18
Thanksgiving, Three Years Ago
The Clarks’ Thanksgiving Day dinner preparations began shortly after breakfast. Bridget and I were on mashed potato casserole duty, still dressed in our jammies. She in a hockey jersey and hole-ridden leggings, I in a long- sleeve flannelette nightgown covered in tiny flowers that the firefighter I’d been sleeping with referred to as a boner killer.
Bridget peeled and I sliced the potatoes into large hunks with the oversize chef’s knife Christine forced into my hands.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with a paring knife,” I said to Bridget when her mom was busy making the stuffing.
“Welcome to the Clark family,” Bridget said.
I smiled. “I like it here. Aside from the knife.”
We were halfway through the potatoes when I heard the mudroom door swing open. It was almost like the atoms in the house had rearranged. I knew Felix was there before he called out, “Happy Thanksgiving.”
I turned around slowly, my pulse rocketing.
Felix was walking across the living room, a large canvas backpack over his shoulder. His hair was longer than it had been when I saw him last. He still had the beard, a little shaggier than before, and he wore a nubby oatmeal wool sweater that I bet his grandma had knit. Bridget had one just like it. His jeans were cuffed over a pair of scuffed gray suede boots. He looked cozy and a little rumpled. Autumn Felix.
“Wolf!” Christine and Bridget cried out in unison, crossing the floor to meet him.
He dropped his bag and hugged his mother, then his sister. I couldn’t look away.
“Hi, Lucy,” he said when he let Bridget go.
I don’t know how he made my name sound like foreplay. I took a shaky breath. “Hey, Wolf.”
His eyebrow arched, but he was smiling. God, he was glorious.
“How are you here?” Bridget asked.
“Found an earlier flight. Thought it would be fun to surprise everyone.”
I returned to the potatoes, my hands far less steady than before. I felt the
heat of him before he spoke.
“You haven’t been practicing.”
“I am now. Your mother is a tyrant,” I said, glancing over my shoulder.
Our eyes met. Snap.
Felix chuckled. “That she is. May I?” He gestured to the knife. I passed it to him, but he shook his head. “Try it again.”
He adjusted my hand, and I felt the electricity zip from the pads of his fingers down to the base of my spine. “Good.”
Felix stepped away, leaned his hip against the counter, watching me. It didn’t help with the wobbly fingers.
“Are you going to stand there and lord over me?”
“I’m not that much taller than you. I can’t lord.”
I turned to him. “Your shoulders are like six feet wide. You’re lording.”
“It’s true,” Bridget said, picking up the vegetable peeler. “You’re lording.”
Felix scoffed. “I’ll go take a shower, then.”
I should have kept my gaze on the knife, but I met Felix’s eyes. They were dancing, not heated exactly, but definitely teasing.
“Not happening,” I mouthed to him, and he laughed. Because it wasn’t happening. This time was still going to be different—it didn’t matter that Felix had waltzed in looking like sex.
“Suit yourself,” he whispered, leaving me to the potatoes and the image of Felix Clark in the shower.
He stayed close most of the day, helping with the cranberry sauce, setting the table with Bridget, telling us about the hostel he’d stayed at in Lisbon, the castles he’d visited in Sintra, the cherry liqueur and vinho verde. When Bridget asked about the plans for the cottages, he described them in such vivid detail that I could imagine myself walking around the rooms, stepping onto the deck. Felix had a way of painting pictures with words that I hadn’t noticed before, and he sounded different than he had the last time I’d seen him, more mature.
For dinner, there were baked oysters with bacon and Worcestershire sauce (an Aussie preparation Miles had introduced to the Clarks on his maiden visit that summer), followed by turkey, stuffing, acorn squash, mashed potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed turnip, and Brussels sprouts—a laughable amount of food. I had extra helpings of everything.
A bigger crowd than usual was gathered around the table—two sets of grandparents, two cousins, and an aunt—and the space was tight. I was acutely aware of Felix sitting beside me. Of our elbows knocking as we ate.
Of the way our fingers touched when he passed me the platter of turkey, how a current pinged from his pinkie to mine. I could think of little else aside from how good he smelled, how warm his body was next to mine, how well that body worked with my body. When his knee bumped against my knee, an accidental nudge, I almost jumped out of my chair. He laughed quietly.
The volume setting of a Clark family gathering, the number of voices competing to be heard, overlapping in happy arguments and in-jokes, made it so that only I could hear when Felix leaned toward my ear and asked, “Do I make you nervous, Lucy?”
“Not at all,” I replied, keeping my attention on my dinner.
“Hmm,” he said, then took a bite of stuffing.
“Hmm,” I said back, spearing a bean with my fork.
We didn’t speak more than a few sentences here and there (“pass the gravy,” “hand me the salt”) for the rest of the night, but I could feel his gaze on me when we cleaned the table and got out the board of Trivial Pursuit.
When Bridget sat down at the piano around midnight, and everyone gathered around her with their glasses of rye to sing “Let It Be,” I found myself staring at him openly, and him at me. Felix had a good singing voice, deep and clear, and our eyes didn’t leave each other for the rest of the song.
