“Kayla, dear, are you alright? You’re awfully distracted.”
Kayla had just gotten done raking her eye across the dining room in dreamlike astonishment, causing her mother to look at her sideways. “What, Mom?”
Caroline turned toward Shawn, who shrugged.
“Why’re’ya lookin’ at me?” Shawn asked.
Steve eyed Kayla trying to get her to focus on being in the moment and not in awe of it, but she was too far gone to notice. Caroline felt her daughter’s forehead and proclaimed her normal, but obviously, she was far from that. “Kayla, maybe you’re still sick from yesterday.”
Kayla smiled as her mom felt around for a fever. “You look really good, Mom.”
Caroline smiled. “Well, thank you, honey.”
Kayla looked to Steve and hummed a smile. Steve grinned back, but he tempered it with a bit of worry that she was blowing their cover. What, are you worried they’ll figure out, that you’re from the future? Lighten up, dude.
Kayla was positively transported. Her mother had made some kind of baked pasta dish loaded with cheese, home made sauce, meatballs, there was chowder, which she watched her husband and brother guzzle down like twins coming out of starvation diets, a big tossed salad, and lots of bread and butter. This was not the kind of meal Kayla would have eaten in 2009 without some serious forethought about how she would compensate to ensure it didn’t end up sitting somewhere in her middle. But today she was 18-years-old with a flat little tummy in a tiny little size, and was fit as a fiddle. What that spelled out was a food orgy that she gobbled down. Steve watched in astoundment as Kayla ate two helpings of the pasta, three meatballs, chowder, and three slices of bread loaded with butter. He tried to think of a time that she’d eaten this much in one sitting, and in all the years he’d known her, he could not think of one. Then he stifled a laugh that would have gone on and on if they weren’t surrounded by Brady’s not in on their private reality when Kayla reached for a second ladle of her mother’s chowder to bookend her first meal of this absurd and groovy jump. “Mm … Mmmmm … Mm, Mom, it’s so good,” Kayla said out loud. Her father wasn’t sure what to make of her, and the only time Steve was more amused at the prospect of watching her eat something was when she drank down her egg-beer.
“Hey, Ma, I don’t think there are gonna be any leftovers for those starving kids in Africa tonight.”
“I think you’re right, Bo,” Caroline said in real satisfaction. “For once, your sister is going to leave this table stuffed to the gills!”
Kayla giggled and felt suddenly really conspicuous. “I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch,” she said, which was completely false, she rather enjoyed her julienne salad at the coffee shop. “I was really starving.” It was food heaven. Her mother’s home cooking at a Brady family dinner that she hadn’t had in so long that it was just simply heaven.
Her husband sitting there across from her was heaven, too. Kayla didn’t let herself look at Steve for long. When she did it was only fleeting, because she was still getting used to seeing him this way, and she wanted to eat him with a spoon. He was looking at her the same way. Clearly wanting her as much as she wanted him but without the real ability to do that much about it. When she did finally look over at him, his two eyes beamed at her. They told her how much he loved her and communicated his happiness that she was enjoying herself.
The two Brady kids updated the table about their day, especially Bo, because really this was his day. As it happened, most people welcomed him back, and some didn’t even register that he’d been gone. The rich kids who wouldn’t know a Riverfront kid if one bit them in the ass had very selective vision and didn’t really register the kids outside their social strata, but the kids that mattered, his real friends, were happy to see him. It was apparent, however, that the schoolwork was going to be difficult.
“I’ll help you, Bo” Kayla said. “I’ll help you study every night if that’s what it takes.”
“Nah,I can manage, Kay.”
“If you really wanna succeed in life, Bo, you need to recognize when ye need the help and when to turn it away.” Shawn said it to his son, but then he turned his head toward Kayla and gave her a knowing smile, which she returned. Steve wondered what that was about but let it lie with a small smile as he looked down to his plate to see he’d eaten everything. Again.
Kayla said class was great, and that there was nothing interesting to report, and Shawn nudged Caroline when he noticed she and Steve exchange knowing glances and affectionate smiles. Then the two of them shared a look and smile of their own.
Finally, Shawn told everyone how great Steve did at his first official day at the fish market. He sang Steve’s praises and said how impressed he was with the boy. “Steven, it’s hard to believe you’re just a lad of 23. You handle yourself real good down there, I’m proud to be havin’ ya.”
“Thank you Mr. Brady, I’m proud to be there.”
This was the first time Kayla really watched verbal interaction between Steve and her parents, and she found herself staring.
“Well, ya said you can clean a fish, and I seen ya do it, now, so I know you weren’t lyin’ to me. Ya say ye can cast a line, too. Ya sure about that?”
“Yes, sir, I’m a rather good fisherman, actually. Not as good as I am at some other things, but I hold my own.”Kayla felt the heat rise into her neck with that statement.
“Other things like what?” Shawn asked innocently. Steve knew his wife better than anyone at this table, and he didn’t need to be looking right at her to see her reaction to his not-so-innocent statement. Oh, he was going to enjoy this.
“Well, there are a couple other rooms in this house I’d be pretty good in.” Kayla fought not to glare an obvious warning. “Namely the kitchen. I really enjoy cooking.”
