"How did it go?"
Kate leaned on the balcony railing and tilted her head up, looking out for stars on the night firmament. She had never been particularly fond of gazing into the starry sky, seemingly a romantic activity, but she couldn't help the irrational anxiety about gravitation somehow ceasing to exist and she'd be pulled off the Earth into the darkness of cosmic vacuum.
The island brought a change. The sky above it so strewn with the twinkling dots, that if she had stared long enough, it seemed almost bright. And then there was him, strong arms encircling her firmly as he laughed at her absurd worry, explaining to her for a hundredth time about the laws of physics, unwearyingly, like to a child, and she puckered at him saying that it wasn't about knowledge or ignorance, yet still sunk deeper into his embrace, pleased to have this rational bright mind next to her.
They used to watch the stars together, making up their own constellations.
Here, back in civilization, the bright city lights deadened the stars. She looked ahead to watch their red and yellow flickering, spreading like boundless sequined sheet below her.
The breeze flapped her thin shirt against bare skin, as she reveled in the beloved sound of his voice on the phone.
"As usually. Boring," he said across the distance with a sigh and she could just see him slumping on the hotel bed, pulling his tie off jadedly.
"You sound tired, baby" she frowned, wishing to be there and ease the strain out of his shoulders with a soothing massage.
"Never too tired to talk to you," he said and she knew he was smiling at her use of the endearment.
Her own lips curled up involuntarily, and she closed her eyes inhaling deeply.
"I hate it when you go away," she admitted openly, aware it wasn't going to change anything. Medicine was his first love. And she loved him too much to demand cutting back on it; even though he talked of boredom, she knew it was really fatigue speaking, that he had probably lost himself into discussions with fellow surgeons, always curious and always eager to learn. His sharp intellect one of the main things she adored about him.
"Kate -- "
Palm rubbing over forehead, much in his very manner, she quickly straightened herself. "I know, I'm sorry. I just miss you so much -"
"It's only been a couple of days," he said softly.
"A couple of days too long."
"I told you, you could have come along."
"And do what? Go shopping?" she sneered, never fitting the stereotype of a doctor's preened wife. "Besides, I'd get fired for such random holidays."
"At least we'd have the nights," he said in his best seductive tone, making her heart leap, as her attention switched to the afterglow of his large but deft hands on her body, how they had perfected the dance.
"I thought you were supposed to be all fresh and perky first things in the morning?" she giggled.
"You could definitely make me perky," he chuckled.
"What about fresh?"
"Let's see... There's a very nice Jacuzzi bathtub here... I think we could actually make it without flooding the people below," she could hear a smirk in his voice.
A blush crept up her face at the memory.
They had been taking a country weekend break, staying in a low-key village hotel. She had pulled him into the tub, undeniably too small for two people, but she'd just acted on a gleeful impulse, and he had looked so sexy in the wet clothes, water dripping off his closely-cropped hair when he'd hovered above her... They both had felt it, a heated surge of sheer hunger for one another as she'd grabbed his head to kiss him deeply, and then had been pulling at his clothes in frenzy, in unnecessary haste, needing to feel him again. He had taken her there, their coupling turning so fervent, loud wordless moans echoing through the tiled walls, that they hadn't noticed either the open tap, or splashing of all water out, onto the floor. Not until a very upset occupant of the room below had yelled it out a few minutes later.
"Oh god, that was so embarrassing," Kate giggled nervously.
"It was," he agreed. "But worth it."
His breathless Kate, and their wet bodies colliding, sliding against each other, skin warmed by the water, and the secure grip of his hand on her hip, and the carnal look in his eyes, when he had tilted her pelvis up and told her exactly how she had been making him feel --
"It was," she confirmed quietly after a beat, her lips tingling at the picture in her mind.
There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line, just enough to make her wonder if Jack longed for her just as much as she for him right now.
"Kate?" she could hear it in his voice, lower and huskier, just like when he had spoken to her that night, just like he always did when his hands would find her hips and his mouth the crook of her neck.
"Yeah?"
"What are you wearing?"
Bursting into a fit of strained giggles, she wanted to protest, thinking that it was such a guy's thing to ask and finding it both amusing and endearing.
"You wanna hear that I'm naked, don't ya?"
"C'mon Kate, just humour me," he coaxed.
It was getting chilly, but that was not really the reason Kate stepped back into their bedroom, absentmindedly trailing her finger along the window frame and then the curtain as she went. She glanced to his side of the bed. The one she claimed every time he traveled away.
"A shirt," she said playfully, catching a reflection of herself, clad in the oversized garment in the mirror.
"Just a shirt?"
"It's yours."
She knew he loved seeing her in his clothes, finding it cute and a turn-on; he'd said it played up the difference between their sexes and made her look even more feminine, but also that it was something intimate and it melted his heart to watch how comfortable she was so close to him.
"The one you wore before you left," she specified, fingering the navy blue cotton. "It smells like you..."
Kate could hear him let out a breath over the phone. "Now it smells like both of us," he spoke softly.
"No. The sheets smell like both of us," she stated, making him chuckle.
"God, Kate, you're not helping here."
"And what are you wearing, Jack?"
"Huh?"
"You heard me; I want to plant a nice vivid image in my head, too."
"Well, I'm not naked either. Yet," he offered enticingly and Kate grinned to herself, happy with that fun side of him and happy that she could bring it out.
"Are you going to undress for me?" she teased.
"Wouldn't you like to do it yourself?" he shot back.
"You still in your work suit?" she muttered into the receiver, picturing him, handsome and elegant and serious, in that black suit and burgundy shirt, as she had seen him in the airport, and she recalled a brief thought, that he looked so incredibly sexy in his clothes, but beneath them was sexier yet, unlike most people, who would lose some of their appeal when stripped down. But he, he was not only spotlessly beautiful. Along with the clothing, he would shed the unimportant build-up of civilization, coming to her in his gloriously naked, pure humanity. Not as a doctor, a husband, a citizen, a respected member of association such-and-such. Only as the good, strong, caring man she had fallen in love with.
