Rafe

I cuddled her lazily, not too close, although my longing was to pull her so close she melded inside me and I could assure that she was mine forever. I wasn't nearly as relaxed and sleepy as she was. Not that her presence didn't relax me, but her presence did other things to me, that precluded relaxation.

Another perfect day. Was it possible? Even the disagreement and the stilted way we'd walked to her parent's house later. It had been a companionable stiltedness. Seriously, I still felt our connection, still felt as if she and I were linked at the very core. I'd never felt this way about anyone else. I moved fast--- too fast--- that was true. But being with Aubrey accelerated a different kind of knowing. Not as much a sexual knowing as a sweet warm confident knowing.

I sniffed her hair. It was clean and soft, even though it curled riotously. She was the spitting image of her mother. I wasn't sure she knew just how much they were alike. Looking at Tracy had been almost like looking at Aubrey in a few years, with a little more experience under her belt. What a parting shot, to have a daughter who looked exactly like you.

Her voice. That revelation tonight that I'd barely recognized or tapped within the scope of our time together. She hummed and sang under her breath all the time, and we'd sung together a couple of times, but only the kind of singing you might do to sing along with the radio. Tonight she'd sung to my soul, and even though Tracy's voice was amazing, and unique, and even worthy of her diva status, Aubrey's had twined around mine as if it was made to be my echo accent.

If it was all genetic and not major vocal training, then she had the instincts of Barbara Streisand. At least when it came to me.

Why? Why did she fall so easily into me?

I knew women. I knew flirts, and hunters, and man eaters, and saucy. I knew wenches, and doxies, ladies, and pretty women. Aubrey was none of those.

What was she? I was giddy with discovery, wanting to pin point everything I needed and loved about her, and every way in which she was different and special and made for me.

And I couldn't. Listening to her even breathing, her slender fingers curled against my neck, twitching against the base of my skull now and then..... feeling the soft mounds of her breasts against me, tracing the perfect wings of her eyebrows.... I felt more treasured than I ever had with any other woman. Then in her barely awake effort to say one more thing she liked about me--- she'd stopped. Had it been a Freudian slip? Perhaps. Rafe-- I . Love . You.

I swallowed, glancing down at her asleep in my arms.

You know. People didn't really sleep like this. The whole spooning thing is for the birds. It's a myth, an uncomfortable un-reality. You might start out all snuggled together--- but then inevitably you got hot, you got claustrophobic, you wanted your space.

And now.... We sank into each other so perfectly, so balanced, so effortlessly... I could stay like this all night. I needed to stay like this all night, with her--- right here---in my arms. I didn't want to and didn't need to let her go. Our temperature was the same, our breathing was sweet and controlled, our energy was in sync.

What was happening to me? I couldn't stop thinking about her.

And after just four days.... I couldn't bear the thought of being without her.

I let myself drift into dreams of proposals and weddings and rocking chairs on the porch. It was all there, all wrapped up in my arms.