Then She Roars

by Vanessa Evetts

  “You ready for the honeymoon to start?” he whispered.

  I snuck my fingers under the rim of his shirt, which had pulled out of his dress pants while we were dancing, African style, with the staff. When his skin prickled under my fingertips, I teased my hand around the edge of his pants to torture him. We had a licence now, and I planned on taking full advantage.

  “My husband here would like to steal me for the rest of the night. What do you think?”

  My tablemates roared with hilarious indecision until Sammie’s voice rose above the rest.

  “Go fulfil your wifely duties, Hollywood. I hear there’s been a drought.” She nudged Tracey, who winced at the mention, then added fuel to the fire. “Do they have hot spas around here?”

  “I think cold showers are more useful in this neck of the woods.” Tom winked at Harry.

  “No need for any more of those.” I held my ring finger for all to see, then blew kisses at our friends, spun around and sashayed away with my husband, giggling at the wildly inappropriate encouragement following behind us.

  “Where to, babe?” I asked as we stepped into Jacaranda Alley, just out of view of our guests.

  Harry spun me around and pressed me against a trunk. He wrapped his strong hand around the back of my neck and drew my face towards his, pausing just before contact.

  My need was excruciating. “What? Why did you—”

  “Do you know how much I love you, Avery?”

  “I do, Harry. I do.”

  “You’re everything.” He brushed his lips over mine, then pulled back again, fuelling the ache inside me. “Everything I’ve ever wanted, prayed for … desired.” His eyes darkened and I lost my sense of self-control. I claimed his lips and inhaled every word he’d left unsaid, every ounce of him he was willing to give me. It didn’t matter how fiercely I held him against me, how passionately I kissed him, it wasn’t enough. I needed more.

  Harry pulled away and lowered his lips to my neck. His name sounded raspy on my lips as I scrambled for control.

  “Harry … no.” I pushed him off. “No.”

  He stepped back and laughed, his hands raised in surrender.

  I glanced around for shadows, then narrowed my eyes. “Look, Mr Whittaker. I’m all for you taking advantage, but I will not be shot or hung for having relations in the wild … nor eaten by some ferocious African animal while I’m naked.”

  Harry’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “This is hardly the wild.”

  “Oh, I promise you,” I motioned between us, “this is going to be wild.”

  Without another word, Harry grasped my hand and tugged me through the dark trees lit up by thousands of fairy lights. When I stumbled, he lifted me into his arms and kept moving.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To paradise,” he promised.

  “Well, I do hope paradise isn’t far away.” It was all I could muster. This hulk of a husband had testosterone pumping, and I couldn’t wait to rip his clothes off.

  Five minutes later, we’d left the area of the compound, which was lit up for the night and entered unknown territory.

  “Where on Earth are you taking me?”

  Harry lowered me to the ground, pressed a hungry kiss to my lips, then spun me around to face a huge open field. There in the middle was a glamorous white tent, glimmering with fairy lights.

  “To the honeymoon suite.” Harry’s arms slid around my waist.

  “That’s for us?”

  “For two whole days.”

  “And you’re not going to get called away for some emergency surgery.”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance.”

  He tugged my back against him, and I raised my hands to the back of his neck threading my fingers through his hair. As he pressed his warm lips to the sensitive skin below my ear, my body flamed with anticipation. I spun around in his arms and placed a palm on his chest.

  “We just got married. In Africa!”

  “Mm-hmm.” The corners of Harry’s mouth twitched. “I keep my promises, Mrs Whittaker.”

  I pushed him, then took a step back. “Are there any other promises you plan on keeping?”

  “Every. Single. One.” He stepped towards me.

  I took another step back, my arms dropping to my sides. “Is that why the honeymoon suite is in the middle of an empty field?”

  The fairy lights flickered in his eyes as he laughed. I took another step backwards, towards paradise.

  “Soundproofing.” Harry’s eyes narrowed as he attempted to close the gap I’d created.

  “Should we test out the theory?”

  “Yes, Mrs Whittaker, I think we should.”

  I paused my retreat and held my arms out wide. “Well, then. What are you waiting for?”

  Harry took the final step in one bound, lifted me into his arms and took me to paradise.

  53

  The last three weeks of celibacy were quickly forgotten over the next two days as we explored every inch of each other. On the morning of the third day, I lay on my side and watched my sexy beast of a husband pull jeans over that sexy tattooed behind.

  He caught me watching and turned to face me, his pectoral muscles dancing for my benefit. When I flopped back on my back and covered my face with the pillow, he climbed onto the bed, ripped the pillow from my grasp and trapped me under his weight.

  “You need to get up, wifey.”

  I teased my fingers around the rim of his jeans. “What if I want to stay right here?”

  “Do you trust me?” He pressed his lips to my neck.

  I wrapped my legs around his upper thighs to hold him in place.

  “You know I do.” I attacked his self-control with my hands.

  He sat up, tore my hands from his chest, then trapped them above my head with his. “Control yourself, woman.”

  “That’s an impossible request.” I jiggled under him.

