She shook her head. ‘Don’t say anything, Jim, please. Just… just don’t say anything.’
His hand tightened around hers, their eyes still locked together. ‘I don’t want to hurt you…’
‘It’s too late for that.’
He finally broke the stare, but only for a brief second. ‘I’m glad you came. I didn’t think you would.’
‘Oh, you knew I would, Jim. You knew I would come.’
He bowed his head, once more breaking the stare. And when he finally raised it he said nothing, just wound his fingers into her hair and pulled her forwards, kissing her slowly. And Amber felt herself falling again, faster and faster, deeper and deeper into that web of pain and heartache that she couldn’t stay away from. It was almost as if everything he put her through was a turn-on.
As he gently lowered her down onto the stairs she felt a tiny twinge of reality nip at her conscience, the image of her beautiful baby boy swimming before her eyes and she squeezed them shut, pushing that image away. Rico was fine, he was good. He was safe and he was loved and he would always come first in her world. Always. And yet, how could she say that, when she was here? When she was about to do this and reopen every old wound Jim Allen had ever inflicted.
‘Are you okay?’
She opened her eyes, stretching her arms up above her head. ‘I’m fine. I was just thinking, that’s all.’
‘About what?’
She took a second or two to look at him. He was naked now, as he stood there in front of her. For a man of his age he still had the body of someone twenty years younger; tall and lean, toned and hard, and every memory of the first time she’d seen him like this came rushing forwards, flooding her brain, making her almost breathless. She could feel her chest rising and falling, faster and heavier than it had done just seconds before, her heart beating wildly against her ribs, her fingers entangling themselves in her own hair. ‘About why I shouldn’t be here.’
He lowered himself down over her, the heat of his body as it touched hers almost burning her skin and she breathed in deeply, letting him pull one of her hands away from her hair, his fingers intertwining with hers.
‘I thought we weren’t talking,’ he whispered, his mouth moving closer to hers.
‘We aren’t,’ she breathed, her chest now rising up to touch his as her legs pulled up around him, keeping him close.
‘Okay…’ He kissed her slowly, and she stretched out more as she felt his other hand slip between her legs, touching her gently, checking she was ready for him. ‘No more talking.’
‘No more talking,’ she repeated, opening her legs wider now, letting him in, inviting him to do whatever it was he needed to do.
As the kiss got deeper his fingers played harder, touching her, sinking into a wetness he’d created, and she found it difficult to hold back, to stay quiet, because what he was doing to her was everything she’d dreamed of him doing since the day he’d told her it was over. It had only been a few months ago, the last time he’d broke her heart, yet it seemed like an eternity had passed. She’d missed him so much, and although she hadn’t always been aware of that – the months leading up to Rico’s birth had given her more distractions than she’d been able to handle – she knew that the second her son had been born, that was when reality had kicked in. That was when she’d realised things had never really changed. That was when she’d realised it was this man she needed to be with. He just hadn’t wanted her. He’d pushed her away. But was all that changing now?
His mouth was still resting on hers as his fingers slid slowly inside her and she moaned quietly, bucking her hips up as she pulled him in. And it felt good to have him back there, to feel him where she needed him to be. Everything else felt wrong. Only he’d ever felt right, despite everything. Despite it all. Only he’d ever felt right.
Moving his head down, he covered one of her nipples with his mouth, flicking his tongue over it, causing her to moan out loud again as she buried her fingers in his hair. He was making her dizzy; her head was spinning with a hundred different reasons why this was wrong, but still she didn’t want to be anywhere else. She didn’t want him to leave or stop doing this; she didn’t want him to go.
He let go of her hand, pushing her legs a little further apart, and as he slowly pulled his fingers out of her she gasped, closing her eyes as she prepared for what was going to happen next, the anticipation both exciting and terrifying. But when he finally made that move, gently pushing into her so carefully, the complete opposite of the sex they’d had earlier, she felt nothing but a wonderful warmth spread through her entire body, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. An incredible, mind-blowing feeling of warmth and safety. Yet she was anything but safe. Jim Allen was the epitome of danger as far as relationships were concerned. But she was trapped, in a world she wasn’t willing to leave.
