13. Stop talking
Stop talking
Mike
“Hey.”
I looked up from the frying pan to see Vicky standing at the bottom of my spiral staircase in my flannel shirt, looking at me with wide eyes. In a superhuman feat of self-control, I’d slept on the sofa last night after showing her up to my bed and leaving her there to sleep alone.
She cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry I slept so long. I should have warned you. After a period of stress, I… well, I tend to sleep a lot. I think it’s a way of my brain protecting itself, of recharging. At least, that’s what Abdul says.”
I abandoned flipping the bacon as my eyes shot back to her and narrowed. “Who’s Abdul?”
My attempt at a casual tone came out distinctly growly, but I suspected it was the best I could do after last night.
I knew it wasn’t reasonable, but the Neanderthal in me had claimed Vicky already.
She was mine.
I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone before.
The overpowering sense of possessiveness that swept through me at that statement was definitely in caveman territory. But now hearing another’s man name on her lips had sent me and my monkey brain into a flat spin.
She shrugged, completely oblivious to my internal struggle not to march over there, sling her over my shoulder, and make sure my name was the only thing she was calling out.
My grip tightened on the spatula until my knuckles turned white.
“He’s my therapist,” she said in a small voice, and I felt that animal part of me relax.
But then I noticed the pink in her cheeks and her hands coming up to her ears. She covered the movement by tucking her hair behind them, but I could tell there had been some sort of minor trigger in admitting to me that she had a therapist.
I wasn’t sure why she would be embarrassed about that, but I knew I should tread carefully here.
“Oh right. That’s good that you have…” Christ, I wasn’t great at this sensitive stuff. “I mean, he sounds like he knows what he’s on about. So that’s good.”
“I…” she shifted on her feet, still at the bottom of the stairs, and still too bloody far away from me. “I never used to see therapists. My mother…” Vicky broke off and looked to the side for a moment until focusing back on me. “Well, I do now, and he does help me.”
“That’s really good, love,” I said in a soft tone.
She bit her lip and wrapped her arms around herself as she glanced around the cabin.
“Vicky?” I said, my voice still soft. Her gaze snapped to me. “Is there a reason you’re all the way over there?”
“What?” she asked in confusion.
“Baby, do you regret what happened last night? Because?—”
“Absolutely not,” she said in a firm voice.
I turned the hob off and pulled the pan away from the heat to rest on the heat-proof pad on my worktop. Then I rounded the kitchen counter.
Her eyes widened as I stalked towards her, but she didn’t back away, which I took as an encouraging sign.
When I reached her, I dropped my voice lower. “I’m going to kiss you now. Is that okay?”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded.
Then I cupped her delicate jaw with my big mitt of a hand, using the other hand to spread across her back and pull her to me as my lips fell on hers.
Softly at first, but just like last night, Vicky was the one to deepen the kiss, also just like last night, in a mammoth feat of self-control, it was me that had to finish it.
But instead of stepping back from her, I rested my forehead on hers and closed my eyes.
“So,” I said, my lips nearly touching hers, but not quite. “If you wake up in my cabin with me, that is how I want you to start the morning. In fact, you can make this your standard greeting for me in future.”
“Kissing?”
“Yes, kissing. And I want you to come to me, not stand at the bottom of my stairs looking lost.”
“You are a very bossy human.”
“I know,” I said on a grin. “Get used to that.” Then I grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the kitchen island. “Right, I need to feed you.”
Vicky climbed up on the stool facing the stove, and I switched the heat back on so I could finish making her breakfast.
“I’m not good with new places,” she blurted out as I was putting some bread in the toaster.
“Okay,” I said slowly, not sure where she was going with this.
She bit her lip and glanced around the cabin. “I wouldn’t normally be able to sleep somewhere I’m not used to, or without all my things, but this house is… different.”
“Different good?”
She nodded vigorously. “Different very good. Being in this house feels like being hugged all the time. It feels calming.”
Jesus. I turned away from the kettle to smile at her. “That’s great, love,” I said in a now hoarse voice.
Her description of the house that I built with my own two hands was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard.
