Steve took to this jump fairly easily, especially compared to the last one. There was a certain routine that he was going to have to shake, as there was no longer a fish market for him to work in, but the intuitive routine was still leftover, like an echo. It hurt a lot more a few hours ago; now it was slightly more palatable. He wanted his Kayla to show up pretty quick, here, but judging by the way this one was looking at him on their date at the Cheatin’ Heart, he had a feeling that if he had to make an excuse to be with this destination Kayla overnight to wait for his prime version to show up, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem.
It didn’t take long. Kayla came in to herself just as the crack of the billiard balls reached her ears. As soon as the dizziness passed, which was fairly quickly this time, she darted her eyes back and forth. This was the Cheatin’ Heart, that was obvious right away with the beer and peanut smell pervading the small space. Plus, Steve was right there in front of her, hunched over the pool table having just taken the last shot. Even without seeing his face, she knew just from the back of his head and the tight, faded jeans hugging his ass that she’d arrived to the mid-‘80’s.
“That’s how ya do it, baby. Just take your time when you line up your shot.”
Kayla knew that this was their 23rd jump, because in a futile effort to figure out what was happening to them, she had committed these jumps to memory back in 1979. Which for her was just a few hours ago as far as her mental body clock was concerned. But she could do this 23 more times and still not get used to the way it would make her feel to see Steve when she’d arrive. It wasn’t simply his youth, and it wasn’t even really a shock to see him, she’d gotten fairly used to that. It was because so much of her had Steve suspended in time. The last image she saw of him before he’d been gone for all those years was more or less this one currently playing pool in front of her. And despite the years that he’d been back, this version of him was the one that was strongest in her mind, the version of him from this era. Seeing him during these early years, like she was seeing him right now now, was like hitting an unpause button that someone else had hit so long ago. So, she would never get used to this as ordinary, even if it was the 23rd time.
He hadn’t turned to face her since she’d arrived. Kayla was leaning slightly on the pool cue like a walking stick not more than a foot behind him. He was still instructing her in the proper way to play. When he turned around, the smile on his face was so sexy. He looked … delicious.
Steve was doing his best to just enjoy the date. If he had to wait eleven days he didn’t know what he was going to do with himself. Then again, the gap between their arrivals was less than an hour on the last jump, so maybe he wouldn’t have to wait long. For now he wasn’t really sure what to do other than be on this date, as he’d already called in the anonymous tip to Roman in his office at the Salem PD. The sight of the untraceable Shenanigans payphones with no cameras to worry about and no way to be tracked in any way in this truly bygone year of 1986 sent him to a seriously happy place. And he needed it after the last jump sapped all that 1979 happiness right out of him.
Now he turned around and gloated to Kayla after his rather impressive shot. She was so pretty the way her blue eyes were sizing him up right now. “That’s all you gotta do, baby, just keep your eye on the … ball …” Steve didn’t quite know what he was saying, because she suddenly looked like she wanted to eat him with a spoon. Of course, this Kayla was far from an innocent who didn’t know him, she had been ardently pursuing him at this time and was, he knew, already in love with him by now. But … man if she didn’t look like she was about to lick him up. Steve could not help the completely wantonly lustful smile that spread across his face. And he didn’t feel guilty about it, either; it’s not like she was a teenager. “Been there done that,” he murmured out loud.
With the look on his face and the words that just came out of his mouth, Kayla deduced that she’d jumped first to a Steve that was more than happy to be shamelessly flirting with her right now. She needed to get a look at herself to figure out when she was more precisely, but based on the horrific perm on the both the woman and man sitting at the bar, not to mention the clothing that made her actually giggle, she figured this had to be relatively earlier in their relationship, maybe winter. It was cold out, she could feel the draft coming in the door without even turning around. That’s the best she could do for now.
“What on earth has given you the giggles, Sweetness? Cuz they don’t match the look on your face right at the moment.”
“Don’t they?” she sniggered some more. They were the first words she’d uttered since she’d arrived. “Ooo-kay,” she said with a sh*t-eating grin not my Steve, and put her hand on her hip.
“Feisty today, huh?” Steve flirted.
Kayla had not seen this guy in a really long time. It was exciting. It gave her a weird sort of exhilaration – weird because that exhilaration was wrapped around the fundamental wish that her Steve was with her. She now understood some of that sexual tension that Steve had before she’d arrived in 1979.
“Your turn, now, come on,” Steve said. “Show me what ya got.”
“I dunno, I’m pretty good,” Kayla said confidently.
