Husband Stay (Husband #2)

by Louise Cusack

  “I’m here,” I said, against his chest. “The girls are fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about. Just come to bed and sleep.” I’d stay awake and hold him all night if I had to.

  He pulled me even tighter, and I could feel his ragged breath against my hair. “I need more than that,” he said, and pressed his lips against my forehead for a long moment before saying, “I need you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I’d already said I’ll do anything for you, but in his current state I wanted to make everything easy, so I said, “Yes,” and, “I want that.”

  He kissed me then, and it was achingly sweet, as if he was holding back a river of passion or tears, and letting his emotions out a trickle at a time. When that was too much for him, he pulled away and swept me up into his arms, carrying me through the house and out the back door.

  It would have been romantic, except tonight was about obliterating his pain and easing my longing. There was nothing of ‘relationship’ about it, but I didn’t care. I wanted him, and I could tell from the way his arms trembled that he wanted me badly.

  Right now, that was enough.

  He strode down a path in the moonlight, away from the house, from Daisy and Charley, so I had to ask, “Where are we going?”

  “Bella’s studio. She set up a monitor there so she could listen to the girls’ bedroom while she worked.”

  As we drew closer I could see it was a small timber cottage. Jasmine encircled the front door and when we reached it, my senses were full of that scent as Jack slid me to my feet and kissed me again.

  And then I forgot about the girls, about Bella, about Jack’s parents, and anything other than the hot shiver of his hand sliding up under my sweater to close over my breast, and his mouth, demanding more of me than I’d ever given.

  But there was tension pent up inside him. I could feel it in his shoulders as I ran my hands over them. He was holding himself back, even as he pressed me up against the door with his hips—his erection—pinning me down.

  At some point he was going to lose control, so I pulled myself out of the drugging haze of pleasure my body was experiencing to say, “Wait,” as I felt around for the door knob. And then we were inside with the door kicked shut behind us and he flicked on a light and the air conditioning.

  I gazed around in awe at the canvases stacked on the walls and sitting on easels—countless pastel renditions of the same subject—Daisy and Charley as fairies in a magical bushland.

  A wall of grief threatened to crash over me then. I’d never met Isabelle, but I ached in that moment for all that she was about to lose, and for these two loves of her life who would grow up without a mother.

  Jack was staring at the pictures, his chest rising and falling and his expression twisting as he tried to hold in pain. “This was a bad idea,” he whispered.

  “No it isn’t,” I said, and I turned off the light again, returning the room to its shadowed state. Across from us, moonlight fell on a daybed and I took his hand and led him there. “It doesn’t matter where we are.” I looked up into his eyes, wanting so much to fill the emptiness I could see in them. “It only matters that we love,” I said softly.

  Then I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it over his shoulders, exposing that broad and beautiful chest I’d come to love. And as I ran my hands over it, admiring it, feeling him tremble beneath my touch, it seemed impossible to me that I might never get to do this again.

  “Make love to me,” I said, looking back up into his eyes, and I saw something shift, as if something he’d been holding onto had released.

  “I’ve wanted to do that since the start,” he said, his voice husky with some emotion I couldn’t identify. Then he kissed me, so sweetly and so tenderly I felt my eyes prickling with tears. Eventually, his attention moved lower, waking my body in an instant as his hand slid down to grasp the hem of my sweater, which he removed along with the rest of my clothes, his touch so light and gentle, it felt like I was with a different man.

  And yet so much of Jack was familiar—the scent of his skin where the woodsy aftershave lingered, and the sound of his ragged breaths as he caressed me in places that aroused us both.

  When he stripped off his jeans his erection sprang out, and in that moment he faltered. “I don’t have a condom.”

  It was the perfect moment to explain why that wasn’t a problem—I was already pregnant, only, while I’d waited for him to come home, I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t tell him yet. Not while he was losing his sister. That was too much for one man to deal with.

