Chapter 18 December 18th #4
I get inside my apartment and close the door, taking in the newly spruced-up space, before wandering to the kitchen.
The table is laid for two. Ingredients I need to make a coq au vin are on the counter, the chicken in the fridge with wine.
Wine that I carefully selected to match the meal I was making, rather than wine for the sake of getting mindlessly drunk.
Which is what it will be used for now.
He was having an affair. My baby is dead because he was having a fucking affair.
I didn’t plan for it to happen. It just . . . did.
Such utter fucking bollocks. When will the blows stop coming? I thought Dec was healing me. I never dreamed he could be using me.
He’s slashed his offer, and then I found out he’s seeing you. Coincidence?
No. Probably not.
“God damn it,” I yell, slapping the counter. Why now? Why this month? This week? This fucking day?
I set the orange wine on the counter and pull out the chilled white from the fridge, retrieving my newly bought corkscrew to remove the cork.
No screw caps in sight. I pour a large glass and sip it as I put away the ingredients, then head into the lounge to the cabinet by the window.
The framed picture of my boy sits there alone, tilted ever so slightly so he can see the snow.
It comes over me like a tidal wave, my muscles giving way, folding me down to the floor.
And I sob.
Silently.
I sob my fucking heart out. “I don’t want tomorrow to come,” I say to him.
“Mummy doesn’t want to do this anymore.” Wake up each morning and have that brief moment where everything’s okay before reality swoops in and reminds me of what I’ve lost. And the agony starts all over again.
A never-ending cycle of pain, momentary relief, and realisation, setting off the pain again.
Dec provided respite. My job was a distraction.
The pain was dulled. Not gone—it will never be gone—but it was manageable.
Just. Neither Dec nor my job can help me anymore.
I look at my glass. But wine can.
I need to feel that familiar numbness.
I sniff, wiping my eyes, and get to my feet with effort, heading for the kitchen as I neck it, but a light thump on my front door pulls me to a stop on the threshold, and I look at the ceiling, taking in air.
Finding strength.
I go to the door and push my forehead into the wood. “I can’t take anymore today,” I say quietly through the wood.
“And I can’t leave knowing what tomorrow is,” Dec replies softly. “Open the door, Camryn.”
My lip wobbles, and I bite down on it viciously to stop it. Tomorrow. The nineteenth of December. Three years since Noah died. “Go away,” I murmur, squeezing my eyes closed, rolling my head on the wood.
“No.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No.” His soft thud on the door vibrates through my head. “I will never leave you alone, Camryn.” Another thud. “Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”
I’m hearing. And I don’t want to believe it. It would be dangerous to believe it. He lied to me. I push my palm into the wood and lift my head with effort, taking the knob and pulling the door open, finding Dec standing on the other side, tall and impassive.
And painfully beautiful.
“Can I come in?” he asks quietly.
“You lied to me.”
“No, Camryn, I didn’t lie. I just didn’t give you the full picture.
” The sincerity in his eyes is hard to ignore.
“I didn’t need you to tell me Thomas’s son and wife were spending money like it might melt if they didn’t.
I didn’t need you to tell me money burns a hole in Thomas Fryer’s pocket.
I’m buying his company. I’m a businessman.
I have forensic accountants looking into every company I’m interested in, so I know what’s going on.
I know if there are holes, if accounts are manipulated, if I’m being given a pile of bullshit to elevate the price.
When I saw you in that bar the night we met, I didn’t know who you were.
” He wedges his hands into the doorframe either side and leans into it, coming closer but keeping a respectable distance.
“When I realised, I was in too deep already.”
“I told you on our first walk the night I met you.”
“I was in too deep already,” he repeats softly, shrugging.
My stupid lip wobbles. “You should have told me.”
“I know.” The veins in his neck bulge. “I know I should have told you. But I didn’t. That’s on me. I fucked up, Camryn.”
“You’ve bought the company my ex-husband works for too.”
He definitely withdraws in surprise. “What company?”
“Cloisters.”
“There’s nothing in that except good business sense. How do you know that?”
