The Actuary

by K T Bowes

  Chapter 25

  “You bloody did what?” Rohan’s face was angrier than Emma had ever seen it, his eyes blazing a peculiar blue like storm waters and his honey coloured face morphing into a furious puce.

  “I know, I know. It was reckless and stupid; you don’t have to tell me something I already know. I met him yesterday and he seemed nice...”

  “Nice?” Rohan shook his head and repeated the word as though trying to understand how it was relevant. “You went on a date with a complete stranger because you thought he was nice!”

  “He made me feel good about myself and I thought just one night out wouldn’t hurt and...”

  “One night out!” Again, Rohan didn’t let Emma finish her sentence and she gritted her teeth in temper as guilt and foolishness mixed in her gut. Rohan paced her warm bedroom, his body stiff with rage. “Ah yeah, enjoy one night out and end up running through the town in a ball dress with no shoes. Did it not matter that one night out might lead to you not coming back at all? What about your son? Don’t you care about him?” His voice rose an octave and Emma’s sense of humiliation overrode her need to sit and listen to his accusations.

  “Don’t you dare shout at me! He’s been my priority since I gave birth to him so don’t you start trying to make me feel like a failure!” Emma stood up, the silky material cascading down around her shapely calves. “You wake Nicky and we’ll leave right now!” She wiped her blotchy face on a piece of kitchen roll, wincing at its scratchy surface.

  “But I don’t want you to go, Em. Don’t you get that?”

  “Oh, go to hell, Rohan. I’m done with your games. I don’t know what you want from me! One minute you’re kissing me and the next, you’re marrying Felicity and she’s threatening me...” Emma’s voice broke as she struggled with the swathe of emotions which overwhelmed her. She clutched at her chest and agitated fingers grappled with the buttons at her cleavage.

  “What? Please! Just listen to me,” Rohan begged. He reached for her and Emma shook her head and turned away from his questing hands.

  “No. Ro, please leave me alone. We’ll be gone in the morning. I was stupid to think I could ever do this; live here with you like we were brother and sister and not...I let my desperation get the better of me. I should have known.” With a mammoth sigh, Emma turned and walked across to the window, looking out at the deserted street down which she performed her frantic hundred metre dash earlier. The floor underfoot made small squeaks as her sore feet passed over the beech wood joins and Emma sighed at her misfortune. The thought of telling Nicky they were going filled her with misery.

  Unable to settle mentally, Emma shoved past Rohan and followed the hallway to her son’s room. Nicky snored softly and she smiled and pulled his door gently closed, not trusting herself to disturb him in her turmoil. She fought the urge to gather him up and run. That would come tomorrow.

  “Please, go!” Emma pushed Rohan from the room with force and closed her bedroom door with her bottom, hearing the reassuring click as the catch snapped shut. She stood for a while with her hands over her eyes, waiting for her heart to slow and reach equilibrium again. Her eyes stayed strangely dry, the wells of her soul all cried out and emptied long ago for Rohan Andreyev. Her earlier tears were for herself and born of shame and disappointment, leaving a stinging tingle in her soul. With a sigh, Emma flung herself onto the iron bedstead, hearing the mattress groan underneath her. “I’m an idiot,” she whispered into the darkness, punctuated only by streetlamps. “I knew this would never work.”

  The sick feeling rose into her chest and she sat up, fighting the urge to gag. Christopher’s face drifted past her inner vision, dark and beautiful. Emma shook her head and tutted. His darkness attracted her like a moth to a flame and it frustrated and confused her. Then her heart overruled the musings of her lust and Rohan’s bemused face moved into her mind, chastising her with the pain of using Christopher as a distraction. Even as a teenager, it perplexed Emma how desperately she needed Rohan’s approval and attention. His physical touch was like a balm in their haphazard world.

  Emma groaned and yawned, pushing her hair back from her face. She plucked at the upper buttons of her dress, popping them one by one and feeling her breasts relax as the tight material released them a little. Her skin felt soft against fingers which shook, despite Emma’s attempts to control her emotions and a deep sadness snuck in through the cracks in her armour. She pushed the threatening tears away with pure bloody mindedness and allowed her fingers to stray to her slim waist and the stomach that once held the secret of her unborn son. “Damn you, Christopher. And double damn you, Rohan,” Emma whispered.

  As though in answer, the door clicked open and light from the hall lamp filtered through. Rohan’s silhouette was framed in the gap and Emma looked away, her fingers fluttering to hide her exposed chest. He stared at her and waited a moment before sliding through the gap and closing the door behind him. “Em, can we talk?” Rohan’s voice held an edge of begging and Emma let the heavy sigh escape her.

  “No.”

  Rohan made the distance from the doorway to the bed in one stride and perched next to Emma without touching her. The familiar electricity arced between them, burning them both in its intensity. Emma closed her eyes as exhaustion claimed the last of her energy but when she opened them, she sensed Rohan’s eyes on her face. “Em. I still love you. I haven’t stopped...”