  He lowered his face until it was mere millimetres from mine, tempting me, feeding my insatiable need for him, then pulled back. “You’re a glutton.”

  “I’m making up for lost time.”

  Harry laughed. “Plenty of time for that – now get up. We have plans.”

  I pushed against his weight. “I can’t. I’m trapped.”

  Harry brushed his lips over mine. “We’ll finish this tonight.”

  “You promise?”

  He released my hands and claimed my mouth hungrily, then launched off the bed, leaving me electric.

  “I promise.” He slid his shirt and pants on, then chucked my backpack on the bed. “Hop to it. We’re meeting everyone at the main house ten minutes ago.”

  Harry didn’t disappoint. For the next seven days, we – along with our friends – explored Kenya’s national treasures. Thanks to the visiting medical teams, even Cooper and Libby were able to join us for their first real break in years. We revelled in the breathtaking views of the Samburu and Maasai Mara national reserves and Lake Nakuru and Mount Kenya national parks. Up before dawn and back after dusk, we experienced animals up close that we’d only ever seen in books and zoos. Had I made a bucket list, this most certainly would’ve been on it.

  One month later, Harry walked into the bedroom where I was perched up on pillows reading, a fresh coffee warming my hands.

  “What have you got there?” I asked.

  “The courier just dropped this off,” he said, bringing a package out from behind his back.

  “Is it from Maggie?” I put my cup down and patted the bed beside me.

  Harry climbed on and handed me the package. We sat in each other’s arms and poured over every page as we had once before. Maggie had outdone herself again, capturing moments and memories throughout our wedding day without our knowledge.

  For the next six months, we often found ourselves cuddling in bed on early weekend mornings with freshly brewed coffee, flicking through both Maggie’s albums and our own safari pics.

  “We’ve done well making memories, babe,” I sai
d the morning before Harry was leaving for Samoa – his first trip since our honeymoon. “I’m going to miss you.”

  Harry placed the albums on the coffee table, then sat down beside me. “You could always come.”

  “I will one day, I promise.” After two years of sporadic work around treatments, I was loving the routine of full-time work again. And, as attractive as the fantasy of spending a month in Samoa with my hubby was, I knew it would be much like the first three weeks in Kenya and nothing like the final week.

  “How do you feel about finding us a new place?” Harry asked.

  “To live?”

  “Yeah, we could sell up and find something nice by the beach or bush or something out of the rat race.”

  When Sally had lived with us, I’d thought about it, but she’d moved out as soon as we’d arrived back from our honeymoon. Another benefit of her knowing ahead of time. Harry had moved the rest of his belongings over and rented out his apartment fully furnished.

  “You serious?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’d like to get a bit further out and have a bit of land for” – Harry laid his palm on my leg – “our family.”

  My heart sank. “Baby, we’re not—”

  “Ave, I know what we’re dealing with, but there are other ways. You’d be an amazing mother.”

  I felt as though I was back at the airport, confessing all over again how I was unable to give him the dream. I tried to find the words for my counterargument, that adoption was near on impossible in New Zealand, that fostering was painfully complicated, and surrogacy – well, I didn’t think I could handle another woman carrying Harry’s child.

  He lifted my chin and implored me to let him hear my thoughts. One look and I knew the desires of his heart; one look and every argument I could think of lost its footing.

  “You need to be a father, don’t you?”

  “I need to try.”

  “Okay.” The sound of my acquiescence sent a fresh wave of fear through me. What if I couldn’t give him what he needed? What then?

  54

  “Harry wants a baby.” The words burst out of my mouth of their own volition. It’d been two weeks since Harry left and since then his words had been bouncing around in my head like they’d been on crack, smashing into every thought.

  “Does he know that you—”

  “Of course,” I interrupted. “He said there are other ways.”

  “There are,” Sally agreed.

  I looked at her incredulously. Of course, she’d be on his side.

  “What, Ave? There are. I’m not saying you should do it – that’s between you and Harry. But I do think any child who got to have you as parents would be the luckiest kid alive.”

  Over the next week, I couldn’t shake Sally’s words. This hadn’t been a part of the deal. This life we’d built was everything I never thought I could have, and yet now, I found myself wanting more. Was that selfish? Did that make me ungrateful? To say to God or the universe ‘well, thank you for my miracle, but I’m not satisfied – I want more. You know, just the impossible thing I thought I’d accepted I couldn’t have and now want desperately’.

  The idea infiltrated every thought, day and night, and yet I’d not been brave enough to speak about it with Harry when he’d called.

  It had become my private turmoil that I had to endure – the wanting and the knowledge that I shouldn’t. I didn’t know why; I didn’t know what it was that made me doubt, that made me want to hold on so tightly to what we’d built and not push my luck. Maybe it was that voice, the ugly voice that reared up in my dreams sometimes, taunting me, telling me not to get too comfortable. Maybe it was the fear that wrapped around me when I felt exhausted or had the flu or stomach bug; the thing I never talked about with either Harry or Sally; the secret burden I carried; the fear that this time – what we have now – is just a reprieve, and one day, it’s all going to be ripped away from me.