I had offered to give Felix his old room back, but he said he was happy to sleep on the pull-out sofa in the TV room. I washed my face, changed into my nightgown, and braided my hair with trembling fingers. I lay down, but I couldn’t be still. Felix didn’t sleep in this bed anymore and I had been the one in it the last few days, but I swear I could smell him on the sheets. I must have tossed and turned for an hour. I felt like an everlasting sparkler, sizzling and sparking in the dark, no end to the burning. I hadn’t been this sexually frustrated in . . . ever? I had never craved another person the way I craved Felix. The house was silent, everyone having long since fallen asleep. I threw back the sheets and paced the floor of the bedroom.
Would it really be so wrong if I crept downstairs and slipped into bed with Felix? It’s not like Bridget had told me explicitly not to sleep with him.
The rule that we had agreed on was that I wouldn’t fall in love with him. I had no interest in falling in love with Felix. Having his mouth and hands all over me, however, I was very much in favor of.
I walked to the door but hesitated, wondering whether I should turn around.
“Fuck it,” I whispered to myself. I deserved an orgasm or seven.
I flung open the door, tiptoed downstairs, quiet and quick. I knocked the way he’d shown me two years earlier. Tap, tap, pause, tap.
Felix was pulling a shirt over his head when the door opened. He wore pajama pants and a surprised expression. For a second, neither of us spoke.
Now that I was standing here, I wasn’t sure what my move was. “I used our knock,” I whispered.
Felix grinned. “I’d forgotten about the knock. Something on your mind,
Lucy?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “You.”
We stared at each other for a slice of a second before Felix wrapped his arm around my waist and brought his mouth to mine, his lips urgent. It was
exactly what I wanted, but I was still so shocked by the suddenness of the kiss that my knees began to buckle. His arm tightened around my middle, holding me firm. I moaned.
He pulled back an inch, breathing heavily, a smile slinking across his lips.
“Should we take this inside?”
It was only then that I realized we were standing in the doorway. I looked into the TV room over his shoulder. “I’ve never been able to say no to a pull- out couch.”
Felix laughed, tugging me into the room. He shut the door and drew me closer. I melted into his chest as we kissed again, my hands compassing his shoulder blades. His found the back of my head, confident, angling my face, his tongue hot on mine. There was no space between us, only layers of fabric and him, already hard. It felt like sex, the way he devoured me, the way I squirmed against him, my body seeking friction, seeking him. I’d been kissed by Felix, but never like this.
Felix ran his fingers along one of my braids, then set it behind my shoulder. He worked at the lace at my throat, untying the thin satin ribbon, moving much slower than he had seconds ago; then he lowered his mouth to my collarbone.
“We’re terrible. We said we wouldn’t,” I said, shuddering at the graze of teeth and then the soft sweep of lips coasting up my neck. My pulse thudded under his mouth.
“We can stop,” Felix said, his lips moving back to mine. But he didn’t
kiss me. He waited.
“No,” I told him. “I want more.”
His thumb swept across my bottom lip, and I sucked it into my mouth. He groaned.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. How you look when you’re naked. How you sound when you come. I’ve had a hard-on like a fucking fourteen-year-old since I walked in the door.” His nose slid along mine. “You’re a goddamn wonder.”
His words were gas on a flame. Felix opened his mouth to speak again, but I put my lips on his, smothering the sentence. Hours of pretending I
didn’t want every inch of his body pressed against mine vanished. The kiss was frantic. Greedy mouths and desperate tongues. Hands cuffed around backsides. Hips rocking.
I scrambled to get his T-shirt off, my nails scraping over his skin. I ran my fingers through the soft dusting of hair on his chest, over his strong shoulders, then pressed my mouth to his neck. I shivered at the drag of his rough palm along my rib cage, over my hip, to the top of my thigh.
“Can you do me a favor?” Felix asked.
“Pretty sure there’s nothing I wouldn’t agree to right now.”
He inched up my nightgown, then led my fingers to the hem. “Hold this
for me?”
“I can take it off.”
“I like it,” he said, kneeling. “I like imagining everything that’s hidden underneath.”
I laughed, but then he traced a line on my inner thigh with his mouth, and every muscle I owned clenched. Felix nipped at the flesh, his beard tickling and scratching. He held me open, pushing aside the lace of my underwear, flicking his tongue until I started to wobble.
“If you think my core strength is good enough for me to stay standing for this, you have seriously overestimated my fitness level,” I whispered, and felt his chuckle roll through me.
“I’m serious,” I said, pulling on his elbows. “I have the exercise routine of
a starfish.”
He stood, grinning. “Shush.”
Felix planted messy kisses to my temple, cheek, the corner of my mouth, as we lifted off the nightgown and stumbled to the mattress. We collapsed onto the pull-out together, and the springs let out a loud eeeeerrrrrch. We froze, Felix on top of me, smiles smooshed together.
Felix stayed still for another few breaths. His hand coasted over my thigh, and as if he could feel how tense I was, he said, “The door’s locked, Lucy.
