Widowed a Year, I Masked Up and Took Both of His Brothers novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The River Coming Up

Tommy's POV

The sun came up red over the river, and I had Celie in my arms on a horse blanket in the wet grass.

Vince was in the car at the foot of the levee with the radio on.

I had asked him to stay there.

He had said, "Take all the time you want, I'll go deaf," and he had done it without one joke.

That is the kind of brother he is.

Celie sat across my lap in her jeans and her jacket, with her hair loose and her face turned to the light.

I had never seen her in daylight with her sleeves pushed up.

She had pushed them up herself.

"It's cold," she said.

"I'll warm you," I said.

"Promise?"

"Take your jacket off."

She laughed, and I felt it go through my chest.

She took it off.

Then the shirt, and the plain white bra, and I sat very still and looked.

She is thirty-one years old, and she has a body that makes my hands feel clumsy.

Soft hips and full breasts, and a small scar through one eyebrow.

Freckles lay across the tops of her shoulders, and nobody had ever told her they were beautiful.

"You're staring," Celie said.

"Yes."

"Is it bad?"

"It's the best thing I have ever seen," I said. "Come here."

She came.

I kissed her slowly, with my hands on her ribs and the sun hot on the back of my neck.

She tasted of coffee.

She made a little sound against my mouth, and my whole body went hard.

I have been a careful man for most of my life.

I did not want to be careful this morning, and I did not know how to be anything else.

"Tommy," she said into my mouth. "Take your shirt off."

I took it off.

She put both palms on my chest.

She found my ribs again, the old ridge on the left side, and this time she did not ask.

She just rested her hand there, warm, and kissed me.

I would have given a year of my life for that kiss, and a second year for that hand.

I laid her back on the blanket and undressed her the rest of the way.

Her jeans, her shoes, the last of the cotton.

She lay in the grass under the red sky with her legs a little apart, and she watched me look.

On her left forearm, below the elbow, ran a thin white line.

I knew that line.

I made my face stay still.

I bent my head and kissed it, once, slowly, the whole length.

Celie went rigid.

"Don't," she said, very quietly.

"All right," I said.

"It's old. It's nothing."

"All right."

I lifted my mouth from her arm, and she looked up at me, searching my face.

I let her.

I don't know what she found.

After a moment her hand came up and touched my jaw, and she breathed out.

"Not this morning," she said. "Okay? Not the sad things."

"Not this morning."

"This morning I want you to tell me I'm good."

"You're good," I said. "You're so good, Celie. And I'm going to show you."

I put my mouth on her throat and worked down.

Over her breasts, over her stomach, to the soft place under her navel.

She had her fingers in my hair.

She said my name, sharp, when I reached her thighs.

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