“But I’m still not good with interactions that don’t have defined boundaries and social norms that I can understand.”
I tilted my head to the side as I slid a plate in front of Vicky. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She sighed. “I struggle if I’m not sure what I should be doing. I’ve never woken up in a man’s house before.”
That possessive part of me surged to life again at that statement.
Christ, I was basic.
“And I didn’t know if you would want me to leave or stay, or whether I should be getting dressed into what I wore last night because I still have on your shirt, but I like your shirt, because it’s really soft, and it smells of you.
And I like the smell of you because it’s like freshly cut wood and man mixed together—I’m very sensitive to scent.
Anyway, when I’m not sure, I just sort of freeze. ”
After all that, I decided I didn’t like the distance of the kitchen island between us, so I picked up the tea that I’d made for Vicky and brought it around to her side, stopping just in front of her as she twisted on the stool to look at me.
“Can I touch your face?” I asked her.
She nodded, and my hand came up to her temple to stroke into her hair.
“There’s so much going on in here all the time, isn’t there?” I said softly. “All those thoughts churning around and around. It must be exhausting.”
She nodded against my hand, her soft silky hair gliding through my fingers.
“Is it ever quiet up there?” I asked.
“It was quiet when you were kissing me,” she whispered.
A low, almost-growl came from the back of my throat, the urge to silence her thoughts again surging through me, but she hadn’t eaten in hours, and yesterday had been tough, so I took a step back and put her tea in front of her.
As I moved back to the stove, she took a cautious sip of her tea and then shot me a surprised look.
“How did you know how I take my tea?” she asked, then belatedly looked down at the plate in front of her. “And how did you know what I liked for breakfast?”
Her toast was sliced into triangles, and there were two rashers of bacon on top of them.
Lottie had said that eggs would be “too high risk”. Apparently, Vicky was pretty extreme about her eggs. The actual colour chart Lottie texted over for Vicky’s tea was quite something, so I decided not to attempt eggs.
“Lottie,” I told her.
“Lottie? But Lottie’s not here.”
“I spoke to Lottie.”
“What? Why would you?—?”
“I had about a hundred missed calls from Ollie and Lottie, and I wanted to know what you would eat. You were asleep, so I rang Lottie back.”
She blinked down at her plate and then back up at me with a stunned expression.
“It’s not a big deal, love,” I told her. “I knew you’d lost a bit of weight, and I wanted to give you something you could eat. Okay?”
“Not a big deal,” she muttered, shaking her head. “That is an inaccurate statement. It is a very big deal to me.”
I smiled at her, but my chest felt tight at the realisation that someone making her some food that she would like and eat would feel like a big deal to her.
But instead of demanding a list of all those other thoughtless fuckers, I picked up my plate and sat down on the handmade wooden stool next to her.
“So, I was thinking,” Vicky said, and I braced.
Over the course of the few conversations we’d had, I realised that literally anything could fly out of her mouth.
“I did want a romantic relationship with you in the conventional sense.”
I almost choked on my tea but managed to swallow the rest down without incident.
“You did want that?” I asked after I’d recovered. “You mean, past tense?”
“Yes. Well, now, I realise that it’s unlikely you would be amenable to a romantic type of situation with me.”
My eyes went wide. “What the fuck about the last twelve hours makes you think that?”
She shrugged and broke eye contact to concentrate on her food. “Because you think I’m empty inside , devoid of personality, and you wouldn’t touch me with a barge pole .”
I closed my eyes as I dropped my fork to rub my temples.
Bloody hell, I was such a prick.
“Vicky, I?—”
“You don’t have to explain,” she said, cutting me off in that matter-of-fact tone that she seemed to adopt when she wanted to mask her emotions, but I could just about detect the small thread of hurt through her words.
“But last night and this morning would suggest that you have now got over your aversion to touching me. So maybe you’re not open to a romantic relationship, but you might be interested in continuing the touching element? ”
“Touching element?” I asked, taking a very ill-advised sip of my tea.
“Touching, as in sexual intercourse.”
