Leena kept busy at work. Although after taking a day off, she didn’t have to go looking to find things to keep her mind occupied. Her friends accepted she didn’t want to talk about any of it, and hadn’t pushed her. She was very proud of herself for not breaking down again. She had a few weak moments, and those she forgave herself for.
It was those moments when she found herself alone in her office that were the hardest. She wanted to pick up the phone and call Owen and tell him she didn’t care about children and marriage and happily-ever-after, but she just wanted to be with him, just wanted what he could give of himself for as long as he could give it, and that would be all she’d ever ask for.
It would all be a lie that would come back to haunt them both eventually, and that’s what stopped her from picking up the phone.
Should she go see him tonight? Did he remember to stop working at all to rest? Why had this happened exactly? Was it something she had done to make him think she was wanted marriage and children? She hadn’t even thought it. She’d been so caught up in just being with a man again, just not being so alone.
Leena finally came to realize she was in love with him, but she hadn’t even gotten to tell him. She shook her head again. Going by to tell him she loved him would not help him in any way, she knew that much. Sighing she looked at the clock again. She’d better make her final check and get ready to go home. Kasey had been an angel this morning. not mentioning it beyond asking if she wanted to talk. Then she chattered about the spell she was working on, that they were going to try on Friday night.
Leena was actually pretty interested in trying it herself. If it worked well, that would put a killer in jail and their lives back to a less paranoid level.
She glanced at the clock, then got up quickly and headed out to the floor to check on the day’s numbers. She’d done it, made it through the day without falling apart.
When Leena pulled into her driveway, she held her breath. Owen sat on her steps. It took her three tries to hit park with her suddenly weak arms. Taking a deep breath, she got out. She watched him come to his feet and walk to the bottom of the steps.
Owen watched her walk across the lawn, his expression wary. She didn’t know why he was here, but a part of her was just happy to see him. Another part was saying she should just go in the house so her heart couldn’t be broken any further than it was.
When she stopped in front of him, he searched her eyes silently for a moment. She held her breath.
“Is it okay I’m here? Do you want me to go?”
Leena looked at him. She could see he hadn’t really slept and was more tired than he realized. “No. It’s fine. Let’s go inside.” Her voice was steadier than she felt.
He followed her into the kitchen and sat down.
“Do you want some tea or something?” When he shook his head, she sat down across from him. “Why are you here, Owen?” She couldn’t do small talk right now, so it was better to get it over with.
Owen sat there for a few seconds trying to figure out where to start. “After I heard from you last night, I did a lot of thinking, well, I never really stopped thinking from the moment you walked out the door. Is it okay if I stand?”
He got up when she nodded.
“So, I was having a bit of a fit. Well, more so inside my head than an actual physical tantrum.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then thrust his hands in his pockets. “I was thinking about my father, Leena, and everything he’d changed in my world, just by not being a normal father. I think about it more than I’d like really. You probably have those moments, so you’d understand that.”
She nodded but didn’t speak.
“I have dreams sometimes, and will wake up soaked in sweat and shaking with a fear... the kind of fear you feel when you’re a child, that paralyzing fear, but that’s not what I want to say right now.” He paced to the window and leaned over the sink for a few moments.
Her heart ached to hold him, to comfort him somehow. She didn’t need to ask to know he was running on too much coffee and too little sleep, so she’d let him get it out however he needed to.
He began talking quietly still looking into the sink. “So, there I am, from wanting to stomp on the phone to hating my father, not just hating really, I guess I was raging with hatred... for a man that robbed me of everything.” He spun back toward her and looked at her for a moment. “I was so mad that he’d even managed to take you, or at least come between us in some way, so angry,” he whispered. “Then I thought of you, of you at Beltane and how you all but floated across to the circle... how you look when you smile. When you smile, Leena, you’re so breathtaking my mouth dries up, so beautiful.”
He stood there and looked at her, and her patient eyes looked back at him. “I just thought about you and... and the rage was gone, the anger faded. There was just you.” He smiled at her. “I just thought of you, and it all went away.”