“Because he was here when the police showed up earlier. They told me you’d filed a report.”
“You were assaulted, Camryn. It needs to be on record.”
“That was for me to decide.”
“I disagree.” He releases the door and takes one step over the threshold.
Everything inside me turns heavy. Or heavier. I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with this. I don’t have the energy to challenge him.
“Because when you love someone,” he goes on, “you do everything in your power to keep them safe.” He holds his hands out, asking me to accept him, and I let out a ragged sob.
Hope is teasing me again. But is Dec my destiny?
Does that make my hope less of a burden?
“And I love you bone fucking deep, woman. Every broken, beautiful piece of you.”
Emotion makes my hand shake as I lift it for him, and the moment I do, he pushes the door closed behind him, sets my glass aside, and lifts me into his arms, carrying me to my bedroom.
When I saw you in that bar the night we met, I didn’t know who you were. When I realised, I was in too deep already.
He could have simply walked away today. But he came to me. He knew I needed the truth, and he came to me and told me. He knew I needed comfort—him—and he came to me.
And now? I have to forgive him. I have to trust him, believe him. I’m taking everything he wants to give me, because I know I can’t do the next twenty-hours alone.
And because I love him.
I love him deeply.
Once he’s set me on my feet, he starts stripping himself down to nothing before he starts on me.
And I watch. Quiet, so fucking thankful he’s here.
He pulls my vest up my body, lifting my arms with it, and my hair tumbles around my shoulders as he casts it aside and turns me around so my back’s to him.
My bra loosens, falling down my arms, and I watch it drop to my feet as Dec slips his fingers into the sides of my knickers and crouches, drawing them slowly down my legs.
“Step out,” he orders gently. I do as I’m bid and turn back to face him.
Naked. Both of us. Bare, exposed, vulnerable.
He takes my hand and pulls me to the bed, throwing the sheet back and helping me in, before he slips in beside me, covers us, and pulls me close to his body.
The heat of him pressed against me feels like sunlight on my skin.
Essential.
I settle into his side, my cheek on his chest, and draw circles across his abdomen. And we lie there in silence, cocooned in each other. Safe. His heart beats steady and strongly under my ear, his lips rest on the back of my head. “Can you breathe?” I ask, my voice husky, my body relaxed.
“I can never breathe easily around you, Camryn,” he whispers. “Falling in love with you was easy. Admitting it to myself was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never been in love before.”
My tracing fingers falter. “Not even with your wife?”
“Definitely not with my wife.”
“Then why did you marry her?”
My face rises when he breathes in. “Because I was really fucking stupid.”
“You never told me what went wrong.”
“Everything.”
“You’re being vague.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything that will make me feel less shitty about my heartbreaks.”
He huffs a little, with laughter I think. “I never want to be a heartbreak to you.”
“You might not have a choice,” I murmur, staring across his chest. “We don’t know what the universe has in store for us. We’re at its mercy. Some of us survive the blows, some of us don’t.”
“You’re surviving.”
“My heart beats.”
Dec moves, and I’m suddenly being pulled up his body until I’m splayed the full length of him, my eyes level with his. My arms frame his head, and his palms hold my arse. “I want you to live again.”
I scan his eyes, our noses so close they’re almost touching. His pupils are dilated, but not so much I can’t see the shards of silver glimmering at me. “For you?” I ask on a whisper.
“For Noah,” he whispers back. “Everything, always for him before it’s ever for me, Camryn.
You can’t love someone without one day experiencing grief.
And you will never grieve someone without having loved them briefly or infinitely.
Infinite love means endless grief. But peace will find its way back into your heart again, baby, and the grief will lighten enough for you to live again. ”
I’m certain I love him more each time he looks at me, speaks to me, and listens to me. “I’m glad you walked into that bar,” I whisper, placing my fingertip on his lip and dragging it from one side to the other as I watch. “I’m glad you followed me out of there and saved me from the bubbles.”
His small smile is almost sad. “I’m glad you let me save you.
” His fingers brush through my hair, and our gazes collide and lock, silence between us falling.
But with each wordless second, our breathing becomes more distinct.
