by Lily Harlem
For a long moment we just looked at each other. I studied the contours of his face; the way his bottom lip was a little fuller than the top and how the stubble on his jaw swept down from that patch of hair in front of his ears and arched perfectly over his top lip. He was truly gorgeous. I was a very lucky girl.
I became impatient, a sudden need for more grabbing me. I shifted my body beneath his, pressing my breasts close to his chest and resting my hands on his shoulders. “Ruben,” I whispered.
He opened his mouth but said nothing. His cock nudged my entrance, and he eased in an inch.
It took some effort to force myself to relax. It had been so long, and the head of his cock was wide and hard. I felt small and tight but I wanted him so much. I tilted my hips, took him in a little bit more even though there was a stitch of discomfort.
“Oh, you’re so hot and wet and gripping me,” he said, tightening his hold on the back of my head, as though keeping me just where he wanted me.
Discomfort turned to pleasure, greedy, needy pleasure. “It feels so nice,” I said, tucking my ankles around the back of his thighs. “Give me more.”
“Ah, baby…” He slid through my wetness and, as he did so, he shut his eyes and lifted his head, turned it to the side.
He was big and solid, and I let out a moan as the blissful sensation of being filled consumed me. Damn, I’d missed that.
When he hit maximum depth, balls pressed up against me, we both stilled. After a few seconds he parted his lips and exhaled; his head bobbed as though he’d lost the concentration to hold it up.
I cupped his cheek, supported him and stroked the short, spiked hairs on his neck with my thumb. Bliss captured his expression in slack-mouthed beauty, and I could have come just from seeing him like that. It was magical, a gift. My heart swelled with love, and I knew right then what we were doing was making love.
He pulled out a little, then slowly eased back in, the same serene expression on his face.
The movement was small, but his pubis captured my clit in a luscious scrape and I gasped, tensed my internal muscles and allowed that first spark of orgasm to flicker to life. “That’s right, just there,” I gasped.
“Katie,” he breathed. “Damn, it’s never felt…so good.” He set up a steady rocking rhythm that applied the perfect pressure and massaged my G-spot too.
“Oh…oh…” I said, still cupping his cheek and now clutching his shoulder.
My body was tense, like a coiled spring. Ruben was building me up in a slow, intense grind that was driving me mad with want.
I shut my eyes and moved my head to the side only to find my mouth captured by his in a dreamy but profound kiss. Our breaths were ragged, our lips barely under control, our bodies about to detonate.
As my orgasm claimed me, I groaned into the kiss, balanced on the precipice of ecstasy and then succumbed to the demands of my climax. Pulsing through the release, my pussy a fist around Ruben’s cock, he found his pleasure.
He shoved to the hilt, the only movement that had been urgent in our entire connection, and sucked in a breath that he held deep. He pumped inside me, his eyes screwed up tight and his head again twisted to the side.
Sweat popped over my body. I tightened my hold on him. Needing to be as close to him as possible.
“Ah, fucking hell yeah…” he said as he blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Katie, I…” He opened his eyes, looked down at me with a slightly stunned expression.
“That was perfect,” I said.
“My thoughts exactly.”
Chapter Eleven
When I woke the next morning the scent of wet grass and clean air filtered in through the open window. I stretched across the bed, hoping to find Ruben, but the sheet was rumpled and cool and there was no warm body to snuggle into.
A rattle of pans and the radio flicking on in the kitchen caught my attention, and I smiled, enjoying being greeted by movement and life in my flat. Slipping eagerly from my bed, I tugged on a pair of knickers and a short, pink silk dressing gown then headed into the bathroom.
I freshened up, my body feeling a little stiff and tender. My night with Ruben had exercised muscles and stretched parts of me unused to being stretched. I smiled at my reflection, dragged a brush through my hair then brushed my teeth.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Ruben said when I wandered into the kitchen. “I’m making eggs is that all right with you?”
“Great.” I walked up behind him.
