Every Touch

by Parke, Nerika

  He had intended to go back to the sofa, but he felt unable to leave her. He needed to be close to her, knowing he wouldn’t sleep if he wasn’t. So instead he sat down sideways in the armchair by the window, facing the bed with his legs dangling over one arm and his head leaning against the back. Getting comfortable, he watched Laila’s face as his eyelids began to droop and he finally went back to sleep.

  Twenty-Five

  Laila didn’t know when she first started to think of the flat as their home rather than her home. One day it just happened.

  A colleague at the library who was house-hunting told Laila she couldn’t decide if outside space should be a requirement of her search, and, without thinking, Laila replied, “The balcony makes our flat feel twice as big, just because we can get outside.”

  When she realised what she’d said, Laila told her she was still getting used to living on her own away from her sister. But she knew that was a lie. When she said “our”, she meant her and Denny and later, when she thought about her mistake, it made her smile.

  She’d thought about the whole situation a lot in the two weeks since getting to know Denny. It would make sense to feel awkward about him being there, suddenly finding herself with a flatmate she couldn’t see or hear. To feel uncomfortable would have been completely normal.

  But it wasn’t how she felt. She wanted to be around him. Every day at work she was eager to get home. She liked it when he was around, when they could talk and spend time together.

  She turned it over and over in her mind as she rode up in the lift, hanging onto five full carrier bags of shopping because she knew if she put them down she wouldn’t be able to wrangle the handles back into her hands. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to work out what was going on with her. She was falling for Denny. However strange it was, she liked the feelings she got around him, the skipping heartbeat when she felt his touch, the thrill when he laughed at something she said, the sensation of melting into him when he hugged her.

  He’d hugged her six times now. She remembered each and every second of each and every one of those six times.

  The problem was, she didn’t know how he felt about her. She wondered how deaf-blind people coped with reading other’s emotions. You never realised how much you relied on body language, facial expressions and vocal intonations until you no longer had them. Did he like her only as a friend? Was he attracted to her? Did he want to throw himself into her arms every time he saw her with the same level of wild abandon as she did with him?

  She reached the door of the flat and lowered her bags to the floor, digging in her pocket for her door key and letting herself in.

  “Denny?”

  There was no answering touch when she said his name and she carried on in and placed her handbag and a couple of the shopping bags onto the kitchen counter. She fetched the rest of the bags and closed the door.

  Turning on the radio, she began unpacking the bags. She hummed to the verse of a song she couldn’t remember the name of as she placed the food into the cupboards. When the familiar lyrics of the chorus started, she sang along with it, returning to humming for the verse.

  Fingertips touched her shoulder. There was no hiding her instant smile.

  “Hello Denny.”

  His hand took hers, lingering for a few seconds before letting go. She tried to hide her mini swoon as she continued putting her shopping away. The pad dropped onto the counter next to her, the pen beginning to write.

  You should sing more often. You have a beautiful voice.

  She shook her head, blushing. “I don’t. It’s just ordinary.”

  He turned the radio off.

  Not true. Sing something for me? Please?

  “I can’t. I’m too self-conscious, I can’t sing in front of other people.”

  You’ve sung in front of me lots of times.

  She playfully pushed his shoulder. “But I didn’t know you were there. It’s a whole other thing to do it when I know.”

  He paused before writing. I used to sing with you.

  Her eyes widened. “You did?”

  If I knew the song. It made me... He stopped.

  “It made you what?” she said quietly after a few seconds.

  ...feel closer to you.

  Laila was quiet as she absorbed his words. He wanted to feel closer to her. He wanted to feel closer to her.

  “I’ll sing if you sing with me.”

  I would love to sing with you

  To her surprise, she felt a huge smile break out on her face. “What would you like to sing?”

  There was a pause. When he finally wrote, her breath caught at his choice.

  You Light Up My Life

  Suddenly unable to speak, she just nodded and wondered how on earth she would manage to get anything beyond a croak past her throat.

  He took her hand, leading her to the middle of the room and facing her, placing her palm flat onto his chest.

  The deep breath she took to calm herself shook more than she would have liked.

  Hesitantly, she began to sing in a trembling voice, and a moment later she felt the vibrations in his chest through her hand as he sang with her. After a few lines, she began to relax and closed her eyes. She’d sung the song many times before, but the lyrics had never meant so much to her as they did at that moment. Without intending to, she poured her heart into each word as though they had been written for her.

  They reached the end of the last line and Laila fell silent, her hand still on his chest. For a few seconds she simply stood. And then she felt a gentle touch on her face.

  Overwhelmed, she threw her arms around Denny’s neck, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her face into his shoulder. His arms enveloped her, his chest rising and falling against her as his breathing deepened. She couldn’t think. All she could do was feel, everywhere they touched, feeling him against her. Then his hands left her back and gently took hold of her head, tilting her face up to him. His warm breath caressed her lips, betraying how close he was, and she brushed her fingers down his face and touched his lips. He took hold of her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm.

