by Nancy Peach
Tess didn’t know how she was still upright. Her legs were shaking, but he brought his hands back round to unzip her dress completely, letting it fall to the floor in a pool round her ankles. Still kneeling, he leant back and gazed up at her. Her eyes were closed but she could feel him looking, heard him gasp in pleasure at the sight of her.
“Oh, Tess,” he whispered. “You are so beautiful.”
He pulled her down to the floor beside him, kissing her mouth again, holding her shoulders as he started to move once more down her body. She felt as if she were melting into the carpet, a boiling liquid pool, as his mouth reached the soft curve of her tummy and his hand slid up the inside of her thighs. And then he was kissing the tops of her legs and she was moaning softly, making noises that she could hear from a distance, unaware that they were coming from her own mouth. By the time his tongue was on her and his fingers inside her, she could hold it back no longer. She arched her body up towards him and called out his name, rolling on the wave of molten liquid she had become.
Chapter Thirty-Six
They made it as far as Edward’s bedroom, but did not sleep until the sun rose, spending the hours instead exploring each other minutely, both making up for lost time and also aware that this might be their only night together. In the early hours of the morning, when they were lying tangled in each other’s arms, exhausted, Tess told him about the recent revelations regarding her father. Over the past few months she’d been dipping in and out of the drawer where she kept Marco’s letters, reading them through, but limiting herself to one or two at a time, like treats. She hadn’t been sure that she could handle condensing twenty years of life, love, and regret into a single sitting, but she had now read them all, and had been considering getting in contact with him. “I’ve written him a letter,” she said. “I wrote it whilst I was in France with Kath. But I haven’t sent it yet. I need to check with Mam, make sure I’ve got the right address. And make sure she’s okay with me doing this,” she added.
Edward regarded her seriously. “It is up to you,” he said. “Completely up to you. There may be downsides. Neither of you are likely to be the people you have built up in your heads. But from what you’re saying, he was keen, is keen, to know you, and to have some kind of relationship. It would be your decision how close that relationship became, but I think perhaps you should let him know that you’ve found his letters, and maybe explain why it has taken so long to respond?”
Tess propped herself up on her elbow. “That’s kind of what I thought. The more I think about it, the more I consider how hurt he must have felt by my silence…”
Edward touched her cheek tenderly. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “You didn’t know. And you’re being really sensible, thinking it through rather than leaping on a plane and jetting over to Italy for some big gesture. There’s no hurry. He’s waited this long, and I suspect many fathers wait a lifetime for a child’s forgiveness.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“And whilst you’re understandably hurt and confused about why your mother, sorry, your mam,” he smiled, “I love the way you say it. Anyway, whilst you’re confused about why she acted the way she did, you don’t want to pile on the distress. You obviously don’t need her permission to contact him, but I get that it needs to be done in a sensitive way.”
“Yes, it’s tricky.”
“But, you’re really good at that stuff,” he said. “Believe me, if anyone can handle that sort of conversation in a kind and empathic way, it’s you. I’ve seen you do it.”
“That’s a very nice thing to say.” She snuggled back down against him. “And whilst you’re being so thoroughly understanding…” She sighed. “And while we’re on the subject of me and my emotional baggage, there’s probably something else you should know.”
She told him about Scott, the whole saga, and exactly how wretched she’d felt when she found him with Luke.
“It just made me feel really stupid,” she said. “And I was so hurt and so upset, but because of the circumstances it was hard to share it, to tell anyone. If I’d have caught him in bed with another woman then fine, well, not fine, but at least you get a bit of solidarity from the sisterhood. As it was, I felt so ashamed, such a fool for not knowing. I ended up making it really easy for him. I didn’t shout or scream at him because I was so confused; I thought it must have been my fault somehow. And he wasn’t remotely worried about me or how I felt. The thing about him being gay was that it somehow made the infidelity secondary as far as he was concerned. It was as if the most important thing was that he had been true to himself and finally come out; the fact that he had cheated was less significant. I felt as though, somehow, I had lost my right to be angry. And the trouble was, I was bloody furious.”
Edward had been silent throughout but now he smiled. “I can imagine. I’ve seen you bloody furious before.” He pulled her close to him. “You really haven’t had the easiest time recently, have you? Scott, your dad, the situation with Clara and the complaint, all the distress that caused. And yet you seem to handle it? To take it in your stride.” He shook his head. “I’d be all over the place.”
Tess decided not to share the information about her issues with food at this point. There were probably only so many revelations a man could cope with in a single night and besides, she seemed to have a proper handle on it again. “I was all over the place,” she admitted, “when I first found out about Scott, and for a long while after. I don’t think my way of dealing with things is necessarily any better than yours. But I guess you just have to get on with things.” She shrugged into the pillow. “Anyway, I couldn’t really hate him. I don’t think he set out to deceive me; he just fell in love, and the person he fell for happened to be a man.”
