‘You were, but you were outrageously beautiful with it.’ His fingers traced her face, the touch making her nerve endings dance as his hands moved slowly lower, his fingers finding the hem of her top and sliding up under it.
She sucked in her breath, pulling her post-baby tummy in, and she saw him frown as he stroked the skin with his warm hand.
‘Why are you doing that? Relax. You’re beautiful, Ellie.’
‘I’m flabby.’
‘No. You’ve had three children. Be proud of your body and what it’s achieved. It’s amazing. Such a gift. Don’t ever feel ashamed of that.’
And just like that, he took away her worries, the niggle of fear that he wouldn’t want her when he’d seen her, and freed her to be herself.
‘I think you’re wearing too much,’ she said to him, suddenly braver, and he laughed again and took a step back.
‘I think we’re both wearing too much,’ he said with a smile, and pulled his sweater over his head, hooked his thumbs in his waistband and shucked off his jeans and underwear in one.
‘Better?’ he asked, and she just stared at him, at the fit, honed body that clearly wanted hers, the strong, straight legs, the board-flat abs, the deep chest and powerful shoulders, and felt another wave of doubt.
‘Hey,’ he murmured, a little frown pleating his brow again, and he stepped closer again and touched her face. ‘Do you want me to close the curtains?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m just being a coward.’
‘Then let me help you,’ he said quietly, and took hold of the hem of her top and lifted it up and over her head, dropping it on the floor with his clothes. He undid the button on her jeans and tugged them down inch by inch, his mouth tracing down over her ribs, her stomach—sucked in again—and then pausing.
‘Lacy knickers,’ he said with a smile, and left them there while he stripped off her jeans, impatient now. ‘Lift up,’ he instructed, and eased them off one foot at a time, then straightened and pulled her up against him. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured, and his mouth found hers again in a gentle kiss.
Except it wasn’t gentle, not for long. She felt his fractured sigh in her mouth and gave a tiny whimper in response, and that was enough. With a ragged groan he cradled the back of her head with one hand, hauled her hard up against him and plundered her mouth, his tongue delving, searching, duelling with hers as they rocked against each other, their bodies striving for more.
‘I need you,’ he breathed, the air shuddering from his body, and she felt her legs turn to jelly.
‘I need you, too,’ she told him, and then they were on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs and desperate, seeking hands, their mouths locked together as their bodies found each other. Her underwear was gone, his hands on every inch of her, so clever, so knowing.
‘Now, Nick, please...’
She gasped as he entered her, caught his groan in her mouth and they stilled, letting sensation wash over them.
‘Ah, that feels so good,’ he said after the longest moment, and then he kissed her again and started to move. She met him thrust for thrust, her body arching into his, touching him everywhere she could reach while his hands sought out all her sweet spots as if he knew her better than she knew herself.
She felt the tension building, her hands clawing at him now, begging, pleading, and then she was there, wave after wave of sensation crashing over her as his body stiffened and he surged into her one last time.
Then the tension drained from them both, and he sagged against her, a soft huff of laughter teasing her skin as he rolled to his side and took her with him, his chest rising and falling as his breathing slowed and returned to normal. He lifted a hand and smoothed the hair off her face and then kissed her, a lingering brush of his lips before he let out a long, heartfelt sigh and smiled, his eyes tender.
‘That was amazing,’ he murmured, sifting her hair with his fingers, his smile contented.
She smiled back and lifted her hand to cradle his jaw, the slight graze of stubble prickling her palm.
‘It was. I think I love your surgeon.’
He chuckled, a deep rumble in his chest, and rolled onto his back with a long, drawn-out sigh.
She propped herself up on one elbow and studied his body, stretched out in the moonlight in all its glory. ‘You had an ex-fix on your pelvis,’ she said, tracing the little silver scars on his hipbones with a fingertip.
‘Mmm. I had one on my ankle, as well, until they were able to rebuild it.’
‘Is that why you limp sometimes? Your ankle?’
He nodded. ‘It doesn’t like the cold. I tried an ice bath once just to see what it was like, and it was excruciating. There’s a ton of scaffolding in it, but hey. At least I still have my foot. I nearly didn’t.’
She felt her eyes widen. ‘It was that bad? You really did trash yourself, didn’t you?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ His smile was wry. ‘I don’t think my parents have ever got over it.’
‘Do they know why you did it?’
He nodded again, his smile fading. ‘I don’t remember telling them, but they gave me some pretty fancy drugs in hospital and apparently I blurted it all out and gave them a massive guilt trip. I just thought—I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I’d fall off my bike as it landed and I’d break my arm, or scrape myself on the ground and get a load of bruises. I never in a million years imagined just how badly I’d hurt myself, but as I lay there getting all that attention, there was a moment when I thought it had been worth it.’
‘But not now.’
‘Oh, no. Absolutely not, and the feeling didn’t last long. I was an idiot, and I suppose I got what I deserved, but you know, I was a kid, and my judgement was flawed. We all make mistakes, but most of them don’t hurt that much. Not just me, but everyone, and most particularly Samuel. That was what really hurt me, more than anything else.’
