‘Are you OK?’ Molly asked after a long stretch of silence.
He glanced at her distractedly. ‘Pardon?’
‘You seem a bit preoccupied. You’ve hardly said a word since you pointed out the Houses of Parliament.’
He reached out and took her hand and brought it up to his mouth and kissed it. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I have a lot on my mind just now. Work stuff. Brian Yates had got a bit behind with some paperwork. It’s a nightmare sorting it all out.’
‘When was the last time you took a holiday?’ she asked.
‘I went to a conference in Manchester three months ago.’
She looked at him askance. ‘The one where you had the one-night stand?’
His expression tightened. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s hardly what I’d call a holiday,’ Molly said. ‘I meant a proper holiday. Lying on the beach somewhere, drinking cocktails. That sort of thing.’
He lifted one shoulder. ‘I’m not big on cocktails. And I’ve seen enough people dying with melanomas to put me off lying in the sun for life.’
‘All the same, you can’t expect to work all the time without a break,’ she said. ‘It’s not good for your health. People in their early thirties can still get heart attacks, you know.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s why I go to the gym. I go to a twenty-four-hour one a couple of blocks from home. I have a couple of guest passes if you want to try it out some time.’
‘I’m not much of a gym bunny,’ Molly confessed. ‘I prefer long walks in the fresh air.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said.
Lucas parked the car and came around to open her door. Molly loved it that he had those old-fashioned good manners. He had been brought up to treat women with respect and consideration. She felt feminine and protected as he helped her out of the car with a light hand at her elbow.
Once inside the restaurant they were shown to a cosy table in a candlelit corner. Soft ambient music was playing, making the atmosphere romantic and intimate. ‘Have you been here before?’ she asked once the waiter had left them to study the menu.
‘Not for a long time,’ Lucas said. ‘I think it’s changed hands a couple of times since then but it got a good write-up recently.’
The waiter took their order and left them with their drinks. Molly was conscious of the silence stretching between them. ‘I had the meeting with Emma today,’ she said. ‘She was really excited about the dinner dance at your house. We’ve marked a tentative date for the first Saturday in May. We’re thinking about fifty or sixty couples. The more exclusive it is the better. People don’t mind paying top dollar for something that’s really special.’
‘Sounds like a good plan.’
‘And we also thought we might have a theme,’ she said.
He gave her a forbidding look. ‘Don’t ask me to dress up in a ridiculous costume.’
Molly gave him a teasing smile. ‘Where’s your sense of fun?’ she asked. ‘I think you’d look fabulous in a Superman costume.’
‘No way,’ he said, glowering at her. ‘Don’t even think about it. It’s not going to happen.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, still smiling at him. ‘We thought we’d have a black and white theme. Everyone has to wear either black or white or both. We’ll decorate the ballroom the same. It’ll be very glam.’
‘I think I can manage to rustle up a tuxedo,’ he said. ‘But I should warn you I’m not much of a dancer. I have two left feet.’
‘I can help you with that,’ she said. ‘Mum sent me to debutante school. It won’t take me long to teach you to burn up the dance floor.’
He gave a noncommittal grunt as the waiter came over with their meals.
* * *
It was raining when they came out of the restaurant. Lucas took off his jacket and used it like an umbrella over Molly. ‘Aren’t you freezing?’ she asked as they made a dash for the car.
‘I’m used to it,’ he said. ‘Mind your step. The pavement’s uneven in places.’
It was a quiet drive home but Molly thought Lucas had lost some of his earlier tension. He had started to relax a little after the entrée and had even smiled at one of her work anecdotes. For a while she had felt like they were any other couple having a meal out together. But every now and again she would look across at him and find him with a frown between his eyes.
‘I enjoyed tonight,’ she said as they walked into the house a short time later.
‘I did too,’ he said.
‘Our first date.’
‘Pardon?’
Molly looked at him. ‘That was our first proper date.’
‘So how did it measure up?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s not over yet.’
A half-smile lurked around the edges of his mouth. ‘You seem pretty sure about that.’
She stepped up to him and placed her arms around his neck. ‘I want to dance with you.’
‘Right now?’
She pushed his thigh back with one of hers. ‘Right now.’
A gleam came into his eyes as he started to move with her along the floor. ‘I think I could get used to this dancing thing,’ he said. ‘How am I doing?’
She smiled as he brought her up close to his aroused body. ‘You’re a natural. You have all the right moves.’
He stopped dancing, his eyes burning as they held hers. ‘I want to make love with you. Now.’
Molly shivered as he gripped her hips and held her harder against him. ‘Right now?’ she asked.
‘Right now.’
He swooped down and captured her mouth beneath his in a sizzling hot kiss, his tongue driving through to find hers in a sexy lust-driven tango. Molly felt her senses careen out of control as his aroused body probed the softness of hers. Desire was hot and wet between her thighs as he moved her backwards along the foyer in a blind dance of passion until her back was against the wall.
