Every Touch

by Parke, Nerika

  Denny hadn’t touched the piano since he’d woken up in bed with Laila four days before. He wasn’t sure why, but the thing scared him. It seemed to sit there in the corner of the room by the window, mocking him. The instrument he could play, and yet couldn’t. A symbol of the last five years he would never remember.

  But now it drew him like a beacon in a storm.

  He pulled out the stool and sat down, pushing the lid back and pressing the power button. Tiny red indicator lights flashed into life. Without even thinking, he lifted his hands to the keyboard and began to play.

  His fingers didn’t stumble, he hit no wrong notes, there were no uncertain pauses. It was nothing like his usual experience at the piano. Closing his eyes, the music flowed from his heart.

  Being so focused on what he played, he was completely unaware he was no longer alone until the piece came to an end and she spoke, startling him.

  “That’s so beautiful,” Laila said. “I’ve never heard it before. What’s it called?”

  Denny opened his eyes, looking up at her. She was standing a few feet away, wearing a short blue silk dressing gown, her hair a beautiful, sexy mess.

  He looked down at his hands on the keys. Two words came into his mind.

  “Every Touch,” he said quietly.

  “Who wrote it?”

  His memories shifted, like puzzle pieces trying to find a link.

  “I think I did,” he said. He looked back up at her. “I think I wrote it for you.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds before speaking again. “Play it again,” she said softly, “please.”

  A sensation of being totally out of control was spinning his mind in circles. The more he tried to make sense of his thoughts, the more they twisted away from him. So he stopped trying, placed his fingers on the keys again, and played.

  When he finished the piece for the second time, he continued staring at his hands for a long time, his fingertips resting against the cool smoothness of the keyboard. Thoughts that had been running from him before were now pouring into his mind, jostling for space. Memories bombarded him from every direction, making him dizzy.

  He remembered waking up on the floor in the bedroom after dying, losing Trish and meeting Oliver. He remembered the people living in the building, those who had left and those who had come in their place. He remembered Mr Duncan dying. He remembered Oliver fading. He remembered Laila moving in, falling in love, saving her from Avery, their first touch, their first kiss. He remembered the first time she told him she loved him.

  “After we made love the first time,” he said eventually, speaking more to himself than Laila, his voice so soft he didn’t even know if she could hear him, “I lay with you asleep in my arms and I thought how I was glad I’d died because it had led me to you. I felt as though every touch from you made me live again.”

  He lifted his head and turned slowly towards her. His heart was racing. Tears burned his eyes.

  “Laila.”

  Suddenly he stood, crossing the distance between them in two paces and wrapping his arms around her. She grabbed onto him.

  “Laila,” he sobbed, burying his face in her neck, “I remember.” He gasped in a shaking breath. “I remember.”

  She was clinging to him, her hands on the bare skin of his back, crying against his shoulder as she held onto him.

  After a long time during which he felt as if he would never be able to let go of her again, he pulled back and looked into the most beautiful face he’d ever seen.

  “How could I forget you?” he said, slowly shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Do you remember everything?” She stared into his eyes, her face shining with hope.

  For a moment he closed his eyes, searching for the dark spaces of uncertainty. He found none.

  “I remember everything,” he said.

  He began to laugh, not quite able to take it in. He felt liberated beyond belief. He felt like a light was shining onto his soul. He felt love, more love than he could have ever imagined before Laila.

  Her joyful answering laugh made his heart leap in his chest and he picked her up and spun her around.

  Then he kissed her, slipped his hand into hers and lead her back into the bedroom where he took the woman he adored into his arms and made love to her again as if it was the first time.

  Forty-Seven

  When Denny woke the next morning, Laila was still asleep in his arms. He lay still for a while, feeling her, breathing her in.

  Having her see him, looking into his eyes as they made love, had all but destroyed him. The tears he had been unable to hold back threatened to fall again every time he thought of it.

  They had spent the evening in bed, wrapped around each other, talking, laughing, eating, making love. They made love twice more before finally falling asleep in each other’s arms and both times it had been the same. Laila’s eyes looking into his, seeing him as she never could before, affected him more than he ever thought it would. He’d cried both times, much to his embarrassment.

  The truth was, even though Laila was wonderful about it, he was feeling more than a little awkward about how overly emotional he was and he hoped to be able to get a better handle on it soon. Maybe it was just a side effect of regaining his life and his memories. Or maybe it was a side effect of Laila.

  Wonderful, beautiful, incredible Laila. The woman who had brought him back to life even while he was still a ghost.

  He was so proud of her, having gone from being worried and timid, afraid even to step out of the flat when she’d first moved in six months ago, to being tough and courageous. She told him it was because of knowing him, and he liked to think that was partly true, but he knew it was mostly her. She was and had always been so strong. That strength had saved him, had brought him back to life.

  In every way there was, he would be lost without her.