“Yeah, baby, ya just proved that with the ball you launched off the table a minute ago, didn’t ya? Now, come here, let me show you how it’s done.” Kayla instinctively rolled up her sleeves but was so taken in by being here with him like this that she forgot to look at what she was wearing or try to get some kind of look at herself so that she could narrow down when she was. For now, she was fully engaged by the man whom she didn’t realize was her actual husband, who didn’t realize this was his actual wife.
“Now, do you remember how to hold a cue stick?”
“I’m sure you’re about so show me.”
Steve winked at her. “When in Rome, baby.” Kayla grinned very devilishly and Steve ushered her in front of him. He leaned her over the pool table, placed his face against hers, and guided her with his velvet words, his voice resonating deep within her. He was really turning her on. Then he said something that made her blink. “Now don’t listen too close, baby, ‘cause I’m gonna want all those kisses from you when I beat you a few months from now.”
Kayla very imperceptibly cocked her head and shifted her eyes toward his cheek resting against her. “Kisses?” she repeated.
“Yeah,” he said, “you can pencil me in for another game right here. You’ll probably forget, but don’t worry, I’ll remind you.”
Wait a minute. “Kisses. What’s that some kind of stakes or something?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Now she turned her face toward him slightly. “You know, ah, I’m pretty good. You shouldn’t sound so confident.”
“Sweetness, you’d be shocked the things I know. Now, come on, look at the ball. Most important part of the game is keepin’ your eye on the ball.”
Steven Earl Johnson, you are flirting with the other me. She really liked it, too. Mostly. Part of her kind of didn’t. All of her was aroused. And she decided it was time to play.
Steve took his finger and pointed her face away from him to start looking at the task at hand, which was the field of billiard balls on the table. Then he kicked her feet apart, lined up her shot for her and slid the pool stick back and forth over and through her fingers like he’d taught her all those years ago. “There,” he said, talking about the fluid motion of the pool stick, “You feel that?”
Kayla gently rubbed her ass up against Steve’s crotch, which heretofore had been comfortable, but immediately started to feel the snugness of his very tight jeans. “Yeah, I feel that.”
Steve’s stomach did a backflip. “Say what?” He said it very softly, his confident swagger evaporating with this unexpected action.
“I said, yeah, I feel that,” and she repeated the aggressive act, enjoying the reaction she had elicited from him. “Feels impressive.”
Steve froze. “Im—pressive?”
“Yeah, the way you can thrust it back and forth like that. Ya know, your stick.” She not so subtly ground against him one more time to be sure he got the point. He felt really good.
Steve struggled not to return the gesture. He didn’t remember her being quite so bold at this stage of their relationship where they hadn’t even kissed for the second time yet in the original timeline. Had he changed his demeanor so much that she was moving this quickly? Now it was Steve’s turn to get suspicious. He hadn’t moved them from their position leaning over the table.
“Kayla,” he said very quietly.
“Yes?”
“Do you remember Stockholm?”
“Stockholm? Sweden?”
Steve’s heart positively stopped beating. He did not know what to do. This destination’s Kayla was coming on to him far more strongly than she had in the original timeline, and … he liked it. He wanted her. He wanted her very, very badly. And, yet, he was disappointed that it wasn’t her. “Nevemrind,” he said.
Kayla heard the disappointment in his voice and thought it was probably time to end the charade. But boy was he going to hear about this flirting thing she’d jumped into. “Steve? I think you should kiss me.”
“I, uh, think it’s time to take you home,” he said as he stood up and began backing away.
“Come on, trust me. Just kiss me and see what happens.”
He did exactly as she asked. She’d turned around and leaned back slightly on the pool table, and he brought her to him by the waist and kissed her. It was wet and hot, and her lips were quite insistent. Steve pulled away. “Baby, it’s not that I don’t want to, I … just …” The look on her face stopped him cold. What the hell is going on here? And then he knew. This really was his Kayla. Kayla felt his scrutiny, and she knew the jig was up. His eye suddenly turned relieved …
“It’s me,” she confirmed with a grin.
… and angry.
She dropped her grin. “Uh oh.”
“Uh oh? F*cking uh oh, Kayla?” She saw that her little ruse possibly had backfired and started to explain that he started it, but he stopped her before she could start. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to see you – it is you, right?”
“Yes, 20 questions, but—”
Steve leaned in for a quick kiss that was no less hot than the last one, then continued with a deceptively hushed voice “but don’t you ever do that again. Ever. Do you hear me? Don’t you ever do that again.” Then he threw his pool cue very angrily down on the pool table with both hands.
“Hey!” the bartender yelled unappreciatively. “You be careful before I add that stick to your tab.”
