by Jennie Adams
Fiona thought she heard the click of a door catch somewhere inside Brent’s home and turned her attention quickly to reading her phone message. It was from her mother.
I’ve spoken to the boss of your old job and she’s prepared to take you back. Consider it, dear. Haven’t you had enough of playing at this other career? You know it won’t get you anywhere.
Anywhere except in love with Brent.
Oh, God.
Of all the thoughts to surface. Not, It would get her where she wanted to be in her career path. Not, It was what she wanted to do.
Not even, I’m sorry, Mum, but this is me and I’m over you not accepting and loving me just as I am.
All those thoughts were valid and real and true. None of them even compared to the one thought that filled her so utterly.
She loved Brent.
The knowledge hit her hard and deep. This was the reason she couldn’t forget those moments that had come so close to a culmination in lovemaking.
‘Fiona. Hi. I thought you must have been Alex and he’d forgotten something again…’
Brent’s words trailed off and Fiona lifted her gaze from the message on the phone screen and stared with a brand new, shocking, devastating knowledge pulsing through her.
Brent was bare to the waist. That was what registered first. Steam wafted from the open bathroom door behind him. That registered second. Moisture beaded on his chest and his hair was freshly washed and still damp. He had jeans on with the top snap unfastened. She really shouldn’t be looking but she had dreamed of him, of seeing him like this, and her heart was in her throat and her pulse and each breath she took.
Her gaze climbed his chest before it reached his face and looking into his eyes wasn’t any better. They burned. A deep, slumberous green that sent hot and cold chills down her spine and fire licking along her nerve-endings, and all she could do was let love and need wash all through her.
‘Um…Alex drove away.’ Right. And that piece of information was completely vital, of course. As well as being coherent and oh, so eloquently put. She had to get hold of herself. Had to hide these feelings from him!
‘Did you have a message for me?’ Brent gestured towards the phone. His jaw was clenched. His gaze swept over her, from the hair in a ponytail high on her head, over the cream T-shirt and chocolate-brown pants. And returned to her face, lingered on her mouth, caught her gaze and locked there as though he couldn’t stop himself.
Then why do you have to stop yourself, Brent?
She loved him. Was in love with him. She wanted the opportunity to express that emotion.
Even if he can’t give it back to you? Even if, because of his father’s rejection, he will always be emotionally unable to give all of himself?
But Brent wasn’t asking for that from her…
‘It’s not a message for you. Mum said she can get my old job back for me.’ She dredged up the answer from the part of her that had remained aware of anything other than how much she desired and wanted and…needed him. His arms around her, his mouth on hers. Her love being given to him.
‘You’re not taking your old job back.’ His words were anger and protectiveness wrapped into one. ‘This job, working with me, it’s right for you. It’s the work you deserve, not some clerical job designed to turn you into the rest of your family. I don’t want you to…’ He stopped the words there, but his gaze expressed his thoughts.
Not only that he didn’t want her to be hurt by her mother’s words and behaviour, but that he didn’t want to lose contact with her.
Because of the work they shared. She told herself this. It wasn’t because he loved her, for goodness’ sake.
Even so she told him, ‘Don’t worry. I signed a contract for the next twelve months with you, and I want even longer, a long-term career path with you, if that’s possible.’
I don’t want to stop seeing you, Brent. Not now. Not in the future. I have no idea how I could cope with that if it happened.
The discovery that she loved him was too new and raw for her to imagine not seeing him, career path or otherwise. How could she have let herself come to this? Have fallen for him so utterly?
Yet how could she have stopped it? She’d responded to his heart, in his landscaping designs that she’d studied, before they’d even met. When she’d met him face to face, some part of her deep, deep down had known that he would come to mean all of this to her. Otherwise, why would she now feel this utter acceptance, even in the face of all her uncertainties and fears?
But she did have those uncertainties and fears and, because of them, Fiona tried to pull herself together so she could deal with the reason she had come here, and take herself out of here, where she would have a chance to gather some defences and figure out how to go forward with these new feelings without revealing them to him.
She shoved the phone away into her bag and held out the folder gripped in her other hand. ‘Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. You left this in my car. You’ll need it. I couldn’t get you on either of your phones. Obviously you were in the shower.’
She passed her free hand down her thigh. Nervous gesture. She hadn’t done that since she first started working for him.
‘Thanks.’ His hand closed over the folder. ‘If I’ve made you feel awkward because I kissed you—’
‘No. Oh, no.’ Their kisses had unlocked things in her. She couldn’t do anything about that but she couldn’t regret it, either. Regret…just wasn’t an option she could even consider.
‘Good. That’s good.’ There was relief in his glance—more than relief—and somehow he was tugging on that folder and she still had her hand clenched around it and the momentum brought her through the door and into his home and he closed them in there while her gaze took in the extremely close view of a great deal of tanned male skin.