He wore low-slung jeans, his feet and top half bare. I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my cheek between his shoulders.
He stopped what he was doing and pressed his hands over my forearms. “Last night was incredible,” he said quietly.
“I know.” As I spoke my cheek wrinkled against his back, and I smiled at how I much I adored touching him, with every part of my body on any part of his.
He turned, spinning within my arms, and hugged me close. I tipped my face to his neck, breathed in his scent, and felt the roughness of his beardy growth on my nose.
“I want to spend the day with you,” he said, stroking my hair then down over the slippery material of my gown, right into the small of my back. “It’s the Grand Prix, I have hospitality tickets. How do you fancy it?”
I looked up at him. “I can’t. I’m going to Leicester. My friend Felicity is getting married next month and it’s the hen party tonight. I would cancel, but Melanie, that’s my old boss, she rang yesterday to make sure I was still going and is expecting me to stay at hers.”
His face dropped for a second, but then he smiled. “That sounds like fun, it will be good for you to see your old friends.”
“I think so.” I hoped so. I’d touched the edge of happiness again and I was reluctant for the spell to be broken by stepping back into my previous life—being the old, sad Katie. I didn’t want her to come back with me, thinking it was okay to move in like an unwelcome guest.
“It will be.” He pinched my chin in his fingers and thumb. “Those hen parties always look pretty wild, you can let your hair down.”
“I’d rather be with you.”
“And I’d rather be with you, but hey, maybe tomorrow?”
I untangled myself from him, stepped away and into the dining area. Looked at the photograph of Matt and I on our wedding day. A balloon of sadness grew in my chest, but I didn’t let it overwhelm me, I contained it—now was not the time.
Ruben rested his hand on my shoulder, his fingers light but comforting.
“It would have been his birthday tomorrow,” I said. “I think I’ll go and see his parents before I drive back to Northampton. It would be the right thing to do.”
“That’s sounds a good idea.” He squeezed my shoulder.
I touched his hand with mine, kept it there. I wanted to be with Ruben, really I did, but tomorrow I knew I’d be in a dark place. Those shadows would creep from the corners of my mind, twist themselves around my grief and tug it back into the forefront.
I needed to be alone, or at least with just my memories. But only tomorrow and then I’d let my new life pour light over me again. It would be okay, I had some new happy memories to help chase the darkness away.
“How about Monday?” I asked. “I’m on a half day at the shop.”
“Well, I’m working, but come up to the museum. We’ll go to the Park Café and get some lunch, and then I’ll show you those pictures I’ve just reframed.”
“Won’t your boss mind?”
“Boss? No, there’s no real boss. I suppose it’s me if you look at the payroll, but it’s all so relaxed most of the staff are horizontal. The opposite to life on the track.”
“Then I’d like that, to come to your work.” I carried on looking at the photograph. Felt Ruben’s breath shift my hair and the heat from his chest radiate onto my back.
“He looks a nice bloke,” Ruben said quietly, “someone I’d be mates with.”
“Yes, he would have liked you.” I had a sudden image of Rube
n and Matt sitting in a pub, full pints in their hands and cheering on some football match or Formula One race. They both had easy smiles, kind eyes and a certain masculine quality that worked just right for me, pushed my buttons.
“He was big,” Ruben said.
“He liked to workout, at the gym, and play rugby at weekends. Plus his job was very physical.” I looked at Matt’s shoulders, wide and broad beneath his suit jacket. I could still feel them, remember what they were like to hang on to if he swung me into his arms or if I leapt onto his back in fun or when I clutched them during orgasm.
I turned from the picture. Ruben shifted his gaze from Matt and looked down at me.
“He would have approved of this, us,” I said. “He was a generous man.” I shook my head. “Oh, I’m not saying he would have shared me while he was alive, he could get pretty jealous at times.” I laughed, and Ruben gave a twitch of a smile. “Out of everyone, though, in the world, he would have wanted it to be you with me. I know that, in here.” I pressed my fist to my chest. “It’s only you, Ruben. You’ve pulled me from an abyss I just couldn’t find my way out of, or ever thought I would.”