Owen stuck his hands in his pockets and took a breath. “I know that doesn’t really answer or resolve anything really, but I know I did nothing but think about you these last few days, about calling you, writing you, coming to see you. It was wrong the way I just threw everything at you the other night.” When she started to stand up so she could go to him, he shook his head. “Just hear me out. I didn’t handle it well when I tried to talk to you the other night, so at least let me try it now.” He watched her sit back down again and then smiled as best as he could at that moment. “I don’t know if I can make the promises you’ll need. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. All I know at this point is I can’t not have you in my life.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he looked at her again. “I can’t... not have you to talk to, to laugh with, Leena. I can’t... not have you to hold.” He watched a tear roll down her face, but she did as he asked and sat there silently. “I don’t know if I can be what you need, Aileena. I’d like to lie and say I could but...”
Leena got up quickly and put her hand over his mouth. She knew her tears were falling, but when she looked and saw the desperate tears beginning to gather in his eyes, she couldn’t stand it another moment.
“Stop.” She could feel his trembling, or was it possibly her own? “I don’t want promises from you, Owen. I don’t want you to be anyone but who you are. I don’t need to know today, right now, that I’ll have children and happily-ever-after. All I want right now is time with you. One day at a time, Owen, not the rest of our lives. I’ve only just barely realized I love you, trying to take on any more than that right now is too much for me.”
Owen gently pulled her hand from his mouth and rested his hands on her shoulders. “You love me?”
She smiled at him in that sweet, innocent way, and his heart almost burst with the emotion that flooded into it. He gently framed her face. “I love you so much, baby. It’s hell being without you.”
He stood there letting the warm feeling fill him. “Can we try this again, Leena... just try and see where it takes us?”
She nodded.
Two tears rolled down his cheek as he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her tenderly. “I love you,” he whispered against her lips words he’d never said in his life to anyone.
Leena smiled against his mouth. “I love you, Owen. Now, can I have a hug? I really need to be in your arms.”
He let her face go and lifted her a few inches to hold her tightly against his chest as he began kissing her again, gently.
A few minutes later when he was trying to catch his breath, he smiled against her mouth. “I missed you so much, Leena. Next time I start acting like an idiot, just hit me with a blast of wind or something to shut me up.”
Leena laughed. “I’ll hit you with something all right.”
“Oh, god, I missed that laugh.” He kissed her hard. “I missed this mouth, baby.” Owen held her away from him for a moment and looked into her eyes. Just looking at her made his body harden with need. He kissed her eyelids and cheeks. His hands went slowly through her hair. He lightly nibbled on her bottom lip, which encouraged her to open her mouth, then pulled her tightly against his body and kissed her with all the emotion he was feeling. When she moaned into his mouth, he kissed his way down her neck and back as she sighed and pushed her hips into him.
Leena ran her hands down over his back and gently squeezed his hard butt. Running her hands back up, she lightly touched his arms then across his chest. She pulled his T-shirt out of his pants and pushed it up. Pulling her mouth away from his she slowly kissed her way down his neck to his chest. She nipped one hard nipple lightly and felt him shudder with pleasure. Smiling to herself, she licked the other one then nipped it harder, and he moaned and gently pushed his hips against her, grinding his hardness into her.
As she leaned down, she nibbled her way down his chest to run her tongue along the top of his jeans, and his breath stopped. Slowly, as she smiled up at him, she undid his jeans and ran her tongue along his heated skin lightly. She felt his stomach muscles clench in response.
With her foot she pulled a chair over closer to them and leaned back against it as she tugged his jeans down a bit more. With her face, she nuzzled against the hard length of him and felt her own excitement rise as his breath hissed out quickly. Using her lips, she nibbled along the hot sensitive flesh and felt his hands clench in her hair.
“Baby, I’ll collapse if you don’t stop.” He tried to pull her head up. When she lifted it, he started to pull her back up to his mouth, then found himself turned and sitting in the chair. Before he could do anything, she was down on her knees in front of him, her mouth licking up and down.
He gripped her hair and threw his head back and groaned.
Her lips were so hot. Her tongue was so wet.
She slowly closed her lips around the sensitive tip then pulled her mouth over it, licking the bead of moisture from the very tip. His hips jerked with her movement. With her tongue only, she licked in quick, little strokes up the length, he was close to losing his mind it felt that good.
