‘I think that’s why I chose this as a career. I learned so much about myself through grief counselling, and my counsellor really did change my life. I wanted to be that person for someone else,’ she replied thoughtfully, like she had never made that connection before.
‘You’re changing my life.’
‘You’re changing mine. You don’t know what you do to me.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You make me less fierce. Softer,’ she said as I tightened my arms around her.
‘I’ve always seen your softer side.’
‘I know.’ She looked at me so clearly, like everything was finally falling into place. It was a look of contentment that she’d never had before. I could see it in her eyes. Now she looked at me like I would be the only person who could provide it, and that felt fucking astounding.
Chapter Sixteen
Abi
Then.
It was the start of another summer. My favourite time of year. Gem’s baby was coming up to three months old, Elle was still crushing on her practice teacher, and I’d been seeing Jamie for just over four months. Over that time, he had slipped his way through my body, securing his place there until he was holding on deep and strong. He had merged and mingled with the best parts of me, reacting instinctively to them. I only needed to offer a glance and he knew what I was thinking. He only needed to smile and I knew what was being conveyed by the curl of his lips. He quickly became my life. My world. My reason. Being together was as easy as taking a steady breath on a sigh or daydreaming lazily in the summer sun. We were meant to be. Destined. Mapped out. It was as simple as that.
The warm weather had made it easy to decide that I liked summer Jamie even more. Summer Jamie consisted of cargo shorts and polo tops, a huge array of sunglasses, and even more tanned skin on full display. He continued to be sweary, an immense chatterer, utterly selfless and a beautiful presence in my life. He was unprecious about anything to do with himself. There wasn’t a hint of vanity in him. He would pass a mirror without a glance, which astounded me because he was carved out of hotness and moulded from too good to be true.
He would often pretend he was too tired to drive home or that my place was closer to his morning meeting just so we could spend as much time together as possible between jobs, life and other distractions.
I’d passed my placement with flying colours because I excelled at social work, not because I sucked his cock like a rock star.
A number of us were asked to meet with the service manager, who not only congratulated every student on passing our placements, but also offered us interviews to join various teams around Nottingham when we officially qualified.
I was both happy and sad when I was offered a position in the team alongside Elle, who was ecstatic because it meant she got to continue her mega crush on Luke Simms, her practice tutor.
I missed sitting at the end of Jamie’s desk, taking in his knowledge, inhaling his kindness and grasping at the man I was falling in love with, but I quickly got over the disappointment when I remembered that we would still be sharing a bed most nights.
We would meet at our bench for lunch whenever we could. His team quickly realised we were a couple, many of them admitting they had suspicions long before we’d confirmed it.
Everything was striding forwards into a happy ever after that I’d stumbled upon but now wanted more than anything. We were good. It felt good. We couldn’t get enough of each other, and that’s how I found myself perched on the edge of a console table—cold, highly aroused and eagerly awaiting my love to knock on the door.
When the knock came, I opened the door completely stark titting naked apart from a pair of orange green and yellow stripy socks that came just under my knee. He had left them the previous weekend, and as I’d gripped them to my chest when I fell asleep, my deviously satisfying plan had popped into place.
‘Dawson.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Shut the door unless you want to give my neighbours a show.’ My hands were on my hips in full sex kitten stance.
‘You never fail to amaze me.’ He pushed himself towards me, backing me into the console table, knocking the lamp off in the process. ‘Fucking leave it,’ he ordered as I gasped and looked over to where it had rolled across the floor. He picked me up and sat me where the lamp had been. ‘Do you know what you do to me? Feel me.’ He pulled my hand to his groin and I felt the hard ridge. ‘Wrap your legs around me. I want to take you to the bedroom. I don’t want to rush.’
‘Dawson, I’ve just opened the door to you in nothing but your socks. Tonight is all for you, sunshine.’ I rethought my plan to please him and considered how amazing it would be to feel him push into me. ‘I want to feel you go hard in my mouth.’
‘Too late for that, beautiful.’
‘Sit on the sofa. I’m going to blow your mind. Or your cock,’ I winked, kicking my leg playfully behind me and laughing as he dive-bombed onto the sofa.
I knelt down in front of him and pushed his legs further apart. He licked his lips and urged me on. I unbuttoned his trousers and pulled down his fly, pleased to find he was naked underneath. I raised my eyebrow. ‘Someone had high expectations tonight.’
‘Let me see that mouth of yours around my cock.’
He was so ready. His cock was perfect, long, thick and curved to fit me exactly, pressing everything amazing and then some. He moaned quietly as I gripped it in my hand and started rubbing it, rotating my hand in the way I knew he loved. He was looking at me so intimately that I knew he had never looked at another woman in that way before. It was a mixture of adoration and mystique as to how I could be there in front of him, loving him, falling for him and giving him the best blow job of his life.
‘Is this how you like it?’ I said playfully, licking my tongue across the tip.
‘Fuck, yes,’ he moaned. I worked my mouth down to meet the motion of my hand and met his eyes. He stared in wonderment and ecstasy, and I couldn’t help but remove his cock from my mouth, move my hands up his body and kiss him hungrily on his mouth. ‘You turn me on so much,’ he gasped into my ear. I returned my mouth, taking him in fully and moaning as I did.