  “Denny,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

  His lips brushed against hers, barely touching. She felt them move, felt him speak one word against her mouth.

  “Laila.”

  Not thinking about what she was doing, she pushed her fingers into his hair and pressed her lips to his. His arms slid around her waist, pulling her gently against him. Her eyes fluttered closed. Warm, soft lips slowly explored her mouth until her knees weakened. His arms tightened around her and she pushed up onto her toes, reaching up to press harder against him.

  His kiss was incredible, making her heart pound, but it was also gentle, almost chaste. She wanted more. When a soft whimper escaped her lips, she felt him tense and he pulled away. She dropped back down onto her heels and leaned her forehead against his chest, breathing deeply. Closing her eyes, for a few seconds the only thing she could do was stand and feel the movement of his chest against her as he breathed, his arms still around her waist.

  She hadn’t thought for a moment that singing with Denny would lead to a kiss. The level of emotion the song had stirred had taken her completely by surprise. There had been a time when she thought she would never trust another man with her body, let alone her heart. But her feelings for Denny were so strong her fears were all but forgotten.

  All her practical sense said this couldn’t work. A ghost who couldn’t leave the building? Her mind told her there could be no future in it, but her heart didn’t care about practical and all it wanted was him. And really, her mind wasn’t protesting that strongly anyway.

  She raised her head and rested one hand on his chest.

  “That was nice,” she said, even though ‘nice’ didn’t even begin to cover it.

  He moved his arm from her waist and tapped the back of her hand once.

  She smiled. “Actually, it was very nice.”

  Another tap.
/>   “I would even go so far as ‘wonderful’.”

  This time the tap was accompanied by some mild quivering in his body as he chuckled.

  She grinned. “Could we do it again?”

  He was still for a few moments then he let her go and moved away. Her heart sank in disappointment before she saw the pad and pen being carried through the air to her. He scribbled on the paper for a few seconds before showing the pad to her.

  Are you sure about this? I don’t want you to feel any pressure because I’m living here. You don’t owe me anything.

  She put her hand on his arm. “How I feel about you has nothing to do with pressure. I want this. More than anything. Do you?”

  The pen and paper suddenly dropped to the floor beside them as Denny grasped her head in his hands and crushed his mouth onto hers. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against him. This time his kiss was infused with heat, intense and demanding. Anything but chaste. His lips moved to open her mouth and she offered no resistance, moaning as his tongue slipped inside. One hand moved to cradle the back of her head at the same time as he increased the pressure of his mouth against hers, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss.

  He walked her backwards a couple of steps and lowered her beneath him onto the sofa, never breaking their connection. Their bodies pressed so close she could feel his heart pounding against her chest. Her own heart echoed every beat.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling the delicious weight of his body on hers. Sighing blissfully, Laila gave herself up to her ghost.

  Twenty-Six

  Denny was an excited bundle of happiness. He was in a permanently good mood, joyfully greeting all his friends in the building every morning after Laila had left for work, chatting with his growing group of Facebook friends, even enjoying Oliver’s good natured ribbing over his perpetually sunny disposition. And spending every evening with Laila in his arms.

  It was everything he’d been dreaming of for the past four months. He couldn’t remember ever being so happy, and he knew she was too. He knew because she’d told him, smiling and looking at the floor in a way that made him want to throw his arms around her and cover her in kisses. He also knew because her joyful smile each time he took her hand when she returned home from the library was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  His typing speed was improving, so their conversations were becoming fairly quick now, and they were learning more and more about each other every day. Laila still hadn’t shared with him whatever had happened in her past to make her afraid, but he knew that when she was ready, she would. He was willing to give her whatever space she needed, including where sex was concerned. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life, but he hadn’t said anything. When she was ready, she would tell him. He could wait. He could even endure the almost painfully hard erections he woke up with every morning on the sofa after spending each night dreaming of her, being hyper aware she was just on the other side of the bedroom door.

  A week after their first kiss, however, Denny decided it was time to tell her how he felt about her. How he had felt about her almost since she moved in.

  Even though the prospect terrified him.

  ***

  Laila walked into the flat, sifting through her mail and closing the door at the same time.

  Denny hadn’t met her at the front door as he had every day since they’d kissed for the first time, but she wasn’t bothered by that. She didn’t want him to think she expected him to be with her all the time, even though she loved it when they were together. Her self-imposed relative isolation of the past few months finally had an up side in that people didn’t expect her to go anywhere, which meant she could stay home with Denny. Although when she had said no to dinner at Kelly’s house, her sister had sounded concerned. On reflection, maybe she needed to spend time with Kelly, so long as it was at her place. Just so she didn’t start getting worried that Laila was becoming a recluse.

