Almost Mine (19 page)

Tom still wasn’t buying it. ‘He could never know you better than you do.’

‘You’re sounding as if I’m detached somewhat from myself, as if I don’t know myself at all; living my life half-heartedly because I don’t actually understand my own needs. That’s not what it’s all about. Nick and I have a bond, a communicative understanding that requires less work than most couples. I probably know him better than he knows himself, too. ‘

Tom marvelled at such an other-worldly concept. ‘How did that happen?’

‘I guess when you have known someone for so long, and been through life-altering moments with each other, you learn from them. When someone is at their highest or at their absolute lowest, is when you see them for who they are. Then you know them, better than they know themselves, because you understand how they would react to situations. It’s far easier to see things from the outside in than the inside out. You know what they would think if an issue was to arise. Even if fear curtains a true understanding of a person, you know deep down exactly how things will play out. Don’t you get confused sometimes? And don’t you wish that you could take a step outside of yourself, to look at a situation with fresh eyes? We have each other for that because we’ve been through a lot together.’

‘It’s not an overnight sort of thing.’ Tom succinctly reiterated my point.

‘Depends on what a couple is faced with. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. There are some people that you can never truly know.’

‘How’s a man supposed to tell the difference?’ He was sitting forward now; as if being taught one of life’s quintessential lessons in love.

Nick threw his legs over the side of his lounger and took Tom’s empty glass. ‘That’s the game, my friend. Another?’

‘Thanks.’

As he selected another bottle from the floor to ceiling timber wine rack — one of four that lined the small cellar — Nick read the label as he turned to face me.

‘Do we really have that?’ I asked without moving closer.

‘Of course we do.’

‘I’m talking about knowing each other better —’

‘I know what you’re talking about. Why are you all the way over there?’ He placed the bottle down on a chunky timber table in the middle of the cellar, so as to free his arms. He reached for me and pulled me closer.

My heart swelled. ‘So I don’t have to tell you how cross I am with myself for being so wasteful with you?’

‘I know it all, so please, let’s not dwell on it.’

‘And you think you know all of my secrets?’

He answered delicately. ‘I think that perhaps I do.’

‘Do you wish that there were some hidden things between us?’

‘I’m glad I know everything about you because I can truly understand who you are, thus making it less difficult to give you everything that you need.’

‘I hate living with regret.’

‘The past is the past. Do you remember a couple of months back when we finished the house and we stood at the letterbox in the rain?’

‘I remember.’

‘I said to you, “It begins now.” We survived the last chapter, barely, and now we get to begin the next one, together.’

‘I have a feeling that this part of our story will not be an easy one, though.’

‘No, it won’t be. But all happy endings need a bumpy ride don’t they? You can’t truly appreciate the good stuff otherwise.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Did you tell Lucy about me? About —’ he began.

‘No! Why would I do that?’

‘She just seems a little distant tonight.’

‘I thought that too. She’s a lot less invasive. Maybe it has nothing to do with you.’

‘Just paranoid I guess. I feel a bit like when you’re guilty about something and you’re sure that everyone on the room knows, and everyone is looking at you. I feel like I have a giant finger pointing at me saying “this person is defective” and that everyone can see what a failure I am.’

‘I haven’t told anyone,’ I assured him. ‘And
nobody
would ever think that about you, especially me.’

We watched each other.

‘We’ll have our happy ending, angel. I promise you that.’

‘I’m trying to figure out what our happy ending will actually be. If we can’t define it then how will we ever recognise it when we get there?’

He kissed my hair and encircled me in his arms. ‘I just promised you that I’d make it happen, didn’t I? That should be assurance enough. We’ll have our day in the sun.’

It was a Sunday afternoon a few weeks later when the phone rang,
again,
for the fourth time in an hour, and again I groaned as I lowered my book that was too tantalizingly distracting to possibly put down, hoping that who was trying to call would just give up.

There wasn’t much else to do today; it was dreary and overcast, but not cool enough to deter me from wearing a thin white V-neck top and navy blue cotton peasant skirt; it was after all supposed to be nearing summer. Maybe Shady Valley didn’t get the memo. It just looked plain yucky outside, so earlier Nick had suggested I lose myself in a book.

‘A book?’ I had replied in surprise, not all opposed to the idea. ‘I haven’t picked up a book in ages, nothing fictional, anyway.’

