by Kate Hardy
‘I’ll do the washing up.’
He shook his head. ‘There isn’t much. I’ll do it later. I think right now you need a hug.’
‘I do,’ she admitted.
And how good it felt to have the warmth of his arms enveloping her, the clean citrus scent of his shower gel filling her senses.
‘Talk to me, Toni,’ he said softly. ‘Tell me what’s in your head, even if it’s a jumble. Let it out. It’s not going any further than me, I promise. And maybe saying it out loud will help.’
She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Ginny died—one of the residents at The Beeches.’
‘The one who doesn’t talk?’
‘Yes. She was my gran’s best friend. She lived just round the corner, and she was like a second gran to me and Stacey. We used to go to hers from school if Gran was at work, and she helped us when Gran was first ill. Then she got ill, too. I know I should be glad that she’s at peace now instead of being lost and confused, but...’ Her words trailed off.
‘It’s brought back the loss of your grandmother?’ he guessed.
‘Yes. And Ginny was sort of the last link to her.’
His arms tightened around her, and she was seriously grateful that he understood her so well.
‘That’s hard,’ he said.
‘I miss her, Ben. I miss my mum and my dad.’ Then she remembered when she’d talked to Sean about it and how dismissive he’d been. ‘I’ll pull myself together. Just ignore me. I’m being boring and selfish.’
‘It’s not selfish or boring at all,’ he said. ‘You’re allowed to feel, Toni. You’re allowed to grieve.’
So very different from the way that Sean had seen things.
‘In the weeks I’ve known you I’ve seen for myself that you’re one of the nicest, kindest, most unselfish women I’ve met. Don’t be so hard on yourself.’
He meant it. And it did actually make her feel better, knowing he understood how she felt and wasn’t judging her as harshly as she judged herself. ‘Gran always taught me to look on the bright side.’
‘She was right. There’s always a bright side. Sometimes you have to look really hard for it, but it’s there.’
‘I know. I’m being wet.’
‘No. You’re human,’ he said gently.
She willed the tears to stay back, not wanting to howl her eyes out in front of him.
She had no idea how long they stood there, just holding each other; but then somehow his cheek was against hers, and she was remembering how it felt to dance with him, and then her mouth was touching the corner of his lips. The next thing she knew, they were kissing—really kissing—and it felt as if he’d just lit touch-paper.
They were both shaking when he broke the kiss, and he looked stricken. Guilty.
‘Toni, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t want to take advantage of you.’
‘You’re not. I think I started it.’ She couldn’t help laying her palm against his cheek, and he twisted his head so he could press a kiss into her hand.
‘I just wanted to make you feel better, the way you did for me when I had a tough day,’ he said.
‘You have. You fed me. You got me to put one foot in front of the other and move, and I really appreciate it.’
His sea-green eyes were almost black, his pupils were so huge.
And she couldn’t resist reaching up to steal another kiss.
He looked haunted. ‘Toni. This isn’t fair of me. Neither of us is in a place to start a relationship.’
‘I know. But right now,’ she said, ‘I need to celebrate life.’
* * *
This was a really bad idea.
His head knew he ought to find an excuse, something that wouldn’t make her feel bad. Right now she was vulnerable, grieving—and this was a knee-jerk reaction, a need to make herself feel alive while she was facing the grim reality of death.
He wasn’t going to take advantage of her, even though his heart was screaming out to him to kiss her, make her feel better, make them both feel better.
Then she laid her palm against his cheek again. ‘I need you, Ben,’ she whispered. ‘Make it better. Please.’
And then he was lost.
How could he say no? How could he leave her miserable and hurting?
‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked, while his common sense was still just about clinging on.
‘Very sure,’ she said.
And then there was only one thing Ben could do: to dip his head again and brush his mouth against Toni’s. Softly. Gently. A kiss of warmth and promise.
Then he repeated it again, this time taking a tiny nibble of her lower lip, coaxing her into a response. When she slid her fingers into his hair and kissed him back, he relaxed, knowing this was going to be all right.
She broke the kiss.
‘If you change your mind at any point, that’s OK. Because I’ve never bullied a woman in my life before and I’m not going to start now.’
She reached up and stole a kiss back. ‘Thank you.’
He wanted to behave like a caveman and his pulse was leaping crazily. ‘Except I don’t have a condom.’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘In my handbag.’ She fetched it and took his hand. ‘Take me to bed, Ben,’ she whispered.
The look in her eyes made him so dizzy with desire that he could barely think straight. But he lifted her hand, pressed a kiss into her palm and folded her fingers over it.
‘Come with me,’ he whispered back, and led her up the stairs to his bedroom. He closed the curtains and snapped on the bedside light; then he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her lingeringly.
She was still wearing her nurse practitioner’s uniform of navy trousers and a navy tunic with white piping. With shaking hands, he undid the buttons of her tunic and discovered that she was wearing a lacy bra.
‘That’s one hell of a view,’ he said, his voice husky with wanting her.