“Cooking? You sayin’ you wanna give the fish market kitchen a try?”
Hell no. “Actually, I don’t think so, if it’s all the same to you, sir.”
Sir? He’s Steven, my pop is sir. I’m in the third dimension.
“It’s just something fun, and maybe one night I could give Mrs. Brady the night off, and I’ll cook us our dinner. That would be fun.”
“Good heavens,” Caroline said with a shocked chuckle, “I couldn’t ask you to do that, that’s so much work.”
“Which is why you should get a break now and then. You work hard down there, I wouldn’t mind picking up dinner duty now and then. I promise not to poison anyone, and I won’t cook anything Kayla will first try to set free.”
The table laughed heartily at that, none more than Caroline, who was, for her, giddy at the prospect of letting someone else do the cooking for a change.
“Ok, lad, so what else?”
“Well, sir, I think I could do pretty well in one other room.” Now Kayla did glance up and narrow her eyes, which no one saw but Bo, who rolled his. “The garage. On my next day I could tune up the delivery truck. Save you some money having a mechanic do it.”
“Is there anything you can’t do, son?” Shawn asked.
Kayla couldn’t explain it, but her euphoria was turning on her. It was so amazing to hear her parents speak to her husband this way, with such reverence, that she was moved to tears. She fought to stave them off, and she had to look down at her plate. This was the family she remembered. Being back here was medicinal, therapeutic, healing. And it was overwhelming as her heart wanted to burst.
Steve smiled appreciatively. “There is so much I can’t do that I could fill an encyclopedia with each one. I’ve just been lucky enough to pick up some skills along the way.”
“I’d imagine having nothin’ growin’ up forces you to find the skills where you can.”
“Pop!” Kayla said, genuinely upset.
“Oh, now you find your filter?” Bo laughed.
“What?”
“Old conversation,” Steve said hoping that explained it, but that made Kayla feel a bit out of the loop, and she understood the problem with making a memory that only one of them would have. She made a mental note to ask Steve about it later.
“No, he’s right. I drifted for a long time. I took what I could from wherever I was and tried to make the best of it. Sometimes I did a pretty poor job with my life,” and he glanced meaningfully at Kayla now, really letting himself look at her and communicate with her right in front of them. “Sometimes people come into your life that make you get it right.”
“And what do you think about now?” Caroline asked in a rare show of interest, not that she wasn’t interested, she just hated to pry.
“Now, I think I’m doing very well thanks to your wonderful family.”
Later that night, Steve was wearing a casual t-shirt and jeans and sat on the couch with Kayla, just as they had his first night here. She was in a pair of pajamas this time and surrounded herself with books. Steve looked every bit like he was helping her study. Which wasn’t hard, because in reality they were both helping Bo study as he sat on the floor by the fireplace. They coached him on the topics he would need to catch up in English and history, but geometry was a different story for all of them. The last thing Bo kind of remembered about that was something about the Pythagorean Theorem and if he was going to be forced to pronounce it he was in trouble. Still, they gave him some help, and he completed his homework as best he could.
As for Kayla, she only had what Steve told her about where they were at to go on for her anatomy class in the morning. The spinal unit. No problem. Logistics were still iffy for her, however, so she was thankful that, according to Steve, her friend and lab partner, David, was going to be coming by to get her.
The two of them pretended to study, Bo pretended he didn’t see the two of them trying not to go at it in front of him, and an hour later Bo went to take a call from his friend, Ted, whom Steve had to remind Kayla of. He also filled her in on how much he disliked him and that other guy, Bart, both of whom had talked about Kayla in ways that Steve didn’t approve of, though he left the details out. Shawn and Caroline had gone to bed early, as usual, and Bo finally hauled himself off to bed, too, having survived his second first day of Senior year.
That left the two of them, and as soon as Bo’s door had closed, they wasted no time and were on each other so fast it made them dizzy. It might have been that, or it might have been the arousal, it was hard to tell.
They spent the next half hour making out, exploring each other’s bodies, and twisting their fingers through their hair. They tried not to moan or attract attention, but after a while, Kayla pulled Steve down on top of her and thrusted her hips at him, causing him to gasp at the sensation of it down his thick length. It wasn’t until Kayla moaned too loudly that they both finally sat up and pulled away from each other.
“When?” Kayla huffed. “When can we do this?”
“What’s wrong, Sweetness, having a problem controlling yourself?”
“Yes!”
“Good, because I’ve got plans for us.”
“You do? When?”
“Tomorrow soon enough for you?”
Kayla let a smile spread across her face as her eyes narrowed with anticipation. It was not the first time that the version of Kayla that she’d become as a woman in her 40’s had manifested on a younger body she was inhabiting that didn’t have those mannerisms in that time. It didn’t matter how many times it would happen, he was always going to feel a weird wondrousness when it did, and now was no different.
“So, tomorrow’s good for you? You can pencil me in?”
“Steven Earl Johnson, what are you planning?”
“Oh-oh, she’s breaking out the Earl, she’s serious.”
“Yes, I am, I am seriously wanting you, and I can’t wait much longer, and I would seriously do it right here if I could get away with it!” she added in a whisper.
