“All the time.” Ryan looks across to the tree where Alex is, and I follow his stare, finding her shimmying up the trunk. “She’s growing up. I don’t like it much.”
“But she’s such a well-rounded girl. Funny, smart, full of personality. You should be proud.”
“She’s my biggest achievement in life.” Nuzzling into my neck, Ryan bites me with a low growl, and I squirm in his hold. “I’m going to need someone else to focus all my attention on when Alex doesn’t need me anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask, quite liking the sound of that and ignoring the small pang of guilt for encouraging him.
He chuckles into my skin, planting a chaste kiss there, and tingles roll through me. We both get distracted from our moment when the crack of a branch kills the silence. Alex curses, watching from her position a few yards up the trunk as an arm of the tree plummets. “I’d better go help her before she pulls the whole damn tree down.” Ryan releases me and makes his way over.
“I think it’s dead,” Alex says, starting to shuffle down the trunk. “We can’t put it on this one.”
Joining Ryan at the foot of the tree, I look up into the branches. “Put what on this one?”
“Her swing.” Ryan inspects the ragged end of the branch, frowning when he pokes at the middle. “Diseased,” he mutters, brushing off his hands. “You go get the tools, I’ll find another tree.”
Alex jumps the last few feet from the trunk and dashes off to collect the equipment while Ryan wanders from tree to tree, inspecting each.
I take myself back down to the shore and wade in, wriggling my toes in the dirt, breathing in the clean air and absorbing the stunning scenery. I could get used to it here. It’s almost ethereal, so still and silent. Beautifully eerie. “Is this private property?” I call back.
“Depends who’s asking.”
I peek over my shoulder, seeing Ryan smiling up at some branches. I narrow my eyes a little. “I’m asking.”
He casts his smile my way. “It’s all yours,” he says, knowing what I’m thinking. I’ll be back as soon as I can with my paints and a blank canvas.
Alex appears loaded down with wood, ropes, and a toolbox. “I’m back!”
“You measure the rope. We’re using that branch.” Ryan points up and Alex nods her confirmation. “I’ll drill the holes in the seat.”
“Can’t I do the drilling?” she asks, totally put out.
“Does it look like I’ll shimmy up that tree, Cabbage?”
I laugh and wander the few paces to dry land, lowering to my backside and settling in. Watching them together is beyond joyous, their banter, their playfulness, their obvious adoration for each other. Ryan’s way with his daughter is so endearing, how he guides and instructs her, always patient. He never tries to take over a task, even though it would probably be done in half the time if he did. He’s got all the time in the world for her. And she him. I don’t think she’ll ever not need him; he doesn’t have to worry about that. Their bond is too strong. Unbreakable. And studying them here, lost in something they love doing together, I wonder for the first time with any kind of positivity if I’ll ever get the chance to be a mum and have this kind of incredible relationship. Or has my chance passed me by?
“It’s not level,” Alex yells from her position, hanging like a sloth from the branch they’re fixing the swing to.
“It is.” Ryan places a metal spirit level on the seat of the swing. “Perfectly level. Now get down from there.”
Instead of shimmying her way down, Alex releases her legs and dangles, and I hold my breath as she lets go and falls, landing precisely and steadily on her feet. Fearless. I’m in awe of her. I can’t imagine living my life so unafraid of anything. I’d love to try, and as I look across to Ryan, I wonder again if this is my chance. My chance to be who I really am, without the mental baggage, and, most important, be that person fearlessly. Am I capable of that?
“Hannah,” Ryan calls, snapping me out of my silent pondering. He jerks his head as he holds on to one of the ropes, sweeping an arm out to the wooden seat. “You can be the first to test it.”
Me? I haven’t been on a swing since I was a teenager. It was with Pippa. She was seventeen, I was fifteen. She sneaked a bottle of Dad’s whiskey out of his drinks cabinet and we went to the park and had a few sips. It was only a few sips, but it was enough to make us woozy. And Pippa thought it would be funny to push me on the swing until I threw up. I smile at the memory. Dad went loopy when we got home. Mum shook her head in dismay. And Pippa and I struggled to hold back our drunken laughs while Dad gave us a royal telling-off. Pippa and I couldn’t touch whiskey after that. The mere smell made us heave. Still does.