He caught my face in his hands, closed his eyes and kissed me. He tasted of mint, I was sure I did, too, but there was so much more in our connection. Trust, compassion, understanding, and what was the most thrilling of all, a future.
* * * * *
“Wow, look at you!” Felicity exclaimed when I arrived at her parents’ house. “You look bloody great, Katie.”
“Thanks.” I grinned and fiddled with the hem of my short, metallic blue dress and glanced around the small living room packed full of glamorous girls. “Did you all know there’s a white limo waiting outside?” I asked.
Felicity’s eyes widened. “No, is there?” She dashed to the window, pulled back a net curtain and squealed. “Ah, there is, he’s done it. I thought he was joking, but there actually is a limousine to take us to the club.”
“God bless Neil Vickers,” Melanie said, raising a glass of champagne into the air.
A whirlwind of activity followed, seven girls, all of whom I knew, gathering handbags and wraps. Then there was a great commotion of heels trapping across the wooden floor and into the hallway.
Felicity was last down the garden path. Her dress was shocking pink and barely covered the gusset of her knickers. She wore a veil that floated out behind her. On it someone, probably Melanie, had pinned condoms and tiny L plates. She also had a smile on her face that could light up any dark room. Felicity had been in love with Neil for years, and finally she was about to get her man. Good for her.
We settled in the limousine. Sparkling wine flowed, and a beaty track started up as we pulled away from the curb.
“Seriously, you do look well,” Felicity said, giving my knee a squeeze.
“I feel well, Northampton suits me.” I smiled, a genuine one, the first these girls had seen me produce in a long time.
“It certainly does,” Melanie said, touching my arm. “You have a glow about you.”
I shrugged and sipped my drink.
“And you have a sparkle in your eye,” Felicity said, studying me. She suddenly clasped her hand over her mouth, and her carefully plucked eyebrows stretched up into her forehead. “Have you?” she asked quietly.
I looked between her and Melanie, my two closest friends. “What do you mean?”
“Have you met someone?” Melanie asked.
“A bloke?” Felicity said.
“Yes.” I nodded, hesitant but thrilled to be saying it.
There was a flurry of hugs between the three of us.
“Give us details,” Felicity said.
“No, it’s your night. You don’t want to hear about me.”
She grasped my hand. “Nothing would make me happier tonight than to know things are starting to fall into place for you, Katie.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “They are, really falling into place.”
“What’s his name?” Melanie asked.
“Ruben, Ruben Strong.”
“Oh, and is he?” Felicity nudged me and then flexed her arms Popeye style.
I giggled. “Well, he works for me.”
Melanie clinked her glass against mine then, “And how did you meet?”
These words had been rehearsed, and if I said them often enough I, too, would believe they were true. “I was wandering around the museum, you know, getting to know the place, and we got chatting.”
“What, just started talking?”
“No, well, actually he saved me from a mad peacock that was trying to mug me.”
“Wow, strong and brave.” Felicity giggled.
“And kind and sweet and genuine and…” There were so many lovely words to describe Ruben. I could go on all night.
“I really am happy for you, Katie,” Melanie said. “The new start, the move, well, we were sad to see you go so suddenly and we miss you terribly, but to see you with a real smile, that makes it all worth it.”
“Sure does,” Felicity said. “And you absolutely must bring him to the wedding. I won’t hear otherwise.”
“Well, I’m not sure.” Heck, was I ready to inflict this lot on Ruben? And could I stand amongst the friends that had only ever seen me with Matt and hold the hand of another man?
“You said it yourself,” Felicity said, “he works for you, and in that case, he’ll work for us too. I’ll set him a place on the table plan.”
“If you’re sure.” I worried at my bottom lip.
