Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  I fixed my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with double peanut butter and poured a glass of milk. By the time I’d finished that, Liam still hadn’t come upstairs, so I put together a turkey sandwich for him—a little mayo, lots of turkey and low-fat cheese, loaded high with lettuce, tomato, and a couple of pickles just like he’d made every sandwich I’d watched him make over the past several days—and set it on a plate at the table.

  Since he hadn’t come in yet, I put all the extra food away and wiped down the counters, making certain there was no mess from my efforts. That still didn’t fill enough time for him to join me, which I believed in the end would be a good thing. It meant he was thinking long and hard about what I’d had to say. Maybe he was coming to terms with the fact that I’d be leaving soon…because I would be.

  He had to realize that. He needed to accept it. We both did.

  When I’d done everything I could think of to pass the time before eating and he still hadn’t appeared, I decided not to wait for him any longer. I sat down at the table and ate my sandwich, finishing it off with the milk like I had been doing since I was a kid.

  It was only once I had nothing left of my meal that he came through the door, looking at me with that ragged expression he’d had on his face when we talked in the car.

  “I made you a sandwich,” I said.

  He nodded and sat down, but he didn’t even look at it. “Thank you.” His eyes never left mine, staying fixed so long it left me squirming. “You already ate?”

  “I did.”

  “Okay.” He worked his jaw, and I knew he was trying to sort out how to say something.

  But I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what he wanted to say. It was probably something that would only upset me, since it was taking him so long to sift through it all.

  “You should eat,” I said, carrying my plate and glass into the kitchen. I busied myself with putting them in the dishwasher. When I was done, I turned on the faucet and washed my hands.

  As I reached for a towel, Liam brought his plate into the kitchen and put it into the dishwasher.

  “I need to apologize to you,” he said when he straightened.

  I didn’t want him to apologize. He hadn’t intentionally hurt me. He couldn’t help the fact that he was still grieving. She’d been his wife, the love of his life. That couldn’t be easy for him to get over. Could you ever really get over something like that? What I wanted was for him to give me a reason to stay in his life, one that we could both live with.

  I shook my head, trying to push past him because I felt slightly trapped. “There’s nothing you have to—”

  He put a hand out to stop me, settling it on my waist. “Don’t run away from me. You had your say in the car. It’s my turn to talk.”

  The way his fingers curled around me, gentle but possessive, made my breath hitch in my throat. I swallowed hard and looked up, meeting his gaze. His eyes were dark, but in a different way than when he was thinking about Liv. They latched on to me and wouldn’t let go. His eyes kept me in a far tighter grip than his hand did. He would let me leave if I needed to go—I could feel that—but he wanted me to stay.

  “Okay,” I said, my breaths coming quick and shallow.

  “I’m sorry.” With his free hand, he took the towel and tossed it on the counter behind me. “I should never have let you go to bed last night without explaining, and I inadvertently hurt you. You asked me if I was about to kiss you or Liv, and it was like someone had hit me over the head—because I hadn’t thought about Liv at all, not since we were at the park. The rest of the day was all about you. No one else. I’d only thought about you, I’d only seen you, I’d only been talking to you and attracted to you, and I was going to kiss you. When you said her name, it made me think about her, and then I felt guilty that she hadn’t crossed my mind. I wanted to kiss you, and I still want to kiss you, but there’s a part of me that feels as though I’d be cheating on her if I do.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him I understood, but he put a finger against my lips and stopped me. His other hand moved behind my back, drawing me closer to him, into his warmth and presence and strength. The way he held me left me feeling heady, a little dizzy. Needy. It was an unfamiliar sensation, but not an uncomfortable one. I’d never really dated much. Most men didn’t understand me. They thought I was flighty or weird or something. Even if they flirted at first, they often stopped before long. I was okay with being different, but it seemed as though they weren’t as okay with it as I was.

  “No, not if,” he said. “When. Because I’m going to kiss you unless you tell me you don’t want me to.”

