It wasn’t until the Marshall Field’s maintenance man unfurled the thick, green awning with the squeak of the hook crank and the rainfall had suddenly stopped pouring down upon them that they were startled out of their hungry spell. They hadn’t come up for any significant amount of air since Steve attacked her lips with more passion than he was able to control. He’d allowed himself sexual release, but the meaning of a kiss was something he didn’t seek out. No kisses with any depth had been offered, either. So he kept things meaningless and his heart safe; after all, the last time it was broken he’d lost a whole piece of himself in the process. He didn’t didn’t feel worthy of anyone’s affection, anyway.
Now Kayla was unmistakably giving him some. And for the first time in so long, he wanted it.
Steve held her face in his left hand and embraced her firmly around the waist with his right so that he could hold her tightly against him. She felt solid and honest and so very good in his arms. Kayla looked up into his eye, and she could feel how much he wanted this as he very gently caressed her cheek.
“You’re so beautiful.” Kayla gave him a tender look. Then he whispered, “You have to go.”
Kayla shook her head even as Steve continued to stroke her hair back with his palm. “No, I don’t,” she whispered back.
He wanted to believe her. But women like her didn’t want men like him. And if they did they should know better. “Why are you here?”
“Believe it or not, I’m waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me to what?”
For you to love me. But she said it only to herself. Instead of answering him, she slowly joined with his lips again and pressed her body up against his. It was a slower, sensual kiss, her tongue darting out to his lips, causing little impulses to rush through him. Steve’s own body reacted, it was impossible not to. He hardened like a bullet and wanted very badly to rub himself up against her. But he stopped himself; she was better than that. And the way she held on to him while she offered her very meaningful kisses to him – kisses that held so much significance that he could feel their importance like a current – made him feel so good. So, he kept kissing her, stroking her tongue with his, and holding her body against his own.
Kayla didn’t want to stop kissing him, either. She was afraid to stop kissing him. She was afraid to move from this very spot, because this emotional connection was finally feeding her the comfort she’d been aching for for so long. Not just the duration of this jump or the last jump but since the moment she’d touched the shell upon Steve’s neck and kissed her daughter’s head and surrendered. Something inside her had instantly broken, and every minute she didn’t feel like her husband was there for her made it break more. If she didn’t start feeling him very soon, she was going to be irreparable. But now he was there. He wasn’t her Steve, but he was the only Steve she had available to her, and she could feel as plain as the rain falling around them that his soul was there now, touching hers, giving her comfort.
She was also immensely relieved that she was able to forge this connection with him, because she had to keep them together. She’d abandoned him two jumps ago, refused to go to find him when she knew he was in jail, helpless to be the one who found her. She had every reason to be angry with him, but her willingness to risk losing him in time like that scared her. Her own spiteful reaction to the hurt truly frightened her. What she did was wrong, because no matter what Steve did, she never actually doubted his devotion to her. Even when she believed he was trying to leave her, she knew that it was because of his unwavering commitment to her. It was done now, and she couldn’t take it back, but she would never allow herself to do it again. Steve was out there waiting to land here in this timeline, Kayla was the one who was here. It was up to her. So, she was going to make very damn sure to keep them together and would stop at nothing to do it.
Finally, Steve pulled himself away from her and stepped back. Watching her lick her lips of his kiss and look like she wanted nothing more than to put her lips on more of him made his cock strain against his jeans and his heart strain equally against his common sense. Kayla saw the struggle in his face.
“Don’t pull away from me.” The appeal in her voice was so convincing.
“You have to go,” he said very firmly, refusing to look at her.
“You don’t really want that. I know you don’t.” Kayla was surprised at the sound of her own voice. She had a hard time controlling the insecurity that crept into her the minute he’d stepped away from her. She needed his kisses back and advanced toward him, but Steve retreated a step.
“Stop.” He shook his head. “I … you’re going home.”
She was home. Steve was her home whether he knew it or not, and he always would be. How could she make him understand? How could she break through his fears and self-hatred enough to let her love him? It took more than a year to cut through the baggage he’d had piled up around him. How was she going to do this in a day? She started to feel very panicked. The amplification effect was exploiting every emotional vulnerability Kayla had, preying on her grief and need for comfort, making her crave the emotion he’d just physically shown her, and sent a stampede of worry through her that she wouldn’t be able to keep them together. Her blood pressure was so high she felt her heart racing.
