I kiss him back, putting everything I’ve got into it because he is everything I want, I know that now, and it feels so achingly right. We may never have this chance again so, please God, let this be as unforgettable for him as it is for me.
My hips move against his.
“Pix,” he whispers, then backs me against a wall, kissing me, touching me, setting me alight inch by glorious inch.
I glance down and my clothes have gone. We’re naked, wet, and sliding over each other. The steam is literally rising from our bodies. It’s beautiful. Real. Impossible.
My breath comes in shallow gasps. Primal urges take over, and they don’t give a shit whether I’m on the Earth plane, in Heaven, or in a whole new dimension. All they tell me is feel-him-touch-him-take-him-now. I glide a few inches off the ground and wrap my legs around his waist.
“Je-sus.” His breathing’s ragged. His eyes are closed. “Some dream.”
His lips, full and soft yet thoroughly in charge, plunder mine. I open my mouth to him, and our tongues tangle, touch, explore. Wet, slick heat rises between us.
I’m drowning in sensation. Every nerve is primed, raw, ready. If I wanted to plug into intensity, I got it. And so did Nate, by the looks of it. Somehow, we’ve made the leap. We’ve found each other across our planes.
I’m sandwiched between him and the wall, with his erection dragging hard against me. Godammit, let’s do this already.
But Nate has other ideas. He deliberately slows down.
His lips break away from mine. He dips his head and seeks out the sensitive hollow of my neck with his tongue, nipping, sucking. Electricity shoots through me. I gasp with delight. He knows my body so well. I tilt my head to one side, giving him greater access. He takes it, then lowers his head further.
Mmm . . . Slow’s good. My fingers tangle in his hair as his lips tease me, trailing inexorably towards my breasts.
He takes one nipple in his mouth, lapping, sucking, nipping, while his hand works on the other. I groan, and reach between us to stroke him. Desire shudders through me. He jerks in my hand. Inhales sharply.
. . . And if we’re this good with visualisation, I can only imagine how we’d be in the flesh.
In one swift move he grabs my ass in both hands and lifts me a couple of inches; just high enough to give him easy access while at the same time restricting mine.
He’s got me exactly where he wants me.
One of his hands continues to support me. The other begins to explore. I move against him, wet, hot, desperate for more.
His lips claim my other breast and I watch as his tongue caresses me. I shudder. Fire licks through my body. Nate pauses, glances up with a smouldering gaze. I’ve never felt so feminine; powerful yet vulnerable.
I graze a thumb down his jaw. He nips it with his teeth, then sucks. Flames leap in my groin. We kiss. It’s hard, hungry, raw.
He drags his mouth away, back to my breast, his teeth dragging at my swollen nipple. I pulse with glorious need. My hips move. Below me, his fingers continue their stroking caress.
Without warning he sucks my nipple, hard, just as his fingers plunge into my full, ripe wetness.
With a wordless cry I grip his shoulders. I forget to breathe. Expectation shivers through me. And then his fingers are . . . and his tongue is . . . and his thumb is . . . and . . .
Oh my. On fire, can’t breathe, need him, now.
I lower myself down the shower wall, down him, with erotic intent. I stop when I’m perfectly positioned. His erection is directly below me.
Time stands still.
We pause, motionless. My sanity begins to unravel.
I lower myself an extra millimetre and he groans.
“What have you done to me?” he mutters.
Another millimetre.
Anguish crosses his face and at last he reaches the point of no return. He pulls me in, down, home, burying himself deep inside me.
Sensation sets my body alight, and emotion wells in me. This man, this beautiful, magnificent, man . . . I catch my breath on a sob. He’s crossed worlds to find me and I’ve never felt so complete.
Our hips move in time. Around us the steam swirls, and I cling to him, inhaling his sweet, musky masculinity, committing every last detail to memory. The strength of his arms, the bronze of his skin, his taste as we kiss, the pulse in his throat, the scar on his neck, his lust-laden groan.
