Moving closer, Crystal placed her arms around his neck and leaned into him. The kiss changed so fast she felt a tingle all the way through her body. Her heart sped up and her breathing accelerated as he took their connection deeper. His tongue danced around her mouth with such intensity, it surprised and scared her all at the same time. The kiss felt like nothing she’d experienced before. It traveled through her at such a rapid pace, her body immediately filled with a need to experience the touch of their naked skin pressed against each other’s.
Crystal pulled away and walked to the door while attempting to slow her breathing. When she reached it she looked over her shoulder.
“Are you coming?”
“Lead the way.”
Off the hallway, she stopped by a door, turned the handle and entered the room, all the while feeling Shane’s presence only inches behind her. The touch of a soft kiss against her neck caused goosebumps to rise on her skin. She switched on the light, stepped back and watched as he glanced around.
“This isn’t your bedroom is it?”
“Nope. I said you could sleep over, not sleep with me.”
Crystal enjoyed the sound of his laughter. It showed her that he didn’t take himself too seriously. She liked that. All that remained was for her to find out just how much she liked him.
When Crystal woke up for work the next morning her house so quiet, she couldn’t tell if Shane was still there. Tiptoeing to her spare room, she quietly opened the door and peeked in.
She smiled. There he was, stretched out across the bed with the yellow and white covers hanging mostly on the floor. Feeling pleased that he hadn’t left while she was asleep, she retreated and closed the door.
Dressed and ready to leave for the day, Crystal gave a small yelp when she turned and saw a sleep disheveled Shane watching her from the doorway of her kitchen.
“Were ya gonna leave without saying goodbye?”
“Yes, but I was going to leave you a note.”
“Good thing I’m a light sleeper then ain’t it.”
“Um... if you say so but I looked in on you an hour ago.”
“I must have been more tired than I thought. How about a good morning kiss?” Half way towards her, he stopped. “Don’t move, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Crystal looked at the big clock hanging on her wall and frowned. Picking up her coat, she put it on while she waited, sure he wouldn’t notice the one little change.
“I thought I told ya not to move.”
Crystal laughed before she realized he was actually serious. “I’m going to be late for work, Shane. I need to go.”
“Well ya better stop wasting time and get over here and kiss me.”
In less than ten minutes the man had ordered her around twice and somehow she didn’t seem to mind. Moving forward, he opened his arms and she stepped into them. Having him in her house and being in his arms for some reason felt completely natural.
His lips descended and Crystal understood why he had disappeared. His breath was minty fresh—he had found the toothbrush she had left out for him.
Giving her a gentle brush across the lips, he pulled away. “Morning, Crys,” he said as he smiled down at her.
“Good morning, Shane.”
His eyes sparkled and Crystal would have been content for hours just standing there wrapped in his arms.
“You liked that, huh? But I can do way better.”
His head lowered again and as their lips met everything around her exploded. They both jumped back.
“Shit!”
“Blood hell!” They both exclaimed at the same time. Then broke into laughter.
“Give me two minutes.”
“I can’t. If I don’t leave now I’m going to miss my bus.”
“I’m driving ya to work and while we’re on the way, we can talk about what just happened and when we’re gonna see each other again.
After that first morning they had either spoken or seen each other every day. This was the happiest she had ever been and she knew it was all because of Shane. He made her happy with his cheeky comments and dry sense of humor. Finally, she felt as though she was breaking out of her mother’s shadow. Living the life she wanted to and not the one Gwendolyn had prescribed for her.
Leaving work, Crystal rushed out of the building and looked around. There he was. Just as he said he would be leaning against his car waiting for her.
Crystal hurried forward. When he saw her, he smiled in greeting.
“Hello, love. Did ya have a good day?”
“Yes, and it just got better.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes, because of you.”
Sometimes Crystal didn’t understand him. One moment he was so sure of himself and the next it was as though he couldn’t understand why she loved being with him.
“Well, that’s good then, ain’t it,” he said giving her a kiss. “Come on let’s go.”
This was the first time she was going to Shane’s place and she was excited. He’d been boasting about his cooking skills and Crystal couldn’t wait to taste whatever he plated up.
He had told her that he was a mechanic and that he lived and worked in the same building, so she was prepared for something industrial looking from outside. What she wasn’t ready for was the sight of his huge loft.
“Oh, my God, Shane this place is fantastic!”
“Um… yeah, it’s okay.”
“Okay… okay. Are you bloody joking? You have to let me decorate it for you.”
“What’s the matter with how it looks now?”
“Well, for a start, Lofts call for designated areas. You’re going to need a living area and an office area. And we’re going to have to put up a partition to separate your bedroom. If we don’t get you organized you’ll just end up living in chaos.”
Crystal was chatting so much she never noticed his skeptical look or when he shrugged and walked away. Nor did she consider the fact that he’d been living just fine in chaos as she termed it for years. In her head she was already planning out every detail of the changes she was going to make.
Rummaging through her portfolio case, she withdrew a pad and pencil and got to work on some sketches. Lost in what she was doing, she paid him no attention until he all but shouted her name.
