When Kayla opened her eyes, Steve was laying propped on his side watching her. She wasn’t sure how late into the morning they’d slept, but she could see through her morning haze that her husband had been awake for a while. His eye was clear, he looked far more alert than she felt, and when he captured her gaze he gave her a warm smile.
“Hey, baby,” he said softly.
“Hey,” she replied in a gravelly voice.
“That you in there?”
Kayla focused her gaze quizzically. He hadn’t asked her that in quite some time. “Yeah, it’s still me.”
“Two kids, boy and a girl, plus Benjamonkey and a Pocket Man?”
“Steve, yes,” she chuckled nervously, “I remember Stockholm.”
“Ok, He relented, rubbing his hand over her ribs down to her waist and enjoying the relief of her warm body and intact consciousness. “How’d you sleep?”
She let out a yawn and curled her toes into a stretch, then reached for his hand and held it to her chest. Something wasn’t quite right with him. “Pretty good. How ‘bout you?”
Steve shrugged a bit and said a non-committal, “ok.” Kayla leaned up on her right elbow to match his opposite position with a questioning look on her face. “Not so great,” he admitted, casting his eyes downward. He didn’t say anything after that for several moments. Kayla laced her fingers lazily into his, waiting for him to elaborate. “Are we ok?” he finally asked softly.
Kayla paused her playing fingers. “You don’t feel like we’re ok?” she asked, her voice still sleepy.
“No, I do, baby, I’m just … scared.” He said that word softly, never liking to admit how vulnerable this emotion made him feel. “Of how badly I hurt you. That everything got so messed up – that I messed it up – that I mess everything up. And that we can’t be really sure it’s really over.”
“You don’t mess everything up. And what do you mean, ‘over?’ After we made love last night, I felt pretty sure we were ok. Didn’t you? I thought you cast it all out.” Her wobbly voice made Steve want to shoot himself. Instead he tried to look at her with a reassuring eye.
“Sweetness, I cast out the anger. The fear is still there, though.”
“What are you afraid of?”
Steve made a frustrated noise and sat up straighter. “The jumps. That I’m going to hurt you like that again. That you’ll jump there and I won’t be there to make it better. To change it. Or that I’ll go first, and I’ll have to see what I did to you again. That actually might be worse.” His words were spoken in references and summations rather than actual descriptions; he couldn’t bear to say the words infidelity … cheating … Ava. Just as they were too painful for Kayla last night, they were just as painful for him, now, too.
Now Kayla understood. She leaned into her husband and nuzzled at his neck. Steve brought them back to the pillows and felt her warmth as she snuggled against him. “Steve? That part of our history happened. We can’t unwrite it. I wish we could, but even if we did, we’d jump and it would go back. We have to accept the mistakes we make. We’re still together, aren’t we? After the bad choices we’ve made? I still love you, and you still love me, and we’re on our honeymoon, and we’re committed to each other.”
“I don’t know why you keep coming back to me. I’ve never deserved you.”
“So, you think we should break up, then?”
Steve sat them up so fast that she didn’t even feel the movement from reclining to sitting. “No!” He held her out at arm’s length by her shoulders. “God, Kayla, no!”
“Then stop,” she said tenderly as she ran her index finger down her husband’s patch. “You’ve always deserved me. You’re the best man who ever lived. I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again.”
“Last night—”
“Was horrible. One of the worst fights we’ve ever had. But, I really did feel better after the shells. That was genius, Steve, where did you come up with that?”
“I don’t know, baby, I think it came from just being desperate for us to be ok.”
“And we are ok. Steve, I promise we are. I’m never going to be fine with what you chose to do with her, and sometimes I might still feel a sting. I’m only human. But … I see why you did it, even if I don’t agree. And I believe what you’ve said. I can see now that you’ve been carrying around the guilt as long as I was carrying around the anger. So, we just have to accept them and find a peace with it all. I was so upset last night, but I’ve found that peace now, I really have.”
“So have I. About Shane.”
Kayla was very still. “I know,” she said softly.
Steve kissed her fingers. “It’s the jumping that kept me up all night, Sweetness.”
“All night? Really, you didn’t sleep?”
“A few hours.”
“Oh, baby.”
“I just started to panic that maybe we’d end up jumping back into that compound, and you know one of us will be the other us, and we’d have to go through it all over again.”
“You mean like when we were in Italy with Marina? Or when I jumped into Shane’s bed?” Steve didn’t respond. “It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve been through it. My guess is it won’t be the last.”
Steve nodded. “There were other women I might jump to.”
“And there was Chris, you know.”
“Oh yeah, that guy,” he smirked.
“Hey,” Kayla smacked at him reproachfully, “that guy got you out of more than one jam if I recall correctly.”
“A’right, a’right, now quit that,” he tried to dodge her half-hearted swipes.
“Ya know what else? I let someone kiss me at a New Year’s Eve faculty party in LA once, too.”
“Now she tells me.”
“Maybe I’ll jump into the middle of that.”
“Wait, what kind of kiss?”
“Pretty big kiss. Copped a feel, too.”
“Baby, that’s not bringing me this big peace you were talking about. Where did he cop this feel?”
Kayla chuckled. “Relax.”
“Relax?” he mocked indignation She tells me to relax,” he repeated while he looked right at her. Steve covered Kayla’s body with his own and kissed her possessively. She loved it. “Rich doctor tried to put the moves on the beautiful, young intern, did he?”
