She restrained herself.
The shadow that had followed them since they had been to the hospital had lifted but the clearer air between them slightly dizzied her.
She was nervous to provoke, worried she was misreading the edge they were on.
God! Scarlet just sat there and went bright red with recall at some of the offers she’d made so readily, assuming that was what it took to be a guest in his home.
Luke gestured to a chalkboard. ‘What do you want to eat?’
Scarlet screwed up her noise as she read the choices.
‘The steak and kidney pie is good here,’ Luke suggested.
She made a gagging face.
‘Really good,’ Luke said, unimpressed.
‘Fine, then,’ Scarlet said, and looked around for someone to take their order. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To order.’ Luke disappeared and she sat there as he did so.
And still she sat there as he went over and had a quick word with Margaret and Trefor and then after a while he came back with two little bottles and two glasses.
‘What are these?’
‘Grapefruit juice for you,’ Luke said, as he poured them. ‘And pineapple juice for me.’
And she went a bit pink and then asked a question. ‘Why do you have grapefruit juice in your fridge when you don’t like it?’
She was so clever, so astute, Luke thought, and he wondered about all she could be.
‘I have it in my fridge because I drink it every morning and think of you for a couple of minutes.’
‘Oh, so you drink something you don’t like and think of me...’
‘I love it now,’ Luke said. ‘That time in the morning that I spend thinking of you is both the worst and best part of my day.’
She just looked at him, into those beautiful eyes, and love hurt so much more than she had ever thought it might.
‘You think about me every day?’
‘All day,’ Luke said.
‘And the trouble I make?’
‘I think about so much more than that.’ He took a breath. ‘You know that there have been others—’
‘Luke,’ Scarlet interrupted. ‘I don’t want to hear about them. I know we need to talk but I can’t take it today.’
‘Yes, you can,’ Luke said. ‘I want to tell you something, I want you to know that, while there might have been others, I’ve never had sex in the morning since you. And do you know what else? I don’t even have breakfast in bed any more, and if I’m in a hotel I go down and eat at the buffet.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to have that breakfast in bed with you.’
He just stared at her and she said nothing and then their plates came and she picked out all the kidney and tackled the rest of the pie.
‘It’s yum,’ she conceded, glad of the diversion because talking today was surely too hard. She tried to keep it light as she turned her attention to the pastry.
Once she had finished her pie, she reached out to pick at his. ‘You see, Luke, we really shouldn’t be together because I’d be the size—’
‘And I’d still want you,’ Luke said, ‘and if you stopped putting that stuff in your lips I’d want you even more.’
Scarlet looked at him. ‘You say that now.’ Her head was all jumbled and rather than look at him Scarlet had a piece of the kidney she’d picked out.
It was nice.
So nice that she had another piece.
And then she had another because if she didn’t then she might open her mouth and tell him how much she loved him and beg him not to send her away now that her mum had gone.
Scarlet knew that she needed to get her head together; she wanted to be so suave and calm when she told him how she felt. ‘I want to go to the cottage,’ Scarlet said suddenly.
‘I’ll take you.’
‘I want a few weeks to get my head together and then...’ He didn’t rush in so she took a breath and told him what she’d been planning. ‘I might call you once things are calmer. If that’s okay?’
‘Of course.’
‘See how you’re feeling about me then,’ Scarlet said.
‘It won’t have changed,’ Luke said. ‘It hasn’t in the two years that I’ve been hoping you might call.’
‘You hoped I’d call?’
‘Every day, and knowing you were in the country and hadn’t...’ Luke stopped, not wanting to lay a guilt trip on her. ‘I can’t see my feelings for you going away any time soon. At least, not in this lifetime. And if that’s too much for you to handle, I get that...’
‘Too much?’ Scarlet checked. ‘I thought you were just...’
‘Just what?’
‘Tolerating me.’
‘I don’t tolerate you, Scarlet, I love you.’
‘What sort of love?’ Scarlet checked. ‘Like a sister?’
‘I certainly hope not.’
‘A fancy?’
‘Much more than that,’ Luke said. ‘How about a real love, which, yes, I guess means I can tolerate anything if it helps you to get where you want to be. And if that means holing yourself up in a cottage, or flying off to Africa, or even going back to LA...’
‘So long as there are no bodyguards?’ Scarlet huffed.
‘Scarlet, if you want to carry on as a celebrity, I’ll work my way around it. I won’t be giving tell-all interviews, though...’ He smiled as she laughed at the very thought. ‘And don’t try sorting out my career for me again...’
‘You’d come to LA?’ Scarlet frowned. ‘For me?’
‘For us,’ Luke corrected. ‘You asked how the conversation would have been had you called, well...’ He didn’t finish; it still hurt that she hadn’t.
It was Scarlet that spoke. ‘I was going to call. I knew I’d made a mess of things last time and so I was going to try and work things out at the cottage. I wanted it all to be sorted and for me to be all...’ She saw his smile. ‘Well, a rather more sophisticated and together version of me was going to give you a call in a few weeks’ time.’