Steve angled his head over his shoulder without taking his eye off of Kayla. “Yeah, I got it,” he tossed back. Then he dug into his pocket, threw some bills on the pool table, grabbed his jacket, and left the Cheatin’ Heart.
Kayla dipped her head into her hand and said a single word to herself. “Sh*t.”
She ignored the people looking at them, calmly gathered the grey overcoat and purse she hadn’t seen in quite some time, and followed him. She didn’t have to go far, he was leaning against the freezing cold brick wall waiting for her.
“Not so funny, then?” she tried.
He shook his head seriously. “No. Not funny,” he said.
“Well, you were flirting with me,” she accused.
“You were turning me on,” he accused back.
“After you were flirting with me!”
“We were on a date, what was I supposed to do, break out the needlepoint?”
“We were?” Then she smiled. “When?”
“Don’t change the subject, Kayla.”
“Steve, come on. I was just having a little fun. I got there while you were turned around, and from the way you were acting I thought I’d jumped first and that you were the other you.”
“So you got me hard when you knew I wasn’t even me yet?!”
“Shh!” Kayla said looking around self-consciously, “No! I didn’t come on to you like that until I realized you were you and flirting with me when you didn’t know it was me yet!
“Shut up and kiss me, dammit!”
Kayla threw herself into him and took his lips hungrily. Minutes ago she was sick and pregnant; now she was so horny she didn’t know what hit her. She greedily sucked his tongue into her mouth and moaned as she felt the wetness gather at her center. Steve grabbed her by the upper arms and turned them quickly 180-degrees so that she was the one leaning against the wall. He leaned into her and made sure she could feel him as he very purposely ground himself against her. “Is that what you were going for when you shoved that hot ass into my cock, baby?” Kayla stole a very quick glance to her right. “Ain’t no one here but you and me,” he said. “Nervous?”
She ignored his lusty remark and made one of her own. “There’s only one thing I feel right now, Steve. Wet.”
Steve ground himself against her some more as the look on his face turned even more lascivious. He dared to fondle her breast right there in the dark but public space of the riverfront as they made out shamelessly, hotly, exuding sex from every pore.
He dragged his tongue down the side of her neck and grew impossibly harder as she moaned at the sensation. He sucked at the tender skin of her neck and said, “If you lie about the Stockholm question ever again, Sweetness, I’m going to have to punish you.”
“The look on your face was punishment enough,” she breathed, “I got the message.”
“Oh I think you only got half the message.” Then he nipped at the spot on her neck he’d been sucking on. She yelped with clear pleasure in her voice. Even through the fabric of her sweater and trench coat over that, Steve could feel how rock hard her nipple was. Whether it was just the arousal or if the cold helped he couldn’t say, but he wanted that nipple in his mouth as soon as possible. So did she.
“Are you going to f*ck me in public, or are you taking me home first?”
She really knew how to drive him insane. “Home,” Steve growled and took off walking with her hand in his.
“Wait, when are we? Where – which home?”
“Loft. It’s the day of the explosion, Marlena—”
Kayla stopped abruptly. “Did it already happen?”
“It didn’t happen at all, I called in an anonymous tip to Roman—John.” He made a mental note to stop trying to keep it straight.
It wasn’t a long walk from the Cheatin’ Heart to the loft, but it seemed to take forever. Steve’s erection was throbbing in his jeans, and Kayla kept grabbing his ass, making it worse. They were so horny they couldn’t see straight, and Kayla had Steve’s jeans unbuttoned and her hands stroking his penis before the elevator door had completely closed behind them. When it opened, Steve backed her up against the loft door with a thud.
“I wanna feel that wet pussy you were tellin’ me about,” he said as she reached under the edge of her sweater and down into her pants. Kayla helped him by unfastening them to give him more room. As soon as she did, Steve inserted his middle finger as deeply as it would go in this position. Kayla inhaled sharply. “Oh, yeah, you’re wet, baby. I think I have to get a closer look.”
Kayla fumbled for the keys in her unfamiliar purse as he fingered her, finally found them as he tried to angle his hand inside her waistband so that he’d come in contact with her clitoris, and gave him a satisfying moan of frustration when she had to turn around and disengage from him to unlock the door.
Once inside, Steve slid the door shut with far more force than necessary, divested himself of his jacket very quickly, and started tearing at her clothes. She unfastened her belt, he lifted her sweater above her head and unhooked her bra in a very swift move. Then he lifted her up onto the kitchen counter so that her legs were dangling over the edge and sucked the breast he was fondling into his mouth. Her nipple was hard and she loved the feel of his tongue rubbing like velvet against it. The more he licked at it, the more it ached to be licked. She arched her back and cried out with the sensations.