Tangling one of his hands in her hair, he used his other hand to stroke her head gently, encouraging her to continue.
With gentle teeth, she bit the thickness of him then ran her tongue over it to soothe. He moaned again. He watched her lick her lips before she closed her mouth over the length of him and slowly slid up. A ragged breath caught in his chest and he held it not sure if he remembered how to breathe. She moved her mouth slowly up and down, then whirled her tongue around the tip several times before clamping her lips tighter and sucking every time she just held the tip in her mouth. Without realizing it, his hips were rocking gently into her, and his hand tightened in her hair to hold her head where he wanted it.
She took him as deeply as she could and then moved at a pace to match his thrusts. He swore and groaned when she clamped her mouth down hard and sucked as he exploded into her throat. Slowly, pulling her mouth from him, she continued to lick at him until he was squirming in the chair.
“Take off your pants,” Owen gasped. He ripped his shirt over his head and then hers. “Now!” She smiled up at him, and he shuddered. “Take off your pants.” He still couldn’t breathe right, but he didn’t care. When she stood up he undid them with shaking hands and shoved them to the floor.
Barely giving her time to step out of them, he grabbed her hips and pulled her over to straddle him. In one fast motion, he pulled her down on top of his still-hard erection and devoured her throat as she threw her head back and moaned. He guided her hands to his shoulders and continued to lift her, pushing her hard against him.
Leena dropped her head down, which caused her hair to surround them both. He thrust up meeting her faster and harder and was so lost in her he never wanted to stop. She began to pant and moan with her face resting against him. Through her bra he bit a nipple then sucked it hard. She groaned and cried out as he gripped her hips harder and pulled her down onto him.
When her muscles clamped around him and she shook from the strength of the orgasm ripping through her, he began to slow, which caused her to shudder as the aftershocks moved through her. As she gasped against his neck, she tried to untangle her hair from them and sit up. “Can’t ever get rid of these chairs now.”
He laughed. “I’m going to put one in every room of the house, in case they’re needed.”
She still straddled him and was in no hurry to move but when she looked at him, she could see how exhausted he was, and now with no tension in her body realized she was, too. “Food.” She kissed him softly. “I need food, you need food.” She kissed him again. “As soon as I find my legs, I’m going to feed us. Then we’re going to bed.”
He helped guide her to the standing position. Then he watched her put her pants back on. “I’ll be back.” He got up and pulled up his pants, not bothering with the button, and then he turned.
“Where are you going?” She straightened her shirt.
“Out to the Jeep. I brought you flowers but was so nervous I forgot about them.” He went out the door.
“Owen, you’re not all dressed,” she called out as he left.
When he got to the Jeep, he looked back at her standing in the doorway. Her hair was a mess. Her shirt all wrinkled. She looked so good thoroughly loved.
Leena smiled at him sweetly when he walked up the steps and handed her the bouquet of wildflowers he’d gotten for her. Roses were too ordinary for her, he’d remembered thinking and almost drove the florist crazy wanting wildflowers.
Owen stopped in the doorway and leaned against the open door, smiling down at her with her face pressed into the flowers. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered then pulled her into his arms and shut the door.
They had been so wrapped up in each other that neither of them noticed the van that crept by the driveway and stopped behind the trees.
“Doc, wake up,” Rachel prodded him gently. “It worked,” she whispered as if they could hear her.
“I’ll say it did, and then some,” Dade snorted from the driver’s seat.
“I can’t believe we’ve been reduced to peeping Toms,” Chris complained.
“I wish I’d brought a camera,” Rachel frowned.
Cora turned and gave her a startled look. “Being a peeping Tom isn’t good enough for you; you want pictures, too?”
Rachel shrugged, “They looked so sweet and in love all wrapped up in each other.”
“Wouldn’t that be something flipping through the photo album. ‘Oh, look, here’s the time we worked a spell on our friends and they came running out of the house after sex looking all in love,’” Steven muttered while rubbing his scarcely open eyes.
They all burst out in giggles as Dade decided they should leave.
“So, now we’re all a bunch of sneaky witches,” Dade whispered as he pulled away.