She had been planning to call.
Their stars would have collided, Luke found out then, and he was no fool rushing in, this was love, he knew that now.
All the naysayers, all the doubters could leave now, please, Luke thought, because when it was just the two of them, all was right in the world.
He could tell her everything now.
‘Come on,’ Luke said.
As they walked out they stopped and chatted to Margaret and Trefor.
‘I’ve got some new stock coming in next week,’ Margaret said to Scarlet. ‘You should come and have a look.’
‘I shall,’ Scarlet said.
As they walked out of the pub, Scarlet, a little distracted, holding Luke’s words in her head and going over and over them, just so they wouldn’t disappear, bumped into someone and turned.
And when she saw who it was Scarlet gaped.
‘Come on, Scarlet,’ Luke said, and grabbed her by the hand as she craned her neck for another look. ‘It’s rude to stare.’
‘But isn’t that...?’ Oh, my God, she knew that couple—the whole world did.
‘Yes,’ Luke said. ‘They’re even more famous than you.’
They walked out of the pub and there was his car.
‘I can take you to the cottage now,’ Luke said, dangling his keys. ‘You can go and get yourself all suave and sophisticated if you want to...’ he offered, and she poked out her tongue.
‘I can’t leave yet.’ Scarlet shook her head and they walked hand in hand towards his home. ‘I said I’d go and help Margaret get her store online on Monday. Apparently men feel very awkward when they come in to buy things.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And they’re not very knowledgeable,’ Scarlet said. ‘I’m not a size small, Luke,’ Scarlet said and she told him her size. ‘Just for future reference.’
Their future was referenced and that made them both smile.
But then Scarlet sto
pped smiling and she thought of all that had been lost, all the damage done.
‘Can we ever get past it?’ Scarlet said, and they stopped walking and faced each other.
‘We have to get through it,’ Luke said. ‘And we can get through it together.’
They shared a soft kiss that tasted of regret mingled with love as they shared the hurt and what could have been and what had been lost.
They would work through it together.
He smelt her hair and she just leant against him. It was gone.
Her shame.
His acceptance of her, good, bad and the middle bits, would not allow shame to reside in her.
They walked to the house that had a few missing bricks in the driveway wall and she waited for Luke to open the door.
‘You’ve got a key,’ Luke said. ‘Scarlet, this is your home.’
‘Mine.’ She laughed at the very notion but then she found out just how much he loved her.
‘This village is why I live so far from work. There are couples here who are just as high profile as you are, more so, and they get to live a very normal life on their days off. They might have to work at it, but when they do...’
‘You chose this house with me in mind?’
‘Everything has been with you in mind. And if that’s too much...’
‘Too much? No. Never.’
She could never get enough of his love.
‘So open up and let us in,’ Luke said.
Scarlet did. She turned the key to her home and they both stepped in, and they would keep opening up and keep letting the other in every day of their lives, both swore.
She stood in the hall and resisted the urge to snap a photo and post it and share her joy with the world, but she was very easily distracted by Luke.
‘What are you doing?’ Scarlet asked. He began to strip off her clothes. ‘Luke...’
‘What I’ve been wanting to do all along.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘I LOVE YOU.’ Luke told her the truth and it came from the very bottom of his heart. ‘I have loved you from the moment I saw you.’
It made perfect sense now.
Love had led them to now.
‘I love you back,’ Scarlet said, and she wasn’t afraid to admit it now. Furthermore, there was no hope of being sophisticated and level-headed when Luke was close and holding her the way he was.
Two years after they’d found out that they did, they got to say it and could believe it now.
And this time when he carried her wriggling in his arms and she rained kisses on his face, he didn’t deposit her on the spare bed but again Luke didn’t pull back the sheets.
Deliberately this time.
He stared down at her as he undressed her in a way that had Scarlet squirm.
Off came that chunky jumper to reveal the very small purple bra. His hands went to unhook it and he removed it without a word.
Off came her shoes and that tiny, tiny skirt came down with her stockings.
‘Luke...’ Her hands reached out for him but he flicked them away.
He had waited, now so could she.
Scarlet lay as he peeled off her knickers so slowly that her breathing kept catching in her throat as she fought the temptation for haste. Then Luke stood and undressed himself and revealed that delicious male body again, though his eyes did not meet hers. He looked at that jet of hair that he’d tried so hard not to and his gaze burnt so much so that she just lay there and parted her legs.
Still he made her wait because he flipped her over onto her stomach and took her hands out from where they needed to be and placed them palms down beside her head.
He kissed her all over, from the nape of her neck to the soles of her feet. He kissed the small of her back and he kissed the cheek of her bottom so deeply that she started to sob with want. Then he turned her around and kissed her stomach with the same lavish attention. Her spine curved so that her hips lifted but Luke hadn’t finished yet.
His fingers were inside her and stroking her as his mouth met her breast and tasted her again, and sucked and nipped till she was frenzied. When she could take it no more, he very abruptly removed his fingers, parted her legs and kissed inside her thighs, not tenderly but deep, bruising kisses that made her remember that a gentle lover he was not.