‘Thank you.’ She dipped her head in acknowledgement.
He slid the tunic off her shoulders and hung it neatly over the back of the chair; then he unzipped her trousers and let them slide to the floor so she could step out of them.
‘You’re wearing too much. We need to do something about that,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘I’m in your hands.’
‘Good.’
She undid his tie and then the buttons of his shirt, very slowly, one by one. He could feel the pads of her fingertips stroking the skin of his abdomen, warm and soft and very, very sure of what she was doing; it made him catch his breath as a wave of desire surged through him.
She unbuttoned his trousers and nudged the material over his hips so they fell to the floor; he stepped out of them, he dipped his head again and brushed his mouth lightly against hers in the sweetest, gentlest kiss. Within a nanosecond the kiss had turned so hot that his bones felt as though they were melting.
She was shaking when he broke the kiss.
‘The way you make me feel—it’s like when you dance with me, as if I’m walking on air,’ she whispered. She rubbed the pad of her thumb along his lower lip. ‘You’re beautiful. Everything about you.’
Desire licked down his spine. ‘That’s how you make me feel, too.’ He traced the lacy edge of her bra with the tip of one finger. ‘Just gorgeous. You blow my mind.’
He slid the straps of her bra off her shoulders, kissing her bare skin before unsnapping her bra and letting it fall to the floor between them, then dropped to his knees and teased her with his hands and his lips and his tongue, stroking her skin and kissing her until she was quivering.
And then it was her turn to touch him, to kneel down next to him and let her fingertips skate over his pectorals and down over his abdomen, taking it slowly and deliberately, learning the texture of his skin with her f
ingertips and just how and where he liked being touched.
‘My turn again,’ he whispered, and did the same to her.
Then he picked her up, pushed the duvet to one side and laid her down against the soft pillows. He kissed his way down her body, paying attention to all the hidden parts: the curve of her elbow, the soft undersides of her breasts, until she was murmuring with pleasure.
Then he knelt back and worked his way upwards from her ankles, touching and kissing and nuzzling until she tipped her head back against the pillows and fisted her hands in his hair.
‘Ben, this is killing me,’ she murmured.
He wanted this first time to be for her; so he teased her with his mouth and his hands, stoking the waves of pleasure until her climax finally hit and she cried out.
When he shifted up the bed to lie beside her, she curved her fingers round his shaft, stroking and caressing until he arched against the bed and gasped with pleasure.
Then she undid the little foil packet and rolled the condom over his shaft, then shifted to straddle him.
‘Now,’ she said, and lowered herself onto him.
‘Toni,’ he breathed, and pushed up to meet her.
She felt amazing.
He laced his fingers through hers as she moved over him.
This should’ve been awkward and a bit clumsy; instead, it felt so right. Perfect. He was completely in tune with her, in a way he’d never expected.
As he felt her body tightening round his, he released her hands, sat up and wrapped his arms tightly round her.
Their climaxes hit at the same time, and he jammed his mouth over hers.
She kissed him back, wrapping her arms just as tightly round him.
As the aftershocks of his climax died away, he lay back and let her climb off him.
‘I need to deal with the condom,’ he said. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’
* * *
When he came back to bed, he wrapped her in his arms.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to...’ Her breath shuddered.
‘You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for,’ Ben said, stroking her face.
‘Apart from abandoning my dog.’
‘You’ve just made him wait a little bit longer for his dinner. And he loves you so he won’t hold it against you,’ he said. ‘I would ask you to stay, but is there anyone who could feed Archie and let him out?’
She grimaced. ‘I need to go home.’
‘OK. I’ll drive you home now.’
‘Sorry. I feel as if I’m being selfish and ungrateful and—’
He cut off her words by kissing her. ‘Stop apologising. We can think about this and overanalyse it another time. Right now, you need comfort. Help yourself to whatever you need in the bathroom.’
‘Thank you.’
While she sorted herself out in the bathroom, Ben got dressed; and then he drove her back to her cottage.
‘Thank you for bringing me home. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’ she asked.
Was she simply being polite and hoping that he’d refuse? Or did she really want his company but also didn’t want to impose on him by asking him to stay?
The sadness in her grey eyes decided him. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’
Archie greeted them ecstatically when they walked into the kitchen.
‘I’ll make the tea while you sort out his dinner and what have you,’ Ben said.
‘Thank you.’ She let the dog out and refilled his water and food bowls. Archie scoffed his dinner in what seemed like three seconds flat, then came to sit at Toni’s feet, curling in close to her as if he recognised that she needed comfort.
‘Is there anyone you need to call?’ Ben asked, placing the mug of tea in front of her.
‘No. I’ll text Stacey in the morning. Thank you.’
‘Is that photograph on the fridge of your grandmother?’ he asked, gesturing to the snap of a middle-aged woman standing next to a sandcastle on the beach, with a much younger Toni and Stacey.