Rushing over to where he was standing by the stove, she followed the direction of his gaze. Her hand slapped over her mouth to hold in her laughter.
Shane had attempted to cook her Caribbean food. He had already dished out what looked like overcooked boiled plantain and yellow yam. But he wasn’t looking at that. His gaze was on pieces of white fluff that floated on the surface of a pot.
“Do these look right to you, Crys,” he asked as he poked at the white misshapen balls with a frown.
“You’re supposed to use plain flour not self-raising for boiled dumplings.”
“Shit! Dizzy never told me that!”
“It’s okay, everything else looks lovely,” she lied.
“Like shite it does. Come on, let’s go to the pub.”
That night they made love for the first time and, for Crystal, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of her life.
To redeem himself, the next night he attempted the same meal, and this time he got it right and it was delicious. The man could cook.
~~~
Present Date
Shane often thought of his mother and the visit they had made to Ireland. Now, only vague memories of the old man remained. However, what had never faded from his mind was the affection he’d felt between his mother and her grandfather. He remembered that he too had wanted to experience that feeling of closeness with someone, and with Crystal, he knew that he did.
Apart from that one occasion, no matter how hard he tried, his recollections of his mother were always tinged with bleakness. Refusing to allow gloomy thoughts to spoil the afternoon he had planned, he consciously relegated thoughts of Molly to the back of his mind.
Minutes later hands
covered his eyes. He had heard her the moment she’d opened the front door, but it always amused him that she thought she could sneak up on him.
“Happy birthday, love!”
“You could at least act surprised!” Crystal huffed.
“Yeah, I could.” Shane laughed as she removed her hands.
Spinning around in his chair, he took a good look at the woman who had unexpectedly become his world. To him, Crystal was beautiful. He especially loved her upturned nose that looked haughty even as her mouth belied the impression. As usual, she was immaculately dressed. It made no difference where she was going, she never seemed to have a hair out of place—except after they had made love.
He had worked hard at isolating his emotions. Yet, out of nowhere, he’d gotten close to her and it had taken less than two years. In that relatively short period of time, Crystal Buchanan had somehow managed to burrow under his defenses. She was now so important to him, he sometimes awoke in the middle of the night with his body covered in sweat thinking she had left him. When he realized it was only a dream, his anxiety would slowly ebb away.
“How’s my toy-boy?” Crystal asked bending to give him a kiss on his scruffy cheek.
“I’m your toy-boy, now am I?”
“It’s my birthday, so that makes me officially twenty-five to your twenty-four.”
“Okay, you can have this one, but I’ll have caught up by next month,” Shane replied pulling her onto his lap. “I missed ya, love!”
“I missed you too.”
“So what do I have to do to get a kiss from the birthday girl?”
“Oh, ya want a kiss, do ya?” Crystal asked mimicking his cockney accent as she ran a hand over his face.
“I love it when you touch me, all soft and gentle like that,” Shane murmured as his head turned to follow the path of her fingers and culminated with a kiss on her palm.
“What else do you love?” Crystal teased as she took his face between her hands and rested her forehead against his.
“Fast cars and faster women.”
“Is there even an ounce of romance in your bones?”
“I reckon I can be as romantic as the next bloke. All I need is the right motivation.”
“May I remind you it’s my birthday,” She teased.
Without waiting for a response, she kissed him just the way she knew he liked it, slow and easy. There was no rush. They had the whole afternoon to spend together. For now, all he wanted was to feel the softness of her lips against his.
She felt so good to him with her breasts pressed against his chest that he deepened the kiss. Shane moved his tongue against hers with a slowness that caused his body to harden and his breath to accelerate.
For him, it was always like this. All it took was a few minutes in her company for him to want to make love to her. Pulling back before they got carried away, he stood up. Crystal’s legs immediately wrapped around his waist and he laughed.
“God, when did you turn into such a lazy lump?”
“Oh, you want to talk about lumps do you? Well, let’s address this one.” Crystal smiled as she anchored herself with an arm around his neck, and palmed his erection, and squeezed none too gently.
“Leave off will ya. Ya need to handle him with care.”
“I thought this was my birthday present.”
“Well ya thought right, but I’ve got something else for you as well. If you let go of me dick for two minutes, I’ll get it.”
“Geez,” Crystal sighed in mock exasperation as she slid down his body. “To hear you talk, anyone would think I was some kind of pervert.”
“Don’t worry, you can perv on me dick later.”
“Well, maybe I won’t be interested later.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the adult in this relationship!” Shane laughed at her sulky expression.
“You are such a fuc–”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! If Queen Gwendolyn Buchanan could only hear Princess Crystal’s language, she would rend, yes, rend apart her silken lawyer robes.”
“Shut up you fool!”
“Do you want your present or not?”
“Yes please,” Crystal said giving him her cutest smile.
Shane strolled over to a table near the front door and picked up a brown paper bag. By the time he turned around, she was standing directly behind him. Holding the bag above his head, he shooed her away.
