Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (25 page)

“Not tonight, I’m not going to be.” She reached up in the cabinet again and pulled out a large bottle of tequila. She slid it down the counter with a quick thrust of her wrist. Hank had to catch it before it slid to the floor and shattered.

“All right,” Hank said, smiling. “Tell me now, what’s your poison, Little Sister?”

She held up the long bottle of red wine. Her voice became slow, like dripping molasses, her movements as sensual as warm honey to a stinging bee. “Red wine and a boy named Hank. Here are the rules. No cups, no measuring, no holding back. We drink straight from the bottle. We drink, Hank, until we get our fill. And then, we forget.” She popped the cork and put the bottle to her mouth, taking a long drink.

Hank opened his own poison, fierce like gasoline fumes, sweet like candy, taking a drink just as long as hers. He nodded and took another drink as she watched him. She watched him drink, licking his lips after he was done. Her breath was coming faster and deeper.

“I’ll be right back, Hank.”

Hank walked over to the hallway, the firelight from the front room just barely lightening the area. He slid down the wall, one leg out, one leg close to his body, and lifted the drink to his lips again, looking straight through it.

She floated in the glass, cream colored and wrapped in silk, a sheer, longer dress hanging from her shoulders. It gathered at her waist, with a slit straight from her thigh to the floor. She dragged her feet as she walked past him, the bottle dangling in her hand. She looked down at him, he looked up at her, and they both smiled.

She met him on the floor, took a seat across from him. They went drink for drink. Sip for sip. Pull for pull. Shot for shot, they sat with their backs against the wall, his poison, her poison, all that poison glowing like blood and gold in the rising shadows of the fire raging in the background. Hank felt all those inhibitions, all those unspoken words and feelings, drowning, sinking further and further with each drink.

Delilah put her bottle down, took a deep breath. She stared toward the light, fire raging in her pupils, her eyes shining from the heat. “I’ve been trying, Hank. I really have. But you are my one teaspoon to crazy.”

Hank stared in the same direction, his eyes dream-like and hazy. He could smell the heaviness of it all, the lime, the salty beach. It was all there, trapped with them in that narrow space of time. “I think your rules are wrong. I hate them. I want to break every damn one of them.”

“Rules are meant to be broken. Life’s not much fun if you don’t bend and break them sometime. The ones you know are damn well worth breaking. Go on, shatter them, Hank.”

“I didn’t know, until you, what I’d been missing.”

“One more day with you feels like a life sentence because it will never be enough.”

“I hated my life before you came along. Now, I don’t think I would fight for anything more.”

“I told a lie, Hank. I loved a man once. His name was Paulie. He meant the world to me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Need to know basis.”

“Stop talking about him. I want you so badly, there’s no limit to what I’d do to have you.”

“Don’t forget about me, Hank.”

“Never. You are my one unforgettable girl.”

“When you smile at me, Hank, my knees go weak. I can hardly stand or breathe. I get a real doozy of a feeling in the pit of my stomach. I want to eat everything, but nothin’.”

“I feel like the luckiest man, Delilah. I feel like I’m holding a seven up in heaven.”

“Hank, I’ve never been with a man I could really feel. I feel you already.”

The free admissions went in circles, all bundled up in the neat package of the hallway. Over and over the lines went, until they were delirious with want and need. Hank felt it. They had said everything, all but the one thing. The rest could wait.

“I love you, Delilah.” There, he just said it. He felt good about it too. He shattered that rule into a million ways, stealing the most important piece so she could never put it back together.

There was a long pause as the shadows stretched, the log crackled. Another feeling set free, another fear drowned and submerged in the poison.

“I love you too, Hank,” she whispered.

They turned to each other at the same time. They sat and stared, their eyes dancing toward one another. Hank knew then how the dry bush felt when there was nothing between it and the fire except the wind, directing and controlling the speed in which it helplessly burned to the ground. Oh heaven help him, he wanted nothing more than to be inside that woman.

Moving slowly, Hank crawled to her until they were nose to nose. He steadied his breathing. He could feel her trembling breath as it washed over him. It bathed him in something stronger than the alcohol content.

He spread his arms around her, enclosing her against the wall. And together, they lazily slid up until they were standing. He stared down at her, pressing his body into hers. His mind was moving a million miles a minute. Everything was spinning, preparing for those few moments in time when he knew everything would stop. Life would cease to exist, except for their pounding hearts begging to be set free.

Hank hesitated. He loved Delilah, but it wasn’t fair to still feel love for another woman and be with her this way. He had to stop.

She sensed his hesitation, could read between his lines, he could tell. She rubbed her leg back and forth against him, reminding him of how much he wanted this, how much he needed this. A slight moan escaped from her lips before she whispered, “Forget about her. Just for one night. I know you love her, too. I’m all right with that. But for tonight, let’s just be Hank and Delilah.”

Hank didn’t know if he could stop himself. His body was begging, screaming,
you can’t stop
! He had to have her, no matter the consequences. If she was Pistollette, there was no turning back. He was going back on everything he had ever believed. Every standard he had ever set for himself, every promise he ever made, he was going to break it. He was doing the same if she was Delilah. He was going to break it all for one night to be buried deep inside her.

Delilah put her mouth to his, moaning and trembling. He gave in then to every desire she had built up in him, the sensation rising higher and higher just to drop lower and lower. They seemed to dance in circles as they kissed and touched. Without even noticing, they had moved into the bathroom, warm water soaking them as they undressed each other. The hot air carried the smells of frankincense and myrrh in its humid embrace.

