Part Four
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She was sitting on the small bench in front of the vanity, combing out the tangles in her hair, when she heard the front door open and close. Listening to the footsteps that approached, she switched the comb for a brush and began to pull the bristles through her hair to help it dry.
Peter's eyes lit up at the sight of her, and she smiled at him in the mirror. "Hi, Hon. I wondered where you were. What took you so long to get home?"
He walked behind her to straddle the small bench she was sitting on. Taking the brush from her hand, he took over the brushing of her hair. She sat with her back to him and enjoyed the feeling of him running the brush and his fingers through the still damp tresses. Resting her hands lightly on his knees, she reflexively squeezed his legs in concert with the brush strokes that pulled at her scalp.
Peter breathed in the freshly showered fragrance of her body and hair, and the interesting way her robe sagged open in the front. He slid forward on the bench to sit a little closer to her.
He pulled the brush through her hair slowly, watching the way the brown tresses shone in the light and flowed in rippling waves down to the middle of her back.
"I said, what took you so long to get home?" she repeated herself, knowing full well that it wasn't her words that had his attention.
"Oh, I drove Eppy to his motel to pick up his stuff, and then dropped him off at Paul and Annie's to get himself settled. I didn't think he should drive himself when we left Chandler's."
Kacie's brow furrowed in thought. "Has he always had a drinking problem?"
Peter stopped brushing in mid-stroke and stared at her in the mirror. "What do you mean by that?"
She met his glance and repeated with a noncommittal shrug, "I mean, has he always had a drinking problem?"
"Are you trying to say that you think Eppy is a drunk?"
She pivoted on the end of the vanity bench so she could look directly at him. "Peter, I don't want to fight about this. Why don't we just drop it?"
Peter gave her a long look, and then got up from his seat, tossing the brush on the dresser. Pacing the length of the room, he stopped in front of her before speaking. "Look, you don't know Eppy the way that I do, or you wouldn't say something like that. He does not have a drinking problem. He just overdid it a little tonight." He paused, and then plunged ahead. "You sure didn't go out of your way to be very nice to him."
Kacie's jaw dropped in astonishment and she stared at Peter in disbelief. "What do you mean by that? You thought I should have been nicer to him? After the way he talked about me in front of everybody?" Outraged, she mimicked, "'You can't have any legs left, Petey'." Her eyes blazed at him angrily.
"Oh, come on, Kace, where's your sense of humor? He didn't mean anything by it. If anything, it was a compliment to you."
"A compliment?! You've got to be kidding!" She was on her feet and scowling at him. "He made me feel like some kind of...of...I don't know what! And YOU are telling ME that I should have felt FLATTERED?"
"Kacie, you are overreacting to this whole thing."
"Overreacting? I'm overreacting? He insulted me and he pawed at me, and you have the nerve to tell me that I'm OVERREACTING?"
"What do you mean, he 'pawed at you'? I never saw anything like that."
"It happened when I was coming back from the ladies' room. He rammed into me, and started putting his hands on me and saying how he wanted to be 'friends'. I told him to back off and I shoved him. I thought he was going to smack me, and then your father showed up and he left me alone."
Peter looked dubious. "Are you sure you didn't misunderstand the whole situation? I can't believe that Eppy would go after you that way. He's not like that."
Kacie was outraged. "How DARE you defend him to me like this! Are you calling me some kind of hysterical female who doesn't know fact from imagination?"
"I never said anything like that, Kace. You're just overreacting again."
Kacie shook her head and clamped her jaw shut tight. "Forget it. Just forget it," she gritted out through clenched teeth. She pulled her robe closely about herself and cinched the belt more tightly before pulling open dresser drawers to snatch out pieces of clothing.
"Now what are you doing?"
"Getting ready for bed!"
"I thought you WERE ready for bed," Peter asked, genuinely puzzled.
"I did, too, but I was wrong."
She stormed past him on the way into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her.
The bedroom was empty when she emerged some time later, wearing an oversized t-shirt and a pair of workout shorts. She didn't bother to flip on the light before crawling under the covers on her side of the bed. She huddled there wretchedly, knowing that sleep would be a long time in coming, if it came at all.