He had handed my one of my favourites and offered it to me. ‘I know you haven’t read this in a while.’

The Bronze Horseman
was my most prized possession in my ample book collection that lined a wall of the duck-egg blue living room, and he was right; I hadn’t read it in far too long.

‘Plus, I know what these hopelessly-in-love characters do to you.’ He’d pulled me close as I began flipping the pages, reacquainting myself with the heartbreaking words within them.

‘Characters?’ I scolded him with a rueful smile, ‘Tatiana and Alexander are real, thank you very much.’ I had sighed a heavenly sigh at the prospect of falling in love with them again.

‘My point proven,’ he’d kissed my hair, ‘why don’t you lounge in here and relax today?’

I had glanced up from the book with an inquiring expression. ‘As much as I’m looking forward to this pure indulgence, I can’t help but to think that you’re trying to get rid of me.’

‘What? I’m just trying to look after my wife. Is that such a crime?’

‘Yesterday you suggested that I go shopping,’ I’d said to prove my point. ‘I have never been one to shop, Nick. You know that more than anyone.’

‘I’m busy is all, and I don’t want you to be lonely. Look, sit here,’ he’d guided me to a day bed, plush with patchwork cushions and throws, which sat in the bay window. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, and you can just unwind; get swept away in this.’ He’d gestured toward my book that was still open in my hands.

‘Fine.’ It really didn’t take much convincing for me to spend my day like that, with that book, so I sat and flipped from the middle of the book and back to the first page. ‘But later, you’d better be ready for me,’ I warned with a seductive glint in my eye.

He’d laughed out loud, but reeled himself in all too quickly, as if being seduced by me was not part of the plan. His apparent self-censorship had not gone unnoticed. I had eyed him curiously.

‘What?’ he’d asked.

I’d directed my attention back to my book without saying a word.

So now I was lost, as I knew I would be, within the pages of
The Bronze Horseman
with an incessant phone persisting in ruining my afternoon. With a defeated huff, I threw my white crocheted blanket off, and stomped — like a spoilt child who had been told to clean my room before I could play — to the phone.

‘This had better be important,’ I said by way of a greeting, knowing full well that I had the right to answer the home phone as I pleased, and not with the politely professional, ‘Mathieson’s Vineyard, Cate Mathieson speaking.’

‘Cate,’ said a forlorn voice on the other end. ‘It’s Tom.’

Over the following hour, I was earbashed about how much of a broken man he was, and could I possibly help him to fix things with Lucy, and I had had to explain that I had not spoken to Lucy since, well, I hadn’t spoken to her properly since our holiday and that, no, I couldn’t explain why Lucy would dump him without explanation, and that, yes, I would pass on a message to call him, and that, no, I couldn’t understand her behaviour either, and that, yes, I would try my best to get Lucy to talk to him, and around and around it went. I hadn’t spoken to her in a while and I didn’t know exactly how I was going to help him, but this merry-go-round conversation to just too tedious to have it keep winding around. I told him anything he wanted to hear just to get him off the phone.

‘Who was that?’ Nick said as he came in when I finally lowered the phone from my burning ear and replaced it in its console.

‘Tom. Have you seen Lucy lately?’

He ever so slightly hesitated. ‘Not for a while.’

‘Me neither. It seems the honeymoon is over for her and soldier boy.’

Nick reached down and picked up the book; the innocent bystander of my rush to the phone had been dropped to the floor. ‘Not as good as you remembered?’ he arched an eyebrow.

I reached for the book and stroked the cover adoringly. ‘Never lets me down. Hey,’ I said as I mentally noted that Nick had washed up. ‘I thought we could take nap together...or maybe,’ I stepped closer to him a stroked the lapel of his deep green shirt, ‘get a little frisky?’

‘Why don’t you go upstairs, take a long bath or something, and I’ll cook us dinner?’ He deflected my advances.

I sauntered over to the book case and slid the book back into its place, then met Nick where he stood in the middle of the room. I lifted my face to him without speaking and without removing my lustful gaze from him I untucked his shirt, stroking his firm stomach. His muscles slowly rolled as they reacted to my feathery touch. ‘I think we should work up an appetite first.’

