by Gina Rossi
“Forgive me.” I think that’s what he says, murmuring into my hair.
A second later, we’re kissing. How did that happen? It just did. Slow, delicious kisses of discovery, so tender, so perfect, I forget how cold my bare feet are on the dew-soaked grass.
Excitement heats my nerves, driven by the pressure of Lucas’s hands on my body, his lips on my mouth, his closeness, the smell of his warm skin.
“I could work in London,” he says.
All sensation vanishes like air whooshing out of a balloon. I tense in his arms, startled. “Why?”
His grip tightens. “So we could see each other.”
“See each other how?”
“Like we do now.”
I leave go of him, an unbidden image flashing through my mind of that Jeep, parked in a narrow London street, of Alice waving at me through a window streaming with incessant, cold, grey rain. What about Buster? What would happen to him? Head down, I whisper, “It wouldn’t work.” But I don’t think Lucas hears over the sound of the sea.
We go back to the house, holding hands. It’s chummy, and awkward.
“Time for bed,” I say, taking care to keep my tone neutral. Taking care, so it doesn’t come out as: “Time for bed?”
“Sleep tight.” He disappears into the studio, and I tramp upstairs on cold feet.
It’s a start. Or is it?
****
John calls, first thing in the morning. I scuttle upstairs and shut myself in the bedroom. “Can you come and see me? It’s about Lucas. There’s something I’d like to discuss.”
“Is he all right?”
“I think so…it’s just…”
Just what exactly? “I-I thought you might like to come over for a visit.”
“Not now. Rayna is showing signs of early labour. I can’t leave her. Can you guys come here?”
“I…no. Don’t worry.” John’s hands are full, and what was I going to tell him anyway? Lucas was very drunk one night and slightly drunk yesterday? That’s lame. I can handle this. “Never mind, really.”
“You sure?”
“Sure. Call me when Rayna, um, improves.”
“Will do.” He hangs up.
“Who’s Rayna?” I ask Alice, at breakfast.
“Uncle John’s labradog,” she tells me.
I think for a moment. “And who’s Rayna’s mummy?”
“My Aunty Debra. She has a baby in her tummy.”
I’m not sure I’ll be getting much help, let alone a visit, from John any time soon.
****
After dropping Alice at school, I go into town to do some shopping and here’s David Hu coming out of the grocery store, the exact man I want to see, though I would have happily put it off.
“Good morning, David.”
“Hi.” He lowers his voice. “Everything okay at Blue Rocks this morning?”
“Er, yes.”
“Lucas okay?”
I seize the moment. “What happened last night?”
David Hu sets down his shopping bag and looks around. “Lucas came into Murphy’s for a drink and a chat on his way home. Said you had told him to get out more.”
“I did, but not so as to get into trouble.”
“Not his fault. Some guy, a real oddball, came in and started making comments about you.”
“Me?”
“He told the assembled company you’d challenged his driving. He used real bad words. Lucas got pretty pissed off. So did a few other people.”
“I see.”
Back home, I peer through the glass door panes of the studio. Lucas, head down has two laptops open on either side of his desktop and rivers of paperwork flowing in every direction. I go to the kitchen, make coffee and carry it in to him.
“David told me what happened last night at Murphy’s,” I say.
He doesn’t look up. “Yeah, well, some prick took it on himself—”
“David told me. Why let a low-life get under your skin, Lucas?”
“I didn’t like what he had to say.”
“Like what?”
“You don’t want to know.” His head comes up, his eyes, fully focussed on me, are the colour of a fine single-malt whisky and equally dangerous, this time of the morning.
“What did he say?” I sit on the edge of his desk, arms folded, determined.
His eyes darken. “That you were a sexy little hellcat, cute as fuck, with an accent like a princess and great tits.”
I’m so taken aback I laugh.
He frowns. “What’s funny?”
“That. That comment.”
“It’s true.”
I raise my eyebrows. “So, now, you agree with the low-life? How did you come to argue?”
