by Lilian Darcy
“Need to head back?” he asked.
“We’d better.”
He checked his watch and found it was already five o’clock. DJ would be wanting another bottle soon, or a nap first if she wasn’t hungry yet. Later they could give her a bath and put a blanket on the floor so she could have a kick and a play. He outlined the plan to Jodie. Would she leave it all to him? Maybe he shouldn’t have responded so much to her fatigue last night.
She stood straight, and there were two bright spots of color in her cheeks. “I want to take care of her tonight,” she said. “By myself.”
Yes-ss!
But there was more, and it was important, he could see. The color flamed even higher and there was a glitter of courage and determination and stubbornness in her blue eyes, the same glitter he’d seen yesterday when she’d told Barb and Lisa that if she could never ride Irish again, then DJ would.
“Dev, I want to have her skin-to-skin, the way I did in the hospital but don’t even remember. Could we do that? There’s a spa bath in the master bedroom. We could go in it together. I’d want you nearby in case I slipped. But when you said I’d had her against my bare stomach in the coma when I don’t remember… I want to have that happen. Then maybe she’ll— Maybe at last I’ll get her to—” She stopped and took another shuddery breath. “I want to know how it feels.”
Chapter Twelve
“Of course we can do that.” His voice came out on a husky rasp. “Absolutely, we can do that. We’ll put you both in the spa bath.”
“That would be perfect. I—I’d love it.”
Forget giving Jodie space, he couldn’t help himself, he had to touch her. Because of the color in her cheeks and the brightness in her eyes. Because of the emotional roller coaster that was still taking her on the ride of both their lives. How could he not touch her?
Hand on her hair, brush of his mouth across her lips to say, I’m proud of you, I know how hard all of this is, you’re amazing.
She responded briefly to his kiss and the magnetism between them would have kicked in as strongly as ever, if there hadn’t been this one thing that was even more important.
“Help me get back to the cabin?” Her left hand had gone into its crab shape on his arm. He was coming to love Ole Lefty, as she often called it, because it tried so hard and was so brave when it failed, clawing and unable to let go, as if a victim of its own determination. Like Jodie herself. “I’ve done too much walking, Dev. Too much of everything.” She laughed. “Crying. Living.”
He put his arm around her waist and she leaned against him and they didn’t need to speak anymore. It was a slow journey. He could have kept reassuring her, she could have kept apologizing, but they didn’t. They didn’t need to. The apologies and reassurances were understood between them without words. If he hadn’t had the baby against his front, he would have offered to carry her, even though he knew she would have refused.
“So, did I win? Where’s my gold medal?” she said as they came up the steps. “What, last place? Oh, well…”
“Last place? Of course you won,” he told her.
DJ had gone to sleep. He laid her in her bassinet in the living area, over near the kitchen area, with the curtains and slatted blinds pulled across to darken the room, and she didn’t waken, just sighed and snuffled and went quiet. They both stood and watched her in the new dimness, her parents, tangled together by her very existence, helpless about it.
Suddenly, Jodie was crying again, apologizing for it. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Dev felt a rush of very male inadequacy, coupled with an equally male need to make things okay.
Right now.
In one move.
But he’d already said everything he knew to say. Did she want words? What else was there?
Well, holding her. They were standing so close it would be very easy.
It was very easy. Just his arms and her shoulders, the bump of their hips, stillness as she sighed against him. It happened before he planned it, a familiar phenomenon where she was concerned.
And then it changed.
He couldn’t have her in his arms like this without wanting her, no matter what his head told him about Elin’s warning a few days ago and his own understanding of the emotional risk.
Risk? Wasn’t everything already at risk? Would fighting this heat really help?
He couldn’t see it, couldn’t remember Elin’s arguments, or his own. All he could think of was Jodie’s sweet, fierce little body pressed against him, proving her womanhood. All he wanted to do was quiet those shaking shoulders with the touch of his mouth on hers.