Fuck, he was sexy.
The dark light of the room accentuated his cheekbones and made the shadow of his stubble even darker. I mixed my mouth with my hands, stroking him and licking his tip, fucking him with my mouth, moving my tongue around, keeping him wet and desperate.
‘Don’t stop, beautiful. I’m going to come.’
He had his hands in my hair, pushing it to the side so he could get a better view. I felt his balls pulse and his breathing get faster. I knew it wouldn’t take him long.
I ran my hand up and down. Faster, twisting, gripping and aiming it towards my body.
‘Come on me. Make me yours.’
‘I’m already yours.’
His hot come spurted across my stomach. We both moaned and dropped our eyes to watch it drip down in perfect white rivulets. He took my hand and circled our fingers across it, spreading his love across my stomach and down onto my pussy with a look of sexy smugness across his face. So proud of himself.
We crashed our foreheads together, not caring about the mess below us. I melted into him as his hot, wet fingers stroked the skin at the bottom of my spine.
‘I love you,’ he murmured, our heads still resting together.
I gasped at the words and the motion as he pulled my legs around his waist. He held them tight and pushed himself to the end of the sofa before standing up. I could feel his lips curl into a smile on my cheek. I pulled him closer, wrapping my arms around his neck.
‘I love you too; you know that. I don’t need to say the words. They’re not enough.’
He walked us to the bathroom where he sat me down on the sink unit. He stepped into the shower and turned it on, checking the water with his hand until it was the perfect temperature. I loved it when he washed me. His face was a mixture of pure adoration and unabashed arousal. He would spend tim
e soaping a lather of bubbles across my shoulders, tracing the bones he said he loved the most—my collarbone, the bumps on my wrists, the arch of my hipbones and the curve of my ankle. He would then turn his attention to my sensitive spots, which often led to another round of lovemaking against the glass, or a simple stroke of his fingers with him standing behind me until I bowed back into him on the force of my orgasm.
After dressing, I dropped myself down on the bed to check my messages, I felt him come down to me, still naked and damp from the shower. He lifted my top carefully and reached his splayed fingers up from my hips to my sides, kissing the bare skin of my back until he was pushing the tips of his fingers into the under curve of my boobs. Every part of my skin craved his touch.
‘Do you know what I like to see the most when we’re making love to each other?’ I asked as he kissed my neck perfectly. ‘You get this small smile on your lips, only noticeable to me because I know it so well. Sometimes it’s a look of awe and adoration, like you can’t quite believe that you’ve found me and we belong to each other.’
‘Sometimes I can’t.’
‘When I see that smile, I swear it cures all the doubts. It instantly makes me believe that you love me for who I am, my bones and the skin that surrounds them. You make me feel confident about us. I’d never felt that before you came along.’
He pulled my leggings down to under the curve of my arse and pressed his thumbs into the skin, kissing and biting until I couldn’t stop the heady laughter and gasps of pain and pleasure all swirling together wonderfully.
We lay wrapped in each other on the bed after another orgasm, my leggings still resting under my bum and Jamie still naked. My pillow smelled of him. When he wasn’t there, he was still with me because he lingered around my home like it was where he should be, leaving his shadow circling around me.
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he said on a light sigh, both of us too tired to move. ‘I had a call from my mum today. She wants me to go over for the weekend. Do you want to come with me?’
‘That’s fucking big, Dawson.’
‘Doesn’t have to be.’
‘It so does!’ I laughed as I sat up. ‘We’re taking the next step into normalness, a leap into domestication, a sprint into joint Christmas cards.’
‘You’re so fascinating, Abi Sinclair.’
‘You always say that.’
‘It’s true. You know, if you find fascinating, your search for love and companionship is officially over, which is why I want you to meet my mum.’
Sweet fucking swoonsville. He created bloody amazing feels.
Chapter Seventeen
Jamie
Then.
She’d lost weight. A lot of weight. It had been a few weeks since I’d last seen her, but the difference was startling.
‘You show everything in your eyes,’ Mum said as she stood in the open doorway of the house that had been my childhood home. She pulled me towards her and I rested my head on her shoulder. Skin and fucking bones. ‘We’ll talk later,’ she whispered into my ear.
I knew from we’ll talk later that something bigger than all of us was threatening fragments of the happiness filling my chest.
‘Mum, this is Abi,’ I said stepping aside to reveal the subject of several gushing telephone calls, text messages and many emails full of pictures and anecdotes about her. None of them did her any justice. She was so much more than a subject line of an email.
‘Green eyes,’ Mum said simply as she took a shaky step forward.
‘Nice to meet you.’
‘You too. I’m Ann.’ Mum held out her hand. She was reserved until you got to know her. She ushered us both into the house. A full shiver ran down my back when I noticed a walking stick propped up against the bannister. It belonged to Dad, but that wasn’t the reason for the impending sense of doom deep in my stomach. The walking stick had been in the loft since the week after Dad died. The only reason for it leaning against the bannister was because she was using it.
