‘Have you thought about it?’
His voice cracked. ‘Every waking moment.’
‘Then why haven’t you . . .’ Again she waved her hand.
He reached for it, his touch anything but solicitous. Heat filled his gaze. ‘I’ve been waiting.’
‘For?’
‘Your check-up. A sign that you’re ready.’
‘Hell, Seth! I’ve been ready since I checked out of hospital!’
This time his lips slid into a smile that made everything below her waist melt. ‘Ready for what, exactly?’
Her heart stuttered. ‘This.’
She leaned in, losing herself in pine and pure Seth. Her tongue fluttered across his lips and his breath hitched, the blue of his irises darkening to gun-metal grey. His mouth opened and she took up the invitation, her lips roving hungrily over his. His hands skimmed her shoulders, her arms, resting on her hips, pulling her closer. As if he had no idea where to start. As if he couldn’t get enough.
Liquid fire pooled in her abdomen and she wriggled on the rough leather as the rampant heat spread lower.
It had been days, a lifetime if she counted what they’d both been through. The hard planes of his chest felt wondrous against her palms as she pushed him back. She straddled his hips, and didn’t doubt his need matched hers when she slid lower. She rubbed against him and sensation zapped straight to her core.
His hands crept up to cup her breasts through her top. He kneaded and she moaned. He palmed and squeezed and tugged at her nipples and she nearly lost her mind.
His palms skimmed down past her waist and she barely winced as his fingers ran over her stomach.
He yanked them back. ‘Oh, God, Jayda! I’m sorry. Are you okay?’
‘I will be once your hand is back where it belongs.’ In case he didn’t get it, she tugged it towards the throbbing flesh between her thighs.
He rubbed and she thrust against him. He groaned, his fingers scrabbling at her waist. ‘Dammit, woman! You’re wearing way too much clothing.’ He tugged at the hem of her top. ‘How could you doubt that I want you? Now. Forever.’
Something inside her froze.
Impossible to fathom what her brain considered ‘the right time’, but that’s exactly the message it sent out and for the life of her, she couldn’t drive it back.
She gripped his hands, heart racing, body crying out for her to stop this nonsense and keep going. She couldn’t. All she could do was hope that what she was about to say would mark an intermission rather than their final curtain call.
‘Seth, we have to talk.’
Jayda didn’t talk.
The words shafted through Seth’s chest as her palms trembled over his skin. What was with her sudden turnaround? Second thoughts?
She’d seemed happy to see him in the ambulance. Overwhelmed, even. And her response had led him to believe he was forgiven.
But since the hospital and coming home, he’d wondered if it was a case of the anaesthetic talking. A vacuum had settled between them and all conversation, all contact, had become stilted.
Which meant she wasn’t ready to hear his renewed, unfumbled marriage proposal. One delivered while she was compos mentis and fully capable of tossing back a rejection.
And wasn’t that what had held him back?
Until now.
Correction. Until two minutes before now and the icy shower that was her ‘we have to talk’.
She clambered off his hips and leaned back against the arm of the couch, legs folded beneath her, arms crossed. Closed. Unreachable.
He sat up and shivered, the room suddenly cold, as if someone had turned the aircon on full and opened all the vents.
He forced a grin to his lips. ‘Since when do you talk?’
‘Since not talking nearly destroyed us.’
The overstuffed leather barely gave as he fell back and chewed over those six words. He nodded, then spoke with slow deliberation. ‘O-kay. Let’s talk.’
The green of her irises nearly swallowed him whole. Her bottom lip plumped between her teeth and he resisted the temptation to coax it out from its confines. Serious as Jayda was about having a conversation, now she had his full attention, she seemed lost for something to say.
There could only be one reason—she was bracing herself. And that couldn’t be good.
He bit back the ball of pain clutching his throat. She wanted him, no question. Her skin still glowed from her display of how much. But wanting him now didn’t mean she wanted him forever. Or, more immediately, past the time it would take for her to recover and move out of his life.
A chill seeped through his clothes and into his bones. ‘Let me guess. You’re looking for a way to let me down gently?’
Her arms wrapped tight around her legs, hugging her knees into her chest. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Isn’t that what you want?’
Their conversation would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so painful. And in another life, he would have nodded and walked away. Only, this wasn’t just any life. It was the one he wanted to span into his future.
So, what now?
Fight, you fool! Run through fire if it means you come out the other end with Jayda.
She looked uncertain. Lost. Light flickered in the tunnel that was their conversation. Had he got it wrong?
‘What do you want, Jayda?’
‘The truth. About everything.’
Funny. What she said made absolutely no sense, yet it was the clearest thing she’d said over the past days.
The moment was one of promise and foreboding. That instant before a tightrope walker steps out from the platform and onto the wire.
He had two certainties. The first—that words were his life. He knew their value, made them work for him every single day. And now he needed their power for what came next. Jayda. He loved her. More than anything or anyone, ever.
There he arrived at certainty number two—that he wanted Jayda in his life, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, till the world stopped spinning and time was no more.
