They lay together, silent but comfortably, kissing softly and looking at one another, neither in any rush to move. They had taken their time in getting to know one another enough for this to finally feel comfortable between them. Now there was no rush for anything more.
~~~~~
"Were you scared when you saw him, Allie?" he asked her after they separated and moved under the bed covers to cuddle together.
Alexis gathered her words and he felt a shudder go through her as she remembered that moment when she had just known Lincoln was close by.
"I think that for a moment, my body felt like it went into shock. But Anthony, I didn't feel intimidated by him at all - if anything, I felt empowered to be able to stand up to him. Something has changed in me - knowing you has changed something in me. I don't know how or why - I just feel different now."
"You seem different too. You are far more relaxed and happy now than you were the day I met you," he replied and they both were silent for a few moments before he continued. "You didn't react to him, though? His voice didn't make you zone out?"
"No. At first my body felt like it wanted to, but then something else kicked in and I just knew that he no longer had any control over me."
"That must have been a surprise to him, Allie. A disappointment? How did he react to that?"
Alexis took some time to think about that, before turning slightly to look into Anthony's eyes, and speaking once more.
"He … didn't. He didn't react to it at all. He pretended to purchase something, just like a normal customer, and then he left. I didn't see him again until the next morning, when he came into the store again."
Looking closely into Anthony's eyes, Alexis saw them grow bigger, and a look of further horror come over his face in anticipation of what else she was going to say.
"I wouldn't have acknowledged him that second time, except that I saw him walking toward my supervisor, looking like he was going to hit him…"
"Why would he hit your supervisor?"
"The day before, I got a ride with Tom - my supervisor - to the bank after work, and Lincoln must have read something into it, and gotten his head twisted around it. I think he was going to confront him about me."
Anthony listened with dread in his heart. Everything about this whole situation made him feel ill at ease. What Alexis felt worried about in this moment was that Anthony might also read something into her having gotten into a car with another man, but looking into his face, there was no trace of any kind of jealousy or concern there - not about Tom anyway - and she relaxed, pleased with that knowledge.
"Anyway, I coaxed him away from Tom and I led him out of the supermarket, and then I told him to forget me and never come near my workplace again. He left after that, and I haven't seen him since. I assume he went back to Melbourne, but of course I have no way of knowing. But I think if he was still here, he would have made himself known to me again by now."
She felt his arms tighten around her, and revelled in the feeling of safety she felt with him. She had always dreamed of being normal. It seemed like such a simple thing to wish for, but always she had felt so different to everyone else. Like she didn't really belong. Like she didn't know how to feel humanity inside of her. But being like this, with Anthony so close to her, she knew her humanity had started to not only return, but also grow. She was starting to finally feel … for the first time in her life … normal.
"But do you think you should stay here, Allie? Now that he knows where you are?"
Alexis looked into the face before her, saddened, but at the same time glad that he was worrying about her so much.
"Anthony, wherever I go he will find me if he wants to. He didn't do anything to me the other day, so I might not have anything to worry about. It might now be all over. And if it isn't, the police here are already familiar with my situation because of the time I spent with them when I was on the run from him. They know me, and they know the lengths that not only I went through to get away from him, but also the lengths he went to, to try and bring me back to him," she said and then paused before continuing. "Where would I go that he would never find me if he wanted to? There is nowhere…"
"You could come and live with me!"
"I know, and when I saw him last week I was very tempted to go and jump straight on a train…"
"Well, why didn't you? You know you are always welcome, Allie."
"I know. But I don't want to bring him into your town, Anthony. Not if I can help it. Here there are always people around, and the police are nearby. Your town is small and it would be easier for him to find you … no, I have to stay here, at least for now."
They looked at each other for a long time before he kissed her, needing his mind to be clear again. And once the kissing began, it was.
~~~~~
Through their time together over the following two nights, Alexis and Anthony both tried hard to keep him from their minds. Anthony could feel a deep thud in his heart, driven he knew by constant concern for her, but he wouldn't try and pressure her into moving away. Her life was her own, and it needed to be her own. She had been controlled for too long already, by this other man who had treated her so badly. No, Anthony thought to himself, he would not try and make her do anything. She had to follow her own path and make her own decisions.
During their day together they escaped into the cinema, a sound method for them both to tune out their minds from anything real, and Alexis found her strength building further with every hour she spent with him. He was like her battery charger - when something happened and she felt a slight touch of uncertainty, she leaned on him and instantly felt strong again. She knew she had inner strength - she just sometimes forgot it.
On their second evening together they went out to a restaurant for dinner. Alexis took her time and dressed up for their outing, for the first time working hard to make herself look like a sexy woman for him. He joked with her through the bathroom door about what was taking her so long, as she got ready, making her giggle.