Kayla encircled his neck with her arms and threaded her fingers into his hair. “As a matter of fact, yes,” she said. “Not so young, though, Stephanie was 11. I didn’t usually go out on New Year’s Eve, but Cedars had this benefit for the cancer wing with this millennium theme, it was a big to-do, and I happened to be on my oncology rotation. So it was required.”
“Who was he, the head of the department?” he huffed out a little chuckle.
“Mm-hmm.”
Steve was a little stunned. “He was?” Kayla nodded. Steve was still on top of her, looking down into her dewy eyes. “Sweetness, you had the head of the oncology department at the largest hospital in Los Angeles trying to have his way with you?”
“He’d been trying for three months.”
Steve leaned up and looked at her. “You guys date?”
Kayla shrugged a little. “Kind of.”
Steve was surprised. “You dated. A rich oncology doctor. When was this?”
“Beginning of 2001, but it wasn’t really what I’d call actual dating. I mean … I didn’t want to date. I didn’t even want to be at that party, but I had no real choice, plus Stephanie begged me, she said she wanted a sleepover with Jeanie. She really just wanted me to go have a good time with someone else for a change, I could tell. And I thought, God, Kayla, you’re kind of pathetic if your own daughter is begging you to go out with a man.” This made Steve more than a little sad. “So, I went ahead and went to the party. And, ya know, I did have a good time, I admit. It was nice to be out in a fancy dress with people and be really social. I really did love my co-workers. So, I’d had too much to drink by the time the clock struck twelve, and when it did, he layed one on me. It was a nice kiss …” Steve tried very hard not to let his eyes betray the jealousy that was just a natural part of who he was and would never change, “… and that’s when his hand got nice and friendly with this breast right here,” she said looking down at her right breast.”
“That’s mine,” he said very calmly, honestly very eager to hear the rest of this.
“Yeah, well at the time it was mine, and that was too much. So, I told him to cool it, he took me home, and that was it for that. The next day he sent me a dozen red roses and asked for a chance while sober, and I decided to see what it would be like to maybe try. So, yeah, we kind of dated. And, yes, there was kissing. But it didn’t take that long for me to realize that I just really, truly wasn’t interested. Even if he was a very good kisser and a very nice man, he was no Steve Johnson.”
Steve smiled lightly and stroked his fingers through Kayla’s hair. “You shouldn’t have stayed lonely, Sweetness.” Steve had gotten very serious now. “I can’t help how jealous it makes me to think of you with anyone that isn’t me. I’ll always feel that way. But you asked me once if I would have wanted you to move on and be happy, and I would have. Do, I mean. I do want you to be happy if—”
“Stop.”
“It’s selfish, I know. Feeling so much jealousy for something when, as far as you knew, I was gone forever is selfish. But hearing you tell me about your 16 years … every new thing I learn breaks my heart. To know you were lonely. There were men who would have made you happy.”
“Man,” Kayla said with such meaning. “Just one man,” she emphasized holding up her index finger then laying it on his heart. “This one. You. You were not listening as you had your way with me on the beach last night when I told you that very thing over and over.”
“Yeah, well it’s hard to concentrate on anything when I’m having my way with you.”
Kayla kissed him sweetly, and Steve held her to him with an almost unbearable kind of feeling. She pulled back when her fingers felt the slightly raised flesh of the mark she’d left on his chest. She ran her fingers over it and didn’t like what her own deeply covetous jealousy had driven her to. “I think I made pretty clear just how much you are my one and only man.”
Steve didn’t like how she clearly felt about the hickey. “Shh. Don’t feel guilty about that, Sweetness. You’re full of passion. I love how full of passion you are. That you love me so much.”
“I do, Steve. You’re the only man for me.” I was lonely for you. No one was going to be able to change that. Don’t confuse loneliness with unhappiness. I was unhappy for a long time after we thought you died, but I’ve got news for you; that little girl we made back in 1989 was so very worth living for, Steve. And being her mom thrilled me. I loved being a doctor, healing people. I found plenty of fulfillment through those things, and they did make me happy. Being lonely was a choice that was made for me when they took you away. Happiness I chose for myself, and I didn’t need a man to have it.
“But … you liked him? Right? What was his name?”
“Sam.”
“And he liked you?”
“Yes, he did. But I didn’t want another relationship. I was never going to love him the way I loved you. I realized that I had love, and it was a gift, Steve. I had it with you. I didn’t want it to go away, and I could visit it every time I looked at our beautiful daughter with your eyes and your personality. And I didn’t want it with anyone else. I was bonded to you, and no amount of trying to date or empty sex was going to change that. I tried to find that kind of love with Shane, but I couldn’t. I tried the alternative, just seeing where it went with Sam, but I didn’t want it. I wasn’t going to find that kind of love with another man, and I didn’t want to. I might have found love on some level, but not the level I wanted. It was a choice. I made the choice to be alone. And I would do it again.”
“You went 16 years without any sex at all?”
Kayla gave Steve an almost bashful yet knowing smile as she held up her hand and wiggled her fingers at him. He laughed out loud, but Kayla turned Steve’s face back toward her. “Sex is a human drive that is unhealthy to quash. I didn’t touch myself on a daily basis, but when I did, you were always there. I fantasized about you, and there were times it felt very real. It never was. Sex was easy. Opening my eyes and acknowledging that you weren’t there when it was over was hard.”
