“I love you so much,” I tell him, and my lip trembles.
“I love you more than life itself,” he tells me into my ear.
“I want you to be in my bed every night after this. Never leave me again. Never stop holding me.”
“Marry me then,” he says quickly.
We stare at one another to absorb the possibilities that now lay before us. A life and a dream realised. His eyes reflect my own truth. He laughs and titters and I do too. I hold a hand over my mouth and he peels it away to kiss my palm.
“Yes,” I say.
“Yes?”
I nod.
We both know what we want. The exact same thing.
“What about the work?”
His face falls. “It’s nearly over. I am nearly done with it. Trust me.”
“Okay,” I agree. “And the door, downstairs?”
“I’ll protect you. But don’t worry. I just ran to the pub to get my dad over to fix it.”
You what? I sit up and listen and hear whistling downstairs. I throw my hands over my mouth in embarrassment.
He laughs contentedly. “He knows how much I love you. He would never judge this… us.” Warrick looks down into my eyes and kisses me gently.
What if he heard? The thought has me giggling stupidly.
I roll on his body and whisper, “Did you like the black dress? I wore it for you.”
He bites his lip and it contorts his cheeky smile. “Maybe. I think I like the heart and soul of the girl in it better.”
We share a dirty laugh and he promises, “Tonight, you’ll meet my dad.”
That alone has me kissing him fiercely because I know how much his dad means to him. We tussle and roll and we lose ourselves, kissing and making love. We’re savages now, ripping the life from one another.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jules
We wake hours later and I find myself buried in his arms with my nose in his neck. I savour the perfection of that moment before we wake properly and the spell is broken. Still in a sleepy haze, we can pretend that the world outside isn’t beckoning us to rouse and rejoin it.
“I love you,” I groan and caress his lips with mine, before burrowing back in and wrapping my leg around his hip.
I do love him so much. He’s like new jeans, like virgin snow or a freshly drawn bath. His scent and his body, his soul, his heart, are all so beautiful. He gives me peace and quiet like nothing else could.
“Shit, you feel so good,” he moans, wrapping me tighter in his embrace. “I don’t wanna go out now.”
“Me either, but you said…”
For some bizarre reason he told his dad that we would join him for dinner that night. At the time he must have been high on the thought of us being back together but now, all we want to do is stay in bed.
Several thoughts run through my mind, like how different my life might have been without him. I spent the Christmas just gone alone again. I was used to that, however, and it had never bothered me before. This time, I wept because he wasn’t there with me.
I lean up and pull his face down to look into my eyes.
“I was alone at Christmas.”
I realise my voice sounds sad but he pulls me closer and kisses my forehead hard.
“That will never happen again.”
We hold one another and a variety of images burn through my mind. Him making love to me, our joint moans and cries and the kisses that will never become boring, because they’re from him. I love the way he touches me, like I am so precious, like he’s handling delicate crystal glass thinner than crêpe paper. He takes his time over kissing my body and all the reactions he evokes in me are always new, unique and unequalled. I am sure that it will be hard from this day onwards to spend even a moment without him. Life without him was almost intolerable.
I feel self-conscious and I ask him, “Has it ever been this good for you before?”
I will him to be honest. I also will him to tell me unequivocally, that he has never truly felt this way before.
“Jules, you make me feel like a new man. You burst life into these veins like nothing else ever has.”
He reaches down and kisses me, passionately, before lastly dropping a soft kiss on my top lip and tracing his tongue along the seam of my lips. I, too, feel reborn. His kisses make me dizzy and delighted. We could keep going but he tears himself away, dragging his naked body to the bathroom and cursing.
“We’d better get ready, gorgeous wench of mine.”
An hour or two later, we find ourselves nearing a large Mediterranean bistro on the Upper Avenue. Warrick offered to get a taxi for us but I wanted the walk, so we tread the heaving, springtime streets in comfortable silence. I have on jeans and my black, pixie ankle boots, plus a jazzy, sparkly silver top. He has on some jeans and a polo shirt he retrieved from his house on the way here. He lives between my new house and the Upper Avenue, in a semi-detached on a side street I may have walked down dozens of times, never having known he was there inside. Sometimes I cut through his street to take a shortcut on the way to my own place.
His house is a bit sad, to be honest. Nothing much personal on the shelves or walls. It kind of brought it all home to me how lonely and sad he must have been too. I guess the only difference between us is that I read women’s magazines and therefore know to buy flowery furnishings. It covers the blank canvas beneath.
There were some photos of Joe and one of Warrick’s mum and dad on their wedding day, but not many others. None of his ex-wife. None of him and his ex-wife together. Even now the thought of her has my hackles raised. I know it’s his past but I just hate that he has one.
I stared at the photo of his mother. She was beautiful. Neat and tidy, petite and red-haired, unlike Warrick and his father. I want to know so much more.
His house had a bit of a stench about it. It’s clear he keeps it tidy but he obviously doesn’t really clean it. You know, a female level of cleaning that leaves it sparkling and fresh.