“Baby, you just got here. I’ve been going crazy for days, here, and you’re lookin’ for sympathy?” he looked at her arrogantly. That was fine, Kayla would happily rise to the occasion.
She looked over her right shoulder toward the bedroom hallway, saw the coast was clear, and toed her bare foot up into Steve’s crotch as she lifted her chin haughtily. Steve smiled cooly at her, daring her to continue. Kayla rose to that challenge, too, with a self-satisfied smirk and continued letting her toes gently fondle him. “If my folks come out here we’re going to have a hard time explaining that thing you’ve got in there.”
“Thing? My dick is a thing, baby?”
“Your dick is my thing,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I want play with what’s mine.”
Steve took a deep breath and was glad for the confinement of his jeans, because if her parents really were to come out of their room, which hadn’t happened in a week so there was no reason to believe they would now, his black pants would have betrayed him.
“So, what are these plans you have?”
“Do you know what tomorrow is?” Steve asked as he enjoyed Kayla’s teasing toes.
“Mm-hmm. Will you be mine?”
“I’m already yours.”
“Yes, you are,” she smiled as she felt such sweet anticipation.
The look on Kayla’s face was unbridled sex. And something else, too. Steve didn’t know exactly what it was, but it excited him. “It won’t be like any other time,” he said.
“No it won’t. It’ll be my first time all over again. Only I know what I’m doing and will be able to please you.”
“Will I be able to please you?”
Kayla let out a sound of amusement. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to come, but the pleasure I’ll feel knowing we’re making love this particular time will be the best thing I could possibly feel.” She was quiet for a moment as she worked it all through, thinking it out loud. “It’s not that I regret not being a virgin for you. We can’t go back and change that, I know what I had no matter which body I’m in. It’s just that … being able to give it to you. Being able to share this body with only you … knowing what it would mean to you and to us,” She lowered her voice meaningfully, “I want so badly to give it to you.”
“Kayla.” Steve’s heart swelled with so much love for her. “Sweetness, I don’t want you to think that I ever needed it. I never needed you to be a virgin or regretted that you weren’t. I don’t regret it even now. And, Kayla, I wouldn’t change a single minute of the first time we made love up on that roof. Not one single minute, baby. It was beautiful.”
“It was beautiful,” she said. “It’s all I had wanted for so long. For you to love me.”
“Oh, baby, I did.” He took her foot and started rubbing it, making her sigh, caressing the firm muscle of her calf with his gentle hands.
“And for us to make love. Show each other.”
He thought of how she looked at him in that glowing, white nightgown when she appeared on that roof. And when he finally found himself inside of her how it was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, because he loved her so much. “Kayla I’ll always wish I had let us be together sooner. But that night … I wouldn’t want to replace it. I would give up tomorrow night if it meant that I had to give up the first time I made love to you.”
“I would never replace it. Never.”
“But now that we’re here in 1979 … now that we are here, and you are a virgin … now I want it. Now that the opportunity is here for us, God, I really want it, Sweetness. I want my body to be the only one inside of yours for the rest of your life.”
“I want it, too,” Kayla insisted. “You have no idea how badly I want you to have my body’s first time. My real first time is not something I want to make go away, it’s … it’s just different. I am who I am because of the life I’ve lived, and I’m not interested in taking that away. But now that I know what I’m doing, and we’ve made love hundreds of times? I …” she exhaled with longing. “I want to experience that with you. I want so badly to give my body wholly to you, Steve. To my wonderful husband who I’m so in love with … ” she closed her eyes and relished the moment she’d give herself over to him and was filled with emotion. “It’s overwhelming.”
“It’s not really for the rest of our lives. Only while we’re here. When we jump away,” and he saddened slightly knowing that they would inevitably jump, “we’ll reset. I won’t be your only one. It will never have happened.”
“No. Everything we experience happens. Maybe it doesn’t stick, it all resets, and no one else knows, but we will know. We will remember that it all happened, it’s real to us. And you’ll always be the only one to have my heart, Steve.” Kayla’s tone was clearly hurt, and Steve realized with anger at himself that she thought he’d meant Shane. He hadn’t.
Steve moved her leg off of him and sidled right up to her to take her chin in his hands. “Baby, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that. That’s not what I meant. You thought I was talking about Shane just now, didn’t you?” The fact that he could say his name without it sounding like a four-letter word surprised both of them.
Kayla nodded. “Weren’t you?”
“No, Sweetness. It came out all wrong, I’m sorry, baby. We’re done with that. We have to be done with that.”
“We could jump right back to that time, you know. We could have to do it all over again, and we won’t be so done with it.”
Steve breathed uneasily. “Kayla, up in here,” he tapped his temple, “I’m done with it. I’m never going to be happy about it, are you happy about,” he almost said Ava but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, “Marina? No, you’re not. But you’re over it. This jump … sh*t, the last whole set of jumps … I’m over it.”
“You are?” Kayla was doubtful and Steve exhaled heavily.