“Lord, Shane, couldn’t you have wrapped it up?”
“For that, I should make ya wait before ya open it.”
“You probably don’t even know how to wrap a gift for a lady, do you?”
“Lady, my arse. More like a kid on Christmas morning.”
“May I please have my birthday present?”
As he lowered the bag, Crystal grabbed it out of his hand and rushed over to the sofa. In her eagerness, he thought she would rip the bag apart to see what was inside. To his surprise, she did the complete opposite. With great care, she took her time unfolding the paper. Then she pulled the wrapping apart, looked at him and smiled, before returning her attention to her gift.
Reaching into the bag, Crystal pulled out its content. “Oh,” she gushed, “you bought me a… rock! It’s a very lovely rock, Shane, thank you.”
She was doing it again. She was about to make him laugh. It was obvious she had no idea what she was looking at. Yet her emotional reaction to what she supposed was a rock touched him. Striding over to the sofa, he sat down beside her. First he looked down at his gift and then turned his piercing gaze to his love.
“I know it looks like just a piece of rock, but it’s called Amazonite. It’s a crystal.” When he had her full attention, he continued. “Sometimes Amazonite is referred to as the Amazon stone–”
“Like the mythical female warriors?”
“Exactly,” he smiled. “Mythology says that the Amazonian warriors used this quartz to decorate their shields. But that’s not why I chose it for ya. I got it because you’ve just started your business. Apparently, Amazonite is supposed to bring prosperity and protect against any fuc…people who want to mess with ya. It’s also supposed to bring ya new customers and make ya loads of money.”
“Do you believe all that,” Crystal asked with an incredulous glance.
“Do I fuc…um, no but I like the thoughts behind it.”
“I do too. Thank you. ‘I’ll always treasure it.”
Shane turned his attention to the stone. In her hand, Crystal held a piece of turquoise rock with spider-like veins of white running through it. On the outer ends, there were two thicker bands of white that looked like flashes of lightning. On the rough edges and throughout the stone, flecks of gold were also visible. Looking up, he saw that she too studied the quartz, her fingers running over its rough surface.
“I’ve got something else–”
“You got me another present?”
Shane couldn’t help laughing at her eagerness at the thought of another gift. “Nah, this is for me. But I suppose in a roundabout way, it’s for you as well.”
At her blank look, he got up and walked to his desk. When he returned, he carried an envelope. Retaking his seat, he licked his lips as he stared down at the thin package that he had yet to open.
“Oh my God, Shane, it finally came!”
“Yeah.”
“Why haven’t you opened it?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Well, I’m here now, so go ahead and open that thing.”
“What if they said no, Crys?”
“Of course they haven’t. I believe in you, Shane Tierney. I may not have the faintest idea what this new nose cone means to the racing world, but I know you do. Plus, you’re a brilliant engineer, so how could they say, no.”
“Thanks, love. Here, open it for me.”
Shane handed her the envelope and fixed his gaze on her face as he waited.
He heard the reluctant release of the glue as she pulled the sticky flap of the envelope apart. Next came
the rustling of the paper as she unfolded the letter. In his mind’s eye, he could see her fingers at work. His heart was thumping so hard he had to exert all his concentration not to hyperventilate.
To date, this was the single most important moment of his life, and he was glad Crystal was there to share it with him. Her eyes remained lowered as she read the letter.
When she finally looked at him, she had tears in her eyes and a part of him had already known what the outcome would be. He had poured all his efforts into getting it right. He had been working on the design of his new nose cone since he was sixteen years old. He had built all his hopes and dreams around the success of his Drag Reduction System, or D.R.S. as it was known in Formula 1.
He’d been here before with the refusal of his patent. Making this work had been his sole focus for so long, he had used all his spare money and his free time to make it work.
Being granted the patent would have meant he would have had something to guarantee their future. It would have been the foundation on which he could say the words I love you. Without it, he had nothing tangible to offer her, nothing except his love. And who could live on love.
“They passed it, Shane.”
“What?”
“They said yes!”
“Why are ya crying if they said, yes?”
“Because I’m so proud of you. You did what you set out to do. I knew you would get this patent because you’re so bloody brilliant!”
Shane gathered her up and sat her on his lap before he spoke again. “Thanks love. Your belief in me means everything.”
They spent a few moments hugging, kissing and him wiping away her tears. When they were both a little more composed, he asked her to read him the letter. As the sound of her voice washed over him, he remained completely still. When she finally came to an end, Shane held her face steady between his hands and stared deeply into her eyes.
“Do you know what this means?”
“Um… yes, I think so.”
“It means I can tell ya, I love you. It means that I have something to offer. This is our future, love. You and me, side by side loving each other.”
Just then a feeling of dread gripped him. He’d bared his heart to her but what if she didn’t feel the same way. He hated that he didn’t know for sure how she felt about him. But, he knew he didn’t want to recall the words. They were what was in his heart, and he wanted her to know, even if she didn’t return his feelings.
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