  Ironically, she knew how thrilled Kelly would be to know she had found someone who made her as happy as Denny did. But Laila couldn’t very well tell her a gorgeous, sexy ghost was making her incredibly happy, even though that was the case. The thought of how that conversation would go made her smile and grimace at the same time.

  “Denny?” she said. “Are you here?”

  Not feeling his touch, she dropped the letters onto the table by the door and looked around. Across the room, Denny’s laptop was open on the kitchen counter, facing her. She frowned, walking towards it to get a closer look. She stopped abruptly, staring wide-eyed.

  In large letters, filling the screen, were the words, ‘I AM HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE WITH YOU’.

  “Denny?” she repeated softly.

  She felt his fingers brush against the back of her left hand, but he didn’t take it as he normally did and she guessed he was waiting for her reaction to the declaration in front of her. She stepped forward and typed then stepped back again.

  Now, in smaller letters beneath the larger ones, was written, ‘I am head over heels in love with you too.’

  She waited. After a few seconds, his hand slipped into hers sending a thrill zinging through her chest. The feel of his hand shifting in hers told her he was moving in front of her. His left hand trailed down her cheek and she closed her eyes, raising her face. Then they were kissing, softly at first, one hand still holding hers while the other cupped her face. It didn’t take long for the intensity to build. His hand pulled from hers and he slid both arms around her, pulling her against him and pushing his tongue into her mouth. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her hands in his hair. Her heart began to pound, her body pulsing.

  After Gary, she had thought no man would ever affect her in this way again. But Denny had taken away her fear and replaced it with hope. He had made her feel again. The knowledge that he loved her was like a light banishing all the darkness she’d been carrying with her and she finally had the courage to let go of the past and take hold of her future.

  “Denny,” she gasped, breaking away, “I...”

  She knew what she wanted, but she was afraid to ask and she looked down awkwardly.

  Fingertips brushed under her chin, gently raising her face and pushing a wayward strand of hair aside. Now she knew, she could feel his love in every touch.

  She took a deep breath and blurted it out.

  “I want to make love to you.”

  He froze. She wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “If you want to,” she added.

  Their bodies were still pressed together and she felt him shake with laughter.

  “Why are you laughing?” she said.

  He kissed her briefly and led her to the laptop.

  [IF???! I’ve been dead four years, I’m crazy in love with you and you are, IMHO, the sexiest woman on earth. YES!!!]

  She laughed, flooded with relief. Then something occurred to her. “It’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, you can, can’t you?”

  [I haven’t with a woman since I was alive, obviously, but it certainly works on my own]

  Laila burst into laughter. Her arm was around Denny’s waist and she could feel him laughing too as he hugged her to him again. Then suddenly he moved and she gasped as she was swept up into his arms. It was slightly unnerving, looking down at the floor beneath her without any visible support between her and it, but mostly it was exhilarating as he carried her into the bedroom.

  Her stomach was doing somersaults as he lowered her onto the bed and stretched out beside her and excitement, arousal and nerves had her trembling with anticipation as his lips came down on hers. She moaned as his wandering hand slipped under her blouse and made contact with her over sensitive skin, moving up to cup her breast over her bra. Her own eager hands found the hem of his shirt and tugged it up, sliding underneath. His skin was warm and smooth and felt so good beneath her touch she thought she could spend hours just feeling him. Her fingers feasted on the contours of solid muscle
as she moved her hands over his skin. It set her heart beating even faster. She wished she could see him, but in the absence of sight, she decided touch would have to take over. She was determined to feel every inch of him.

  His shirt was too fitted to get her hands under properly, so she busied herself with the buttons while they kissed. She made short work of the unfastening, even without being able to see, and she pushed the edges of his shirt apart as soon as she was done. His lips left hers and she could feel his breath on her face. Running her hands slowly down his chest she was unable to suppress a delighted gasp. Nicely defined pectoral muscles lead to taught abs.

  “Wow,” she whispered, her imagination working overtime on what it was going to feel like to be crushed beneath his toned body.

  Her hands continued down to the waistband of his jeans and across the obvious tight bulge over his crotch and she felt his muscles contract as he drew in a sharp breath. His lips brushed hers briefly before she felt his hand against the skin of her chest. Her short dress had buttons all the way down the front and she looked down to see them appearing to unfasten themselves, one after the other. It was quite possibly the hottest thing she’d ever seen. The edges of the dress moved apart, his body shifted beside her, and then she felt hot lips on her stomach. Intense sensation burned into her skin. Groaning, she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. As his mouth explored her abdomen, his hand slipped down the front of her panties and she groaned again as his fingers slid between her legs.

  It had been so many months since she’d been touched by a man, and after what had happened the last time she had thought she would never want to be touched like this again. That Denny could reawaken these desires in her and that she could trust him so completely that she could surrender to those desires was nothing less than a miracle to her. The hurt within her was finally healing and she knew it was because of him.

  She found his head with her hands and pulled him up to her face.