The Given

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The night had softened at the edges by the time Kit pulled into her drive, smoothing out the age and decay of her mid-century neighborhood, cutting back on the crumbling concrete walls and cracked walks that sat exposed in the raw daylight. Grif had never told Kit, but he’d been to this neighborhood before, back in his day. It was at some party that Evie had dragged him to, either on or near Kit’s block, and he could still hear Slim Whitman blaring from the record player as voices and laughter sailed up into the air and the arid desert night.

Back then the biggest headliners on the Strip had all wanted to buy these lavish ranch homes . . . for pennies on the dollar, too. Though it was long gone, he remembered the spot where signage had once flanked the wide community entrance, no backdrop, just that giant cursive scrawl that had been so popular back then: THE FUTURE IS NOW, TOMORROW HAS ARRIVED.

He wanted to share the memory with Kit. He wanted to take her hand and lead her to the community entrance, where she would glance at the crumbling wall posts and smile as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, as taken by the minutiae of the past as she was by him. It wasn’t just her car and hair and clothes that were faithfully retro, it was her mind and her thoughts, too . . . at least the dreamy ones. They ever lingered in the past.

“If tomorrow has already arrived,” she’d likely point out, “we wouldn’t be worried about tonight.”

“Or the future,” he’d say.

“Or even the past.”

But that’s where it all started, Grif knew now. Back in 1960, with Tommy DiMartino, who’d held a doll with diamonds for eyes in one hand and a butcher’s knife in the other. Despite his best efforts, Grif had gotten in someone’s way back then, whether it was old Sal DiMartino; his nemesis, Nick Salerno; or Barbara—who could have been at that long-ago party, lurking in the shadows, wishing him dead. Whatever he’d done, Evie had suffered an attack because of it fifty years ago, and now Kit was paying for it, too.

Grif waited in the corner of her home, in a classic womb chair that put his back to the wall and gave him a view of the living area and the expansive front yard. He watched Kit approach the house. Her movement seemed rote, exhaustion weighing down her limbs, though it was too dark to make out the nuances of her features. Closing his eyes, he sighed deeply and felt, for the first time, the weight of the last fifty years as if he’d truly lived them. He was tired, too, but more than that? He was old.

And with that thought, a trembling voice, one he’d never heard before, sawed through his mind. It’s time for you to go.

“Where did you go?”

Kit was a shadow in the foyer, facing him so that she stood like an hourglass, skirt flared in silhouette. She’d somehow known he was there, and exactly where to look. He wished he could just stay in this corner for the next fifty years, coiled in the womb chair, pretending he was safe.

It’s time for you to go.

Grif could now see her face, and watched the emotions shift over her features in waves as she looked at him. His second death was a train in a tunnel, oblivion bearing down in relentless approach. He would be dead within twenty-four hours. He could accept that now.

But he had to fix this first, he thought, and stood. It wasn’t Kit’s time to leave this blasted mudflat, the beloved Surface. This was her lifetime, and she had a right to live it in its entirety, both in safety and in peace.

And in love.

“You’re exhausted,” Kit said, shrugging off her coat and throwing it onto the sofa, as he reached her side.

I’m dying.

He put a hand to her cheek, a move that caused her to jump.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. Her face was almost bone-white in the shadowed room. He drew her close and placed a resolute kiss on her forehead. “Grif, please . . .”

I’m giving you your life back, don’t you see? I’m letting you go properly this time.

“You can’t touch me like this,” she said, and covered his hands with hers, fingers bent to wrench his away. “If you don’t love me, you have no right—”

“Don’t love you?” He drew back, palms cupped firmly around her jaw, almost too tight. “I will love you beyond my very last breath.”

Whatever had happened to her tonight, whatever had put the wooden expression on her face and in her step, dropped away. “Throw yourself at it,” she murmured, as if to herself, and then slipped her hand up to pull at the nape of his neck, drawing him closer, down so that this time his lips met her own.

“No.” He paused, though her mouth was right there. He could feel its heat on his own. “That’s not what I’m—”

Like Larry had, earlier that day, she surprised him by moving too fast for him to stop it. In one instant he was trying to say good-bye, and in the next his back was against the wall. He was immediately grateful. It was the only thing that held him upright as her mouth crushed his, and the room began to spin. He wrapped himself around her, all that warmth and woman filling his arms and his mouth and his mind with the one thing he’d been trying to forget for six long months. The only thing, he realized, left to live for at all. Gasping, he reared back for air and then shifted, reversing their positions. Suddenly, he wasn’t feeling so old or tired anymore.

“Hurry,” she said, her whisper harsh in his ear, as if she knew time was short.

Grif lifted her from the floor. She grunted softly when they hit the entry wall again, but didn’t complain, locking her mouth on his instead. Her hands were quick and busy, relieving him of his suspenders, raking the buttons from his shirt with her nails. They hit the floor like rolling dice, and neither of them looked to see how they fell. Grif just dropped her to her feet so she could free his arms of his shirtsleeves and kick off her shoes at the same time. He peeled his undershirt from his body in one smooth move, and her mouth was on him immediately again, delicate palms warm on his chest, cupping his beating heart.

