Kathleen Creighton - One More Knight

His own relief came with the violence of an earthquake. His body rocked with it; a groan seemed ripped from deep inside him. He’d lived through quakes before, including one in Turkey that had killed people, but nothing had ever shaken him as profoundly as this. Nothing. In its aftermath he felt as if a building must have fallen on him. He wondered if he would ever move again.

Little by little he became aware of the woman who lay beneath him, first of the moist warmth of her breath on his cheek, then all the places they still touched-the slick union of bellies, the tangle of legs, the gentle abrasion of her hair against his forehead. He lifted his head and looked down at her, not at her face yet, but at their still-clasped hands, and saw the white imprints her now slack fingers had made on the backs of his.

His gaze shifted almost fearfully to her face. Her eyes were closed now, the lashes wet and spiky, the darkness beneath them like bruises on her pale skin.

Awash with remorse and other feelings less easy to define, he had an urge to touch his lips to each eyelid, to gently smooth back the damp strands of hair from her forehead and maybe kiss her there, too. But suddenly he wasn’t sure he had the right to do that, or whether that sort of tenderness was even appropriate under the circumstances. He barely knew this woman. Who in the hell was she?

What had he been thinking of?

Her eyes were open, studying his face with a dark, smoky look he couldn’t begin to read.

“Hey,” he said huskily.

Her lips moved in and out, moistening themselves. He watched them, wondering how, after what had just happened to him, he could still be thinking about doing that for her, with his own tongue.

“Hey yourself.” Her gaze slid past him. “Sounds like the storm’s past.”

He made a soft, rueful sound. “Think it went by a few minutes ago.”

Her lips twisted as she pulled her fingers from his and covered her eyes with her hand. “I was afraid of that. How much noise did we make?”

“Nobody over there to hear except Bubba,” Troy said, nodding toward the head of the bed and the wall beyond. He eased himself to one side, propping his weight on one elbow. “Besides, I expect that’s why they call it the Moanin’ Springs Motel, don’t you?”

She gave her special snort of laughter. Troy grinned and leaned down, limiting himself to one quick, hard kiss, one he figured was ambiguous enough that she could take it just about any way she wanted to. Then he gently separated himself from her and headed for the bathroom.

Charly got herself raised up on her elbows just in time to catch a glimpse of his sculpted back and rock-hard buttocks before the door closed, blocking them from view. For a few more minutes she stayed right there, while her heart slowed its hammering and her body awoke to the reality of aches and throbbings in a dozen places, and her lips tingled with the memory of that last kiss. Then she slowly sat up, peeled back the thin covers and crawled between the tightly tucked motel sheets.

She lay in the quiet, listening to the rain drip from the eaves outside, her mind a blessed blankness. She didn’t think about the pile of sodden, dirty clothes lying in the middle of the threadbare carpet, or where her suitcases full of clean ones might be or what she was going to do about all of that tomorrow. She was simply too numb and too tired. Too tired to think about the stranger in the bathroom.

Troy. His name is Troy.

Oh, please, God, she prayed, don’t let me think about him.

Don’t let me think.

She could hear water running. She devoutly hoped he wasn’t going to be long; she needed the bathroom pretty badly herself. She needed a shower, too-probably a lot worse than he did.

Then she heard a new sound, this one coming through the paper-thin wall from the room next door. A heartbreaking, whimpering sound.

Oh, Lord, she thought, this is all I need.

She stood about a minute of it, then bounced out of bed, pulling the bedspread with her and wrapping it around her like a toga. Okay, she thought, now where in the hell did he leave the key?

It wasn’t on the dresser or on top of the TV. Pocket, maybe? Trying not to think about the intimacy of what she was doing, she snatched up Troy’s pants from the pile on the floor and plunged her hands into the pockets, one by one. Intimacy? The irony of that made her lips curl, but she didn’t feel like laughing.

The motel-room key turned up on the second try. Swearing and muttering and dragging the bedspread behind her, she threw open the door and swept through it into the muggy, dripping night.

When she opened the door to number 10, Bubba was there to greet her. A much chastened and humbled Bubba, wiggling and squirming and so glad to see her it was pathetic. And damn if she was going to hug and pet and sweet-talk the yellow-eyed beast the way Troy did.

