Two sounds reached Mike as he left the music room: the scampering of bare feet up the stairs, and the slamming of his bedroom door. When was the last time he'd heard the first one? The second had been a frequent occurrence in the final months of his marriage. This time, though, the impact was careless, not explosive, and the angry rebound of the latch was absent. As he climbed the stairs, Mike could feel the heat in his gut working its way down, but it was taking its time. Usually it started down below and worked its way up, only pausing for the fuck, getting all the way to nausea in the rush to get away. Usually. What was "usually"? Hormonal relief – aka pants-off – in the company of strangers. Never in their arms, not for long anyway. The arms of faceless women were only for balance and leverage. It felt good to want something different. It felt better to know it was here and now.
He paused by the bedroom door, then slipped past to duck into the bathroom. He rummaged in a drawer by the sink for the small container of cocoa butter, long ignored. That it had been left there for so long raised a frown as he pried the lid off the tin. The frown faded as he ran his fingertips across the surface, glad it wasn't so long that it had turned to stone. How many women and teenage girls had he had in recent months, and never once thought about this? It had been a long, long time since the effect of string-calloused fingers on soft skin had entered his mind, let alone mattered. Damn what am I waiting for? He hurriedly wiped the excess cocoa butter off on his hands and face (scruffy beard-shadow scratches too) and stepped lively to the bedroom, yanking his boots off one by one.
When he opened the door he didn't know whether to drop to his knees with desire, or die laughing. There she was, the object of his newly rediscovered potential for affection, wrapped head to toe in the chinchilla spread. Fur inside of course. Her Indian print blouse, jeans, and underwear were flung more-or-less in a heap by the desk. She was rolling this way and that, eyes closed, humming to herself in obvious transports of ecstasy. He dropped his boots with a thud and walked to the foot of the bed.
"Maybe I should leave you two alone."
Bonnie rolled to a stop, and rose up on one elbow to stare at him staring at her. "What took you so long?"
"Impatient? I like that." He kneeled on the bed and displayed his hands, "Just attending to some personal hygiene," he told her, omitting the details.
"How dirty can you get playing a guitar?" she demanded, then started to laugh as he crawled toward her like a lanky panther and sprang, landing full length next to her.
"How dirty do you want me, baby?" he growled in his faux tough-guy voice, then stopped dead. "God damn Morris you look good on my bed. C'mere, will ya," he rolled her against him and worked one hand into the edge of the chinchilla where it was tucked under her.
"Mmm, your bed feels good, all this fur and velvet," she sighed as he burrowed his face against her neck.
He lifted up enough to tell her, "I like soft things next to my skin…" then as he continued to pull the fur loose from her, and worked his way down her neck, he mumbled, "...thinkin' of adding ya t'my collection…"
"Mmm, I accept," she managed to gasp as she got her arms loose and started working on his shirt, not an easy thing as he was lying full length against her. "Gimme a little help, will you?" He ignored her, covering her neck and breasts with slow wet kisses, running his hands everywhere he could reach. Giving up on his shirt she pushed at him again, this time going for his belt. "Nesmith, please," she begged him. She wanted to get at every tall lean inch of him, to touch and taste and feel his skin and bone and pulse the way she could when she laid her face in his neck… but she couldn't get at him… oh dear god, his hands were everywhere, why wouldn't he let her… then she pushed a little too hard, and he sat up abruptly.
Shouting, "Woman you have no appreciation for subtlety!" Mike literally ripped his shirt open, sending buttons flying, and flung it over his shoulder. "Thought you might appreciate a little bit of patience and anticipation, but hell, you want 'em off now, baby, then off they come!" He jumped upright on the bed and undid his jeans, hopping first on one foot and then on the other, sending them sailing after the shirt, the heavy buckle hitting the floor with a loud clatter. Then he repeated the dance, whipping off first one sock and then the other and winging them across the room. Finally he was standing over her on the bed in a state of high indignation, completely unaware that his already-rampant hard-on was announcing itself through the fly of his boxers. He glared at her and grabbed the waistband dramatically and announced, "No romantic unveiling for m'lady, nosiree bob, we'll just tear away and get to it!"
Bonnie lay there, eyes, wide, desperately trying not to explode in laughter at Mike's dance of ire. Shaking with the effort, she pointed at his crotch where the opening of the boxers was positioned like a guillotine ready to do its work.
"Careful, Nesmith... you're about to tear away a little too much." Then she gave up and rolled back and forth squealing incoherently.
"You really know how to kill a mood, Morris," Mike glowered to cover his embarrassment, carefully removed the threatening underwear, and was left wondering how to continue this love scene gracefully. "Ah, what the fuck," he muttered and fell down next to Bonnie. "Where were we?"
Bonnie's hysterics had subsided, leaving nothing but a smile of pure affection. "I think I was about to do this," she murmured, and pushed him onto his back. She made a meal of his mouth as he wrapped his arms tight around her waist and then loosened them again so his hands could explore. From mouth, to cheek, to sideburn, to ear, and down his neck she traveled, running her own hands down his sides. She'd expected something scrawny, but he was all lean muscle, the only bone at knees and elbows and shoulders, she burrowed her hands under his back and buried her face in the hollow of his neck.
