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“Dance?” She sighed out through fractured breath. “You can dance?”
“Ahh, darlin’,” he whispered against her hair, “I can do anything.”
They danced slowly, not moving very far in any direction. She could feel the strength of his strong, straight core, the rippled planes of his stomach, and the power in his large, calloused hands. Maggie’s skin heated where he touched her.
Being held by Prosper felt like the warmth of an early summer morning, the newness of the first robin’s song in springtime, and the comfort of a hot cup of tea on a snowy winter day.
Prosper’s touch felt like coming home.
The song ended, but he kept his arms tight around her. As the next song began, he seamlessly led her into it, and they danced together slowly while the night owl screeched, and the cool evening wind sent breezes that ruffled the curtains and whispered across Maggie’s hot skin.
Prosper was solid, unyielding, and more real than anything she had ever known. She laid her head against his chest and listened to the steady, strong heartbeat of a lion.
He was holding her closer now. His lips brushed against her cheek, her throat, the sensitive spot underneath the lobe of her ear. When Prosper pressed his mouth against hers, she kissed him back willingly, lovingly, and with unmistakable yearning.
It wasn’t long before they gave up any pretense of dancing, and instead caressed each other with gentle touches. Maggie led Prosper down the hall, past Raine’s bedroom, the room she slept with her husband, and into the guest room where Prosper slept. They undressed each other with careful reverence. Each button unfastened was like a prayer, a blessing, a promise of things to come. When they were both naked, Prosper moved Maggie to the bed and lay her down. He moved over her, and his big body caged her in. Maggie arched, stretched, and moaned softly under his tender assault. As Prosper entered her, Maggie opened up to him with a need, a want, an urgency that matched his own. His every touch was like an answered prayer.
They made love for hours at a time, then they would fall asleep in each other’s arms, only to wake up and make love to each other again. Prosper held her close and pushed himself inside of her while she lovingly murmured to him in her native tongue. Soft, lyrical words that Prosper didn’t know, but their meaning he understood completely. Loving and being loved by Maggie and holding her close made it all worth it.
All the wanderings, all the forks in the road, all the choices he had made had led him here to her. In Maggie, Prosper had found his journey’s end.
At last.
For the next few days, Maggie and Prosper spent all their time together. Prosper gave up working on his bike and the repair list. Maggie gave up weeding the garden and any unnecessary household chores. When she wasn’t busy with her baby, she spent all of her time with Prosper, either talking or making love. After Maggie put Raine to bed, Prosper would light a small fire in the backyard. Sometimes he would take out his guitar and sing to her, sometimes they would cuddle close and talk for hours. Other times they would make slow, gentle love to each other under the stars.
It was during one of those conversations that Prosper opened up to Maggie, and she saw a true glimpse into the heart of the man: who he was, what he wanted, and the way he had struggled—still struggled to find his place in the world. She asked him if he ever got lonely out on the road. His answer was profound and spoke straight from the core of the man that he was.
“Lonely?” He thought it over for a moment and shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes I travel alone … but no, I’m never lonely. And I meet plenty of guys on the road. Like is drawn to like, water seeks its own level.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The guys I served with, the men I meet on the road, hell, even the fellas I did time with, there’s just something we recognize in each other. Like a family or a tribe.”
“A family?” Maggie puzzled at him.
“Yeah, maybe not a conventional one, but yeah, there’s a family … a brotherly sort of bond, for sure.”
“I still don’t understand.” Maggie frowned.
Prosper looked down at his boots in thought for a moment, then lit up a smoke and leaned back against the chair. “There are outlaws in this world, Maggie: soldiers, mercenaries, warriors—men who function best just outside the margins. I’m one of those men. For guys like me? This world is getting too rigid, too regulated, too bogged down with societal expectations. Too many dirty politicians sitting in high towers making all the decisions, deciding who wins and who loses, and passing those decisions down as law.”
“But aren’t laws a good thing?” Maggie asked. “Don’t we need laws to function as a society?”
“Some laws are good, and others are necessary. And you’re right, a society couldn’t run without a set of standards. But not all the laws are good for all the people,” he explained. “Maybe all men are created equal, but for shit sure, not all men are the same. So, for some of those people, those rules, those laws are a set up to fail. Does that make sense?”
Maggie nodded. “It’s starting to.”
“Okay”—Prosper paused as he attempted to explain further—“think of the world as a giant puzzle and we are all pieces. Only some of the pieces are from a different puzzle. Now what do you have?”
“You have a game where only some of the pieces fit,” Maggie answered.
“That’s right, darlin’.”
“But how do you know which puzzle you belong to?” she asked.
“Well, that’s the funny thing. You don’t really know where you fit. It just happens and no one gives it much thought. But you sure as hell know when you don’t. You told me that your sister’s husband, Tanka’s husband—”
“Ahanu. His name is Ahanu.”