Steve growled his sexual need as he switched breasts, holding her firmly with one hand while his other one released his cock from its strangled confinement. Pushing her down to lay back on the counter, Steve pulled off Kayla’s pants, hardening further when she lifted up so he could get them down over her hips. She lifted her legs so he could remove them entirely, then knowingly let him spread her legs, one in each arm, as he lowered his mouth to her hot center and began licking. He dragged his tongue roughly straight up her clitoris, and felt himself release more than a little cum as she cried his name loudly. He did it again, and she panted her cries. He moaned against her as he thrust his tongue into her fast and hard, making her whimper for more contact with her clit. She gripped the countertop behind her head and writhed beneath him wanting desperately to come, but he was lost in the feeling of his tongue inside her silky walls. He was torturing himself by not letting his cock enjoy what his tongue was, but he was drunk on the desperate sexual need he was fomenting in her by withholding contact with her swollen bud.
“You want me, baby?”
“I want to come!” she growled.
“Oh, so do I.” He sucked at her soft lips, taking everything she gave him. “I wanna feel you come hard on me so I can come, too!”
Kayla reached down and grabbed him by his hair and felt his head bob up and down. “Please! Please suck me, please!”
“Oh, I am, baby, I’m suckin’ hard.”
“My clit! Lick my clit, dammit!”
Finally he gave her a final suck and stood up. She cried out in frustration. “Steve!” She was not happy.
Kayla swung her legs down off the counter, hopped down so that her breasts bounced, and rounded on Steve. “You’re overdressed,” she said hotly.
Steve lifted his shirt above his head, and Kayla tugged his jeans all the way down. Now they were both naked. Kayla pushed him down into the chair, mounted him with straddled legs, and took him inside her hard and fast. He moaned out her name and threw his head back with the feel of her greedy pussy sucking his cock inside of her. “F*ck me, baby, come on, f*ck me.” Kayla moved in fast strokes as she clenched around his hard, thick penis. He felt so good.
Steve was not going to last long. “Makin’ me come—ah … ahhh … yeah … come on, baby.” Steve bit at Kayla’s neck as he reached between them and rubbed hard at her clit. She erupted into intense orgasmic convulsions, and he smiled lustily. Instead of easing back, however, he rubbed her clitoris harder. Now she screamed.
“My name! Scream my name!”
“Steeeeve!” He didn’t let up on her clitoris, feeling how intensely she was coming around him. She tried to form his name again, but all she could do was scream.
The feeling in his balls was positively divine as she screamed and clenched, and his orgasm ripped through him with such ferocity that all he could do was grunt with carnality as she pumped the white hot streams out of him like jets. Over and over, more than he expected pulsed out of him as he pushed himself up into her, never releasing the swollen button that had her in unimaginable ecstasy.
“Jesus … Kayla,” Steve panted. “Baby …”
Kayla was floating on a high of pleasure so intense that she’d about left her body. She whimpered and collapsed like a rag doll, her arms and head hanging limply against him. She was only upright because he held her there.
“Love you, baby. Love you so much.” He whispered into her ear as she lay her head on his shoulder. “So beautiful.”
Steve picked her up in his arms and stood on shaky legs. He was so spent that he was feeling weak, himself. He laid their naked bodies on the couch and pulled the blanket folded at the end of it over them. They dozed lightly for a few hours enjoying the feel of each other’s bodies and sharing gentle, sleepy kisses as they caressed each other with loving touches. They were hours that hadn’t been dozed through the first time around because no call came from Tom Horton to interrupt them. He didn’t call this time, because there was no bad news to call them with; Marlena had not appeared to have died, the explosion didn’t happen, Orpheus didn’t get to her, and no interruptions to their lovemaking followed as a result. Because Steve had called in the anonymous tip and saved her, not only did Steve and Kayla make love in this time where they hadn’t originally, but Marlena continued to live on in Salem.
Time noted this massive change to its original trajectory, and the alarm noting that a jump would be imminent sounded in Rolf’s lab. Only their graphical lines and the matching numbers the computer spit out at him were like nothing he’d ever seen before. Among other things, at the very least It meant that all the plans he’d made to intercept them on this jump had to be scrapped, and he’d have to start all over again. Only that wasn’t all. He threw his clipboard across the room preparing for the train wreck. What else could he do?