“Jeez!” He’s on his feet. He’s got me by the waist, lifting me up in one quick, strong movement so my legs are around his waist. I have to hang on, arms around his neck, or crash through the window.
“Lucas.”
He strides to the end of the room where, opposite the last tall window, next to the man-stuff cupboard, he more or less chucks me onto a sofa. He straddles my body, pinning me with his thighs to the leather cushion, leaning on his elbows, his forehead resting on mine.
“Quit messing about,” he growls, but smiling—his eyes filled with laughter like I have never seen them before. I’m fascinated.
“Only if you get some barbed-wire tattoos around your wrists!” I wriggle, but he holds me tight.
“You on contraception?”
“No.”
He shoves a hand in his pocket and slaps the obligatory condom packet onto the back of the sofa.
“Quite the boy scout,” I remark, lifting my head to see what else has come out of his pocket. My photo. The one that was missing off my CV. I guess that condom has been waiting for me and I say as much.
“Who else?” Lucas, voice gruff, won’t look at me now. Businesslike, he’s taking off my clothes.
“Hey, not fair! You’ve still got all your clothes on, and I’m completely—”
His sudden grin drives a hot tremor the length of my body. “Then quit lying on your sexy little ass, doing nothing.”
There’s some laughing and little wrestling by me, which is quite pointless because Lucas, way stronger, is making a point he’s in charge and, moreover, he’s on top, and he’s hungry.
“Anything you don’t like doing?” he asks, eyes on my naked breasts.
“No.” You only live once. Ooh, there go my jeans. And the rest.
Lucas, kneeling over me, eyes loaded, merely unbuckles his belt, unzips his jeans, and lowers himself. Do I imagine that I’m at some disadvantage here? All I’ve done is open the top two buttons of his shirt, fancying some shirt-wrangling over and off a set of big shoulders. That, alone, would be mega-arousing—but I should have worked faster, should have leaped to and stripped him bare before he…
Okay, I’m going to stop with the shirt now because…because Lucas is running those large warm hands up and down the outside of my thighs and I might well ignite—ooooh, and the inside—or erupt, or both, any second, ruining the impression of a languid, experienced, utterly-in-control seductress.
Hands on my waist now. His breathing is turning me on. His breathing.
Now, a quick, hmm, highly efficient tearing of foil.
Here he is, all of him. Wow, that’s fast. And that’s the end of me, because, at the same time, he is a neat, effective kisser with perfect timing. Hands on my bum, pulling me up so he can go deep, gentle kisses on my eyelids and nose, then gentle tongue in my mouth.
I go from starved to saturated in that split second before take-off.
Flashpoint.
Sensational.
“Mm, mm, mm,” I say, swallowing the urge to grind out loud, unladylike grunts of pleasure, like an ecstatic pig on a mountain of clover—with flowers.
He’s smiling against my cheek; I can feel the crinkle of the skin near his eyes. Those fabulous sexy lines that spring up high on his cheekbones to
signal the start of that scarce grin. Does he know I’m thinking about pigs?
I want Lucas to like this, I do. I wind my legs around his waist, pull my weight from under him so we land up half on our sides, facing each other, him still mostly on top and me wedged against the back of this obliging sofa, smooth and cool on the skin of my bare back. During all this movement Lucas keeps his hands on my breasts, looking at me. I settle, and hold his face. It’s my turn to kiss. His eyes are wide open, blank, but also somehow seeing way deep inside me, seeing things even I didn’t know were there. He’s glazed, but there’s a world of ideas revolving there.
Oh right. Here it comes, and we’re flying, shooting past that exquisite point of no return. I wind my arms around his neck, pull him in with my legs, as far as he can possible go, and then some. Lucas is not ladylike whatsoever. Not so much the grunts of a happy pig but the shouts of a boxer taking heavy body blows from a sturdy opponent.
