Chapter Ten #2
‘Remember what I said,’ he asked, and before she could answer, he’d pushed into her again, this time, harder, faster, more like that first time, in the ocean, and his hands came around her body, one massaging her breast until she was crying out with the sensations he could so easily stir, and the other moving to her clit, brushing it as he took her from behind and made the whole world stop making sense.
How could anything be the same once she’d known pleasure like this? How could she ever be the same?
She tried to remember what he’d said—sex was sex—but the truth was, this was mind-altering, personality-changing sex, and she would never be the same afterwards.
‘Theo,’ she cried out, but this time, her voice was drowned out by his own gruff, rasping cry into the air. After that, there was only the sound of their rapid breathing.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Annie murmured, her breath warm against his chest. His hand, stroking her back, stilled, but then, he began to trail his fingers once more over her soft, smooth skin.
Her voice was soft, and yet, something inside of him braced for her question. He’d shared more with her over lunch than he’d intended. She had an ability to reach inside of him and draw out whatever she wanted to know. ‘Yes,’ he said, though, after a beat.
‘How did you come to live with the Georgiadeses?’
His hand began to draw invisible circles in the small of her back, as he replayed that time in his life. It felt like a lifetime ago.
‘I was fifteen,’ he said.
She propped her chin on his chest, her eyes resting on his face. ‘I remember.’ A quick glance at her showed a knowing smile, one he felt tugging at his own lips.
‘You were eleven.’
‘And totally smitten.’
His laugh surprised him.
‘Anyway, that doesn’t answer my question.’
‘No.’ He nodded once. It wasn’t something he, or the Georgiadeses, had ever really discussed, but that didn’t mean it was a secret.
There was no reason not to tell Annie. ‘Paul saw me shoplifting—just an apple and a bag of crisps. I stuffed them under my shirt. He followed me out of the store. I was going to run. I thought he’d drag me to the cops or something.
Instead, he just asked me if I had somewhere to sleep. ’
‘Were you scared?’
He shook his head. ‘You remember Paul. He had kind eyes and a gentle, patient voice.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed softly.
‘He was older, too—in his seventies by then. He couldn’t have hurt me, even if he’d wanted to.’
‘He could have called the police, like you said.’
‘I would have outrun him easily.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No,’ he frowned. ‘And he surprised me, by asking if I wanted to come and stay at his house for the weekend. He pointed across the street, to a café, where his wife was sitting at a table on the footpath. She waved at me, and smiled. It was very strange, agape, but I almost felt as though I knew them. As though I had known them before.’
‘Had you met them, do you think?’
‘No, how could I have? We moved in very different circles,’ he said, with a wry grimace.
‘So you just went home with them?’
‘I said “no”. I wasn’t stupid. Why would I trust them? But Paul was insistent. He asked if I wanted to just come and have dinner. I didn’t have to go into their house, I could eat on the driveway, but they would feel better knowing I’d had a proper meal.’
‘That’s very kind of them.’
‘They were kind.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s it? You went for dinner and, what? Just stayed?’
‘It wasn’t that easy. I went for dinner, and ate on the driveway. They invited me in, I refused. They asked me to come back the next night, and I did.’
‘Why do you think they went to the trouble?’
‘I asked him that, once. You know they could never have children of their own? And yet, they didn’t adopt, they didn’t foster.
But he said that when he saw me, so skinny and hungry, he just felt like he’d been put on earth to take care of me.
’ His voice was gruff as the memory of that permeated his chest. ‘They never pushed me. I never felt like they wanted anything in return for their generosity, except my safety. After about a month of dinners, I trusted them enough to stay. It was supposed to be for a weekend, but then Paul began to talk to me about his work, and it was like a fuse had been lit in my belly. For the first time, I felt all these neurons in my brain connecting, lighting up like a Christmas tree. I was obsessed with everything he said: the business, the opportunities. He saw it, and gave me a chance to work with him, on the basis that I went back to school. And so, there you have it. For the next three years, I went to school, worked with Paul, and ate Stephanie’s food.
