Chapter Nine #2
‘Why, Jen? It was something unavoidable. Why dwell on it?’ But he remembered the uncomfortable way it had made him feel, as though he was gently being channelled into thoughts he didn’t want.
The memory reinforced his need to dismiss the blessing neither of them had asked for and all uncomfortable thoughts along with it.
‘It wasn’t what I expected,’ he confessed eventually.
‘What were you expecting?’
‘Something vague and well-meaning in between the bruschetta and the main course, I suppose.’
He went to the fridge, got himself a bottle of water and drank it in one go. Then he looked at her.
She’d shone all evening. She’d looked beautiful in her slinky jade-green dress, with her long, dark hair tumbling down her back and her voluptuous curves radiating the sort of sexiness no amount of money could buy.
She had smiled and chatted with everyone.
She’d fitted in because she had the special knack of putting people at ease.
No wonder his mother was so thrilled at the thought of her becoming Mrs Gabriel Garcia, if she chose to take his name—and who knew, because the woman had a mind of her own.
No wonder his mother was even now probably musing whether her first grandchild would be a girl or a boy and debating where she should buy her mother-of-the-groom outfit.
Looking at Jennifer now, he felt the same disturbing edginess he had felt during the course of the evening, and never more so than when the priest had blessed them, when he’d solemnly told them about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of trying to make it work in a world that was filled with doubt and uncertainties.
‘Sex?’ he suggested as if he might be offering her a drink.
‘Well,’ she laughed, ‘that’s a novel approach to foreplay.’
‘There are times when foreplay is overrated.’
‘And now is one of them?’
‘It’s the dress. It’s been doing all sorts of things to my libido this evening.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘Better if I show you what I mean…’
He stepped towards her with intent, losing himself in the physical, yet knowing that once it was over, once they were both sated, he would have to face that disturbing edginess and do something to put a full stop to it.
There was no point thinking that he was going to take his time. That would have to come another day, but right now…
He’d never wanted anyone as much as he wanted her. He wanted to lose himself in her, to drown out the unsettling feelings swirling inside him that he couldn’t seem to pin down and reason away.
They stumbled towards the bedroom, shedding clothes along the way. Her fingers scrabbled to unbutton his trousers. By the time they were in the bedroom, he had pushed down her dress, and she had somehow managed to wriggle out of it and kick it somewhere. Anywhere.
What remained of their clothing was ripped off at speed before they hit the mattress, and then…
He couldn’t wait. He was going crazy just touching her and feeling the soft, heavy weight of her breasts, the stiffness of her nipples.
Her soft cries urged him on, and he thrust into her, long and deep and hard, again and again, as she wrapped her long legs around him.
Was he expunging something from within himself?
It felt like it, but he didn’t know what.
He knew that she came with him. He could feel the stiffening of her body and hear the urgency of her guttural moans.
He half opened his eyes to look at her. He wanted to see the mounting colour in her face and the flaring of her nostrils and the fluttering of her eyes as she soared away on an orgasm that peaked just as he arched up and came with a long, violent shudder.
Lying against him, Jennifer had never felt closer. To him or to anyone. Never.
This was what love felt like, and she was surprised that she had only now slotted the pieces of this jigsaw together and understood her feelings for what they were.
The way they had made love…
There had been a hot, frantic urgency there, something strong and powerful that had spoken of feelings in him that matched hers. Or was she imagining that?
She wriggled against him and stroked his spine with her finger, dragging her blunt nail along it. He shivered and half laughed against her neck.
‘So…’ she said softly, and she pulled back to look at him. It was dark in the room, but not so dark that she couldn’t make out the drowsy, unfocused look in his eyes, the look of a man who had just had his every need met.
‘So?’
‘We were talking about what Father Giovanni said to us…’
‘Were we?’
‘Yes. Before you decided that we had to have sex without delay. Gabriel, how did you feel when he blessed our union?’
‘Haven’t we covered that?’ he groaned. ‘About the same time as I was musing on how big this mythical family of mine was going to be and whether I’d need a house extension?
’ He flung himself back and shielded his eyes with his arm for a couple of seconds.