“Kayla, the healing is not done. I wish it was, but If I had to go back to any of it I probably couldn’t take it. What I’m saying is I’m not angry at you about keeping … him from me … keeping Shane from me. I’m a jealous man, you know that,” he smirked. “But I meant I’m over that he happened. You’re my wife. I could never stop loving you, and I will never leave you. That was not about Shane.”
“Chris, then?”
“No,” he let out an involuntary laugh that sounded more frustrated than amused. “It’s not about Chris, either, though I can’t help myself when I see his smug face.” Kayla rolled her eyes. “Sweetness. I just meant that for some things, it would be nice if they didn’t reset. If we could keep this, then you’d have your original experience, which I’d never take away from you, but then we could have this, too.” He held her face in his hands and kissed her sweetly, bordering on hungrily. “Baby, tomorrow night we are going to do something amazing. It’s an honor, Kayla.”
She didn’t say anything as she licked her lips of his kiss. Steve kissed her again. Her lips were exactly the same even if the rest of her body felt a little bit different “I can’t wait to be with you, baby,” Steve whispered.
“Then you really found a place for us to go?” Kayla asked.
He nodded. “Yep, you leave that to me.” Steve stroked her bottom lip with his thumb but he wasn’t being cute or flirty; he was being quite earnest. “This is a big deal, Sweetness. I want it to be right.” Steve’s voice was tight.
“It will be,” she said.
Steve sat back again, because he was having a hard time controlling himself. They sat in silence for several minutes as Steve let himself rub Kayla’s foot again. His ministrations on her leg were so relaxing, and she let her mind wander. Eventually it wandered back to the concept of their timeline, and it reminded her of the lists she’d made and the importance of getting down the details of where they were in every year.
Kayla explained the lists she’d made and pulled them out of her bag to show them to him. Steve was impressed. He didn’t get why she was starting with their birth years, what was the point of that? Kayla insisted that if they’re going to do it they should do it right, from the beginning, including the difficult years with him as Nick Stockton and her living at Shane’s. They didn’t discuss what happens if they jumped into childhood, because it would be devastating, and they were still recovering from devastating and had had enough of that for now. But they did go to their rooms, got ready for bed, and filled out quite a bit of the location list together. Steve was living with his parents in California from 1955 until 1960, and he was in the orphanage until he turned 18 five years before this point. Steve wrote down the name of the orphanage and the address, though he didn’t remember the phone number. Kayla overlapped him starting with 1960 through right here and now at this address in Salem, until 1982 when she left Salem to live in Cleveland. She filled in all of her addresses and details through ten years after that and stopped when she moved to LA in 1992. Steve had to stop in 1980, because he had drifted so much that he was going to have to wrack his brain to remember where he was, let alone the addresses. Finally fatigue started to take them. They kissed and groped goodnight, and neither of them were happy to be sleeping in separate beds, but they did.
The next day came and went so slowly for them both it was murder. The awe and wonder didn’t just dissipate for Kayla, she was still experiencing a healthy share of incredulity at her surroundings. Steve had 13 days, this was just day two for her. She processed breakfast a lot better here on her second day, but it was still a struggle to stay in character. They told her parents that they’d be missing dinner tonight so they could go out for Valentine’s Day, and not only did neither Shawn nor Caroline appear to have any problem with that, but they both smiled and told them to have a wonderful time. When David showed up it jogged a full memory of him, and Kayla was grateful to have him lead her by the hand. As expected, her classes were completely boring, but she muddled through, didn’t take a single note, and made it home a couple hours before her husband came upstairs from his work day.
Steve didn’t linger, as he’d proclaimed himself “fishy,” which made Kayla giggle as he hightailed it to the shower. When he emerged from his room dressed in a white button-down shirt and jeans. He insisted that she not dress up in anything other than what she was already wearing, which was a long brown skirt that hugged her hips and flat of her belly before it a-lined out very slightly, falling to a length just a couple centimeters from the floor. She wore one of the many sweaters that were in her drawers, this one a snug yellow one that ended in big bell sleeves.
Finally, just before 6:00 PM, Steve picked up the small cooler he’d found in the garage that he’d filled with what they were going to need for their dinner and escorted his wife out the door and into a waiting cab, which surprised Kayla. “Can we afford this?” she asked.
“For where I’m taking you? There’s no way we’re not affording it.” Kayla looked at him with burning curiosity. “Have you seen the cost of living out here, Sweetness,” he chuckled. “This we can do. Now get in.” Steve handed the cabbie a piece of paper with instructions, which included the address, the route he wanted him to take, and a time they should be picked up. There were no seatbelts in the back of the cab, so as the cab headed south, they snuggled together and stole pecks from each other which they had to fight not to make into full-fledged episodes of Taxicab Confessions. Very soon the roundabout route turned into one that Kayla knew very well. As soon as they turned onto Route 23, her stomach dropped with realization as they pulled up to their final destination.
“Oh my God, Steve,” Kayla gasped as tears welled up in her eyes. “You took us home?!”
“I did, Sweetness. Welcome back to our house.”
“I … I don’t … I don’t believe this.”
“You’re girl’s cryin’, mon,” the Jamaican driver said.
“Yeah, that means I did good,” Steve said.
“Oh, yes. Yes, you certainly did,” she said as she lowered her head to peer out the window.
