Chapter 23

Dell kissedlike he had his safety goggles on: with focus and a quiet intensity. A powerful but controlled force, art left in its wake. And as with the first time Mae had seen Dell's brow furrow as he contemplated a stretch of wood, she was gone for it from the start.

She hadn't kissed someone with a beard in a long time. It tickled her chin, her cheeks. Her hands scrambled for purchase, grabbing at his shirt, wrapping around the prickle of his neck until they mirrored his. When his mouth opened to hers, a small, uninhibited sound emptied from her throat, landing on his tongue: surprise and relief and finally. They were so close, but she needed to be closer; she scooted an inch forward. A darker sound, almost a growl, rumbled through Dell's chest, because yes. It was just right, here on the counter: the apex of her thighs fit just there, against the bulge in Dell's jeans.

Mae pushed against him, wrapped her legs around his hips, kissed him with a sudden, bone-deep clarity: Dell McCleary was the one thing, other than her books and the ocean, that made her feel at home here. That made her feel safe. Like she belonged. And maybe even her books, maybe even the ocean couldn't compare to this. Maybe Dell wasn't just a bonus. Maybe he had been entwined with this dream from the start. Maybe he was everything. He kissed her back like he was letting her see the whole of him for the first time, someone a little angry but mostly soft—a quietly desperate person—and she was here with him, fully here, like seeking like, kissing him fast and sloppy now—slow down, a tiny part of her brain whispered, but she couldn't stop rocking against him, until everything hit her at once. That she'd wanted this for so long. That it felt so good. She needed to breathe or she was going to explode. She needed—she needed a breath.

She broke away with an unsteady gasp, turning to rest her cheek on his shoulder.

"You okay?" His voice was soft, ragged.

"Yeah, I just—" She tried to wipe surreptitiously at her face. Tried to swallow down her heartbeat, thudding in her throat. Tried to think of something to distract, to help her calm down. "I can't believe you're doing this now."

"I'm—I'm sorry. I came as soon as I got the results, didn't really think?—"

"No, now is good," she assured him. She turned to kiss his neck. "Now is great. It's just—" She attempted to gesture at herself, but found her control of her limbs had gone a bit loosey-goosey. "I'm wearing sweatpants and a Wisconsin Badgers T-shirt. Objectively the least sexy outfit I own."

"I don't give a shit what you're wearing," Dell said, before he pulled back an inch. Assessed her with a frown. "Actually, I change my mind. The shirt has to go." And he was pulling back even further, hauling the shirt over her head.

"Ow!" She laughed as the collar got stuck on the earrings she'd forgotten she was still wearing, and it shook her back inside her body just enough. Just enough to catch her breath. "Hold on a second."

She was still disentangling herself from the fabric when she heard Dell say, "Let's go blue."

Mae slapped the T-shirt to the floor, mouth gaping in disbelief.

"Dell," she said, "did you really just say let's go blue while attempting to have access to my vagina?"

"Accept me as I am or don't have me at all," Dell answered, a clearly disingenuous statement as his lips were already back on hers by the time he'd finished it. She laughed into his mouth, heart swelling at the look in his eyes she'd just glanced—light, sparkling, playful—before her pelvis found a rhythm again and her laugh turned into a gasp once more. But this was the Dell she wanted. The Dell that challenged her. That laughed, sometimes, just for her.

Dell's hands found her breasts, bare now to the air, nipples smarting against the soft-roughness of his flannel shirt until he covered them with his palms instead, kneading, gripping, the calluses of his fingertips rasping against the smoothness of her stretch marks, and Mae was so very, very gone.

"Dell," she rasped. "Dell, let me touch you, too."

She broke away from his mouth, concentrated on the buttons of his shirt; he moved the attentions of his tongue to the side of her neck. Her fingers faltered, head lolling to the side, eyes fluttering closed. Thighs cinching around Dell's body even tighter, clenching him even closer as she found a rhythm again, until Dell had to pause to curse against her clavicle.

"Mae. If we don't slow down?—"

"I know, I know," she breathed, opening her eyes to focus on his buttons again. "Fuck, it just feels so good."

She managed to shuck the flannel off his shoulders, but he was still wearing a thin T-shirt underneath. She paused as long as she could manage to admire the way it hugged his stomach, how it molded around his thick, strong arms, until she shoved the hem up to find skin.

Dell sucked in a breath when her fingers found his belly.

"Sorry," she murmured. "If you remember, I'd been holding ice cream."

