9 Letters (13 page)

I was twenty. Twenty-year-olds
are idiots.

“Alright, y’all,
gather round.” That was Natalie, Emily’s older sister.
The ‘better’ daughter, the one committed to the family
business. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out an
ear-splitting whistle, because you can’t knock a plastic fork
on a plastic cup to much effect. Everyone grew quiet.

“Now I know that y’all
know that I like to give Luke a hard time,” she said. “And
I know y’all know I never really approved of my little sister
going all-in on a big city guy. Especially since they’re both
so young.”

She paused for dramatic effect.

“But that’s not how I
see it, anymore. Because Luke’s my family now. So I’m
going to
keep
giving him a hard time, because that’s what family’s
for.” People laughed. I might have even laughed.

“I’m going to just
eat humble pie,” Natalie said, “and admit that maybe,
just maybe... Well, shit. Luke’s the best thing that could have
come my little sister’s way. Even if he can’t ride a damn
horse to save his life.”

Dave took the mic next,
swaggering in that way of his. “You’re not the only one
who likes to give him shit,” Dave said. “But I’m
not up here to embarrass our man Luke any more than he can do for
himself.”

That was good for a few laughs. I
was blushing. I’m not the kind of man who blushes. I’d
thought.

“No, I’m here to
embarrass Emily and Luke both. I’m here to tell you about what
happened when Luke here was prom king and Emily was prom queen. Now,
it was bad enough that a damn
baseball
player made it to prom king, leaving our star quarterback...he’s
here somewhere, isn’t he?”

“Leave me out of this!”
Damon yelled from somewhere.

“Leaving our star
quarterback out in the cold. And by cold I mean necking with Stacy
Chapman right outside the fire exit. So it was bad enough, right, but
more than that, can you believe it, Emily here wasn’t even a
cheerleader. Hell, she wasn’t even a senior. Or a junior. Our
sophomore prom queen.”

He lifted his solo cup, and
everyone took a drink.

“So Luke and Emily, they
started getting paranoid, as soon as they realized they were going to
win. They started thinking that people were going to prank them. Dump
blood on them or take over the DJ booth and play the Monkees or
something and try to make them sing it karaoke. Now I’m not
saying that that wouldn’t have been the best idea I’d
ever pulled off, if I’d pulled it off. I’m saying that
these paranoid kids became
convinced
we were out to get them.”

“You were!”

“Well maybe. But then we
realized we didn’t have to embarrass them, that they’d
embarrass themselves. If...if we told Emily that the way that it’s
done in Kansas City is that the prom queen takes off her sash and
puts it over the principal and asks him to dance. You know, the
traditional prom queen, principal dance.”

Everyone was howling with
laughter. Emily found me in the crowd and put her hand around my
waist so we were both blushing together instead of alone.

“But I’ll tell you
that as soon as Luke saw what was happening, he stepped right off
that stage and he walked right up to Ms. Murphy, our eighty-year-old
vice principal too stubborn to retire and too old to die, and he asks
her to dance too. Because damned if Emily is going to make a moron of
herself alone. And that, that right there, is why Luke deserves
someone as completely and utterly astounding as Emily Cawley. To them
both!”

He raised his cup, and everyone
toasted.

The speeches went on from there,
and I listened and laughed. But I only listened with the back of my
mind. The front of my mind was just overwhelmed with emotion.

Then we were dancing. I don’t
dance, but that day I did. I heard that steel guitar on the
loudspeaker, and it was time, and Emily strode across the dance
floor, took me by the hand, held me close.

It was like we were floating,
right up off the floor. Her up against me, tight up against me. I
don’t know fancy steps, but I know how to keep a rhythm, and we
weren’t awkward. We just floated across the floor.

All too soon, it was over.
Everything is always over too soon. You blink, and your first dance
is over. Blink again, the wedding is over. Blink again,
and...and...and thoughts you can’t linger on.

We went home, to our new home.
There wasn’t money for a fancy honeymoon right away, but we’d
save up. A cabin on a lake. If not that summer, then the next. That’s
what we told each other. We’d ride in, on horses. A cabin on a
lake with nothing but a horse path leading up to it.