  “Shut up!” Emma’s shout cut through the darkness, louder than she intended. She held her breath, waiting for Nicky to come pounding into the room in terror, but he slept on in the hum of ensuing silence. She exhaled in a rush and anger reclaimed the space vacated by fear.

  Rohan’s gentle fingers on Emma’s shoulders acted like a catalyst. She exploded, venting almost seven years of abandonment and disappointment. “I hate you!” she hissed as she pounded at Rohan’s broad chest, feeling his expensive shirt rip under her scratching and clawing. “You destroyed me! I hate you!”

  Emma felt her nails contact soft skin and she allowed them to bite into the flesh underneath, venting her disappointment with herself, with him, with life in general. Rohan inhaled in pain and grasped her wrists, holding them out sideways and infuriating Emma further. He wrenched her hands behind her back so she was pinioned and then he eased her body under him, trapping her writhing and squirming on the bed with her hands underneath her. Their combined knuckles dug into the base of her spine, knotty and painful and Emma’s anger dissipated as quickly as it came, realising she was beaten. “Let go and you’re dead!” she spat.

  “I just won’t let go then.” Rohan’s face was close to Emma’s and she heard him breathing heavily from their fight and from the other thing Felicity claimed he wasn’t able to feel. Emma gritted her teeth and tried to kick him sideways, realising as she felt his warm palm on her thigh that he trapped her wrists one handed. His other roved to the top of her leg under her dress and Emma held her breath as Rohan’s fingers traced the line where her knickers should be. “Promise me nobody hurt you...like that?” His voice sounded anguished.

  “Nobody did,” Emma replied, counting her blessings. Her body burned with the gentleness of Rohan’s intimate touch, remembering the former passion of two misguided kids indulging a forbidden love.

  “Rohan, don’t.” Emma’s voice was nasal, forgotten tears filling her sinuses and waiting for the order to fall.

  “You’re still my wife.” Rohan’s voice was tender and Emma felt him dip towards her. His full lips against hers crumbled her resolve, smoothing away Christopher’s ardent kisses and replacing them with ones of love and affection. By the time Rohan’s soft tongue flicked between her teeth, Emma had long since given in. Rohan’s deft fingers moved up further underneath the dress. She moaned, but the opening of her lips allowed him further access and Rohan made good use of the break in hostilities. “I’m gonna let you go,” he breathed. Emma felt his warm breath kiss her skin, laced with wine and the faint scent of mint. He moved and Emma’s hands were free.
They tingled numbly behind her, feeling as though they belonged to someone else. She groaned as she brought them out in front of her, the blood rushing back into the compressed veins and making them throb. Rohan’s free hand strayed to the remaining buttons on her dress and he popped them expertly until Emma lay underneath him with her breasts exposed. The streetlamps dappled the light against the trees outside and cast patterns across Emma’s luscious skin.

  As the feeling re-entered her numb hands, so it also reactivated her dazed brain and Emma countered. Her battered heart couldn’t keep up such a drain on its emotional resources. She dragged her right hand across, aiming to connect with Rohan’s head as he kissed the soft, willing breasts which struggled for freedom under the red material hiding the last of her dignity. It met with instant resistance.

  “Don’t inhale before you hit.” His whispers were soft and hypnotic, laced with his sexy Russian accent. “You give yourself away.” Rohan clasped the errant wrist again, pushing it above Emma’s head.

  “Screw you!” she grunted as she fought him, but Rohan laughed and put his lips over hers to silence her.

  “That has to be an invitation.” He dragged her other wrist above her head and held them both one handed, using his leg across her thighs to prevent any further meting out of justice. His free hand strayed to her waist and then began to lower, raising the soft red material with silken movements. As Emma held her breath, Rohan kissed her just like he used to.

  “Don’t!” she begged him but only once, her body betraying her as it responded to her husband’s forgotten kisses.

  “Sshh,” he soothed her, lying across her body. “Tell me you don’t love me.” Passion made him shiver on top of her as fear and anticipation mixed in his blue eyes. Emma gasped as the stitching tore on the dress and Rohan displayed her underneath him, vulnerable and naked like a prize. His shirt and trousers felt scratchy and rough against Emma’s skin, but fear paralysed her as he eased the dress back with expert hands.

  “We can’t do this!” Emma’s voice held a rasp of anguish as Rohan’s fingers explored and his lips caressed hers, punctuating her sentence and ignoring her weak protest.

  “I love you, Emma Andreyev,” he whispered, breaking the kiss only to speak and then resuming it.

  Emma felt hope blossom within her tired heart at the sound of a married name she never got to use. “I know.” The sob caught in her throat. “Hold me, Ro. Please, hold me.” She clung to him, no longer restrained but willing, leaning into Rohan and allowing herself to remember his scent, the feel of his skin and the sensation of his chest pressed against hers. Disaster smiled its ghastly grimace as the couple danced with it again, driven by the soul-mate connection and a separation that refused to be brooked.

  Rohan wrapped his arm tightly around Emma as though he would never let her go, whispering to her in his lyrical Slavic tongue as he undid the buttons of his shirt.