He’d found time to work in her garden, cleaning it up and re-organising the shed so she could find things there again. He fixed a wonky hinge on a cupboard in the bathroom, and he glued new rubber soles on her favourite boots. He brushed aside thanks that made him blush. And that blush did something to her. Erased her regard and redrew it with big chunky strokes as admiration that bled outside the lines.
Reece would know she was home, but he must be engrossed in what sounded like an old ep of Buffy. She pulled Mia’s door to a near close and went up the hallway. He had a side lamp on, so the room glowed warm. She saw him bare feet first. He was stretched the length of her couch, his calves and snowshoe feet hanging out in space, his arms folded around a pillow behind his head, his t-shirt rucked up so she could see a line of skin between it and the waist of his jeans. He was breathing deeply, eyes closed, his hair all mussed, as gone to this world as Mia was.
He looked like the giant in Mia’s Jack and the Giant book, captured and held down for her examination. His feet were twice the size, and some, of hers. She could lie full length on this couch with Mia in her arms and none of their body parts hung off the edge. His shoulders were almost wider than the couch cushions. It was a novelty to see him so relaxed. He was always moving. Picking up after Mia, playing with her, sorting things out around the house. And then there was the dancing.
She’d stopped the others from watching Wiggle Time. But not teasing her about it. She’d tried to stop watching it herself, especially as her confidence in Reece had grown and her trust in him blossomed, but it was such an avalanche of cute she was helpless to resist it. Mia was so giggly happy and Reece was so abandoned, so free in that five or ten minutes where they danced to The Wiggles together, that if she was in her office she couldn’t help but check the nanny cam program and watch without the sound. She still felt like she was betraying him, spying like that, but the joy she got from watching far outweighed her remorse.
Now she could watch him that way again. She could study his extraordinary body up close for as long as she wanted. Without guilt, without getting caught out, with something harder; more rigid and pressing than joy. She’d been falling apart from lack of food and sleep when she came in the door, but now she felt refreshed. The day was finally over. Her baby girl was asleep and her shockingly handsome babysitter was laid out for her delectation.
She went to her knees on the rug in front of him. Behind her the Buffy crew were in the library doing research from sacred spell books. Her research was more visceral. She started at his toes. Squared off, the nails short and neat, the instep a gentle slope on both the top and underside of his foot. A smattering of dark hair on his instep, a rind of tougher skin on his heels. His shinbones were long and thick, like steel rods connecting a solid swivel of ankle to a hinge of rounded knee and a thigh muscle like, like...
God, the flare on his thighs, wider than his hips. She wanted to touch his quads, dig her fingers in and feel the heat and strength of him. She licked her lips. If he woke up now he’d find her ogling his groin. Trying to imagine what he was like under the denim. Not insignificant. She could see that. The outline of him, the potential. It made a shiver kick at the base of her spine and ripple out over her hips, flaring into her belly. He would be proportional. And assuming he knew how to use that equipment, he’d be potent. And she’d watched him dance, he knew how to move, he found rhythm in a kid’s song; what would he be like in the bedroom, in an adult dance?
It made the breath come out of her in one long mournful stream and she groaned aloud. She had to stop this, he might wake. Hopefully not until she’d finished her study, but before she spontaneously melted down, because good Lord, the man was made of places her fingers would fit, her hands could slide across, her knees slot against, her body absorb. He would bear her weight as if it was nothing. He could take her standing without tiring.
Heavens. She needed to stop this. She needed not to be having thoughts about wrapping her legs around Reece’s hips, over the tight curve of the butt she watched shake it on the nanny cam, and made herself not watch in the kitchen at night. She needed to stop thinking about what he’d look like naked and imagining how he might feel. It was enough to see the way his chest swelled with each breath, enough to marvel at the tight knot of muscle that was his bunched biceps. And that t-shirt, shortened at the waist, loose enough at the neck she could see one collarbone, a line of his clavicle. That soft cotton curved across the triangular flair of his lats and caressed the rise of his thick rib cage.
