Chapter Thirty-two #2
Dinner was sweet and comfortable, the meal wholesome and delicious: Theresa prepared vegetables from the garden and grilled local lamb. Conversation flowed easily and it felt so right to be there, I could have spent hours in their company.
‘I guess you’ll insist on sleeping in Abel’s Den?’ Theresa said with a fondly exasperated smile as we finished the clean up after dinner.
‘Naturally,’ Abel said with a shrug.
‘Here, let me give you some clean sheets at least.’ Theresa disappeared down the hall and came back a moment later with sheets, a well-worn floral doona cover and mismatching pillowcases.
I took them in my arms. They had the soft feel of linen that had been used for years, worn to a feathery lightness that was unsophisticated and homely.
‘At least connect the heater, okay? There’s the extension cord in the shed you can plug it into. Poor Mary will never want to come again.’
I smiled. ‘I’ll be fine.’ I was intrigued.
Neil handed Abel a Tilley lamp and wished us goodnight, and Theresa pulled us both in for a tight hug.
‘Should I be nervous?’ I asked as we walked outside, through the shed and came to a ladder leading into the roof space.
‘Probably.’
At the top of the ladder was a small wooden door and when he opened it, the Tilley lamp cast a warm glow over the room that sat in the apex of the shed.
‘Come on in. I’ll just get the cord for the heater.’
He disappeared back down the ladder and I let myself take in the space.
Abel’s Den.
There was a window at the end of the room and I could just see the water gleaming silver in the moonlight through the trees.
There was a queen-sized mattress sitting directly on a soft rug that covered most of the timber floor.
There were drawings on the walls – Abel’s drawings.
And other pictures: photographs of beaches, sea cliffs, climbing, surfing.
I could feel teenage Abel in the space, his hideaway.
When he resurfaced, he pulled the cord through and closed the door over it. He plugged in the heater and lit a few candles around the room so it glowed like a lantern.
‘Mum used to freak out that I’d have candles in here. Always said I should just plug in a lamp. But I like it like this.’
‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘Here, let me.’ He took the sheets from my arms.
‘I can help.’
We were quiet as we pulled the soft covers over the doona and spread it across the bed. I felt suddenly overcome with anticipation.
But Abel seemed as at ease as ever as he pulled the curtains closed and made our world smaller and closer, warm and tender. I let his relaxed energy wash over me. The heater was bringing up the temperature quickly and I understood why he insisted on staying here. It was gorgeous.
‘This was your room?’
‘Since I was about sixteen. Dad let me do the work, make the walls and line it, do the floorboards. It kept me busy for months.’
‘I love it.’
‘Are you warm enough?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want a shirt or something to sleep in?’
‘Sure.’
He went to a small chest of drawers and rummaged through some clothes, pulling out a T-shirt. Before I could consider if I would feel shy about getting changed in front of him, he came right to me.
‘May I?’ he asked, his hands on the hem of my top.
I nodded, unable to speak.
He pulled the fabric and I lifted my arms in response until the top was free of me.
He looked at me for a moment, eyes tracking down my chest and my bra, and I watched him swallow before threading the soft fabric of the T-shirt over my head and my arms.
His thumbs worked confidently at the button of my pants, freeing them like an expert, pulling them down my legs and allowing me to step out of them. I unclasped my bra and pulled it through the sleeve of the T-shirt. My naked chest felt dangerously free beneath the soft material.
When Abel stood up again, he was smiling. I looked down at myself in his black T-shirt that went all the way to my upper thighs. Across the chest in white writing was NIRVANA.
‘I think this is the exact image that Kurt Cobain had in his mind when he came up with their band name,’ Abel said, smiling as he ripped off his own shirt and pulled me into him.
I felt my pulse quicken as he gripped me and his mouth found mine.
‘You’re my nirvana, Mary,’ he whispered into me.
I could feel his breathing change as mine did too. He pulled his lips from mine and bit at the lobe of my ear.
‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to control myself much longer,’ he almost growled and I felt my already wet insides go more slippery.
I pushed him backwards with a hand on his chest so he moved towards the bed and when he reached it, I kept urging him back until he was lying on the mattress. I pushed his waist and he dragged his body up the bed in response, looking up at me, his eyes black and inky, like he was under a spell.
