Almost Mine

by Lea Darragh

  Out on the landing I drew in a deep breath, then descended the stairs as Nick called from the kitchen, asking that I wait in the lounge with my wine while he plated our delectable dinner of roast lamb and vegetables, that wasn’t as over-cooked as he thought. Ray crooned as I adjusted the cushions and created all of the comfort that I needed. Effortlessly, thanks to the fuss that my lovely husband made over me, I found myself slipping into a satiated state of utter relaxation.

  He stopped dead in the doorway, balancing our dinner on his palms.

  ‘Wow,’ he gasped.

  ‘You like?’ I asked as I ran my finger slowly across my cleavage.

  ‘More than you could ever imagine.’

  After a beat, and after he’d picked up his dropped jaw from the floor, Nick stepped into the room.

  ‘Sorry about upstairs,’ Nick said as he placed my plate in front of me.

  ‘What about upstairs?’

  ‘I didn’t have time to set it up. Besides,’ he handed me a napkin for my lap, ‘by the looks of you, we’ll be more than capable of creating our own burning heat.’

  A naughty glint flickered in my eyes as I glanced up at him. ‘You are capable of that, are you?’

  ‘I have a box of tea light candles waiting, just in case,’ he smirked. He moved to sit on the opposite side of the low table, but I shook my head and patted the cushion beside me.

  ‘I can’t kiss you when you’re all the way over there,’ I said. Of course, he indulged me.

  ‘Should we have a toast?’ he asked. I twisted on my cushion and tucked my legs up so that I was closely turned into him. I lifted my glass and held it close to his. ‘To a lifetime of us.’

  I lightly clinked my glass against his and softly kissed his mouth. ‘Why have you stopped breathing?’

  He eyed me with an expression of carnal wanting. ‘Because,’ he groaned as he immersed his head into my skin where my shoulder met my neck, his arm reaching around me as he gripped my bottom that was barely covered in fabric, ‘you and that slip of silk have sucked the air out of the room.’

  ‘Oh god, you’ll be forever cheesy won’t you?’

  ‘Hey, I call it endearing.’

  ‘I call it a turn-on.’

  ‘I call you a turn on. I can hardly put a thought together with you dressed that way.’

  I dipped my head and felt my face turning pink because I knew that he’d just discovered my secret, though he said nothing to confirm it. ‘Should I change? I’d hate for you to be distracted.’

  ‘Why is that?’ he asked, lifting his head revealing the hint of a devilish grin.

  ‘The food,’ I managed a plausible yet far-fetched argument, ‘it’d go cold.’

  We played and talked and ate and shared our food; I gladly handed over my cauliflower in cheese sauce while Nick allowed me to indulge in his sweet corn on a cob — though it was his favourite thing on the plate.

  ‘That was delicious, Nick. Thank you,’ I said as I nibbled his neck after he’d cleared our plates and re-joined me on the cushioned floor. He stretched out beside me and rested his hands behind his head.

  ‘My pleasure, angel.’

  As he lay like a smorgasbord of tight muscles and smooth skin wrapped in light cotton in front of me, my fingers, as if on their own accord, sneaked slowly up his stomach and to his chest where they unfastened the first few buttons of his shirt. A low peaceable breath showed his satiated state. I unfastened the rest of his buttons and opened his shirt so that his body was bare and then I laid my head on his warm skin because it practically begged me to.

  Ray faded out and Duffy took his place and effortlessly maintained the sensual mood. The tempo did change , though, as Duffy begged for mercy — as did I when Nick explored my secret — and was obviously speaking for us two lovers who occupied our own private alcove in the world.

  ‘I want to you to take this slip of silk off me now,’ I whispered sexily.

  ‘Do you want me to?’ he laughed out loud. ‘What a demure, sweet-talking wife I have.’

  I straddled him. ‘I know that you know that if I snap this little clip…’

  ‘I am in no way oblivious to your scandalous ways, wench.’ He squeezed my bottom and pulled me closer onto his lap. My long hair fell softly onto his face and he held it back with the tips of his fingers as he kissed me. ‘I’d give you the moon and all that surrounds it,’ he murmured.

