by Amy Andrews
He strode blindly with her through to her bedroom, throwing her on the bed, her T-shirt hiked up, her hair spread out all around her like a mermaid.
“Get undressed,” he panted, looking down at her as he toed his shoes off, pulled his shirt over his head, unzipped his fly.
He stopped for a moment as she wriggled out of her shirt. The light was out but enough of the lounge light behind him filtered in to see her breasts laid bare to his eyes. He salivated at the thought of tasting them. Watching her watch him through half-closed lids was sexy as hell and he pushed his trousers and underpants off his hips, his erection springing free.
Addie reared up then and when her mouth closed over him he bucked and groaned, his eyes closing as his hands pushed into her hair. But he was balanced on a knife edge, too close to last long under the delicious suck of her mouth and the swipe of her tongue, and he pulled away, pushing her back on the bed again.
“Why are your pants still on?” he demanded huskily before he reached for the waist band and peeled them back, her underwear included, in one fell swoop, laying all of her bare to him.
And then she was rolling on her stomach, commando crawling closer to the other edge, reaching out to the bedside table delving in the drawer where he knew she kept the condoms, but the shift and wriggle of her buttocks was too enticing, just too, too much and he lowered himself onto her, kissing her back, her shoulders, her neck as his bent arms supported him, his erection rubbing along the cleft of her buttocks.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned in her ear.
Her answering moan was bone-deep satisfying, as was her slight lift as she passed the condom back, allowing him to slide a hand onto her breast. She turned her head toward his lips and he claimed her mouth. She moaned again as he squeezed and cupped her, his thumb rubbing over an engorged nipple.
“Hurry,” she gasped.
In ten seconds, he’d torn the foil packet with his teeth and, one-handed, sheathed himself and then she was pushing back up into him, raising herself up on her hands and knees telling him to Hurry, hurry, hurry.
The sight of her like this, her breasts swinging, her hair falling forward, was almost his undoing and he grabbed her hips roughly, taking only a moment to center himself before he was pushing into her high and hard.
He groaned as he slid in deep and she cried out as he nudged the neck of her womb. “Are you okay?” he gasped as her heat and tightness enveloped him in a wave of pleasure.
“Yes,” she panted. “More…more.”
Nathaniel complied, leaning over her, reaching for her breasts as he thrust in and out with deliberate slowness, each gentle movement grazing the nipples against his palms.
He shut his eyes and picked up the pace. “Yes, yes,” she gasped and he moved a hand down her belly and slid his fingers into the heat at her center. She moaned loudly as he found the right spot.
“Addie,” he groaned as she pushed back to meet his thrusts, stirring him to go harder, to go faster, his fingers moving in time.
And then she was throwing her head back, calling his name, trembling against him as she cried out and his orgasm rushed out to join hers and space and time and light splintered around him until there was just her and him and the rock and pound of their release.
…
Addie awoke to daylight. Her throat was scratchy, her bladder was full, and a heavy male arm was anchored around her waist. She didn’t remember much after they’d both collapsed on the bed together post-wild animal sex. Just crawling under the covers with him, turning in his arms, and drifting off to sleep.
She supposed they should have talked, but she was exhausted in a way that only a truly good orgasm could make you, and in the afterglow she didn’t trust herself not to blurt out the truth.
That she loved him.
So she’d shut her eyes and let the thump of his heart beneath her ear rock her into the oblivion of sleep where she could love him in her dreams.
And he would love her back.
But this morning, she had some hard facts to face. Succumbing to passion last night had been impulsive and unwise, no matter how good. A steady diet of head-banging sex wasn’t going to fix their problems. They were still fundamentally at odds and she didn’t see a way around that.
But maybe, for just a little while longer, she could lie in his arms and pretend everything was okay.
Which was fine for another five minutes until she couldn’t ignore the need to go to the toilet anymore and she shifted away from him.
“Hey,” he muttered, grabbing for her.
Addie looked at him, his jaw dark with unshaven stubble and she shivered, remembering how it had scratched along her back and neck last night. He opened his eyes and they were so impossibly blue her heart skipped a beat. “Just going to the loo,” she said.
He grinned. “Hurry back. I have something for you.”
Addie’s heart broke at his teasing. She wanted exactly this. Waking up next to him every morning with that look in his eyes that told her he was definitely going to perv on her when she got out of the bed.
But she didn’t see how it could work.
She slid out from under the covers, the temperature outside the duvet much, much cooler. Her nipples beaded when she stood and she turned and looked over her shoulder, waiting for his comment.
Instead, he was gaping at her as he vaulted upright. “Addie. Jesus, Addie!”
She frowned. “What?”
He was looking at her with an expression of horror, and Addie felt a spike of fear as the hair on her arms stood on end. “Your hips. I’m so sorry…I didn’t think I was that rough.”