Steve bent his face to kiss her again, and her lips tasted like love felt. Warm, sweet, and full of promise. He kissed her neck, and Kayla whispered. “Besides it was only 14 years,” as if that made it a much more tolerable number. “After Shane broke up with me.”
Now Steve looked at her in shock. “He broke up with you?”
Kayla nodded. “I thought you knew that. I only moved to LA because he broke it off with me.” This would have made Steve feel uneasy and insecure if she’d said it before last night. Now he was actually indignant. What the hell was Shane thinking? Was he nuts? “It was for all the wrong reasons, but it was the best thing he could have done for me. It made me finally, truly move on. Once I was forced to take care of myself and our daughter on my own, I was able to see what I’d been doing, and I could start to heal a little bit.
Steve sat up in bed and brought Kayla up to face him. “I can’t believe he’s the one who broke it off. I think I’m offended.”
“Oh come on,” she rolled her eyes uncomfortably.
“No, for real, baby, he must have been out of his mind.”
“You wish we’d stayed together, then?”
Steve took a brief pause while continuing to hold her look. “No,” he assured her. “I’m just saying he’s an idiot.”
“Steve,” she let out in a frustrated huff.
“Tell me about him.”
Now she was the one who was stunned. “Tell you about—about Shane?”
“Yes.”
“What, ah … what do you want to know?”
“Was he good to you?”
Kayla softened the tension she’d immediately felt take hold of her and nodded. “Yes. Yes he was. He treated me very well. And Stephanie, too. He loved her.”
Jealous heat rose in Steve’s face, but he noticed that he didn’t feel the same blinding white ire that he had before their exercise with the shells. He also realized he felt relief. That his wife was respected.
“Steve, ah … can I ask you a question?”
“Anything, baby.”
“Was Ava like that when you met her, or did her father get her on the pills after you’d gone?”
Steve palmed the back of his neck nervously. “I didn’t realize you were gonna ask me about her.”
“You said I could ask you anything. You asked me about Shane. I—I’m curious.”
He sighed. “No, she was different when I met her. More like she is now.” Kayla nodded, and Steve took her hand in his. “How long were you with him?”
“This is sounding an awful lot like 20 questions,” Kayla said with narrowed eyes.
“Why, you have more questions?”
“Do you?”
“Maybe.”
“You really want to know these things?”
“Honestly, no. Not all of them. But I hate how I felt last night. I can’t do that again. I don’t want anything building up in me ever again.” Steve palmed Kayla’s breast and fondled it, letting his thumb rub over her nipple. “Making love with you and feeling so angry, all that resentment – it was the most horrible, cold feeling. I never want that again. I know he saved my life when you found me in Italy, I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life. But that doesn’t stop me from being mad.”
“But, Steve, that first time on the beach, you were mad about a lot more than just Shane. In fact, you hadn’t even mentioned him yet.”
“Doesn’t matter, it was always there. I know that, now. Whatever I was doing before ain’t workin’ for me, Sweetness, so maybe we should talk about it. Him. Them. Unless you’re going to tell me how much better in bed he is than I am.
“Well, that’s just ridiculous.” That made Steve puff out his chest for a moment. Men and their pride, Kayla mused. “Ok, we’ve got all the time in the world, don’t we?”
“Don’t say that or we’ll jump.”
Kayla ignored the comment. “If we’re going to do this, then I want to be close to you when we do. I want your body next to mine, and I want to feel you there the whole time.
Steve sunk down into the covers and brought Kayla to lay snugly against him. Her head rested on his chest, and they held each other as Steve asked his next question.
“How long were you together? It was summer when I saw you on the pier, seven months after I died.”
“I think our first kiss was in … February.” Kayla knew that seemed soon to him, though he didn’t say anything. “I guess that was the beginning. He broke up with me the following May right before I left Salem. It’s why I left Salem, really. That and because I couldn’t stand to be there without you. So a little more than a year.” Kayla rubbed her fingers through the hairs on Steve’s chest the whole time she was talking. She needed to be connected with him while she did. Steve took a deep breath, then she added quietly, “I waited a year from when I lost you to have sex with him.”
Steve stroked Kayla’s hair. “You’re turn.”
“Does that answer your question?” She was nervous.
“Yes. Your turn.”
“Are we still ok?”
“Yes, I asked, you answered, and now I know, Sweetness. Now you go before I lose my nerve.”
Kayla took a deep breath. “Did you love her?” Kayla was afraid of this answer, but Steve replied without a shred of hesitation.
“No. Nick loved having sex with her. He loved having a warm woman to share his bed with. But the kind of love that I have with you is not something Nick ever knew with Ava.”
Kayla continued tracing her fingers around Steve’s chest, but her heart lifted with this. “Really?”
“Sweetness, when I was with her, it was about companionship, sex, and where being with her would get me in the organization. It had nothing to do with sharing a soul. I didn’t even know that kind of love existed before I remembered you.” Kayla nodded and burrowed into her husband, which made him feel unbelievable joy. “My turn?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Did you love Shane?”
Kayla did not answer him for long moment. “Isn’t there a rule about being required to find unique questions?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Now she did hear something in his voice she didn’t want to hear.