  ‘That’s not what I’m asking for.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  I pulled back slightly so as to see into his half-closed dark blue eyes. I held my palm up to where his heart beat in his chest. ‘This; only this. I want you to love me forever.’

  ‘I can do that easily.’

  ‘Good,’ I said and then kissed him. ‘And maybe this.’ I gently sucked on his bottom lip. Then, I moved his arms around my body so that I was completely enveloped in him. ‘And these, I want these forever, too.’

  Nick smiled lazily in his peaceful state. ‘Give me a challenge.’

  The song changed and now “Syrup and Honey” played and I thought of something that we hadn’t done in a while.

  ‘Dance with me,’ I dared him. ‘Like on our wedding day.’

  ‘I can do better than that.’

  Nick picked me up effortlessly and my body slid slowly down his until my toes barely touched the floor. The music played, as did Nick, as he held me hard against him pressing his hips against mine. My arms relaxed around his neck as he swayed me, his fingers roaming my body as if he’d never explored such a utopia of heavenly curves under a sheath of silk. My hands moved around his shoulders, releasing them of his shirt, and with a sound that made the apex of my thighs dampen, it fell to the floor. My body instinctively predicted what it meant for him to be naked. My body knew what was coming… This was different to our wedding dance; there was definite expectation in his hips, in his finger tips and in his ravenous mouth. I couldn’t remember his chest vibrating heavily with sexual wanting back then, either. Today, it felt like there was an earthquake rumbling under his rib cage — and it stirred my body in places too. It felt unbelievably freeing to finally allow myself to feel it.

  He moved me to the sensual rhythm of the slow beat and kissed me unhurriedly, little by little tasting my soft skin along my jaw line and down my neck. He brushed his lips over my clavicles and my chest, sucking gently along the base of my neck. Goose pimples spread across my entire body as it came alive under his fingertips, turned on by a touch that was barely there. My body ached for him like nothing I’d ever ached for and I felt inwardly ashamed of myself for foolishly overlooking such perfection. His precision as his fingers touched my body — the exact parts of my body that sent me to my knees with every stroke — was breathtaking. He knew me well, and I allowed my head to fall back, surrendering to his mouth, his hands, his entire body, as it wrapped itself around and consumed me.

  ‘I still can’t believe that I have you all to myself.’ His murmurings seemed spoken to no one in particular as he nuzzled behind my ear; just a pure fact that couldn’t remain unsaid. ‘Incredible…’

  He’d taken the words right out of my mouth. ‘I love you.’

  The music played and I could take it no longer; pressed against each other without an inch to spare was not close enough.

  ‘I want some dessert,’ I said.

  His lips lingered against mine as he spoke. ‘Not satisfied with my meal?’

  I couldn’t answer for a second while his tongue teased mine with slow, gentle licks. ‘Not the right kind of satisfied,’ I whimpered.

  ‘Who am I to deny you?’ His hands cupped my bottom and pulled me hard against him. ‘I want you so badly, angel,’ he groaned as his thumbs caressed the silk that barely covered my skin and his fingers reached for my inner thighs at their apex. ‘But, we have more important things to do first.’

  I milled my hips against him and he groaned ravenously, then his mouth was on mine again. ‘More important than getting your wife naked?’


  ‘I stand corrected, but a very close second.’

  I reached between us and unfastened the button on his jeans. My fingers reached in past the waist of his boxer shorts until I took hold of him.

  ‘We could easily…’I began to say as I stroked him.

  ‘Yes, we could,’ he groaned. He lifted my knee so that it was fitted around his hip and with his free hand he held me close against him.

  ‘Lift me up,’ I said as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

  He kissed me but didn’t oblige me.

  ‘You want to know that badly?’ I asked and he let my leg go, my two feet now on the floor.

  ‘I’m somewhat distracted.’