He tried to be.
But Luke forgot the gentleman he usually remembered to be when her scent hit him.
The silky black hair had not been there last time and Scarlet closed her eyes as his teeth nipped and tugged, and then came the heat his mouth delivered.
Every tear she had cried, all the pain of the days, the months and years dissolved as Luke probed her with his tongue. His hands parted her thighs farther when they tried to close in on his head. He completely exposed her, laved her, tasted her; he drew out musk, he tasted her deep and when she came he held her down and tasted her more, so she screamed.
As she tried to catch her breath he didn’t allow her to; instead, Luke pulled her limp body up so she knelt and leant on his chest to recover. Very soon she did, stroking his thickness, feeling him again in her hands, wanting him, as she always had.
She left the safe haven of his chest and found his neck, and she bruised him now with her mouth as she raised herself, wanting him to gather her, yet he reached for the drawer.
‘I want your babies...’ Scarlet begged, not wanting to stop or wanting to part for a second.
‘Not yet,’ Luke said.
His love was older and wiser now and they would wait till they could cope with their love before adding to something so big, so precious and so worth protecting.
He opened the drawer and took out a condom and she took it from him and knelt back on her heels, stroking him with one hand and cupping his balls in the other until it was Luke who was now impatient.
‘Scarlet...’
With aching slowness, she slid it on.
Luke pulled her in and they kissed, a sexy kiss, and she felt his tongue still and the holding of his breath as she slid down his length.
He moved her legs and they wrapped around him, and the feel of him filling her, moving in her while kissing her was sublime. Her lips closed and tightened and he forced them apart, and when his teeth gritted she felt him swell that final time and they gave up with mouths and just locked in eye contact for that final second before they were lost to each other.
His body mocked the times she had thought he might not want her as he thrust into her, so deep, and ground her down so hard that it could never now be questioned.
And one would hope there were no bodyguards outside the door, because she didn’t hold back from sobbing or shouting, and as she came, tight around him, all his restraint was rewarded as he shot hard and released deep inside her.
And then they were back to the other, with eyes that stared right to the very bottom of the other’s soul.
‘What are you thinking?’ Scarlet said.
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do,’ she persisted. ‘Tell me.’
‘That was an amazing come. I want to go again.’
‘Just that?’
‘Yep.’
‘What else?’ Scarlet smiled.
‘I think I’m ready to go again.’
Still rivers did not run deeper when she was hot in his arms.
Scarlet laughed as they lay upside down in his bed. She then climbed up onto his stomach and sat there, playing with the hairs on his chest and loving that she was back where she belonged.
That they could talk now.
And for ever.
Luke loved it too. He looked up at her and she was lost to her thoughts. There were secrets inside that pretty head, he knew. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘Lots of things.’
‘Like?’
‘Have you really loved me all that time?’
She knew that he had, it was just hard to take in.
He reached out and opened the drawer, reaching not for a condom this
time but for a receipt, which he handed to her.
It was faded, a long bar bill, and on the end of it was a glass of champagne.
‘I never keep mementos,’ Luke said, ‘but I just couldn’t throw it out.’
And there was the hotel bill too and a serviette with faded lipstick, and he had loved her since then, absolutely she knew that.
‘What else are you thinking?’ Luke asked.
With his love, there were so many things to think about. ‘All the things I can do.’
‘Like?’ He watched the blush on her cheeks.
‘What you said about me being a midwife, did you mean it?’
‘Absolutely,’ Luke said. ‘What else are you thinking?’
‘That I want to get married.’
Both smiled.
‘I would have got round to that,’ Luke said.
‘We’ll be family then,’ Scarlet said.
‘You’re my family now,’ Luke told her, but he got her insecurity. ‘We’ll get married as quickly as I can arrange it.’
‘I want a big ring,’ Scarlet warned. ‘I think it has to be a ruby, but a massive one.’
Luke rolled his eyes.
‘And I want a church with bells and hymns and flowers...’ Scarlet held nothing back with her demands. ‘And I’m going to wear red and...’ Then she looked at the most patient man in the world. ‘I just want us there, though.’
‘Oh, I think we can manage all that.’ Luke smiled.
‘Maybe Trefor and Margaret can be witnesses,’ Scarlet mused.
‘Perhaps a little drink back at the pub afterwards?’ Luke suggested.
‘And we could maybe have a teeny party there?’ Scarlet checked. ‘Just an impromptu one.’
‘No wedding cake, then?’ Luke checked.
‘Oh, yes, I want cake.’
‘You can have cake,’ Luke said, ‘just as long as you don’t make it.’
‘And I want wedding presents too.’
Ooh, it was going to take a lot of organising for their impromptu wedding!
His hands slid up from her waist to her breasts and she felt him nudging against the small of her back. She knew exactly what Luke was thinking now and it wasn’t about weddings.
‘I thought there was no hope for us,’ Scarlet admitted.
‘There’s always hope.’
He believed that—all those years in Emergency had taught him.
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