R Is for Rebel (24 page)

He made an exact mental picture of how her irises glowed silver, edging the deep, telling black of her pupils; how her thick black eyelashes were perfectly still. The slow flick of her tongue at the corner of her mouth that presaged a quick intake of breath, as if she was quite literally making space in her soul to accommodate him, to welcome him into her being.

“I love you, Abigail,” he said. “It's so perfectly obvious now, isn't it?”

Another tear slipped down her cheek and she smiled a small grateful smile. He started to pull away, only to begin the rhythm their bodies demanded, but a flash of beautiful, desperate longing blinked across Abigail's face.

“Please don't move. It's so perfect.”

“It will only get better. I promise.” He moved slightly to show her, gently pulling away then tilting his hips to touch her exactly where they both knew she needed to be touched.

She felt the initial tightness begin to fade.

“That's it,” he said, urging her on. “Just relax into me.”

And she did.

She let him drive her body like he would drive a machine. He guided her pleasure, leading her, until she was meeting his every parry and thrust, arching her hard, narrow hips into his, throwing her head back in a state of abandon that she never could have imagined (even in any of those crazy fantasies). He had her strung so tight, she thought she would break. His lips and teeth and a slight roughness from the new growth of his beard set her breasts ablaze. Her nipples felt like they were connected to her core—every quick kiss or long pull he gave them sent her deeper, tighter, further into this realm of striking pleasure.

Every part of her took him, made him her own. She rose to meet him again and again.

When she felt she could no longer postpone the culmination of their shared joy, the final consummation of all the waiting and wanting, she lifted her hips to his, as a demand and a gift, offering herself to him, taking, giving. Then she simply tipped over the edge of the world, annihilated, lost to everything but him. Her voice, a distant, foreign shriek, became woven together with his guttural roar of triumph, an ancient, deeply familiar cry.

Not very long after,
too soon, really
, thought Abigail, he was pulling away from her and making shuffling noises with the condom and the tissues from the bedside table. She turned on her side and put her hands flat between her cheek and the pillow, and simply marveled at the corded strength of his back. She thought she could while away the rest of her life watching that play of muscle and skin a few inches from her face.

He must have thought she had dozed off because his eyes widened in surprise when he turned back to see her perfectly awake and staring in his direction.

“Oh, you're still awake.”

“Quite.”

He stared at her eyes, seeing the familiar mischief returning; he looked forward to the next time he could bring her to that place of black and silver magic.

“Why are you staring so intently at my eyes?” she asked.

“Because they are delightfully revealing.”

“Tell me how.”

“In the mood to be flattered, are you?”

She warmed to his touch as his hand moved languidly along the curve of her hip, blinking slowly to encourage him. “Mm-hmmm.”

“Well, when you are all business, like when I first came over to the table at the restaurant tonight, and you didn't know if I was going to fall at your feet or fail to acknowledge you at all, they were cool, opaque, steely gray. Your pupils were tiny pinpricks. No access.” His hand continued soothing her body as his words soothed her soul. “Then, when I took a bit of what I wanted in the hall by the
toilettes
, or you gave or whatever—I want to address that giving and taking business in a minute—but at that moment, the slow molten silver of your eyes started to shimmer.” His hand reached up to trace the delicate peak of her eyebrow. “Then, when you were on your knees, on the bed, taking me with your lips and tongue and—”

She buried her face in the pillow, embarrassed by his retelling. Had she been so eager?

He pulled her face back where it had been, the two of them inches apart, simply talking. “It was the most beautiful sight. Please don't ever turn it into anything else. You were so beautiful and you were so happy and making me so happy, and you were like a wild seductress, a sorceress, with black, knowing eyes, eyes that knew pleasure, that knew
my
pleasure—and yours, I think—to the very depths of our souls.” He touched a piece of her hair and rubbed it between his index finger and thumb, just as he had done on the beach in Bequia. “And then, when we came together, I felt I could see everything, the whole galaxy, multiple universes, there in your silver eyes.”