  With a sigh I let him go. ‘Ok. Let’s go.’

  I clasped my fingers around his and led him up the stairs to our bedroom.

  ‘Wait here,’ I told him, gesturing with the nod of my head toward the bed. He sat obediently on the very edge of it and waited while I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. He would have heard the flushing of the toilet, then the sound of running water as I washed my hands. When I opened the door I held a white stick in my right hand and I sat next to him.

  ‘I haven’t looked yet, but we’ll know in a couple of minutes.’

  He could tell that I was trying to conceal the fact that I was terrified as hell and bursting at the seams with excitement at the same time, as I bit my lip and the leg that I crossed over the other was twitching as if I were giving a child a horsey ride.

  ‘Anxious?’ he asked.

  ‘A little, are you?’

  ‘Terrified, yet, optimistic.’

  ‘What if—’

  ‘It won’t be,’ he interjected. ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘It might be.’

  His confident expression that he’d displayed all night faltered and his fear seeped through.

  I gripped his hand. ‘I hope it’s not. But if it is—’

  ‘It won’t be,’ he held firm.

  ‘Ok.’

  He observed his watch. ‘A minute or so to go.’

  We both jumped when the pre-set timer buzzed from the bathroom. Nick stood from the bed and switched it off and I took this brief moment alone to sneak a peek; I needed to be one step ahead if I were to handle this delicately. Nick re-joined me.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘I can’t look,’ I lied.

  ‘Should I look then?’

  I nodded and handed him the test and I waited…and waited…and waited to see his reaction.

  He looked.

  He blinked.

  He held his breath.

  Then, the elated smile that lit up his face instantly made my cry.

  ‘Cate.’ His voice was caught in his throat so words to describe how he felt escaped him. All he could do was beam from ear to ear at me.

  ‘No way!’ I squealed as if I didn’t already know. He nodded and handed me the stick as if to prove it. ‘I can’t believe it, Nick. We’re having a baby!’

  I threw my arms around him and squeezed what remaining air that he had left inside of him out.

  ‘I love you so much, angel,’ he whispered as he dipped his face into my neck. ‘I don’t think you know how much.’

  ‘I know something of it.’

  He pulled back. ‘Do you really?’

  ‘Nick, I love you.’

  ‘I’ve done it. You’re going to be a mother.’

  ‘Nick, that’s not why—’

  ‘I’ve done it, angel,’ he interjected as if in a world of his own. ‘I’ve finally given you everything. I feel so relieved.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Come here.’ He pulled me into his arms and kissed me like he never had before and I almost lost my breath. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ he murmured against my lips, against my skin as he spread kisses along every inch of it. ‘Let’s finish what we started.’

  The drive to Dr Crawford’s office was strange. While Nick drove with the ecstatic, blissful expression that had remained on his face since last night, I sat with a question that was burning on the tip of my tongue. I had to make sure that he understood exactly what was happening here.

  ‘Nick?’ I said as he tapped the steering wheel to the infectious beat of Kings of Leon.

  ‘Yes, angel?’

  ‘You know that I love you anyway, right?’

  He turned down the music. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know that if the test was negative, that I love you anyway?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Pull over,’ I told him.

  ‘We’re almost there.’

  ‘Pull over,’ I repeated with insistence that he couldn’t ignore.

  The tyres crackled as the Jeep came to a stop on the roadside less than a kilometre from the medical centre.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked with unease as he switched off the ignition. I unclasped my seat belt and turned in my seat so as to see him properly. I looked him square in the eye.

  ‘I love you,’ I declared with determined resolution. ‘I really need you to understand that.’

  ‘I know,’ he smiled.

  ‘I don’t think that you do.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘With or without this,’ I spread my hand on my belly while my gaze remained steadfast on him, ‘I love you.’

  ‘Come here.’ He pulled my close with a hand around my neck and kissed me, but I pulled back slightly.

  ‘Please don’t just brush me off. It’s important to me that you understand, Nick.’ I began to cry and he drew me into his arms across the console that separated us. ‘Say that you believe me.’