Addie looked down and was greeted by dark black bruises on each hipbone that looked suspiciously like finger marks. For a moment, not a single thought entered her mind as she stood staring at them, frozen to the spot.
Then a hundred bad memories rushed out at her and she twisted back and forth, her neck craning around trying to see over her shoulder. “Are there any more?” she asked him frantically her heart rate beating off the scale.
Nathaniel frowned. “No, of course not. I wasn’t that rough. I don’t—”
She didn’t give him a chance to finish, bolting for the bathroom, slamming the door after her. She headed straight to the mirror. Her face looked flushed and suddenly her scratchy throat took on a whole other meaning.
This was how it has started last time. Waking up with what she thought was the flu and a whole bunch of bruises.
She saw panic in her gaze and fear and she placed her forehead against the cool glass before she saw death.
God, no, please. Not now. I’m just a couple of months shy of my five years. Please, I can’t go through this again.
“Addie?”
Oh God, Nate. Why, oh why, did he come into her life now? Was there some sick, grand plan to kick her while she was down?
“Are you okay?” he called from the bedroom.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” she called, her hands shaking as she sat on the loo to relieve herself, her brain grappling with a hundred worst-case scenarios.
She took some deep breaths trying to calm herself, trying to find her center. She shut her eyes reciting her precious numbers, counting from one, chanting them quietly like a benediction, but she was too panicked and she kept losing her place as a more desperate mantra took over.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.
She felt tears prick her eyes and she pushed the balls of her hands into them as she rocked back and forth.
“Addie?”
How was it fair to finally fall in love and not only have it potentially snatched away, but to be with someone who seemed incapable of loving anything that didn’t have a pound sign attached?
She grabbed her fluffy robe off the back of the bathroom door and threw it on. She had to get rid of him. She couldn’t have him here. Have him around her. If he wasn’t on her side, he had to go. If she had to face leukemia again, she needed
people she could count on around her.
Goddamn wretched, horrid, cruel disease!
She quickly washed her hands and splashed water on her face, then opened the door. He was sitting on the side of the bed in his underwear.
“Addie.” He held his arms out for her but she stayed well out of their reach and he dropped them, running the flats of his palms up and down his bare thighs. “I’m so sorry. I really don’t think I was that rough. I know I kind of grabbed you but I didn’t think it would be hard enough to bruise you.”
Addie nodded. “It’s okay, it’s not you. Don’t worry.”
Nathaniel frowned. “This has happened before?”
Addie sat on the bed at a safe distance. “Yes.” Tears threatened again and she swallowed hard against them. “When I was first diagnosed with…my illness five years ago.”
She couldn’t even say the word. Didn’t want to. If she said it—the “L” word—it would be like opening the gate. She watched as he caught on fast.
He shuffled nearer. “Do you think—are you saying—”
She shut her eyes because she didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to go back to bed and pull the covers over her head and start the day all over again.
“Is the leukemia back?”
She shook her head vigorously as Nathaniel named the unmentionable, as if she could erase it ever being said.
It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
She opened her eyes. “I’ll have to get some blood tests. I’ll make an appointment with the doctor as soon as they’re open.”
Addie congratulated herself on how calm she sounded. Except for a very slight tremor in her voice, she doubted he could tell. Which was pretty damn amazing, considering she was hyperventilating on the inside.
Nathaniel nodded and reached for her hand. “I’ll come with you.”
Addie felt tears well as their joined hands blurred before her eyes and she blinked them away. She didn’t want or need his pseudo concern.
“There’s no need,” she said briskly, dropping his hand as she stood, moving to stand over the other side of the bed to him.
“I don’t mind.”
Addie felt a sudden surge of anger. “Going to take some time out of your work day, are you?” she asked caustically and when he hesitated, she shook her head. “Just go, Nate. Go to work. Go back to your life. Knock down the garden, make your billion pounds. I’ll be fine.”
Nathaniel stood and still, even in the middle of this terrible crisis, she loved him. “I just need to call Margaret and rework some things.”
Addie nodded. Of course he did. Any other man involved with a woman staring down a leukemia relapse would just ring and say he wasn’t coming in.
And that was the difference between being with someone and being in love with them.
“There’s no need. I’ll call Penny.”
Not a conversation she was looking forward to. Penny would be just as devastated as she was.
“I can do it,” he insisted.
“Why?” she demanded. “There’s no obligation for you to do so. I’ve only ever been a pain in the arse to you anyway. Consider this your get out of jail free card.”
He glared at her. “Addie, please.”
But she was suddenly incensed, building up to a rage because it was easier to concentrate on that than what might be going on in her body right now. She loved him but she didn’t want him here when he didn’t love her back.
“I don’t want you here, Nate. Ever since you’ve been in my life, I’ve been sucked back into a world where nothing matters but working and the pursuit of money. The kind of life that I left behind. For good reason. It’s not healthy and if I’m going through this again, I don’t need unhealthy influences.”
