Mirror Image

Minutes later they were in bed. Tate was naked, lying above her, his lips following down her nightgown as he lowered it inch by delicious inch.

When it was completely off, he laid his head on her belly, his shoulders between her thighs, and fervently kissed the yielding softness. “I never thought I could love you again. But after what you’ve done for Mandy, and for me,” he added thickly, “I’ll be damned if I don’t love you more than ever.”

He slid his hands beneath her hips and tilted them up. His parted lips whisked the smooth skin of her abdomen. He kissed the delta of dark curls, nuzzled it with his nose, feathered it with his breath.

Catching his hair with her hands, she arched up, offering her open thighs to his caressing mouth. He drew the silky, slippery, softness between his lips, imbibing her taste and scent, using his flicking, stroking, questioning tongue to bring her to one crashing climax after another.

Then she inverted her body and returned the favor. Her lips covered the smooth head of his penis. She sucked it tenderly and used the tip of her tongue to cleave the groove and pick up the pearly drops of fluid already collected there.

Tate prayed to nameless gods when she took him into her mouth completely, and when he filled it with the very essence of himself, he gave hoarse, rasping cries that left them feeling perfectly marvelous and replete.

Later that night, while they lay dozing, he drew her back against his chest. He kissed her warm, soft nape. He nibbled her shoulder. He said nothing, but waited, as though asking her permission to continue.

She merely purred like a drowsy cat and responded when he eased her thigh up toward her chest, leaving her open for his smooth entry. Their bodies gently undulated against each other with no discernible motion. It was a facile, fluid fuck.

Reaching around her, he caressed her breasts, reshaping them with his hand, then fanned his fingertips across the pebbly nipples.

She pressed her buttocks into the curve of his body, and rubbed her smooth flesh against the dense hair spreading outward from the root of his sex. He groaned his approval and drew her up higher, closer.

He manipulated her from the front with breathtaking sensitivity, and sometimes replaced his rigid penis with inquisitive fingers that moved deep inside her, until immense pleasure washed over her like a warm and balmy spring rain, without thunder, without wind, without lightning—cleansing and pure and benevolent.

The rhythmic contractions of her orgasm brought on his. His body tensed. His breathing was suspended for several splendid seconds while the hot tide of his semen bathed her womb.

When it was over and their bodies were relaxed, but still emanating heat, she turned her head toward him. Their seeking mouths came together in a long, slow, wet kiss.

Then they slept.

Forty-Five

Since they were scheduled to leave very early that morning, Avery got a head start by waking up before Tate. She disentangled their limbs. Getting her hair unsnarled from his fingers wasn’t easy, but she finally managed.

She glanced over her shoulder at him as she left the bed. He was beautiful when he slept, one leg sticking out of the covers, his bearded jaw dark against the pillowcase. Sighing with the sheer pleasure of looking at him, and with the stirring memories of last night’s lovemaking fresh in her mind, she crept into the bathroom.

The water taps screeched when she turned them on. Avery winced at the noise. Tate needed as much sleep as he could get. Today’s agenda was arduous. He would spend hours in an airplane. In between, he would be delivering speeches, pressing hands, and soliciting votes.

This day before Election Day was possibly the most important one of his campaign. Today the fence-straddlers, vital to the outcome of any election, would make up their minds.

Avery stepped beneath the pounding spray. After shampooing her hair, she lathered her body. It still bore traces of Tate’s fervent lovemaking. His mouth had left a faint bruise on her soft inner thigh. The hot water stung her whisker-rasped breasts. She was smiling over that when the shower curtain was suddenly whipped back.

“Tate!”

“Good morning.”

“What—”

“I thought I’d shower with you,” he drawled, smiling lecherously. “Save time. Save the hotel some hot water.”

Avery stood quaking, as guilty in her nakedness as Eve must have been in Eden when God spotlighted her iniquity. The jets of hot water seemed to turn icy and sharp; they pricked her skin like frigid needles. Color drained from her face. Her lips turned blue. Her eyes seemed to recede into her skull, making the sockets appear huge and cavernous. She shivered.

Puzzled, Tate cocked his sleep-tousled head to one side. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did I scare you?”

She swallowed. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t form a sound.

“Carole? What’s the matter?”

He looked for something amiss. His eyes scaled down her pale, trembling body, then back up. Avery’s heart sank heavily in her chest as she watched his baffled gaze move down her once again. It was arrested at her breasts, belly, pubis, thighs—places only seen by a lover’s eyes, a husband’s eyes.

He saw the appendectomy scar, ancient and faint and almost undetectable unless bared to clinical fluorescent lighting. Avery had wondered, but now she knew. Carole had never had her appendix out.