  So I simply said, “It’s all right. I’ve got that covered.” Let him think I was using birth control.

  Then that moment was over and we were both on the daybed and he was kissing me and stroking my breasts, teasing the nipples and setting off a longing to just have him inside me, to be filled with that hot, hard pleasure while he lay over me, and I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of anything else.

  So when he pulled away to kiss my neck, I said, “Can we forget about the rules, just this once?”

  I didn’t want to come first, or have some scorecard in the room with us. I just wanted Jack, in the moment, making love to me.

  He pulled back and looked deep into my eyes, and though his face was shadowed, I could feel something happening between us, some melting connection that had never happened before, warming me inside and yet making me feel teary. It was confusing and beautiful and I never wanted it to stop.

  “This isn’t about sex,” he said, deathly serious. “It’s about love. There are no rules with love.”

  I nodded, then he went back to kissing me and I did cry—warm, fat tears that ran down into my hair, until his hand slid down between my legs and his gentle questing fingers caught the edge of a pleasure and teased it into life, slowly, deliciously, as if he had all the time in the world.

  I wanted to keep kissing him but I couldn’t help the tiny mewls of pleasure that rose up in my throat as I ran my hands over his shoulders and into his hair. Then he loomed over me, and I moved my hands to his chest, feeling his heart pounding under my palm.

  He was looking deep into my eyes again. “I need this,” he said and I nodded. “I need you warm and soft and alive under me.”

  “I’m here,” I promised.

  I’ll always be here, if you let me.

  Then he rested on one elbow and guided himself into me, just as hard as I remembered, stretching me deliciously and making me arch my back. As my breasts rose, he slid an arm under me to hold them up and feast on them as he set up a rhythm, and then I was lost.

  The stab of pleasure arcing down from a breast he was suckling joined up with the throbbing he’d teased into life and was inflaming with every thrust. I wanted to look into his eyes, to be with him in the moment, but I was simply overwhelmed.

  When he was inside me, I felt as if I didn’t own my body anymore. He owned it, and he was such a delicious master it would do his bidding, leaping to pleasure at the slightest caress.

  So when the gentle suckling grew stronger, and the thrusts grew harder, jolting my whole body, I gave myself up to the vortex of sensation he’d created. In the space of a breath, I went from moaning to gasping. My fingers bit into his chest as the orgasm clutched at me, making me shudder as tendrils of white-hot pleasure licked around inside me.

  But still he kept pounding, stretching it out, kissing, licking, and then finally groaning as his body stiffened and his own back arched, that final pressure sending another spasm of aftershocks through me. Then there were only pounding hearts and panting breaths as my hands gentled on his chest and he met my gaze.

  “Fuck, you’re beautiful when you come,” he breathed. “No wonder I want to see that again and again.” I grinned at the compliment, but before I could reply, he said, “And I sure as hell don’t want some other guy seeing it.”

  With his big body looming over mine, he was one hundred percent territorial male, and I could almost smell the testosterone pumping out of him
. But I wondered how far that possessiveness would stretch.

  So I said the one thing women aren’t supposed to say.

  “Then you’d better put a ring on it.”

  Silence stretched interminably as we gazed at each other and I had a fleeting moment of wanting to snatch back the words. But I didn’t, because he was either going to marry me, or I was going to be a single parent. And I’d much rather find out if he wanted a wife before he found out he was going to be a father.

  He gazed at me steadily for a couple of seconds, then he said, “Sorry, who are you? What happened to the meek, orgasm-faking Angela I met that night at the teahouse launch?” He smiled to take the sting out of his words.

  I was relieved that he was laughing about this, but he was right. I had changed. So I shrugged. “You’ve changed me.” Everyone else could see it. I may as well admit it. “I’ve grown up. I stand up for myself now.”

  He shook his head. “The power of a sexually liberated woman.”