Steve stepped out into the rain and started walking. Kayla followed after him immediately. “Let’s talk about this,” Kayla tried, only Steve whirled on her.
“It’s a little too wet for a nice chat!”
“Please don’t make me go,” she whispered.
The rain continued to fall, and there was just no way that a single part of either of them wasn’t completely saturated. Steve adjusted his patch and reached slowly for Kayla’s sprained hand; the wrappings were soaked through. He gently stroked his thumbs over the bandage and then took off his jacket and put it around Kayla’s shoulders. “What about you?” she asked.
“I don’t matter.”
A sob came uncontrolled from Kayla’s throat. Steve was stunned. “Yes, you do,” she cried. “Oh, Steve, you matter so much.” She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but she knew that would be the biggest mistake in the mistakes she’d already made, so she managed to keep it inside. The tears, however, came out.
Even so, Steve understood that she was crying because of what he’d said. He didn’t understand why that would elicit such a strong reaction in her, but he got it that it had. He wanted feel her tears. Wipe them from her already wet face. But he didn’t.
“Let’s just get back.” Kayla nodded. She tried to give the jacket back to him, but he drew the line there. “No, Kayla, you’re soaked, and—”
“So are you! It’s 60 degrees out, and you have no sleves! I’m no more important than you are, and it’s your jacket!”
“Don’t argue with me! Now you keep the damned jacket on, I mean it!” Kayla studied his face and knew she’d lost this one.
“Hold my hand, and I’ll stop arguing.”
Steve couldn’t suppress his grin. “You want me to hold your hand?” Kayla nodded and stepped out from the awning, her right arm outstretched toward him. Steve huffed in supplication. He took her hand, brought it to his lips to kiss her knuckle, then held it in his. “And you don’t think you’re sweet?”
“No, I’m sweet,” she smiled slightly. I’m just not a little girl.”
They walked the four blocks in the rain, past the Picasso and the Miro and the courthouse, and back to the Hotel LaSalle. They didn’t speak a word the whole way, and he never once dropped her hand, holding it securely in his own and shivering not with cold but with feeling when she’d randomly stroke her thumb over his.
“We look like a couple of drowned rats,” Steve said when they were back in his room.
“So do my jeans,” Kayla replied as she peered out the window to her now completely sodden jeans on the fire escape. She gave him a knowing grin, but Steve didn’t give in so easily.
“Real convenient.” His tone wasn’t tender anymore; he was annoyed again.
Kayla signed inwardly at this back and forth pendulum that swung back and forth inside of him. She had no idea it was going to be this hard. “Aren’t you the one who laid into me for not putting them out there to begin with?” Steve postured a bit placing his hands on his hips. He was really uncomfortable in these wet clothes. “Want to accuse me of causing the rain, too?” Steve sighed and palmed the back of his neck as she hung out the window to wring out her jeans.
“You got more to wear in that bag?”
Barely. Half an hour later anything that was wet was hanging in different spots inside the small room, hers mainly on the radiator, Steve’s over the chair and an empty drawer. Kayla was running out of dry clothes and realized she really hadn’t planned this trip very well. Because she was acting on pure instinct all she could think about was getting to Steve, not on making sure she had enough clothing to last however long it might take to find him. She’d thrown four or five days worth of stuff, a nightshirt, and a blind handful of underwear and bras into Bo’s large duffel bag, plus some basic toiletries. That was it. Now that she was faced with having little left to wear she realized it really might be a problem.
In the bathroom Kayla changed into a baggy yellow sweater and matching yellow buttercream pants with pleats that made her roll her eyes, while Steve changed into the jeans he wore the day before and snug, black t-shirt. Kayla’s mind was racing while she changed, Steve’s was racing faster.
The ace bandage was drying out, too, hanging unravelled over the small closet door, and Kayla’s wrist was actually aching quite a bit now that it had gotten used to the support. When the uneasy silence fell upon them neither one of them knew quite what to say. Kayla tried not to stare, but Steve couldn’t help but notice her struggling to put her eyes somewhere else.
Steve needed space to gather himself. Everything about her called to him in ways that only spelled trouble. Her damp hair was so attractive on her, and wanted to feel it. Her baby blue eyes shined at him, and he wanted to stare into them. Her plump lips were soft, and all he wanted to do was gather them into his own, taste them, lick them, and then slide his tongue down the front of her neck to her gently prominent collar bone. So, he had to get out of that room for a little while just so he could build up some resistance to her if nothing else.