“Move in with me,” I said to him, while I watched him ruffle his hair in his living-room mirror. “I have plenty of room. It’s quieter where I am too.”
He moved up beside me and held my cheeks, planting a kiss on my nose.
“Yes, I want to sell. I’ve been meaning to for so long. We can use the sale of this to pay off your mortgage if you like.”
“Pay off?” I said, wondering if I heard right.
“I own this place outright, remember?”
“Oh, yeah…”
The man of my dreams. A house bought and paid for. I still refuse to trust any of it.
He sensed my thoughts and whispered, “All in good time. I don’t expect we shall walk down the aisle and have you up the duff straight away. We have time.”
“Charming! So you don’t want me up the duff, then?” I grinned.
He pinched my bum and patted it before moving back to the mirror to ruffle his hair into some sort of shape. It just wasn’t happening. His wild hair makes me crazy. I try to tell him to leave it but he never listens. As far as I am concerned, the more ruffled the better.
“Dear, what I meant to say was, we have time. Yes, we are going to be together. Yes I may as well move in because I am going to want to hump you every night from now onwards… and yes, I love you more than anything in the entire world. Except my boy, of course… but I love you enough to make a life with you starting right now.”
I sensed he was feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, too. He needed reassuring. I cradled his head with my arms and moved in close to his body, breathing against his chin.
“Move in with me, live with me, rent this place out if you like. Sell it. Give it to the poor, whatever. I love you. Today, that is all we need worry about.”
Within seconds I was lifted onto a sideboard and his hands were in my jeans, one on my backside and one on my groin.
“That statement asked for this,” he warned, and touched me inside.
Puffing and panting soon after, I cursed him
because he gave me red cheeks and my lipstick was smudged all over my face.
“I meant what I said,” he growled, “I’ll always keep you properly serviced.”
I saw him jiggle what was in his jeans back into place and I squeezed my eyes shut with delirious joy. I zipped up my own jeans and watched him go to wash his hands.
We left the house.
His dad looks almost as happy as we are, his face shining and dare I say, glowing. He’s so much like Warrick it is freaky. He is a tradesman, in would you believe it, UPVC windows and doors. I chastised the pair of them but no harm was done, I guess, it’s fixed now. They talk so fast sometimes I zone out because they seem to have their own language and their references that nobody else can get in on. I happily stuff my face and Warrick’s dad winks at me, obviously having been told about my appetite.
When Warrick pops to the toilet, leaving his dad Terry and I alone together, he moves closer to me to say, “Thank God you’re back in his life.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I feared he was going downhill again, Jules. I am not ashamed to admit it. I don’t know if Warrick has told you but‒”
“But what?” I interject, suddenly fearful.
“The addiction… I always fear he may fall down that hole again.”
His dad’s face is lit with that happiness still, at what we are all sharing tonight, but his brown eyes bore into mine with earnest warning.
“Oh… so, I guess you’re saying, or rather warning me to tread careful‒”
“Jules, right now, you’re a saint in my eyes. You’re the rescue he has always needed. I am just saying, he hides a lot Jules. Both from himself and others. Just be aware of it. Be wise to it. I tell you now, I am not the interfering sort. But he’s my boy and I love him, and I see he loves you, so be aware. A clever girl like you needs no telling but I thought I should forewarn you.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. I accept his warning but still, I feel unsure. What is he really trying to tell me? I speak my thoughts. “I did wonder, you know, when he took me inside his house for the first time today. It seemed odd, empty, you know. Unlived in.”
“He doesn’t live there, Jules. He hasn’t for years. It’s just a mausoleum.”
“What?” I gasp with shock. “Where the hell has he been living then?”
Before I get an answer, Warrick is back.
“What did I miss?”
He kisses my cheek and puts an arm around me and I tell him, “Your dad told me that you used to run around naked in the back garden… and he has evidence.”
Terry smiles warmly and winks. Lucky guess.
“Daaddd!!”
On the walk home, he asks me again and again whether we should just get a taxi. He can tell I’m tired and ready to drop. We’ve been making love all day and I am normally already in bed by now, sleeping off the week’s toil. However, we need the walk to clear the air. I need to address something.
I tighten my grip around his hand and ask, “Do you want to tell me why your house seems unlived in? It’s been bothering me all night. Earlier it just seemed so empty.”
“What has my dad been telling you?” he asks, already irate, his mouth pulled tight and his brow furrowed.
I stop him in his tracks and turn to him on the street. I hold my hands at his cheeks and kiss his mouth. “Please don’t be upset. I love you so much.”
My declaration brings his hands around my back and into the depths of my hair. He calms and a corner of his mouth turns up.
“Jules, let me have this happiness. Please. I don’t want to face any of that. I want to cling on to this happiness and that’s all I know.”
“I know. I feel the same. But the house frightened me, Rick. I don’t want to go back there.”
“I love it when you say my name,” he growls in my ear.
I ignore the fact he’s changing the subject and we kiss again, locked in our warm embrace.