He chuckled against her skin, mouth still attached to her neck, and she needed it, that little rumble of laughter, to rein herself in again, before she rubbed herself to completion in the next five seconds. It was possible she'd already come a few minutes ago. It was possible her body was simply in a rolling cycle of freefall. She decided to smooth the fabric back over his stomach. She liked Dell in a thin T-shirt. She wanted the friction of it against her tits.

Her hands moved to the front of his jeans instead.

He mumbled something incoherent against her shoulder as she worked at the top button.

"Okay," he breathed once she reached the zipper, pushing his palms against the edge of the counter. "Okay, give me a second." He reached a hand into his back pocket, passed her a condom. "Hold onto this for me." And then he was bending down as the packet crinkled between her fingers, kissing the tops of her breasts, the sides, taking her nipples into his mouth as those calloused fingers inched beneath her underwear, spread over her ass, pushed her sweatpants over her hips. She wriggled on the counter, undignified and shivery, attempting to help the process, until, with a last kiss of Mae's hip, Dell straightened again, and Mae pulled him close by the belt loop of his loosened jeans.

Distantly, she knew the counter was cold against her ass, that neither of them were the most limber people for this kind of situation, that there had to be a more comfortable way to do this for the first time together, that there was so much more she wanted to examine about this person between her legs when she could take her time. But mostly, as she shoved down Dell's jeans, his navy briefs—and oh, those were good briefs on those thighs—and oh shit, oh god, there was that tree tattoo on his thigh that she had never once forgotten about, and it was glorious; she was going to have to examine it in so much more detail later—as she wrapped the condom over him, all she felt was hot and urgent.

Dell moved a hand between her legs but she slapped him away. If he touched her clit now she'd come on the spot. "Later," she said, grabbing his ass, lifting her stomach, helping position him. And then: "This is extremely unsanitary, you know."

"Don't care."

"Oh, me neither," Mae said breezily. Or, as breezily as she could. Which, at the moment, was likely not very breezy at all. "I was just making conversation."

Dell paused to drop his forehead onto her shoulder, another small laugh tumbling onto her skin. "Jesus."

"What?" she asked, but she was laughing, too. Until, suddenly, Dell pushed into her and the air was plum stolen from her throat, laughter cut short. Other words flitted through her mind: fuck, oh shit, FUCK, but out loud, all she could manage was a feathery whimper.

Dell's face had that focused look again, brow furrowed, hands gripping her hips as he pushed in, and in, and Mae dipped her back, one hand clutching the counter to hold herself there, the other holding onto his forearm, because she could, and she wanted to. She wondered if she could ask him to put those safety goggles on for her, next time.

He took one pause, one second to close his eyes, and then he was moving, and Mae simply went blank for a while, no thoughts just Dell, no thoughts just skin and muscle, no thoughts just heat and breath, until her head started to smack against the cabinet behind her.

Without breaking rhythm—god, Dell was an impressive fuck—his hand was there, calluses scratching into her scalp, cushioning her skull, his knuckles taking the blows instead.

"No head injuries," he gusted out, "on my account."

Mae could only manage another whimper in reply.

And soon, very soon, she was grabbing his other hand, guiding it under her belly and between her thighs.

"Now," she gasped, pushing his fingers against her clit, now, nownownow, and she seized around him in waves, no thoughts and all the thoughts at once, until she could breathe again.

Dell gave a last thrust, a groan, dropping his face into her shoulder. His fingernails dug into her as he came, biting at her scalp, her thigh where he'd been holding one of her legs against him, and this last, surprising jolt of pain breaking through her post-orgasm haze almost made her come all over again.

But she only wrapped her arms around him instead, scratching her own nails underneath his T-shirt, up over his shoulder blades.

"Shit," he said into her collarbone a minute later, voice threaded with tired laughter.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Same."

And then, like some kind of sneaky snake, his arm stretched to the right. When she realized what he was going for, she slapped his hand with a gasp.

"Dell McCleary. Get your dick out of me before you touch my ice cream."

"It's gonna be like that, is it?"

"You always knew it would be."

And when he leaned back, sneaky hand grabbing the ice cream anyway, his grin crinkled the corner of his eyes.

Letting his other hand fall from the strands of her hair, he picked up the spoon. And slowly, fucking sensually, he dipped it in and out of the carton before bringing it to Mae's lips.

They'd fucked so quickly that the ice cream hadn't even had time to fully turn to soup. It was only perfectly soft at the edges, and when Mae opened her mouth to accept the spoon, when the creamy sweetness melted on her tongue, her eyes never leaving Dell's, she thought, again: FUCK.

