Coming Around Again

by Billy London

  “Nope,” she retorted, taking a sip of coffee. “We’re not. Ever. Didn’t happen.”

  “Any of it, or particular parts?”

  “All of it. Never happened.”

  He continued eating. “I wish my memory was as selective as yours. But then again, why would I want to forget you pushing your breasts to my mouth and begging me to bite them?”

  She snatched the knife and fork from his hands, and collected his plate. The food went straight in the bin and the cutlery into the dishwasher. “You go and get those boys and you take them away. Now.”

  Niels stood up and towered over her, blocking her between the dishwasher and his body. “We. Are. Going. To. Talk. I’ll indulge you today because you haven’t slept properly.”

  A moment passed where she thought about threatening him. Instead, she leaned up and touched her lips to his. “I said no. Now bugger off and take our kids with you.”

  With a satisfied smile, Niels moved away and sent a piercing whistle through the air. “Daniel! William! Towels, goggles, swimming trunks! The pool at my club will be warm.”

  Yes, go, go, she thought, her body still a mire of emotions and aches and marks. I can think about what I need to do when you’re not here.

  “Stella,” he said, leaning back to look at her. “The talk will happen.”

  Sending him the finger would do no one any good.

  Certainly not in front of her eager-beaver, copycat children.

  The Reunion

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What’s going on?” Stella demanded, stepping over the twins’ weekend bags scattered in her living room to face her ex-husband. The smug plonker was stretched out on her sofa—a sofa she was still paying for—with a boy on each side.

  “Dad fancied staying,” Danny answered, barely turning his head to acknowledge her.

  His brother piped up. “He said he wouldn’t mind if you had to go out.”

  Presumptuous… “That’s the point of him having you over the weekend so I didn’t have to worry about that,” she retorted.

  Niels barely rippled his shoulders in a shrug, squashing their children into his body. “You don’t have a date, do you? You’d have told me.”

  Of course she would have! To rub it in his overtly attractive face. Instead, she’d had plans to meet up with her friends for a speed dating event. The risk with that plan was that her ex-husband would have free reign in her house.

  Nope. Couldn’t be done. “Can I talk to you?” she suggested, with a grin so false, it cracked her cheeks. “Outside?”

  Will looked at her. “Are you and Dad going to have a fight? Because…you know you said you wouldn’t anymore? Remember?”

  Pressing her fingers to a pulse in her eyeball, Stella turned into the corridor, leaving the door open for Niels to follow. He sent her an infuriating smile before he sealed the living room from what needed to be a full-on barney.

  “This is what we spent two years in court fighting about,” Stella began. “Boundaries,” she enunciated the word, drawing a line between their bodies. “You’re not respecting mine. Again.”

  Niels watched her with an indulgent look on his face. “What are you more worried about? That you’re not out tonight, or that I know you’re not out?”

  She’d paid a lot of money to be told not to use her fists to put her point across when it came to the man she’d so blindly married. “I’m worried about you putting ideas in their head—” she thrust a hand in the twins’ direction, “—that we’re getting back together!”

  He nodded slowly, mouth twisting in thought. “Ah. That idea. The one you started by using me for sex last weekend.”

  She slapped her hands over her eyes and turned away. Massively unfair! “It was a mistake! I was feeling weak and vulnerable and you…you came over with that sodding bottle of Malbec for no reason than to…to…”

  He interrupted her spluttering. “To reminisce about the good days, post-three or four orgasms?”

  Stella pointed to the kitchen and with the smuggest of smiles, he led the way. As soon as they were inside, Stella closed the door. “Now listen here…”

  Niels pressed her to the wood and kissed every single letter of argument from her lips. Bad. Bad man. He still tasted every bit as forbidden and addictive and delicious as he always had. Her downfall was nostalgia. All of her firsts happened with the terrible man and he was still the best kisser to have nibbled on her top lip while palming her bottom. “I miss you,” he growled against her mouth.

  “You divorced me, you numpty!” She heaved, pushing him away with shaking hands. “You split us up. You fought me on everything. And you, you utter wanker, you started seeing other people.”

  Rage flickered in Niels’ face. “Hey, I only did that after Daniel told me about some fuck-face being here every other night.”

  Okay, granted, she’d tried to move on first; but even after she accepted her marriage was over, nothing, including the vaginal tear from naturally delivering her two boys, nothing hurt as badly as seeing Niels with another woman. She sighed, rubbing her hands over her face. It really was her own fault for sleeping with him last weekend. All it did was make her wish for the old days.

  “You know why our divorce took so long?” Niels said into the quiet. “I wanted you to change your mind. I dragged it out at every opportunity so you had to keep talking to me.”

  What? “You’ve figured this out now?”

  “My therapist told me.”

  “You? Your what?” Niels didn’t do new age, touchy-feely stuff. Maybe if they had…

  No, no. It was all too late. It had no meaning with a framed decree absolute and a shared care order.

  He sighed heavily. “Therapy for what happened between you and me. It was that or pills, and you know me and pills don’t agree. I didn’t want to be off my face when the boys were with me.”