But that house, right there in
Kansas City, Missouri, that was better than any cabin on any lake in
the world. It was ours.

Emily hadn’t even seen
inside until I carried her over the threshold. She gasped—I’d
been in there cleaning and fixing and rebuilding every day, and it
looked pretty good.

But I didn’t set her down
on the ground floor, I went right up to the steps, right up to the
bedroom, and set her down in bed.

“Well I’d ask you to
join me under these sheets,” she said, “but I’m a
married woman now. Wouldn’t be proper.”

“Whoever married you, he’s
the luckiest son of a bitch that’s ever been born.”

“Get into bed, Mr. Cawley.”

The window was open, just a
crack, letting in the cool autumn air. I took off my jacket, set it
on the back of the chair. Unbuttoned my shirt, folded it, set it
down. Then I pulled off my undershirt and when the cold air hit my
chest, I was finally sure this wasn’t a dream.

I knelt down and kissed her. It
never got old, kissing Emily. Every kiss was the first kiss.
Tentative, but full of desire. Heat building up between us as we
explored what each of us wanted, needed in the moment. I put my hand
on the back of her neck, held her close to me, and she let out a
little happy sigh. Then Emily slid her hand up my back, over my
shoulder and down to the center of my chest. She looked into my eyes,
a happy smile on her lips.

“This is mine now, Luke
Cawley.” Her palm was warm and firm against the beat of my
heart.

In that moment I realized I had
never wanted anything more.

“It’s yours,” I
told her. “Always been yours.”

Her fingers went into my hair,
her nails running along my scalp. I cupped my palm around her cheek
for just a moment, then stood up again in front of her. She was
watching me. I took off my pants. Unbuttoned them, let them slide
down my legs, and stepped free. I climbed up onto the bed, straddled
her, and knelt down to kiss her.

I was floating again.

Her lips were soft against mine.
She had such wonderful lips. I put her hands up behind her head,
pressing into her. She moaned.

Looking down at her in the faint
light through the window, I put my hands on her thighs over the silky
fabric of her dress. Inched my hands up towards where her legs met.
She was squirming under me, already breathing heavy, knowing what was
in store. That’s the beauty of being with someone you already
know. I’d learned how to read her. She could tell me, without
telling me, what she wanted, what she didn’t.

I started rubbing my thumbs up
against the V of her mound from outside the dress, dipping my head
down to kiss the underside of her jaw and down the line of her
throat. Her mouth fell open and she let out a soft moan.

“Lie back,” she said,
and my pulse pounded at her command.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She laughed and settled on top of
me, the satin of her dress cool against my hot skin. It was all I
could do not to rip that dress right off her.

“Em—”

“Shh.”

I got goosebumps as she ran her
fingers up and down my arms. She stopped to massage my shoulders with
her thumbs, then kept exploring my chest. I let her hold me down with
one hand while her other slipped inside my briefs and touched my
hips, sending a shiver of excitement through me.

Then she kissed me again, while I
was there underneath her, and her hair cascaded down either side of
her face and all I could see was her. All I could think of was her.

She stood up, facing me, and
slipped the dress down off her shoulders, shaking her hips a little
as she wriggled out of the voluminous skirt. My breath caught in my
throat at the sight of her standing there.

White lacy underwear. Risqué,
like I’d never seen on her.

“I get to be naughty, now,”
she told me, as she unhooked her bra and her perfect breasts fell
loose. Her pale pink nipples were hard already, and my cock started
to grow against my briefs.

She ran her hands down to her
hips, hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties, and
started to slide them down slowly. So slowly. Good. I wanted to savor
the moment.

I wanted to savor every moment.

She was naked, and perfect, and I
was staring. Hell, I might have been drooling, I was so hungry for
her. My dick was too hard, so I slipped off my briefs. I let my thumb
go down to the base of my cock, started lazily touching myself while
she teased me. She took a half step closer to the bed, then reached
out and ran her fingers along my skin, trailing from my feet, up to
my knees, to the inside of my thighs. Her fingers just lightly grazed
the side of my cock, then kept going up. Her nails felt amazing
against my nipples, and I drew in a sharp breath when she lingered
there, but then her fingers were up over my collarbone, to my chin.
When her finger got near my lips, I took it in my mouth and sucked on
it, licking it, teasing it. She let her other fingers explore my
mouth, then leaned down and kissed me again.