This time I really did choke, so much so, that Vicky had to pat me on the back.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said in a strangled voice. “You just might want to warn a man before you say sexual intercourse.”
“Is that a no?” Vicky sounded very disappointed.
“Jesus, Vicky, it’s not a no, but?—”
“Because you see, I have never found another man attractive in my life. And that’s twenty-nine years.
Or, I guess it would be fifteen years since puberty.
Of all the men I’ve ever met, imagining intimacy with them made me feel unwell.
I thought there might be something wrong with me.
Well, apart from all the other obvious things that are wrong with me that is.
But the thought of sexual intercourse with you is… ”
She broke off as her cheeks went pink.
“Well, it doesn’t make me feel unwell. It makes me feel achy, but in a good way.
And to be honest, I can’t stop thinking about it.
It’s actually really distracting at work, and I’m normally very focused about my work.
But now, Lottie will ask me something, and I’ll realise that I’ve been thinking about the way your chest looks under your thermal top, how your weight would feel on top of me, what your body looks like in swimming shorts, and what might be underneath said swimming shorts, so much that I’ve totally lost my train of thought.
The dreams at night are even worse. I’ve actually orgasmed in my sleep from just a sexual dream about you.
They’re so strong, they wake me up, and I haven’t even touched myself—it’s just the thought of being with you. ”
“Vicky,” I growled.
“Yes?”
“Stop talking.”
“Um… are you okay?”
No was the answer to that.
No, I was not okay.
I had the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, the one I’d been secretly fantasising about for months, sitting in my shirt, at my kitchen island, having slept in my bed, and now describing her sex dreams about me and how they made her feel, in an effort to coax me into touching her more.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, didn’t the woman realise that all I wanted to do was touch her?
I swallowed as I slid off the stool and took two rapid steps back from her.
She frowned, her expression hurt, and I felt awful, but if I didn’t put some distance between us, I’d be dragging her off her stool and up to my bed in under a minute.
If Vicky had never been kissed, and the thought of touching any other man had made her feel sick, then she was obviously a virgin.
I wasn’t going to lose control and shag a virgin without…
oh, bloody hell, I was going to have to use that word…
without wooing her first, even if she didn’t seem to think that was necessary.
My stomach hollowed out when I replayed her words in my head.
That day at her house had been her clumsy attempt at a serious first move, and I crushed her.
“Vicky, all those things I said when I delivered your coffee table. I was wrong. I’d got you all wrong. So I’ll say it again—I’m so , so sorry, love. Do you think you can forget what I said? Can we start over?”
She frowned and tilted her head to the side. “I can remember conversations with absolute clarity, down to the smallest word and gesture. It would be impossible for me to forget. I don’t forget anything.”
I sighed. “Well, could you try to remember this? Could you try to remember what I’m going to say now?
That even when I had the wrong impression of you, I still dreamt about you for months.
That the Vicky I’ve been with since last night is anything but empty or cold, and I’m fascinated by her.
That I really, really like you. And that I want to give things a go properly with you, which should not include me throwing you over my shoulder and onto my bed before we’ve even had an actual date. ”
She blinked at me for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was just above a whisper, as if she didn’t want to risk saying the words too loud.
“You like me?”
The way she said it was so heartbreakingly vulnerable, I had to rub my chest to ease the ache that was building there.
“Yes, love,” I said in a hoarse voice. “I like you very much.”
“Even though I’m… weird?”
I scowled and crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re not weird.”
Vicky shook her head. “Mike, I am well aware that I don’t meet standards of normal behaviour. I’m an outlier in society.”
“Well, maybe that’s why I like you so much. Who cares about standards of normal behaviour? I like that you’re unpredictable.”
She bit her lip. “You do?” Her voice was so small now, that even in the complete silence of the cabin, I had to strain to hear her.
That was it. There was no way I couldn’t go to her after that.
I strode forward and when I was a foot away I asked, “Can I hug you?”
She nodded, and my arms closed around her. As she burrowed into my chest and her small hands clutched at my shirt, I released a long breath, only then aware of the tension I’d been carrying with not having her in my arms.