Chapter Nineteen
Laurel
Lying in bed at 6pm on a Sunday evening with the most gorgeous man, tired, satisfied and comfortable, was obviously the very best Sunday that Laurel could have hoped for.
The first time she had come was, well, it was nothing short of amazing. She’d never had a guy go down on her while she was standing up before and never, ever, had that type of soul-destroying orgasm before.
Nate could do that all he wanted.
And when they’d had sex the second time, her on top and him using his fingers on her clit, her nipples. Yep, they could do that again.
Then on her knees in the shower, the brutal passion of his hands in her hair.
That could also be done again.
‘I’m hungry. Are you hungry?’ Nate asked, tracing lines across her back with his fingers.
‘I could eat.’
Damn straight she could, and she reached up to kiss him. He kissed her like he could gain all his sustenance from her lips and tongue, but she could hear hunger rumbling in his stomach.
‘Okay, I get it,’ she said. ‘Shall I cook?’
He screwed up his face. ‘Shall we order something?’
‘What are you saying about my cooking? You’ve never even had my cooking!’ She smacked him playfully on the shoulder.
‘What I’m saying is…’ He rolled on top of her and pinned both of her hands to the pillow. ‘I can’t do this if you’re cooking,’ he said, tickling her ribs.
‘Okay, okay,’ she said, breathless from laughing. ‘Okay, okay, Chinese or pizza? That’s the choice.’
He tilted his head in thought.
‘Pizza, but not with pineapple.’
‘Urgh, I’m not a heathen,’ she said, pushing him off her and rummaging in one of her drawers for a pair of knickers and an oversized t-shirt.
‘Where are you going?’ he whined as she headed for the bedroom door.
‘If you want something to eat, Dr Daley, I have to find my phone and order it.’
Quite frankly, him sitting naked in her bed, hair tousled from her fingers, with a sloppy, satisfied smile quirked on his face, nearly made her think screw it and head back to bed with him. But then his stomach rumbled again.
‘We didn’t have lunch, did we?’
‘No, I think we were a bit,’ he grinned deviously, ‘distracted.’
Distracted indeed.
Laurel’s phone had spilled out of her bag across the table when she’d thrown it, desperate to hear Nate’s words again. His phone was on the table too, flashing.
‘Nate, you’ve got messages and stuff,’ she called and heard movement from the bedroom.
She’d order the pizza first, then check her own messages, no doubt from Rebecca pleading for an update on Laurel’s social engagements.
Arms snaked around her waist, and lips found her neck.
‘If you want pizza, let me order,’ she said, but tilted her head so he could get better access to her sensitive pulse.
‘Okay, fine,’ he grumbled and snatched his phone from the table, plonking himself down on the sofa. She could get used to having men wearing only pants sitting on her sofa with their feet up on the ottoman. No, scratch that. One man.
God, his thighs were sexy.
Laurel finished ordering the pizza and sat next to him, checking her messages. Nate pulled her legs over his and rested his hand on her bare thigh.
Before she had a chance to text back, her phone vibrated in a call. Uh, no thanks Rebecca. Not now.
‘What are you smirking for?’ she asked, poking a smiling Nate with her toes.
‘I’ve got messages from Jess saying how much she loved you and telling me not to fuck it up.’ He glanced at her before continuing. ‘And I’ve got a badly worded message from Benji, on Owen’s phone, saying that you’re his new favourite, not me.’
He pulled the blanket off the arm of the sofa and covered them both with it.
Ah, what a sweetie Benji was.
‘I’m sorry if inviting them to the farm was the wrong thing to do, I just got kind of caught up in the moment,’ she said, nervously.
What was she thinking? That’s right, she hadn’t been thinking, because if she had, she would have thought things like ‘don’t be so ridiculous’ or ‘head first’ or ‘why, in the name of all that is holy, would you invite Nate’s friends to your farm?’.
‘It was exactly the right thing to do. Benji will absolutely love it. Jess is thrilled,’ he said, leaning his head back on the sofa, and her panic subsided a little. ‘Is it okay with you? You know you can cancel, right? You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.’
‘Not at all, I just didn’t want to overstep, you know...’ she trailed off, looking around her front room that fit the two of them in so snugly.
Nate cupped the back of her neck and kissed her firmly.
‘I love the fact that you want my friends to visit us.’
There it was. Us.
‘Us’ was good. This is what she wanted, and the reassurance that this is what he wanted too made a small smile pull at her lips. This was happiness.
‘Is that…’ she started, but suddenly found the weave in the blanket over them very interesting. ‘Is that what you want? An us?’