He was more careful with the stays on her dress. It was vintage, and she might catalog the injury to it. He’d do nothing to distract her from him. Not now. It finally slipped to the floor, the lining hitting the floor with a sigh that Grif echoed as he bit one sweet bare shoulder.

Kit grabbed his hand then and led him down the long hallway, which they navigated slowly, leaving a trail of clothing behind. As they broached her bedroom doorway, Grif recalled the first time he’d been there. He was hiding behind the dressing screen in the corner, watching Kit towel off after a steaming shower. Watching, too, the two men who were sneaking along this very hallway, ready to pounce as soon as she appeared.

But Grif had pounced instead, and that’s why Kit still lived. Now he was finally here again, living out his last fated hours as well. He looked around, wanting to remember this room. Wishing he could hold its contents inside of him for another lifetime. “Did you know that I’ve slept better in this room than I ever have in any place in my entire . . .”

“Lives?” she provided for him, one side of her mouth quirking in a smile.

“Yes.”

“Well,” she said, drawing him near again. “You won’t be sleeping tonight.”

No. Because he’d already wasted too much time. He was going to take a good deal more care of the little of it that he had left.

Don’t close yourself off.

Nicole had practically begged it of her, but it was only after spotting Grif in that corner, anguish carving furrows into his features, that Kit really understood what that meant. If she closed herself off to him—to the knowledge that she loved him like she had never loved another—then she’d regret it until her dying day.

And that was no way to live.

So Kit kissed him with all the passion that’d dammed up inside her in the long months past, her nerves smoothing out at his very touch, her heart soaring when his mouth immediately moved against hers.

There was time enough to talk later, and always more mysteries and violence to face off against, bulls against capes. Instead of intruding on the moment, all of that only underscored the importance of it. They could draw swords and fight later, but after six long months of dreaming of just this, it felt like the victory was already hers.

Grif obviously agreed. His mouth was firm over hers, and his furrowed brow had eased so that his expression was one almost of pleading. So Kit gave in for them both, expanding the kiss and pressing her mouth to his so that their tongues twined tentatively. She pressed harder. She knew what she was doing for the first time tonight. Perhaps for the first time in her life.

Grif returned her touch, his both forceful and giving, stoking her need so that it shuddered through them both. Kit slid her hand along his firm jaw, skimming stubble, before cupping the back of his neck. She pressed and pulled, and deepened the kiss she’d dreamed of for half a year.

Shifting, Kit aligned her body with Grif’s, dips meeting contours like a key sliding home in a lock. Click. She knew Grif was afraid that this was going to cause her more pain, she could taste the worry on his breath, and she was worried, too.

Yet what greater pain was there than regret?

So she put aside the past and future, and focused on the warmth of his neck beneath her lips, the curve of his wide, strong shoulders under her fingertips as she pushed him to the bed, and the length of his torso as he tilted upward to her. She slid the heel of her palms across the scattering of hair on his chest, causing him to tremble beneath her, though his gaze remained steadfast on hers.

He was fighting to memorize it all. Kit just gave herself over completely to her senses, inhaling deeply the dark licorice scent of his warm breath, letting the light coconut of his pomade coat her fingertips, even dabbing it behind her ears. The hair at the nape of his neck tickled her cheek, and, sliding upward, she allowed the same of her neck. She loved the softness of the flesh encasing his hard body. She craved the moan that rose from his mouth to hers, and felt it jostle in her breastbone, shaking her soul.

Placing her palms on the bed, one on each side of his head, Kit rose atop him and stroked his sides with her calves, her thighs, caressing him as she pressed into his groin. Grif thrust his pelvis upward, attempting to flip, but she palmed his hip and eased him back down.

This was hers, she thought, eyes narrowing. Not Evelyn Shaw’s or anyone else’s. This man in this time and place was hers alone. And this, she thought, throwing back her head, was living.

Slowly, deliberately, Kit settled, Grif palming her hips as she began to glide. Rhythmically, he pushed with the heel of his palms and pulled again with his fingertips, but ultimately he allowed her to set the pace. He tilted upward beneath her, increasing the pressure of him inside of her, a movement that made her moan and slide more insistently. She had a need for him to brand her there, a tattoo on the inside, a craftsman leaving his mark. She wanted to feel him deep within her even after he was no longer there.

Grif bent his knees and Kit leaned back against them, curling her legs tightly beneath and around him. Every moment that passed and that they remained joined was a chance to slip further away from the confines of time and space, leaving behind who they were alone. It would all still be waiting for them when they returned. Even now Kit could feel the force of time pressing its oiled fingertips against the windowpanes.

For now they disappeared together in this bedroom, in these walls, fused together by long-banked desire, and stoked by the greed they felt for each other’s flesh. Tongue and breasts and lips and cock all melded into pure sensation.

“No matter what,” Grif rasped, devouring her neck, “I’ll never forget this.”

His words were the first thing, and the only, to give her pause, but then he raised her up and found her breast with his mouth. So, arched forward, Kit swore the same silent vow. She hoped the heavens were listening. She hoped they watched. This was love, and it could not be confined to lifetimes or breaths. The soul was eternal, and the simple eternal truth was that Grif’s place inside of Kit’s body and mind—inside of her life—was, very simply, the truest thing she’d ever known.