  He carefully extricated himself from around her and climbed out of the bed, watching her closely to make sure she hadn’t woken, then padding out silently into the living room. He grabbed a cookie from the cupboard then found a screwdriver and went to the air vent set high in the wall close to the door into the flat. It was an undeniably clichéd hiding place, he thought as he removed the four screws from the corners of the metal grate, but it had served its purpose. Detaching the grate, he reached in and took out the small wooden box with the heart on top, then replaced the cover to the vent.

  He opened the box and looked at the three rings inside. Give them to the woman who makes you the happiest man on earth, Mr Duncan had told him. Denny smiled. There had only ever been one woman who did that and he knew she would do it for the rest of this life.

  Walking back into the bedroom, he pulled a chair up to the bed and sat and watched Laila as she slept.

  He found himself wanting her to wake up, to open her eyes and look at him. Not through him or around him or beside him, but at him. To look right into his eyes. It had been that which had affected him the most last night, that had caused his tears, her eyes, looking straight into his as they climaxed together. It was like a light shining into his soul, her gaze, and he couldn’t get enough.

  But he didn’t want to wake her, so he sat.

  And waited.

  And watched her.

  After a while, she took a deeper breath and moved. Denny held his breath, and then her eyes opened slowly, rotating to look up at him. He breathed again.

  She smiled. “Are you watching me sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed and reached her hand out to him. “Well, why don’t you come here and watch me from close up?”

  He grinned and took her hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing her fingers. Her eyes dropped and focused on his other hand where he was holding the box.

  “What’s that?”

  He looked down at it. “This is my most treasured possession. It was given to me by a friend. He died two years ago. I was with him and just before he died he could see me and he gave me this and t
old me to give what’s inside to the woman who made me the happiest man on earth. From the day you came into my life, that has always been you.”

  Laila sat up in the bed, looking at the closed box curiously. “What was his name, your friend?”

  “James Duncan. He lived in the flat below here with his wife Jeanie, until she died a few years before I did. He was devoted to her. I always thought I wanted to meet someone who I would love as much as he loved her, but when I died, I thought it was too late. Then you moved in.” He smiled and wiped away a tear as his emotions started to overflow again. “Damn it. I can’t seem to stop crying lately.” He sniffed and gave a small embarrassed laugh. “Laila, you haven’t just given me back my life, you have made me feel more alive than I have ever been. It broke my heart when I was a ghost to think that we didn’t have a future together. But now...” He looked down and wiped at his face again. “...now my future is all about you. I want to live my life, I want to do what makes me happy, I want a home and children. And I want it all with you, because without you, none of it would mean anything.”

  His heart was thudding against his ribcage, a real heart instead of the memory of one. He stood and dropped down onto one knee beside the bed.

  “Laila, will you marry me?”

  She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Denny blinked away tears, unable to breathe until a blazing smile lit up her face, the room, and his life.

  “Yes,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time, “yes!”

  Smiling through his tears, Denny opened the box, taking out the diamond ring, and placed it onto her finger.

  It was a perfect fit.

  Forty-Eight

  Denny stared out the window at the blue sky above the building on the opposite side of the street and ran the fingers of one hand absently through his hair.

  He’d never thought before about how big the sky was. Huge and open and going on forever. Before he died he hadn’t really thought about it much at all, but after five years of not being under it, other than on his tiny balcony, its sheer bigness was intimidating.

  He hadn’t been outside since he woke up, other than his initial, panic filled drive to Trish’s house when he thought he’d been drugged by a hot, crazy woman. Now he and Laila were about to leave for dinner with his sister, brother-in-law and nephew at their house. He was about to go outside properly for the first time in five years.

  Trish had told John and Jay about him the previous evening, after he’d phoned and told her his memories had returned. She rang him back afterwards to tell him they initially thought she was joking which had quickly changed to worry that she was suffering a mental breakdown, or was on drugs, or both. They finally agreed to give her the benefit of the doubt until Denny got there. It was going to be an interesting evening.

  “Are you ready?”

  He was pulled from his reverie by the sound of Laila’s voice and turned to see her walking from the bedroom. She was wearing a blue dress he’d never seen before which followed the curves of her gorgeous body and stopped above her knees.

  “Wow,” he said, breathing out and melting a little, “you look incredible.”

  A smile lit her face and she looked down at herself. “You think so? I haven’t worn this dress for so long, I’d forgotten I had it. You don’t think it’s too much? Maybe I should take it off and put on something else.”

  “I don’t think it’s too much at all,” he said, smiling, “but I could totally get behind the idea of you taking it off.”

  To his delight, she giggled and flushed. He imagined there might come a time when he could no longer make her react in such an adorable manner, but he hoped it wouldn’t be for a long time.

  He walked over to her and pulled her in for a long, slow kiss.