It wasn’t fair it got to be so close to him and she had to stay on her knees. It showed her only a narrow strip of skin at his hips, but enough to see a line of hair, marking his flat belly and the ridge of his hipbone. If he took a deeper breath, if that shirt lifted, she’d see the hard outline of his Adonis belt. As it was, his jeans were suspended slightly between his hipbones, and a ridge of black cotton showed her the edge of his underwear. The rest was a dark cavern between blue denim and black cotton. It was an invitation shaped like her hand, a place she dare not go and keep her sanity.
If she thought she was betraying him by watching him dance, by being hyper aware of his body, she was virtually sexually assaulting him now. Every one of her senses was on heat. Every breath she took was short and straining. Her hands were fists. Her centre was liquid, her core was an unsettled squirm of spinning want.
It’d been a long time since she’d been with a man. Before Barrett said yes, before Mia was conceived in a test tube. Once she turned thirty and made the decision to have a child alone, there’d been no place in her life for casual sex and no candidates for anything long-term. Since Mia, there’d been no time, no opportunity and no desire. She’d been happily sexless, because she had everything else she wanted.
On her knees at Reece’s side, she wanted.
Freshly, savagely, inappropriately. Without hope of it being reciprocal. Without shame. And until he opened his eyes and came back to life, she could have these feelings, sweat them, tremble with them, luxuriate in them.
She studied his face. High wide cheekbones that gave his face unexpected hollows. There was nothing else lacking in solidity, in heft, about him. He had a strong jaw that met at his squared off chin. Stubborn, that chin. Mia knew when he was being serious without him raising his voice. It was studded with dark stubble now. He had a surprisingly Cupid’s bow top lip. His smile was so wide, it thinned his lips right out so she’d never noticed it before. It was a good mouth for a man, wrought around happiness. He had a straight nose and neat close fitting ears. His brows sat flat until he was animated and then they arched and lifted with his smile. He could make Mia laugh just by lifting his brows. His eyes were almond shaped, narrow. They could make him look hard, dangerous. But his lashes were long and curled, outrageously girly in such a masculine setting. They were dark like his brows, like his tousled hair, and the traces of it elsewhere. When his eyes were open they were the most shocking deep green.
She could touch the hair that swept across his temples, a kind of cowlick from an informal side part. It was glossy. It would be silky. If she touched his hair, he might wake, and she wasn’t ready to give up this inert but so utterly powerful form of him yet, because he lit her up in places, in ways she’d forgotten about; with feelings she’d suppressed or denied, or lost to the hibernation that was single parenthood.
She could put her finger to his belly and maybe his breath would quicken. He might dream he was being touched. She touched him in their daily life, but it was more often accidental as they moved around each other. Here, she could put her hand on his chest and press, lean into him, her ribs to his side so she could bring her face close, breathe him. He usually smelled of soap and salt when he arrived in the morning. He had wet hair and a damp beach towel he’d dry on her line. He ran every morning on the soft sand and showered at the surf club before he came to her and Mia, bright eyed and big voiced with the morning. In the evening he smelled of tomato sauce, or magic marker, fruit juice or milk.
Sometimes of sugar, often of unidentified kid grunge. He was softly spoken then, wound down by the toddler marathon of the day, but just as sharp eyed and ready to act.
When she woke him would his voice be gravel and grit? Would he wake violently with the shock of having fallen asleep in a strange place? Perhaps he’d have that mortified little boy look on his face. He’d worn it almost the whole first month. It was a look that told her too much about how much he cared what she thought of him. She didn’t need to remember that right now.