I grew healthy again, nourished, and though they never asked me to say that I loved them, or to pay them back in any way, for the first time in my life, I had a bed, and I didn’t fear that it would be taken away.
They gave me the greatest gift I could have known. Security.’
He didn’t realise she was crying until a tear thudded onto his chest. He brushed his thumb over her cheek, wiping her tears away.
‘I didn’t even cry, when they died,’ he muttered, staring up at the ceiling, remembering the bleakness of that day. ‘But it was like an anchor point in my life had been ripped away. I had briefly known what it was like to belong to a family, of sorts, and just like that, it disappeared.’
‘Oh, Theo,’ she murmured, pulling up higher so she could press a kiss to his lips, before resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I’m so glad you met them, that they took you in.’
‘As am I,’ he agreed. It had been a perfect relationship for him—and for them. Neither had wanted something that the other wouldn’t give. He knew that if they’d pushed him for more, he’d have run a mile, but they hadn’t.
‘I just remember you appearing, and yes, you were skinny,’ she murmured. ‘But you were also so vital, so…’
He tilted his face to look at her, and despite the seriousness of their conversation, a smile lifted his lips at the memory of the crush she’d had on him.
‘Yes?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not here to make your head any bigger.’
He grinned, his fingers drawing invisible patterns on her back. But they slowed, as his mind went back to that time, those first few years with the Georgiadeses. ‘You were such a quiet kid,’ he murmured. ‘So withdrawn.’
‘You made me nervous.’
He shook his head, though. ‘It wasn’t just around me. I saw you with your friends, your parents. You were always watching.’
She bit into her full lower lip, in a way that made his cock react instantly.
‘I was always watching,’ she admitted, several moments later, so he’d wondered if she was going to answer him at all. ‘Or maybe it would be more accurate to say I was always anticipating.’
‘Anticipating what?’
She sighed. ‘Trigger points for my parents.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Like, little things that people say, or do, that would tip them over the edge. Make them think of Mary when they weren’t prepared.’ She cleared her throat.
‘You managed their grief.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted, huskily.
‘Annie, you know it’s not your job, don’t you?’
She nodded, but frustration whipped his insides.
‘Because you seem to still be caught up in this—in turning your life into an act of service. What else explains why you came to Sydney? Why you agreed to marry me?’
Her cheeks flushed and he let his hand drop to the mattress.
Her eyes lifted to his, and he felt the weight of things she wasn’t saying then, in a way that made him pull back.
Because this was the kind of conversation he knew they were better avoiding.
He didn’t want to feel sorry for his wife; he didn’t want to feel anything for her.
And so he pulled his arm away from her and stepped out of bed, uncaring for his nakedness, just knowing he wanted to get away.
Despite what he’d said, sleeping together changed everything.
Without discussing it, they no longer tried to keep one another at a physical distance.
The moment he walked in the door, they reached for each other, coming together hard and fast, and then taking hours each night to explore and feel, to pleasure and be pleased by.
Working late was a thing of the past. Theo did his level best to stick out a full day, but by the early afternoon, all he could think about was getting home to his wife and sinking into her.
The only reason he accepted this shift in their dynamic was the certainty he held that it was purely physical.
There would be no more deep and meaningful conversations in bed, no more letting her get under his skin.
This time, the partition for Annie would remain firmly locked in place—she would not take over his thoughts again, as she had five years ago, no matter what happened between them physically.
They made love in the pool, the spa, the shower, on the kitchen table, against walls, on the floor, in the car—wherever they were was no barrier.
It was as though the floodgates had been unlocked and there was no going back.
Or maybe it was because they knew they had a finite time for this, and they didn’t want to waste it.
Without discussing it, they spent every minute they could in each other’s arms, so when the night of her father’s birthday rolled around, Annie found it almost impossible to think of going out without him.
But what choice did she have? She particularly didn’t want to risk things changing between her and Theo, going back to what they’d been like before.
While they were hardly sharing each other’s deepest, darkest secrets, there was an inherent intimacy to what they were doing, and the thought of losing that made her body feel weak with despair.
In the back of her mind, she knew that wasn’t without risk.