Her hands went to his shirt, tugging and pulling until it was out of his trousers and unbuttoned. She slid her hands all over his chest, caressing, stroking until she came to the fastener on his waistband. She worked on it blindly as his mouth masterfully commandeered hers. Electricity pulsed like a powerful current through her body as his hands shaped her breasts through her clothes. Her nipples felt achingly tight, her breasts full and sensitive.
Her insides quivered as he deepened his kiss, his tongue stabbing and stroking, thrusting and gliding until she was mindless with need. She could feel it building in her body. All the sensitive nerves stretching and straining to reach the pinnacle of pleasure she craved. It was centred low and deep in her body, the feminine core of her alive and aching for the intimate invasion of his body.
Finally she freed him from his trousers. He was thick and full and like satin wrapped steel in her fingers. She caressed him with increasing pressure and speed, delighting in the low deep grunts of approval he was giving. Spurred on by his reaction, she dropped to her knees in front of him and brought him to her mouth.
He gripped the sides of her head. ‘No, you don’t have to do that,’ he said.
‘I want to do it,’ Molly said. ‘I want to taste you like you tasted me.’
He gave a muttered curse as she closed her lips over him. She felt him shudder against the walls of her mouth as he fought to control his response. It thrilled her to have such feminine power over him. He was so thick and so strong and yet he was at the mercy of her touch.
After a few moments he pulled out with a gasping groan. ‘No more.’ He hauled her to her feet and roughly pulled up her dress until it was bunched around her waist.
She clung to him with one hand as the other peeled away her tights and knickers. Excitement raced along the network of her veins like rocket fuel. She was breathless with it, impatien
t with it, hungry for every deliciously erotic thing he had in store.
He positioned her against the wall and thrust into her with a deep primal groan that lifted every hair on her head. Her sensitised flesh gripped him tightly, drawing him in, holding him, squeezing him, tormenting him. He rocked against her almost savagely. She held onto his hips, with him all the way, wanting more speed, more pressure, more of that tantalising friction. She was getting closer and closer to the point of no return. She could feel every nerve preparing itself for the freefall into paradise.
And then she was there, falling, spinning, falling, spinning, delicious contraction after delicious contraction moving like an earthquake through her flesh. She gasped and cried as her body shook and shuddered against his, her hands digging into his taut buttocks as he finally emptied himself.
Molly held him tightly against her as her breathing calmed. She could feel the stickiness of his essence between her legs. It was so incredibly intimate to be that close to him. She had never felt so close to someone.
It was not just the physical experience. There was something much deeper and elemental in how she responded to him and he to her. It was like they were meant to be together’two halves that made a complete whole. She felt a connection with him that went beyond their similar upbringings. It was as if he was the only person who could love her the way she wanted and needed to be loved’with his whole being, his body, his mind and his soul. What woman didn’t want a love like that?
Molly knew he was capable of that sort of love. What she didn’t know was if he would allow himself to be free of the past in order to act on it.
Lucas brushed her hair away from her face, his eyes dark and serious now the passion had abated. ‘I wasn’t too rough with you, was I?’ he asked.
Molly was touched that he was concerned. ‘You were amazing,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘We are amazing together. I never thought it could be this good. It keeps getting better and better.’
He tucked some of her hair behind one of her ears, his gaze becoming shadowed, his expression twisted with ruefulness. ‘We are amazing together...’
‘But,’ she said. ‘That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? There’s always a but with you, isn’t there?’
A mask slipped over his features. He drew in a breath and slowly released it. ‘Molly...’
‘There doesn’t have to be a but,’ Molly said. ‘We can be amazing together for always. You know we can.’
He put his hands on her wrists and unlocked her hold from around his neck. ‘We’ve already talked about this,’ he said. ‘I told you what I can give you. There’s no point going over it all the time in the hope that I’ll somehow change my mind. This is the way it is. You have to accept it.’
Molly blinked back burning tears, her chest feeling as if hard fists were pummelling against her heart. ‘Are you really going to just end our relationship when it’s time for me to leave?’ she asked. ‘Have you already circled the calendar or marked it your diary? Have you’ve written, “Finish things with Molly”?’
His features were pulled tight. ‘Think about it, Molly,’ he said. ‘You’d gain me but you’d lose your family. Your father will cut you off. He’s probably already threatened to do so. Yes, I thought so. Your mother will make an effort but every time she sees me she’ll think of the son she lost. And then, if we were ever to have children...’ His throat rose and fell and his voice came out hoarse as he continued, ‘What will you tell them when they ask about their uncle? Will you tell them their father killed him?’
Molly swallowed the knot of anguish clogging her throat. How could she get him to change his mind? Could they have a chance in spite of everything that had happened? Surely other people overcame tragic circumstances. Why couldn’t they? Was it because he didn’t love her? He hadn’t said anything, but, then, neither had she. He didn’t seem the type to be saying ‘I love you’ at the drop of a hat. But, then, she had never told anyone other than her parents that she loved them. But she sensed that Lucas cared very deeply for her. He showed it in so many little ways.