Because if he didn’t, how would she live without kissing him again? How would she survive having to work with him every day and not being able to slide her arms around his neck? Take him home at the end of the day, back to the flat that held them both so nicely.
‘I thought I’d been—’ He shifted on the sofa and cupped her face, stroking her cheek with the calloused pad of his thumb. ‘In case of any misunderstandings, ever again.’ He leaned his forehead against hers, eyes drooping closed. ‘I want everything, Laurel. I want everything with you.’
‘Okay,’ she whispered, leaning her face into his hand.
‘Okay,’ he whispered back.
Us.
Nate
The next three weeks passed in a haze of organising the funding meeting, pulling more and more gold and bones out of the earth and, of course, Laurel. He couldn’t keep his hands off her, and they quite simply couldn’t work in the same office anymore, not since Sylvie interrupted them, ahem, ‘working’ on the conference table. Nate worked on the kitchen table in Robin’s house and when Laurel left, she took him with her back to her flat.
There was long, warm, tantalising sex on the living room sofa, in bed, in the shower, and fast, passionate sex bent over the kitchen table. Sometimes they didn’t even make it to the flat. Good job the front door that led to the street was sturdy.
Except, of course, for the four days when Laurel got her period. She had said he didn’t have to stay, but how could he not? Not when she was in pain and bloated and tired and needed looking after. He cooked her rice pudding (not as good as her mother’s, apparently), pasta carbonara and brought ice cream and sorbet (‘I just want cold things!’). He made sure the hot water bottle was always hot and the sofa blanket was warm.
It was home. It was perfect.
The one blight on his pretty pink horizon was the funding meeting. He hated that kind of stuff, hated being wheeled in front of donors, on display.
Also, Alex would be there. He would have to be. It was generally accepted that the British Archaeological Society would give a speech commending the finds and the prospective finds, and he knew a lot of organisations gave heavy weighting to what the BAS had to say. If the site got a bad report from Alex, it probably didn’t matter what he said, what he had found, people weren’t going to throw money at him if the BAS weren’t fully on board. So, Alex had to be enthusiastic, not just go through the motions.
Nate sat at Laurel’s dining table, frowning at his emails.
‘Have you heard from him?’ she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek.
‘Not yet, I have to send him at least two more chasers before he deigns to reply,’ he replied.
‘Wine?’ she asked, as she wandered into the kitchen.
‘Yes please.’ He could do with a glass of wine after the day he’d had.
Handing him a glass of red, she curled up on the sofa and beckoned him over.
‘Tell me.’ She sipped her wine, her oversized jumper falling off her shoulder.
‘Alex won’t reply to my messages. I’m going to have to go to his boss because it’s getting ridiculous. I thought we were past this when he’d confirmed BAS endorsement, but—’ He sighed.
‘Hmm,’ she said, incredibly diplomatically.
‘I know, I know, it’s work and I’ve got to separate work from friendship, but I…’ he trailed off.
It was more than that. Threatening to shop Alex to his boss for being a dick was one thing. Actually doing it was another.
‘Okay, if he hasn’t replied by tomorrow, midday, I’ll call his boss and request another liaison. Send the paper trail of me trying to get hold of him.’
‘Okay,’ Laurel said, obviously relieved.
It wasn’t just him personally that Alex was affecting, it was his job, his students, his site, and by extension, Little Willow and his relationship with Laurel.
‘Thanks again,’ he said, sliding a hand up her thigh. ‘For helping with the organisation, for sorting the cafe to do the catering, for letting us use the Conference Centre.’
‘Of course, it’s no problem.’
‘Uh,’ he started. ‘You will be there, won’t you? For the funding meeting?’
He wanted her there, he wanted her beside him, not just to show her how much he thought of Little Willow, but because he needed her there for support, for grounding. Because they were a team.
‘Of course I will,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t miss you in action.’
His heart lifted.
‘Dad will be there, and Jack and Robin, all there to support the farm and, of course, you, Dr Daley.’
Nate had firmly cemented his place as Jack’s friend, as well as Laurel’s boyfriend. Even Robin had accepted him as a new but irrefutable part of Fletcher life.
‘I’m going to go for a drink with Rebecca in a bit. Do you want to come?’ she asked.
God, no. He did not need to be that clingy boyfriend.
‘No, I’m going to work on my speech some more for next week.’ Perhaps it was a hint to go home? To Robin’s house. ‘I can go. It’s no problem,’ he said with a smile, hoping that it didn’t come over as needy or say ‘please don’t make me go back to that house with those horrible students’.
