I Will Follow You Into the Dark

CHAPTER 27

We kissed each other senseless. Then she surprised me by excusing herself for a moment. I remember standing there feeling as if part of me were missing. I absolutely ached to have her back in my arms. I spun around and moved toward her when she opened the door again. And I was greeted by her wearing the most lovely lingerie I'd ever seen.



After pausing a few moments to take in the vision of her loveliness, Derek crossed the deck quickly and crushed his lips onto hers. Neither knew whether he had nudged her to open her lips to welcome his sensuous probing tongue or whether she had parted her lips and started the kiss. Not that it mattered. Nothing else mattered.

 Finally giving in to the passion they'd held at bay so long, they stumbled backwards into the room, unable to move far enough apart to get their bearings. Swinging the door closed behind them, Derek spun and pushed Meredith up against it, molding their bodies as close together as possible.

In that instant, she was unbuttoning his shirt and running her fingertips over his chest in a way that had him already moaning as he kissed her as if it were the last time and roamed all over her body with his strong, able hands. He made certain that his hands massaged all the familiar places before moving to conquer and arouse those he'd forbidden himself to touch before. Three years of restraint and longing and dreaming of this moment only served as intense foreplay. Derek found himself surprisingly not in a hurry. He'd envisioned simply having his way with her—not being able to prevent his body from taking ownership of hers. But I that moment, all he wanted was to fulfill her every longing. And it was easy to focus on satisfying her because Meredith had already begun work to ensure that she was more than satisfying him.

Their bodies were as perfectly compatible as their hearts. Moans of pleasure, then of need, and then of unimagined satisfaction had both of them quivering and begging each other for more. His hands and lips trailed over and around and inside every part of her, causing her to whisper and then to moan and then to scream his name. It was a contest of stamina as well as the neverending unselfish delivery of pleasure from one to another.

Derek had had sex before, and he knew that she had as well. He'd had pretty darn hot sex before, but he'd never made love like this. They entered a whole new world of longings driven past the point of return followed by fulfillment never even imagined. They needed a whole new vocabulary to describe the way their skin sparked and was set aflame where touched by the other. And the longer they melded their flesh together, the more they realized that their hunger and thirst for each other was truly unquenchable.

Even as they each felt their bodies had been pushed too far, they could not stop the cycle of mutual, completely engrossing, simultaneous orgasms. How many times they fell back on the bed and the sofa and the carpet completely spent they would not remember.

Every time a perfect orgasm ended, they would embrace and kiss and murmur words of unconditional love and affection, thinking that they'd just drift off to sleep. But the fire they had so long waited to ignite would not be extinguished. Sore joints and overstretched muscles and tender skin were sensitive and yet ever ready to respond with reckless abandon to another caress or kiss. And no matter how tired or how truly satisfied, neither could resist the urge to meet the other yet again in that hot, sultry place they'd created for themselves alone.[/color]

Having spent the entire evening and the wee hours of the morning making love in a way that they were sure no one else had ever experienced, the two finally collapsed in a sated heap of limbs and curls and pure happiness.

Meredith awoke to tender kisses from Derek as he brought her a tray of breakfast. They held each other and fed each other before drifting back to sleep.

Awaking midday, the lovers left bed only long enough to take a long, hot bubble bath together in the beautiful old footed tub. Afterwards, they took turns toweling each other off and kissing all the sore places tenderly and combing each other's hair. Then Derek carried his princess back to bed and left her only long enough to assemble a tray of fruit and cheese and crackers for them to nibble on in bed together.

They held each other day and night, murmuring their commitment and words of love and whispering as only lovers do of their complete and utter happiness.

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After wandering back through his first night with Meredith in his mind, Derek continued letting his thoughts and memories and story spill forth, telling Jen everything. "I was working nonstop when I was avoiding you." He looked over at her apologetically without saying the words to her. "I tried not to think about Meredith. I knew that talking to you about her made sense--that I needed to talk to someone about her because I never had. But those memories are sacred. They're part of who I am. And telling you about her would help me move on."

As he paused, Derek looked up at Jen with a face that was indescribable. The pain and the anguish and the grief were etched in his face. Tears sprang to Jen's eyes and she wanted so much to ease his pain. "I don't want to move on. Meredith is the only woman I'll ever love. Needing her.....missing her......it's part of who I am. I'm not willing to give that up." As he finished, a tear slipped down his cheek. Wiping it away, he continued.

"I should have told you all this that day, but I couldn't. Meredith is mine. She's not a part of my life I share. Not with anyone else. So you were treading on private turf. And I got defensive and angry. And I'm sorry....."

"Derek," Jen whispered. "You don't have to apologize."

He nodded sadly but gratefully upon hearing her words. Jen continued, "What happened?"

Derek sighed and resumed his story. "As I said before, I threw myself into my work. I hardly left the hospital. I slept there most nights, and I only went home when I was forced to take a day off.

One day, I was paged to treat an Alzheimer's patient who had been admitted for an injury that occurred at a local nursing home. I'd handled cases like that before, and I was fairly certain that it wouldn't be surgical, so I wasn't really thrilled to have caught the nonsurgical neuro case of the day.

I burst into the room reading the chart I had just been handed and stopped dead in my tracks. I was stunned. And the pain of losing Meredith came flooding back."

Derek got choked up just remembering that day. He took a few deep breaths before continuing. "She......Her mom.......Her mom was my patient. Because she had Alzheimer's."

"Oh," Jen said softly. Derek appeared too distraught to speak. After a while, Jen felt the urge to prompt him with questions.

"Have you seen her? Meredith?"

Derek shook his head sadly. "No. They're not close. She didn't visit. I didn't have any access to contact information at the nursing home. It's been so hard. Her mom remembered me. I had known her so long ago that she remembered who I was most of the time. She talked to me about Meredith--about my being Meredith's boyfriend. It's been killing me. But she was my only connection to Meredith. And I couldn't walk away from that. I felt closer to Meredith, and I couldn't help enjoying having someone to talk to about her. When lucid, her mother would talk to me for hours about Meredith. It helped me get closer to her again after all this time. But the things she told me....."

After another long, painful silence, Jen nudged him again. "Tell me, Derek. Tell me what happened to bring you here so upset."

He looked over at Jen as tears fell down his cheeks, "Oh, Jen," he said with a voice full of emotion, "she died......"