"You know I'm going home tomorrow, right, Missy? So we have to go to dinner tonight, not tomorrow night!" "Are you painting a self-portrait in there? Is that what is taking so long?" "Shall I call the restaurant and change the reservation to next week? Would you be ready by then?"
Alexis kept laughing at him, loving the ease that was his nature. Despite how worried she knew he was about her, the thing that she had always seen in Anthony - the thing that had immediately drawn her to him - was his ability to use humour to make things easy.
Finally he saw the bathroom door open and he had cheeky words on the tip of his tongue, ready to fly at her in an affectionate dig at her, but on first glance at her he found himself completely silent.
She was wearing a red halter neck dress made of some kind of shiny fabric - maybe silk, or satin. She had her hair up and it was tousled but secured on top of her head. Her ears were adorned with long dangly earrings that looked like diamonds even though he knew they would not be. Circling her throat was a choker that matched, made up of several rows of the same diamond-looking pieces. From the centre of that hung one large gem, positioned perfectly between the two halter sides over her chest.
He cast his eyes from the top of her head, downward. The dress flared out from her petite waist, and stopped just on her knees. Further down he could see mid-height heals, red and shiny.
Bringing his eyes back up again, finally they settled on her face. Tonight she wore makeup. She rarely used it and he loved how she looked without it, but tonight she had applied some subtly, and he did notice how it brought out and accentuated the beautiful colour of her eyes, and the shape of her lips.
Alexis could see him looking at her, and felt herself blush deeply.
"Allie…" he breathed out and then fell silent as his eyes made their top to toe journey once more.
Alexis watched him and took note of her feelings about the way he was looking at her. She remembered not too long ago when she had first put on a dress in his home
- a plain sundress. His face then had revealed that he viewed her in a different light when she had that dress on, and at the time she had not been able to ascertain if she liked him viewing her like that or not. But now, right in this moment, she loved the way he was looking at her. There was no concern over him looking at her like that. There was no threat.
"We don't have to go out for dinner," he said and she laughed out loud at him, making him smile shyly and then laugh also. "Okay, we will go," he said, moving closer to her.
She felt his hands reach out to her hips as he moved until he was almost touching her, chest to chest.
"You look so beautiful, Allie," he said softly, smiling at her, and she thought she would melt with the way her heart felt. Almost instantaneously, he was pulling back from her. "Come on. If we don't leave now I am afraid you definitely won't be eating tonight," he continued with a suggestive but humorous look on his face that made her relax and laugh with him as they grabbed their coats and began their evening walk.
~~~~~
It was a 20 minute walk to the restaurant, along a pathway that was set along the edge of a small waterway. Dotted along the path were wooden benches, set along the length of a path in a way that enabled people to sit and look out over the water. She had never spent any time walking this way through the city, she thought to herself, but it would be nice to. In fact it would it would be nice to sit right here to think, her head was telling her as they got closer to the place they would have their meal this evening.
As Alexis walked alongside him, she felt his eyes coming back to her every now and then, but for the most part the two of them remained silent in their walking.
When they were almost at the restaurant doors, he stopped suddenly and faced her again.
"Sorry, Allie, but I have to do this," he said, instantly alarming her, before she felt him move closer to her, pull her into his arms, and kiss her deeply.
Automatically she wrapped her arms around him and indulged in the kiss, feeling her arousal begin and then deepen. They clung to each other, as if they hadn't made love only hours earlier, or early that morning … or the night before. Alexis revelled in the feelings and realised how much she had come to love the feeling of his arms around her, and his lips on hers. It had been right for them both to wait as long as they did before they had become intimate with each other - he had needed time to work through his ongoing grief over Cynthia's death, and she had needed time to get over what she had gone through with Lincoln - but now nothing felt more right than being in each other's arms like this.
Anthony had tried to not interrupt their plans, but with each step they had taken since leaving her room in the guest house, he had felt his arousal grow more and more. He needed her, like he couldn't remember needing any woman. She looked beautiful, sexy, desirable … alluring. The stark contrast to her now compared to that day when he had met her - when she had been wearing old jeans and an old jersey in an attempt to not look like a woman - overwhelmed him. He had just had to kiss her.
He pulled away from her, a little ashamed at almost losing his self-control, but when he looked at her face he didn't see any look of alarm in her expression at all. All he saw was desire and a deep level of arousal in her too.
"Sorry, I really didn't want to upset your lipstick," he said and she laughed at him, relaxing them both.
Alexis held out her hand to him and he took it, both of them smiling as they took deep breaths to relax their bodies, and finally entered the restaurant.
~~~~~
"Oh my God, this is amazing," Alexis was saying as she indulged in her meal of roast chicken, roast vegetables and stuffing. She knew they were in an expensive restaurant, where a certain level of decorum was expected, but she didn't hold back in enjoying her meal.
