything but satisfying my continued speech, "…deeper, Mort…I need you deeper…"

"You got it," he grunted breathlessly, straining between my hooked legs. "What else, baby?"

"Harder," I sighed and clutched onto his ribs, then his back under the sheet, trying to find leverage enough to stay molded to him. He retracted almost entirely out of my body before gripping the edge of the mattress and impelling back inside with all the force in him. I could feel the muscles in his back ripple like the clenching walls that hugged his cock inside of me. "I want all of you, please…"

"She's fallen to begging ladies and gentleman…" he teased with kisses down the plane of my neck and across both of my breasts. I couldn't respond and wasn't sure I knew how to, so he mumbled against my skin as he thrust stronger and more deliberately, "…I must be doing something right," he grunted with another fast plunge to places that rocked against him, "…if she's begging for me…"

He sighed against my cheek and kissed the droplets of sweat from my brow line, never ceasing the speed of his movements over and inside of me, and especially not when we both felt the contraction of my body around his. That only made his pace wilder, in a more havoc search of that boiling point he knew was coming, the one where I would crash and he would catch me before I fell further than animalistic screams would allow.

"Yes…" I exclaimed finally, "…you do everything--very, very right!"

I saw his eyes zip shut when the pulsing of my clit against the slide of his cock brought his previously in control world all crumbling down. It made me smile as I clung to him, meeting his thrusts without restraint and kissing the wrinkles from his forehead as I moaned his name.

"Here it comes," he teased lovingly as we rose up together, my lap suddenly in his and using his sweaty shoulders for mock control, "I can feel you…" he stopped as I fell hard on him, breasts gliding down his wet chest and eyes locking his in place, "…Jesus, you're so close…come on, baby…now…"

I followed his orders, pulling hard on his messy hair as my thighs crushed to where he kneeled in the middle of the bed, holding me with nothing but shaky fingers on my lower back. It was the most intense climax we'd ever come to together, I'll swear by it. I drenched him in all that I had and he filled my trembling body with the heady shot of his own seed as he grunted my name, and my name alone.

My legs were wrapped completely around his waist and back, tied together for safety, same as my arms around his neck and his across my back. With his heavy breathing blowing through my hair in his face, and mine through his, I felt something welling up inside of me, something I couldn't control. And Mort knew exactly what that was, when only a minute of heavy exhaling later, a teardrop slid down the curve of his back to disappear on the wrinkled sheets beneath us.

He pulled me back in his arms, his eyes weak and sad looking.

"No giggling? I get tears for that class act show?"

He made me laugh, but only slightly beyond the tears that he began brushing off my cheeks.

"What did I do wrong? Tell me."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"Then what?" He whispered peaceably on my forehead, kissing off the beads of sweat.

"You just feel so good," I hugged him close to me again, breathing him in, "I'm so happy."

"Happy tears then," he mumbled with a soft peck on my shoulder, "Okay. That's good. One for the home team."

I laughed again, more that time, and he gently laid me on the mattress, our bodies separating finally. He rested on his stomach beside me, one arm crossing and clutching my waist to him as I played with his wispy hair.

"I know why she couldn't help herself."

His head rose slightly off the bed as he eyed me suspiciously.

"And I guess I can't blame her for having good taste."

His brow crossed.

"Cinnamon is a good flavor…" My fingers twirled curls of his hair as he crawled up higher toward me on the bed, leaving kisses like bread crumbs to get back if need be.

"You know what's even better?"

"Huh?"

"Strawberries…" he hummed with a dreamy, hungry look on his face.

"Strawberry pancakes?"

"Mmm," he licked his lips and came closer to mine, "With you on the side?"

His mustache tickled my neck as he blew into it with a wet raspberry, like the ones he used to give to Max and Maddie when they were just babies. I giggled and inched away from him, tying the loose red sheet around me as I went. He tried to reach out and pull me back, but missed as I skipped around to the other side of the bed to find his long white shirt on the floor. I stood only feet away as he crawled toward me on the mattress, eyeing me up like food when I buttoned the shirt halfway down and pulled on a clean pair of his boxers.

"Where are you running off to?"

I smiled and twisted my hair into a messy tie at my neck.

"I'm going to make pancakes. You get in the shower and I'll come meet you."

He sat tangled in a leftover sheet on the edge of the bed, holding his hand out for me to take. I did, and tiptoed back toward him as he wrapped his legs around me, then gently stroked through my hair.

"Do you know how happy you make me?"

Wanting to tease, I reached down between his legs and felt the soft bulge under the sheet, before he rolled his eyes and pulled my hand away to hold it.

"I'm serious, Roxanne."

"Dead serious?"

"No. Dead nothing. I'm here to live, with you."

I smiled, not wanting to start crying again. So I leaned into him and held his face in my hands, letting a long, quiet moment drift by where nothing was said and nothing needed to be said. He knew what I was thinking and I understood him, and that was enough.

I kissed the bridge of his nose and fixed his tilted glasses.

"L.I.V.I.N"

He nodded in agreement and left a simple, lingering peck on my lips before he let me skip out of the room finally. I was halfway down the staircase when I heard the shower water start to run. It made me smile, just knowing what would be waiting for me after I finished putting together the mix for his strawberry pancakes.

I added a few new logs to the fireplaces in the living room and dining room, before heading for the kitchen. There was a light coming from under the swinging door, and I assumed as much that Mort's mother had left it on by accident. My hand shoved back on the doorway and I stepped onto the freezing tile with a gasp, shivering in nothing but Mort's shirt and underwear when it was clearly near zero outside.

There was very little coffee left, so I started a fresh pot, since I knew we could both use the energy. I turned on the radio, as was customary, and began singing along to the Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly. I washed a couple of the kid's dishes that were left on the breakfast table and then went to the fridge to collect all the ingredients for pancakes. I had two arms full of things when I finally kicked back the metal door and shoved it with my butt, laughing.

I made it to the table, dropped everything down and even managed to get a mixing bowl and whisk, before anything even remotely intrigued me in the eerie silence of the kitchen around me. As soon as curiosity struck me, so did something else.

"Mrs. Rainey?" A sweet sort of voice flowered from directly behind me.

I turned, but only had half a second to see the source before I felt a rush of pain and force fall against the side of my head and choked out a scream, dropping to that same cold tile floor.