And then, with a hiss and a half laugh, Dell withdrew the spoon, hitting her front teeth on the way out, dropping both spoon and ice cream onto the counter as he focused on withdrawing himself instead.

"You like—squeezed me," he said, with a look that might have attempted to be accusatory if he wasn't laughing. "I wasn't ready."

"Your fault for lingering and doing that," she countered, picking the ice cream back up herself. "Wait." She straightened, leaned forward as he began to pull away.

"I have to—" He motioned toward the condom, but Mae grabbed his forearm.

"Wait."

And she spoon fed him his own mouthful of Ben Jerry's.

"Okay," she whispered, eyes on his lips as his tongue dipped out to grab a last drip. And helpless not to, she leaned forward to kiss him, lips sweet, beard rough, until he pulled away, eyes soft.

"I'm going to take care of this," he said, "and then I'm going to go let the dogs out. You can follow me, if you want, if you want to sleep in my bed without any clothes this time. Or you can stay here, if that's what you want." He kissed her once more, a barely-there brush of lips, before he opened his eyes again to smile at her. "Hi," he said.

And then he turned and left the kitchen.

* * *

"I only have one question," Mae said to Dell's back fifteen minutes later. He'd left the workshop door unlocked for her, but she'd still tried to make her entrance as conspicuous as possible, shuffling her feet along the hardwood floors so she wouldn't spook him. "Does your bed also have a Pendleton blanket hiding somewhere?"

She couldn't quite remember, from last time. A lot of that night still felt like a dream.

Dell turned from the kitchen counter, that small smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

"No. Felt Georgia deserved one, though."

"Hm." Mae crossed her arms over chest. "Guess I'm going to need a thorough tour of the whole house then, to make my final decisions."

Dell's smile grew before he attempted to flatten it, a superficially serious look creasing his brow.

"Fair." He cleared his throat, motioning to his left. "Well, what drew me to the house, along with the location, was all the natural light, especially here in the kitchen?—"

"Oh my god, Dell," Mae burst out. "We totally fucked on your mom's future kitchen counter."

Dell looked at her, mouth open for a solid ten seconds before he snapped it shut.

"I am choosing to maintain a solid cognitive dissonance about that for the rest of my days."

Mae nodded. "Good call."

"Anyway." Dell cleared his throat, picking up a mug from the counter and stepping out from behind the kitchen island. "Then we have the living room…"

Mae followed him into the high ceilinged, straight-out-of-a-magazine living room and gasped, interrupting whatever he'd been saying.

"Hey!" She smacked him in the arm. "I have that same exact poster in my office! The Joshua Tree National Park one."

"I know." He cleared his throat. "You also have…" And he walked a few steps further into the hallway, switched on a light. "This one."

She gasped and smacked his arm again. "Hot diggity dog!"

Dell's lip twitched; he covered his mouth with a hand as if to hide it.

"I also…" He dropped the hand and cleared his throat again. "I'm also pretty sure I went to that same Decemberists show, at Edgefield. The one you have a poster of."

Mae turned her gaze from the Olympic National Park poster to Dell's face.

"No shit," she said.

"Yeah." Dell laughed a little, looking away. "Anyway. I usually work on the computer in here…" He walked through the hall, back toward the kitchen, and Mae followed, a sense of awe infused in every single thing that was happening just then.

The matching posters.

The way Dell seemed almost nervous, showing her around the details of his clearly beloved house, scratching his beard every ten seconds, clearing his throat every thirty.

Mae could only watch him until the awe filled her lungs, her throat, the corners of her eyes. She wanted to grab his hands every time he gestured to something, every time he ran them over a piece of furniture, and kiss every fingertip.

They were in Dell's laundry room when she thought, here I am again.

Each time her heart had been broken, whether through someone else's actions or her own—from Decree in the sixth grade, the first crush that had truly consumed her, to Becks, to Eden, and all the aches that had come in between—she always told herself she was done. She was her own best love; she didn't need any more of this mess. She'd never felt it as strongly as after Eden. She was old. Who needed it.

And then someone new showed up. Some new surprise. And she found herself here again.

As Dell pointed out random corners of his house, as they stood in each other's way in the bathroom and laughed, mostly breathless, like awkward kids, Mae thought maybe this realization should concern her. What had she just asked Vik the other day? Was she simply too susceptible to throwing around her heart? Did she attract heartbreak?

But as she examined every grain of wood in Dell's walls, as she studied the crinkles of his eyes every time he glanced back at her, she only felt…grateful. To be here again. To feel this glow again.

How many times did one fall in love, over the course of a lifetime?

Maybe there wasn't only one answer.

Maybe there was no limit.