  She stared at him in amazement. “You never said.”

  He sent her an arch look. “Well, the last time I tried to talk to you, you were far more interested in getting my mouth in other places.”

  Oops. God, he confused her completely.

  “But I’m practically over you.”

  “Liar. I’ve got text messages to prove it.” Urgh, maybe not. “I remember them off the top of my head: No one can make you harder than I can…”

  “Niels...” The warning didn’t make him cease the falsetto in his quotes.

  “Remember that anniversary when we finally did anal? You really think you’d ever convince another woman to let you do that with that monster dick of yours?”

  “What is wrong with you?” she yelled.

  “Oh, and my personal favourite: I miss you so much sometimes. That’s a lie. I miss you all the time. Sent just before I came over last week.”

  She stalked past him and uncorked a bottle of wine. “What’s your point? I say silly things. And I know those first two texts were sent in the early bit of our divorce. Because I remember adding to the end of the second one how I ruined my arse because of you, so you owe me the sodding house.”

  “Our children ruined your arse,” he argued, bracing his arms on either side of her waist, kissing the back of her neck. The heat of his breath sent shivers all over her skin. No, she couldn’t get caught up in physicality. Sex hadn’t been their problem. Communication had been.

  “Back up,” she warned, pushing him away with her bottom, only to find herself locked against his groin.

  “No,” he murmured, his hand stroking from her waistband to cup her breast. “Let me stay. We’ll talk.”

  So tempting… “We won’t talk. You’ll try to get on top of me. Or in me. Or both.”

  “Naturally, but Stella…we’ve been fooling ourselves for long enough. Last week was the first step to us being honest. There’s no reason we can’t carry on.”

  His mouth trailed persuasively over her jaw to her lips. Breathlessly, she turned to give in to the kiss when Danny burst in.

  “Dad, you promised pizza w
hen Muma got home, and why are you being mushy-face with each other?”

  Stella heard Will call from the living room, “I want stuffed crust!”

  Niels pressed his lips to her cheek, his hand roving over her buttocks in an act of such dominance she nearly went on her knees. “Leave your Muma alone for a bit. We’ll order from the living room, okay? Dad’s not going anywhere.”

  With a look of certainty, he shut the door behind them, leaving Stella gripping the wine bottle for dear life.

  Well, damn it to hell on a breadstick.

  Shit. Just. Got. Real.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Don’t!” Stella pushed him away firmly by the shoulders, turning her head to avoid his kiss. The boys were tucked up in bed and Niels stalked her back downstairs.

  Stella tried everything to avoid being alone with him. She dragged out dinner. She suggested the director’s cut of The Hobbit until the boys cried exhaustion. Even then, Stella took it upon herself to read with her children, a Kindle on her lap and impersonating the characters from the Stormbreaker series. Lamenting their mother’s attempts and through long and hard yawns, they told her to stop and quite frankly to do one.

  “Mother,” Danny begged, “go and talk to Dad. Please. We can read.”

  “Flipping cheek,” she muttered, kissing them both goodnight and side-stepping Niels as he did the same.

  “I’ll be up in ten minutes to turn the lights off,” he warned them.

  Before she had even reached the final step, Niels caught her by the arm and drew her into his body, pressing her between his torso and the wall. His mouth lowering inescapably toward her own sent waves of panic and lust through her limbs, forcing her to pull away.

  “Seriously. No.”

  He lifted his head slightly, his face still unnervingly close to her own as he lowered his gaze to her waist. Spanning it with his hands, he asked, “I’ve outstayed my sexual welcome?”

  “Yes,” she spat, feeling like a cornered and ill-tempered stray cat. “Don’t come and confuse me with your man meat.”

  One of his thumbs careened over her navel, plucking carelessly at her piercing. “Oh, that was my fault?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He smiled, deviousness shadowing his features. “Clarity of thought is unnecessary.”

  “Where you’re concerned, it’s more important than air.”

  “Ah, Stella,” he murmured, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. “You and I have always relied on instinct. Tell me what it’s saying to you now.”

  Submit, submit, get under him! “That we’re confusing things. Everything we went through… Are we really going to just fall back into this?”

  “Doesn’t it feel right?” His question disappeared under the power of his lips and the sensuality of the persuasion he unleashed. Like riding a bike… Until he discarded her once more.

  “No, Niels,” she gasped, tearing her mouth away. “I can’t let you do it again. You can’t break me again.”

  “I barely bent you.” His voice seemed empty of any real amusement. He stepped back and gestured toward the living room. “All right. No more of your hanky-panky. In there and we can talk.”

  Stella took a nervous seat on the closest sofa. Niels sat practically on top of her. He laughed at the dirty look she sent him and sat on a chair opposite instead. Better, she thought.

  “Well?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

  “I know exactly what I want. The question is, why are you getting in the way of that?”

  “Not a masochist,” she said with a shrug. “Don’t like standing at the top of a hill knowing if I get pushed, I’m going to break every bone in my body. Don’t. Want. To. Do. It.”