Kayla rolled to her stomach and faced Steve as he stayed on his back with his arm under his head. “Shane asked me that on my jump to 1992. He asked me if we were ever real, he and I. If I’d ever loved him. You know what I told him?” Steve shook his head. “I told him that I would always love him as a brother-in-law, and that I thought for a while that I loved him as something more. But I didn’t. Not really. Not like he loved me.” Steve reached out and caressed her cheek, and she felt the relief in his touch. “I did think at the time that I loved Shane, but it wasn’t the love you’re asking me about. I realized that later. So, no, I didn’t.” Kayla then asked her next question. “Were any of those nine women hookers?”
“No!” Steve sat up fast. “No, baby, they weren’t. I promise you they weren’t.”
Kayla didn’t understand this reaction. “Steve, I … I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not,” he said more calmly. “There’s nothing you can’t ask me, sorry. Just … wasn’t expecting that one.”
“You know I know you slept with at least one or two prostitutes before you met me, right?”
Steve was nonplussed. “No. I didn’t know that.”
Kayla cocked her head. “Steve, come on, now. Did you think I didn’t know?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“You taunted me with it when we were dating – well, while I was trying to get you to let yourself date me,” she snickered. “And Bo might have also mentioned it to me when he was trying to get me to leave you alone. You corrupted him in the merchant marines.”
“I was a different man then, Kayla. None of the women after I was taken were hookers. My turn?”
“Only if we’re cuddling,” she held up her hand.
Steve grinned. “How ‘bout while I’ve got my fingers inside of you?”
“Cuddling!” she insisted.
“Ok,” he relented, like it was some kind of hardship, “get your ass over here.” He pulled her against him into their favorite spooning position, and he kissed her temple. “Better?”
“Much. So, ok, go.”
“Were you ever attracted to Shane before … before I died?”
Kayla squeezed Steve’s hand. “No. Not even the tiniest bit. I thought he was handsome and perfect for my sister, and that’s it. Don’t you know that when you’re in the room, no one else exists?”
Steve held Kayla tightly. He didn’t know why he asked this. It was irrational. But it came out of him before he knew what he was saying. Now that it was out, he realized he’d been asking himself this and burying it before it could manifest in his own conscious mind for some time now. “I know how you feel about Hugh Jackman,” he tried to joke, but Kayla was having none of it.
“Steven Earl Johnson, no one turned my head before you died. No one.”
“Thank you, baby. I love you.”
“I know you love me,” Kayla replied. “But … at the compound … did you want Ava? I mean, sexually, did she turn you on?” Steve was positively still. He didn’t breathe. Several moments of silence passed, and Kayla’s pulse started to race. “Oh God,” she uttered miserably. “Why did I ask such a stupid question?” Steve heard the tears in her eyes and wanted to crawl inside her and infuse everything good and light into her so she wouldn’t feel the hurt. Steve continued to hold her and did not let go.
“I had an erection. But, I did not want her, Kayla. I was not turned on. Not like you think. There’s a sexual response that can’t be helped sometimes, and because I knew I had to perform, or thought I did, I didn’t do anything to stop it. I let myself get—hard—and … and I was ready to have sex with her if I had to. It was like watching porn or getting a lapdance from a stripper. You don’t have any intention of doing Jenna Jamieson, and you’re not going to bang the stripper, but the sexual thoughts or even just the friction gives you an erection, sometimes whether you want it or not.” Kayla tried very hard not to cry, but she did emit the sounds of swallowing down pain. “Sweetness … baby, I was not lying last night when I told you I didn’t want her. I didn’t. I was not turned on like you mean. But I did have an erection. I told her I was going to have sex with her, there was no way I could hide that I didn’t have one if I was going to do that.” He held her tight and kissed the back of her neck. “Please don’t cry, Sweetness.”
“I’m not crying,” she said shakily. “That was just very hard to hear.”
“Do you understand the difference?”
“What gave you the erection?”
“You sure you really wanna go farther into this? I can feel how upset you are already.”
Kayla closed her eyes and turned to face him, burying her head in his chest. “Hold me. Please just hold me and tell me. I need to get it out of me, these things in my head, so let’s get them out, please!”
Steve held her naked body to his and kissed the top of her head. “Kissing her, feeling her leg against my penis.” Kayla couldn’t help it when she let herself cry, and Steve wanted to die. “I admit it, I closed my eyes and pretended her leg was yours. That it was you I was about to go to bed with. Her kisses weren’t anything like yours, so it was hard to make myself believe it, but I tried. My hands never touched her breasts, I never put my mouth on anything but hers, and you came in before she could put her hands on my penis or get it … inside her. I swear to God, Kayla. I swear on our children. Please believe me.” His resolve to stay very calm and unemotional through this answer was cracking. Please, I’m begging you.”
The pain leached out of Kayla with the tears that poured from her beautiful blue eyes. She didn’t say anything, but Steve could tell from the way she folded herself into him that she was trying very hard to process this and release it. “I’d give anything for another shell,” she sniffled a cry.
“You have it. It’s in your hand. Feel it there, Sweetness. Close your eyes and feel it in your mind. Do you feel it?” She nodded against his chest. “Now walk to the edge of the water. Feel it rush up against your ankles. I know you do. Now you throw that shell. You put all your hurt into that shell and you throw it. Now, Kayla, you throw it right now!”