He did it and her mouth was right there, seeking his, wanting it just as much. It began as a kiss, but they both knew it wouldn’t stop there. He could feel her bare legs against his, sliding their warmth across the muscles of his thighs. Her collarbone was bare, too, and he kissed the little hollows above it, making her gasp.
They sank to the cool brown leather of the couch and she stretched her body out, her spine and shoulders against the couch back, her legs half beneath his. He tried to lift her top and she sat up again and peeled it off, her breasts pert and round in a coral-pink satin bra. “Can’t manage the catch,” she said. “I always twist it around….”
But he’d already reached behind her and flicked the hooks. You just needed the right angle, and the right movement with your thumb. The straps dropped from her shoulders, he tossed the bra out of the way, and there were those breasts he loved. He buried his face between them, lifted their tender weight with his hands and heard her breathing change. She’d forgotten about her tears.
I’ll make you forget everything, sweetheart.
It seemed so simple. He forgot why he’d ever thought it wasn’t.
It seemed like an adventure, a sparkling jewel of a moment, and those moments were the best adventures of all.
“Stand up,” he whispered.
“Can’t. Remember that marathon I just ran?”
So he helped her, popped the fastening on her shorts, shimmied them down and then the scrap of cotton and lace beneath. He loved her hips, loved the way they rocked so neatly. He bracketed his hands at her waist, amazed by the shape of her, the curves and lines, that butt so soft and silky against his palms.
She tried to lift his shirt. “This is where it all comes apart, sadly. Ole Lefty doesn’t want to do this.”
“Ole Lefty can have plenty of help. Don’t even have to ask.” He pulled off his shirt and she sank her fingers into his chest, rougher than she’d intended, probably, but he didn’t mind. Hell, he totally didn’t mind. The roughness heightened the beautiful chaos of everything, the sense that he didn’t know quite what would happen next, where she would touch him next, whether it would be light or hard, what her breathing might do.
He ripped at his jeans, took his briefs down with them and stepped out, his hardness blatantly apparent. She reached down and touched him there, cradled his weight and he ached, just ached, and the ache radiated outward, up to his hairline and down to his toes.
“I never understand this,” she said. “Why it’s so magical.”
“Just is.”
“For you, too?”
“Yes.”
How? Why?
Wanting her at eighteen but letting it go because he thought there must be a million women out there he’d want in the same way. Which had never really happened. There’d always been something missing. He’d put it down to his own naïveté. He didn’t believe that anymore.
Discovering her last year, and then the accident cutting it all short, never letting him reach the usual moment with a woman where he began to think about how it should end. A final dinner out? Jewelry? A phone call? It could never have ended like that with Jodie.
Discovering her again three nights ago and finding that nothing had changed. If anything, had only grown stronger because of the complexity of what bound them together and pushed them apart.
H
e’d never known anything like this.
She pushed him onto the couch and sank on top of him, looking down into his face, those neat breasts grazing his chest and pushing higher, the softness at the apex of her thighs making a warm, perfect nest for his throbbing arousal. “You have to understand that this might not be pretty,” she said, echoing what he’d said to her the other night as they stood against the front of the car. She was more serious than he’d been with the words, shy and fierce at the same time. “You might have to—”
“I don’t care what I have to do,” he interrupted. “Hold you, or guide myself. Start over. Shift. Anything. We managed fine the other night.”
“You had protection right there in your wallet, the other night.”
“Have it right there in my wallet now.”
“On the floor?”
“Let me get it.”
“I have it.” She stretched down, giving him the perfect opportunity to take in the shape of her butt, the delicious curvy paleness of it in the dim room. A minute—quite a long minute—later she slid higher on his body, wearing a triumphant grin, clutching a square packet.
“You do have it.”
“You have no idea. A wallet? Wasn’t easy.”
“Proud of you.”
“Are you?”
“You’re amazing.”
“You always say that….”
