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hear."
     
    "Are you all right?" She feigned checking him
for fever.
     
    He grabbed her hand and kissed her palm. "Say
it again."
     
    "You act like I've never said your name
before." She shook her head at his foolishness.
     
    "Please."
     
    The tables had turned. Feeling foolish, she
obliged. "Malcolm. Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm."
     
    "Claire, what if I told you I'd dreamed I
lost you, and that I hadn't heard you say my name in a verra long
time."
     
    "I'd say don't eat hot peppers before bed
again." She stroked his cheek. "Because that could never
happen."
     
    For a moment, so brief she was uncertain it
happened at all, his eyes looked haunted. "I wish you were
right."
     
    Uneasiness settled in her gut like a spoiled
meal. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"
     
    He shook his head. "Like to? No."
     
    Suddenly, Claire didn't want to hear whatever
it was Malcolm had to say. She crawled over the bed and up his body
until she could rest her forehead on his. She lost herself in the
endless blue depths of his eyes.
     
    "Let's not talk," she said.
     
    "Fair enough." His voice had gone husky in
the way she recognized. It sent an answering thrill down her spine.
"No talking."
     
    She brushed her lips on his, feather-soft.
His hands came up to toy with the ends of her hair. Claire nudged
Malcolm's chin with hers and deepened the kiss. She straddled his
waist. His hardening penis bumped her butt, and she wiggled until
it slipped toward her front.
     
    Malcolm rolled them both over until he'd
settled between her legs. His mouth found her throat, her neck, and
the edges of her collarbone. He lifted her T-shirt over her head
and paused to gaze at her.
     
    His palms came up and covered her bare
breasts. Her nipples stiffened. He put his mouth to the left one
while his fingers tweaked the right and then switched places.
     
    Claire arched under this touch.
"Malcolm..."
     
    "Yes, Claire."
     
    But there was no more to be said, just to say
his name, as he'd asked her to. Claire said it again, his name,
like a charm, a password, a talisman, to keep her safe from some
distant threat she sensed but could not see.
     
    In the movies, clothes always seemed to
simply melt away, as though by magic. In real life, it was usually
more complicated. The tie of Malcolm's pants knotted and they
couldn't undo it. Claire's pants got hooked around her ankle and
refused to budge. Malcolm's T-shirt tore when Claire tugged it over
his head, and that final snafu in their attempts at getting naked
sent them both into peals of laughter.
     
    "Ah, it's good to hear your laugh,
Claire."
     
    He made it sound like she hadn't laughed in a
long time. "No talking, remember?"
     
    He laughed again, a little less heartily.
"All right."
     
    He slipped inside her with a sigh, then
closed his eyes and rested on his arms for a moment before he began
to move. She loved seeing him this way, lost in the pleasure her
body gave him. She loved being able to look at his body as they
made love.
     
    The muscles of his arms bunched and relaxed
as he moved. Claire put her hands on his biceps to enjoy the
flexing beneath her fingers. When he lowered himself, his smooth
chest teased her erect nipples. His back was smooth and muscled
like his chest, and his ass, too. She cupped the firm globes of his
buttocks as he thrust inside her. Her calves caressed his furred
thighs and she used her ankles to push him deeper into her.
     
    "Claire."
     
    She could tell he needed no answer, as she
had needed none before, but she answered him anyway. "Yes." Then
again, when the twist of his hips put delicious pressure on her
clitoris, "Yes!"
     
    Her orgasm built slowly and burst over her as
slowly. Not fierce. Not harsh. It rippled through her in waves of
pure desire, each one building before the last one faded away,
until she was coming. Just coming, over and over while Malcolm
whispered her name and she answered with his.
     
    * * * *
     
    Claire wrung out the cloth into the pail