Maybe we have a future together and maybe we don’t. But whichever way it goes, this sense of utter belonging is a gift I’ll always treasure.
My breath comes in gasps. I’m on the precipice, ready to fall, ready to take him with me, but it’s still not enough. I want more. I want to us to be one, man to woman, real-time, real-world, without the visualisation.
With blinding clarity I suddenly realise I can have more. Maybe not the more I imagined, but this is a once-in-a-love’s opportunity. Here, now, I can truly be one with Nate.
I untangle myself from him and stand, head to head, chest to chest, hips to hips. Feel me, Nate. Feel us.
He does. He cups my face in his hands and kisses me with such heartstopping tenderness it almost brings me to tears.
We don’t need words. There aren’t words. Only feelings.
And that’s when I merge with him. Slowly, deliberately, pushing as much energy into the action as possible, I move through his skin. I enter him. One body, two souls.
He gasps. Stands stock-still. And I stand with him, lost—and found. The intensity of feeling is completely overwhelming and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to sustain it—in the background I’m vaguely aware the monitor has started beeping—but right here, right now, we are sharing intimacy that surpasses sex on every level.
This is what I was born to feel.
Chapter Thirty-Three
A new day dawns. My seventh. Which means, if Gran’s right, today is my last day.
Not that I necessarily believe my destiny is pre-determined, but what if it is? What if Gran really is privy to that kind of knowledge?
But if there’s a reason we live and die when we do, what possible reason could there be for me to survive a three-storey fall? Am I in this coma because Nate and I needed to share what we shared last night? Will I be the patient who leads doctors to some miracle coma cure? Or maybe I needed to see the things I did wrong in my life so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes in the next life.
That’s if there is a next life.
But if there’s not, why is there a Reincarnation Board?
But what if that’s all in my imagination?
My brain splutters to a halt.
Whatever. Who cares? Destiny or not, I’m here.
Though maybe not for much longer.
And pondering my own death won’t achieve anything. With a frustrated shake of my head I force myself to think of something else.
Nate. I watch him as he sleeps. He’s beautiful. When I look at him I can’t help it; my heart reacts. I feel hope. And, yes, admit it, Faith: love.
I love Nate.
The rest of the ward gradually comes to life, and still he sleeps. Perhaps not surprising, given what we were doing at around three a.m. Lovemaking, even the surreal version we shared, makes for a very restful sleep.
A breakfast trolley clatters past and he stirs. I can’t help feeling disappointed. Soon he’ll wake and be thrown back into the stressful reality of my near-death, and his peaceful state of relaxation will be gone.
Outside my room two nurses pause to discuss something or other. One of them giggles, the other looks surprised, the first adds details, the second laughs. Nate’s eyes flicker open.
“Morning, Sunshine,” I murmur.
He shifts in his chair and stretches. Stands and scrubs at his face. Glances at the nurses in the corridor then folds the blanket, stretches again and, deliciously dishevelled, wanders out. Still yawning, he gives the blanket to the storyteller. She turns to him, smiling, and I see it’s Bridget, Nate’s night-stay accomplice. I send her
a silent thank-you. Though she doesn’t realise it, she gave us something unforgettable last night.
Nate continues on to the kitchen, no doubt in search of a coffee.
By the time he returns I have company. Geoff, with Tess and, inevitably, Cynthia.
I feel conflicted. On the one hand I’m thrilled to see Tess. She always brightens my day. I’m rather less thrilled to see my wannabe-murderer husband and his mistress, but beggars can’t be choosers.
They turn as one when Nate walks in the room.
“Hi, Uncle Nate.” Tess bounds over for a hug, forcing Nate to hold his coffee aloft.
“Careful, Squirt, hot drink,” he says, somehow managing to keep the coffee from spilling as he returns her hug.
He releases her and ruffles her hair. “Hello to you too.”
Then, glancing at the adults, he acknowledges them with a casual, “Geoff. Cynthia.”
Cynthia looks him up and down with thinly disguised distaste. “You look rough this morning.”