  He rested his chin between a forefinger and thumb. “None of this is about pain. Expected or otherwise.”

  “You don’t think you’re going to hurt me? Because all you want to do is share your dick with me?”

  A lazy grin lifted his features. “Sharing is caring. You and I will keep falling into the same patterns. When we’re annoyed, or happy, or sad… We look for each other. Now. We can both keep doing that, and most likely drag other people into our marital mess, or… We can sort it out.”

  She slammed her balled fists into the sofa cushions. “I don’t want to feel like this about you anymore! I am bored! I don’t want to keep doing this. Over and over again. You coming here…”

  “Because you called me…”

  “…and doing what you want!”

  “Because you asked me. Or rather begged me to.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Shall we pretend to be wiser than our years for a few minutes?”

  “Pointless, but go on…”

  “I’ve laid out my cards to you. I’ve said I miss you and I’m ready to be honest with you. Show me your hand.”

  She couldn’t speak. Every step seemed fraught with danger to her poor, battered, still-divorced heart.

  Niels again took a heavy breath. “Do you miss me?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Stella…”

  “All right. I miss you. A lot. Regularly. If not on an hourly basis. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I need to hear.”

  No triumph lingered in his face. Only relief. He got to his feet and sat next to her, tugging her into his lap. With his arms around her, and his face scratchy and warm against her neck, he whispered, “Let’s go away.”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Why do we have to be in another country to have a conversation?”

  “Because I know you,” he explained patiently. “You will make any excuse to avoid talking. Look how much effort you put in even vocalising your feelings tonight.”

  “Yes, well…” He had a point, but what she attempted to avoid centred on what Niels swung between his legs.

  “Come away with me. One week.”

  What harm would it do? They kept ending up in bed together. Nothing about it was healthy. Especially for a legally separated couple. Maybe at least without the children guilting her, she’d be able to admit how she felt.

  “All right. Okay then,” she agreed. “You book it.”

  “As if I would let you do anything else.”

  “And you call my mum and tell her what we’re doing.”

  He frowned at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to?”

  “Course I don’t. I know you speak to her every week. She likes you more than me.”

  “I’ve reason to be nice to her,” he said through a chuckle. “Getting favours. Stella, don’t…”

  The tears came from nowhere she understood. Once again, her emotions were in the care of someone she felt completely uncertain of. “I am trusting you. This once I am putting myself in your hands.”

  “Safe hands. Promise.”

  He brushed a tear away with his thumb and pulled her in for a lingering kiss. “Good. You stay where you are…”

  “Quite comfy, your lap. When you’re not trying to poke me with your stick.”

  “I’ll leave the poking to another day.”

  ***

  Niels had always admired how well Stella travelled. She didn’t complain, she never tutted at staff and always finished her requests with a please and thank-you. The nine hour journey from London to Cancun was met with a shrug and “Okay. I gave you twelve years. I can deal with nine hours on a plane.”

  Every time she sighed or shifted in her seat, he wondered if she were thinking about how to get home. Upper Class allowed her to make a call to her mother and the boys, to make sure they were good. Happy. If not happy, then settled on staying with their grandmother for just over a week.

  Niels lived most of his work on a gamble. A risk that had always worked out, bar one terrible time that led to his current situation. Sitting next to Stella, as she watched episode after episode of Breaking Bad on the flight, he wondered if he’d gambled too high. Stella on holiday was a million miles from Stella at home. If she chose him, them, their family
, then there were nine-odd hours for her to talk herself out of it on the route back to London.

  Briefly, he told himself to man up. They hadn’t even arrived at their hotel and he already doubted himself. Stella wouldn’t have agreed if their marriage had died a death with no chance of a biblical resurrection. The last weekend told him so. She asked him why he loved her. Why he bothered to pursue her when she’d disappointed him so bitterly he’d seen no other option but to divorce her.

  He laughed to think about it. He loved Stella. With every single cell in his body. Divorce became little more than a symbol, a barrier to be knocked down, when he finally understood that his move for petitioning was grounded in nothing but a desperate attempt to force her to show him she still loved him.

  She made him suffer. She cut him the deepest at every available opportunity and yet the moment she softened, slipped with a “darling” or an “I can’t be your friend”, that hope flared back into an inferno. He didn’t want to start over again with her just because they knew they could ‘work’, but because it would never work with anyone else but her.

  Niels picked up her hand, braced on the seat as they began to descend into Cancun and kissed it. She frowned at him and he peeled up her index finger to point the digit in the space between them. “We can do this.”

  Rather than see a hint of scepticism in her eyes, he leaned forward to kiss her.

  No doubts allowed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Stella woke to the blissful sound of waves crashing on the shore. Nothing more. She sat up and pulled her feet to her chest, surrounded by a mosquito net more delicate than her wedding veil. Filtering her fingers through it, she met with several black insect eyes and screeched louder than when she gave birth.

  In moments, she saw the shadow of Niels, scooping the multi-eyed beast that clearly tried to kill her from her net. “Good morning,” he teased, opening the wooden door of their room and throwing the attacking demon to the sand.