Edward now had his arm around her shoulders and she was cuddled into him, speaking into his chest, but he lifted her chin to look into her eyes.
“Still,” he said, “I imagine that the whole thing must have been quite a shock.”
She lay there feeling his chest rise and fall and nodded a little sadly to herself, then he moved his arm from behind her head and brought his face next to hers.
“Mind you,” he said, stroking her cheek and gazing deep into her eyes, “I would have to seriously question the sexual orientation of any man who wouldn’t want to spend the rest of his life going down on you.” He punctuated this with little kisses to her cheeks and neck and she could feel the firm pressure of him building against her thigh. “Speaking of which…” His kisses became slower as he moved down her throat to her breasts and she rolled slightly onto her back.
“You do say the loveliest things, Mr Russell.”
“I may speak nicely, Dr Carter”—his voice became muffled as he disappeared under the duvet—“but I’m planning on doing some very bad things to you.”
Later that morning, Tess woke to find the bed empty beside her. She lay there for a while just enjoying the heaviness in her limbs and the feathery weight of the duvet on her skin. Whenever she was with Edward her senses seemed to be more highly attuned, as if she were experiencing everyday sensations afresh. She stretched the full length of the bed, feeling the muscles and tendons of her toes and fingers extend. Her cheeks were warm and she realised that she had a ridiculous grin on her face. The hours were passing so quickly and the sun was high in the sky outside their window, throwing bright light into the room. She got up, found a T-shirt of Edward’s draped on a chair and slipped it over her head, pressing it to her face to inhale the scent of him that clung to the fabric. She tiptoed to the bathroom, checking for certain that there were no small children in the vicinity first.
Returning to the bedroom, she discovered that Edward had brought her a cup of tea and was sitting propped against the pillows waiting for her with a mischievous look on his face. He told her that Madeleine had already taken the kids to the zoo. “So we don’t need to worry about traumatising them when we’re swinging from the chandeliers in feats of erotic adventure.�
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“What you do in your own time, Edward, is up to you, chandeliers or otherwise.” She climbed into the bed beside him and reached over for her cup of tea. “But I am a very busy person. And I have places to be.” She took a sip from her tea and raised her eyebrows at him.
He took the mug from her hand and placed it back on the bedside table. “Yes,” he said. “I too have places to be. Places I really need to be. But most of those places are somewhere in this glorious body of yours.”
She laughed as he slipped his arm around her.
“Do you have to go?” he asked.
“At some point, yes, I really do, much as I’d rather stay.” The thought of leaving was awful, but she strove to keep her voice neutral, to enjoy these last stolen moments with him. There was a pause and she closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you could come to America with me?” She recognised the same studied neutrality in his voice. He too was struggling to keep his feelings in check. She turned to look at him.
“What? As your private physician?”
“No! Stop being ridiculous. As my, I don’t know, girlfriend?”
“Your ‘I don’t know’ girlfriend? Hmmm, let me think…” She stroked his hand and felt the tears prickling at her eyes once more. “Edward,” she said. “I have a life here. I have a career, one that I worked very hard to build, and one that I very nearly lost. I can’t go running off to America just because some rich, sexy man has clicked his fingers.”
“My wealth really bothers you, doesn’t it?” He pulled her down further into the bed.
“Yes, but not as much as it used to.”
“The sexiness doesn’t appear to be a significant problem?”
“I can live with it.”
He kissed her lightly on the nose.
“Well, your complete refusal to drop everything and accompany me is frankly outrageous,” he said.
“Do you always get what you want?” Tess was genuinely curious.
“Usually,” he shrugged, “but not always. And perhaps not this time.” He ran his hand up her thigh past her hip to her waist, looking deep into her eyes. “I want to remember you like this, just like this, as you are. You’re so beautiful and… I’m sorry I don’t really have the words for it…”
“They seem like perfectly adequate words to me. Perhaps you’re more eloquent than you think.”
He smiled. “You’re good for me. That’s the thing, I’m not so sure I’m good for you, but you’re definitely good for me.”
“You sure you’re not just a bit overexcited about getting laid?” Tess knew she sounded flippant, but it seemed to be her only protection mechanism against the effect his words were having.
“No.” He rolled slightly away from her, a little saddened by her response. “It’s not just that, although, Christ, it’s obviously been amazing. I mean you. You’re good for me. You make me a better person.”
