Chapter 6 #2
He smirked. He carried her into the bedroom and laid her down carefully on the bed, pausing to take off her shoes, her hairnet and, with a bit of a struggle, her overcoat and jumper, before covering her with the duvet.
He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Get some rest.’
‘You could stay, if you want,’ Immy said, sleepily.
He didn’t need asking twice. He quickly took his shoes off, shrugged out of his jacket and got into bed next to her, wrapping her in his arms. She snuggled up against his chest and immediately drifted off back to sleep.
Xander couldn’t help marvelling how something as sweet and simple as cuddling Immy in bed could feel so completely perfect.
Immy woke a while later and smiled when she saw she was still wrapped in Xander’s arms. He was awake, absently stroking her hair, and he had the biggest smile on his face as if simply being with her made him so happy.
As soon as he saw she was awake his smile broadened and he kissed her on the forehead.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Am I fired?’
‘I think I’ll keep you on for now, you’re a hard worker and I’m pretty fond of you.’
‘Fond of me?’
‘Crazy about you.’
‘How crazy?’
‘The kind of crazy that has already ordered what I need to make you pistachio chocolates so you’ll marry me.’
She laughed.
‘And now I’ll make you some lunch, it’s late and you’ve not eaten since breakfast. What would you like? Name it and I’ll make it for you and if it’s pickled gherkins or rhubarb jam then I’ll run out and get some for you.’
‘I’m OK, I can make my own lunch.’
‘I thought we agreed you were going to let me look after you.’
She frowned. ‘I don’t remember agreeing to that.’
‘I assure you, you did. It might have been your sleep-addled brain talking, but I still think it would stand up in a court of law.’
She scowled and he leaned forward to kiss the scowl away and she melted against him.
‘Now what did you want for your late lunch?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What did your mum used to make you when you were poorly?’
She smiled. ‘Soft boiled eggs with soldiers. But I’m not poorly.’
‘But you are exhausted and you’re carrying a baby and you’ve had an emotional twenty-four hours so I think that’s the perfect excuse for a soft boiled egg. Do you prefer toasted soldiers or soft bread?’
She really was going to fall for this man so hard and fast. Telling herself she must keep her heart locked away wasn’t going to change that.
‘Toast with melted butter.’
‘Consider it done.’
‘What time is it anyway?’ Immy asked, stretching.
‘A little after two.’
‘Why didn’t you go back to the shop? You didn’t need to stay with me.’
‘You asked me to stay, so here I am.’ He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.
Oh god, this man was going to chip away every single defence she’d built around herself.
Before she could stop herself, she reached up and gave him a little kiss on the lips but as she pulled back to say thank you, she saw something change in his eyes.
Her heart leapt as he leaned down to give her a brief kiss too and something ignited inside of her.
She found herself stroking his face, stroking her hand through the hair at the back of his neck.
He growled against her lips, kissing her harder, and she couldn’t help smiling that something so simple could have such an effect on him.
She slid her hands down his back, feeling the muscles in his shoulders, tracing the indent of his spine. He groaned and pulled back to look at her, his breath already heavy on his lips.
‘Sorry, we need to stop, I promised you no sex,’ Xander said.
‘And I don’t remember agreeing to those terms.’
He groaned and kissed her again, then pulled back fractionally so she could feel the words on his lips. ‘Let me love you?’
‘Yes, of course yes.’ There was no way she could say no.
He kissed her again and moved over her, straddling her with his knees either side of her hips. He snaked a hand down her side and under her dress, sliding it up to her stomach and stroking across her skin before pulling her dress gently over her head and flinging it across the room.
He pulled back to look at her and he smiled. ‘You’re wearing the lingerie.’
‘I didn’t have any other underwear.’
His eyes roved over her body. ‘You look divine. But they have to come off.’
He made quick work removing her bra and his eyes widened. ‘Wow, these are bigger,’ he gestured to her breasts.
‘Do you think?’
‘Trust me, I know your breasts very well. I’ve touched and kissed every inch of them. They’re definitely bigger.’