When he was fully on the bed, I lowered myself onto him. I felt him straining beneath me, hard against the fabric of his trousers. Those trousers and the whisper of lace I wore were all that stopped me from feeling him.
His hands stayed by his side, as though in a final act of self-restraint, and I got it: he needed me to take the lead. To show him that this was what I wanted.
I reached for his hands and his fingers laced through mine. When I picked them up and invited his hands to grip onto my hips beneath the soft fabric of the T-shirt, I felt the sharp intake of his breath.
‘Mary,’ he whispered.
‘Abel.’ My eyes were locked onto his and when I rolled my hips against him, he shuddered. His fingers dug into me, pulling me onto him. ‘I want you.’ I tried to steady my voice.
I leant forward and I kissed him, deeply, and when his mouth opened in ecstasy, my tongue traced the inside of his upper lip.
‘I want you so much,’ I said again and I felt his whole body respond like an animal, desperate and hungry.
I loved the feeling of his hands on me. I wanted him to own me, to control me. To touch me everywhere.
When I pulled away and sat back, the pressure below me was heady and delicious. I couldn’t help but rock into it and the movement seemed to send him wild.
‘I need to see you,’ he rasped and I pulled the T shirt off.
To be naked in front of him was a bold and desperately erotic experience. I felt my nipples harden under his gaze.
‘You’re so beautiful.’ He said it as if it was simultaneously painful and spellbinding.
His gaze on my breasts, tracing down my waist, my hips and all the way to where I straddled him was like warm honey, soft and sweet, making my skin glow.
For a moment I just sat there as he drank me in. And then, as if overcome by some impossibly strong need, he reached for me, sweeping me over so I was on my back and his body was over mine.
He kissed me fiercely and I felt ravished in a way that was completely disarming. His kisses trailed along my jaw to my neck, along the dip above my collar bone and to my breast.
He seemed to lose himself there, his mutterings becoming hungry and more guttural, and I felt myself shudder to hear him coming undone.
His roughly callused hand cupped my breast and my nipples tingled, hard and desperate for his touch.
When his thumb brushed across one, I gasped, and then, as though encouraged by my response, he took it into his mouth.
I couldn’t help it – I arched into him, my hips needing to find the hardness of him, needing to be touched, impossibly wanting.
His hands understood and trailed down to my hips, taking my weight in his massive grasp and pulling me into him, firm and confident, while his tongue on my nipple had me completely unbridled.
There was so much of him, everywhere, hands and mouth and hips, pressing and touching and making every part of my body alive, like I was an instrument he was the master of.
His hips pushed me into the mattress and the hand that had gripped me circled the edge of my underpants, across the side of my hip, and all the way to the front. Just inside, just inside, of the fabric.
The sounds I was making seemed like they were coming from someone else, completely unfiltered and without restraint.
Needy, whiny noises. As though I could possibly be consumed by anything more delicious than the feeling of his tongue on my nipple, suddenly all my blood seemed to be concentrated between my legs.
His thumb was trailing along the inside of my underwear and was searingly close to touching my centre and I was pulsing and swollen with need, a heartbeat of want.
‘Touch me,’ I heard myself beg. ‘Touch me.’
Without any more invitation, he swept the fabric of my knickers aside and his thumb brushed right at my opening. It made me cry out in pleasure, slick and wet as I was with my desire.
His thumb slipped beneath my folds and his mouth came to my ear, sweetly breathless.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘You’re more than I ever dreamed about. And I’ve dreamed about this for fucking months.’
Before I could tell him how long I’d been dreaming of this, he was moving down my body, kisses tracing between my breasts to my belly button, and all the way to the rise of my pubic bone.
‘I love these.’ His breath was hot on my skin, his fingers grazing over the details of the lace. The embroidered rose at the midline. ‘You’re like art.’
And then, as though I was something irresistibly delicious, he was pushing my legs apart, the fabric brushed to the side and, taking my weight in his hand again, pulling my hips to his mouth.
I bit the inside of my arm to stop from crying out as his tongue swept from my opening to my clit, sending me to some obscene place of pleasure.
But the groans coming from him told me that he was enjoying himself as much as I was, which in itself was enough to send me into complete ecstasy. I felt tortured with pleasure.
I was building, I could feel the pleasure mounting to a point where I was nearly ready to explode, but I ached for more.
‘I need you, Abel,’ I whimpered, pulling him upwards.