  ‘Don’t cry, angel.’ I did anyway.

  ‘I’d be content to live in a cardboard box and be satisfied, as long as you were beside me,’ I wept against his blue cord jacket. ‘I don’t need anything else.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  I pulled back in frustration. ‘I mean it, Nicholas! I love you no matter what,’ I said in a voice was too loud for such a small space as the cabin of a car.

  He couldn’t help but laugh at my ferocity, but it just made me cry again.

  ‘Ok, ok.’ Nick cupped my face in the palms of his warm hands, his fingers massaging the nape of my neck gently. His amusement sobered. He leaned in and kissed my tears that had left wet trails down my pink cheeks. ‘I believe you,’ he said in earnest. ‘You love me.’

  ‘Say it again,’ I whispered as he continued to flutter butterfly kisses across my skin.

  ‘You love me.’

  ‘Again.’

  He smiled. ‘You love me.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘As many times as you want.’

  I raised an eyebrow at him.

  ‘You love me.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Aren’t we lucky that it’ll never be tested?’

  I smacked his arm. ‘Nick!’

  ‘What?’ he laughed.

  I fell back with an exasperated huff and crossed my arms. ‘Just drive.’

  The office didn’t feel as cold as the sterile rooms I’d experienced in the past, and when I expressed my relief Nick put this down to a reflection of his euphoric mood; he could radiate enough electrified energy to heat an entire continent.

  He sat impatiently beside me and gripped my hand as we waited for the pregnancy test that Dr Crawford had insisted on to reveal what we already knew.

  ‘Won’t be much longer,’ the doctor said over his spectacles. ‘In the meantime, tell me how the two of you have been getting on; nothing else to report?’

  ‘We’ve been great. No colds this winter, no problems at all,’ Nick said.

  ‘I’ve not been feeling too well lately,’ I added. ‘I’ve been very tired and throwing up for the past few days.’

  ‘Well,’ Dr Crawford smiled, ‘I’m afraid it goes hand in hand with pregnancy. You may have to get used to it.’

  Beside me, Nick beamed.

  ‘Nothing else?’ Dr Crawford said and we both
shook our heads.

  ‘Good. Well,’ he pushed himself up from his leather desk chair, ‘I’ll go see if we have a result.’

  He waddled — because that’s all his round belly that looked as if it were twenty four months in gestation would allow — over to the bench behind him to read the test stick. Nick watched him with eager anticipation, like a child that was about to be handed his most favourite treat. If he was standing he would have been shifting excitedly from foot to foot whining come on, come on, come on. It was because of his one-track mind that he hadn’t noted Dr Crawford’s hesitation like I had. My heart fell to the floor.

  Dr Crawford waddled back to his chair and slumped into it with a huff as his stomach pushed the air out of his lungs.

  ‘Well?’ Nick sat forward but didn’t let go of my hand; in fact, he gripped it tighter and for a second I lost circulation to my fingers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the doctor said quietly. ‘It can happen sometimes.’

  Nick was lost. ‘What can happen?’

  ‘A false positive result.’

  Nick fell back into his chair and the loosening of his hand around mine did not go unnoticed by me. ‘I see,’ was all he said.

  ‘I could do a blood test. If you are pregnant,’ he addressed me because Nick’s expression had glazed over, ‘it’s only very early on, so your hCG levels will not be overly detectable yet. Urine tests are accurate, but not as accurate as a blood test.’

  Nick came back to life. ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘Ah,’ Dr Crawford consulted his appointment book. ‘I could take bloods now but the results won’t be back until at least Monday. I could fit you in then, or Tuesday if need be.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We can wait, can’t we?’ I asked Nick. ‘I mean, we’ve waited this long.’ He glanced sideways at me and my heart sank again; there was that desperation on his face again. Had I looked that drawn for the past few years too? ‘Is there another way; a faster way to get a clear result?’ I voiced Nick’s muted question.