“Yeah, I do. Because it’s true. But let’s quit talking now….”
Oh, yeah, let’s definitely quit talking. There’s way too much else to do.
She was right, there were a couple of times when it wasn’t pretty, but hell, as always it was beautiful, more beautiful than ever. She laughed when her body wouldn’t cooperate, gasped and shuddered and sighed when it did. He held her, rolled her, eased her thighs apart, caressed the whole length of her as he heard the build and raggedness of her breathing.
Inside her, he almost let go within seconds, had to school himself back, let her catch up, and when she did she took him over the edge so fast he lost all sense of time and space, could only feel and cry out and breathe.
They went into a bit of role reversal after this. She was the one who fell asleep within seconds, while he lay there in her arms wondering how to make the universe stop right here in this moment forever. Wishing she would wake up so they could talk and kiss. Glad that she didn’t, because it meant he could watch her sleeping with his hand resting across her breasts. Wondering what would happen next.
He was scared of how important this felt, of what an adventure it might be, scared of this strange, vulnerable feeling that he couldn’t really find a name for, didn’t know what to do about it.
DJ was waking up. He heard the creak of her bassinet, the sound of a snuffle and the beginning of a cry. If she woke Jodie…
He eased himself away from her and she didn’t stir. In the bedroom, some of Bill’s chaotic wardrobe decisions littered the bed after Jodie’s attempts to find something to wear this morning. He swept them aside, back into the suitcase, folded the sheet and quilt aside, then went and gathered Jodie up from the couch.
She was so warm and relaxed. Would she stay asleep? She wanted to have her bath with DJ, her session of skin-to-skin, but she was too tired for that right now. She needed to stay asleep until her energy rebounded.
He caught this tiny moment in himself of wanting her to change her mind about the skin-to-skin idea. How much would it achieve, really? She’d seemed so hopeful about it, what if it ended up a huge disappointment? What if Jodie couldn’t manage to hold the baby? What if DJ cried?
We can deal with all that, he thought. I’m making an issue out of nothing. What’s wrong with me?
She murmured something and he told her, “Just carrying you to the bed.”
“Mmm.”
He tucked her beneath the sheet like a child, laid the gypsy shawl on top because the quilt would be too warm, then went to get DJ before she began to cry in earnest.
Jodie woke some time later to find Dev treading softly out of the bedroom. He turned when he heard her move. “Damn, I woke you up, coming to check on you.”
“You didn’t. I was ready. How long did I sleep?” She felt a little self-conscious about it, and about what had led up to it. Her fierceness. His acceptance. The fact that it had happened at all. The fact that it had happened again.
Are we dating, Dev?
“A good hour,” he said. “DJ’s had her bottle and she’s raring to go.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “Shall I run the bath now? Do you still want—?”
“That would be great. Of course I still want.” Beneath the sheet she began some stretches and range of motion exercises to shake off the heavy blanket of sleep, while Dev made preparations. She could see him through the open bedroom door, adding a generous squirt of bath foam and a sachet of scented salts.
The spa bath sat in the corner of the master bathroom, directly beside the two huge windows. They were made of clear glass and looked onto a thick screen of greenery with a barely visible lattice screen beyond, so that in complete privacy and warmth you would nevertheless feel as if you were bathing in the open forest.
When the water had been running in for several minutes, she levered herself off the bed, took the gypsy shawl he’d spread over her, wrapped it around her body, and went to the doorway. “How are we going to do this?”
“Can you get in by yourself?” He looked at her in the shawl, his gaze running down and up again, hard to read. “Do you need help?”
“It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“It could be slippery,” he warned.
“There are steps and handholds.”
“So once you’re in, I’ll give her to you. I’ll stay right close by.”
“That’s safest, I think.”
He seemed relieved. “It’ll only be lukewarm, so she doesn’t overheat or burn. Might feel a little cool to you.”