Eager, I push myself up from my backside and make my way over to them. “Is it safe?”
Giving the rope a good yank, Ryan demonstrates its sturdiness. Then he lifts me from my feet and places me on the seat neatly. “Comfy?” he asks, guiding my hands to the ropes on either side of me. I nod, smiling like crazy as Ryan take my ankles and starts walking back.
“Hold tight!” Alex yells, running around the back of me. “Real high, Dad.”
Ryan grins, and I hold my breath as he continues back as far as he can go with my ankles in his warm grasp. “Ready?” He stops, holding me in position.
“For anything,” I reply on instinct, our gazes locked, my eyes telling him that I trust him. I’m sure he reads my hidden meaning, because his smile fades and he nods the tiniest bit. Then he pulls me back even more and puts weight behind his push, launching me into the air on a shout.
I hold my breath and close my eyes as I sail into the air, relishing a new sense of total abandon as I swing back and forth. The wind is loud, speeding past me, my hair and clothes flailing wildly. It feels purifying, like the web of deceit that has been spun around me over the years and kept me contained is being ripped away by something more powerful than the secrets and lies that have controlled me. It’s not the wind that’s the force behind my cleansing. It’s happiness. It’s here, it’s now.
It’s Ryan.
I throw my head back and open my eyes, looking up into the dusky sky. The clouds are rolling, the sky now darkening. I want this sense of overwhelming freedom to be with me forever, to feel this wild, this fearless, and this happy.
“Hannah!” Ryan yells, and I seek him out, my body naturally leaning back to maintain momentum as I sail toward him. “Higher?” he calls, jumping to claim my feet and using them as anchors to push me.
“Higher!” I yell on a laugh, his face coming close before he’s fading away again, sending me up into the clouds. I’m exposed to the elements, but I’ve never felt so shielded from the world. Hidden. Safe.
I could do this all day, lose myself in this incredible feeling of uninhibitedness, but I start to lose momentum, and Ryan steps back, letting me swing freely until I eventually slow to a stop. My face must say it all. I’m slightly breathless, yet completely invigorated. Windswept and disheveled, and completely unbothered by it.
I let Ryan unclaw my hands from the ropes and pull me up to my bare feet, walking me away from the swing. He’s quiet as he pushes some strands of hair from my face, carefully and meticulously fixing me. His expression is thoughtful, his task executed as if he has all the time in the world. “How was it?” he eventually says, kissing my cheek gently.
There is only one word that comes to mind. Healing. It seems a little outlandish to say it. So I don’t. “Wonderful,” I murmur, and his thoughtfulness transforms into satisfaction as his hands still in my hair. The space between us shrinks to nothing, our lips brush…and a cough.
I drop my head so Ryan’s mouth slides onto my cheekbone, and he laughs lightly into my skin. “Your turn, Alex.”
I look back over my shoulder and see she’s planted herself on the seat of the swing, hanging freely as she watches us, a small smile on her face. “I have to go,” she says, jumping up. She turns, saying no more, and strides off toward the pathway back to the cabin.
<
br /> I feel Ryan tense, and I look up at him as he releases me, going after her. My heart drops a little, feeling so guilty for making her feel like she has to leave. “Cabbage, wait,” Ryan calls, picking up his pace.
“I’ll be late.” She waves a hand flippantly in the air without turning back, carrying on her way. Oh God, is she crying? “Have fun, you two.”
Oh no. I can’t be an obstacle in between her and her father, and that’s exactly what I am right now. I feel terrible, and as I glance over to Ryan, I can see he does, too. We shouldn’t have been so openly affectionate—shouldn’t have pushed this in her face. We should have been more considerate. I need to fix this. “Alex,” I call, making chase. I pass Ryan and catch up with her, bracing myself for the worst, but when she turns to face me, there are no tears. In fact, she’s smiling, and the sight has me withdrawing, taken aback.
“What?” she asks. “I’m fine.”