He placed a kiss on the inside swell of her breast and she let out a soft gasp. He sucked her breast into his mouth and she arched off the bed.
‘Are they more sensitive?’ he asked, moving his mouth to the other one.
She ran her fingers through his hair and let out a moan as he trailed his hot mouth over her breast.
‘Yes,’ she breathed, feeling a tightening in her stomach already. ‘I didn’t realise how much until now.’
‘Maybe it’s just me that you react to.’ He flashed her a cheeky smile. She loved seeing him like this, happy, carefree. And she loved being the one who could make him feel like that.
‘You have no idea,’ Immy groaned as he placed another kiss on her breast.
‘So tell me.’ He started trailing kisses down across her stomach.
She sighed happily as she watched him adore her. ‘It’s different with you. It was never just sex.’
He pulled her shorts down slowly and then started kissing slowly up her legs.
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘The first time we had sex, we both knew it was something casual, that it didn’t mean anything, but it was so much more than that.
I have never had sex feel that way before.
Every single touch brought my body to life.
We shared this incredible connection that…
’ she trailed off as she realised he had paused in his kisses and was staring at her.
She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She’d said too much.
‘Go on,’ he said softly.
She shook her head. ‘Exhaustion and shock have clearly brought on some kind of hysteria. Just pretend I didn’t say anything.’
He crawled back up her and kissed her hard.
He pulled back to look at her and stroked her face.
‘Making love to you is incredible. After Brook died I slept with a lot of women. I was so angry and so betrayed by her I wanted to get my own back so I had a lot of meaningless sex. And then there was you and it was… magnificent. I hadn’t expected that.
Undoubtedly the best sex I’ve ever had.’
‘Oh.’
‘And you’re right, it wasn’t just great sex. It was like finding the thing I’ve always been looking for, like being with you made me whole.’
He kissed her again and moved his hand between her legs, gently shifting them apart.
He ran his fingers up her thigh and touched her in the exact place that made her cry out against his lips.
His touch was like lightning, a bolt of pure pleasure, and she moved frantically against him, desperate for that release.
His words touched her, she hadn’t realised how much she needed to hear them. It wasn’t long before she was clinging to his shoulders feeling that pleasure build. He moved back to watch her fall apart then kissed her, capturing the gasps on his lips.
He pulled back and stared down at her as she was trying to catch her breath.
‘Do you want to stop? I completely understand if you’re too tired.’
‘No, please don’t stop,’ she said, wrapping her arms around him, stroking her fingers down his back.
‘Do you… want me to use a condom? I had a health check a few months ago and I’m clean. As for the other thing, well that feels pretty redundant now.’
‘That depends. Were there any other meaningless women after the last time we were together?’
He let out a little laugh. ‘After pushing you away, I was a mess. I kept trying to convince myself that it was for the best but it didn’t feel that way, not at all.
The thought of being with someone that wasn’t you made my skin crawl.
So no, there was no one else after you, I couldn’t do it. I only wanted you.’
‘You could have had me anytime. I wanted you too.’
‘I know, I’m an idiot.’
She wrapped her legs around him. ‘Well you can have me now.’
He smiled and kissed her so gently, moving inside her so carefully as if she was made of glass.
He started moving very slowly against her.
Sex with Xander had always been hard and fast, passionate and needy, so this slow, gentle pace was something new but it was oh so lovely, like stepping into a warm bath after a hard day.
Although he must have seen the confusion on her face when he pulled back to look at her.
He paused. ‘I don’t want to hurt the baby.’
She smiled with love for him. ‘The baby is fine, you don’t need to worry that sex will hurt them.’
‘I’m not taking any risks, not with you or with the baby.’
She swallowed a lump in her throat as she stroked his face. ‘You’re not supposed to try and make me fall in love with you.’
As if she wasn’t already there.
He smiled and started moving against her again.
She wrapped her arms and legs around him and kissed him so she wouldn’t have to see the way he was looking at her as if she was his entire world, because then she would start believing in it and that was a dangerous road to go down.