The Kayla in her head did what Steve said. She hurled the shell, and it sailed on the wind. It sailed farther than any of her others. Her arm was powerful, and it sent the cast off emotions now entrapped in the brown and white shell into the deep blue sea of the Pacific ocean where they would never hurt her again.
Steve took his wife’s face in his hands and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. Then he kissed her with soft, gentle lips. “Ok?”
“Well, not really, but yeah,” she nodded.
“Not really?” Steve said anxiously.
“Yeah, ok.” She took a shuddering breath, “As ok as I can be with it thirty seconds after hearing it.” Steve nodded, and they held each other like that for several minutes sharing healing kisses within their tender embrace. Eventually, Kayla turned to snuggle back into their spooning position. Steve held her close, then went on and asked his next question.
“Is there anything you do with me that you never did with him?”
“We never went to Hawaii.”
“I think you know what I mean.”
She took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to like this answer. “N-No.” Steve didn’t react. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to feel with either way it could have gone, but he did feel a sense of disappointment. “We didn’t do anything that you and I haven’t done, either, though.” Then she began thinking romantically. “Wait—ok, sexually, no. But,” she smiled, “we never took a bath together.” Steve smiled, too. “And he wasn’t a great kisser.” Now Steve really smiled. “But that’s not really fair to say, because no one kisses like you.” Kayla turned her head, and Steve obliged her by giving her a romantic, loving kiss that he wanted to turn into something more but refrained.
“What’s your favorite position?”
“Baby, after all these years, you don’t know?”
“I’ve been making love to you for years, so, I do think I know. But I’ve never heard you actually tell me.”
“Ok, then you guess, and I’ll tell you if you’re right.”
“That’s not how 20 Questions works.”
“New rule. So, go on, guess.”
“You play dirty.”
“You gonna guess?”
“From behind. You love it from behind. You get frantic. From behind and talking dirty? That’s even better, that’s your very favorite. So, how’d I do?”
Steve kissed the back of Kayla’s neck, again, and rubbed himself against her. The truth was it depended on his mood. “Pretty damn good,” he said sexily. But you have to let me have two answers. When I’m feeling really horny and I just want to f*ck your brains out, then, yeah, I like it from behind, and I it makes me crazy. Making love to you like that makes me insane, Kayla. It’s so erotic and just so goddammed hot. And I get so far inside you, it’s like nothing else. Especially if you come that way, and then it’s like your pussy is just sucking my dick so far inside you. I always come hard when I take you from behind.” Kayla felt Steve harden with every word, and she was now wet, as well. She licked her lips and wondered what she was thinking asking that one.
“You said you needed two answers,” she reminded him breathily. “What’s the other answer?”
“If I’m feeling more tender and romantic,” he rubbed his palm over Kayla’s belly and up to fondle her breasts, “then there is nothing like the feel of slipping inside of you when we’re side by side in bed. I just bend your leg, and I push myself inside of you. It’s like the best of both worlds of me on top and you on top, because you’re holding on tight like you’re riding me, but I’m also surrounding you and thrusting with the leverage of the bed below me. And I’m lookin’ in your eyes, and it makes me feel … incredible.” Kayla could’t help pushing her ass into Steve’s grinding crotch. They were both turned on now. “Do I get to guess yours now?”
“Sure, I want to hear what you think.”
“You like 69. You love 69.”
“Yeessss, but that’s not intercourse, so wrong.”
“You didn’t specify, so I win.”
“Not so fast, mister, you did not guess my favorite position for your penis to enter my vagina, so you get one more chance or I’m claiming that match.”
“You drive a hard bargain. Ok, your favorite intercourse position is when your leg is up over my shoulder, your other leg is spread wide, and I’m pounding into you hard and fast. That’s you favorite. Right or wrong?”
“This was a bad question, I can’t pick one answer.”
“Ok, you get two like I did.”
“Ok, that one, yes. It’s so good, and if you’re fingering my clit while you thrust, then it’s unbelievable. The other one is from behind. I love how excited you get and how how good it feels when you’re inside me that way. It’s different, stroking different things.
Steve was horny as hell now. He wanted to take her, he didn’t care how. But this session of 20 Questions wasn’t over yet. “My turn again. What do you like better, my cock or my tongue?”
Now it was Steve who had picked the tough question. But Kayla answered it all the same. “The orgasms you give me with your mouth on my clit are unbelievable. I leave earth. But I want your penis inside me more. I love how you fill me, and you always know how to make me come; not all women can orgasm from intercourse. And feeling you between my legs and in my soul at the same time is something I would never give up. So, that would be your cock, Mr. Johnson.”
“What does an orgasm feel like for you, baby?”
That was a most interesting question. She’d never thought about it. “Wait a minute, that’s two in a row for you.”
“Humor me.”