‘Yes. I would have been about six and Stacey was eight at the time. It’s one of my favourites.’ She smiled. ‘So many happy memories.’
And bittersweet, because they couldn’t be shared with her grandmother, he guessed.
‘I learned baking at her knee, too,’ Toni told him. ‘I loved my mum dearly—like Stacey, she was amazing with a needle and she was a costume designer for one of the West End theatres. But when it came to cooking, it was legendary that my mum could burn water. My dad had to do all the cooking, and he wasn’t that brilliant at it, either.’ Her mouth curved. ‘We ate a lot of sausages, chips and baked beans. And salad. It was one of the reasons we always loved coming to Gran’s—it meant we got perfect roast dinners and home-made apple crumble with proper custard.’
It made Ben feel slightly guilty that he’d pushed his family away, of late. He had something that Toni clearly missed so badly, yet he’d taken it for granted. ‘It sounds great.’
* * *
Toni smiled. ‘Gran would have liked you.’ Though she hadn’t liked Sean, saying that he was too full of himself. Toni had told herself that it was simply a case of them rubbing each other up the wrong way—but eventually Betty had been proved absolutely right about Sean.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said softly, ‘that you’ve lost so much in your life.’
‘It happens,’ she said. ‘And I’m trying to focus on the fact that I did at least have a good relationship with my parents, my gran and Ginny, even if I didn’t have them for as long as I would have liked. Not everyone’s that lucky.’
* * *
That was true. Ben’s own parents weren’t good at the emotional stuff and they hadn’t known how to support him when Karen had dropped her bombshell. But he loved them, and he loved his sister—and Toni had made him realise it was time to make more of an effort instead of taking them all for granted.
‘Just remember that you and Archie helped to make Ginny’s life happier in her last few months,’ he said.
‘I know. It’s still going to be hard, walking in there on Monday afternoon.’
‘I’ll go with you, if you want me to arrange cover for my shift,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Thank you, but I need to pull myself together and face this.’
He went over to her chair and wrapped his arms around her. ‘OK. But I’ll cook for you on Monday night, or we can go to a dog-friendly pub with Archie and have dinner, so you don’t have to worry about cooking.’
‘That’s kind,’ she said.
He didn’t feel kind, where she was concerned.
He felt all kinds of things that he was still trying to get his head round.
They spent the rest of the evening on the sofa, with the dog curled up between them, watching reruns of old comedy shows on television. When Toni started yawning, Ben kissed her forehead. ‘I’d better let you get some sleep.’
‘Ben—I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you stay tonight?’ she asked.
Spend the whole night with her.
Just to comfort her? Or was this the next step, heralding a change in their relationship—a move from friends to lovers to dating properly?
And was he ready to move on from the past?
Then again, even if he wasn’t, how could he resist the entreaty in her face? She clearly didn’t want to be alone. He knew how that felt.
‘OK. I’ll stay,’ he said softly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BEN WOKE WHEN sunlight filtered through the cotton curtains. He was spooned against Toni, with his arms wrapped around her; it would be oh, so easy to close his eyes again and go back to sleep. Except he had a shift at the surgery this morning and he needed to get up.
He also needed to talk to Toni, but that would have to wait until later today. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to rush.
This was the first time he’d woken in bed with someone since he’d split up with Karen. The first time for years that he’d woken in bed with someone other than Karen. In some ways, it felt strange and uncomfortable; in others, it felt good—because it was Toni. He liked her. A lot. He liked her warmth, the way she always saw the good in things. His world had felt a lot brighter since she’d been in it.
He kissed her shoulder. ‘Toni. Wake up.’
‘Hmm?’ She shifted around to face him and her grey eyes widened in apparent surprise; and then she smiled at him, clearly remembering last night. ‘Good morning.’
‘I’m due at the surgery,’ he said, ‘so I need to go home and change.’
‘Of course.’
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. How soft and silky it was. ‘Can I see you this afternoon? Maybe we could take Archie for a run on the beach.’ He paused. ‘And talk.’
‘That would be good.’
‘See you outside Scott’s Café at two?’
‘I’ll be there,’ she promised. ‘Can I get you some breakfast before you go?’
He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. ‘Thanks, but I need to get going. I have to be at the surgery by half-past eight.’
‘OK.’ She stroked his face. ‘Thank you for staying last night.’
‘No problem.’ He paused. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I will be,’ she said. ‘And you have patients to see. They’re more important.’
Typical Toni, not putting herself first. He stole a kiss. ‘They’re not more important than you, but I do have to go. I’ll see you later. Close your eyes.’
She laughed. ‘Because your clothes are in a heap on my floor? In the circumstances—’
‘—I shouldn’t be shy,’ he finished. ‘Weirdly, I am.’
‘Then I’ll close my eyes, shy boy,’ she teased.
Ben climbed out of bed and dressed swiftly. ‘See you at two,’ he said.
‘I’ll see you out. I need to let Archie out anyway.’ She looked at him. ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, you know.’
