“Dance with me,” he said, standing up.
“What?”
“Dance with me,” he repeated.
“I don’t dance. I can’t dance,’ she told him.
“It’s my birthday. I don’t care if you can or not. You are.”
Maggie protested, still insisting her inability. Kevin took her hand, pulling her up. She pointed out that since there was no music, this was pointless. Walking over to her radio, he never once took his eyes off of her. Pushing the play button, the slow sounds of George Strait’s “It Ain’t Cool” rolled out of the speakers. He wrapped his arms around her, leading her in a slow dance around her living room.
Awkward at first, she soon found the rhythm, following Kevin’s lead. Together they swayed to the music, bodies close. The song ended and the next one on the CD, “You Look So Good In Love” began. Maggie felt warm as Kevin pressed his body to hers. She couldn’t decide if the wine or his being so close brought on the feeling. Either way, she shivered slightly. He slowly ran his hand up her back, his long fingers curling around her neck. Looking up, Maggie found him gazing at her with an intensity she had never seen before. She could feel his heart beating and was positive he could hear hers.
Kevin, peering deeply into her eyes, lowered his head towards her, his lips softly brushing against hers. Maggie closed her eyes and returned the kiss with the same feathery touch. The kisses became more ardent; he nibbled at her lips, grasping her lower one gently between his teeth. His mouth trailed down her neck, his hands roaming, roving, under her shirt, unclasping her bra. She moaned softly, involuntarily, as he began removing her shirt. She pulled him towards the couch, tripping over the rug and landing on the sofa. He followed, lying on her. Assaulting her lips again with passionate kisses, he pushed her shirt further up, grabbing one full breast in a hand. Maggie arched her chest up, silently begging for more.
Kevin pulled back, sitting up, breathless. Maggie righted herself, looking at him questioningly.
“No. Not like this,” he told her. “Not while we’ve both been drinking so much. It’s good like that, but I want it to be so much better.”
Maggie pulled her shirt back down. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He put a finger under her chin, forcing her head up to look at him.
“I told you, don’t think that. You’re beautiful. I want to. Hell, yeah, I want to. Trust me. As good as it can be, I want to show you something better.”
Maggie looked at him through lowered lashes. Did he know what he was doing to me, she thought. As if he could read her mind, he spoke.
“Do you know what this does to me? I mean, really?”
“I teach history, not biology. But I think I have an idea,” she told him.
Kevin threw his head back and laughed, running fingers through his long hair. “You are too adorable, Maggie. From a wanton temptress to a naïve child in a matter of seconds. Stay here beside me,” he told her, refilling their glasses.
*********
A far away whine brought Maggie to semi-consciousness the next morning. She was ready to slip back as a cold nose continuously nudged her hand. She opened her eyes, finding herself eye to nose with Dusti. Sitting up, she quickly grabbed her head. The room was spinning and the light was too bright. The sound of the dog whining made her head hurt. That was funny, since it had never done so before. The pounding grew worse as she stood up, sounding as if she had tsunami occurring in her head.
“Oh, hell,” she whispered, convinced she had screamed that. Her hand went to her temples in an attempt to ease the pain. “What did I do?”
She looked to her sofa, surprised to see Kevin sprawled on it, snoring slightly. Thunder, lying on the floor beside him, thumped his tail in greeting. She stretched, noticing her bra was undone. Huh? she thought. Taking careful, quiet, steps, she went to Kevin, shaking his leg slightly.
“Kevin. Kevin,” she whispered, wincing at the sound.
“Hmm? Did I oversleep? There’s still time to make it to the show,” he said, sitting up. He rubbed between his eyes. “Oh, shit. What happened?”
"I’m not sure. I have never felt like this before,” she murmured, sitting down beside him.
Kevin looked around the room, then at her. Noticing the bottle and glasses on the table, he chuckled. Maggie shushed him, placing a finger on her lips.
“I know. Babe, you’ve got a hangover,” he told her, reclining back. “Was Leah right? Can you not hold your alcohol?”
“I have no idea. I don’t remember much after we got back here. It’s a little fuzzy. Was George Strait here?”
“I don’t think so,” he told her, amusement in his voice, reaching a hand toward her. Wrapping his hand around her arm, he pulled her down to him. “Wouldn’t have mattered. You were too wasted and I wasn’t about to share you.”
He brushed the hair away from her face, letting his fingers trail her cheek. He studied her face.
“Would it have been your first time?”
“With George Strait? I would say so.”
Kevin looked at her, mildly amused. She lay her head on his chest, listening to his heart beat.
“You know what I mean,” he told her, rubbing a hand across her back.
“Why would you think that?” She asked, arching against his hand like a cat.
“I don’t know. You don’t seem that, um…”
“Worldly?” She offered. “Is that why you wouldn’t last night? How sweet, but you did that for nothing. There was this guy right after high school, my first year of college. We were supposed to have gotten married.”
“What happened?”
“I decided that my daddy was right. I didn’t need a man to do things for me. He, on the other hand, thought a woman should have a man and do exactly what he said. He also thought a man should have the right to ‘discipline’ his woman as he saw fit. No one is going to rough me up like that again.”
“Oh, Maggie,” he said, his hand stopping its motion. “I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t. Everyone knew, but no one said anything. I never have understood that.”
She sat up, back to a separate end of the sofa. Kevin sat up as well, looking at her.
“You see this?” She asked, pointing to a small scar next to her nose. “That’s what a big class ring will do with about 180 pounds behind it. I was lucky though. That was all it took.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, some people had been telling me how lucky I was to have such a big and great looking guy like he was. That I should be thankful he even paid me any attention. I knew the pushing and the cursing was wrong, but I was stupid for a while. When this happened, I said I was going to leave. He had other plans. It was quite a sight; my daddy and uncle out in front of his place, shotgun and rifle fixed on him. Then, the police arrived. I don’t think this town’s ever seen all the cars together at one time. Needless to say, faced with the choice of jail or my family getting their justice, he turned himself in.”
Kevin finally understood just what her father had meant that day he met him. James Martin had told him he didn’t want to see his daughter hurt in any shape, form, or fashion.
“You’re safe with me,” Kevin told Maggie softly, gently touching her hair.
“I know that. Anyway, that’s in the past where it belongs. I’ve moved on to bigger and better things.”
He smiled as she winked at him.
“Or,” she continued, grinning mischievously, “that’s what you led me to believe last night. I can’t wait to find out if it’s true.”