Was that why he refused to promise her a future? He wanted her to be free to move on from the tragedy of the past and he believed she couldn’t do that if she was with him. He was determined their relationship had a strict time limit.
Molly suddenly realised what it must be like for couples during times of war and separation. Of having to live in the moment, of not being sure of what the future would hold, clinging to one another, grateful for every tiny chance to be together. Not making plans but living and loving while they could. It was the same for long-term married couples or even younger couples where one partner was facing the imminent death of the other due to a terminal illness. She had seen them time and time again in ICU. The clock ticking down, each moment more and more precious as it could very well be the last.
How did people do it? How would she do it? She wanted fifty, sixty, seventy years’a lifetime to love Lucas, not just a matter of weeks.
Molly couldn’t think of a time when she hadn’t loved him. When she had been a little kid she had loved him, but that had been more of a hero-worship thing. He had been her older brother’s best friend, someone she’d admired from afar. He had always treated her well. He had been far kinder to her than her own brother. Growing up without sisters had made him particularly mindful of the feelings and sensibilities of little girls. He had always treated her with respect and, to some degree, affectionate indulgence. How could she not fall in love with him as an adult? He was the same kind, gentle man’a man who gave up so much of his life for others. Matt’s death hadn’t caused that other focused part of his personality, rather it had just enhanced it.
But loving Lucas came with a hefty price tag. Her father had already made it clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her if she continued to be involved with Lucas. After the initial shock her mother seemed more accepting, but how long before she too worried that Molly was being short-changed emotionally? No mother wanted to see her daughter with a man who wasn’t capable of loving her.
And then there was the issue of children. She wanted a family. She had wanted to be a mother since she had been a little kid. She had nursed every baby animal she had been able to get her hands on, adopting every stray she could in her effort to nurture them.
Lucas was the only man she could imagine as the father of her children. She wanted to feel his baby moving inside her womb. She wanted to feel the march of the contractions through her abdomen that would bring their baby into the world and she wanted to see his face as she gave birth. She wanted to see him hold their baby in his strong arms, to cradle it against his broad chest, to protect and love it as tenderly as he had been loved and nurtured.
But now all those hopes and dreams she had stored in her heart for all this time would never be realised. It was so bitter-sweet to know he loved her but was prepared to give her up because he felt that was best for her.
He was wrong.
He had to be wrong.
She would be miserable without him. She would be heartbroken without him in her life. She would be totally devastated to have loved and lost him. She wanted him to live life with her, to share the highs and lows and all the little bits in between: the happy bits; the sad bits; the angry bits; and the funny bits’all the things that enriched a couple’s life together.
Surely he would see that eventually? It might take more than the nine weeks left, but surely he would come to realise that it was better to be together than apart? How could she make him see it? Would she have to take a gamble on it? To spend the next few weeks in the hope that he would not be able let her go at the end?
Molly looked up at him through misty eyes. ‘Can we not talk about this any more?’ she said. ‘I just want to pretend we are just like any other couple in a new relationship. Can we do that, please?’
He brushed her qu
ivering bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. ‘Of course,’ he said, and bending his head he softly covered her mouth with his.
CHAPTER TEN
MOLLY WAS AT work a few days later, supervising Claire Mitchell’s transfer to the rehabilitation unit. Claire was not fully mobile but she was completely conscious and responding to commands. Her tracheotomy tube had been removed and the hole taped closed, but it would take up to two weeks for the wound to heal over completely. Claire could speak in a whisper but her words were still slurred and a little jumbled and she still had some short-term memory problems. Her parents were relieved but clearly a little daunted at the long road ahead for their only child.
Claire would probably spend months in the rehab centre and was unlikely to regain the full use of her legs. It was a heartbreaking thought that a young woman who had been so fit and athletic, who before the accident had been at the top of her game in equestrian events, was now no longer able to take even a few paces, let alone vault up into a saddle and ride her beloved horse.
Jacqui walked back with Molly to the ICU office once the orderly had left with Claire and her parents. ‘For a while there I thought that poor girl wasn’t going to make it at all,’ she said. ‘You should have seen her when she first came in. A bit like our Tim, poor chap. You just never know how they’re going to end up, do you?’
‘No, you don’t.’ Molly glanced to where Tim’s parents were by his bedside in ICU, keeping their lonely vigil. They came in each day, spending hours in his cubicle, talking to him, playing his favourite music on an MP3 player, stroking him and praying over him with the hospital chaplain.
Lucas was still treating him hour by hour, stubbornly refusing to give up hope of a recovery. The CSF leak had stopped once they’d got control of the infection, and while a subsequent scan had shown a little brain activity, it was still not as positive as everyone had hoped.
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