It Happened on Maple Street

He was hoping their first moment together in twenty-seven years would be just her and him. No nerves. No fears.

“Hello?”

“Look outside your door . . .”

“What?”

He heard a rustle and then, “Oh! You’re here!”

The door flew open and Tim barely registered that she looked exactly the same as she lunged toward him, grinning and half crying, too.

Her arms were around his neck out in the hall, clutching him as tightly as she ever had. And his flew around her, too, filling them with her, completing him for the first time in thirty years.

She lifted her face as if by instinct, and he met her lips without hesitation. Their tongues touched, entangled, and it wasn’t new or strange or different. She felt and tasted exactly like Tara.

He’d flown all the way to Atlanta to come home.

“Let’s get out of the hallway.”

I heard Tim’s words, though I was having a hard time holding on to coherent thought. It was like I’d consumed an entire bottle of scotch. Really good scotch. The kind that you could drink in large quantities and not get sick.

He walked right into my room as if he belonged there, taking me with him to the armchair on the other side of the bed. He sat, and pulled me onto his lap. It had been almost thirty years since I’d seen him. He should be a stranger to me.

He wasn’t. At all. His brown eyes. His smile. His taste. He was my Tim. Exactly as I’d left him.

I asked about his flight. But couldn’t remember his answer five seconds after he’d given it.

We had to talk. He had to know the truth about me. We couldn’t go any further, or even think about a future together until he knew what had happened. He might be the same man.

I was not the same woman. I couldn’t pretend that I was.

He kissed me again and I fell against him, weak with wanting him. I knew the feeling would leave. Long before we got anywhere near the sex we weren’t going to have.

But just like thirty years before, I couldn’t stop him. Or myself. I thrust my tongue in his mouth as if I had every right to be there. Because in my heart, I did. I always had.

And when he set me on my feet and moved toward the unmade bed that I’d just vacated a short time before, I went with him willingly. Without thought.

His hands were everywhere on my body, caressing my legs through my jeans. He kissed me again. With a wild hunger that I answered. Kiss for kiss. His lips moved to my neck, and I turned my head to give him better access, feelin

g the cool sheet against my heated cheek.

I was eighteen again. In the house on Maple Street.

He was suckling my neck as he’d done thirty years before, and the sensations shot from skin, through my body, and down between my legs.

There was nothing to say that wasn’t being said. Nothing more important than Tim on top of me, claiming what was his. What had always been his.

My hands were all over his chest. I tore at his clothes, getting them out of the way. I was like a woman possessed. I had to have him. I didn’t recognize myself. And I didn’t argue with the power driving me.

My shirt was up, over my head and off. I wasn’t wearing a bra. And he got rid of my camisole as quickly as he had the shirt.

I felt the cold air of the room on my breasts and didn’t freeze up. I was a woman. Beautiful. Sexy. On fire for my man. I was Tara Gumser, and he was Tim Barney.

With his thumb against my nipple, he met my gaze and I thought I might cry. He was doing things to me that I hadn’t thought possible. Sending desire from breasts that had been numb for my entire adult life down to my most private places.

I knew it wouldn’t last. That if we went any further I was going to dry up and there’d be pain. I thought about warning him. He deserved to know.

But I wasn’t going to stop him. Any pain I felt would be worth becoming one with Tim. I’d screwed up thirty years ago when I’d made him stop before we’d completely finished. I had a wrong to fix.