Then he flipped onto his side and looked at her.
‘You were impressive tonight,’ he murmured.
Jennifer smiled, touched by the husky sincerity in his voice, as though he hadn’t been able to resist the spontaneous compliment.
‘Keep talking…’
‘Beautiful and engaging and impressive. You have a genuine interest in other people and what they have to say, and don’t tell me that it’s because you teach and you’re paid to listen to those brats of yours waffle on about nonsense all day long.’
‘You realise that you were once a brat just like them?’
‘My teachers all loved me.’
‘That’s your ego talking again, and I think you’re trying to change the subject. We were chatting about Father Giovanni and what he said. I wanted to know how you felt about that.’
‘Okay. I think I felt awkward,’ he said, idly toying with her hair.
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s not what we’re about.’
‘Yes, I know.’ She hesitated. Then, for a few seconds, she felt as though she was staring down into a deep, deep abyss.
She loved him. She always had. The love had grown from the ground up, from adoring hero worship when she’d been a kid to deep friendship to a crush she hadn’t even really known she’d harboured all the way through to this…this wonderful thing that filled her up now, every bit of her.
Should she wait to see whether he could ever feel the same? Would waiting in hopeful silence bring her any closer to her dream, or would he remain oblivious to any feelings he might have for her, any feelings that might go beyond simple friendship?
What the priest had said about friendship and love echoed in her ears now. Hadn’t that been the very thing she’d been thinking?
How could she keep this to herself? She would never be able to go on another date again if she didn’t tell him how she felt now, because she would be too busy spending her life waiting for him…thinking about her love…just loving him.
The best that could happen was that he would see what she saw, would recognise the feelings they had for one another as something bigger than either of them could ever have expected.
And if he didn’t?
If he turned away from her…?
It was a sobering thought, but at least rejection would bring clarity and enable her to move on with her life. She’d wasted so much time and energy dating guys only to methodically pick them apart, not knowing that none of them had ever stood a chance next to the friend she had fallen in love with.
Whatever happened, saying how she felt would open doors for her to a different way forward. All at once she knew that the time for that had come.
‘Penny for them.’
‘Sorry?’ Jennifer blinked and refocused.
‘You’re a million miles away.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t like that. I much prefer a Jennifer who’s in the here and now with me. What’s going through that pretty little head of yours?’
‘Pretty little head of mine?’ Momentarily distracted, she rolled her eyes and heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘You know you can’t say stuff like that, don’t you?’
‘But you are very pretty.’
‘You’re teasing me.’
‘Of course I am. I’m a twenty-first-century man, which means I’m a feminist.’
She decided that they could both get lost in this line of good-natured banter because it was well-trodden ground, but right now, there were more important things to talk about. If she didn’t talk about them now, then who knew when she would next drum up the courage?
‘What Father Giovanni said made me think, Gabriel.’ She felt him still and breathed in deeply. ‘Before, we were just having a bit of fun, but when he talked about marriage and about what it entailed, it actually made me realise that…that…’
‘Don’t, Jennifer.’
‘You don’t even know what I’m going to say.’
‘I can tell from the expression on your face that I’m probably not going to…know what to do with whatever you think you may want to say. I don’t like situations where I don’t know what to do.’
‘That makes the two of us, Gabriel, but…’ She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them and looked at him without blinking.
‘I love you. Don’t interrupt. Just let me talk.
I love you. Not just like a friend, but more than that.
I’m in love with you. I don’t think I realised it before, but when Father Giovanni began talking to us, when he blessed us as though we were really and truly a couple, something inside me realised that, to me, we were.
A couple.’ She raised one finger and gently placed it over his beautiful mouth even though he hadn’t started to say anything.
‘In my heart, we’ve always been a couple.
In my heart, you’ve always been the man for me. I just never realised it. But now…’
She looked at him. His face was inscrutable.
‘We could give this a chance,’ she told him in a rush. ‘I mean a proper chance. I know you’re afraid of…getting your heart broken, but we go back a long way, Gabriel, and whether you dare admit it or not, we’re very much suited to one another.’