Hearts Rewound

***This is my first attempt at a Romance. Compared to my other stories, this one is light on the sex.***

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O'Neal's wife closed the French doors and came out onto the deck to stand next to Dexter, they both looked out over the lake.

"Pretty sunset," she said. She was a small and slender woman with dark hair cascading beyond her shoulders. She had the sort of little compact body that he referred to as a gymnast cheerleader. She smelled faintly of one of those subtle yet expensive perfumes. Nice.

"Pretty sky," he added.

"Listen, thanks for everything. Getting Sam to the hospital, helping out," she said quietly.

"Don't mention it. I'm glad I went along with him today otherwise that dumb lug would probably still be laying out in the woods."

She shuddered at the thought.

He chuckled, "I tried to tell him that old oak didn't look good. Hell, the tree smelled of rot but he was determined to put that deer stand up there. He climbed right on up there and when he reached up and grabbed a hold of that branch and it snapped Sam goes 'ah, fuck me,' and the next thing I know he's on the ground. I ran over to check on him, see if he's alright, and he looks up at me and says, 'Not a word Dex, I don't want to hear a fucking word'," shaking his head as he finished the story.

They both started laughing and her smile nearly knocked him off of his feet. He felt that he was staring at her, that she knew it and was amused. He tried not to stare but Joann O'Neal was somebody to stare at. She was extraordinarily good looking; her beauty was almost unnatural; he found that it was hard to breath. She may have been a little heavy, maybe ten pounds, but round in all of the right places. Her hair dark brown, streaked with blond strands, her face lush with placid, pale blue eyes. He'd always liked Sam's wife. If the O'Neal's marriage hadn't have been so solid, if they weren't so happy with each other...

"Well, I should go," he said, turning to leave.

"Dex? Thanks again," she said as she reached out and touched his arm. She was one of those kinds of women who liked to touch people. "You know that Jennifer and the kids are moving back to town. She'll be staying here until she gets settled. You should call her."

"I don't know. It's really been a long time and we didn't exactly end things on the best of terms." He chuckled, "Hell, I think she sort of hated me."

"I don't think she hates you, she still asks about you. Just think about it Dex. Time passes."

"Yeah, time does pass, but sometimes it beats the hell out of you first," he said, the smile sliding from his face, then he closed his eyes, rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger. "Jesus Christ, what'd I just say?"

She stood there looking at him for a long moment; she almost had an amused look on her face. "Dexter, just think about it, okay? I know my sister, she'd enjoy seeing you again."

"I'll think about it," he said, noncommittally.

Later, as he was driving home, his body running the car, his eyes intent on the road, but his mind was stuck on Jennifer. She would be older, obviously, but then again, so was he.

He tried to gather back the memory of the last time he'd seen her. The memories came swimming up from the past: the way she moved, her beauty, the sound of her laugh, the way she smelled, but mainly he remembered the way she would look at him, somewhere between adoration and amusement. She had always kept him off balance.

Jen had been an enthusiastic lover. They had learned a lot together, always trying new techniques, sometimes almost getting clinical and at other times he remembered it was almost an animalistic frenzy. She had liked sex. A lot.

Flashing back on it, Dex felt himself...stir.

He'd dated Jen twelve years ago for over two and a half years. They were supposed to be married, but that didn't pan out. Dexter Giovanni hadn't been involved in a long term relationship with a woman since Jennifer. He'd dated a couple of dozen different women in that time. He went through women like a revolving door, the relationships just sort of spinning away.

Ah jeez, he thought, my love life is a fucking country song.

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Two weeks later Sam got out of the hospital and Dexter helped Joann bring him home. O'Neal was in a wheelchair with a broken arm and one of his legs in a cast. He was still pretty sore, probably would be for a while, but he was mending, getting better.

"Well, I gotta get back downtown," Dex said looking at Sam and Joann. "We've got the Worthington case running us around in circles."

"Thanks again Dex," Joann said as she stood on her tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek.

"Look, if you guys need anything, call me."

He backed out of the room, turned, and nearly ran over a woman who had just about entered the doorway.

"Dexter," she said, and showed a tiny smile.

