The sound of the chopper’s blades slicing through the air just feet above Steve’s head was so loud when he jumped that the serenity of the soft music he’d arrived to made for a dizzy, bewildering paradox.
Your eyes say things I never hear from you,
And my knees are shaking, too …
Steve struggled to bring his vision into focus as the smooth, smoky voice he didn’t recognize sang around him.
But I’m willing,
Willing to go through …
The jump sickness was as bad as it always was. He couldn’t keep his eye open, the inconsistency in orientation too much for him. He closed his eyes firmly and forced himself to take a very deep breath; that helped significantly. His anxiety level, however, was dialed up to unbearable. He needed Kayla so much, but he’d jumped first, so he was not going to get her. The air smelled like a mixture of burning candles with a slight hint of lavender as he opened his eye and allowed it to come into focus.
Directly in front of him was the unmistakable form of a very young Kayla. He swallowed down a cry of joy at the sight of her. Her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her face, but there was no question that it was her. She wore a long, yellow dress with a high collar that he remembered well. Her full, blonde hair was up in the long, vertical clips that she used to like, and she was a vision that nearly did him in.
Steve took a very quick look away from her to assess his surroundings. Blondie’s, he realized. A pretty, black woman he didn’t know to save his life in a sparkling black, strapless dress was singing on the stage, and a maître-D he’d since forgotten was tending to the bar that he and Kayla were standing at. Then he noticed that quite a lot of people they knew, even today in 2009, were there in the restaurant, too. Impossibly young versions of Bo and Hope were sitting nearby, Abe was to their left, and somewhere on the dance floor were Chris and a woman he didn’t know very well, Liz Chandler. It wasn’t the first time a lot of people from their past had assailed them simultaneously on these jumps, but in his current state of mind still reeling from his imprisonment, it was too much.
I must be crazy, Tamara Price continued to sing.
And the words struck Steve. I am crazy. I’m completely crazy. The last string of jumps starting with the one to Alamain’s boat and culminating with Dimera’s torture chamber were so intense that he didn’t know which way was up. He fought the tears that threatened to form as he looked at the woman in front of him. He wanted so badly for this to be his Kayla. Like a starving man, he needed her to turn around, tell him it was her, and hold him. He needed it so bad that he willed it to be true.
Standing here …
Steve needed her touch, the feel of skin. If he didn’t get it, he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to keep it together. Before Steve knew what he was doing, he started to inch his hand over to Kayla’s as it rested casually on the bar.
… in this place,
And I’m feeling …
He made contact with the delicate wrist he’d placed so many kisses upon, but he couldn’t look at her. His eye gazed purposely toward Tamara, unable to bear the unfamiliarity in her eyes when they inevitably caught his.
… no disgrace.
He couldn’t control the innate need to be touching her. Even the foot of space between them was too much, he was barely holding it together. He ran his fingertips gingerly over Kayla’s wrist and then more boldly over the back of her hand as he willed his wife into the beautiful destination body standing before him. You love me. You’re my wife. Come back to me, Sweetness. I need you so much.
… For askin’, she sang while Steve prayed his wife into her body
Steve’s heart stopped as he saw Kayla look back out of the corner of his eye.
Let me take you home …
Steve blinked several times, trying to rein in the emotion that was threatening to overcome him. After only a moment, he had to look back at her. When he turned his head, her eyes were positively luminous. Vast pools of blue brilliance stared back at him … and like a knife in the heart, they positively shone with innocence. Innocence of their love. Innocence of their shared life together. There was a flicker there, he saw it; a flicker of interest and curiosity and a bit of heat. But no recognition of him as the man she loved … of her husband. You’re my wife, he tried to literally shoot into her mind. It took all his will to control the look on his face so that he didn’t appear to be insane, but he was at the end of his mental and emotional rope. Baby, please! If he could have scooped her soul out of her body and clung to it, he would have.
… And keep you safe and warm …
He silently begged her to see him, but she didn’t. Instead, in barely more than a blink the moment was gone, and his heart broke as she turned back around. Steve wanted to fall to his knees and scream.
Till the early dawn,
Warms up to the sun.