Four years ago if she’d come across him at a party, she could’ve kissed him awake. If she’d had enough to drink and he kissed her too, she could’ve climbed over his hips and tested those handholds, those places on him she thought would fit to places on her. She could’ve claimed him for the night. It was doubtful she’d have wanted to give him back. She might’ve let him do anything to her, because everything he did would be about her pleasure. That was so easy to imagine. Reece opening her mouth with his lips, with his tongue, his big hands on her, swamping her face, firm but gentle, his bulk beneath her, above her, all around her teasing, tempting, anticipating, unmaking her with his deep voice and his steady humour and his want to please.
Could she make him happy too, make his body come alive to sensation? Ridiculous. She was older, settled, a stress-head single mother of zero interest to him, who already had stray grey hairs. His employer. His salary deposit. And otherwise irrelevant to him. He saw her hassled about getting out the door on time in the mornings and replete on the way to exhausted when she arrived home.
And yet, sometimes the way he looked at her, the things he did for her. She couldn’t help but let that fuel her imagination. It built the lust fire that burned inside her now.
Ah. Who was she kidding? Even four years ago, she was that stress-head person, so focused on work, she’d probably have left him where he lay, an unclaimed prize that some other woman, a Carrie, a Junna, would’ve rumbled all over.
She didn’t want to think about Carrie or Junna touching him.
She wanted him to yawn and grumble and stumble awake and leave her alone with her wicked feelings, all too soon with no knowledge of what he’d done to her.
That would be best. She’d shake him awake. He’d apologise for falling asleep. He’d mention Sky while he hunted for his shoes, and he’d be gone inside five minutes, and she’d barely be breathing normally again with only half a night to compose herself before he was back bringing the sea and the torture of wanting what she could no longer keep hidden from herself, what she could never have.
She lifted a hand towards him, then put it back in her lap. It would be better not to touch him at all, not to always want to from this moment forward.
“Reece.” She said it softly, barely competing with the TV. “Reece.” Louder. She came up off her heels so she was just that bit closer. “Reece, wake up. I’m home.”
He didn’t stir. The underside of his bicep was closest to her. She put a finger out and traced a raised vein that ran from under his sleeve to behind the pillow where his hand was. She kept her eyes on his face. His skin was warm, so smooth. His body twitched and she snatched her hand away. But he slept on. “Reece, are you awake?” He might as well have been drugged.
This time she moved her finger to the strip of skin across his middle, ran it hip to hip slowly across his body in the slash between his jeans and his t, in the intimate dip of his belly. It made her gasp to feel the heat of him there, the flat trail of hair. She had to close her eyes to handle the surge of feeling that made her hand shake. She was wet and he was comatose and if he caught her she had no explanation to give him. They’d need New Reece. And he could probably take her house in compensation when he sued her for assault.
That brought a new kind of chill. What was she doing? This wasn’t who she was. Sensible, practical, organised Audrey didn’t spy on people, didn’t sexually harass her sleep anesthetised employee.
She sat back on her heels. “Reece. Wake up. You need to go home.” She said that loudly. Then reached for the TV remote and turned the set off. He took a deep breath and brought up one knee as if he was about to roll over onto his side. She put her hand, palm flat to his chest. “Reece.” She pressed down, got sternum and the curved half of his pec and she splayed her hand to feel the muscle of him. “Reece.”
He opened his eyes, closed them, opened them again, looked at her and smiled. She didn’t move her hand so she felt the rumbly groan he made start in his chest and the flex of his torso as he stretched. “Hi.”
She took her hand away. She’d nearly wrapped her fingers in his shirt when he smiled. She noticed the pins and needles in her ankle. “Sorry I’m so late.”
“Wow, I really crashed, lights out.”
“I had trouble waking you.” She looked away. Did he know what she’d done instead of waking him? Was he making himself complicit?
“God. Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I should’ve. Hey it’s—”
“It’s really late, early. Don’t apologise. I’m the one in the wrong here.”
He moved and it was like the whole world swapping axis, rotating the other way. He swung his legs around and sat. His arms came out, his hands grasped her forearms. “Audrey, are you okay?” He bent forward, brought his face near. “You’re so pale. “ He frowned. “Did you eat? You should have something now. I can heat some pasta. You’ve got to be kidding; you worked a sixteen hour day.”