Pushing her hips up to meet his again she took him deeper, angling her body so he fell into her, and he held onto her as though his life depended on it as they moved together in an erotic dance, their rhythm perfectly synchronised.
His moans merged with hers, soft and quiet yet loaded with an intensity that circled around them, filling the hallway, turning up the heat on an already burning atmosphere as bodies crashed together and feelings were torn apart under waves of confusion and pain. But Amber wouldn’t have it any other way. She didn’t want to feel anything other than what she was feeling now as he thrust in and out of her fast, then slow, keeping that rhythm going, holding out for as long as he could but he was sinking quickly, she could tell. His breathing was heavier, his body tensing up as he got ready for that final push, and Amber almost held her breath as she waited for the inevitable to happen, wanting it yet dreading it, because she didn’t want this to end. She didn’t want to end this closeness. She didn’t want to let him go. But she couldn’t stop that rush of beautiful, white-hot pain that flooded her body as he spilled out into her with a cry so loud it seemed to shake the room. And when he reached down to touch her, to help her to her own climax before he’d finished his, she thought she might pass out with the sheer weight of feelings he was making her experience in the space of those final few seconds.
And when it was over, all she felt was a crashing emptiness that seemed to wash over her at breakneck speed.
‘Stay with me,’ he whispered, stroking the hair from her eyes, which she didn’t want to open just yet, in case he disappeared the second she did. In case this was just a dream. She felt sixteen all over again, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. It made her feel vulnerable, out-of-control, when she should be grown up and strong.
‘I… Jim, I don’t know…’
‘Stay with me.’ He took hold of her hand, gripping it tight, his eyes now staring deep into hers. ‘Please. Because I can’t let this go… I can’t let you go. Not yet.’
She wanted to hear him say not ever; that’s what she wanted to hear him say. Not yet signalled that he was willing to let her go at some point. And once more she could hear those alarm bells ringing. ‘What are we doing, Jim?’
‘I need you, Amber.’
‘For what? For a few days? A couple of weeks? For sex and nothing else? Forever? For what, Jim?’
He sat up, pushing both hands through his hair, letting out a quiet sigh, but Amber could see the weight of the world right there on his shoulders. ‘I can’t do this. Not with Ryan still here. That constant threat…’
She sat up beside him, slipping her hand into his, kissing his shoulder lightly. ‘He isn’t a threat, Jim. He never was, not really.’
He looked at her, smiling a small smile, but even she could see it hadn’t reached his eyes. ‘You say that, but then something happens and he’s there, back in your life. And now you’ve got Rico… Amber, you and him, you have a child together.’
‘I’m not in love with him, Jim.’
‘But he’s always going to be a part of your life. He’s always going to be there.’
‘And I can’t help that. I can’t.
He’s Rico’s dad, and that’s a job he’s got for life.’
Jim looked down at their joined hands. ‘It still tears me apart that I couldn’t give you what you wanted. That you had another man’s child when I… when I loved you so much it broke my fucking heart every day to see you… to see you carrying his baby. You were my wife, Amber.’
‘And you divorced me, Jim.’
He let go of her and dropped his head into his hands. ‘Because I just couldn’t face losing you.’
‘Baby, that doesn’t make any sense. You were the one that left me. I didn’t want to go anywhere.’
He raised his head, his eyes tired and heavy with tears, and Amber didn’t know what to do. This was a side of him she’d very rarely seen, if ever. ‘But you might have done. You were pregnant, with a baby that wasn’t mine. Pregnant to a man who meant something to you, Amber. You say you’re not in love with him, but, Ryan Fisher – he meant something to you. Once.’
She got up, finding his t-shirt that she’d thrown on the floor. And he watched as she pulled it over her head, watched as she covered that beautiful nakedness with his own clothes.