  I trembled and licked my lips, my tongue brushing lightly against the pad of his finger. “I want you to kiss me.” And I did. I wanted that and so much more. I wanted to be wrapped up in his arms so we could hold each other. I wanted to touch him and soothe some of the guilt he was carrying. I wanted him to let me in.

  Maybe once he kissed me it would be easier for him to do that. There’s something special about a kiss. It’s more than just physical. It’s an emotional connection, a sort of bonding between two people. It might be my way in.

  “Good.” He removed his finger from my lips, sliding his hand to the back of my head and angling me toward him. “Noelle, when I kiss you I need you to know that I’m kissing you and no one else. I need you to believe that.”

  I nodded. “I believe it.” At the very least, I believed that was what he wanted to be the truth. Wanting it was the first step in making it happen.

  He kept staring at me, his gaze traveling over every inch of my face, my neck, my shoulders. It felt as though he was taking me all in, memorizing every detail, so I did the same. I studied the growth of stubble lining his jaw, thinking back to how it had scratched and tickled my lips when I’d kissed him there before. I watched the hard bobbing of his Adam’s apple, imagining how it would feel to press my lips over him there as it moved.

  I put both my hands flat against his stomach, moving them up slowly to feel the muscles of his abs and chest rippling beneath my fingers. He was still wearing his suit from after the game, but I splayed my hands along his rib cage beneath his jacket, the fabric of his dress shirt smooth to my touch. Everywhere my hands traveled, his muscles contracted. His heartbeat pounded beneath my fingers in a frantic pace that matched my own.

  But he still hadn’t kissed me.

  I debated kissing him instead of waiting for him to take the initiative but nixed the thought almost as soon as it came into my head. This needed to be his decision. It needed to move at his pace, not mine. He had to be the one to take this step.

  Liam would kiss me when he was ready.

  He moved the hand at my waist upward, slowly, tracing a painstaking line to the center of my back between my shoulder blades, and then down again. His touch was barely there, little more than a whisper over my shirt. He trailed the fingers of his other hand through my hair, letting it gradually fall to brush against my shoulder. The pad of his thumb danced over my cheekbone.

  There was such a sense of gentleness to the way he was holding me, his movements almost reverent in nature. “Du är så vacker.”

  I broke out in goose bumps from the awed tone of his words, the lyrical sound of his native language coming from his tongue. His voice had always drawn me in, but it was different when he spoke the language he’d grown up with. “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “Sorry.” His lips curled up in a small smile that made me mimic the gesture. “When I get caught up in the moment, I forget to use English. It means you’re beautiful.”

  I’d barely whispered, “Oh,” when his lips came down to meet mine. It was a tender kiss, soft and teasing as he moved his lips over mine. I stretched up on my toes, sliding my hands along the expanse of his chest until I reached his shoulders.

  His arm came around my waist, and he lifted me in the air, holding me tight against him. I let out a little sigh from the new sensation, unable to stop myself from smiling against his
lips. He was hard everywhere—hard and strong and emanating this amazing heat that encompassed me and drew me in closer. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his waist, and he groaned.

  The next thing I knew, he had my back pressed against the wall, and he pulled away slightly to look at me, his breaths coming as hard and fast as mine.

  “You undo me.” He held my waist with both hands, his thumbs grazing my rib cage. His hips pinned me in place so I couldn’t move, not that I wanted to be anywhere other than exactly there.

  “Maybe you need to be undone.” My words were hardly more than a whisper.

  Liam let out a strangled sound from deep in his throat.

  At that moment, I knew I was right. He was keeping everything locked inside, and he needed to let it all unravel or else it would keep coiling and tightening and smothering him. If the simple act of kissing me was helping him to let go, I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to take things further. I wanted to tug at the loose end of his rope and see how far I could pull.

  I started with his tie, slipping my forefinger into the knot and sliding it until it came undone, too. He watched, transfixed, as I tugged the remaining length free from his collar. I let it go, and the fabric fluttered to the floor.