He kissed each of her eyelids in silent affirmation.

They stayed there, inches from one another, for many hours. Abigail got up to go to the bathroom, or to get a bottle of water, but they spent the rest of that night simply lying next to one another within the soft, cool perimeter of their private world. Sometimes they spoke at length about trivial things—foods they adored, their opposing views on naps, places they wanted to visit—other times, they talked about profundities—children, commitment, family. Yes. Yes. And yes.

When the morning sun began to impart a promising, evocative light, Abigail, who must have been dozing, got up to go to the bathroom and to pull a juice from the minibar. When she came back to stand at the foot of the bed, Eliot was sitting up, the sheets pulled loosely to his waist, covering his firm legs and, Abigail thought with a touch of greed, all the good parts.

“Why are you covered?” Abigail asked. “I don't like you covered,” she added with a petulant look.

“I was just wondering, why didn't you ever tell me you were a virgin, you know, last year when we got together?”

She kept still, standing at the end of the bed, holding the compact green glass bottle of French peach juice in both hands, as if the cool container anchored her to the spot.

“You were a virgin.” Not a question.

“No, I wasn't.”

“Abigail, please. After everything, just be honest. Why would you hide that?”

“I wasn't hiding anything!” She was suddenly angry. “It's such a preposterous construct. I was in a sexually
complete
relationship with someone for over a decade. It's patently ridiculous to act as if I was somehow
unsullied
.” She said the last word as if it were poison on her lips.

“That's not what this is about.”

“Really, Eliot? You might want to check with your centuries—millennia!—of patriarchy and get back to me on that. You think it's not about my purity? The very word is loaded with misdirection and false meaning:
virginity
. Think about it!”

Eliot smiled and got out of bed as her ire escalated. He came up behind her. She couldn't possibly stay mad at him—if she ever was to begin with—when his warm, strong body rubbed up against her back, his hands circling around her in a safe hold. She sighed and leaned back into him on reflex. He was near; ergo, she bent toward him, like a plant to the sun.

“Oh, Abigail. You're such an idiot.”

Her eyes were placidly closed as she relaxed into his immovable strength. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Of course I don't give a crap about any of that other virginity bullshit—purity, preservation, what have you—but I might have proceeded at a slightly more well-considered pace if you'd just let me know. I reamed you, for goodness' sake. I practically nailed you to the goddamned bed.”

She smiled as she felt her stomach roll at the pleasant prospect of being impaled by Eliot. Skewered by lust.
Love
, she corrected. She wanted him to do everything to her: to have his way with her, to attack her, to ravish her, to slam his being into hers.

“You are so naughty,” he whispered in her ear as she tilted her neck and smiled even more broadly, eyes still closed. “You want me to take you like that, don't you?” He bit and licked his way down her warm neck.

“I would very much rather you didn't make me admit it.” Her prim voice was the epitome of upper-crust patrician formality. “But yes.”

Eliot burst into uncontrollable peals of laughter and tightened his embrace around her upper arms. Opening herself up to every possible permutation of their love, every possible ramification, standing there in his arms, holding the small bottle of juice, it was almost more intimate than their actual lovemaking.

Abigail's knee-jerk anger to his questioning her virginity stemmed entirely from her misconception that he valued that idea or gave it false importance for reasons that would have appalled her. “I'm sorry, Eliot. I seem to be the one who is constantly selling you short.”

He kept nipping at her neck and ear. “You don't need to apologize.” He sucked at the tender skin below her ear and then at the base of her neck, then said, “I've had an entire year to come to terms with the fact that you are a bigoted, narrow-minded misandrist.”

She pulled out of his arms and turned to glare at him. “Take that back. I am the most open-minded person you'll ever meet.” Abigail set the bottle of juice down on a nearby end table and folded her arms across her bare chest, feeling—suddenly—a touch defensive and very naked.