“Edward…” She didn’t trust herself to say any more at this point. There was a part of her that wanted him to pour out his heart, to tell her he loved her as desperately as she loved him. But if that happened, those declarations needed to be accompanied by a promise not to leave her, a promise not to abandon her with these feelings and head off to America, never to return. She knew she could not ask that of him, and as a result she couldn’t allow herself to get drawn too far along a path from which there may be no return.
“I know I’m not exactly the most conversant with my feelings,” he said, “but I’ve spent more time considering my emotions in the past few weeks than I have my entire life, so I’m doing my best, and there’s something about being with you that just makes sense. I don’t know if it’s because you challenge me, or because you have higher expectations, or because you understand me more than you realise…”
“That might have something to do with it.”
“Well, look,” he said, “I don’t really know what it is, but I’m better with you. I can sort of imagine myself being better with you for a very long time.”
Tess drew circles on his chest, not daring to look up at his face. She felt exactly the same. She’d already imagined their future together. She knew that she had fallen hopelessly in love with him, but despite his candour, she wasn’t quite prepared to admit it, not when she stood to lose him. What good would it do to share that information now?
“Edward,” she said. “You don’t need me in order to be a better person. You are that man already. I saw it that very first time we met. I felt it. And that’s not because of my influence. It’s nothing to do with me. It’s who you are.”
Edward sighed. There was a little voice in his ear, the one he sometimes heard when he was unsure of himself. She’s blown you out again, mate. Take it like a man. You’ve been here before. He shook his head. That voice of doubt; it had been particularly vocal when his dad died and when his mother had first been diagnosed, but he hadn’t heard it much recently, and knew better than to pay it too much attention, even if it did have a point. He sought to hide his disappointment.
“All this talking isn’t solving the immediate problem, I’m afraid, Dr Carter.” He rolled on top of her, nudging between her thighs and she gave him a stern look.
“The more times we do this, the harder it’s going to be to say goodbye. You do realise that, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to stop. I guess it’s all a bit of a conundrum…”
She tilted her pelvis to press against him. “A conundrum? Is that what you call it?”
He laughed and pinned her hands down as he slowly edged inside her, watching her facial expression change. “What would you call it?”
Their bodies pressed together and they held each other tightly, both knowing that this was the last time – and when she finally came, she cried a little, just softly enough for him not to hear it. How, she wondered to herself, was she going to give up a man who could make her feel like this, and how long could she maintain the lie that she wasn’t hopelessly in love with him?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They stayed wrapped in each other for a few more moments, their skin warm and sticky against each other. But she knew it was time to leave, and she had to be the one to instigate the separation, if only to give herself some semblance of control. She kissed his shoulder and moved decisively off the bed to pick up her dress, pulling it on and sitting back down next to him, gesturing for him to help her with the zip.
“Oh!” he said. “Don’t make me do that. It’s like wrapping a favourite Christmas present back up and giving it away.”
“Cease your whining, boy, and help a lady recover her modesty.”
She laughed as he grumbled to himself, slowly piecing the zip together link by link, and then stood up and hunted around the room for her shoes, slipping her foot into one and hopping to pull on the other when she found it.
“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to run away with a rich, sexy man?” He swung his legs to the edge of the bed and pulled his shorts back on, trying to sound casual despite the pain in his chest and the tightening of his throat.
“And where on earth would I find one of those?” She leaned back against the window ledge, the outline of the large oak trees in bright relief behind her. He was still sitting on the bed looking at her. “Edward,” she said, “Don’t look all wounded. I have had the most wonderful, wonderful evening, and night, and morning. And I am not going to deny that there is a part of me that just wants to stay here with you in bed until we get bored of each other, which may be some considerable time, given the things you do to me.”
“Well, indeed. It’s certainly tempting.”
“But you said yourself that you’re still in a bit of a mess. You only buried your mother yesterday. You want to rebuild the connections with your family. You wouldn’t be able to do that with me in tow.”
She continued to speak as she piled her hair up
in a loose bun and crossed the room to retrieve her handbag, hiding her face from him as she composed her expression. “The last thing you need at the moment is a girlfriend. You’ve only just split up with the last one and rushing headfirst into a new relationship would be a disaster. I’m sure as hell nothing like Clara. A bit of a break might give you some perspective on what you really want.”
“Okay, point taken. But—”
“And of course, the way this all began… it’s not a conventional start to a relationship, is it? We’ve sort of launched straight into all the high drama and intensity without doing the day-to-day stuff? Who knows how much of this,” she gestured between the two of them, “is just both of us clinging to each other in an attempt to escape the turbulence of the past few months? The only way we work this out, decide whether there is something real and solid to link us, is with a bit of space.”