She stared at him, horrified. ‘Did they tell him why you did it?’
‘No. He guessed. He cried when he saw me, and told me I didn’t want to be like him, but while I lay there helpless for weeks I got a taste of what he went through all the time, and it changed me for the better. I suppose in a way it was worth it, just for that, to make me a better person. And there was plenty of room for improvement.’
She felt her eyes prickle for the boy he’d been, so desperate for someone to notice he was struggling, too kind to say so until it all got too much. She lay down again beside him, wrapping her arm around his waist, his arm around her shoulders as she laid her head on his chest and listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart. She felt the touch of his lips on her hair, the warm drift of his breath against her cheek.
‘I’m OK, Ellie. Truly. It was more than half my life ago. I’ve made my peace with it and it’s over now.’
Was it? Was it really? She wasn’t sure. She tilted her head back and tried to read his eyes, but the moon had gone behind a thin wisp of cloud and she couldn’t see him clearly any more.
He kissed her briefly, then pulled away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘I need to take Rufus out for a minute and then settle him in his bed. Mind your eyes,’ he murmured, and reached out and turned on the bedside lamp and started to pull on his clothes.
She watched him, seeing the scars now in the lamp light, his left leg a mishmash of fine lines, the ankle slightly thicker.
At least I’ve still got my foot.
‘Are you taking him for a walk?’
‘Yes. Not far, just out onto the lane and down to the top of the steps so he can have a bit of a sniff around before he goes to bed. I won’t be long.’
‘I should go home,’ she said, not really wanting to but not wanting to outstay her welcome.
He turned back to her. ‘Really?’
She shrugged. ‘I haven’t got my toothbrush,’ she said, which sounded pathetic as i
t came out of her mouth, but it was the only thing she could come up with, and he gave a soft huff of laughter and sat back down on the edge of the bed, dropping a kiss on her lips.
‘I’m sure we can get round that. Please stay.’
It was the ‘please’ that did it, that and the look in his eyes which told her clearly that he meant it.
‘OK,’ she said softly, and he kissed her again.
‘Keep the bed warm for me,’ he said, and went out, leaving the door open.
She heard him walking briskly down the corridor, calling Rufus, heard the jingle of his collar and the sound of the front door closing, and she slipped out of bed to investigate the bathroom.
Did she have time for a shower before he got back? Maybe. She turned on the shower, stepped into the stream of hot water and reached for the shower gel. It smelt of him, the smell that had tantalised her all week, and as she smoothed it over her body she felt the caress of his hands, the touch of his mouth, the warmth of his arms around her.
Fantasy was a wonderful thing.
* * *
He heard water running, and settling Rufus with a biscuit he went back to his bedroom, closing the door in case the dog got any ideas.
She was in the shower, and he stripped off his clothes and went into the bathroom to join her.
‘That seems like a good idea,’ he said, sliding his arms around her from behind.
‘Oh! You made me jump,’ she said, turning and smiling up at him, and he smoothed the damp hair away from her face and found her mouth with his.
‘Sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I just couldn’t resist it.’
‘You’re too late, I’m done,’ she said sadly, and he smiled.
‘That’s a shame, but I’m not,’ he told her, then held his arms out to the side, his smile mischievous. ‘Well, go on, then. You know you want to.’
So she did. She explored every inch of his body with soapy hands, driving him crazy with every touch and leaving the best till last. Her hand closed around him and he shut his eyes, his breath hissing out as she stroked him firmly but annoyingly slowly.
‘You’re killing me.’
‘Mmm. Maybe it’s time to move this somewhere more comfortable,’ she said, and reached for a towel, leaving him to rinse.
He wasn’t far behind her...
* * *
She went home after breakfast, but only long enough to do some laundry and tidy up a bit, and then she went back to his house with a change of clothes and her toothbrush, and they spent the weekend doing nothing.
Well, not nothing. They walked Rufus along the beach and had lunch in the Harbour Inn down by the river, and then went back to his house and made love lazily all afternoon until, as he put it, she’d checked out all his scars and satisfied herself that everything worked. And then checked again...
He threw together a tasty pasta dish for supper, and they ate it on their knees in front of the television, then walked Rufus again before going back to bed, and the next day they got in the car and drove to Dunwich Heath and took Rufus for a longer walk with lots of things to sniff, then had lunch in the café and got back in the car to drive back to Yoxburgh.
Back to reality, she thought, and realised that for the first time ever, she hadn’t thought about the children all day, and that made her feel sick with guilt.
* * *
She was quiet in the car, a little unresponsive, the light-hearted banter of their weekend suddenly absent.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, when she’d been silent for a while.
She shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘Yeah, there is. Come on, talk to me. Don’t bottle things up. We need to be honest with each other, Ellie. If my stupidity taught me nothing else, it taught me that.’
She shrugged again. ‘I just feel guilty.’
‘Because of David? Tell me not, please.’
She stared at him for a second as if he was mad, and shook her head with a quiet laugh. ‘No. Absolutely not because of David. I have no guilt where he’s concerned.’