His eyes sparkle like liquid metal, capturing the dim light with an ethereal gleam.
Is he real? Is this real? “Tell me,” he whispers, his voice hoarse, his breath hot on my face.
“I love you.”
He nods mildly and applies a gentle pressure on the back of my head, encouraging my mouth onto his.
His soft, moist lips brush lightly over mine, back and forth, slow and measured, in no rush at all.
Blood rushes to my head. Life bursts into my tired bones.
Dec coaxes my mouth open, plunging his tongue deeply but patiently, and mine soon starts to gently tangle with it.
He hums, exploring wide, remaining on his back as I bring my knees up, lifting my hips too, lost in his kiss.
I feel his hand come between us, taking himself in his grip, the tip of his arousal skimming me, and I swallow hard, subtly moving my hips, helping him to line up.
And then I slowly sink down onto him, our kiss pausing for a moment while we both exhale with the penetration, my torso hardening as I mould around him.
He’s buried to the root, so deep I’m struggling with the fullness.
I exhale, controlled, and Dec resumes our kiss, deepening that too, but it’s still so slow.
So controlled. With one hand still cupping my head, the other now cupping my arse, he rolls his hips up carefully, and I rest my forearms either side of his head, my hair a veil around us, my hips falling into the rhythm he’s set, and it’s perfect. Perfectly quiet, perfectly slow.
Perfectly us.
He rolls lazily, and I meet every advance, and he doesn’t stop kissing me.
My breasts are pressed into his chest, our skin starting to slip as the pressure builds.
And yet the pace remains languid and easy, and our mouths remain in perfect control.
When his fingers claw into my backside, it’s the first sign that he’s reaching the cusp of pleasure, and then he moans, his lips stilling on mine, his tongue retreating as he suppresses a hiss, quietly gathering himself.
My pants are soft against his open mouth, my skin becoming clammy.
“Okay?” I whisper, and he groans, rolling me onto my back, our connection unbroken, and resumes our kiss.
Still so controlled and easy, I don’t know how he’s doing it.
This could easily get out of hand, become vehement, but he doesn’t want it to be that.
Passionate, yes, and it is, but not out of control.
Not fucking.
Dec blindly takes my wrists and places them gently over my head, kissing his way up to my ear.
“I’m perfect,” he whispers, gently biting down on my lobe before using my arms as a wedge to prop his torso up and look down at me.
And he really looks at me, grinding, retreating, plunging, rolling.
I exhale sharply on every advance, breathe in deep on every retreat.
I don’t need to tell him I’m reaching the point of no return.
I want to bury my face somewhere, clench my eyes closed to deal with the eruption coming, and yet while he’s gazing at me as he makes love to me, fracturing the eye contact is impossible.
My lips part, my back arches. Dec’s nostrils flare, his jaw twitches, his eyes turn wild.
And then he jerks, stills for a moment, and pushes deep and high, holding himself inside me as he shudders, and I go with him on a whimper as an upsurge of pleasure hits me and charges through my body like a tsunami, calm but devastating.
Every muscle starts to ache from me tensing to deal with the onslaught, as Dec shakes above me, a sheen of sweat glistening on his top lip, his hair damp and falling onto his forehead.
He collapses to one forearm, his head hanging, his throbbing length swelling against my inner walls.
He breathes, laboured, and I reach for his back, dragging my fingers lightly up and down his spine, smiling to myself when he quells a growl at the back of his throat and pulls his shoulder blades in.
His body comes down to rest on mine, but he doesn’t release his full weight, holding himself with his bent arm, his face going into the crook of my neck.
I feel his tongue lick the column of my throat, and I close my eyes, tickling his back, relishing his constant kisses on my neck.
And we stay there, close, sleepy, quiet, for the longest time. Holding each other. Connected. Peaceful. No urge to run out.
Because when you love someone, you do everything in your power to keep them safe. And I love you bone fucking deep, woman. Every broken, beautiful piece of you.
“Thank you,” I murmur sleepily.
“Shut up.”
I smile to myself and settle into the darkness, not scared of it today, or of my dreams.