The worst that could happen is someone will knock.”
“That would be extremely bad.” But Felix’s fingers moved between my legs to where my every nerve was screaming to be disrupted, and then his
mouth followed. When he pulled my underwear off, lifted my leg over his shoulder, and told me he loved how I tasted, I forgot where we were. I put my hand over my mouth when I came, but Felix stayed where he was, sucking and kissing, until I reached for him. He stood with a satisfied grin, digging a condom out from his backpack. I wondered how many he’d used on his trip.
“I like to be prepared,” he said, seeing my expression. He lowered his pants, dropping them onto the floor. He stood naked before me, skin glowing silver in the moonlight.
My throat went dry at the sight of him. The totality of Felix shirtless was so extravagant that I might have laughed if I didn’t want to touch every part of him. His shoulders were obnoxious—sculpted with intent, or at least I assumed so. I didn’t think you could look the way Felix did without putting in time at the gym. But he was muscular in less obvious places, too. The space beneath his armpits on either side of his chest was built up, like a pair of sexy wings might reside there. And he had those twin lines that ran on diagonals above his pelvis.
I reached for his hand, and he climbed over me, bending to my chest, seeming to get lost there. I wiggled beneath him, wanting him now. In whispered pleas, I told him so. He rose to his knees between my legs, rolling on the condom, eyes on me.
“Sit up for a sec,” he said, and I did what I was told, lifting myself onto my elbows as Felix, one by one, unfastened the elastics around my braids and raked his fingers through my hair.
I lay back, hair spilling across the pillow, eyes not leaving his. Cloaked in midnight, he surveyed me, swallowing once, and in that moment, I felt a shift. The charge was still there, but instead of sparking and sizzling, it was heavier somehow. Felix smoothed a palm down my side. He tugged my hips closer, until he was nudged against me, and he lowered himself onto his forearms until our noses were almost touching.
“I forgot how good this felt,” I told him.
He pressed his lips to mine, once. “I didn’t.”
We stared at each other, and time seemed to stop.
“Don’t fall in love with me, Felix Clark,” I whispered. “Rule three.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Felix began inching inside me, a slow stretch that called a whimper from my throat. He paused, brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“Shh, Lucy.”
He took his time easing deeper until his hips were pressed fully to mine.
He was still, but I felt him throb inside me.
“Okay?”
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “More.”
He pulled almost all the way out, and then with the same unbothered pace, returned to me. It was the best kind of torture. When he rose to his knees, rubbing two fingers against me, I shuddered out a surprised breath— my body usually wasn’t ready for a second round so quickly. Only with Felix. He cupped his other hand over my mouth, and I tilted my hips at the unexpected thrill of it. The bed squeaked.
“Think you can stay still, stay quiet?” he said.
I mumbled a yes, but when his fingers moved between us, I moaned against his palm. Felix grinned, cocky and one-sided. Nothing had ever felt as good as his hand on my mouth, his fingers between us, the rhythm he set. I felt like the sand the surf crashed over. When he spread my legs wider, pushing deeper, I whispered his name into his palm.
“I love hearing you say that.” He circled his hips. I closed my eyes at the sensation, and Felix’s hand moved from my mouth to my breast, taking my nipple between his thumb and index finger. I bit my bottom lip. “Say it again,
Lucy.”
“Felix,” I whispered. “More.”
We stayed wound together after, catching our breath, Felix smattering kisses to my lips and cheeks. He shifted onto the mattress beside me, bringing me with him, folding me against his chest. It wasn’t long before we were both asleep.
I woke to the soft toll of bells. It was a pretty sound, a quiet twinkling, like stars coming to life. The bed shifted, and Felix unwrapped his arm from my waist and his leg from between mine. He shut off the alarm and sat on the edge of the mattress, his exceptional back to me.
“What time is it?”
“Four thirty. I thought you might want to get upstairs before anyone
wakes up.”
More, my body screamed. Felix.
He peered over his shoulder, and I sat, bringing us face-to-face.
“Okay.”
Felix’s hand coasted to my cheek. His thumb passed over my lip, his mouth moved closer to mine. “It’s nice to see you again. We always have a good time.”
My laugh came out as somewhere between a snort and a guffaw. “A very good time.”
Felix smiled. “Best time I’ve had all year.”
“You’ve just come back from Portugal. Surely traveling was the highlight.”
His eyes danced, beautiful. “Lucy . . . Lisbon . . . It’s hard to say which experience is more memorable.”
“If that’s the case, I think you need to improve your travel itinerary.”
He nudged his nose against mine. “This itinerary suits me just fine.”
We were kissing again, losing track of the hour, of sense, of anything that wasn’t our lips and hands and tongues. When we finally pulled apart, our gazes remained tethered. Felix’s palm came to rest on my cheek, his fingers tangled in my hair. It felt new and tender, and it made me nervous.
“We’re good, right?” I whispered. “We can be normal around each other?”
Felix’s hand fell from my face, and he smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “We can be normal.”