  “I could ring Trish and tell her we’re going to be late,” he said as his mouth headed from her lips towards her neck.

  “Don’t tempt me,” she said, pushing him away with a smile. “I’m not going to be late for my first official meeting with my future nephew and brother-in-law.”

  He looked into her beautiful green eyes, keeping his hands around her waist. “You’ve already met them.”

  “Yes, but not as me. Not as your fiancée. I want to make a good impression.” She unwrapped his arms from around her, took his hand and led him to the door. “Come on.”

  “From what you told me, you’ve already made a good impression on Jay.”

  Her laughter as he followed her out into the corridor made him feel like the inside of his chest was glowing. He stood behind her and slid his arms around her waist, running his lips slowly up the side of her neck as they waited for the lift. It arrived much too quickly.

  Their hands entwined as they rode down and Laila looked up at him.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You look, I don’t know. Anxious.”

  She never failed to amaze him. He was still getting used to her being able to see him and she could already tell how he was feeling just from looking at him. And he thought he was being successful at hiding it.

  “I’m just a bit nervous about seeing Jay and John again. Especially Jay. What if we can’t get back the bond we had? Five years is a long time when you’re his age.”

  She squeezed his hand reassuringly, just as he’d always done for her when she couldn’t see him, and smiled up at him.

  “I didn’t talk to him for long, but I could see how much he still misses you. If I was a betting woman, I would bet that by the end of this evening the two of you will be just as close as you ever were and you will be giving him the benefit of your extensive experience with women, like Trish more or less said she wanted you to.”

  Denny laughed as they stepped from the lift. “I’ll tell him that having fun with the girls is nice, but there’s nothing that compares to finding the one amazing woman you can’t breathe without, who makes your life better than you ever thought it could be.”

  He leaned down to kiss her and she ran her hand down his face.

  “Leave out the bit about having fun with the girls,” she said, grinning, “and I’m sure Trish will approve.”

  Letting go of his hand, she opened the glass door and walked through, holding it in place for him to follow. He put a hand onto the cold surface of the glass to keep it open and stopped. His toes were inches from the doorway. He didn’t move.

  Walking through a door had meant nothing to him before, but now he remembered five years of forced confinement to this building. Five years when it had been his whole world. Denny looked through the doorway at the world outside and suddenly felt afraid.

  He shook his head, willing himself to walk forward, but remaining in place. There had been a barrier stronger than any brick wall between him and the rest of the world when he was dead. Now he could walk straight through, but the barrier seemed to have stayed with him, lodged in his mind. Five years of going nowhere and now he was faced with a brand new life, with having to build everything again from the ground up.

  What would he do? Where would he go? Would he be any more of a success than he had been before his death? Would he be able to take care of Laila the way she took care of him? Could he be the man she deserved?

  Stepping through a doorway suddenly felt like the most daunting task he’d ever faced.

  He looked at the spot to the left of the door at the top of the steps where Oliver always used to sit when they talked. What would his friend say to him now? Denny could almost hear his voice.

  “Dude, you have a second chance at life with a hot woman who loves you like crazy. What in the world are you waiting for?”

  Ahead, Laila stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back up at him. He glanced at her then dropped his eyes to the floor.

  After watching him for a moment, she walked back up the stairs and held out her hand, reaching in through the doorway. He looked down at it and, out of habit, touched her fingertips. She immediately turned her palm up and grasped hold
of his hand, wrapping her fingers around his. He stared at her small hand nestling perfectly into the larger cradle of his. It was exactly what she would do when he was a ghost and the effect it had on him was the same, his heart leaping and his skin tingling wherever they touched.

  He looked into her eyes.

  “Together,” she said, smiling.

  A feeling of peace washed over him. He tightened his fingers around hers.

  “Always,” he replied.

  With Laila’s hand in his, Denny walked forward through the doorway into the sunlight, taking his first steps into his new future.

  Taking a deep breath of the warm, fresh air, he smiled.

  He had a new life to live, and he knew without a doubt that life was going to be everything he had ever hoped for, because he would live it with the woman he loved more than life itself.

  **********

  Thank you for reading Every Touch.

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  Also by Nerika Parke

  Nothing Less Than Paradise Book One

  Paving Paradise

  Jenny has tried love and it ended badly. Really badly. So six man-free months and counting is working just fine for her. It is not, however, working for her best friend Amy, and Jenny finds herself surreptitiously set up with Amy’s cousin. Doug is seemingly everything she could ask for, handsome, funny, loving, and she falls for him joyfully. But Doug is harbouring a traumatic past he won’t talk about and Jenny is unable to let her guard down fully to a man she adores, yet knows almost nothing about.

  As their relationship suffers, Jenny’s despair at being shut out from his inner turmoil and Doug’s increasing emotional distance leads her to risk losing him forever. Will they be able to overcome the deep emotional wounds and fear threatening to tear them apart?