“We’re getting a taxi,” he declares, and hails one over from a nearby taxi rank on the Upper Avenue. Sod it, I decide. I want to enjoy this as much as he does, this second honeymoon period of ours.
On the backseat, his hand ventures under my coat while we kiss, frantic and lust-fuelled. We get out at my house and he throws a £10 note at the driver. We chase upstairs and shag with our coats still on, just his trousers and my jeans dropped.
We pull the rest of our clothes off afterward, crawl into each other’s arms, and together, sleep like the dead.
Chapter Forty
Jules
Five months later…
It’s finally autumn half term and I am really tired. We broke today and I am looking forward to Warrick’s arrival home from work.
Friday night. Time to relax.
You’d have thought living together would have made us bored and used to each other by now, but it is anything to the contrary. He really is the most remarkable lover and I consider myself the luckiest woman alive. He’s such a man’s man and I really love him for it. I love it when he arrives home from playing Tuesday night football, all cut and bruised and drunk on the one pint he supped afterwards with his friends. I snigger to myself at the amount of times I have drank him under the table.
I am filling an album with our holiday photos as I wait for him. We enjoyed the most magical summer this year and I am only now getting round to documenting it. I stare at shots of us abroad, and shots of us at home. I told him we were going on holiday whether he liked it or not and he reluctantly agreed.
I booked us a flight to Rhodes and we stayed in Rhodes Town in a five-star resort. We didn’t leave our room very often, except to sunbathe, eat and swim. Where the Aegean sea meets the Mediterranean, he asked me to marry him with a sapphire ring between his lips and a smirk on his face. We almost made love in the sea but it was too busy with tourists!
We have eaten at almost every restaurant along the lower and upper avenues, except the kebab places. We enjoy Thai most of all but Indian and Persian are close second and third.
We’ve enjoyed music, craft and beer festivals. We’ve been to concerts and to plays and to boat races on the marina. We threw ourselves into this after our brief but painful time apart and nowadays, I just keep my mouth shut when he leaves the house in the night, for whatever reason. I trust him. I can’t bear life without him.
When I hear the front door clang shut, a frenzy of excitement whips up through me. He’s home. I stand in the kitchen doorway and watch as he takes his jacket off and throws his workbag down on the ground in eagerness to get himself inside and free of the day’s toil. His eyes raise and he sees me there waiting. He strides towards me with intent and our bodies crash, our mouths lock and he groans into our kiss. I love him so much. He’s my world.
He pulls back and we pant into each other’s mouths. I see from the look in his eyes that he’s had a hard day and I want to soothe that.
“I missed you. I am so glad you’re home,” I tell him.
“Can we just go to bed?”
I nod and while he heads on upstairs, I walk to the front door to double lock it. I go back in the kitchen and grab the wine and two glasses and switch the oven to low. The cottage pie will survive.
Minutes later, I am naked and in ecstasy. Warrick is kissing my stomach. His eyes are dark and painfully tight at the corners and I wonder what’s wrong with him. That’s the thing ‒ since we moved in together, he’s been like this. Quiet and abstract but more of a lover than I ever could have hoped or dreamed of. He shifts and his head resides between my spread thighs. He puffs hot air across my groin and I squirm. I love it when he goes down on me. It has to be my favourite thing. His tongue reaches out and tickles me and I am lost. The seduction commences and I don’t know where I am or what I am doing. I only know that some time later, my chest is heaving, I am sweating from every pore and he has the biggest grin on his face.
He moves on top of me and thrusts inside me and I scream. His hips piston only a few times until he growls and f
ills me with his seed.
“You were quick,” I moan afterward, while we bundle together and recover. He did make me come really hard with his tongue but I would have liked to have come again.
He unfolds the covers and brings them over our bodies. He pants away his exertion and puffs air back into his lungs. I snuggle in his chest hair and wait for a response.
“I just missed you so much today, Jules.”
“You usually last a lot longer.” I take a stab in the dark.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. There is something cold in his voice.
I wonder how two people can seem so close one minute and then the next, like strangers. He has grown defensive and I sense it when he rests his head back in the pillows instead of burying into my neck like he usually does. He is not play fighting with me either.
“Tell me what it is,” I entreat him, with my fingers lacing through his in a show of affection and concern.
“I was at this school in Leeds today giving a talk on stepping up in the community and I caught these little sods at the back of the assembly mucking around with a copy of Judy Blume!”
“Oh my god, that book still does the rounds!”
“It must still do! I confiscated it out of principle and on the train ride home, it kind of begged to be read. I was as horny as a sailor walking off down the platform. Fucking hell. I must be sick. Philip Larkin grinned at me like I was a right dirty wanker.”
“Is that it? Is that all?” I screech, laughing.
“Yeah, but I am a sicko! I must be!”
He laughs loud. He throws me over and pins me down. I thank my stars that my Warrick has returned. His eyes are shining again and I grin.
He lasts much longer the second time round. I begin to fall asleep in his arms afterwards but somehow I know, my words of love aren’t sinking in. He doesn’t believe them. I know that he is fighting some demon all the time and I would like to know what it is but I am scared to find out.
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