“Are you hungry?” he asked softly. She shook her head. “Well, that dounut and coffee might still be fillin’ your belly, but mine is empty, so I’m gonna go get somethin’.” Kayla got up to go with him, but he stopped her right away. “This ain’t a field trip, baby, I don’t need a buddy. You can stay here and babysit the laundry, I guess.” Kayla didn’t like it. What if he jumped in when she was gone?
“When will you be back?”
“Later.”
“Like a few minutes or a few hours?”
“What’s the difference, you got a dry roof, you’re here – that was your goal right? To be here with me? ‘Cause I’m a real keeper?” Kayla rolled her eyes. “So, just keep doin’ that waiting for me thing, since that seems to be your purpose in life.”
Kayla ignored the nasty response and joined him at the door. “I want to come with you,” she insisted. Steve gave her a smirk that Kayla didn’t appreciate.
Good, Steve thought, piss her off so she’ll start seein’ the jerk you are. Only, he really didn’t want to be that jerk to her, so it was getting harder.
“You want to come with me,” he repeated snidely. She knew what was going on in his head, but it grated on her, anyway. When he gave her a patronizing giggle, it grated on her more. It was so frustrating. She loved this man. No matter what or when, Steve was her husband, she loved him, and she pined to crawl into his arms and be kissed and loved right now. On the other hand, he was giving her this broody, unworthy, sarcastic sh*t that she hated as much then as she did now.
“Yes. I do.” Steve blustered and adjusted his patch. “Steve—”
“Patch!”
“Steve! I know, you don’t get why I’d want to be with you, but—”
“That’s right, baby, I don’t get it! So, how ‘bout you stop with the bullshit and explain it to me!” His voice was hard. She knew this defense mechanism so well. It was like it had a life of its own, taunting her, laughing that it had the advantage again.
Kayla leaned toward him. “I think those kisses did enough explaining, don’t you?”
Steve’s spine tingled. “Defending your husband’s honor, were you?” he accused with air quotes.
“Maybe I was!” And the authenticness of her tone scared the sh*t out of him. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I kissed you.”
Steve pivoted fast. “Come on, Sweetness, I’m nothin’ but a waste of space. I know it, and you know it. So, what are you really playing at, huh? What does Bo want with me?!”
“Ok,” Kayla’s voice shook, “that’s the last time you’re going to say anything like that to me. Because you are not a waste of space. Don’t say that to me ever again. And for the last time, Bo has nothing to do with this. I know what happened between the two of you …,” she swallowed nervously. Pain creased his brow. He had no idea she could see it, but she knew him. She hadn’t actually known it when it was this raw, but she could see that awful pain just the same, and it only exacertabed his last statement. Hearing him say this about himself – his pain had now become her pain, too. “… and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Steve. But I’m separate from that. I’m not my brother, I’m not Britta.”
Her use of Britta’s name shocked him, and Steve looked away from her. “He told you about Britta?”
Kayla only nodded. I’m separate from all of that, Steve,” she repeated. “I’m different.”
“How?” he rasped, letting himself implore her tenderly. He reached out to touch her face, but he pulled his hand back and let his impatience and bitterness at the reminder of how he got this way reclaim his tone. “You’ve gotta give me somethin’ here, baby, because you’ve got me at what they call an unfair disadvantage.”
Kayla chuckled mirthlessly. “You have no idea how much of a disadvantage I’m really at, here.”
“I have no idea about anything!” They’d been standing at the foot of Steve’s bed, but now he rounded on her and took an intimidating step toward her, drastically reducing the buffer between them. “You come here, scare off a perfectly good romp for the night, start kissin’ me, and won’t tell me sh*t!”
“Your good romp for the night? You mean Candy? Your f*ck budy?”
Steve had never heard that term, but he liked it and smiled widely. “Yeah, baby, that’s right, my f*ck budy!”
“She know just how to get you off?”
Steve couldn’t believe the jealousy he heard in her voice. It was almost vicious in its possessiveness. He had to use it. Because she cared about him, and he didn’t know why. More importantly, he cared about her. And this had to stop for her own good. “Oh, yeah, little girl, she knows just how to spread ‘em for me.” He advanced on her again, and she had to take a step back. “Don’t look so shocked, you said it yourself last night, I like to f*ck.”
“I thought you said she didn’t like your tiny little dick!”