And even then he doubted he could let go.
Which meant it wasn’t an overstatement to say he was about to fight for his life.
69
Jayda watched the emotional reel flit across Seth’s face. She had no idea what he was thinking or if she’d made enough sense for him to understand what she was asking of him. Hell, she wasn’t even sure herself.
What if he didn’t get it? Or didn’t want to?
She hadn’t thought past this moment. Considering a future without Seth was like considering life without breath.
So, Thomasz, what if he doesn’t give you what you want?
The twist in her heart was her answer. She’d take anything she could get, for as long as he was willing to give it. And although it would hurt, living without Seth would hurt a helluva lot more.
He opened his mouth and she felt the unconscious halt of her body as she held her breath.
‘My name is Seth Bartholomew Friedin. I’m twenty-nine years old, a reporter for the Melbourne Telegraph and madly in love with a sexy red-headed detective.’
His grin arrowed straight to her heart. Heat billowed into her blood and she wondered that the entire neighbourhood couldn’t hear its stampede through her veins.
‘Although I’ve told you what my life was like before Callum died, I haven’t described what happened after.’ He exhaled in a rush. ‘It started when I was nine. Some kid in a beat-up blue hatchback ran a red light and slammed straight through our back passenger door. I remember sitting next to my brother’s crumpled body, his blood splattered over my arm, sad, yet so surreal and detached. And I couldn’t help thinking maybe Mum and Dad will love me now.’
His voice shook but he barely took a breath before continuing. ‘It’s horrible, I know. When I let myself think about it now, I’m sick to my stomach. My brother was dead and apart from being freaked out over all the blood, I felt nothing. Then I did feel something—guilt—but I
still couldn’t stop myself. I’d wanted Callum’s place for so long, it was like the universe stopped the world and said, “Hey, Seth, here’s your chance.”’ He took another deep breath and his shoulders squared against the hard back of the couch. ‘So I gave up writing to study science.’
It took a moment to realise her mouth was gaping. She snapped it shut and shook her head. ‘But . . . Oh, Seth. You hate science.’
He nodded. ‘But my parents loved it. This was my chance to make them love me, too. So I took up something I hated to make them happy, the way they were when Callum was alive.’
Her heart ached. For the boy he once was. For the man sitting beside her now, hurting in a way no son should ever have to.
What stung most was the outcome of this scenario, which she could picture so clearly. He’d struggled to do what they loved, hating every minute of it, yet none of his efforts had been good enough. His parents had still turned their backs. And that was the biggest disappointment of all.
‘Science wasn’t your passion. So what if you couldn’t do it? At least you tried.’
‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong.’ He pushed up from the couch and began to pace. Since when did Seth pace?
He stalked halfway towards the front door, then turned. ‘I did more than try, I succeeded. I won at the school science fair three years running, topped all three science classes, earned a choice of scholarships for two of the top private secondary schools in Melbourne.’
He spun on his heel and shot her a half grin, although she doubted the sparkle in his eyes stemmed from happiness. ‘For years I did what I thought they wanted me to do and I kicked science butt.’
‘That must have made them proud.’
He froze. As if her words had formed a blockade in his mind and all he could do was stand and stare. But not at her or anything in this life.
It was only when she moved to shuffle the stiffness from her legs that Seth’s head jerked back. His gaze sharpened and he sank back into the couch.
‘Wrong again.’ His fingers scuffed through his hair and she tamped the urge to reach across and smooth the raven tufts back down. His hand dropped to clench against his thigh. ‘After the first presentation they never came to another. I kept hoping, searching the crowd, kidding myself that if I pushed myself more, achieved more, it would make a difference.’
He grunted what she guessed was a laugh. ‘I was seventeen when I won a scholarship to join CSIRO’s engineering program. That was eight years after throwing myself into someone else’s shoes for all the wrong reasons. And I would have kept going . . .’
The pain in his expression was so raw it twisted her heart.
‘But?’ She bit her lip. Damn if that filter hadn’t failed her again!
Seth’s only reaction to her insensitivity was a stiff shrug. ‘My father told me to decline the offer and go back to writing.’
She felt her jaw drop and stalled it midway. ‘Why?’
‘You can’t guess?’
She was sure she could, but she’d give anything to be wrong.
He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘That was the moment I finally got it. They’d never loved Callum for his love of science. And because of that, science would never make them love me.’
His voice dropped so she had to lean forwards to hear. ‘It was too painful for them to see my success in a field their dead son should have been in.’
She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. He didn’t need false assurances. Much as she longed to say he’d got it wrong—that surely his parents had loved him but didn’t know how to show it—she doubted that was the case. And honesty had to work both ways.
She reached across and took his hand. It felt good in her palm, even better when his hand turned and held hers back.
There was a quaver in his throat as he cleared it. ‘I don’t kid myself that it was anything less than guilt that made them pay for my first year of uni. The second year I worked two jobs, cleaned a department store before classes and washed dishes at a local cafe after. I paid my own way, worked my butt off and refused to accept anything more from them. I was eighteen when I left home, determined to pay every cent back and be great no matter what they believed. Not that they wanted to hear about my successes. And they wouldn’t take my money. Guilt again, I guess.’