‘Good.’ He searched her eyes for a moment, then he slowed the car and pulled over to the side of the road in a little layby on the edge of some woods and cut the engine, undoing his seat belt and shifting so he was facing her.
‘What happened, Ellie? Why did he leave you when you were pregnant?’
She sighed and looked away, staring blankly out of the windscreen. He had no idea what she was seeing in her head, but it didn’t seem to be making her very happy.
‘He didn’t believe the baby was his,’ she said softly after a pause so long he wondered if it would ever end. ‘He was away a lot—an awful lot, and he came back after being gone for nearly three months and of course as usual the first thing he wanted was to go to bed, but we didn’t have any condoms, and I wasn’t using oral contraception because I was still breastfeeding Oscar, so I said no, and he said it was fine anyway, while he’d been away he’d had the vasectomy he’d been talking about so I couldn’t get pregnant.’
‘But you did.’
She nodded. ‘Yes. I did. And when he came back six weeks later I’d done a test because I’d missed a period and it was positive, so I told him we were having another baby and he said it couldn’t possibly be his.’
He frowned, because it didn’t add up. ‘But—surely he’d been tested? Didn’t it occur to him to go back to the clinic and get them to check their results?’
‘There were no results,’ she said flat, her voice oddly flat. ‘He hadn’t been back for the tests—too busy, apparently. But he still didn’t believe it could be his, because they’d told him he’d be fine. Or so he said. So he told me he wanted me to have a termination, and I refused. I hadn’t really wanted him to have a vasectomy anyway, but he didn’t want any more children, and he said he certainly didn’t want someone else’s. I said he could hardly blame me if I had found someone else, as he left me alone so much. So he walked out.’
‘That’s what happened with me and Rachel. I was never there, so she found someone who was. It’s not unheard of.’
She shrugged. ‘I know, but I didn’t do that. Anyway, he took it as an admission of guilt and walked out. His parting shot was that he said he wasn’t supporting another man’s child. Then I got his mother on the phone, begging me to get a DNA test to prove the child’s paternity, and I refused, because I knew perfectly well who the father was, so he divorced me on grounds of adultery.’
‘And you didn’t contest it?’
‘I couldn’t be bothered, and anyway life was easier without him. So he divorced me, put the house in my name and he pays me maintenance, and when Evie was born she was the spitting image of the other two, of course. None of them look like me, so they’re either all his or none of them are, but he wouldn’t hear it.’
‘Couldn’t he see the resemblance?’ he asked, deciding the man was an idiot and hoping he never got to meet him, and she turned and gave him a tired smile.
‘Probably, but I think pride got in his way. Anyway, his mother had the test done without telling me, which made me furious, but of course then he had proof that he was wrong, and he wanted to come back.’
‘And you said no.’
‘I did. He didn’t trust me at the time, he didn’t believe me, he accused me of committing adultery and he’s never apologised because that would mean he’d have to admit he was in the wrong, and he’ll never do that. He says I misled him, implied I’d had an affair, which I hadn’t, I’d just said that he could hardly blame me if I had. Anyway, he now accepts Evie’s his, and he has all of them at the weekends, and he does his best to be a good father but we don’t always agree on how he does that.’
‘Does he spoil them?’
‘Always. They have what they want, which isn’t good for them, but hey. He has them, he maintains contact, and they need that so I just deal with the fallout and mitigate it w
here I can.’
‘What about his parents? What do they think?’
‘Oh, they’re furious with him for walking away from his family without establishing the facts, but they support him and they’ve always known Evie’s his. Liz just wanted to prove it to him, which she’s done, and although I was cross it was probably the right thing to do and at least he now acknowledges her.’
He nodded slowly. ‘OK, so that’s David out of the way, so why are you feeling guilty? Why now, today? Because of us?’
She shrugged again, her shoulders shifting a fraction in defeat. ‘Because of us doing this. Having fun. I haven’t thought about them once all day, Nick. What kind of a mother does that make me?’
‘A perfectly normal one. Your children are safe, you know that. You’re just having me time, and you’re entitled to do that, surely?’
‘It just seems wrong.’
‘Why? You have a right to be you.’
‘But I’m not being me. Me is the mother of three children, not...’
‘Not the warm, generous, vibrant woman who’s spent the last two nights in my bed making love with me? Making me laugh, making me smile? You can be both, Ellie. Sure, you’re a mother, but you’re also a woman, and you’re entitled to feelings that don’t revolve around your children. Time to be yourself, to do the other things that make you who you are. We can still do that.’
She shook her head. ‘How? I have every other weekend, that’s all, at best, and sometimes not even that. My time without them is so short, but I don’t really want them to form a relationship with you, because when it goes wrong they’ll be hurt and I don’t want that for them, and anyway that’s not what this is about, and it’s not like they need a father figure, so that cuts out any other time.’
‘So we’ll have every other weekend when we can, and we’ll make it special, and that’s fine. It’s fine with me, at least. I’m not a hormonal teenager, Ellie. I can do deferred gratification without getting all stroppy and demanding. It’s about quality, not quantity. I’m not going to behave like a spoilt brat if I don’t get to see you one weekend, either.’
Tempted by the Single Mom Page 6