Eliot had no compunction about his nudity, strolling over to a large sofa and sitting down as if he were sporting his best Italian suit, one foot set casually across the opposite knee.

“I won't take back the truth, Abigail.” He looked at the back of his hand vaguely.

At least she was partially concealed from the waist down by one of the side chairs that separated the seating area from the sleeping area. She wanted to go to the closet and throw on one of the plush hotel robes, some flimsy defense, but it seemed like that would be admitting defeat.

“Eliot! It's me, Abigail! How can you possibly accuse me of being a bigot?”

“You have a heart of gold for every underdog, Abigail. But the rest of us, well, we are simply guilty.”

She huffed a small, dismissive breath. What he said was too absurd to countermand. Wasn't it?

“That just can't be true!” She was adamant, but there was the slightest hint of uncertainty. She wanted Eliot to absolve her.

“Abigail, just face it and let's move on. You were the one—granted, I probably appeared quite accommodating—who assumed I would shag you and call it a day. You were the one, minutes ago, who assumed I craved knowledge of your pristine hymen as some medieval badge of your worthiness or some shit. I have never pigeonholed you. Well, almost never. And you seem perfectly content to lump me together with every outdated Cro-Magnon chauvinist archetype. Admit it. Or don't.” Then he shrugged, implying that the truth was self-evident and her admission or denial did nothing to alter it.

She bit her lower lip, hard, in a painful attempt to fend off the truth. It was just too ugly, especially after such a glorious, beautiful night. Why would he be so cavalier about what a despicable person she was? After all that? All the soft conversation and lovemaking?

She gave a bark of a laugh as the painful tears started to throb at the back of her eyes, then slid down her cheeks. “I suppose, now that we are properly entwined and you can see clear through me, I'd better give myself over to the fact that I've become what is commonly known as a crier.” She swiped at a stray tear before it became verifiable weeping.

Eliot was rubbing the pale gray silk brocade of the seat cushion next to him. At first, it had been an absentminded tactile gesture, but when he caught Abigail's eye, he sort of patted and stroked the seat cushion in an inviting circular motion. “Come.”

Whether it was the commanding timbre of his voice, the double entendre, or the inviting look in his eye, Abigail looked up through wet lashes and felt the tension and heat of her physical response. She wanted him again. Her arms dropped away from their protective, defiant position across her chest. She wanted Eliot to see all of her as she walked toward him, as she came to him. She crossed the few yards between them, then stood, naked and willing, before him. “Where do you want me?”

He sat staring at her as if she were a runway model he was considering for the shows later in the week. Bloodstock. A possible investment. Her eyes were at once stormy and submissive as he continued to contemplate her, to objectify her. He leaned forward and trailed the edge of one fingernail from the base of her neck to the warm, moist mound between her legs. The light touch left her scorched. Eliot let the pressure linger, taunting her, and watched her eyes flutter in pleasure then return to some attempt of steely resolve.

“Give in, Abigail.” There was nothing diplomatic about the way Eliot spoke to her. He was all business. Taking her in hand. His finger tarried at the needy little bud, then slid farther back. “You want me to do everything to you, don't you?”

Her body quaked in agreement, but her mind was half a step behind, one foot stuck in a quagmire of rhetoric and theory. What did it mean that she wanted to submit every cell in her body to the loving care of this man? She wanted that. He wanted to give her that. Why was she
still
looking for reasons for that to be
wrong
?

His finger began a merciless slide, back and forth, from front to back, toying with her, tempting her, bringing her to a new desperation. Not just physical. It felt moral, ethical, beyond anything she could have anticipated or imagined.

He wanted to take every last bit of her.

And she wanted to give it.

She reached up to her breasts and palmed their weight in her hands, holding her nipples between her thumbs and fingers, mirroring Eliot's lazy tempo between her legs. She rolled the needy tips in the same back-and-forth motion. Eliot's breath hitched.

She would give him every ounce of her being.