Peter was stretched out on the couch, idly browsing through the television channels. Nothing really caught his interest, but he finally settled on a delayed broadcast of an NBA game. He barely noticed how the game was progressing while he wondered dazedly how he had come to have a fight with Kacie when that had been the LAST thing on his mind when he'd walked into their bedroom and seen her sitting there in that robe. "Why did I bite her head off that way?" he mused out loud. "She's right about the way that Eppy talked about her. Any other guy woulda said something like that to Kacie, I woulda handed him his teeth in a baggie." It had always been so. He would take things from Eppy that he would never tolerate from anyone else.
Peter's thoughts continued as he watched the television screen unseeingly. {I can't believe that he'd actually try and grope Kacie and come on to her the way she said he did. But Kace would never make up something like that.} His mind flashed a sudden picture as clear as that on the flickering screen before him, and he sat up abruptly. {By God, if he DID touch her, I'll break his hands off and feed him his fingers!}
He sighed tiredly and flopped back against the cushions. {Hell, the guy was so drunk tonight he could hardly walk. I'll bet he won't even remember what happened when he wakes up tomorrow morning.}
"He saved my butt more times than I can count," he muttered out loud. "But dammit, that doesn't give him any right to put his hands on my wife."
{My wife. God, I love the sound of that. I love HER.} The longer he sat and thought, the more miserable he became. {So what am I doing out here when I should be in there with the best thing that ever happened to me?} He got up and turned off the TV and lamp. {Face it, Peter. You screwed up big time tonight.} "Might as well get this over with."
Peter slipped quietly into the bathroom for a quick shower. As he brushed his teeth, he looked at himself in the mirror and said, "Good luck, Pete. I got an idea you're gonna need it."
He slid under the covers and rolled onto his side to stare at Kacie's back. He reached out a tentative hand to touch her shoulder.
"Don't." The reply was quick and short.
"Kacie, we need to talk," he began hesitantly.
"I don't want to fight any more. I'm tired."
"Honey, I said we need to talk. I don't want to fight, either."
She kept her back to him and spoke in a voice thick with tears. "If you want to talk about Epstein, we're only going to fight, so what's the point?"
He started to reach for her again, and stopped himself, running a hand through his hair in frustration instead.
"I just don't understand how you could let him treat me like that and then make up excuses for him."
"Kace, he didn't mean anything by it," Peter explained patiently. "That's just the way Eppy is."
She rolled over onto her back and he sensed her head turning his way. "He made me feel cheap. He made our...loving each other...seem like some kind of locker room joke."
"I'm sure he didn't mean it like that."
Kacie turned away from him again, and Peter could feel the wall between them rising higher. He sighed in frustration. "Look, you want me to sleep on the couch tonight?"
The only answer was a thundering silence.
Peter threw back the covers and started to get out of bed.
Her hand instantly reached back for his. "Don't go."
Relieved, he lay back down, and she slid over to him to lay her head on his chest. He quickly gathered her into his arms, and could feel the tenseness in her body.
She nestled there, listening to the steady thumping of his heartbeat, before finally speaking in a small voice. "He scared me. When he started talking about all the times you had been hurt, it made me remember how close I came to losing you once. I didn't need to hear that I might never have known you at all." She shuddered at the thought and clung to him. "I don't dare let myself think about something like that happening to you again."
They lay wordlessly for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts.
Peter broke the silence first. "Honey, if it hadn't been for Eppy hauling my ass out of trouble every time he turned around, I wouldn't be here." He kissed the top of her head and ran his fingers through her hair . "I know he can be rude and crude, and I'm sorry you were offended by him." He sighed and went on softly. "I *OWE* him, Kacie. He was my partner for four years. Do you know what that means?"
She nodded her head against his chest and swallowed thickly. "Yes, I understand better than you might think." Taking a deep breath, she went on, "I guess what I'm not sure about right now is where I stand with you."
"What do you mean?"
"I...have always felt so safe with you. That you would never let anything...bad...happen to me as long as I was with you. When you just let Eppy talk to me like that...it made me wonder what comes next."
Peter reached over and flicked on the lamp, wanting to see her face while they talked. He rolled onto his side, propped his head on his hand, and regarded her seriously. "What comes 'next'?"