Anthony remembered the first time he had seen her eat. The way she had cut the food up into the tiniest of pieces, and slowly eaten one miniscule piece at a time. Now he watched her with amusement, enjoying the way she ate wholeheartedly. Even looking like she did this evening - to him as the most beautiful and sexy woman in the room - she still ate with relish, making no secret of how much she was enjoying the food in front of her.
Alexis laughed at the expression on his face. It wasn't her intention to arouse him in any way, but she knew that in addition to his obvious amusement, he was, and she liked it. She liked that he was turned on by her being just who she was. She liked that he was turned on by what she looked like. She liked that for him to be turned on by her, he didn't need her to do anything to him. She just had to be herself. The result wasn't conditional on whether she did what he told her to do. It wasn't conditional on her being able to do what he wanted her to do, well and with force.
There was a small part of her still that wanted to hide as a woman, and appear genderless, as she had tried so hard to do when she had first left Melbourne, but a greater part of her now enjoyed looking like this, and feeling like this. Yes, the result would probably be the same at the end of the night - he would want to make love to her. But it would be an equal desire and something they both wanted. It was how things were meant to be. This was normal. And she had needed normal for so long.
They enjoyed their restaurant time for two hours, relaxing more and more with each other and talking to each other about the more mundane aspects of their lives.
As they talked Alexis became more and more aware that it was something that she and Lincoln had never really done at all. He had told her at the very beginning that he would never want to talk about his work - and that was what took up most of his life. And of course he would not want to talk to her about his marriage to Diana. Alexis would never have expected that. So, all in all, they had just never really spoken. She had not given it any thought over those three years. It was just the way they had been together. But she much preferred this. With Anthony everything was easy. Everything was relaxed. Nothing needed to be a drama, or even serious.
"What is happening there, Missy? You haven't touched that there dessert for quite a few minutes," Alexis heard Anthony asking, and she could clearly hear the teasing in his voice as he was smiling at her.
She looked down at her plate. The meringue nest of whipped cream and fresh berries had sounded delectable, but her tummy was arguing that it simply could not hold any more food in it. She laughed softly.
"I can't eat it," she said and he raised his eyebrows, teasing her more. "I know, I ordered far too much. It all sounded just so good though!"
He laughed at her, finding her so cute in that moment. It wasn't a word he would often use for a woman, but right now it described her perfectly.
"Do you want it?" she asked him and he laughed out loud at her, making her giggle softly in return. It was a blissful sound that he was still getting used to, but always gained great joy from hearing.
"No. It looks good but I am full as well. Shall we go?" he asked and she nodded.
The waiter came back then with their bill and offered to put the dessert into a box for them to take it away with them, making Anthony laugh again.
"Yes, I think that might be a good idea. Thank you."
Finally they were on their way, Anthony enjoying slipping her coat on over her dress slowly to make sure she wouldn't get cold when they left the warmth of the restaurant.
Alexis watched his face as she turned to face him once again, now warm in her coat. He was watching her in such a way that she blushed and found herself eager to get him back to the guest house.
~~~~~
Walking along the waterfront again, Alexis found a level of peace in her mind that was relatively new to her.
"Would you mind if we sat here for a while, Anthony?" she asked as they approached one of the wooden benches, and he nodded, inwardly pleased with another question from her that indicated her acceptance that her mind was her own, and she had as much right as anyone else to do what she wanted, not just always give and do to others what they wanted her to do.
He sat down and immediately felt her sit down
close beside him, before nudging herself against him, and he put his arm around her. Alexis rested her head on his shoulder and let herself enjoy the moment, as her eyes watched out over the water. Even though it was evening, lights from all around the edges shone over the water, creating a magical effect in front of them.
"I love being with you," she said quietly, almost unable to be heard. "Thank you for giving so much to me."
Anthony pulled away and twisted his body so he could properly face her, and then kiss her. He only meant to give her a slight kiss to reassure her that he had heard her, but as soon as their lips touched something ignited in both of them and soon they were kissing passionately. They didn't reach for anything more, keeping their arms wrapped around each other tightly, but each of them could feel the other melting and diving deeper into the kiss … into the desire.
Alexis heard herself groan as she felt her body wake up and reach that fulfilling state where everything was tingling, especially the core of her sexual being, which was throbbing heavily. She wanted him so much but she couldn't pull away for the moment, it feeling simply too good to be there in his arms like that.
He also let himself go in the moment, purposely keeping his hands off her even though he wanted to touch her everywhere. He held his arms tight around her but fought to keep his hands where they were, to not let them wander.
Finally he pulled away from her, and he could tell she was as breathless as he was in that moment. He looked into her eyes and she leaned in and kissed him again, letting him know she wanted so much more from him right then, which he indulged her in for a few minutes more, until he pulled away again.
"Allie, what I want to do to you right now, we can't do here," he said shyly and instantly relaxed her, making her laugh softly at him before kissing him gently and quickly, and nodding.
"Let's go."
Darkness of Heart (Painful Deliverance Book 2) Page 4