She just had to live in the moment, enjoy what they had.
And there was no greater feeling than him pinning her to the mattress with his weight.
She smoothed her hands down his back and round his neck and she loved the noise of appreciation he made against her lips.
He looked at her. ‘Nothing has ever felt as good as being with you. Nothing ever will.’
He kissed her on the neck where her pulse was hammering against her skin.
He shifted back and kissed her breast which made her cry out, that tightness in her stomach spiralling out in little bursts of pleasure.
She clawed at his back and ran her hands down to his bum, giving it a squeeze. He chuckled against her skin.
He slipped his hand between them, touching the place she needed him the most, and with his mouth still doing wonderful things to her breast, her orgasm slammed into her so hard, she couldn’t catch her breath. She clung onto him, calling out his name and making all manner of weird noises.
She felt him fall apart too, her name a mantra on his lips. He collapsed down on top of her, kissing her neck, and she held him as he trembled against her.
‘I want this forever,’ he muttered against her skin.
She stroked his hair, knowing she did too.
Immy woke again a short while later to the feeling of something soft moving across her stomach. She opened her eyes to see Xander lying on his front, propped up on his elbows next to her stomach. He was talking softly to her belly, his mouth almost touching her skin.
‘You are going to be so loved,’ Xander said softly. ‘You have the most amazing mum and a big sister who will adore you. And I already love you and we haven’t even met.’
Immy smiled. This man was absolutely going to ruin her.
She ran her fingers through his hair and he looked up at her in surprise. ‘Hi, sorry, did I wake you?’
‘In the best possible way.’
He placed a gentle kiss on her belly, caressing it with his hand before scooting up and kissing her on the mouth. She stroked his face.
‘You are going to be a brilliant dad to our baby.’
He pulled a face. ‘I will do my absolute best.’
‘I’m serious. I see how you are with Etta, you’re amazing. She absolutely adores you and I can see why.’
‘She’s my world. And now my world has got a little bit bigger.’ He frowned. ‘I want to tell her about the baby as soon as possible. We’ll have to work out a diplomatic way of explaining it to her but I don’t want to keep anything from her.’
‘OK, I don’t have a problem with that. It will be nice for her to be involved. But maybe we don’t oversell what we have.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want to tell her we’re moving in together, getting married, a happily ever after. It’s still really early days yet. I want to be sure that what we have is real before you propose and whisk us down the aisle.’
‘Well what do we tell her? You’ll be here some of the time, sleeping in my room some nights too. We need to explain that.’
‘We’ll just tell her we’re friends, for now. I don’t think we need to go into details. And I feel like we need to go slowly with this so we don’t just launch a full-blown relationship on her.’
‘I don’t want to lie to her.’
‘We won’t be lying. We don’t know what this is yet.
Twenty-four hours ago, you were still insisting that you didn’t want anything more to do with me.
And now we’re having a baby together, we’re kissing, making love.
I just think we need to be sure ourselves before we explain our relationship to her.
We don’t want to have to explain to her in a few weeks why we’re no longer together. ’
Xander scowled and she could see he didn’t like this, or the thought of them ending in a few weeks, but she had no idea how long this new leaf of his would be turned before turning back or even growing brown and crispy. She smirked at the stupid metaphor.
‘OK,’ he said.
‘Don’t be sad. I want this to work as much as you do, but we don’t have a great past history to build on, we really are starting from the beginning here. We haven’t even been on a date.’
He nodded. ‘You’re right. I’m going to pull out all the stops tonight.’
‘You don’t need to pull out all the stops, just be yourself.’ Immy looked at her watch. ‘OK, I need to grab a shower, and then maybe we can do a few more hours in the shop before it closes.’
He climbed out of bed. ‘I better give you a hand.’
She laughed. ‘In the shower?’
‘You’re growing a baby, that’s hard work. I want to be supportive.’
‘Well, I can definitely get on board with that kind of support.’