‘I’ll go get us something to drink,’ she said, heading off into the kitchen, a fresh wave of confusion sweeping over her now.
She found a bottle of brandy on the counter and pulled two clean glasses from the dishwasher before filling them both with a generous measure.
‘We really do need to talk, Amber.’
She turned around, unable to stop a sharp intake of breath as she looked at him standing there, dressed only in jeans that hung low on his hips, his hands in his pockets. ‘When did you get so paranoid, Jim? When did you let anyone get in the way of anything you wanted?’
‘You aren’t just anything, Amber. You’re not just a winning football score or some defender I desperately want before the transfer window closes. You’re my whole fucking world, and the thought of you…’ He trailed off, turning his head away for a second. ‘We need to talk.’
She watched as he walked over to her, taking the glass she held out for him and putting it straight back down on the counter.
‘There are reasons why I did what I did. Reasons why I pushed you away.’
‘So, tell me what those reasons are. Help me to understand just what’s going on here, Jim, because, right now, I don’t understand any of it. I don’t get it. None of it makes any sense.’
‘I can’t, Amber. I can’t explain…’ He slowly slid his hand up under the t-shirt she was wearing, causing her to gasp as his fingers touched her skin. ‘I can’t.’ He leaned forward, his lips brushing over her neck and she threw her head back. She let herself fall into him all over again until a glimmer of reality pushed its way forward and she gently pushed him away.
‘Because sex will solve everything, won’t it?’
‘It helps.’
‘I need you, Jim. Because without you I’m a wreck. I can’t think straight, I can’t function, because you not being there, it’s wrong. It’s not how it should be. But if we’re… if we’re even thinking about being together again I need you to be honest with me. For the first time in your life. I need that more than anything.’
He leaned back against the counter beside her, digging his hands back into his pockets, taking the deepest of breaths before he spoke again. ‘Before I came over to the UK, I was… I was involved with… I was involved with someone.’
Amber felt her stomach tighten as he spoke. Was he about to reveal yet another secret he’d kept from her for all these years?
‘We’d met at a party, some awards ceremony a friend of mine had gotten tickets for. She was an up-and-coming country singer, someone the music industry had tipped for the big time, even though she was so young. We both were…’
Amber watched him as he spoke, watched the way his eyes filled with those tears she very rarely saw; a look on his face that scared her, because it was so alien, to see him like this.
‘I was only twenty, she was nineteen… but we fell in love. Hard. We fell in love hard.’
Amber felt her stomach tighten even more now. To watch him talk this way about someone else hurt with a pain she couldn’t explain. And it felt strange, almost as if she was listening to someone else completely. Someone she didn’t know. As though the Jim she’d once known had left the room to be replaced with someone more vulnerable. Someone she was having trouble recognising.
‘And for almost five years we were happy. We were so happy. My soccer career was taking off, and her music was going places, we had it all. We had everything. We had a future…’
Amber took a deep breath, wanting to reach out and take his hand but not knowing if that was the right thing to do. Did he want her intruding on something that was obviously so emotional for him?
‘But somebody made sure that future was never gonna happen.’
Amber was willing him to look at her now. She wanted to see his eyes, to feel what he was feeling because she could tell it was breaking his heart. Whatever he was about to tell her, it was breaking his heart.
He turned his head, his eyes finally locking onto hers. ‘She died, Amber. She was on her way back from a gig in L.A., and there was an accident. Her van collided with a car that was speeding. It had cut the lights, swerved out of control…’
Amber reached out and took his hand, her fingers tightening around his, and he responded, clinging onto her as tears started streaming down his face.
‘I was in New York. I’d been playing in some soccer tournament and they didn’t tell me until… until it was over. For some reason. I don’t know why they left it. I just remember this numbness taking over, a pain so intense it cancelled out anything else I might be feeling. My whole world shut down that night. She was gone. She was my world, and she was gone.’
He turned away from her again, and Amber didn’t know what to do. Watching him fall apart right there in front of her was something she’d never seen before, and it scared her. Jim Allen was strong. Jim Allen was always in control. Jim Allen didn’t break down.