“It’s … God, I have to think about this. Ok, it’s … it’s like there’s a spring inside my belly. It’s just normal most of the time, but when you stroke me in just the right places, the spring starts to contract like someone is pushing it down ever so slightly. If you do a combination of things, that spring can really coil tightly. And it just keeps going and going and going building more and more pressure that feels really REALLY good. The pressure just radiates out into my whole body. Your fingers and penis and your tongue – they all make the spring coil tighter and tighter, pushing it down farther and farther. I want that spring to tighten up as far as it can, and when it can’t get any tighter, I push it just a little more so that it will bounce back as hard as it can. Then finally, when that final lick or a touch or a stroke releases the spring, the rush of its release sends the most euphoric waves of pleasure through me. They just crash up through me so fast, it feels so good. The spring jerks back and forth, and so do I. Then the spring finally stops quivering and leaves me so happy with pleasure. Such beautiful ecstasy radiating through me.” Kayla, again, turned in his arms, and Steve’s mouth was hanging open in awe. Some of it was sexual arousal, but most of it was pure wonderment at the description of the most intimate thing that happens in Kayla’s body, that he makes happen. He’d never forget it as long as he lived.
“Can I ask one more question?” Kayla said.
“Better make it quick, because I need to be inside you as soon as possible.”
“I loved hearing that that was the best blow job I’d ever given you. What made it the best?”
“Steve chuckled. “Baby, you are – how do I say this? You are amazing. The things you can do to me with your mouth are mind-blowing. I dream about them. I crave them. That one, though, on the plane? Some of it was your fearlessness. Most of it was your tongue licking up and down my shaft while your lips sucked at the same time. Your hands were cupping my balls, your lips were sucking hard, and when you swallowed it was like your whole mouth was milking me for everything I had. It was incredible, Kayla.”
“So, blow jobs are better than sex?”
“Blow jobs are sex, baby. The orgasms are more mind-blowing, though, if that’s what you’re asking.
“So, you do like those better, then.”
Steve shook his head. “If you’re asking me if I’d rather you went down on me than made love to me, then no, that’s not what I’m saying. The orgasms from blow jobs are the most intense, usually, that’s true. But what I prefer? Intercourse with my wife. Connecting with you, being inside you, feeling all the pleasure we give each other because our love compels us to do it. I love when you go down on me, but if forced to choose, I want to be inside you.
“I want you inside me,” Kayla said nearly drunk on his words. They kissed deeply, and Kayla felt her husband’s hard erection in her hands. Her mind was still running, however, and she smiled with a new question.
“You feel more pleasure if I’m using my mouth, right?”
“We’re still talkin’, baby?”
“Yes. So, your highest sexual pleasure is if I go down on you?”
“Are you talking pure sexual pleasure? How it feels when the cum shoots out of me?” Oh, these words in Steve’s mouth. Kayla was so wet as she nodded her head. “Those orgasms do rank as more powerful sometimes, yeah.”
“Ok, rank the different sex, then.”
“Hey, you said one more question about ten questions ago.”
“You got two in a row, this is my last one.”
“Rank them?”
“Describe them. Like, put a definition or description on each kind of sex that helps me understand why one is better than the next.”
Steve huffed out a laugh, but this was intriguing for him, so he thought about it a second. They were facing each other now, and to give Steve a little encouragement, she licked at his nipple and stroked his naked erection that had been grinding against her slick folds for a while now. Then he smiled.
“Hand job. Really good. My cock feels like a Cadillac in your hands.” Kayla stroked a little harder, and Steve moaned. Then he moved Kayla’s hand, rolled on top of her, and impaled her with his cock, taking the breath from her. “Intercourse … being in side you … feeling your wetness slick around my dick. That’s like a Porsche going a hundred miles an hour,” he said in his velvety deep voice.
“Oh my God, yes,” Kayla whimpered. “Please more.” Steve pulled out of her, and Kayla was ready to pin him down beneath her.
“You asked, Sweetness, so now you have to be patient with my answer.”
“I don’t want to be patient!”
Steve grinned evily, leaned back from her, and palmed his cock in his hand. “Blow job,” he nodded his chin up at her encouragingly. Kayla immediately lowered her mouth onto him and sucked hard, tasting herself on him. He moaned hotly and said, “It’s a f*cking Ferrari, Kayla. Your mouth working my cock … like it’s doing right now …oh my f*cking God, yes, don’t stop, do not f*cking stop.” And Kayla didn’t stop. “It’s the fastest … hottest … damned ride you could take my dick on.” Steve was panting, because Kayla was giving him exactly what he described. “You wanna know what makes it the most powerful?”
“Yes, tell me, I want to give it to you!”
Steve grabbed Kayla’s hair roughly with both hands and pulled her head up and down over his shaft. He watched her head bob up and down and said, “You sucking me with my hands on you like this, humming around my cock and fondling my balls until I come in your hot mouth, baby.” He cried out in ecstasy as her tongue licked, applying pressure to all the right places. Steve’s climax was coming fast. He knew that’s exactly what Kayla wanted to do for him, so he let her. Kayla could hear that he was ready to come as she hummed and stroked his balls with her skillful fingers, but he had more to say as he finished the description of this highest level of sexual gratification with breathy pants. “… and you swallow as I come … you swallow it all, and my cock is the Ferrari!” he roared. Steve released with a powerful spasm, pouring his cum into his wife’s mouth, and she swallowed it as she continued gently squeezing his balls and stroking his pulsing shaft with each swallow.
Steve brought Kayla up to lay against him as he panted and whimpered with the exquisite feelings of sexual satisfaction settle in every single pore.
“You’re the only woman for me, Kayla. You’re the only one. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Steve.”
“How was that for an answer?”
Kayla told him just how good that answer was by kissing him hard. “Those orgasms are so powerful, I can see it in your face.”