It was a very beautiful chest, the skin stretched tight over well-formed musculature, a light dusting of dark hair across it and arrowing down.
Not looking down again. That was a mistake the first time.
Brent seemed to become aware of his half-dressed state, too. He gestured towards the kitchen. ‘You can get a coffee, if you like. I’ll just…yeah, I’ll be back in a minute.’
He disappeared into what must obviously be his bedroom and Fiona stood there with the folder still clutched in her hand because he’d left her with it, hadn’t he?
What was she doing? What were they doing? Coffee while he threw some more clothes on? Would that help her at all, him covering up?
She walked to the kitchen and laid the folder on the bench and made her way towards his front door on wobbly legs, determined to get that wobbliness back to strength somehow. To leave before she did something that gave away how she felt.
Brent stepped into the hall from his room and she walked straight into his chest. Her arms came up, forearms against that chest, which was now, indeed, covered very discreetly with a button-down navy shirt.
That’s right, Fiona. You notice that while you’re staring stupidly at him and all your feelings are probably right out there for him to see.
‘I don’t know how to do this. I’m better in the “friend” role,’ she blurted, and his hands made this odd touch her—don’t touch her motion at his sides for a moment before they closed over her elbows.
He could have pushed her away. Maybe he intended to.
She could have used his touch to lever herself away. Maybe she might have.
But the irises of his eyes darkened to a deep, moss-green and his breath drew in on a sharp inhalation. ‘I want—’
‘Then take what you want.’ The words burst from her because it was what she wanted, too, and couldn’t he see that? ‘Take what we both want, Brent.’
Her heart spoke for her, whether she could handle the fallout or not.
‘God, Fiona. I can’t fight this again. I just…can’t.’
When his fingers tightened on her elbows, she leaned in to his touch, let it become an embrace, and breathed a sigh of rel
ief and pleasure when he drew her in against his chest and cradled her there, heartbeat to heartbeat as his mouth came down on hers.
She had needed this, and her heart ached at the chance to have this. That ache warned her of all she would invest in loving him this way and of how much it could come to hurt her because, for her, it was love. For him…desire, need, perhaps, but those were all.
Even then, she could not turn back.
And Brent, oh, she hoped and prayed Brent would not turn back.
He gave her lazy kisses first. Long, slow, drugging kisses that reached inside her and let her immerse herself in pleasure.
He stroked his fingers up and down her arms, caught her around her waist and held her gently as his mouth took hers. Tremors passed through his body and for a moment he stilled, forehead to her forehead, as he breathed deeply.
This was his condition, and she stroked his back and murmured how much she enjoyed his touch, and he relaxed and the tension left him and he kissed her again.
And again and again.
He must have done this at other times, with other women. Yet she couldn’t let herself think of those times, didn’t want to think of her own past experiences, of trying to find a connection, only to discover there was nothing there.
With Brent it was all there. For her, it was, and she didn’t think about what he might feel for her. Surely he must be in a better place within himself if he could reach for this with her this way…?
‘You know what you want, what you’re able to have.’ She murmured the words and his gaze locked with hers and for a moment doubts bruised his eyes before they were blinked away.
So it was fine. Wasn’t it?
They found their way onto his sofa.
Brent didn’t know how that happened, only that he had his arms full of Fiona and his heart was hammering and when he drew a breath it was filled with the scent of her and he wanted to press his nose to her neck and just inhale the sweetness of her.
He did that, and she shuddered and a soft yearning sound came from the back of her throat and she tightened her arms around him and held on.
Just held on while Brent held onto her, too, and his reasons for holding back disintegrated in the face of his need for her. Was it necessary for him to try to reason through that, understand it or define it? Couldn’t this moment be enough in itself?
‘I need this with you, Fiona. This once, if you can allow it.’ Just once. If she understood that at the start and he understood it…
Brent’s expression showed his concern for Fiona, his confusion and uncertainty and, over it all, his need.
If he’d said he wanted this, wanted but didn’t need, Fiona might have made a different choice. ‘Then we’ll have this, Brent.’ It wasn’t even a decision for her. It was a beat in her heart that matched the beat in Brent’s heart. It was all of her that had to do this, to be with him this way.
If a part of her desired so much more than that, well, she was used to having less than she wanted. Life was like that. She would take this moment and immerse herself in it and live it and give all of herself to it, and that would be fine.
Just fine.
Fiona pushed the element of sadness away and focused her attention on the man in her arms. She’d sought his emotions. Maybe, in these moments, if she were very lucky, she would have them, even if they were only hers to keep for a very little while.
Brent took Fiona into his bedroom. His need outstripped his doubts and concerns. They were still there but, even so, he drew her into his arms beside the bed and looked deep into her eyes and let his touch and his reverence tell her all the things that were locked inside him, that he couldn’t say and couldn’t own and yet they were there.
They drew clothes from each other and tossed them on the floor until there was just them and the quietness and the sunlight slanting in through the gap at the edge where the curtains met the window.