‘Go?’ She looked hurt. ‘Do you want to go?’
‘No, I don’t want to go, I’m just giving you the option,’ he said, his little finger stroking the inside of her thigh, just before the seam of her underwear under her skirt.
‘Well, I don’t want you to go.’ She took a sip of her wine. ‘There are things I want to do to you when I get home, Dr Daley.’
Her eyes skimmed over his lips and he grinned.
‘Alright then. I’ll be here when you get home.’
Possibly naked. Probably naked. Okay, who was he kidding? Definitely naked.
Laurel left him to get changed and he scrolled through his messages again, reading the thread he shared with Owen.
Jess wouldn’t put up with any shit. Lucia had had the choice to make friends with Laurel, she had the choice to not be an absolute dick, and she had emphatically made that choice. The toxic manipulation of her tears may have worked on him, and Jess for that matter, when they were in uni, but it hadn’t taken long to figure out that when Lucia was in the wrong, the sprinklers turned on. She just feels so guilty, she’s having such a tough time, she’s sorry, she didn’t mean to, it’s just so hard being her at the moment, blah blah blah.
He texted Owen now.
Imagine not even saying goodbye to people who have fed and watered you, put you up, who you were incredibly, unbelievably rude to and who were supposed to be your oldest and best friends.
There then followed fourteen selfies of Benji pulling various funny faces.
Nate sent back pictures of him making the same faces, but he had to own it. Benji was way cuter than him.
Laurel
‘Look how gorgeous he is,’ she said to Rebecca, showing her a picture that Nate had sent her of Benji pulling a silly face.
‘If you keep showing me pictures of someone else’s child, I’m going to revoke your status as “best auntie”,’ Rebecca said. Okay, she knew a warning when she heard it. But Benji was really cute.
‘Okay, sorry. Lila and Micah are obviously my faves, always will be,’ she said apologetically. ‘How’s life? How’s my brother? I feel like I haven’t seen you!’
‘That’s because you’ve been too busy shagging Nate, Laurel,’ Rebecca said airily. ‘And I don’t blame you one little bit.’
‘You’re still not getting details,’ she said, laughing.
‘Jack’s good. Nate is a good influence on him because he’s still pulling his weight. I expected it to fade away after a couple of weeks, but he’s going strong,’ she said, then added, ‘I think he had absolutely no idea how much I actually did.’
‘I fully agree. It probably didn’t even register in his tiny little man brain,’ Laurel said, waving at Robin who had just come in with his gaggle of boys. Rebecca followed her gaze, then lent over the table conspiratorially. ‘What’s happened to Robin as well? He seems to be going out less and actually doing stuff around the farm,’ she said quietly. ‘The pig pen actually got re-felted last week.’
‘Jack thinks there’s a girl,’ Rebecca said knowingly.
Laurel rolled her eyes, because there was always a girl.
‘No, a girl that he really likes, not just a shag.’ Rebecca topped up both of their glasses and put the screw top back on the empty bottle.
She assessed her sister-in-law.
‘Really?’ she asked, skeptically.
‘Really.’ Rebecca was adamant.
‘That would mean it would be someone on the farm. Do you think it’s one of the students?’ Laurel mused. ‘Oh god, not the one with the eyelashes and no bra. Can you imagine her at Sunday lunch? Dad wouldn’t know where to look.’
Rebecca snorted on her wine, choking down a laugh.
‘I bet her name is something like Rain, or Hemp, or Serendipity,’ she said.
Laurel’s face dropped. ‘It had better not be Sylvie.’
‘Why not?’ Rebecca frowned.
‘Uh, because if he shags her and then breaks her heart then it will be the most awkward thing ever, and she’ll leave, and I don’t want her to leave.’
She couldn’t leave, what would Laurel do without her? Sylvie kept everything running smoothly, and she was already seeing the benefit of that business course thing Sylvie was on.
‘But Sylvie’s a nice girl,’ Rebecca said, sipping her wine. ‘She’d keep him on the straight and narrow, wouldn’t she?’
Her eyebrow raised of its own accord.
‘If she gets her heart broken by her boss’s little brother, it’s not going to go down well.’
‘You’ve literally invented workplace romances, so you can’t kibosh it.’ Rebecca leaned back in her chair. ‘Besides, I heard what you and Nate were doing on your conference table the other week.’
No. Fucking. Way.
Colour shot up her face and Rebecca threw her head back and cackled loudly.