Steve started to withdraw into himself. He had no idea when he was, despite the enormous clues that made it completely obvious, like the volume of hair on the heads of Bo and Hope, not to mention the height of it on everyone else around him, his clothing, and the fact that they were at Blondie’s at all. Steve didn’t hear Tamara Price continue to sing her yearning, soulful song, but somehow he absorbed it as he began to crumble. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew where all the players were positioned on the board of this jump, but his resolve was gone. His motivation was at zero. Kayla wasn’t there.
In a matter of seconds, just as he was out of will to go on after everything he’d been through, the sound he’d prayed for reached his ears. The sound of Kayla swallowing a lungful of air.
Steve rose up to his full height, afraid to believe it was true. He tried to stay silent and look for the clues that his wife was really there, but he couldn’t help the words from escaping his lips.
“God, baby?”
Kayla whipped around at the sound of his voice. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes were wide.
“Stockholm?” he choked out over the lump in his throat. In answer, Kayla nodded and threw herself into his arms. Steve let out a choked sob and crushed her body to his. “Thank God,” he cried as the tears started to spill out of his eye, “thank God, Kayla!”
Kayla rode out the jump effect while Tamara finished her song and the applause thundered in a crescendo around them. She normalized quickly and pulled back to look at the pain on her husband’s face. Neither of them were aware of their surroundings as their lips joined in a frantic kiss full of relief and desperation.
Steve didn’t know whether to keep kissing her or to clutch her to him so he could run his hands over her body to ensure she was real. They might physically be in September of 1986, but for both of them, their realities hadn’t caught up; their thoughts and emotions were still back in the hell of February 1992.
“They told me you were dead, baby,” he cried into her ear as he held her fiercely against him. “Those were the worst pictures I’ve ever seen in my life. They showed me those pictures, and I wanted to die, too.”
“I’m here, Steve!” Kayla was crying, too. “I’m here now, we’re both here.”
“I can’t believe you found me, Sweetness. You really found me.”
“Kay, what the hell are you doing?” Hope’s voice called to her, but Kayla wasn’t willing to let go of Steve. They were both still embracing at the bar, crying, and not trying too hard to hide it. Nothing they could do or say would be able to explain their behavior, and nothing anyone else could do or say would stop them from exhibiting it. So, they didn’t reply; there was no point. When neither of them reacted, Hope turned and looked toward Bo, whom she was just stalking away from in a huff before she caught sight of these two.
Bo looked back after her longingly. That is until he got a load of Steve and his sister. “What the hell?”
“Steven,” Hope tried, “Bo’s gonna have your head. Maybe even your testicles.”
Steve cradled Kayla’s head against his chest as he layed his cheek atop her head. Gotta get out of here.
“Hope, I’m more interested in you right now,” Bo said from behind her, but he threw a curious glare at Steve just the same.
They heard the confusion in Bo and Hope’s voices, but Steve and Kayla were in their own world, inadvertently removed from the here and now of 1986. Focusing on the time of this jump was the last thing they were interested in. Even so, they were causing a scene and had to find a way out so they could be alone.
Just then Hope slapped Kayla’s purse down on the bar and stormed out the door.
“Hope,” Bo whined. “Hope!” Then he looked quickly to Steve and his sister. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you two, but I have to go after my wife.” Then he ran out the door behind them.
“We have to get out of here,” Steve said.
“Where?” she whispered with a sniffle, her head still nestled onto his chest.
“I don’t know. Not sure when this is, but I think home base will work.”
They finally pulled away for the first time since they’d embraced and looked at each other. Steve held her face in his hands and had never been so thankful. “It’s really you in there?”
Kayla nodded. “In the really young flesh.” Steve laughed and wiped her tears away with the pads of his thumbs before wiping away his own. “Take me home, Steve? Please?”
Kayla picked up what she assumed was her purse, then without letting go of her hand Steve walked them out the door in long strides. They didn’t speak as they held tightly to each other’s hands. Steve searched his person for his keys with his free hand and found them just as he spotted the Bluesmobile in the parking lot. He unlocked the door, and Kayla climbed in on the driver’s side with Steve following after. He shut the door, turned toward her, and found her lips waiting for his. Their tongues sought out each other and danced in perfect, destined harmony. Their need was so great, so significant that their kisses couldn’t repair the whole of their injured emotional states.