"Jennifer." His heart thumped.

She smiled at him and he studied her face; she was beautiful, tough and vulnerable all at the same time.

"I, uh, Jennifer. Wow! You look great," he said, finally getting something intelligible out after stumbling all over himself.

Amused, she said, "Where are you rushing off to? I'd like to talk with you sometime."

"Aw jeez. I've got to get back downtown. You, ah, could walk me out to my car. We could talk a little on the way." Dexter said looking into her dark blue eyes, like deep, warm pools, he felt as though he could fall into them.

"Okay." As she stepped past him, she caught his wrist in her hand and led him out of the room.

On the way out the front door she let go of his wrist, and looked up into his ruggedly handsome face, "Joann said you'd be over today. I've been thinking about you all morning, about the time we spent together."

"Joann, it seems, has been the busy little matchmaker lately," he said, his friendly steel blue eyes sparkling with humor. "She got me thinking about you, about us, a couple of weeks ago when Sam first hurt himself."

"You've been thinking about me?" She asked, pressing her fingers to her lips, thinking.

At his car now they stopped, he turned to her and said, "How could I not think about you, Jennifer? Could I buy you dinner tonight down at the Bel Aire?" He asked, looking down at her.

"I can't tonight. We have school registration this evening. How about tomorrow?"

"Yeah, that would be good. You want me to pick you up?"

"How about I meet you there, say, six o'clock?"

"That'd be great," he said. "I'm sorry, but I've really got to run. See ya tomorrow."

As he turned to leave she grabbed his ear, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the cheek. "See ya," she said.

Jennifer. As soon as he had left he wanted to turn the car around and go back to her, he wanted to talk to her some more. She was still a pretty woman. Her breasts were bigger, probably attributed to motherhood; they now produced a deep, inviting cleavage.

He could hardly wait until dinner the next night, he felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve waiting for Old St. Nick.

What was he going to wear tomorrow night? Something really cool and expensive, or something light and casual? He'd have to give it some thought. She was an accountant and had been married to an architect so she would have some bucks.

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The next evening he rushed home from work, the butterflies fluttering in his stomach for the first time in recent memory. He showered and walked into the bedroom, running a rough towel trough his dark, wet hair, still not sure about what he would wear.

He went through his closet, tearing through his suits, finally deciding on what he hoped would be right -- twill pants in a deep khaki, a crisp blue shirt, one of his favorite Hermes neckties, a dark brown light weight summer sports coat and dark brown loafers, minus the tassels. He checked himself in the mirror, smiled a couple of times. Better can the smile he thought, go with a more sincere approach.

He was looking at his watch every thirty seconds and finally thought that it was close enough so he headed out to the restaurant.

The Bel Aire was an old-style downtown steak house set a few feet below street level in the basement of an old brick building. The aroma of sizzling beef fat and beer hung in the air. The maitre d' sat him in a corner where he could watch the door. No sign of Jennifer. He was a little early but he still worried. What if she bailed on him?

The waitress came by and dropped off the drinks menu, gave him a couple of minutes to decide, came back and he ordered a martini and she asked, "Will you be dining alone tonight?"

"No, I'm supposed to meet..." And Jennifer came in the door. "I'm meeting the lady who just came in over there."

Jennifer, Dex thought, had dressed as carefully as he had. She was wearing a fiery red thigh length dress, matching heels, black seamed stockings, and small pearls in her ears. She looked, he thought, absolutely luminous.

He stood up to meet her and thought that her face may have colored a little when their eyes met.

"Dex." She said from behind startling blue eyes that looked out from under long, fluttering lashes.

"How are you?" He was fumbling already. "I mean, aw man, you look wonderful."

Now her face did color, she smiled. "Thank you. You look pretty snazzy yourself."

And she was fumbling, he thought.

"I had Joann drop me off. Could you drive me home?"

"Yes. Of course. I'd like that."

She smiled again, "Did you order?"

"A martini."

"So I'll have a martini also. An old time drink to reminisce over old times."

"The last time I saw you -- not yesterday, but back when -- you were really upset with me. I'd even say hateful."

"I remember," she said. "God. You could be such a jerk. You really knew how to push my buttons. Unbelievable. You were pretty sure that you were God's gift to women."