The will to resist me was gone; it had never been there to begin with. He cupped my face in his hands and bent to kiss me, first tenderly and then with more urgency as he mimicked my hands as they worked their way around to his lower back, pulling him against me. His mouth was at my ear, and he bit my lobe as I tucked my fingers below the waist of his jeans.

Nick reached around to my exploring hands and placed them around his neck. ‘Hold onto me.’ And as I tightened my hold on him, he lifted me with one hand under my bottom, holding me in place, then, wrapped my legs around his waist with his free hand.

‘No dinner, then?’ I grinned triumphantly.

‘Oh. I plan on eating,’ he murmured huskily, ‘it just won’t be anything from the kitchen.’

He ascended the stairs without breaking stride, even as I kissed him deeply, my tongue mirroring his salacious licks, and I heard a vibrating groan from his chest. He carried me as if he had a navigation system built into his brain, the route to our king bed programmed indefinitely.

In the bedroom he lowered me across the bed, and when I extricated my legs from him, he bit my lobe again and whispered to me,
uh-uh,
and lifted me back into position, holding him to me. He kissed along my jaw, nibbling, licking down my neck, tasting me, devouring me as he promised. My fingers entwined in his dark wavy hair as it curled around my knuckles as I gently pulled it.

‘Nick,’ I moaned as he pulled down my V-neck and released my breast from my bra, ‘gently,’ I almost whimpered as he sucked my nipples, first one and then the other, teasing them as he licked around them. He looked up at me as he slowly sucked again.

‘Are they sensitive, angel?’ he murmured.

‘Hmmm,’ I moaned again as he blew on the wetness that he’d left behind. They ached as they hardened further, but I didn’t stop him when his mouth teased them, his careful nibbling lips melting me to the core. My fingers remained in his hair, indecision holding him in place and pulling him away from my aching nipples at the same time.

‘You like that?’

My breathy voice barely left my throat. ‘
Nick
,’ was the only word that I could manage as my head pressed back into the bed.

‘Ok, baby,’ he appeased me and moved his mouth further down my body, his palm cupping the back of my left knee as it remained obediently around his waist. He kissed it as he lifted it, pushing it down toward me, opening my thighs wider and allowing his mouth easy, unobstructed access down my milky thigh. ‘Lift,’ he said as he splayed his fingers around my hips, the tips of them slowly pulling my underwear down the entire length of my legs as I did so. I lifted my bottom again as I pushed the waist of my skirt down, but stopped when he held my hands in place, shaking his head. ‘Leave it on.’

He nibbled his way to the apex of my thighs, blowing softly on the soft, moistening flesh. I writhed just as I had when he blew on my hypersensitive nipples. I milled my hips beneath him, lifting me to his mouth, but he ignored my breathy pleas to put his lips on me. Slowly, he slid his index finger inside me and grinned as he noted me fisting the sheets.

‘Please, Nick,’ I moaned.

‘Be patient, angel.’

He pushed two fingers into my tightening flesh and finally lowered his mouth to me, sucking slowly, rhythmically until I cried out, begging for mercy. I tightened around his fingers. My fingers found his hair again and he knew I was close as I held him in place.

Pressure built with every lick, every suck he took of my body. Like the friction of a match struck against flint as it sparks burning heat, Nick’s teasingly slow desire for me set me on fire. I’d never felt anything this overwhelming; the deep sensation that was overtaking my entire body, stealing any thoughts or distractions that at times like these usually circled in my head, felt truly amazing.

‘
I can’t wait.’

With his free hand, he unbuttoned his jeans, freeing himself from his boxer shorts.

‘I want to come with you,’ he murmured as he pushed my thighs up with the backs of his knees, his fingers still inside me, caressing the nerve centre of my flesh, his thumb taking the place of his tongue. I reached down and took hold of him, stroking him.

‘I’m almost there.’

He gently pulled his fingers out of me and pushed the tip of himself into me, teasing me as he rubbed it from the opening and up to my swollen clitoris. Holding himself up on his arms so that he could see my face, he watched my eyes roll with exquisite pleasure as he rimmed my opening with his hardness, begging for him to fill me. He lowered himself and
sucked on my nipples, and he didn’t know if I cried out in pleasure or pain, but I didn’t stop him. He pushed hard into me and I cried out again. He slowly pulled out and pushed hard into me again.