“Love you, Kayla,” he gasped. “Need you so much.” Steve pawed at her dress, looking for a clasp at the bottom of her buttoned-up neck to unbutton. “Need to feel you, Sweetness. I need to feel you around me,” he whimpered. “I missed you … I need you.”
Kayla’s arousal was emotional, sexual, soulful … it was everything. She needed to feel him inside of her, feel him love her. “Take me home, to homebase.”
It was dark in Blondie’s parking lot, and Steve’s pain was so deep that he couldn’t wait another moment to begin healing. He looked his wife in the eye as he slipped his warm palm under her long skirt and up her slender leg. He was still looking at her and caressing her porcelain face as he hooked his fingers into her underwear and pulled them down.
“Love me, Kayla,” he wept. “I’m so lonely for you I could die.”
Kayla saw the heartache in Steve’s face and let the tears continue to escape over her long lashes. “I’m here, baby,” she said. “Shh. I’m sorry I left you back in the loft. And I’m sorry it took so long to find you …” The tears streamed down her face as she felt his pain mixing with her own.
“Come here, baby? Please?”
Steve undid his tight jeans. Kayla took one leg out of her panties and draped it over his lap as she faced him. Then she guided him inside of her. She was just wet enough to take his hardened shaft into her with a gasp of relief from both of them. Steve held Kayla’s hips and rolled them roughly so that he could feel himself penetrate her as far as he could. Then he held her there very still for a moment. He buried his face into her neck and wept with joy. Kayla did the same. Feeling him inside her was the only thing that could make her feel this safe right now.
“I love you,” she whispered, and she felt him smile against the soft flesh of her neck.
“Not as much as I love you,” Steve replied. Then he thrust into her, and she cried out. His thrusts were deep and deliberate as she glided back and forth over him in perfect synchronicity.
They didn’t speak. They just loved each other desperately, deeply, crying out alternately in heavy emotion and sexual pleasure. Their souls met in the haze of their lovemaking and wrapped themselves around each other. The depth of their suffering had been so great that the pureness of their intimacy now was unparalleled.
Kayla felt her husband inside of her and never wanted him to leave her body. She had been holding back her orgasm, waiting for him, because she wanted to come with him; no matter what, this time, they had to come together. When he squeezed the back of her neck he’d had cradled into his palm while he twisted the hair that had come out of her clip into his hand, Kayla knew he was close. Finally she couldn’t stand any more of his hardness pleasuring her and shuddered on top of him with a loud scream of his name as he held her tightly against him.
Her convulsions around him brought on his own climax. “Sweetness!” he breathed hotly in her ear as he came inside her. “Oh, Sweetness … Kayla …”
When it was over Kayla looked him in the eye. She held his face in her hands and brought his lips to hers. They brushed lips softly, then she leaned down to gently kiss his scar, a part of him that wasn’t there when she last saw him in 1992. She didn’t move from his lap, and he made no move to withdraw from her. Instead, they sat gazing at each other, wiping the other’s fresh tears away as they ran down their faces.
Finally Steve forced himself to acknowledge their reality. “If anyone comes out here and sees us we might get arrested for indecent exposure,” he said.
“I don’t care what anyone does or anyone thinks. I have some connections.” Steve let out his first genuine laugh in quite some time. “I don’t know if I live at the loft alone yet, so I think we should just go to your place.”
“Ok, baby.” He kissed her gently several more times.
The first time she regretfully tried to move off of him, Steve held her down, panic rising in him. He shook his head and rasped out, “not yet” over the perpetual lump in his throat. Kayla rested her head on Steve’s shoulder and let him rub his hand up and down her back as his penis slowly returned to its normal size. Finally, he released her, and she moved to the passenger side of the car trailing their love across the bench seat with her.
Steve quickly drove them the short distance from Blondie’s to his basement apartment, and they entered quickly. Once there, Steve locked the door, flew down the steps, and marveled at how great he physically felt. He hadn’t felt this healthy in weeks. Both of their bodies felt great, but their minds weren’t anywhere close to being ok.