  I knew I’d made a promise to live, to believe, to give myself over to the fantasy, to believe it was ours, and I hated myself for doubting it. Cancer and that ugly voice had already stolen two years of my life; I couldn’t allow it to keep its ugly grip and rake its claws along this beautiful life we’d built. I couldn’t let it. So, I researched, and I hoped.

  “Hey babe,” I answered when my phone chimed.

  “What are you doing?” Harry asked.

  I closed the laptop on my knee and put it to the side.

  “Missing you, wishing you were here.” I wasn’t lying; all of that was true, but the sentiment didn’t tell of the webpages open on my browser, the articles I’d been reading about adoption, the courses I’d been researching to prepare couples for fostering. And the other page, which I couldn’t speak about – not out loud. The one that filled me with dread. The one that spoke about percentages, symptoms and life expectancies.

  Harry debriefed his day, and as always, I was enthralled. A sudden need to experience the wonder by his side overwhelmed me. I returned my laptop to my knee, closed all the open tabs and typed in a new web address. While he described the surgery he’d booked for the next day, I um’d and ah’d in all the right places, at the same time checking dates, comparing prices and completing the booking process.

  The next afternoon, I boarded a plane to Samoa. It hadn’t been hard to organise. Sally rescheduled my appointments and dropped me at the airport with enthusiasm, hopeless romantic that she was.

  I made my way to Harry’s accommodation, thankful he always made sure I had all his travel information in case of an emergency. Assuming the surgery would keep him occupied well into the afternoon or early evening, I put on my favourite turquoise bikini and headed to the beach.

  My chemo-induced fantasies had not done it justice; even Harry’s descriptions paled in comparison.

  My phone beeped, and I picked it up to find a reply from Sally. I’d sent her a selfie after my second swim, the droplets of water glistening on my sun-kissed skin with the glorious blue sky wrapping itself around me. It was a great pic, accompanied by one word. Jealous?

  Very much. Be good.

  The phone beeped again before I could reply.

  On second thoughts. Don’t be good.

  I laughed, threw the phone on my bag and lay back.

  “I heard I had a squatter.”

  “Guilty as charged.” I pursed my lips and allowed a jovial tug at the corners of my mouth.

  “I’m not sure what your intentions are, helping yourself to my accommodations.” Harry walked around the front of my lounger and turned to face me, raising his hand to show me his wedding ring. “I’m a married man.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I raised my face to the sun and arched my back seductively. “You don’t like what you see, pretty boy?”

  “The weapons in your arsenal won’t work on me.” His fingertips teased around the edges of my knees. “I’m madly in love with my wife.”

  I raised one of my feet and tentatively moved it up to his bare torso, just above his boardies. “You look tempted to me.”

  He trapped my foot in his hand and bent down to place feather-light kisses along my ankle and calf. “Nope, not even a little bit.”

  I lay back on the lounger, allowing him to move forward and position himself between my legs. “I can see that – the disgust.”

  As he advanced, I crossed my legs behind him, trapping him in place. “How about we just call this ‘the weekend’ and keep it as our dirty little secret.”

  “It’s Monday,” he countered, continuing his journey up my torso.

  “An irrelevant detail.” I arched my body to meet his mouth.

  “Fun … and fantasy,” he said, closing the distance and brushing his lips against my neck.

  “Mm-hmm.” I took his face in my hands and broke the spell with my lips. “Your wife is one lucky woman.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Harry whispered. “Swim?”

  “You need to cool off or something?”

&n
bsp; “You got me.”

  “Only if you promise to show me the other half of it, as you say.”

  Harry launched off the lounger and tugged me up after him and towards the ocean. “Despite this undeniable chemistry we have, I must insist those parts are only for my wife.”

  I followed his lead and dove into the water popping up right beside him. “Lucky I said yes then, eh?”

  He slid his hand around me and lifted me into his arms. “This is a nice surprise.”

  I wrapped my legs around him. “I couldn’t resist.”

  “Me? That’s old news.”

  I brushed my fingers over his jawline. “I love you like this.”

  “Hairy?”

  “Relaxed. In your element. I love how happy this work makes you.”

  “I love you,” he said, dipping lower in the water.

  I enjoyed our charade, the fun we could have together, but this – the hunger in his eyes that I knew was reserved for me, the way his pulse quickened under my touch, the way my whole world brightened with one word, one look. “I’m the luckiest girl alive.”

  “I’m the lucky one.” He wrapped his strong arms around my back possessively and claimed my mouth with quick, breathless bursts of passion, pulling back before either one of us had had our fill. Harry enjoyed watching those burning embers catch alight in my eyes, the wanting, the need for just one more second, one more touch. Just more.

  “I’ve been here before, you know.” I played with the hair on the nape of his neck. “Right here, in this moment, with you.”

  Harry’s face lightened. “Tell me.”

  “Remember the day you surprised me at chemo when Sammie told you I was in my happy place with my Prince Charming.”

  “I do.”

  “We were here, like this. I was wearing this exact bikini, even though I didn’t think I would ever fit it again.”

  “It fits you perfectly.” He followed the seam with his fingers. “Is this as good as the fantasy?”