“Well, all right,” she snapped, “don’t just stand there.”

Bubba didn’t need to be told twice.

When Troy came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, a meager motel towel knotted around his hips, there was his dog, lying right in the middle of the floor with his paws pillowed on Troy’s blue jeans and his muzzle pillowed on his paws, sound asleep. And in the bed next to him there was Charly, propped up on the pillows with her arms folded across her chest and the bedspread in a pile.

“’Bout time you got out of there,” she said, glaring at him with her whiskey eyes.

“Sorry,” he breathed. It was about all he could manage just then. He waved a hand at Bubba, who opened up his eyes just long enough to flick his eyebrows at him, give a great big sigh and close them again. “What-?”

“He was making noises,” she snapped. “Crying, for God’s sake. What was I supposed to do?”

Troy shook his head. He was trying hard not to smile, but it wasn’t easy when there was a big ol’ ball of something warm and sweet oozing like Southern molasses all through his insides. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he sure did know what had put it there. It was the challenge in her eyes, that belligerent thrust to her chin, and that rusty, go-to-hell voice that had done it. Because for the first time he saw those things clearly for the camouflage they were.

“Told you,” he said as he started toward her, letting the warmth he felt inside come into his voice and his smile. “He does cry when I leave ’im.”

She watched him come closer, and he could see the confusion building in her eyes, saw them darken as she fought to hold on to the belligerence.

“Yeah, well…I figured I might as well let him in, since you were taking so long in the shower.”

“Sorry,” he murmured again, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’s all yours now, if you want it.”

“Thanks.” She stiffened, drawing the balled-up bedspread closer, fierce and battle ready as a rooster. “Look, just because I brought him in here, I don’t want you to think you have to stay.”

“You want me to go?” He reached out and touched away a strand of dark hair that had fallen across an even darker eyebrow. Her indrawn breath made a small, sucking sound. He let the backs of his fingers brush lightly downward, following the contours of her temple and cheekbone and jaw. Her skin felt warm and soft, like powder.

She lifted one shoulder, but except for that, held herself rigid and still. As if, he thought, part of her wanted him to stop touching her and the rest of her was afraid he might. She cleared her throat and said gruffly, “Just don’t want you to feel obligated.”

Obligated? He didn’t know whether to laugh or shake her. So what he did was tuck a knuckle under that belligerent chin of hers and lean over and kiss her. Just lightly, letting his mouth brush hers, like feathers over satin.

“Ol’ Bubba looks pretty comfortable to me,” he murmured as he drew away. “Maybe I better leave him be, if that’s okay with you.”

“Okay, sure.” Her breath flowed across his lips.

So he kissed her again, this time slow and sultry, pouring into her like warm molasses, savoring the sweetness of it. He hadn’t planned to take it any further than that-he swore he hadn’t, even though his belly was already curling and his body heating and tightening, stirring against the towel.

But he felt her arms relax and ease up on the bedspread she’d been clutching to her chest like a shrinking maiden, and it seemed a natural thing to slide his hand on down there and check the situation out And then her breast was filling his hand so perfectly, the nipple was hardening under his thumb’s circular stroking and her hand was a sliding warmth, creeping up his thigh. With all that, it didn’t really surprise him that the kiss should take on a life and rhythm of its own. Nor did it surprise him, when he finally ended the kiss, to find that he wasn’t wearing the towel anymore.

The only thing that did surprise him was when he pulled away from her. For the first time since he’d known Charly, he thought he saw fear in her eyes.

His heart stumbled and started again with a new and unfamiliar cadence. “I just want you to know,” he said, “if I stay…no obligation.” His voice, even his breathing, seemed bumpy and strange to him.

There was a pause-a long one. And then she slowly pulled her hand out of the tumbled folds of the bedspread and held it toward him, the fingers uncurling like flower petals to reveal the small foil packet in its palm.

“I found it,” she said in a hushed and stifled voice, “in your pocket. When I was looking for the room key.”

Again her eyes took on a whiskey glow. Troy, laughing low in his chest, leaned over to kiss her. It was easy, then, to convince himself that he’d imagined the fear.

July 4/5, 1977