  “Noelle…”

  I didn’t know if it was a warning or a prayer or maybe even a promise. I hoped it was all of the above. With my thumb and forefinger, I undid the top button of his shirt.

  His hand shook as he slid it higher until he could tease the underside of my breast with his thumb and graze me with the backs of his knuckles. I sucked in a sharp breath, and his eyes flashed up to meet mine.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No.” I couldn’t bear the thought of him stopping. I’d only just begun to feel as though it truly was me he was seeing, me he was kissing, me he was touching. We’d barely scratched the surface of him coming undone. I wanted to feel him spool out of control so he couldn’t stop the emotions from pouring out of him.

  That one word seemed to do the trick.

  His lips met mine again, harder this time. Hungrier. He nipped my lower lip, and when I opened my mouth to gasp for air, his tongue pressed between my teeth.

  I put my arms around his shoulders, drawing him closer, hugging him tight. He cupped my breasts, molding them with his palms until I squirmed to get closer still even as I tried to pull away, my body a mass of contradictions and jangling nerves. He kissed my cheeks and nose and eyelids and neck, his lips and tongue working together to drive me insane with need. I was panting, desperate for breath. Desperate for his touch. Desperate for more.

  “Liam?” I tugged at the hem of my shirt, pulling it up because I wanted to feel his hands on my skin.

  He helped me to wrest it free from my waistband, and that was all the encouragement he needed. As soon as he had access, he slid his palms over my stomach, the tips of his thumbs and fingers teasing the sensitive skin just below my bra.

  Out of nowhere, he stopped, his eyes shifting from me to the front door. I tried to clear the haze from my mind so I could understand. Before I’d figured out why Liam had stopped this delicious torment, he pulled me away from the wall and carried me toward my bedroom.

  “Babs,” he said. That was his only explanation.

  He’d barely shut the door to my room and flipped on the overhead light when I heard the front door open and close.

  “Oh,” I said. I smiled even though I could feel a different kind of heat creeping up my neck and over my face. “That was close.”

  Slowly, he lowered me to my feet, holding on to my waist to keep me steady. “I should go,” he said. “I don’t know what I was—”

  “Don’t go.” I couldn’t let him leave. Not now. I wanted things I had never wanted before with another man, but I knew he wanted them just as badly. It was in his eyes. It was in the gentle way he touched me, the tortured restraint I could feel every time I touched him. It was in the hunger of his kiss and the way his hands trembled when he reached for me.

  It was in the air all around us, pulsating and almost breathing a life of its own. Need. Lust. Passion. Desire. Maybe even love.

  His hands were still at my waist, holding me steady and keeping me upright. I placed mine on top of them, drawing them up my torso underneath my shirt. His forehead fell down to rest against mine, and a low moan tore from his lips…but he let his fingers fall to my skin again. He used his thumbs to hook into my bra cups, tugging them down until my nipples were exposed to his touch. When he slid his knuckles over them, I shuddered and let out a moan of my own.

  “Liam?” His name quivered on my tongue. I was ragged, panting. Coming just as undone as I wanted him to be.

  “Yes?”

  “Come to bed with me?”

  I wasn’t sure where that had come from, but I didn’t regret it. Not for an instant. I wanted him like I had never wanted another man.

  The sound that came from him seemed almost pained. “We can’t, Noelle.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t have a condom. I have to protect you.”

  I pulled free from his arms and crossed to the nightstand. The top drawer had a box of them in it still, from before I’d moved in. Liam hadn’t lived here long, either, so I figured they’d belonged to Brenden Campbell, back when he’d lived here with Babs.

  I took the box out and tossed it on the bed. “That problem is solved. Stay with me. Come to bed with me.” Make love to me.