I stare at her, stuck for words. Is this a typical case of I’m fine but I’m not fine? On the outside she’s all sunshine and smiles, but on the inside is she thunder and sadness? Crap, I don’t know. “I feel like I’ve invaded your territory,” I admit, wondering if I should be speaking so frankly to her. She has to me, so I guess I should adopt the same approach. “I’d rather you didn’t leave, Alex. I’ll go.”
She shakes her head, and I find myself mirroring her, my head moving slowly from side to side, too. “But I want you to stay.”
“Then you stay, too. I’ll feel better if you stay, too.”
“I’m hanging out with my cousin tonight before she goes back to Singapore.”
Oh? I look back to find Ryan, and I see he’s relaxed now. “I forgot,” he says, holding up his phone. “Her mum’s here to pick her up.” He backs off, leaving me and Alex alone.
“Hannah.” Alex tugs on my hand, and I face her again.
“You fixed this up,” I say, realizing in this moment what’s happening.
She dips and collects her baseball cap from where she lost it earlier, putting it on back-to-front. “I don’t like it when he’s on his own.” She gives me an impish grin. “So look after him.”
“What?” I blurt, recoiling. “Look after your six-foot-three-inch ex-MI5 dad?”
“MI5?” she parrots. “What’s that?”
“Shit.” I slap my hand over my big mouth and kick myself to the other side of the lake and back again.
Alex starts laughing. “Cool it, Hannah. I know what he did.”
“You do?”
“Sure. He protected people.” Pivoting, she dances off through the overgrowth, all happy, leaving me standing like a loose part alone.
Ryan protects people. That’s his job. Or was his job. Is it instinct, too? “Alex!” I shout, pulling her escape to a halt. I wait until she’s facing me before I speak, if only so she can see the sincerity in me. “Thank you.” She knows I don’t mean for this. For now. I mean for her acceptance.
She trots back and throws her arms around me, giving me a fierce hug. “Thank you.” Tears come from nowhere and fill my eyes as Ryan’s daughter clings to me like she never plans on letting go. I quickly sniffle back my emotion when I feel her hug ease up, and she pulls away. “Do you know how cool it is watching my dad fall in love?”
My recoil isn’t preventable. “What?” I all but whisper, feeling the ground disappear from under my feet. “Alex, that’s crazy talk.”
“No, it isn’t.” She doesn’t say another word. She disappears, and I stand on the spot, motionless, staring at the empty, darkening pathway.
My palms come to my cheeks, holding my face, as the magnitude of Alex’s words rains down on me. Love? It’s too soon. But…never would be too soon. I look over my shoulder and slowly turn, feeling the pull of something magnetic commanding me. I take careful steps, one by one, measured and tentative, as if going back this way could be the end of me. The question is, will it be a happy end? Or a tragic one? Can I live with myself not knowing?
My walk back to the lake feels like a walk of redemption. Like for the first time since Ryan Willis ran me off the road, I know what I’m doing. I’ve been shocked into reality, brought around from my dreams by his daughter with the delivery of one sentence. Snapped from a beautiful place of escapism, where I’m not a lost, vulnerable woman living in the shadows of this world but a vivacious, wild, courageous woman with the bravery to take a leap of faith. Ryan found that woman. Doesn’t he deserve to keep her?
When I breach the overgrowth into the clearing on the lake’s shore, I come to a stop, my situation slamming into me from every direction when I see him. I have to fight to maintain my ability to breathe, appreciation and devastation at war inside me. Ryan deserves everything a woman can give, but this woman only has secrets and lies.
The moonlight hits the still water, ripples of light traveling across the surface. It’s beautiful. But more beautiful than that is Ryan standing in the lake, the water up to his waist, the moon casting reflections across his naked back, making it sparkle like he’s some kind of magical creature. He’s motionless, staring out to the glimmering darkness.
Oh God.
Letting my instinct guide me, I reach for the bottom of my dress and pull it up over my head. I drop it to the ground at my feet before slipping out of my bra and knickers, then walk into the water quietly, my breath hitching when the cold hits my skin. Ryan’s head moves, just a fraction, now alert to my presence. But he doesn’t turn to find me. He wants me to find him.