Too stunned to say anything, she gritted her teeth. Seth was worthy of more than the morsels his so-called parents had tossed his way. Deserved more than their rejection or indifference.
She squeezed his hand and earned a heart-stopping smile. It warmed her, even through the chill of his story. Seth seemed not to notice her outrage. His speech wavered, but not for one second did it stop.
‘I heard through a friend that they’d landed an assignment in Libya, otherwise I’d never have known my parents were leaving the country. It was my idea to housesit. If they wouldn’t take my money, then I’d work for them and wipe the slate clean in my own way. I don’t deny that in some warped part of my mind I hoped that while I was living in their house they might realise they wanted me in their life. Fat chance, right? I’m a lot wiser now.’
He scrubbed at the shadow of stubble on his chin. ‘Funny how I received my first email from them six days ago.’
She found her voice. ‘But that’s great! What did they say about your promotion?’
‘I didn’t tell them and they didn’t ask. They wanted to know who would housesit once I moved out.’
‘You’re moving out?’
He nodded. ‘I emailed them the day after we became a “couple”.’ His fingers bobbed in the air, his smile so goofy it warmed her heart.
‘Spending the past two weeks with you made sense like nothing else could. It made me feel whole, showed me I don’t need my parents to give me what I already have the capacity to give myself. Acceptance.’
His hand slashed through the air. ‘No more guilt and no more living in the past. I’m done trying to be anything other than true to myself.’
There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in his words, and her heart told her he meant every one.
‘I still don’t know why they loved Callum and not me. I guess I’ll never know. Sometimes a couple have two kids and they love one more. It happens. Maybe for no other reason than they’re incapable of loving two children. Or perhaps I was a mistake—they planned for one kid and instead they got two. Whatever the case, they could have done a lot worse than not love me, and for that I’m thankful. It means that I’m here right now and able to do this.’
His eyes bored into hers. Her breath lodged in her throat and she tottered between wanting to speak and waiting in hope for what was about to happen.
‘I’m letting go. Of the past, the guilt, chasing love where it doesn’t exist. Since you came into my life, I see happiness in my future, if I can just let myself look for it. And one thing I know for sure is that I don’t need to look any further than right here.’
He slid from the couch and onto one knee.
Her heart thudded.
‘I can’t think of anything I want more than to spend every day by your side, for the rest of my life.’
A tiny black box found its way into his hand. He opened it and she gasped. Inside lay a delicate gold band encrusted with a string of tiny diamonds, two larger stones flanking the deepest, richest emerald she’d ever seen. Her vision dimmed, but for the first time in too long her tears were happy.
‘How did you know?’
‘That you’re partial to emeralds? Your father may have mentioned it once or a hundred times.’ He grinned. ‘With this ring on your finger and you by my side, I know I can do anything, be anything. Most of all, for the first time, my life will be complete and everything will mean so much more because I can share it with you.’
His hands shook. ‘I want to share the best perked coffee and make a gazillion lists about how much you mean to me. I want to love you and hold you and cherish you, and keep you safe. And most of all, I never want to keep a single thing from you ever
again. I’m an open book and yours to read every day from now on, as long as you want me.’
He tugged the ring from its nest and it glinted between his fingers.
‘Jayda Thomasz, will you marry me?’
She stared at her birthstone and the man offering it, handing her more than merely a ring and a promise. It was the life she’d envisaged before the hell of the past weeks. Possible now. More than possible—real.
She’d waited so long to give herself to a man again, and the man she’d given herself to had turned out to be the right one. The only man she could imagine spending the rest of her life with.
She’d found her happiness.
Blame it on the moment, the lingering anaesthetic, the words she’d never thought to hear . . . With a hefty sniff, she began to cry.
Hell!
Not the reaction he’d been going for. Surprise, maybe. Excitement, even. Not . . . tears.
He saw it all clearly now. Jayda was overwhelmed. Not with love, but with pity.
Cement clagged in his gut. The future, so distinct seconds earlier, was now a billow of dust.
Pfft!
He stuffed the ring back into its box, and shoved it in his pocket before rejoining Jayda on the couch.
‘If you don’t want to get married though, that’s fine.’ He ignored the pain in his chest and ploughed on before he lost his nerve. ‘We could try living together instead.’
Her shoulders slumped. She snuffled and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘Is that what you want?’
It was the beginnings of that ridiculous conversation again. This wasn’t the time for circles, or pretending he could read her when, for the life of him, he hadn’t an inkling of her thoughts right now.
He shoved the hair back from his forehead, shoving back the doubts that threatened to overwhelm him. ‘Talk to me, Jayda. Tell me what you want. I can’t keep guessing.’
He held his breath.
She reached across the table and snagged a handful of tissues from the box. Mopped her eyes, sniffed, blew, all the while leaving him hanging like a man on death row.
Lethal in Love Page 48