‘I changed that night.’ His voice was quiet, but there was a tougher edge to it now. ‘The person I’d been before, he was gone.’
‘Jim, baby, look at me. Please.’
His eyes met hers, tears still streaming down his face and she couldn’t help but reach out and brush them away with her thumb. ‘I couldn’t fall in love again, not like that. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t let myself. So I changed. I threw myself into my career, made the decision to play football over in the UK. It was the only way I could deal with it all. And I… I vowed never to fall in love again, because the pain you feel when your world is suddenly ripped away from you and you know you can never get it back… nobody deserves to feel that.’ His fingers tightened around hers once more, their eyes locked together. ‘But then came you. Beautiful, sixteen-year-old Amber Sullivan. From the very first second I saw you I knew. I knew I had to have you. I had to. And maybe I should have walked away, because you were so young, too young. But there was something telling me…’ He stopped talking, turning his head away for another brief second, causing another wave of confusion to wash over Amber. ‘The reason I spent all those years acting the way I did; the reason why I kept pushing you away.’ He turned back to face her, his eyes boring deep into hers. ‘I loved you too much, Amber. It was … it was like Carrie all over again, those same, uncontrollable feelings that I knew I couldn’t ignore. They were back, and they were real, and they scared the hell out of me. I wanted to be with you so much it hurt, but I couldn’t let myself get too close because that fear of losing you was just too great. Too overwhelming. And I know I hurt you, I know that, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, because we wasted so much time.’
Amber felt her own heart start to break as she watched him wipe those still-falling tears away, once more turning his head so he wasn’t looking at her.
‘I thought I’d be able to handle it better, you know? When I took the Red Star job. When I came back up here. All those
years apart, but I still couldn’t get you out of my head. I couldn’t forget you. I was still so much in fucking love with you, Amber.’ He looked at her again. ‘You know I took the manager’s job at Newcastle Red Star because I needed to be near you again. You know that. And I thought I’d be able to handle it better after all that time away, I really did. I was wrong. Because I didn’t bank on Ryan Fisher. I didn’t bank on you still hurting so much because of what I’d done to you…’
‘Jim.’
He bowed his head, his hand still clinging onto hers. ‘We almost had it, Amber. You and me. We almost had that future I wanted. We were together, you were my wife…’ As his eyes met hers again she felt her heart beat so fast she almost couldn’t breathe. ‘And still I pushed you away. Because that fear of losing someone I loved so much just wouldn’t leave me. I couldn’t forget how losing Carrie almost broke me, I couldn’t let that go. So I had to push you away. I had to pretend I didn’t care about you when you’re the only thing I care about. The only thing. And I should have been man enough to face up to everything and tell you the truth.’
She reached out and cupped his cheek in her hand, her own eyes filling with tears as everything she’d ever felt for this man collided and merged into one huge, emotional mess. Who she’d thought he was, and the actual man underneath, were two completely different people.
‘Why didn’t you just talk to me, Jim?’
‘You were so young when we first met, Amber. Too young to understand all the crap going on inside my head. And back then – back then I just wanted to be this hotshot footballer who was suddenly having women falling at his feet, giving him every distraction he could possibly wish for. I didn’t want to talk about it. Not back then. And I know that wasn’t fair on you…’
She leaned forward and kissed him, the salt from his tears dampening her lips. ‘You should have talked to me. When you took the Red Star job, when you came back here… you should have talked to me.’
He tried to smile, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I know. Jesus, I know that now. I’ve been so stupid.’ He pulled her into his arms, holding her loosely around the waist. ‘I acted the way I did because I was scared, Amber. And I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry I hurt you, so sorry for everything I put you through because throughout it all… throughout it all I loved you so much it killed me. And I had to put on that front, create a mask to hide behind because if I hadn’t done that, I would’ve fallen apart. But now? Now I just wish I’d been stronger. We wasted so much time.’
Final Score Page 6