Somehow he got her off her knees onto her dead ankles while she declined the offer of food. He should be gone. She could be cleaning her teeth, putting her head to the pillow. He’d manoeuvred her to his side on the couch, his arm around her back as if he thought she was fragile, as if he thought she might crumble and she didn’t deserve his attention.
“Reece, I’m fine.” He should go. She needed him to go.
“Of course you are.” His fingers were at the back of her neck. “If you were carrying your shoulders any higher you’d be deaf.”
It hurt when he pressed the muscles of her neck and she winced.
“Yeah, I know. Give me a few minutes. You’ll sleep better.”
“You don’t. You should. Oh my goodness.” Her turn to groan from some hidden room of hurt inside her chest where knowledge of muscular tension hid its song. She should stand up. If she stood up, he’d know to go. She wouldn’t embarrass herself any further by going limp, by breathing weirdly, by wanting him to go on with the press of his big blunt fingers in the rigid column of her neck. Instead of her feet engaging with the floor, her head dropped forward so he had better access. It gave him what he wanted and she couldn’t be annoyed with that.
“That’s better,” he said, sounding so pleased.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know. I try not to do things I don’t want to do. Short life and all that. I don’t see the point in pretending to be someone I’m not.”
“A man who loves children.”
“That’s part of it.”
He would make her whole body limp if she didn’t fight to stay awake. “Do you and Sky talk about having a family?”
His hands hesitated. “We don’t. I don’t think either of us believes we’re forever.”
“Oh, Reece, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried like that. Left my diplomacy at work.”
“It’s not a big deal. Truth is I’m not enough for Sky. She says I lack ambition.”
Audrey turned her head so she could see his face. He didn’t look like he’d knifed his own soul with that admission.
“Keep your head turned like that.” He moved his fingers and found new tight points of pain and she gasped. “Is what you do at work worth all this?” She opened her mouth and he said. “You’ve lost weight. Your eyes aren’t clear. You need to take better care of yourself.”
She turned her head away. She hadn’t expected a lecture. She’d stand up. He moved his hands again, did something so that her back was braced against his torso and her knees became soggy noodles. He smelled of dishwa
shing detergent and spray and wipe. He felt like security and comfort. She needed to remember who they were to each other.
“Did she give you any trouble going to bed?”
He chuckled. “There was whispering in the wardrobe so that was an issue. Me and the wardrobe had words. Then there was an ant. I never saw the ant, but it was troublesome, a magic make you wide awake ant. But no, don’t worry. She’s such a good kid. But she’s gone off drinking milk for some reason.”
“Worry about that tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. Did you win at work?”
“A small victory. Some workarounds, my main project is still in trouble.”
“You need to sleep. You need to rest this weekend, one day to go. What if I took Mia for you Saturday and you had a day to get a proper massage, have an afternoon nap?”
She broke away from his hands and turned to face him. “Reece, that’s not your job.”
His chin came up, that stubborn set to his jaw. “Would it help?”
It would be incredible but she wasn’t doing it. Too many lines crossed. “You’re right, I’m horrifically tired and this problem at work is nowhere near fixed yet. Merrill and Joe love to mind Mia, I can always ask them to take her for a sleepover. Speaking of what’s not your job. Are you staying late in the evenings because you want to or because you think I need you to?”
He shrugged and it said, don’t make me be honest about that and it meant she had to.
“Reece?”
“I rarely do anything I don’t want to.”
“Reece.”
“I don’t have to apologise for who I am with you.”
He didn’t flinch from that, but she did. “Does she know how you feel?”
“I’m not good at keeping secrets. I’m not one of those guys with deep dark intense hidden feelings. There’s no mystery about me. This—what you see here, this meat suit, this is me. Sky only wants the best for me, she’s thinking about the future. Making me think about it, and what I think is, we will want to go to different places with different people.”
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