Kacie's eyes were dark with emotion, and she also lay on her side, clutching the pillow under her head and staring at him steadily. "If it doesn't matter to you what your friends SAY to me, what's next? Pass me around to them, so they can have a turn?" She reddened and hid her face from him.
Peter inhaled sharply. "You can't possibly believe that I would ever do that to you." When she refused to meet his gaze, he repeated himself in a voice thick with hurt. "You DON'T think that, do you?"
"No."
He tipped her chin with a forefinger, forcing her to look at him. "Then what?" he asked softly.
She spoke hesitantly. "I guess...I wanted you to...'defend my honor', and...you didn't do that. It made me feel like...I wasn't as important to you as I thought I was. That I wasn't worth defending."
His hazel eyes darkened into twin pools of misery. "I never meant to make you feel that way, Kacie. Not in a million years. I...treasure you."
"My heart knows that, Peter. It's my head that's having trouble."
He reached out his hand, gently rubbing her cheekbone with his thumb. "I'm sorry, Sweetheart. I guess I got so caught up in seeing Eppy again that I ignored you and your feelings. You mean everything to me. Can you forgive me for being such an insensitive jerk?"
She brushed the hair from his brow and gave him a small smile. "Apology accepted."
"I'm not much of a knight in shining armor, am I?" he berated himself.
"Oh, you just tarnish once in awhile." She pulled his face down to meet hers. "But you clean up good." Their lips met briefly.
"Does this mean that I'm forgiven?" Peter asked, with love in his eyes.
She sighed dramatically and shook her head in mock despair. "I just can't stay mad at you. I've tried, and I just can't do it."
"The 'look' again?"
She laughed at him before replying, "Nope. I just love you too much to be able to hang onto 'mad' for very long." She kissed his neck and added, "Of course, those puppy dog eyes are a big help to you."
Peter rubbed his face in her hair. "Umm...you smell so good." She snuggled against his chest. "And you're wearing that perfume I like, too." His hands moved down to her back, and he tenderly ran his fingers up and down her spine, gradually causing her shirt to gather up in folds, until he was stroking the skin on her bare back. He quivered and drew his breath in with a hiss when her lips and teeth lingered around his earlobe and the sensitive hollow behind it.
The pressure of his hands on her back increased, and he slid fingers up under the thin shirt to continue the lazy stroking. She responded by rubbing her chest sensuously across his in the way that she knew drove him wild.
He took her chin in his hand, to pull her lips to his, their kisses gentle and exploring. Their lips soon became more demanding, and Peter pulled her around until she was on her back. He moved his hands from massaging her back to slide them over the top of the fabric that covered her breasts.
She gasped sharply as he slowly cupped one curve and then the other, gently rubbing the sensitive tips between thumb and forefinger before gliding his hand away. She placed her own hands on top of his and used pressure each time he touched her breasts, encouraging him to keep his palms in contact.
Hands and lips gently touched and explored, and passion flamed.
Kacie kept her lips connected with Peter's while she half-sat to draw up her t-shirt. She pulled away from him briefly as she jerked the shirt up and over her head to throw it on the floor, immediately recapturing his lips with hers.
"I thought you were never going to take that thing off," Peter complained hoarsely, before nuzzling his mouth against the bared skin and licking his tongue over the exposed flesh, nipping and kissing her into a frenzy.
She moaned, "I thought you were never going to do anything about it." Arching her back, she pressed herself more fully into his mouth.
They slipped off the rest of their clothes and continued to tease and caress until both were nearly mindless with desire.
"God, I love you," Peter breathed as he crushed his lips against hers.
"Show me," she commanded huskily, and groaned as her hips moved rhythmically in response to the touch of his hands, in anticipation of his entry.
"What's your hurry?" He started a trail of kisses from her breasts...to her ribs...to her stomach, and continued the descent.
She rocked beneath him and moaned. Sliding her hands in his hair, she gasped, "Wait...Peter...I don't know...you've never kissed me...there...before...I'm not sure..."
"You want me to stop?" he asked in a throaty growl.
She twisted her fingers in his hair and writhed convulsively. "Oh! God, Peter!...I don't care what you do...but please DO something!"