He comes with such intensity, like it’s the last thing left in the world to do, like he’s going to die, I’m not kidding. It’s a first for me. Sexy in retrospect, I later decide, but frightening right now, to be honest. I’m concerned.
“Lucas, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” But he’s out of breath, chest heaving like he’s busy with a heart attack.
“Open your eyes and look at me!”
He does, and laughs. “Man!” He throws his head back, laughs again, drops his head and looks at me. “You,” he says.
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You are fucking awesome!”
I am? “Thank you. You’re not bad yourself.”
“Ah, Lara Jasmine Layla, are all Englishwomen this sexy?”
“Absolutely, yes.”
“Absolutely, yes.” He mimics, his accent perfect, his facial expression not so.
“I hope I don’t look like that when I—”
He’s kissing me again. “You’re cold. This is like eating ice cream.” Kiss.
“I am cold. I have nothing on.” Nothing bar a pair of small, diamond sea horse earrings.
“You have earrings,” he says. Kiss.
I touch them, a fingertip on each. “I love them.”
“I love you.” Kiss.
What?
Silence.
Silence for a full five seconds and then the sea horse doorbell shrieks like someone has bashed a dinner gong over our heads.
Lucas turns his head in the direction of the door. “Who the hell—”
Any number of people. “Get off, Lucas. Get off me. Someone’s here.” It can’t be Alice. Why would it be Alice? She’s at school until I collect her. It could be the receptionist from Sea Crest Inn who said she’d pop by with a few orders and a cheque, or Ronnie Pick with the basket of plums he promised me, or Angie, or Jay, collecting Molly’s pullover she left here the day before yesterday. What if it’s John? Maybe our call this morning bothered him, and he’s whizzed up from Boston at the speed of light? It could even be Agat, delivering a dolly stuck full of pins.
Lucas takes his time over a last, long, slow kiss. A sweet full-stop on a weekday morning. I close my eyes, tasting my future there.
“I’ll go.” He gets up, kneeing me in the ribs.
“Ooph! Thanks, because I am naked.”
“My pleasure.” He grins and takes off his shirt, handing it to me. “Here.” It’s all gorgeous: the smile, eyes, shoulders, hair on chest, arms, hands, six-pack, everything.
“Do up your jeans.” I avert my eyes, take the shirt and put it on. It’s huge and warm and smells of Lucas.
And me.
Us.
****
Who’s the unwelcome guest with such inappropriate timing? I wait, hiding in Lucas’s studio until he comes back, pulling on a tee-shirt. “Got any cash?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“Lend me fifty. It’s for Uncle Buck. He needs an advance.”
“Advance for what?”
“He’ll come and mow the lawn next week.”
“When next week?” I make a mental note to be off the property on that day.
“Who knows? Maybe he comes the week after. Maybe he doesn’t come at all.”
In the kitchen, I get my purse out of my handbag and hand fifty dollars to the Bank of Lucas. “I hope he pays you back.”
“You.” He winks. “He will. Always does, one way or another.” Off he goes. A minute later he’s back, opening the fridge. “I don’t mind helping him out. He had a rough time in Vietnam, back in the seventies. I reckon he’s paid his dues.” I glance through the kitchen window and see Buck’s ancient pickup clattering away down the drive.
Lucas, fridge door wide open, gazes at the contents.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“Food. Sex always makes me hungry.”
Always? Like a daily occurrence? “There’s pancake batter.” I point to a sealed plastic container on the middle shelf.
“Oh boy.” He takes out the bowl. “Want some?”
“I’m going up to have a shower.”
His eyes light up. “Need some help?”
I laugh, going upstairs, coming down showered and changed twenty minutes later to the sound of the doorbell, again. It’s the postman this time with a letter for which someone needs to sign, followed quickly by Cherri, bearing several jars of home-made blueberry jam.
“A peace offering, if you like,” she tells me.
“Why a peace offering?”
“You know, after what I said about you enabling Lucas to carry on so irresponsibly. Ruth said it was too harsh. I was real sorry to hear you’d left.”