“Sexual release, baby – just the sexual feeling – when you use your mouth it’s mind-blowing every time.”
Kayla kissed her husband some more, then moved her wet mouth down to his neck, then on to the hickey she’d given him. She placed feathery kisses on it, then she moved to a taut nipple where she placed moister ones before lathing it with her tongue. Then she stood up and beckoned him to come with her into the bathroom.
Minutes later, they were entwined into each other while sharing deep, passionate kisses under the warm water of the shower. They ran soapy hands all over each other’s bodies while their skin rippled beneath their fingers. Kayla stroked Steve’s newly thickened erection in her slick hands as he sucked at the tender skin of her shoulder. He moved back to her mouth, devouring her lips. Kayla swept her tongue into her husband’s mouth just as she felt his fingers sweep into her core. His middle two fingers stroked Kayla’s g-spot while his thumb rubbed her clitoris.
“Am I making you wet, baby?” Steve asked hotly.
“The second I felt your fingers touch me.”
Steve was pleased when she began grinding her hips into his hand. The water ran down their bodies, and Steve felt the intensity build in his penis that Kayla continued to stroke not quite hard enough to make him come, but with more than enough to make him want to. His young body was capable of a lot of sex, and he intended to have it. With his wife. That he loved so much he didn’t have enough ways to show her.
Kayla had started whimpering. Steve loved hearing sexual pleasure pass over her lips, and she wasn’t making nearly enough noise. So, he fell to his knees, lifted her leg to hang over the back of his shoulder, spread her labia with his thumbs, and began ardently licking her. Steve wanted to hear her moan so much louder. He wanted to feel her inner walls contract around his tongue as he devoured her, and he wanted her to feel worshipped while it happened.
They shared no words while Steve kissed Kayla’s tender lips, and when she felt the sweet build inside of her, she gave Steve what she knew he wanted, the sound of his name being screamed while he gave her ecstasy. The spring inside her released with the rush she described so cleverly, and she jerked and shook as he held her firmly by her hips against his marauding tongue. When he’d licked up the last of her cum, Steve’s erection needed relief of its own again. Wordlessly, he got up, turned her around toward the wall of the shower, and entered her quickly from behind. Kayla immediately began rubbing herself against Steve’s cock, loving the feel of him solidy against her.
“Yes, Steve, yes!” She couldn’t help the words, it felt so good. The sex, the connection, the desperate love she felt in his touch. Kayla’s hands were splayed on the wall while she arched her back so that Steve’s cock had the best access. Taking her from behind while standing up wasn’t just a position he loved, she did, too. The feel of his penis rubbing her g-spot was especially intense because she’d just had an orgasm, so the increased blood flow to her vagina had made her not only ready to build to a second climax very quickly, but once the first strokes against the magic spot had started, she craved it.
Pumping in and out of her slick core like this made him feel unbelievable. “So good, Sweetness!” Steve panted. “So good”
“I love you! Oh! Steve … Steve!”
“I love you! His breaths were desperate and fast. Come, baby, come! I can’t stop!”
Steve wrapped his arms tightly around Kayla’s body and exploded inside her. His cum was thick and hot, and it pulsed in fast and powerful lurches of his cock further into his wife’s body. When he’d poured the last of himself into her, Steve kissed her back, which made her shiver, and ran his thumbs over her peaked nipples. He pulled out of her slowly, turned her toward him, and then kissed her deeply. They moaned into their kiss, and Steve was disappointed that he couldn’t give his wife a second orgasm.
“Sorry, Sweetness … mmm, baby, I wanted you to have another.”
She pressed her body against his as she continued kissing him. “Don’t be sorry, that was so good. You make me feel so good, Steve.”
They continued kissing and washing each other for the next few minutes. Between the feel of Kayla’s fingers on Steve’s soapy head, the warmth of the water cascading over him, and the fact that he’d just come twice, the sleepless night started creeping up on him. He layed his forehead on Kayla’s shoulder drowsily, and he thought if she let him he could fall asleep right there on her shoulder. Kayla turned off the water, they got out, and she tucked him back into bed. Rather than get in there with him, she insisted he get real sleep, so he didn’t argue.
Kayla got herself ready for the day and headed downstairs to scout out the rest of the resort that they hadn’t seen yet. She wore white shorts that were really quite short, and a pink, cropped t-shirt that showed off her belly. It was a very 1987 look that she didn’t even sport when she came through this year the first time, but she was doing lots of things she had never done before, and she was enjoying it. There was something about everything she’d been through in her life – everything they’d been through together, especially on these jumps – that had made her bolder. There was a river of brazenness that she’d always had but never quite tapped to its full potential. Filters and inhibitions were like safety nets and checkpoints as she matured and learned from life. But now that she was getting all these second (and third and fourth) chances, she wasn’t just eager to tap into that river, she was almost like an intrepid explorer of her own life. Yesterday she and Steve talked about their bucket list. Now she really wanted to write one. A bucket list of things she wanted to do with Steve. She’d missed 16 years with him, so this was a list that was going to make up for some of that time. She went to the front desk where they were more than happy to give her a few sheets of paper and a pen. Then she sat herself down on a deck chair at the fairly large pool, ordered an iced tea and some fruit, and began writing.
- Save Steve from Larwrence/Stefano.