When their appetites began to rouse them from their post-coital, semi-hypnotic state, they each took a turn in the bathroom, then Kayla got them both tall glasses of cold water. They sat facing each other with their backs up against each arm of the couch, their legs entangled with one another beneath the blanket. Neither one of them had mentioned what had happened at the bar, but it was solidly on both of their minds.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer the Stockhom question,” Kayla said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Steve didn’t say that’s ok or appease in any way. While he’d forgiven her, he didn’t want that to ever happen again. “I waited for eleven days for you. I thought you were lost in time, Sweetness. No matter what else happens, that’s all we have to be sure we know which of us we’ve got.”
Kayla nodded, “No, you’re right.” She looked a little sad. After the amazing sex they’d just had, he really didn’t want her to feel badly.
“Hey, look at me,” he said as he toed lovingly at her. “I know you were just playin’, Sweetness, I’m not mad.”
“You were,” she chuckled.
“I got over it,” he leered slightly. “I’m just sayin’ we should make that the last joke. There, you got the last one in, how’s that? From now on, though, if that question gets asked, it has to get answered.”
“Deal,” she said. “And what about the flirting?”
Steve leveled a “really?” look at her. “We. Were on. A date.” She raised her eyebrow. “And I knew you were in love with me, anyway, so it’s not like I was takin’ advantage of ya, now.”
Now Kayla smiled over her water glass. “I liked it,” she cooed.
Steve grinned. “Truth comes out.” He rubbed her foot through the blanket. She shrugged in mock defeat.
“Did you?” she asked.
He leveled a steady gaze on her. “Yeah,” said evenly.
“Thought so,” she sing-songed.
“Liked what happened after that a whole lot more.” Kayla giggled. “You were … smokin’ hot, Kayla. God.”
“I love that you just said that.”
“I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“You do not, don’t even try.”
“I do, Steve, I’m telling you I do,” she said with happy conviction.
“Yeah, well, I know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”
“Good, then we can agree on that.”
They silently finished their water, and Kayla got introspective for a moment. “I’m gonna miss it there,” she said quietly. There were no tears, there was no angst. Just a resignation that there was no going back. Steve nodded and reached across for her hand. No words were needed. He felt the same way, and she knew it.
After a moment of shared finality on that most beautiful jump, Steve said, “How ‘bout we think about some dinner?”
“Yes, I’m starving!” Then her hand jerked from his and her water glass spilled on the blanket between them.
“Kayla?”
“I don’t believe this.”
Steve’s eye widened in shock. “No way, again?!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Goddammit!”
Kayla kneed the glass off the couch and let it clunk to the ground, then she crawled into Steve’s waiting arms. “Hold me while I go?” she said softly.
“As long as you keep holdin’ on until I do.”
Kayla laughed lightly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Steve heard the smile on her face. “Come here, Sweetness.” Then he tipped up her chin and captured her lips in his for a warm, loving kiss. “See you when I get there, baby.”
“I’ll be waiting. I love you.” She wasn’t sure if she actually said those final words or not as the jump took her. As it turns out she did. Steve heard them, and for the first time, he clearly heard the jump intervene as she got out the last word, her voice thinning to an eerie hollow. Kayla’s stiffened body kept holding him, and he cleared his mind as best he could before the jump took him, as well.
When Kayla landed, she was staring at a Steve that looked very much like the Steve she’d just left. She bobbled only slightly because she happened to be holding on to the open loft door. Like all jumps where she’d arrived in the same room she’d just left, it always made for more disorientation than usual. Her vision righted itself as quickly as she could will it to, and the first thing she noticed was the grey suit and actual tie her husband was wearing, not a bolo, as he stood in the doorway. Then she realized he had an enormous bouquet of yellow roses in his hands.
“Wow,” Steve said. Kayla didn’t say anything, just grinned as she normalized. He started to enter the room, and Kayla stepped aside to let him. “These are for you.”
“Yellow roses,” she said. “They’re b1eautiful.” Her mind was in overdrive. This entire thing was extremely familiar to her, and her heart jumped into her throat. Her head was still trying to suss out why, but her heart was quite sure that this was an important moment. Then Steve put his arm around her and walked her into the room.
“Look what you’re wearin’, baby,” he said dreamily.
“What?” She put a hand up to her hair instinctively and heard the rustling of the peach fabric of her dress and knew it was a big dress; she could feel it all around her.
“The necklace, you remembered.”
She brought her fingers up to the treasured jewelry as a chill ran through her. That grey suit. She looked down and took a good look at the dress, then lowered her hand to feel the bodice. Then her head snapped up to meet Steve’s eye, mild shock splayed across her features that Steve mistook for apprehension or doubt.
“Naw, I love that you’ve got it on, you look so beautiful wearin’ it.”
Kayla knew exactly what this day was, and her heart skipped a beat or three. This was the day that Steve had come over to propose to her … then didn’t.