His gaze roved her body and his hands followed, and he drew her onto his bed and touched every part of her until she took the foil packet from his bedside table and drew him home.
There was an aching need in the centre of his chest. Brent registered this as his body arched into Fiona’s and longing and sensation rushed through him.
His throat hurt and he kissed Fiona blindly, emotions wrapped into it, control…lost with all cognizant thought other than to please her, to make this the best for her that he could. Somehow he crossed the line into instinct. The acceptance in her eyes took him there and he pushed back every other thought and made love to her with everything he had to give.
Not enough, his mind told him, and yet his body and his emotions told a different story.
No. Not his emotions. Brent pushed that possibility out, even as his hands worshipped her soft skin and his eyes gazed into hers, letting her in and taking her into himself in return.
At the last moment, she cried out and his control mechanisms fractured.
His body shook and he kissed her mouth and her eyelids and buried his nose in her neck and inhaled her scent. His arms locked around her, all the way around her shoulders and back and he…held onto her and his fingers stroked her damp skin.
Over and over and over.
She wrapped her arms around him, too, and her hands stroked over him and she made a sound that was pure pleasure. ‘I love…your touch.’
And though Brent should assess what had just happened, think about his loss of control from the broadest perspective, think about a lot of things, her gaze was dazed and slumberous and he didn’t let himself think about any of those things.
Instead, he made love to her again until they lay on the bed with streams of sunlight filtering onto the wall.
Only then did his actions begin, finally, to impinge. His fingers digging into her back in a kneading motion as he held her. Thumbs stroking across her collarbone repeatedly.
Burying his nose in her neck and inhaling the scent of her skin until his body was filled with it. ‘I shouldn’t have…I didn’t expect…That wasn’t what I wanted to see revealed.’
All the idiosyncrasies that went with his condition. All the…insecurities about them that Charles MacKay’s words and actions had left Brent with for all these years.
Maybe she finally thought about that, too, about all the ways this hadn’t been normal for him and…never would be.
Because she drew her hand away from his chest and sat up, took the sheet from the base of the bed where they’d kicked it and wrapped it around herself. There were shadows in her eyes as she got to her feet and started to gather clothes off the floor.
Brent also stood, pulled on his jeans and felt now even more vulnerable than he had at the height of loving her, when all his defences had been down.
Fiona pressed her clothing to her chest. ‘This…I still have to go to work. I have work…’
She turned and shut herself in his bathroom.
Brent dressed and left the warehouse then. Just got in his utility truck and drove away because he didn’t know what to say to her and he didn’t want to face his thoughts and he wasn’t sure where doing that would take him anyway.
He was still the same person Charles MacKay had rejected and he still didn’t have enough to offer a woman and particularly one like Fiona, who deserved so much.
That was all still the case.
Wasn’t it?
CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY’D made love. For Fiona it had been the most beautiful experience of her life…until Brent had come to himself enough to regret what they had done.
She loved him. Loved him deep inside herself in a way she knew she would never love again. All her life, she had searched the world around her for the emotion she needed.
Now she saw inside her own heart and knew that this was the one and only deep love she would ever have.
But Brent didn’t share those feelings. He’d proved that through all the things he hadn’t said at the end of their time together.
He hadn’t even waited around to sp
eak with her after she’d got dressed.
And she had to come to terms with that silence somehow and know how to go on.
She didn’t want to lose his presence in her life.
Did that make her weak? That she couldn’t imagine walking away from him, even if he couldn’t love her or feel the things for her that she felt for him?
She’d gone straight from his home to work, and then she’d lost her nerve, made an excuse and gone from work up here into the mountains. She’d needed time to think, and hadn’t been able to trust herself to do that in front of the others in their office space.
But eventually she was going to have to go back and face Brent. Somehow. Fiona didn’t know how.
Oh, why couldn’t he admit how much his past had hurt him? If he would accept that, maybe that could be the start of him being able to accept…her.
You’re a fool, Fiona Donner. Making love is one thing. Yes, he seemed to enjoy that and seemed to be over any issues he might have had about your generous body size or anything like that, but he’s not in love with you. Don’t kid yourself into thinking otherwise. That was a one-off experience for him. No doubt he’s totally over it already.
Right. And Fiona needed to be ‘over it’ as well. And just as soon as she got her emotions sorted out and felt she could face others without revealing them, she would be.
For now, cold stung her cheeks. Damp air filled her lungs and the scent of bush land closed around her. Fiona had the walking trail to herself and was photographing flora for a montage she wanted to use as a backdrop for her computer graphic work on one of Brent’s projects.
If she focused her thoughts enough, she would make a success of this trip. It wouldn’t be wasted. She wouldn’t have to admit it had been as much about escaping having to face Brent as anything else.
Fiona worked on and eventually decided she had done all she could with the photography. The light wasn’t as good now and there was a heavy stillness in the air that rather matched her mood.