Momentarily distracted from his own reaching and touching by the feel of Bonnie's hands and hair and mouth, Mike lay back and gave in to her, holding on as if he'd fall without her. "Baby, yeah, you are the softest, sweetest, best thing to happen," he moaned softly. Then, "OW!" He thrust her away with both hands. "Goddammit didn't your mama ever tell you it's not nice to bite?" He strained to look at the place where she'd gotten carried away a moment ago.
Bonnie sat up, breathless, hair in her face. "What…? I'm sorry I didn't mean to…" she leaned closer to examine the spot and sure enough, the red marks of her teeth were printed plainly on the ivory skin above Mike's collar bone. "Oh, god, I'm sorry, I mean some guys like it…"
"'Some guys'?" he echoed. "Like maybe vampires? Or cannibals?" She sat there looking stunned and uncertain, so he relented. "It's okay, y'just took me by surprise. See, I like it nice and sweet and easy," he demonstrated by taking her in his arms and leaning over her, planting kisses on her face and neck and shoulders, stroking his fingers along the sides of her breasts and down to her hips, "no rough stuff." That's for strangers he thought to himself, that's for skin my callouses don't care about. He continued to stroke and pet and kiss her, enjoying the sounds he drew from her, doing whatever he could to bring out more.
"Nes…mith," she whimpered as his long fingers moved inside of her, the other hand gripping her ass, his mouth working from one breast to the other, open and warm and nipping with extreme gentle attention, "do it however you like, just keep doing it."
Bonnie's fingers were running through Mike's hair, forcing him to enormous lengths of self-control to hold back from jumping her like a horny sailor (or coming right there on the bedspread).
"Mmm, yeah, nice 'n' easy, see," he whispered against her nipples between slow licks, "nice slow small town lovin'…" Her fingers clenched, and pulled his head up.
"Small town my ass, you're from Dallas."
He rolled his eyes (and his fingers, eliciting a groan from her and a wicked smile from him). "You talk way too much, looks like I gotta shut you up again." He opened his mouth against hers and pulled her tongue in to massage it with his own. The sounds he made in his throat echoed in Bonnie's head and she grabbed at his hips to move him where she wanted him.
"Don't worry, I'm gettin' there," he promised. He rolled her onto her side and slid one long hand from where it had been making her moan and squirm, slid it along her inner thigh and gave himself space to slip in his cock with just a shift of his hips. "Auhhh," he breathed in Bonnie's ear, it was a combination of groan and whisper that sounded to her like that moan he gave at the end of some musical phrases that echoed in the mix… sweeeet youuung thing-auhhh... but right now it echoed in her ear, sounding like most men did when they had finished. Except he was just getting started.
He rocked them, so much like the way he rocked them in the mixing booth when he'd come back and she'd needed something more like warmth than logic, but so much closer now. How many girls he'd had, how he'd perfected his moves, none of it mattered because it was just them, here and now, making space in the life they hadn't ever really planned because who could plan this? When Bonnie got a little crazy Mike lay back and let her take over, loving the way she rode him... "I ain't no cowboy but you're showin' some promise"... he moaned in encouragement, then slowed her down to make it last, rolled her off of him again to control their rhythm because it just felt so good to be making love instead of fucking.
"Better, baby, so… much… better…" he whispered against her ear in time to their rolling thrusting wrapping around one another, back and forth in velvet and chinchilla and each other, and getting there felt so good that it didn't matter who came first or second, or again. "Baby, yeah, shaaaa vaaahn, auhh," in the end he used her old name, the one she kept for herself, because it felt right and she felt right. Finally, just now, and here, everything felt right.
She held his head against her shoulder and felt his pulse pumping hard in his neck, felt it slow to normal with his breathing, and her own. She felt something else, too, and moved a little to look into the unshaded brown eyes, exposed when his damp hair fell back. A little wet at the corners.
"Michael," she breathed, using his real name. Because it felt right. Whatever else she was feeling was a little too much for either one of them to get close to right now.
"Pants off... works pretty good, too," she smiled against his cheek.
He turned his head to catch her smile with his own. "It's late, go to sleep now," he told her. Bonnie sighed in contentment as Mike cradled her against him like every other man she'd known had never bothered to do. She shut her eyes, drifting in their shared body heat and the feel of his fingertips tracing feathery patterns on her face.
"Yumm," she slurred drowsily, "you smell like chocolate..."
"Part of my charm, Morris, part of my charm," he drawled in her ear in a low, velvety voice. When she'd dropped off he watched her for a long time, finally lying back with a quiet sigh. "Here we'll stay," he said to the darkness, and faded to sleep.
Mike woke just before sunrise, much the same way he'd done that night in Chicago. There she was again, head resting on his arm, facing half away from him. Sprawled carelessly next to him like a welcome accident. Unlike that morning in Chicago this time he reached for her, and wasn't surprised at all when she came to him and wrapped around tight, chinchilla and all.