“As sure as I am of marrying Neil Vickers, that handsome, sexy devil.” She kicked her legs in the air. “Whoohoo, soon I’m going to Mrs. Vickers and honeymooning in Spain. I’m going to have sex for breakfast, sex for lunch and sex for dinner and I can’t wait, I’m starving!”
I laughed along with everyone else. Her excitement about the future was infectious and there was a sudden lightness in her voice, an extra trill to her tone. I got the feeling she was more comfortable expressing her joy, knowing that I had some joy in my life too.
A true friend indeed.
* * * * *
It was gone noon by the time I’d left Melanie house the day after the hen party. We’d spent the morning nursing our hangovers with a big fried breakfast and endless cups of tea. We’d had lots to talk about, not least Ruben and Northampton. She was impressed that I’d met Dean Cudditch and confessed a secret crush.
After hugs and promises to stay in touch between now and the wedding, I’d headed to Matt’s parents’ house, a route I could do in my sleep.
I spent a couple of hours with them. Drank more tea and ate three freshly baked Eccles cakes. There was lots of talk of Matt, memories, happy ones mainly. It was soothing. It made me feel like I wasn’t the only one who missed him so terribly.
I knew his parents had been to the deepest, blackest pits of Hell too. But we’d gone our separate ways in grief. Them losing their child, despite him being an adult, was a bereavement that was profoundly different but no less intense than mine, and I hadn’t felt we could offer each other much at a time neither of us had anything to give.
However, despite the ghost of Matt in the house—numerous school photographs, our wedding picture, his West Ham signed football on a stand in the hallway—they were well and had bought flowers for Matt’s grave. They asked me to go with them to the cemetery, but I declined, wanting to give them their space. I’d go next time I was up, I promised, because right now one place was drawing me stronger than anywhere else.
I stood now, beneath the arch of roses in St. Paul’s churchyard. Morning congregation was long since over and there was no one around, just me and my memories.
The small pink flowers were in full bloom, and I let their powdery, perfumed scent fill my nose, closed my eyes and remembered another time and place. I smiled. For a second I was back there, Matt holding me, kissing me, saying those words—till death do us part—and then kissing me.
I hadn’t believed anyone had ever loved another person
as much as I’d loved Matt right then. He had been my every breath, my dreams, my future, the one person who understood me. Our souls had been bound together by an invisible thread. From the moment I’d seen him across a busy pub, I’d known he was special. He’d said the same about me, and we’d always believed fate had been leading us up to that point in our lives. Ensuring circumstances had caused us to meet.
Opening my eyes, I blinked in the light of day and stroked my finger over the petals of one of the roses. If I hadn’t moved to a flat I would have planted more like this. They were my favorite. The baby pinkness of them so delicate and fragile, just like everything in life. Nothing was certain. It was good to remember that.
The church loomed before me. The tall bell tower stood silent and still, the sun beating down on its ancient stones. Sifting through recollections of our wedding day, I could still hear the wild clanking of the bells as we’d walked back down the aisle, my arm linked with his, a smile on my face so wide it hurt my cheeks. They’d carried on ringing, the bells, while we’d had our pictures taken, but by the time we’d come back here, away from our guests for this private photograph, they’d stopped. Much like now, there’d been only the chatter of birds, the buzz of a bee and the rumble of a distant road.
I held up my left hand, looked at my bare ring finger—the dent had practically gone—and let the tears that were welling fall. They were allowed to. Today I was so sad, so heartbroken. I had to acknowledge that, live through it, because if I didn’t it would eat me alive. My grief, as I’d discovered, was like a tumor. It kept on growing, stagnating, filling me up from the inside out. Pulling me between nausea and hopelessness.
But I’d found the cure. The cure was hope, a future, a new life. The cure was remembering Matt for the wonderful man and husband he had been and allowing myself to be happy again, or at least strive for that.
I wiped at the tears and sniffed. “I love you,” I whispered to the roses above me. “Always, no matter what or who else I have in my life, I will always love you, Matt.”