  Finally, he nodded. He stepped away from me and took off his jacket like a man on a mission. I finished removing my shirt, constantly aware of his eyes on me. Staring at me. Burning through me. He toed off his shoes and fumbled with his belt, and the same sense of urgency stole over me.

  I fought with the hooks of my bra for so long that my frustration took over, and I just ripped it up and over my head like I’d done with my shirt, tossing it into a growing heap of our clothes on the floor. I yanked my skirt and panties down, but I struggled to get my feet free because I still had sandals on. I would have fallen down if not for Liam reaching out to catch me. I grabbed onto his biceps with both hands and tried to balance myself, but the feel of his bare skin beneath my fingers only made my pulse more frantic.

  “Slow down,” he said, pulling me closer to him. “We don’t have to rush this, älskling.” He looked down into my eyes and secured his arms around me, and my skin felt alive everywhere we made contact. He’d removed everything but his boxer briefs in the time it took me to get undressed, and they did little to hide his erection. It pressed into my belly, hot and hard. I tingled all over, my anticipation only heightening my awareness of every little detail.

  “Okay,” I breathed. Only I wanted to rush it. I wanted to dive in headfirst because the slower we took things, the more time I had to analyze it all. I didn’t want to analyze. I wanted to act. I wanted to touch and be touched. I wanted to feel everything all at once.

  “Just breathe and feel,” he said. With his hands, he drew lazy circles over my body—my arms and back and the sides along my rib cage—and he bent his head down to kiss my forehead. “Do you want me to turn out the lights?” he asked after a moment.

  “No.” I wanted to see him. I wanted to see all of him.

  “All right.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned in against him, letting him support my weight and allowing my head to rest on his pectoral muscles. His chest hair tickled my face. I laughed and nuzzled my nose in it, which only made it tickle more.

  “If you keep giggling and wiggling like that, I’m going to lose my control, älskling.”

  That was exactly what I wanted. I wanted him to lose control just as much as I was, if not more.

  “Tell me what älskling means,” I said, not even attempting to stop my laughter. I kissed his chest. When he hissed in a breath, I kissed him over and over, even using my tongue to taste him a few times like he had when he’d kissed my face.

  “It means sweetheart,” he ground out, walking me backward u
ntil we reached the bed. “But she-devil might be more appropriate right now.” He nudged my shoulder until I sat down on the edge of the bed.

  I sat, but I tugged at the waistband of his shorts as I went.

  “You are the most impatient woman I’ve ever known,” he said, but he laughed while he finished removing them.

  “Only about certain things,” I argued.

  He tossed his shorts aside and then straddled me, leaning over me until I lay back against the pillows. He didn’t give me time to look down and start to worry about what I was doing. “Only certain things I want to take my time with.” He nipped my collarbone, using the strength of his thighs and arms to keep his weight off me.

  Since his hands weren’t free, I used mine to explore all that hair on his chest, twirling my fingers in it and tugging every now and then. He had tattoos on his arms and shoulders and chest, lots of them. I’d seen a few of them on his forearms when he was in T-shirts, but I’d had no idea he had so many until now. With my index finger, I traced one of them along his biceps—a wind chime blowing in the wind.

  “I don’t want you to take your time,” I said, smiling as I allowed my eyes to take everything in. Thank goodness we hadn’t turned the lights out. “We’ve done everything your way up ’til now. With this, let me have mine.”

  “What’s your way?”

  Instead of answering him with words, I pulled his head down so I could kiss him and reached between us for his erection with my other hand. It pulsed with heat when I touched him. He growled into my mouth when I tentatively slid my hand along his length, exploring every inch.

  Then everything happened at lightning speed. He put a knee between my legs, opening my thighs, and he dropped down onto me, pressing me into the mattress with his weight. His hands and mouth and tongue were everywhere, all at once, and it was like a furnace had lit inside me. I couldn’t catch my breath, and I wanted more, more, so much more I couldn’t stand it.

  He touched me between my legs, his fingers slipping into my center. “God, my älskling, you are perfection.”