  He was teasing me, but after the pleasure we’d just shared, I was quite pre-disposed to humor him. Besides, he wasn’t thinking about his sister, and that was a good thing.

  “I am liberated,” I admitted. “And I won’t go back to…” Sex with someone I won’t desire. A fleeting memory of Doug drifted into my mind and I had to stop myself shuddering. Thank the gods that I’d met Jack first.

  He was gazing at me patiently, so I said, “I’m not going to settle. I want…you, actually.”

  His smile gentled, and he brushed the hair back off my forehead and kissed me there. Then he rolled onto his side and snuggled me up to his chest, which I kissed. It was so sweet, so domestic, I could almost convince myself that we were married, and that this was our regular lovemaking routine—whatever felt good at the time, followed by tenderness and cuddles as we drifted to sleep.

  Because we had made love. Jack and I had experienced sex in the past, and this had been different. Way different. I could feel that in the warmth that infused my chest, and I could tell it was different for him as well from the softness of his tone and the tenderness of his touch.

  Something had shifted tonight, and whether that was a result of his grief for his sister or simply because it was time, we’d crossed a threshold. Jack was in love. I’d bet my life on it. Although—as Louella said—he might not realize that himself. Still, I knew, and clearly his mother did too. I snuggled the thought to myself as I breathed in his scent.

  Then he said, “Put a ring on it,” and snorted before he kissed my hair, his big chest rumbling with laughter.

  I couldn’t help tensing. Did that mean he was going to marry me—well, after my divorce was finalized?

  I wanted to sit up and drag the truth out of him, but I forced myself to remain still. He was laughing. Snorting. And that was a million miles from the hollow-eyed man who’d been desperate to obliterate his pain.

  So I let it be.

  The world had been rushing around me with Fritha in trouble, obligations to Rosie, my mother haranguing me, and worse, Jack desperate with grief. But those things were laid to rest in this moment, and I let myself enjoy that.

  I let myself relax, for the first time in what felt like weeks. And I slept the sleep of a sexually satisfied woman.

  Unfortunately, I woke up alone.

  Sunlight was streaming into the studio from uncovered windows, falling onto my naked body, and I jerked away in horror that someone—the girls—might have seen me through the window.

  I rolled off the daybed and snatched up my clothes, noting at the same time that Jack’s were gone. Then I scampered to the bathroom I could see through an opened door, dodging easels and slamming the door shut behind me. Thankfully, it had a blind on the window that allowed filtered light in.

  I pressed a hand over my heart, willing the uncomfortable jolting to slow, which it did as I went through a calming routine of toilet, shower and then getting back into my clothes. By the time I let myself out of the cottage and was walking down the track to the big house, I should have been relaxed, but not knowing what had occurred overnight, played on my nerves.

  Was Isabella still alive? Were Jack’s parents back? And what would they think of me, running off to have sex with their son when I should have been babysitting the girls—as I’d promised. And what about Jack? How did he feel about me, about us, in the cold light of day?

  All of these thoughts were running through my mind as I let myself into the house and followed the sound of voices into the kitchen where I found Jack and the girls at the table with a half-eaten breakfast in front of them.

  Jack looked up calmly. “Daisy tells me you’re having a baby.” He raised an eyebrow. “To anyone I know?”

  Both girls were grinning at me but I couldn’t smile back, not when Jack was unnaturally still and my stomach had started to churn in dread.

  “Can we discuss this privately?” I was proud of my poise. This wasn’t an easy moment, but Jack shook his head.

  “It’s clearly not private, or you wouldn’t have told my family. Do my parents know as well?”

  “No.”

  He stood up from the table. “So I’m not the last person to find out?”

  “You’re the…” I wanted to say second, but I’d told…who? Jill, Fritha, Louella, my mother.

  While I counted them in my mind, Jack lost patience. “Easy to see, in retrospect, where the put a ring on it conversation comes from.” He stood glaring at me for a heartbeat before he looked down at the girls who were frowning.