I have no idea what to say. “Thanks,” will have to do.
She puts her head on one side. “But you came back? Something must have changed your mind.”
I give it to her straight. “Lucas asked me to stay.”
“For how long?”
“Um, a bit. Then we’ll—I’ll…see.”
She watches me for a moment, and says, “Those earrings are real pretty.”
“Yes.”
She leans closer to inspect. “Classics. Suitable for every occasion. Beautiful. If you’re wearing those, you don’t need anything else, do you?”
Indeed not.
“Lucas is here,” I say. “Would you like a cup of coffee or something?”
“Gotta dash. You too. School’s almost out.”
She leaves, and I go back to the kitchen where Lucas is busy constructing a giant mountain of pancakes, dripping with butter and syrup.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lucas claims he’s never eaten scones. We’re lying in bed early on Saturday morning, before Alice is awake, nose-to-nose, sharing a pillow, discussing food. Buster stomps along the passage to Alice’s room, to jump on her bed and knead her awake.
“It’d be real nice to formalize this arrangement,” Lucas whispers, as I sneak out of his bed before Alice comes in, “and then we won’t have to creep about like thieves in the night.”
“I do the creeping,” I remind him. Lucas never comes into the main bedroom if he can help it. “And what do you mean by formalize?”
“You tell me.”
There’s only one way to formalize when there’s a four-year-old in the mix, and that’s to get married. Is Lucas testing me for a reaction?
He gets up to go for a run, followed by a swim—possibly the last of the season. The mornings and evenings are cool and crisp now that it’s October, the nights cold. Although the leaves on the trees in town, along the road to Bar Harbor and up at Emerald Lake are tinged with gold, the midday skies are blue and the sun glorious.
At breakfast Lucas reads yesterday’s paper while eating his way through the freshly baked dozen scones made by Alice and me, first thing. I’ve helped her make one shaped like a sea horse.
“You can have it, Daddy, but you can’t eat it.”
“What?” Lucas, hand spread on heart, makes a show of being distraught. “But I like the ones you made best. I like the
m more than Lara’s ones.” He smiles at me across the table.
“I’ll look after it, Daddy. I’ll keep it with my shelves and jews.”
She wraps the sea horse scone in a table napkin and puts it beside her plate.
“What are shelves and jews?” Lucas asks.
“Shelves and jews,” Alice replies.
I laugh. “Shells and jewels. Stuff she finds on the beach.”
“Ah.” His right hand hovers over the table, between the honey and the blueberry jam. “Which beach is this, Alice?”
“This beach, Daddy. The bidden cove.”
Shit. Well, it had to happen.
Alice jumps down from the table and runs out into the sunshine on the porch. I can see her through the window, on the porch swing, covering Buster with a pink and white crocheted dolly blanket.
“More coffee?” I ask.
“I thought I told you the cove was out of bounds.” Lucas has lost all interest in his food. Cutlery down, he stares at me like a stranger. “What the f—are you playing at?” He mutes the word with difficulty, furious.
I’m not playing at anything, but this is something I haven’t thought through. Somehow, the more Alice and I went to the cove, the less I thought he’d mind; the more okay I thought it would be, but it’s not like that. He’s mad.
“It’s not out of bounds to me. And it’s beautiful. Alice begs to go, regularly, so I take her. She adores it.” I tell the truth because I cannot dodge the bullet.
Alice runs back into the room, following put-upon Buster, slinking along, tail down, with the blanket draped over his back.
Lucas glances at her, then glares at me. “It’s where her mother died for God’s sake,” he hisses.
“Daddy! Teacher Pick says it is very rude to whisker in public.” She follows Buster up the stairs.
“I’ve said it before. How many people in Maine—in the world—have got their own private beach? Why live here, Lucas, in this gorgeous house, in this perfect spot, and not go to your own beach?”
He’s up now, walking around the kitchen, opening the fridge for no reason, picking up stuff and putting it down. “I think you know why.”