Steve paid the inexpensive fare, grabbed his cooler and his wife, and let her go through just what he’d gone through the day before. Gaze in wonder at the house that would belong to them ten years from now but in their hearts was timelessly theirs right now.
“Is there anyone living there?” Kayla asked.
Steve had asked himself the same thing yesterday when he passed it on the way to the fish market delivery his father-in-law had sent him on. He was so positively shocked to realize he was about to pass it then when it truly came into view he’d slammed on the brakes and just gaped. The sleepy side street didn’t have more than a few homes on it, all of them huge and secluded, so no one noticed the odd sight of a fish market truck in the middle of their street, which gave Steve a lot of time to make this night come together. It was like this jump just kept giving them one gift after another. First it gave Steve Bo. Then it gave him a part of Kayla he’d only seen in pictures. Then it gave him a family. And now it was giving them their very own house back. The place that they both wanted to go back to even in 2009. And it was about to give them something even more precious than that.
Once he came back down to Earth, Steve parked in the secluded driveway and quickly discovered that their house was just as empty today as it would be ten years from now. He crossed his fingers but was disappointed to see that broken window at the side of the house was not yet broken. Then he laughed out loud and broke it himself. And broken it would stay well into 1990. The irony that he was the one who broke his own window hit him so hard he almost fell over. It couldn’t’ really have been him right now doing that for him to discover all those years later, could it? That’s not how their timeline was working. He added that thought to the plethora of them that he’d passed up on the buffet, because he had work to do.
Steve snuck in and swept the entire house, and it was, literally, exactly as he remembered it, only far less dusty. The furniture was the same, the drop cloths covering it all were the same – his memory didn’t see much of a difference at all. The first place he went was their bedroom, and he really wanted to cry tears of joy at the bounty that he’d discovered. He dared to hope as he lifted the enormous drop-cloth, and gasped out loud when he saw what he’d hoped for. It was their bed. It was really their bed. The same one he’s make love to her in the first time they entered this house. The same one they would have for the duration of their time in this house. He couldn’t believe it, and he couldn’t wait for tomorrow to get here. He took stock of what he would need, made the delivery, ran as quickly as he could to purchase a few things he would need, dropped it at the house, and got back to the fish market without Shawn noticing a delay.
Today when Shawn said he had another delivery Steve couldn’t believe it. He looked up and thanked the Big Dude, then ransacked the garage for the last of what he needed. He brought it with him, made his delivery, dropped the last of his supplies at the house, and again made it back without an issue.
Now, Steve watched as Kayla took in their home and held her to him as he kissed the top of her head. “No, baby, no one lives there, yet. No clue if Corelli owns it yet or not, but no one’s been in there for a long time. As far as I’m concerned, we’re home.”
Kayla wiped a tear from her face and watched climb in through the window he had broken. She didn’t question him as he helped her in after him. When she saw the small camp stove with two burners that he’d borrowed from her father, she got the idea What an amazing man you are.
“You’re making me dinner?” Kayla asked with a smile so beautiful on that innocent face of hers that Steve’s heart wanted to burst.
“Not just any dinner,” he said. “A very special dinner.”
Kayla was still happily teary. “It looks just like your hot plate,” she laughed.
“It’s supposed to, Sweetness. I don’t have any hats for us this time, though I do have some other surprises.”
Kayla stood in the middle of her dining room – and it was hers, this was her home, it felt just as much hers as the last time she stood in it with him – and her eyes took in every detail. This was where Steve had dragged that beautiful trunk containing Emily and Gideon’s beautiful clothes and began reading their amazing story that touched them so much. The whole place, with him, transported her.
She walked around the room and then turned back to Steve with hungry eyes. He knew what she wanted, and he wanted it, too. But he was determined to do this exactly right. And first they had a dinner to eat.
“No electricity, baby. But this curry is gonna be just as good tonight as it was on our date.”
“From the cookbook,” she said softly. Steve nodded, and she walked into his arms and held him tightly. “This is wonderful. I don’t have words. I just can’t believe we’re here, I can’t believe it.”
“Wait ‘til you see our bedroom.”
Steve made them the exact same dinner he’d made for them when he cooked his first gourmet meal for her on his trusty hotplate, and despite her previous impatience, she wanted to savor this night and enjoyed every minute of every bite of this beautiful dinner with her husband. He told her how he’d discovered the house, how he’d broken the window, which made her mind wonder in the same way Steve’s had, and how he’d planned it all out.
When they were done, Steve said this time he wanted her awake, then he gave her a neck and shoulder massage. She loved the feel of his hands on her, sighing in pleasure as he worked her muscles. This time there would be no falling asleep, not when his hands went places in this massage they didn’t get near in the one that would take place decades from now.
Steve’s rubbed his hands up Kayla’s ribcage and caught both of her small breasts in his hands. He kneaded them, and Kayla’s moans turned sexual. Steve bent his head to kiss her neck, and Kayla’s center heated up.
“I’m wet for you,” she said low and sexily to him.”
“I can’t wait to be inside you, baby. I can’t wait to make love to you.”