“Nice to see you, too.” He drinks a mouthful of coffee, walks to the window, and looks at the cityscape in preference to them.
Geoff frowns. “You look like . . . did you stay here all night or something?”
Nate drinks more coffee and studies the traffic below.
Geoff’s eyes narrow. He takes a step towards Nate.
Nate still doesn’t turn, but the tension in the room amps up.
“Hey, Tess,” I say, thinking quickly. Find a distraction, find a distraction.
Ah. Her school uniform. I grasp the distraction straw with both hands. “Are you back to school today?”
She looks up at me, eyes glowing, and nods.
“I get to see my frie-ends,” she sings, cleverly avoiding adult attention as she talks to me by making it seem she’s singing to herself.
It suddenly hits me: she’s been off school all this time. Poor kid. She must have been so bored, hanging around with adults, day in, day out, watching her mum in a coma.
“You’ve missed your friends, haven’t you?”
She nods.
“Well,” I say, “skipping school sounds like fun but it gets boring pretty quickly. Going back to school’s a good idea.”
Tess nods again, this time with a smile on her face. She skips across to Faith-in-the-bed and clasps her hand, kissing it, squeezing it, squashing it against her chest in a hug.
Even if I couldn’t see the excitement shining in her eyes I’d still feel it in her touch, echoing through to me loud and clear.
As loud and clear as Geoff’s animosity.
He starts speaking and I hastily distract Tess with another question. “Did you find me a photo album?”
It works, thank goodness.
“Yes!” She races over to her schoolbag, hauls out a heavy album, and brings it back to the bed. She shows me her favourite photos, taking her wee commentaries so seriously I’m sure she doesn’t hear her father—but I do.
“. . . the hell?” demands Geoff. “Who appointed you as her guard dog?”
Nate finally turns. He eyeballs Geoff with a glance so withering it would send spring bulbs diving back into the soil. He downs the rest of his coffee in one fuck-you mouthful. And as Tess chatters obliviously on in the background he states, quite matter-of-factly, “I figured the job was up for grabs.”
Geoff’s face reddens. “You figured wrong.”
“. . . so I think we should go back there next summer,” finishes Tess.
Where is she talking about? I suddenly realise I’ve missed Tess’s photographic tour of our family life. Dammit, that was important. I’m about to ask her to repeat it for me, when I notice the room’s fallen silent. Following Tess’s gaze, I see Detective Brady standing in the doorway.
“Morning, folks,” he says, with a wink for Tess and a closed-mouth smile for the adults. “Hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”
“That depends,” says Geoff, still gruff from his altercation with Nate. “Tess and I were about to head off. I’ve got to get her to school.”
“No problem.” Brady shrugs, thrusts a hand in the pocket of his grey linen pants. “It’s just a courtesy call. I was in the area, thought I’d stop by.”
Geoff acknowledges this with something close to a grunt.
He turns to Tess. “Right, Pumpkin, once you’ve said goodbye to Mummy we’d better go.”
She closes the photo album and stashes it at the end of the bed. Then she sits back down and obediently speaks to Faith-in-the-bed. “I’ve got to go now.”
Brady clears his throat. “Well, nice to see you folks. Catch you later.”
His gaze skims over everyone. Nate gives him an almost imperceptible nod but doesn’t speak; he’s letting Brady do his job.
As Brady leaves, though, he turns the wrong way. I can’t imagine he’d be directionally challenged; my bet is there’s another reason for his visit. With a quick ‘Back in a sec’ for Tess, I duck out into the corridor to check. Just as I thought, he’s approaching the nurses’ station, police identification in hand.
I merge back into the room.
“Sorry about that,” I say to Tess. “Right, you’re off to school, then.”
She nods.
“Hey.” If I could chuck her under the chin I would. “I love you. Go have a great day, okay? I’ll see you later.”
Tess looks up at me, her eyes searching, almost as if she’s looking for something. My gut clenches. Does she know something I don’t?