Addie looked at the floor. His discarded clothes were near her feet and she scooped them up. She threw them on the bed. “Just go. I don’t want you here.”
She turned and left the bedroom, her determination to be strong lasting only until he brushed past her fully clothed five minutes later, telling her he’d ring.
The doors shut behind him and she burst into tears. Because she was frightened and angry. But mostly because she wanted to call him back and tell him she’d take whatever crumbs were left over at the end of his busy day as long as he loved her.
Chapter Twelve
It was three–thirty in the afternoon when Nathaniel managed to track Addie down at the pathology department at the local NHS hospital. He’d been going out of his mind all day. He’d rung her phone about a hundred times but it kept going to voicemail. Margaret had finally managed to get hold of Penny’s number and wheedle Addie’s appointment time for her blood test out of her.
He was almost frantic when he saw her sitting in one of the rows of hard plastic chairs. All he’d been able to think about all day was that damn picture on her fridge and it was driving him crazy.
“Hi,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
She looked up from her frenetic scribbling in a notebook and a hand closed around his gut. She usually smiled when she saw him, was upbeat no matter what his mood was. When he looked back now, he’d been generally annoyed and disagreeable with her, but now she just looked at him and sighed, anxiety clouding her gray eyes.
“What are you doing here, Nate?”
“I don’t want you to be here alone.”
“I’m not. Penny’s just gone to move the car. We’ve been here longer than expected.”
He shrugged and sat beside her. “So I’ll wait with you.”
“There’s no need,” she said and the flatness of her tone was chilling.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, deciding to ignore her objections.
“About ninety minutes.”
He looked at the ticket in her hand with her number. The digital display overhead told him Addie was still four places away from being seen. “That’s ridiculous.”
She shrugged. “It’s the NHS. They’re busy.”
He looked around at the other occupants of the awful plastic seats. Two elderly people, a skinny man in probably his forties, and directly in front of them a woman whose age wasn’t obvious but given that she had her arm around a beanie-clad child who looked about six or seven from the back, Nate guessed probably in her thirties. Although why she would bring her child to this kind of hell he had no idea.
“I could have had you in with my doctor and tests all done in a couple of hours today.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” she said, her voice dull as she returned her attention to the notebook.
He glanced at her sharply. She looked tired, which wasn’t surprising, given the sheer awfulness of the chair she’d been sitting in for an hour and a half. And if her thoughts were as dark as his, she had to be going out of her mind.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he looked at her notebook.
“Writing down prime numbers,” she said, not bothering to look at him as she finished a page and quickly flicked it over to join a thick wad of others before starting again instantly on the pristine lined paper.
He frowned. Didn’t they go on ad infinitum? She certainly appeared to be well into the millions. “Why?”
“Because it calms me,” she snapped.
“It does?”
She nodded. “Numbers always have. I use them to help me relax when I meditate.”
Nathaniel wanted to ask her more, but her demeanor was not exactly conducive to conversation. And as long as they were helping her keep it together, that had to be a good thing, right? His gaze flicked back to the screen as the number changed and an automated voice over requested the owner of the next ticket in line. The skinny man stood and moved toward the glass window as indicated.
“How are you feeling?” Nathaniel asked after she’d filled another page and flicked it over.
Addie, her gaze firmly fixed on her work said, “If you want to stay, then I can’t stop you, but don’t talk, okay? I’m trying really hard to stay calm an
d find my center and you are, as per usual, screwing with it.”
It was disconcerting to hear her Shut up and be quiet put so serenely. It was not repeated when his phone rang a minute later. “If you’re going to stay, then turn that damn thing off,” she hissed, gesturing to the nearest of many signs that requested phones be switched off while inside.
Nate never switched his phone off. Not even on planes when they requested passengers do so just before takeoff and landing. But her glare brooked no argument and he pushed the off button.
A few minutes later, the couple got up when their number was displayed and Nate checked his watch. A sign up near the glass window caught his eye.
Results for blood drawn after four p.m. will not be available until the following morning.
He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to go with the woman in front of them presumably up next. His heart beat harder—after waiting an hour and a half, Addie was going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out whether her leukemia was back?
No. Absolutely not.
That was madness. She couldn’t wait till then. It was mental torture for him—it had to be worse for her. For God’s sake, she’d reverted to doing math! And she should be starting treatment immediately, shouldn’t she? He’d get her hooked up with the best oncologist in London. At the best hospital. He’d take care of everything. All she had to do was beat this thing. She’d done it once, she could do it again.
But he was damned if she was going to wait until tomorrow.
He stood and said, “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He felt Addie’s hand on his arm and turned. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“Just going to see if I can’t speed the process up a little.” He pulled away and approached the window.
The woman behind the window looked his mother’s age and not someone who suffered fools gladly. He shot her his best smile.