  Daisy said, “I thought you’d be happy, Uncle Jack. You like babies. And Angela is like mummy. She doesn’t have a daddy for her baby.”

  Silence throbbed in the room for several agonizing seconds before I said, “Girls, do you want to play Lego? What say you set it up in the playroom and I’ll join you there.”

  Assuming I wasn’t about to be thrown out.

  They jumped up from the table and, endearingly, both gave me a hug on the way out. Then it was just Jack and I, staring at each other.

  “You are the father,” I said, before he could ask. “I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

  He nodded. “I guessed that. The first night. I was worried about pre-cum.”

  My mind stalled and replayed what he’d said, but it made no sense. “Pre…what?” What was he talking about?

  “Pre ejaculate,” he said quietly. “I should have put a condom on before I got into bed…but you climbed onto me and rubbed—” He shook his head, as if he was angry with himself. “I’ve been worried about that from the start.”

  I still didn’t understand what he was talking about but I let go of the details—although I’d certainly be researching that later. “Then you thought I might get pregnant? Is that why you’ve kept in touch?”

  He shook his head, his face set with either anger or frustration. “I kept in touch because I’d fallen in love with you,” he said. “Not lust. Love.”

  Oh.

  And the obvious question. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh, the usual reasons.” When I didn’t respond he said, “You’re a rising star, a celebrity, who ran away from the country to enjoy the glamor of the city, where I’m treated like a person, not an outsider,” repeating what I’d told him once when we’d been discussing the bigotry my parents had faced in Dakaroo.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” he went on. “I’m a farmer who lives in the middle of nowhere…” He swung an arm wide to encompass the house, “And now I have two nieces to raise.” His voice had started to tremble, and I suddenly realized he must have heard from the hospital. Isabelle must be dead. “I don’t see any compatibility there,” he went on, his handsome face set in hard lines.

  I wanted so much to hug him, but his turmoil was an impenetrable barrier between us. “I’m so sorry about your sister.” I truly meant that.

  But he just stared back at me, seemingly unmoved. It felt like throwing stones at a brick wall. My compassion just bounced off him, and i
n that moment I realized our relationship—whatever it had been—was ending.

  My heart started to shrivel inside my chest but I had to try. “You’re making assumptions about me. About my career. You don’t know what my priorities are.”

  “My priorities…” He stabbed a finger at the door. “…are those two little girls—”

  “And what about my baby?” Silence throbbed between us but I had to go on, “What about all the great sex, all the love, all the caring between us? Does that count for nothing?”

  His magnificent chest rose and fell beneath his simple white tee-shirt, and eventually he nodded. “I want you. I want the baby.”

  “But you don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “And whose fault is that!” I was suddenly unaccountably angry at him threatening our beautiful future. “You never once dated me. You just met me for sex.”

  “That was all you wanted,” he shot back, and then he lowered his voice in deference to his nieces. “I would have given you anything…” His voice was raw with pain. “…said anything, done anything to get time with you.” I stared at him in shock as that sunk in, then he shook his head.

  “But you made it blindingly clear from the moment I turned up at that teahouse launch that you wanted sex—you wanted the orgasms that only I could give you. So that’s what I did. I shut off the parts that you might not like—the farmer, the son, the grieving brother, the uncle—and I just gave you what you wanted, the sexually confident man who could make you come.”

  “And you kept coming back,” he said accusingly. “You proved to me that you were only interested in sex. So don’t blame me for the lack of romance, because the moment I tried to go there you shut me down.”

  I said nothing as the scene on the plane replayed in my mind—my mistrust, my clear statement that I didn’t have time for a relationship and was all about my career.

  But he wasn’t finished. “I should have been looking for a wife, a replacement mother for Daisy and Charley, because I knew what was coming. Instead, I was chasing after an impossible dream.” He shook his head in resignation. “For all I know, you don’t have a maternal bone in your body.”