"Oh, come on. I was never God's gift to anything."

"That's not the way I saw it." She paused. "Are we going to fight?" But she said it smiling.

He smiled. "No. I don't want to lose again. I do remember," he said, dropping his voice, "that we spent a lot of time running around naked."

Now she did turn pink and looked down, a thin smile on her lips. "Yeah, we were pretty good at that, weren't we?"

"Yeah. Are we old now?"

She laughed, a nice laugh, musical, and she said, "No, but we were definitely young back then."

The waitress returned and dropped off Jennifer's martini and the dinner menu's, which were about the size of a wall calendar. Jen opened hers, looked it over and said, "You really did make me angry back then. I almost couldn't stand you. Thought I never wanted to see you again. After we broke up I'd see you walking around downtown, cruising around, this arrogant, tough, rich kid asshole, smiling at the other girls even while you had a girl on your arm..."

"Jesus." He was impressed.

"Still pisses me off just thinking about it." Her eyes dropped back to the menu.

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After they had ordered the conversation drifted to their current lives. They talked about her kids, her plans, and houses. He told her about his job and the hassles and politics involved there.

The steaks came a few minutes later and they settled into a comfortable conversation as they ate dinner. Two old lovers getting to know each other again, feeling each other out, finding a comfort zone. She flirted with him, unconsciously twirling a ringlet of hair with an index finger.

He told her a story about a case he'd worked on where he had this kid in as a witness. The particular kid wasn't a stranger to the police department so the kid had brought his attorney, just in case. The kid and his lawyer were trying to work out a deal to reduce some other charges in exchange for his cooperation, everybody smiling at each other, lying like motherfuckers, but the deal got done.

The kids attorney was an officious bitch with glasses that would slide down her too narrow nose, and he said, gesturing with a neatly forked square of rib eye, "she had this habit of pushing them back up with her middle finger, the whole time she's cutting this deal with us she's flipping me off."

She laughed, her musical laugh, and said, "So basically the whole time she's getting her client out of trouble she's silently telling the cops to go screw themselves."

They laughed some more, talked some more and ordered more drinks.

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After dinner they walked down the sidewalk, the streetlights coming on overhead; a soft glow lingered over the horizon in the late evening sky. A perfect summer night was developing, a night made for lovers to walk hand-in-hand along the river.

They walked for a while, found a park bench and sat down, watching people come and go on the sidewalk.

"So, why'd you move back? I mean, was it just to be closer to your family?"

"It's where I grew up. I'd always liked the place. Neat town, lots of things to do. Good people here. Todd was the one who wanted to move to the coast." She said, giving him a sideways glance.

"Huh. Why the coast?"

"He said that there would be better opportunities for a young architect out there, more money. He was right, but the lifestyle was just too fast paced for me and unfortunately there were too many fast paced blond bimbos for our marriage." She said, matter of fact like, no sadness in her tone.

"Not unfortunate for me," he smiled at her. "Besides, he would have found the bimbos here as well."

"I truthfully think that the divorce was the best thing. He didn't love me; he loved the idea of having a pretty wife on his arm. I'm not even really sure how much I loved him, now, looking back. I was on the rebound from you when Todd and I started dating."

"Aw...jeez. So this is my fault?" He said dryly.

"Yes, of course," she laughed. Her breath smelled like cinnamon and spice.

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They talked some more and Dexter decided that he was babbling. Eventually they walked to his car, then were driving toward the O'Neal's.

"I don't feel like going home yet. It's barely after eight o'clock," she said.

"Okay. Well, we could roll around town for a while. Check out some of the happening places."

"How about we go back to your place? We could get to know each other again."

They were sitting at an uphill stop sign, and Dexter had one foot on the clutch, he let the car roll back a few feet, then accelerated forward, and rolled back, thinking. "Maybe I need a little more romancing," he said, teasing her.

"What? Have you got another obligation? A better offer?" She was mildly offended.

"No, no, no. Nothing like that. I was just kidding you. I'm romanced. To my place it is."

"Good choice," she said, laughing at him. She'd done it again, had him completely off balance. Just like old times.