It was like falling into a night
sky in the middle of the desert, nothing existing outside of us, the
hot press of our mouths and tongues, the breathless gasps, her hands
reaching down to grip my shaft in a tight squeeze. I groaned.

Then I reached down, took her
hand. I met her gaze, questioning.

“Now,” she said.

In one motion, I pulled her to me
and threw her down onto the sheets. She giggled a little and I
climbed over to her, spread her legs apart, and met her eyes again.

“
Now
,”
she said, louder this time. She didn’t like to start slow,
Emily.

I ran a trail of kisses down her
neck, slowly licked her nipples until her breaths came fast and hard,
then resumed kissing down her belly, and I kept going from there. I’d
let my stubble grow out just long enough to where it wouldn’t
hurt her, and I found her pussy with my tongue and my mouth. My hands
held her thighs, lifting her lightly up from the bed while I teased
her with my tongue in short, quick strokes.

She was moaning already. That
girl could ride a bronco, that girl had a voice for show business. I
loved it. I pulled her close against my face, let my tongue move
deeper and open her folds, lick lightly across her clit.

Then harder, the flat of my
tongue pressed up against her.

“A girl comes faster the
second time in one night than the first,” my brother’s
wife had told me, and it was probably the only sex advice I’d
ever been given that did me any good.

I worked her hard, moving to slip
two fingers inside her, and Emily guided me. We drove her slowly up
to climax over the next God knows how long and she was screaming and
banging on the wall with her fists while I licked her clit. It’s
the kind of thing you don’t get tired of, tasting your wife.

“Enough,” she said,
panting, and I pulled my fingers out of her and let her fall down
into the bed. “Enough. I need more. I need you.”

I straddled her waist, ran the
tips of my fingers along her cheek, down her neck, circled her
breast.

“Let me just catch my
breath first,” she said.

“I’m not going
anywhere,” I said.

We’d been using condoms for
a year already, but she’d gone on the pill a month before our
wedding. She’d made me keep using a condom until our wedding
night, because she’d wanted it to be that much more special.
We’d have kids, one day, but there was no hurry. We’d
wait until my business got going. Our whole lives were in front of
us.

“Alright,” she said.
“Gentle, though.”

I leaned down, kissed her ear.
Put my palm against the side of her neck, while my mouth drifted down
to her throat and shoulders. I licked at her nipple, then bit it,
ever so gently, just to hear her breathe in, sudden and deep. I
looked up and we locked eyes. Just stared into one another’s
eyes.

“I love you,” I said.

She spread her legs, and I knelt
between them, let my cock find her—she was so wet. I thrust in,
gently, and she moaned, and I moaned. She lifted her legs, and I went
as deep as she could take me. It was like we were built for one
another. She was tight around me, and she looked up at me with that
look that said she loved me, and I fucked her. Gentle, for awhile,
but soon enough she was on top, riding me, her nails digging hard
into my shoulder.

Then I wrestled her over, kissed
her hard, and kept my pace strong and steady until she came again,
and as she came, I came, our mouths pressed together, our bodies
pressed together. Our lives, our lives were pressed together. I was
inside her, and our lives were intertwined.

She curled up against me, and her
breathing grew regular, and she was soon asleep. I drifted off,
thinking I could just stay there forever. Stay in that house, with my
wife, forever. I had no idea that in all likelihood, she was already
sick.

It gets easier, waking up alone.
That’s something I hadn’t even hoped for. But it does. I
woke up feeling pretty good, in fact. Before my alarm. I was sore as
all get out, but that wasn’t so bad. I’d had a dream
about Emily. A nice dream. Just us on a walk somewhere in a nice
neighborhood. In the dream, she’d had her arm through mine and
I’d been happy. When I woke up, that happiness from the dream
started to fade.