“It’s a warm day. Cool is good.” Funny, for a change she was the one reassuring him.
And yet they were both nervous. Or not so much nervous, but keyed up. Was that it?
It was a bath, she told herself. Just a bath. But it was important. Too important even to talk about, so they talked about the tiny practicalities. Did they have enough towels? Was there a diaper and a clean outfit ready for DJ when she came out? Did Jodie need a robe? Were there any robes? Ah, yes, thick luxurious ones made of white towelling, two of them, folded in a small closet tucked behind the bathroom door.
She still felt churned up over what they’d said to each other out in the woods. Her painful confession about the state of her love for DJ. His stories about the pregnancy and birth. Now, on top of their lovemaking, it was like the aftermath of a storm, with a renewed sense of calm and a ton of work to do to deal with the litter of damage.
No, damage was wrong.
This wasn’t about damage anymore, it was about healing.
Did Dev think so? “I’ll give you a minute,” he said.
For her to let the gypsy shawl drop, he meant, and climb into the water.
She felt crazily self-conscious when he left the bathroom and closed the door, as self-conscious as if he’d just stood there watching. She’d put on some weight in the weeks since leaving the hospital. Her breasts and hips were a little rounder, which was good, as the enhanced curves masked movements that were clumsier and less gracefully athletic than they used to be.
An hour ago when they’d made love, she’d warned him seriously that it might not be pretty. It couldn’t have been, with this body. How much had he taken in? Why did the idea of being naked in front of him now seem so much scarier than it had the other night, or just now? It shouldn’t have been any different.
She’d just begun the climb into the tub when he called to her, “How’s it going?” She heard a creak and a movement, as if he were about to come through the door.
Naked, she froze in place. She didn’t want him to see her. The reaction didn’t make sense but existed anyway. “Not breaki
ng any world records on the timing,” she called to him. “Just climbing in now.”
“Tell me when you’re ready.”
She sank into the water, wondering if the thick, mounded expanse of white foam was deliberate on his part. If it was, she was grateful for it. Beneath the waterline, you couldn’t see a thing. “Okay, I’m good.”
He opened the door. “Comfortable?”
“It’s perfect.” She looked up at him. His expression was serious. Worried, even. Reluctant. Out of his depth. He didn’t need to be. Not as far as her safety was concerned, anyhow, or DJ’s. “There’s this sloping section on the side that I can lean against, and a kind of step to prop my feet so I don’t slip too far down in the water. I’ll be able to hold her. It’s so lovely and deep, I’m almost floating.”
He had his hand on the door handle, motionless, and for some reason the whole world seemed to echo his attitude. Everything went still and quiet. Beneath the water, her body tingled. “Uh, nice bathroom,” he said, pulling the words out of nowhere. “I mean, it’s just right for this.”
“I know.” She tried not to notice his awkward attitude. “The big tub is perfect. It would have been difficult in a smaller one. Where is she?”
“In her bassinet, to give me a chance to set up.”
“What’s she doing? She’s not asleep? Please say she’s not. I—I want this to happen, Dev. I’m not feeling patient, right now.”
“It’s fine. Composing a sonata for creaking wicker and plastic rattle, I’m pretty sure. I’ll go get her.”
A minute later he was back with DJ, who was wide-awake and happy, gurgling and cooing. He gave her a big squeeze and a fierce kiss on her tummy, then laid her on the bed and took off her clothing and diaper. “What a kick you got there, baby girl,” he crooned. “Daddy’s little athlete, aren’t you, sweet thing?” He picked her up and came into the bathroom, knelt on the tiled step, cleared his throat. “Ready?”
Jodie lifted her arms. “Ready,” she whispered.
Ohh.
DJ wriggled as she touched the water. Dev still held her firmly. She was tiny and soft and slippery, and she half floated as her little arms and chin came to rest on Jodie’s front. She had no bottom whatsoever, just a series of creases and folds. “Got her?” he said.