She was sitting in the chair by the patio doors when I finally walked into the living room. She gave me a small smile and nodded. She didn’t miss anything.
‘Jamie, would you do me a favour and bring the tray from the kitchen. I’ve just made a pot of tea.’ I left Mum and Abi talking, or more specifically, I left Abi talking. She filled the room with noise but she didn’t silence the conversation I was having with Mum through our facial expressions and body language. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
‘Jamie tells me you are about to start a new job.’
‘Yes, I start officially on Monday, but I feel like I’ve been there years,’ she replied in full excitement mode.
The afternoon rolled by in a cloud of baby stories, reminiscing about important people no longer in our lives but always there in the back of our minds, and laughing through stories of epic embarrassment, namely my teenage years. When Abi laughed heartily and clutched her growling stomach, Mum asked me to bring the stack of takeaway leaflets from the drawer in the kitchen.
‘She’s good for you,’ she said after Abi breezed out the door to fetch some wine from the local supermarket. ‘It’s about time you settled down. It’s always been work, work, work. I get the feeling there’s a lot of fun thrown in now. I can tell you like her.’
‘Mum, why is Dad’s walking stick in the hallway?’ I asked. I’d waited all afternoon to ask that question. She looked down to her lap and started brushing imaginary crumbs away with her hands.
‘I’ve been using it a while. Started with a few aches and pains.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t want to worry you.’
‘What is it you don’t want me to worry about?’
‘I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise me you won’t fly off the handle.’
‘Just tell me what’s going on.’
‘I have an appointment at the hospital on Monday.’ She brought her hand to her mouth and started coughing. ‘I found a lump in my breast. I’m having a biopsy.’
‘Fucking hell, Mum. Why didn’t you tell me? How long has this been going on?’
‘I found the lump a few months ago. I didn’t think anything of it but then—’
‘You started losing weight.’
‘You noticed.’
‘Of course I did. You’re skin and bone!’ I stood and caught my reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, shocked, worried and devastated that we were here again; familiar yet still so alien to me. ‘Why do you need the walking stick?’
‘I’ve had a few aches and pains. I’ve just needed it for a bit of support.’
‘A bit of support? You couldn’t bring the tray of drinks in.’
I knew what a few aches and pains meant. They meant that any cancer in her body was probably spreading like wildfire.
‘Sit down. Breathe. Look at me.’ I knelt down in front of her as she cradled my head in her hands. ‘We’re not naïve to cancer, Jamie. How could we be? I know my body. A lot has changed in a small amount of time. I don’t need a biopsy to tell me what I already know. It’s just a formality.’
Her hands circled my scalp just like they did when we’d lost my dad. ‘Listen to me, Jamie.’ She drew my head back but her hands remained on my cheeks. ‘Do you know how proud you make me? So proud. And today, bringing Abi to meet me has given me so much peace I can’t tell you. However long I’ve got, I will spend every day wishing I had more time with you because you, Jamie, are my world.’ She wiped my tears with the pad of her thumb.
‘Don’t talk like that. Wait for the results and we’ll take it from there.’
She smiled a smile that told me she knew. This was her time and she had accepted it, however painful it was for her. We held each other until Abi’s voice was ringing through the house, bringing it back to life again through her laughter.
‘I’ve gone with the sparkling wine because I’m a classy girl!’ She stopped in her tracks when she saw me crouched down on my
knees, my mum’s arms wrapped around me.
I felt Mum’s head lift before she said, ‘Abi, honey, we need to talk.’
Abi held me as a migraine took hold of the power of sight and sound. Lights flashed every time I opened my eyes and there was a piercing whistle passing through my ears like a tortuous relay race. Abi was sitting with Mum when I said I needed a shower, but truthfully, I needed time to collect the pieces of myself that were strewn across the floor after Mum had thrown the cancer grenade.
I felt a cold, wet flannel across my forehead. It felt like winning the lottery.
‘Lie back and try to sleep.’
The voice that soothed every muscle in my body washed over me. I squeezed my eyes together, stupidly questioning if Abi had the ability to heal cancer like she had the ability to dim a migraine.
If only.
Somehow, I slept through until nine the next morning. The flannel was no longer there, nor were Abi’s warm arms. The slight chink of light from the curtains that never did hang properly stung my eyes, but the nagging relay race had stopped. I was thankful for small mercies.
I have no recollection of how I got to the kitchen, but when I did, I was met with the perfect vision of Abi and Mum sitting at the table laughing together. They were reading the Sunday papers. Mum had a magnifying glass as well as her glasses. They had obviously resorted to Abi reading the horoscopes out loud.
‘Do something different today. Lie back on the grass watching the shape of the clouds drift by, or skip down the street with a spring in your step. Shit, that’s really bad timing. These are a load of crap anyway. Take no notice,’ Abi said.
‘I’m not skipping down the street anytime soon. Not even if Colin Firth was waiting at the other end for me,’ Mum said through laughter.
Let Me Be Your Hope (Music and Letters Series Book 2) Page 10