The warmth of the shower fogged the room, steam rising like smoke, water dripping like a steady flowing rain. He outlined her body with his fingertips, ran his finger along her collarbone, between her breasts. He licked her neck, savoring the bittersweet taste of her, the red wine in her pores.

Her hands ran through his hair, her tongue along the base of his jaw, as she sucked the skin on his chest. For every action there was a stronger reaction. It was their law, some kind of theory made between the two of them.

Pressing her back against the clouded glass wall, Hank tangled his fingers with hers, slowly moving her hands above her head. She knotted her fingers tighter with his, her knuckles imprinted in the fog. She wrapped her legs around him, and when he rocked into her, they both cried out in pleasure and need.

Delilah moaned unintelligible words at the same frantic pace her hips rolled into him. He would stop just for a moment to stare at her, to absorb her, to bury himself so deeply in her she could never break away. His staring only seemed to excite her even more, and she would scream out and move quicker and faster. Her moans and pleas and trembling becoming more and more earth shattering with every touch, every ounce of love transferring between the two of them.

They were finding their perfect rhythm in the world. He couldn’t stop moving into her, their rhythm so perfect and in sync, their bodies refused to quit. When she tensed and called his name, he let go with her. Both of them were swept up, pushed off, falling together from the edge of desire, pressing their lips together, whispering, “I love you, I love you.”

Breathing heavy, they murmured, “I love you” in between kisses, their desire quenched, but not for long. One look, one touch, and the sensation grew hotter and hotter. The air was thick, filled with love, that strange but delicious magic with no logic.

Hank took Delilah to bed and made slow, sweet love to her, touching her with a delicate hand. He controlled the pace and the flow, savoring every moment with her like it was his last. The tension between them throbbed for release, their bodies begging for more, more, more, never stop, never stop, but please let go, let go…

He whispered on her skin how much he loved her, how she felt so right to him, how beautiful and strong she was, like the winds that that could destroy coasts, but was tender and gentle, like the warm winds that blew across the water, only causing a ripple. He could hear the echoes of her sighs as she slid her fingertips up and down his back.

He licked every part of her he wanted to claim. He wanted to claim her but not own her. He wanted to claim her like some feral, male animal would do during some mating ritual out in the wild. He wanted to claim every part of her, so that any other male knew she was his in this way only. For her, he would scare the rest away. He licked her and kissed her and moved over her in long, slow, savory motions until she couldn’t take it any longer.

She spoke low, her breathing uncontrolled. “I don’t know how to only give one part of myself to you without losing myself completely. Oh, it’s all or nothing with you…all or nothing.”

Delilah had been with men, but she’d never felt a man like she did Hank. She never had orgasms. She never felt the connection behind the action. She confessed this to Hank in the heat of moments that seemed like they would live beyond the mere shells of their bodies. She had them then in long, lingering sequences. They went on and on, one after another. Her body fluttered and came apart for him—whatever her wish, it was his to make come true.

Hank could see and feel that Delilah was finally freeing herself of whatever shackle and chain had had her imprisoned for so long. At one point Hank had to slow down, make sure Delilah was all right, because the sensations became stronger and stronger, her release louder and louder.

The spiritual ritual went on and on; time was nonexistent. Molasses had stopped. Everything had stopped as they both fell deeper, so much deeper, into that black hole where time means nothing. They were careening along on her winds of change, like a thin sheet of paper in a Southern storm.

They loved the entire night, the next day, all through to the night again. When the room had turned black and she lay there spent next to him, spent but not fully satisfied as he turned circles on her back with his fingertips, Hank told her something he swore never to tell another living soul again.

Hank told her what he had witnessed so long ago. He told her he watched as two men were murdered. He mentioned no names, described no faces, because they had become ghosts to him. He spoke of them as ghosts who were haunting him. He spoke of the man who did it as the devil. He didn’t want her to know who it was. He didn’t want her involved to such a degree.

He admitted to Delilah that he was afraid. He was afraid of losing his life because that would mean losing her. And nothing in this life was more frightening than that. Now that he’d found her, he swore never to let her go.

Delilah sat there with him, silent, listening. She absorbed everything he had confided in her and locked it away. He fell asleep in her arms. As he lay sleeping, Delilah promised him she would never let anyone hurt him. She wished him cotton candy dreams and then drifted off to sleep.

T
he next morning, the third day, Delilah insisted they had to eat. There was a knock at the door. She stood and stretched, her back arching toward Hank. Her naked body was splendid in the early morning light; the flow of her spine flawless, the roundness of her bottom pure perfection. He reached for her but she was gone. Her long cream dress, dried and form fitting her body, disappeared from the room so smoothly, it was like she was never even there. He was reaching for empty air. He smelled her lingering scent, and that only seemed to blow him away again.

He threw on a white t-shirt and a pair of sweats. He met her in the kitchen, where there was a hefty sized basket sitting on the counter filled with assorted foods. Delilah was starting coffee. He could smell it in the air, already feel it in his blood stream. He went to take her in his arms, but she shook her head and pointed to the other side of the counter.

“I gotta get this on. I just have to.” She refused to look at him, but he could tell she was smiling.

Hank rested his back against the counter, watching her. She fiddled with the coffee maker, took the milk out of the fridge, sugar out of the cupboards. Hank smirked, fiddled with the plastic on the basket. It was filled with fruit and cinnamon buns.

“Hazel sent it over.” She poured two cups of coffee. Steam rose and the smell wafted. “She was worried we weren’t eating.”