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Jennifer prowled through the house like a potential buyer. She checked every room, once he even thought he saw her sniffing the air, testing it for the scent of another woman. He grinned.

"Nice place Dexter," she finally proclaimed, kicking off her shoes and taking a seat on the sofa.

"Want something to drink?"

"No, I'm fine," she said, patting the couch next to her. "Come here and sit down. I promise not to bite."

He sat on the couch next to Jennifer, grinned, leaned over and said into her ear, "Remember that time, over at the U., we were at my apartment, Steve and Brent were there, wouldn't leave, wouldn't take a hint, and you were getting really pissed?"

She laughed, "I'm amazed that you remember." She looked at him with a new, peculiar intensity.

"Yeah, well...I also remember that we had the most amazing shower sex after they finally did wind up leaving."

A red flush crept onto her cheeks. "You weren't supposed to remember that." She paused, looking at him, "Mmmm. It was nice though, wasn't it."

He sat there next to Jen, looking into her deep, blue eyes, "You're really beautiful."

"That kind of talk could get you somewhere."

He reached out, lightly stroking her cheek with his fingertips, now falling into her blue eyes. He leaned to her, tilting his head slightly, and brought his lips to hers. Her lips were soft and smooth, the kiss was gentle, almost tentative.

Like a small ember that has been blown into the dry grass by a sudden gust, the passion flared. His hand slid from her cheek, her hair slipping between his fingers as his hand found the back of her neck and pulled her face to him. The kiss locked them together, craving more, the intensity grew. Her hands both came up, grabbing his head, running her fingers urgently through his hair. They continued for more than two minutes, giving in to the building fire.

Jennifer pulled her chin back, gasping, then smiled at Dexter and said, "Let's go to the bedroom."

As they stood, they kissed once again, locking back together, swaying. They performed a tight little dance, holding onto each other as they made their way back to his bedroom, found the doorway, and stumbled into the room. They continued their tight little dance, kissing, swaying, finally tumbling sideways together, falling onto the bed.

"Oh, God, Dexter..."

He kissed her again, his body pressing her into the bed, one hand tugging at the buttons that held the top of her dress together.

"Jesus, let me..."

"I got it," his voice was coarse, fevered. A button popped and his hand was on her warm skin, caressing her stomach, then reaching around back, unclasping her bra. Jen began to moan, trying to catch his lips. They rolled across the bed, she was fumbling with his belt, he with his hand now beneath her dress, pulling at her panties.

"Oh my God, a garter belt..."

"You like?"

"Jesus, yes!"

He got her panties off, leaving them twisted around one of her ankles, pulled her dress up around her waist, and his hands were on her. Urgent hands, caressing, stroking, probing; his hands were driving her wild. Finally he entered her and she nearly screamed with the intensity of the feeling...and sometime later, she thought, she did scream.

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"That was...great," he said. He reached over and turned on a bedside lamp and sat up, still mostly dressed. She was gasping for air, like a fish out of water, she thought. He looked down at her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. My God, Dexter..."

"I know...here...can I...let me take some of this stuff off..."

After the violence of the first episode, he was suddenly tender, moving her body, lifting her, stripping off her remaining clothing. She almost felt like a child, until he leaned down and kissed her on that tender spot above her thigh, just where it joins her hip, and the fire reignited in her belly, running through her, she gasped. The bedside lamp seemed to grow dimmer.

She pushed him over onto his back and she sat astride his hips, facing him, her knees apart. She began rocking, just a few inches, building friction, she felt the evenings mood coalescing around her. She closed her eyes, and rocked, and rocked and the orgasm gathered and flowed and washed over her. And then, after a while, she thought that she might have screamed again. She came back only when she heard Dexter say, "Oh man, oh man..."

"Dexter," she said, giggling, and leaned forward to kiss him.

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"Did I scream?" she asked. She stood facing the shower head, the warm water cascading off of the slopes of her breasts. Dexter stood behind her, she could feel him pressing against her buttocks, his soapy hand caressing her stomach.

"I don't know. I thought that maybe it was me screaming."

She giggled. "What are you doing?"

"Just washing."

"I think you already washed there."