I wade through the calm water, and by the time I make it to Ryan, the water is halfway up my back. I move in close behind him, my attention dancing across the beads of water on his skin that are sparkling like crystals when the fading light hits them. And still, he remains motionless, waiting for me, patient. Quiet. He calls to me without a word. And I admit to myself for the first time, I’m desperate to stay here. With him. Forever.
I lift one hand from the water and rest my palm on his shoulder gently as I drop a kiss to the middle of his back. His skin is fire, and so is the blood in my veins. Pure, uncontrollable fire. Ryan started the inferno that’s been blazing within me since meeting him, and not even he can put it out.
I drag my mouth across his skin to the edge of his back, and he hisses, his head dropping, the water disturbed by his twitching hands. I like seeing his fight for control. I like the idea that I can do this to him, send him to the edge of insanity. I want to keep him there.
Taking my hand from his shoulder, I replace it on his hip, flexing my fingers a little, holding on to him, and then I kiss my way down the side of his back until the water stops me from kissing farther. So I work my way across his lower back, and then up the other side, all the time slow, all the time soft, and all the time feeling how tense he is.
The sounds he makes are a mixture of pain and indulgence as he endures me worshipping every inch of his broad back with my mouth, sliding my hands across his skin, feeling every piece of him. I have to reach on my tippy-toes when I get to his nape, using his shoulders to help lift me a little, my boobs pushing into his back as a result. And there I bite at his neck gently, working my way around to his throat. His chin lifts to give me space, but that is his only movement. That and his out-of-control pumping chest.
I can feel his resistance stretching, and now I just have to wait for the moment he breaks. The moment he can no longer remain still. But he’s making me wait. He’s making me work for that moment when my already tilting universe spins into bedlam. I flatten my tongue and drag it up the column of his throat, forcing his head back farther, the taste of his skin intoxicating. His restrained moan vibrates against my mouth, and then I’m at his ear, breathing against it, and his body solidifies. He’s about to break. I bite down on his lobe and drag it through my teeth, then press a kiss in the hollow below his ear. It tips him.
Reaching back, he takes my upper arm and pulls me around his body, and I come to rest on his front, arms locked over his shoulders, legs wrapped around his waist. The tips of our
noses touch, his big hands cupping my bottom. Half of his face is shadowed, the other half vividly clear. I wonder for a moment if the moon is casting the same shadows on me. It would be appropriate. Symbolic, even. He can only know half of me. Ryan doesn’t know me as well as he believes, and that pains me so much. For him, I want to be just this girl. This Hannah. The woman he’s letting me be. I couldn’t face his disappointment if he knew of the woman I once was.
I glance away from him, hiding, and rest my chin on his shoulder, looking out across the still water, my unbearable thoughts getting the better of me. The burden of my past will never leave me. I can pretend to be free of it, but a sadness so deep doesn’t ever fade.
Ryan pushes his face into me, encouraging me out, and when he has my eyes again, he still doesn’t speak. He doesn’t ask questions, even though I know he’s sensed my sudden despondency. Instead, he separates our chests a little, giving him just enough room to slide his hand between us.
I breathe in and hold it, bracing my hands into his shoulders. The first feel of him guiding himself to me has me biting my lip. The feel of him nudging at my entrance has my jaw tightening. The feel of him sliding into me has my eyes closing, my forehead falling onto his. And when he hits me deep and stills, I cry out, the sound of my pleasure echoing in the evening air all around us. He releases a strangled gasp, and I roll my head across his, forcing myself to look at him when he flexes his hips and withdraws. His eyes tell a thousand stories. His silence speaks a thousand words. I’ve never experienced a connection to someone like this, not just physically. This closeness could crush the bleakness in me. With Ryan, there could be only sunshiny days.
I frame his face with my hands, trying to express my gratitude without saying it. He’s comfort. He’s happiness. He’s strength. He’s everything a man should be to a woman. The idea that he could be mine forever is too good to be true. The possibility of him giving me this crazy sense of wild uninhibitedness for the rest of my life is hard to let go of. What would he get in return, except my lies and secrets? I blink, and an unexpected tear rolls down my cheek, because realization has just ambushed me.
Leave Me Breathless Page 19