‘Oh my god! It is true! I said to Jack that no, not my Laurel, she wouldn’t do something like that.’
Laurel buried her face in her hands.
‘Oh my god, Jack knows?’
‘Jack knows, Robin knows, your dad doesn’t know, but pretty much everyone on the entire farm knows.’ Rebecca said through bursts of laughter. ‘Don’t worry, I think it’s great, you deserve some happiness.’
‘Does Nate know that everyone knows?’
Forget how good Sylvie was at her job, Robin could go out with her, smash her heart into a million pieces, whatever.
‘Probably, him and Jack are besties now, it’s so weird,’ Rebecca said. ‘But weird in a good way, Jack needs a forward thinking, progressive friend to drag him out of the nineteenth century.’
‘I’m going to kill Sylvie,’ Laurel said, fanning her red face.
Rebecca laughed again.
‘Yeah, best of luck with that.’
‘I’m obviously not going to kill Sylvie,’ she said, pouting.
Subject change, anything to get away from Sylvie walking in on her and Nate on the conference table.
‘Are you coming to the funding meeting presentation thing?’
It would be so nice to have Rebecca there, a bit of support for Jack. It was their farm, and making the funding meeting a success would result in all kinds of untold benefits. Besides, Rebecca could schmooze with the best of them.
‘It’s in the middle of the day, Laurel,’ Rebecca’s lips pursed. ‘I can’t just leave work whenever I feel like it.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry,’ Laurel said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
She kicked herself mentally. This had been a longstanding argument between her and Jack. Rebecca couldn’t just up and leave in the middle of the day, couldn’t just drop everything. Rebecca had her own high-flying career, and it was unfair for Laurel to have asked.
Rebecca’s face softened. ‘But I will come after I finish. Will it go on that long?’
‘It should do. There’s a drinks reception after the talk and stuff, so yeah,’ Laurel said, making a mental note to check on the preparations for the buffet and drinks with the cafe.
‘Alright then, I’ll be there, probably with the children. Perhaps I’ll see if the nanny can stay a bit longer and watch them. We’ll see.’ Rebecca sipped her wine.
Another bottle later, and they were both quietly sozzled, and a smidge slurry.
‘Robin,’ Laurel called. ‘Are you going back to the farm or are you being naughty and staying out?’ She giggled, because Drunk Laurel was funny.
‘I’m going back,’ he said, draining his pint. ‘You coming?’ he asked Rebecca.
‘Yes, Robin Fletcher, Sir. I am definitely coming.’ Rebecca stood and flung her jacket on. ‘Come on, Laurel Fletcher. We’ll walk you home.’
Rebecca linked her arm with Laurel’s and marched her out of the pub door, not checking to see whether Robin was following or not.
‘So, I think you and the good doctor are great and I like him for you,’ Rebecca was saying as they meandered down the high street. ‘But I will kill him if he makes you cry, okay? Or certainly give him a stern talking to.’
Now, that was surely a fate worse than death.
It had gotten colder, and Laurel pulled her coat around her, not having quite drunk enough wine for a suitable beer jacket.
‘Well good, because I like him too,’ Laurel said tartly.
‘Oh my god, can you talk about something else? It’s sickening,’ Robin muttered behind them.
‘Ooh, Robin. I have to say…’ Laurel turned and pinned her brother with wavering eyes. ‘If you break my Sylvie’s heart, I will smother you in your sleep. Okay?’
Robin rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone to type a message.
‘No, I mean it,’ Laurel continued. ‘I love you, obviously, but I adore Sylvie, and if you’re going to be nice to her then that’s fine, but if you’re going to break her heart then I may have to burn you.’ She squelched down on a hiccup.
Robin finished his text and put his phone in his pocket.
‘Sylvie?’ he huffed. ‘Who even said I like Sylvie?’
Laurel shrugged theatrically, and Rebecca stifled a laugh.
‘I’m just saying, you know, just in case.’
‘Oh look,’ Robin deadpanned, pointing over her shoulder. ‘It’s Nate.’
‘Nate!’ she cried, dragging a giggling Rebecca over to her front door, where Nate had magically appeared. He exchanged a look with Robin. ‘Look, Rebecca, it’s my boyfriend!’
‘It is your boyfriend!’ Rebecca squealed.
‘Okay, she’s your problem now,’ Robin said, and gave Laurel a light shove into Nate’s arms.
He smelled so good.
‘I’ll just sleep here, on your chest,’ Laurel said, snuggling against him.
‘Okay, good,’ Nate said, smiling.
Okay. Good.