Kayla immediately began unbuttoning her long, yellow dress and let it fall to the floor. Her bra and underwear soon followed. Steve watched her disrobe, and his cock hardened while he did. Kayla approached him and roughly removed his brown leather jacket off his shoulders and lifted his sleeveless, green shirt over his head. Steve unbuttoned his own jeans, and Kayla tugged them down, releasing his new erection painfully from his jeans. Steve stepped out of them and crushed her naked body to his own. She cried out with the feel of his steeled flesh against her wet center. Then he picked her up and walked her over to the bed while her legs were wrapped around his middle.
The moment he’d pinned her beneath him he thrust inside of her hard and fast.
“God, yes, Steve! Make me feel you, please!”
Steve thrust hard in and out of her, and her ragged breath came out in huffs with every stroke. “Sweetness, am I hurting you?”
“I need to feel it!”
It pained him, but Steve stopped. “That wasn’t a no, Kayla. Am I hurting you?”
“I want it to hurt,” she whimpered frantically.
Steve pulled out of her.
“No! Please,” she began to cry. “Steve, I’m so … damaged. I need you so badly.”
Steve shook his head as his own tears fell again. “I’m a f*cking mess, Sweetness. I’m-I’m-I’m just going at you and not thinking about it. God, I hurt you … I just need you, I can’t control myself …”
“Shh, please, Steve,” Kayla soothed. “I know you need me, and I’m here. Take what you need. Because I need it, too.”
Steve looked his wife in the eye and knew she meant it. He rolled back on top of her, and this time when he entered her, he was more controlled. Her warm wetness felt so good against his penis. He was home, and now he just had to be in her and feel her soul touch him again.
He was being gentle, but Kayla knew he was holding back. “Hard, Steve. I want what you want. Take me hard!” The words were impossible to ignore, and Steve started pummeling her with his rock hard erection. He moaned and felt sexual thrills course through his cock and into the base of his spine.
“F*ck!” he yelled. “F*ck, you’re mine! No one is taking me … or you … ever again!”
Kayla moaned in unbelievable pleasure as she felt Steve’s cum release inside of her. When he looked up into her eyes, his green one was lit up with love and fear and relief and grief. Then he reached down and stroked her clitoris fast and firmly with his thumb, and she immediate came hard around him as his last spurts entered her.
Finally, Steve collapsed next to her. He brought her in to their favorite position spooning her inside the crook of his lap and he held onto her tightly. They layed there naked for a few minutes, before he reached the ratty comforter over them.
“I love you, baby. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Steve. So much that it hurts.”
“I thought I was all alone there at Blondie’s. I was goin’ crazy, didn’t think I could wait for you without losing my mind, Sweetness. But then when you jumped in … baby, I don’t think there’s a word to describe what I was feelin’ when I realized I had you.”
“When I jumped away from the loft, I wanted to die. I realized where I was, and I couldn’t take how horrible it felt to be there.”
Steve tried not to tense. He knew she must have jumped to her relationship with Shane.
“How long were you waiting for me, baby?”
Kayla was quiet at first. Then she said, “A long time.”
Steve didn’t want to know the answer to the next question forming in his mind, and Kayla didn’t want to give it. She knew she’d have to tell him eventually, but for now she went a different direction, instead.
“When do you think this is?”
“It’s 1986, I’m sure of that, and it’s fall, because the leaves are turning.” Kayla was quiet as she took in that they’d jumped so far back from where they were. Almost six years. “And you’re face looking back at me at Blondie’s was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Out of nowhere, Kayla started to cry again. Whether it was the overwhelming love she felt for this man holding her, the guilt she felt for unwillingly jumping into Shane’s bed, the pain of her week-long ordeal catching up with her, or her simple fear she couldn’t say. But the tears were ever present, just under the surface, and she couldn’t help their free and cathartic flow.
“Hold me, Steve. I’m afraid we’re going to wake up somewhere else.”
“Shh,” he soothed in her ear as they were slowly made whole, lying in each others’ arms, and fell asleep.