He pulled himself away, and held her hand as they took the secret passage from the family room up into their bedroom. When Kayla entered it for the first time, she gasped. The dark wood of the mahogany bed was gleaming and beautiful, and the creamy fabric wrapped around the four posts to twist into the canopy was fresh like new. “How did you do this?”
“I dusted off the wood, but the dust-cloths did most of the work for me.”
“It’s so beautiful, Steve. I mean, that’s our bed. That’s really our bed.”
“It is, Sweetness. I’ve been waiting. I want to get into it with you.”
Kayla turned to her husband and combed her fingers through his sexy hair. Then she got quiet for a moment.
“What is it?”
“I … I didn’t get you anything. You’ve done this amazing thing for me. For us …”
“Kayla, you are about to give me the most precious thing you have.” Kayla smiled. Steve expected her to blush, but she didn’t. Not this time. An image of her in a white nightgown on hot roof came to his mind and nearly did him in. She didn’t blush then, either. “Are you nervous?” he asked her as they caressed and held each other standing beside their bed.
Kayla shook her head. “No. Not even a little. I’m about to give my husband my virginity. I’m the happiest woman in the world.”
Steve swept the hair off of Kayla’s forehead and gathered it in long tresses in his own fingers, as hers had just done with his. “I’ll try not to hurt you,” he whispered while he looked into her eyes with both of his. “Kayla, I don’t want it to hurt you.”
Kayla leaned her face up to his and kissed him with her soft lips. “Shh,” she said. “It will be beautiful.”
For all the touching and licking and groping they’d been doing, neither of them had been naked in front of each other yet. Unless they counted the awkward moment in the bathroom his first morning there, which when he told her about it made her laugh with serious amusement. “I want to see you,” Steve said as he brought Kayla into his embrace and then reached behind her to unzip her skirt, which then pooled to the floor. “I want to see your body, Sweetness.”
Kayla slipped her hands between them and undid the button on Steve’s jeans as he unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt and then pulled it over his head. He then lifted Kayla’s sweater over her head and was so pleased to see her without a bra. He raised his eyebrows, and Kayla looked at him coyly.
“They’re tiny, and it’s 1979. When in Rome,” she said.
“Tiny? Baby, they’re not tiny.”
“Oh come on,” she chuckled. “my real breasts give you a lot more to work with, don’t you think?”
Steve eyed her with a hungry eye. “First of all, all your breasts are your real breasts.” He chuckled at that statement, then he went on. “Second of all, ok, yeah, these are smaller, baby, but I love that I can get almost the whole thing in my mouth.” Then he lowered his head to them and did exactly that, first with one and then the other. He rolled his tongue over one peak as he’d rub his thumb across the other, and she cried out in the pleasure that ran from the nerves in her nipples on a fast track to her heated core.
Kayla pulled Steve’s jeans down, and he had nothing between his arousal and the jeans Kayla had just relieved him of. He stepped out of them and brought her hand to his naked penis. She stroked him, and he whispered her name in her ear as he bit at her shoulder.
Steve hooked his fingers into Kayla’s small, white bikini underwear and pulled them down to render her entirely naked. He stepped back and they looked at each other, and Kayla was pleased to see that Steve’s crotch was as ready for her as hers was for him. He was hard and long and thick, and she wanted him inside of her.
“You’re beautiful,” Steve said to her as his breath caught in his throat. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
Naked and at the height of their arousal, they came together in a passionate, desperate joining of body on body as they fell into their bed. Nothing had ever felt so right. They were intoxicated with the feel of each other as they kissed hungrily, plunged their tongues into each other’s greedy mouths, and felt their centers come together with aching need.
Steve wanted to make his wife come so badly that he thought just watching her might send him to his own. He ran his hand down over her breasts, down past her hips, and into her curls, just as he’d done on Kayla’s first night of the jump. This time she didn’t stop him. Steve layed on his side against Kayla and reached down to bend her leg by the inside of her knee. He reached his middle finger down to part her labia as he kissed her lips, and she gasped into his kiss. “I love you, Sweetness,” he murmured. Then he very gently inserted his finger, and he’d never felt her so tight. His eyes widened as she looked at him, and she didn’t have to ask why.
Kayla closed her eyes as she started to moan.
He moved his finger up to her clitoris and stroked it firmly, causing Kayla to arch her back and moan. She reached up and brought him by the back of his neck to her breasts, and he needed no further direction. As he increased the pressure on her clitoris, he sucked on her breasts and ran his rough tongue over her stiffened peaks until he could feel her thrusts against his hand increase.
Kayla cried out Steve’s name and felt an incredible feeling of sexual pleasure and emotional bonding and devotion to this man beside her. Steve felt it, too, and he couldn’t contain himself. He smiled at how good he was making her feel and felt a humble sort of power. Of course, Steve had given his wife plenty of orgasms in any number of ways. But something about knowing that this body was about to experience the very first orgasm it ever would made him crazy with needing to see her come apart in his arms. “I wanna watch you. I wanna watch what I can do to you.”
“So good, Steve,” she whimpered. “I love you.”
Steve kissed her as he continued to stoke her drenched folds. “Do you want to come this way? Or should I stop?”