Steve took another step forward, backing her up against the wall. “What happened to you being so sure that my dick wasn’t remotely tiny, baby?!” Another step back toward the wall, Kayla gave him a pfft and looked away. “Oh, little girl can dish it out, but she can’t take it, can she?” he smiled cruelly. “She thinks she gave lots of hot kisses to the one-eyed monster, defended him to the mean department store lady, now she can tame him?”
“Stop it!” Kayla seethed.
“No, you stop it! You stop pretendin’ I’m gonna be into you!”
“You are into me!” Literally, he was, because she knew what he looked like when he was turned on, and that look in his eye right now told her it was true. Her body started to react, too.
“No! Now, you stop! You stop lookin’ at me like I’ve got all the answers to the world’s problems, and you stop expecting whatever you think it is you’re here for. Now, I f*ck a different woman every night, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay!”
“You don’t kiss them!” Steve finally had nothing to say to that. “You don’t kiss them,” she repeated with a softer voice but heavier tone. “Why do you think that is?”
Why did she have to be so f*cking smart? Steve took a final step so that she backed hard into the wall. He placed both his hands on either side of her head and all but pinned her there. She was so turned on that she would have given anything for her Steve to jump in. His voice was low with velvet severity. “You don’t know sh*t about who I do or what I do to them.” Steve hated what he was saying. He hated the lies. But she was a flower amongst the weeds, and he had to send her back to where she came from before he ruined her. “So, I’m not gonna stop, no, little girl, can’t do that. Not until you leave, that’s when I’ll stop. Until then, I’m gonna have to remind you that every minute you’re here is a minute I’m not getting my dick sucked.”
Steve expected her to become a puddle, but instead her conviction seemed to double. She very wantonly and very purposely licked her bottom lip with slow invitation. Steve huffed out a jarring chuckle. “You tryin’ to make those lips as wet as the other ones?” He glanced down and then leered at her. The hatred for himself that he could talk to her this way coursed through his veins. Still, Kayla refused to back down.
“You think your hard-core language is shocking me? Think it’s going to scare me off?”
“Oh, I think a lot of things, baby.”
“Like what? Like about all those women you’re going to f*ck?”
“Now you’re gettin’ it, Sweetness. And none of ‘em are gonna be you!”
“Clearly!”
“Gonna f*ck ‘em hard in all kinds of places!” He wanted her so bad his balls had turned blue.
“Just remember to wrap it up so you don’t give me anything!”
“I’ve already given you plenty! I’ve given you food and a roof and tour of the Windy City, baby. So, I think I’ve given you a hell of a lot more than you’re givin’ me!”
“So, you want more from me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You give me somethin’ I can understand!”
Kayla’s breaths were short, she was wet, and she could feel how hard her husband had become as his proximity forced his crotch to brush against her. “You want more?” This time she dared it as she took a charged step into his body.
God, yes! Steve took handfuls of her damp hair in both of his hands and felt the electricity rush through him from this connection alone. He pulled her face toward his at the same time that she pressed herself against him, and they both felt like everything was put back right again. Her lips made him feel a physical and emotional need that manifested in every part of his body. There was so much meaning in the way she touched him that he actually felt it like tiny threads in his soul knitting together with the tiny threads in hers. And it felt good. It felt so damned good. Their tongues dueled as he bonded to her scent. He’d never felt this good in his whole life – inside. Where it mattered.
Kayla closed her eyes and felt her husband’s lips on hers, and knew this was the man she’d marry one day. She felt his feelings for her like a memory replaying their earliest kisses – the uncontrolled, passionate ones that Steve had finally succumbed to while Kayla had already loved him for so long. Those kisses she knew. But his hands … they weren’t her husband’s. Not yet. These were fearful. Tentative. They were the touch of a man that he hadn’t been to her in a very long time. She shook the unfamiliarity away and concentrated on what her body and her soul wanted. For him to know her. If he could just feel her love him, he’d know she was his. She could keep them together. And she would be ok.
“Steve,” she moaned his name and wrapped her arms so tightly around him. He loved hearing it. No woman had said his name like this in so long. He wanted to hear her scream it. He couldn’t explain why this woman’s kisses and this woman’s hands and this woman’s entire presence captivated him so, but he wanted her like he’d never wanted anyone before in his life, and clutched her to him with ardent possession. He wanted her to say his name like this again. And again. Louder and more passionately. He wanted to take off her clothes and give her the highest pleasure she’d ever known. He wanted to sink himself into her and come hard and claim her as she screamed his name – and he screamed hers back. And no one else’s ever again.