She runs to the bed, grabs Faith-in-the-bed’s hand and kisses it.
“Oh honey.” I hold my hand to my heart. “Thank you.”
She smiles at me, love in her eyes, then gently returns Faith-in-the-bed’s hand to the bed. And stills.
Her eyes grow round.
“What is it?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. She’s staring at my hand.
“Daddy ,” she breathes. Then, louder, “Daddy?”
Her eyes are still riveted to my hand. I look more closely and my heart races.
“Daddy!” she yells.
He frowns at her. “Tess, I’m in the middle of a—”
“But Daddy! It’s Mummy. She just moved.”
The men fall silent. Tess points at Faith-in-the-bed’s hand and we all watch. One second, five, ten, and there it is. A small, but quite definite, twitch of the fingers.
My pulse leaps.
Geoff and Nate stare. Then everyone talks at once. Geoff races off in search of a nurse, returning with her in short order.
We all listen avidly as she explains that, yes, this is a Very Good Sign and although we shouldn’t read too much into it until further tests have been undertaken, there is certainly a possibility Faith may be close to regaining consciousness.
# # #
Now that the excitement of my apparent improvement has died down, Geoff, Cynthia and Tess are preparing to leave.
I rub the tickle from my forehead as Geoff straightens from Faith-in-the-bed.
“We’ll be in again later,” he tells her.
Cynthia joins Geoff and links arms with him. Together they look down on my comatose body.
“She doesn’t give up, does she?” Cynthia drags a delicate finger along Faith-in-the-bed’s cheek. “She just doesn’t give up.”
“She’s a fighter, all right,” says Geoff, his jaw working with—what? Anger? Frustration? Or some other emotion? It’s hard to tell.
Nate folds his arms, pinning them both with a cutting look. “Her determination to live is quite something, isn’t it, considering certain people were so sure Faith was suicidal.”
Cynthia’s chin lifts. “I’m sure certain people had their reasons.”
“Oh, I’m sure there were reasons.” His words are laden with irony.
Cynthia breaks eye contact first. As well she should.
Geoff turns abruptly to Tess. “Come on, Pumpkin, we’d better go or school will be over.”
Tess picks up her bag, but I can see she’s torn. Schoo
l and her friends—or here in the hospital, with the hope of her mother responding and possibly waking.
“Go on, darling,” I say. “You won’t miss much. I’m still up here, remember?”
Which is obviously what she needed to hear because suddenly the sparkle is back in her eyes.
Geoff indicates the photo album. “We’ll leave the album here for now, eh, Pumpkin? That way we can look through it together later.”
She nods, smiles, and skips to the door.
“Ready, Cynth?” He waits for his lover.
“Actually, I think I’ll stay here a while.” She takes out a pocket mirror, snaps it open. “I’d like some quiet time with Faith.”
I do a double-take. Her words jar. It’s the sort of thing a best friend would say, but this woman doesn’t come across as any kind of friend, let alone a bestie.
Geoff nods, his smile understanding. “I’ll stop by again when I’ve dropped Tess at school. It’s on my way.”
She pouts at herself in the mirror then gives him a tinkling wave.
Tess tugs Geoff’s arm, leading the way with her nose. She waves at me, her excitement a tangible thing now, and that’s when the guilt reaches up and grabs me by the throat.
The enormity of what I’ve done is so heartbreakingly clear. My stomach rolls. My throat burns. Oh God. My family. My beautiful, happy girl. I should never have allowed myself to fall for Nate. The flashbacks were there to warn me. I loved him once before, and I walked away. I should never have gone back for seconds.
Even as I think it, my heart is screaming, “No!”
But it’s my stupid, unthinking heart that got me into this mess. My head needs to take over now. Yes, I still have feelings for Nate, but they should have stayed buried. I knew I was playing with fire, allowing myself to build my hopes around him all over again. And here I am, burning.
With her father at her side, Tess heads off, embracing everything life has to offer.
And I’m left behind, forced to watch from the outside.
The Trouble With Dying Page 24