Page 51 of Freak
“What’s this ‘it’ we’re talking about?” He figured he knew, but he wanted her to say it.
She twisted her head to meet his eyes. “Us. This.”
“I feel it, too.” He nodded toward the room beyond this door. “Are we goin’ in?”
Though she nodded right away, when she faced the room again, she hesitated.
Mel decided she needed a little help, so he swung her into his arms. Abigail squealed in surprise and then laughed gleefully as he turned sideways and sidled into the room.
He set her down on an old Persian rug and, as she went to switch on a lamp, he looked around this most private place of her life.
It was exactly what he’d have imagined her room would be, if he’d thought to imagine it. Quintessentially Abigail. Like every other room he’d seen in this house, her bedroom was tidily kept and chaotically cluttered.
The floor was, of course, the same hardwood as downstairs, the same every old farmhouse around here had: oak planks about four inches wide. Two mismatched but similarly colored Persian rugs covered most of the free floor space. A large paned window was bare of curtains but covered in plants—vining plants arrayed across a shelf above the window to trail over it like living drapery and smaller plants vying for space on the sill.
The walls were painted a lightish green, like sage, but not much of them showed, either. A large, intricately crafted quilt hung from one wall, dominating it. Two walls were completely filled with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, clearly built by hand long ago—like hand-planed, hand-sawn, hand-sanded kind of hand-built. They were backless, but those shelves were so completely packed with books not much wall showed behind them.
He’d never seen so many books in one place outside an actual library. Paperbacks, hardcovers, large books, small books, books that looked like binders. Pulpy mass-market novels, classic literature, old science and math textbooks, philosophy, biography—and that was just what he could tell from the titles he saw at a glance.
Her furniture—double bed, double dresser with a tarnished mirror, smaller, three-drawer chest, and an upholstered rocking chair—was antique and mismatched but polished to a sheen. Mel guessed the pieces had been handed down through the years and she’d kept those she’d liked best.
The bed itself was a marvel—the frame was old-fashioned brass like it had come out of a nineteenth-century hotel, but what that frame held was pure decadence—a thick mattress supported a buffet of big, fluffy pillows and a comforter that looked like every fancy goose in Europe had given up its softest feathers just for her, all of it covered in perfectly matched linens in a range of complementary colors like rusty red and sage green. And folded neatly over the footboard was another intricate quilt in similar colors.
The bed was pushed up so the window formed something like a headboard, jungle of plants and all, and one wall of shelves seemed to be in easy reach when she was tucked in for the night. Mel noticed a small lamp at the end of one shelf, close enough to read by.
He could imagine her snuggled into that cozy spot on a rainy evening, reading a book while water ran down the glass behind her head. In fact, he did imagine exactly that, and he smiled.
“What’s got you lookin’ like you swallowed the canary?” she asked, coming back to him and slipping her arm around his waist.
He closed her up in his arms. “Just thinking of you being all cozy and happy in here. It’s a great room. I see you in every inch of it.”
She cast a glance around her familiar space. “Thanks. I like it. I guess when you live in one place all your life, you’re bound to soak into the walls a little.” Turning back to him she asked, “Youbuiltyour house. You gotta be soaked in there all the way to the back of the nail holes.”
Mel loved his little cabin. It was comfortable and right-sized for the life he’d been living since he’d built it. But right now it seemed insignificant in comparison, and no, he didn’t think he was ‘soaked in’ there like she was here.
He supposed he had a style, because there were things he liked and things he didn’t, and he only bought, or made, things he liked. But if that was a style it was nothing more intentional than preference. Most of Abigail’s things were far older than she was and probably had been in this house for eons, likely she hadn’t purchased almost any of this stuff (except maybe the great linens)—and yet, it was all so very clearlyhers. Abigail fit this bed, this room, this house, this farm, like she was made from it, and it from her.
His cabin was a comfortable house. The end.
Something in his thoughts had gotten snagged, like the pesky skin of a popped kernel caught in his teeth. He couldn’t quite suss it out, or even decide if it was a good thought or a bad one. Unwilling to give it any attention while he stood with Abigail in her bedroom, beside her bed, Mel focused on the most important thing: her.
“I don’t want to talk about houses anymore.”
She smiled up at him—and then she raised her arms and slipped her hands into her hair. Mel took a step back, shrugged out of his kutte, and watched her pull the pins out, and then the elastic band that seemed to start her usual piled-up style. When she shook her head and all those waves cascaded over her shoulders, he couldn’t help but hum appreciatively.
The sound came out more like a growl, and Abigail gave him the sassiest, sexiest little sidelong smirk.
When next, still wearing that flirtatious little grin, she untied her apron and pulled it off, tossing it to her rocker with a flourish, Mel realized what she meant to do, and his throat went dry.
He stood beside her chest of drawers, where he’d laid his kutte, and stared, slack-jawed, while sweet, old-fashioned Abigail Freeman undressed for him. Each button of her dress was undone in a sultry cadence. When that was open and she let it fall slowly from her shoulders, she stood before him in only her bra and panties, plain white and silky.
Her feet were bare; though he hadn’t noticed her doing it, she must have kicked off her Crocs by the kitchen door, where she had two shelves full of colorful rubber shoes: Crocs and tall boots she called ‘Wellies.’
Mel didn’t think he’d ever seen her bare feet before. They were small and nicely shaped, no polish on the neatly trimmed nails. A little birthmark, shaped almost like a heart, or maybe a tulip, sat at the base of her left big toe.
When white silkiness landed like a cloud on her feet, Mel looked up.
She was naked. And absolutely fucking glorious.