Steve was so taken with her and regretful for his vulgar words that he whimpered her name as he dragged his lips to her neck and started to let his hands roam. He wanted to take back every foul thing he’d said to her, every bit of it lies meant to hurt her. So she’d go away. But he didn’t want her to hurt. And he didn’t want her to go.
Kayla was losing herself as Steve’s hands wandered from the back of her head, down to the small of her back, then up and back again until settling on her rear. She loved him so much. She couldn’t tell him in words, so she let her kisses do the talking, because she needed him to feel her love – so he could know that he was not a waste of space.
Before Steve knew what was happening, Kayla had moved her mouth to his chin, then kissed softly down to the hollow of his neck. Something about the kiss she placed there was almost reverent. He was so stunned by it that he could do nothing but receive her affection. He could feel how real her passion was. And he wanted to cry, because he couldn’t let himself have her. He’d fallen for her enough that he’d already begun protecting everything about her. So more than ever, he knew she had to go. But her body felt so good he felt almost out of control.
Kayla was entranced in her husband’s embrace, and like so many times since she’d arrived here, she forgot for the moment who he was. She gasped, however, when she felt him squeeze her ass and grind his rigid length against her hip. Yes! she screamed to him inside her head. Take me! God, Steve, I need you! She met his thrusts, and if he’d connected with her clitoris she would have come, that’s how much she wanted him. “Steve …” she cried out as she straddled his leg. “Baby, I—” Kayla’s eyes flew open with the realization of what she was doing. And for the first time since she saw him enter Murphy’s bar last night, Kayla wanted to take a step back. Because this was fast. Even adjusting for the accelerated development, this wasn’t development it was desperation. Of course, she wanted him, that wasn’t a question. But having him right now was wrong in more ways than one. To him, Kayla was a stranger who’d shown up on his doorstep and plowed her way right on in. He’d known her for less than a day. No matter what he felt like, this wasn’t her husband.
Steve stopped abruptly when Kayla had. He saw the look on her face and didn’t know what to do. She was feeling shame, he could see it. Sh*t, what have I done? He had not consciously meant to rub against her, but he’d done it before he could stop himself, and it was hard and raunchy in its delivery. He didn’t mean that, either. He wanted to take her, but not like she was some object to get his rocks off; he wanted to be tender, but for that moment he’d lost control. The shock in both of their eyes made him pull himself immediately away from her. And now this woman who was quickly stealing his heart looked like she wished she could take it all back. He had to help her do that – and make that look in her eye go away. Before she could say anything, he started talking in clipped, anxious breaths.
“I’ll be back,” he said, grabbing a button-down shirt out of a drawer and putting it on over the t-shirt.
“Where are you going?” She was trying to stay calm even as she panted.
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“None of your f*cking business.”
“Back to that are you?” He said nothing. Only leaned his straight arm against the front door as he looked down to the floor. Moments passed in silence as they caught their breath. Finally, Steve reached for the doorknob. “No!” Kayla said, “we have to stay together.” Now she was less calm.
Steve looked at her with real confusion at that one but quickly went on. “You stay here, and you don’t answer that door for anyone that’s not me. You don’t answer that phone. 5, 7, and 32 come in good, 2 and 11 are bad, don’t f*ck with the bunny ears, I just got ‘em perfect.”
“Where are you going?” Kayla insisted. “When are you coming back?”
“Don’t talk to Ray.”
“Please,” she started, but he cut her off.
“I mean it.”
Then Steve left.
Kayla stood staring at the door Steve had just closed behind him. How many times had she been on the other side of a door that Steve or she or both of them together had just closed? How many times? She thought she was done with this. She thought these days were over. But they weren’t, because here she was again, fighting to be with him. He didn’t know who he was, it wasn’t even his fault this time. What the hell did she expect, that kissing him was going to lead him to unquestioning acceptance? Really? She knew better, but she was angry at him, anyway. And ashamed at herself for letting herself sink into oblivion with him just now for all the wrong reasons, giving him a bigger complex than he had in the first place. She tried so hard to put it all into perspective, but she couldn’t do it. She literally could not make her brain see the reason and rationality that it really needed to see.
“Steve, where are you?” she softly cried into the empty room.
I’M F*CKED UP, KAYLA! Steve’s desperate plea from the last jump washed over her.
“I’m f*cked up, too,” she said aloud to the closed door. “I’m so f*cked up, too.”