It wasn’t a tease. He knew she wanted to come but there was an unspoken understanding that they wanted to join. Together. Kayla shook her head and said, “I want you inside of me.”
Steve stopped what he was doing, and Kayla placed pressure on his hip with her hand, moving him on top of her. That’s when she realized that something felt different beneath her. It was a towel. Kayla smiled. “When did you sneak this towel in here?” she asked.
Steve smiled down at her and ran his finger down her cheek. Today while I was out on the delivery, I snuck in the towel, the candle, and the camping stove.”
“You think of everything.”
Steve rolled on top of his wife and stared with deep meaning into her eyes. “Sweetness, I—It’s …” he trailed off, completely overcome.
Kayla saw his eyes fill, and she prodded gently. His erection sat stiffly against her center. She could feel how badly Steve wanted to thrust himself inside her as he worked through what he wanted to say. “What is it, baby?”
Steve smiled as she called him that. He loved it when she did. “It’s my first time, too,” he said so softly. Kayla gave him a questioning gaze with a tilt of her head. “I’ve never been … given anyone’s virginity before. I’ve never been given such an important, beautiful thing.”
“Oh, Steve.” Kayla’s eyes filled with her own tears. She didn’t know. She had no idea that this wasn’t something he’d experienced before.
“God, baby,” his voice broke. “I’m so happy.”
Kayla grabbed Steve’s face and kissed him all over. When she got to his lips, those sweet kisses deepened and turned passionate. He kissed her back with equal intensity before feeling her open her legs to him. Steve placed his lips on hers one more time, and the tenderness of his kiss was so profound that Kayla felt it in every pore of her skin. Then he left her lips and locked eyes with her as he worked himself inside of her for the first time.
Aching to have him inside her, she also ached for him to feel her surround him. She wanted to give him such ecstasy, such perfect bliss. Kayla rolled her hips up into him as he gently rocked his hardened penis into her, and the sensations were amazing. She knew exactly where to stroke his thigh and where on his chest to kiss him, even without benefit of the tattoo to guide her, so that he felt the most pleasure. She was so skilled at pleasing him, yet her physical innocence was there for him to take. The feeling in both of them was indescribable.
“Sweetness,” he asked, leaning down to kiss her quickly before looking right back into her eyes. “Are you ok?”
Kayla nodded. “Yes,” she said, but her voice was tight, and he could tell already that it hurt. He stopped moving, his very ample penis being hugged tightly by her flesh. “Don’t stop, I’m ok.”
“I’m afraid to hurt you.”
“It’s going to hurt at first,” she said gently. “But it will be the sweetest pain, and it will belong to you. And soon I’ll feel only the pleasure you give me.”
He knew it was true, but the act of actually making her bleed was hard for him to follow through on.
“Kiss me,” Kayla said, and he did. As he felt her plump lips suckle his, Kayla pushed Steve’s buttocks into her. Steve started pumping again gently, and Kayla inhaled sharply as the barrier between them began to succumb. He hated that there was no way to gentle this. But he was quickly becoming intoxicated by the feel of his penis inside of this woman for the first time and the thousandth.
Kayla felt a mixture of sharp pain tempered by intense arousal and set off by unrestrained desire. And she’d never been more in love in her life than she was right now.
The pain was a bit like any other kind of activity you never forget, only no one ever thinks that losing one’s virginity is something that will be repeated. The first time her desire was replaced by the pain. This time could not have been any more different. The pain was there, but it never came close to overtaking her desire and consummate love for her husband.
Steve felt her open her legs wider, and he almost couldn’t restrain himself. “Baby, I just want to thrust into you.”
“You can, go ahead.” She unconsciously braced herself by hanging on to him tighter.
“No, I—”
“Baby, it’s ok. I want to feel you inside me. I have to feel you inside me, Steve. I love you so much. I love you so so much, Steve. I can feel your arms around me, holding me. I’ve never felt safer and more loved and more cherished than I do right now.”
Steve stilled for a moment and embraced her tighter. “If we’d kept playing 20 Questions in Stockholm, and you’d asked me what my favorite part of your body was, I would have told you the beautiful baby blue eyes staring back at me. Nothing on this planet is so pretty as those eyes.” He knew he was about to see pain fill them. “I’ll never hurt you again.” Then Kayla instinctively held on as Steve thrust his penis all the way into his wife’s body for the first time.
Kayla cried out sharply as she felt her flesh come apart and allow itself to stretch as it was intended. Tears involuntarily filled her eyes and quickly spilled down the cheeks of her very young face. The pain was sharp and intense in that moment. But her happiness soared.
In the moment that Kayla cried out in pain, Steve hated himself. But it was quickly followed by the odd mixture of pride and remorse as he felt her innocence give way to him. To his desire for her. To his undying love for her. He never stopped looking at her. He told her he loved her, when he saw her eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry, Sweetness. I’m so sorry, baby.”
“I’m not sorry. It’s beautiful, Steve.”
Steve slowed slightly, but he didn’t stop. Her body language was telling him to go on, so he did in gentle plunges that tried to coax her orgasm to build once again. He wanted so badly to give her the release that he knew he was going to find over the next rise. He couldn’t fathom coming without her. Not tonight.