She didn’t know why she wrote that down, because she’d already done it. But for some reason she didn’t consciously understand, it came out unchecked. “We can cross that one off,” she smiled. The next one came from somewhere so deep that a tear escaped over her lashes before she knew what hit her.
Save Steve from Lawrence/Stefano- Jump to Joey & Stephanie
“God, I miss you,” she whispered.
Ok, this was not what she meant. These weren’t bucket list items she wanted to do with Steve, these and the other things rattling around in her head were more like places she wanted to jump, things she wanted to do there, events she wanted to fix. Things like not marrying Jack, not letting Steve break up with her after they made love in his apartment, saving Hope from Ernesto Toscano, saving her father, not letting her nephew fall down the well at Jencon, making sure Steve was deprogrammed as soon as he got his memory back instead of waiting until EJ could torture him with the tarot cards. “Hold on,” she said out loud, then she shook her head and tried to reset herself. This was not what she intended. So, she folded over the paper and started again on the back. These were the things she wanted to do with Steve.
- Take a helicopter ride over Kauai
- Swim the great barrier reef while holding hands
- While I’m there, hold a koala
- See the Coliseum
- Feed each other pasta that we made from scratch
- Give Steve the best sex of his life
- Make love in a hot tub
- Do it in public
“What ya got there, Sweetness?” Kayla jumped. She gave him the universal look of annoyance after having just been startled, but then giggled. “Sorry, baby,” he smiled. Then he sat down across from her.
“You look very well-rested,” Kayla said sweetly. Her hair was up in a French braid, which was very much like she always looked at this time, and watching her smile at him like this was like he’d plucked her out of a photograph and stuck her right in that chair.
“Yes, well, I had a very good morning. Did a lot … learned a lot … loved a lot … tuckered me out.”
“Hmmp,” Kayla smiled. “Glad you got yourself all untuckered, then.”
“Yes, I’m very untuckered.” He leaned over and kissed her. She tasted like pineapple. So he leaned in for another, licked her lips, and then kissed her again. “You taste sweet.”
“That’s the fruit talking,” she laughed.
“That and your lips are just so damn kissable.”
“Wait, I don’t think you rated kissing during that last question.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you.”
“Well, it’s a far cry from Ferrari.”
“Kayla your lips make the Ferarri possible.” Kayla licked her lips, then gave him a look so suggestive while arching her back toward him that Steve almost jumped out of his skin. “You’re horny.”
“Maybe,” she said casually, then she crossed her very bare legs and leaned back in the chair.
“Ok, well, we’d better stop talking about it before I take you on this table, here.”
“Funny you should mention. That’s kind of what this list is about.”
“You have a list? What kind of list?”
“A bucket list. Of things I want to do with you here. And other places. Can’t get to any koalas here, so …”
“Koalas? As in bears?”
“Oooh, don’t call it a koala bear with an Aussie nearby, it’s just koala, no bear. It’s like a hard-coded national pet peeve to hear them called koala bears.”
“Fine, so …” He looked at the list, and his eyebrows shot so far up that she thought they might leave his head. “Baby, you little devil.”
“You like my list?” she asked seductively.
“Oh, Sweetness, I love your list. I can help you with a lot of this list right here in Hawaii if we don’t jump first. Especially that helicopter over Kauai part.” After a pause to take it all in, he said, “you want to make pasta from scratch? I didn’t know, that’s something we can do as soon as we get home. You wanna cook with me, baby?”
“I would love to cook with you.” Steve smiled and nodded. He was excited to share that with her. “This is all very specific, though, look. I want to feed it to each other. Roll it onto our forks and place it into each other’s mouths. Pasta we made with our own hands, together. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about that that’s so romantic to me.”
“That’s really beautiful,” he said as he rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “Can we make this our list? I want to add to it.”
“That would be wonderful.”
Steve took the paper and added his own items. Kayla didn’t watch, she wanted to let him suss out his without her hovering. So, she got up and went to the pool bar and brought Steve back a beer and ordered them lunch. When she got back he was smiling like the cat that ate the canary. He handed Kayla the sheet with his items added to it, and Kayla’s eyes got very big.
- Fly Kayla in
Takea helicopterrideover Kauai - Swim the great barrier reef while holding hands.
- While I’m there, hold a koala
- See the Colliseum
- Feed each other pasta that we made from scratch
GiveKeep giving Steve the best sex of his life- Make love in a hot tub
- Do it in public
- Button Kayla into her wedding dress one more time, hold her on my lap, and kiss her while she’s wearing it
- Take her wedding dress off of her one more time
- Take naked pictures of Kayla
- Do something sexually we’ve never done before.
- Make love seven times in one day – set record
- Make love to Kayla in public
- Kiss my wife while standing as far north as a person can while still in the United States.
Kayla looked up from the list. Their lunch had just been delivered, and that was a good thing, because they were both ravenous. She fixed a different kind of hungry expression on her husband as she took a strawberry from her plate and took a slow and suggestive bite out of it, letting the plump red fruit protrude from her lips as they sucked the juice into her mouth. Steve licked his lips in return. “When do you want to get started on this list?” she asked him in a deceptively sweet way.”
“Any of that list scare you?”
Kayla shook her head slowly keeping her eyes on her husband as she took another bite from the strawberry.
“Then I’d like to get started on it as soon as possible. Today.”
Kayla swallowed the strawberry, licked her fingers one by one, and smiled.