He kissed her with an urgency she hadn’t felt last night. Last night he’d discovered, taken for his own. This morning she felt the need to have her. It wasn’t about her body as a stand-in for his wife. Eleanor had made him laugh, given him a break, if only momentary, from three years of pain. This time he wasn’t conquering. This time he was just grateful.
Daniel pulled her from her seat on the desk. She wondered if he would take her on the floor or take her back to his bedroom. Instead he turned her so she stood with her back to his chest. He laid one slow, possessive kiss along the length of her neck before pushing her forward onto the desk.
Eleanor forced a deep calming breath as Daniel stripped her naked from the waist down. She braced for his entrance, expecting it to be as sudden and fierce as last night’s. But he waited, running his hands over her thighs, across her lower back, slipping a hand between her legs to caress her outer lips until she was so eager for him she stood on her tiptoes in readiness. When he finally penetrated her it was slow and methodical. He gripped the back of her neck as he began thrusting. He didn’t go as deep today as last night either but moved in spirals in and out of her, reaching every corner inside her.
She moaned quietly, her hot breath steaming a patch of the cool mahogany of the desk under her cheek.
“You like it from behind,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“God, yes,” she confessed without shame.
“There’s more than one way to enter from behind.”
“If you think that’s a threat, then you don’t know me very well,” she said, smug even while squirming underneath him.
“I don’t,” he admitted, slightly breathless, but still in control. “But that will change.”
As if to prove his point, he pushed down and deep into her, eliciting both a muscle spasm and a sharp gasp.
She closed her eyes. He increased his pace. When she came she came as quietly as she could but still loud enough for Daniel to hear and laugh just before he let himself come with three final thrusts and a muffled grunt at the back of his throat.
Eleanor’s breathing slowly settled. She blinked and raised her head. All she saw were thousands of books stacked and shelved and neatly scattered. Daniel was still inside her.
“God I love a man who reads,” she breathed and laid her head on the desk, spent.
The sex out of their system—for the moment, at least—Eleanor and Daniel made diligent progress on his library. Daniel sorted, reclassified while Eleanor dusted the bookcases in question and reshelved the newly Deweyed books in proper order.
Sometimes they talked as they worked: Eleanor learned about Daniel’s childhood in Canada, the source of his imperviousness to New England winters, and Eleanor confessed her frustration with her lack of ambition. She wanted, in theory, to do more than work in a bookstore but was so happy, most of the time, with him that she couldn’t bring herself to make any sort of profound change.
“Contentment can be the enemy,” Daniel agreed and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. “But don’t worry. Life, death, or an act of God will eventually intervene. Enjoy the contentment while it lasts. It won’t last forever.”
Eleanor shivered at the bitter truth of his words.
“You’ve been content to be alone for three years. So am I the life, death, or act of God sent to shake things up?”
“You,” he said, “are a force of nature.” He slapped her bottom and ordered her back to work.
They worked mostly in silence, companionable silence after that, speaking only about the books and how they should best be arranged. During a back-stretching break, Eleanor wandered into the corner of a windowless alcove. Two dozen or more cardboard boxes were neatly stacked.
“What are these?” she called out to Daniel.
“Discards,” he said, coming to her corner. “Maggie’s old law books. There’s a business college with a paralegal program in town. I was going to donate the books to their little law library.”
“Going to?”
“Well, I still am. I just haven’t quite …”
Eleanor gave him a flat, steady stare.
“How long have these been sitting here in those boxes?”
“A year, I suppose.”
Eleanor continued to gaze blankly at him.
“You do recall I am the dominant in this particular relationship, yes?”
Eleanor wasn’t intimidated. “Then act like it.”
“I will.” At that, Daniel scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder, carrying her squirming self back to the case they’d been working on. “Back. To. Work,” he ordered as he put her down, gently but firmly, on her feet.
“Yes, sir.” She turned and climbed nimbly up the library ladder.
“Eleanor,” Daniel said, after a few minutes of actual work had passed.
“Yes, sir?”
“I’ll call the college tomorrow.”
Eleanor smiled a smile only the shelves could see.
“Yes, sir.”
Eleanor groaned in unconcealed ecstasy.
“My god … this is so good…. “
“I know,” Daniel replied, taking another bite for good measure. “I have a neighbor, an older lady on the property adjacent mine. She made this.”
Eleanor licked her fork and dove into the lasagna yet again. “God bless her. Did you go get this while I was in the shower?”
Daniel’s eyes flashed at her innocent question. After an entire day of dusty library work, Eleanor had spent a solid hour showering and changing into her nightclothes, and when she emerged Daniel had dinner waiting for them.
“No.” His voice was even. Whatever she’d seen had come and gone. “Her husband brought it by. He does some of my property maintenance. And he brought more firewood.” He took another log and threw it on the warm orange fire. The wood crackled and sizzled; Eleanor breathed in the raw smoke with pleasure. She was silent for a long moment. When she was sure Daniel was watching her she said, “I was thinking.”
“Always a dangerous pursuit.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What were you thinking about?” Daniel asked, a wary note in his voice.
“Why am I here? Really? I mean, you seem okay. Sad still. Very sad. But hardly a desperate case. What am I doing here?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. I mean he,” she still wouldn’t say the name of her love who’d abandoned her here, even if she was enjoying herself far more than she wanted to admit. “He said I’d be good company for you, that I’d help you get back out into the world. But like I said, you don’t seem like you need that much help.”
“Back out into the world? Quite a way with words that one has. Only he could tell the absolute truth and still keep everything a secret.”
“So what’s the truth? And what’s the secret?”
“Back out in the world …” Daniel said again. “It’s a cliché. Somebody gets divorced or dumped, widowed. And after awhile it’s time to get back out there. Date again, make new friends, find someone new. It’s figurative, not literal. But me …”
She knew the secret before he could tell her.
“Daniel? How long has it been since you left the house?”
“Oh, I leave the house