Steve couldn’t help it when he sped up his movements. “I don’t want to come without you, baby. I don’t want it if you can’t have it.”
The combination of his words and the firm strokes of his erection against her clitoris drew out her arousal. Steve’s hardness filled her, and she felt the most exquisite buildup deep within her as Kayla felt small waves start to build pressure in her abdomen. Now Steve saw the look in Kayla’s eye change as her pain dulled. “Make me come,” she moaned as he watched her in wonder. “I know you can.”
“You’re ok?”
Kayla nodded and licked Steve’s nipple. He sucked in his breath, loving the feeling of her tongue on him. “I’m fine. More than fine.”
Steve smiled at this reference, then tore his eyes away from hers to cover her lips hard and fast with his. His tongue insistently entered her mouth, and she welcomed him with her own. Her body didn’t lie, it was turned on, and it made him insane with need. He dipped his head to lick her nipple, and the sound that Kayla cried out this time was a very different sound. It spurred him on, giving him the confidence to quicken his movements from gentle rocking to deeper thrusts. The sensations from his tip to his ballsac made him so heady with sex that he didn’t know what hit him. It was like no other climax he’d ever had. “I love you,” he murmured over and over. “Come for me, Kayla, please let me see you come just for me.”
The only thing Steve wanted to do as he felt his orgasm rise within him was watch his wife have hers. She was beautiful, laying in his arms, being made love to, being brought the pleasure he’d longed to feel himself give her. Kayla ground herself up into him, meeting his thrusts, and wanting desperately to come.
“I need to come, Steve. Oh God … oh, this feels … amaz … Oh, Steve, feeling you inside me, is … ahh … please … please!”
Steve wanted to stroke her clit hard with his thumb, but he didn’t want to let her go to do it, so he moved one of her thighs with his so that he could have the room to stroke it harder with his hard flesh instead. But it was the words he said next that put her over the edge.
“I’m yours,” he rasped hotly into her ear as he held her tightly. “I’ll always belong only to you.”
Two short, hot moans escaped his wife’s lips. Then Kayla screamed out Steve’s name into the dark night of their bedroom at the same time that he cried out hers, the timelessness of their existence within these walls like the eighth wonder of the world. The orgasm that crashed through her was so intense and so full of anticipatory longing and fulfillment of aching need that she shook in her husband’s arms long after he was spent. Steve released a torrent of cum inside of her as the waves rushed through him in unbelievable ecstasy. He continued to thrust into her in short bursts as she milked the very last of his seed from him.
When they’d both come back to Earth, Steve couldn’t help but let tears fill his eyes. The gift she’d given him was too much, he couldn’t keep it inside. “Thank you, Kayla,” he cried. “Thank you for giving yourself to me this way. Other than our children, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been given.”
Tears rolled out of Kayla’s eyes in equal measure. “It was perfect, Steve. You were the most perfect … God, Steve, I love you.”
“Are you … ok?” Steve wiped her tears.
Kayla nodded. “I’m wonderful.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Then don’t.”
Steve stayed inside his wife for a long time while he rained kisses down onto every part of her face. Finally, he left her body, and she cringed slightly from the pain. “Not so fine, huh?” he asked sympathetically. Guiltily.
“Very fine,” she tried to assure him, but he knew better.
“Where are you going?” Kayla asked unhappy that he was leaving their bed.
Steve held up a finger to stay her and disappeared into the bathroom and back again with the washcloth he’d brought with him when he set up the towel this afternoon. Like he’d done many times before, he brought the warm washcloth to her delicate folds and cleaned up his wife. This was unlike every other time, however, because he could see the blood-stained evidence on the towel and the redness of the lips that he’d helped create tonight.
“Mm, thank you,” Kayla said softly. “Feels good.”
“Baby—”
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” she said gently. “It felt wonderful.”
“You’re sore,” he said simply instead.
“And that’s ok. This is how it is for women. But when their men love them, it makes the pain … just a small part of something beautiful..”
Steve laid his head down on Kayla’s knee as he gently finished. “It meant so much to me, Sweetness.”
“Me, too, Steve. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“You know what my next line is.”
“How about this time we’re even,” Steve said softly.
“Deal.”
When Steve got back in bed, they held each other naked beneath the covers and stroked their hands along their bare skin. Their intimacy was so needed. So very critical for them tonight. They did so much healing from their harrowing ordeal tonight, their bodies and souls giving them peace, balance, and solace. Steve felt a contentment that he’d rarely known in his life. The last time he’d felt it was in the days of Kayla’s recovery from her gunshot wound, right before they’d started jumping. Before that, it was found right here in this house before he was taken. That kind of happiness was always fleeting for he and Kayla, one disaster after another around every bend. The time jumping made happiness like this nearly impossible. But now, laying in this bed that belonged to them in a house that felt like theirs holding each other with such contentment, Steve and Kayla had found that happiness again.
At 10:00 PM, the cab pulled up to the house. Steve and Kayla were fast asleep in their bed and never came out. Twenty minutes later, he drove away.
They slept soundly for several more hours, content in each other’s arms.