I believed him. I really did. I wanted to tell him that he was making me feel like I was worth it. I wanted to hold him and tell him that everything would be alright, that I would trust him implicitly, but the single voice left in the back of my head that sometimes shouted above all the others was still trying to be heard.
‘Have you heard of pistanthrophobia?’ I asked, trying to shake the doubts. He shook his head as he dropped a flurry of kisses to my back. ‘It’s a fear of trusting people because of a bad experience with a previous lover.’ He rolled me towards me, our faces inches apart. ‘Abi pointed out that it starts with something that sounds like piss because you’re pissed off when you’ve been pissed around.’ He laughed, and the sound was fervent and deep-rooted. ‘It’s true!’
‘I believe you. It’s cute that you know trivia on the theme of broken hearts. Terrible but cute.’
‘I’m lying here completely naked and you’re calling me cute. I’m supposed to be super sexy,’ I protested as he climbed on top of me, tangling our legs together until he tickled me and I couldn’t breathe because of the laughter.
‘You’re cute.’ He kissed the mound of my breast. ‘You’re adorable.’ He licked my nipple and a loud moan filled the room. ‘You’re amazing and magical, funny, clever, selfless, so fucking selfless.’ He ran his finger down the side of my body, causing my back to arch off the bed. ‘But you’re also exciting. Interesting. Intriguing. You make me want to be better. You make me want to start over again because nothing before you was ever good enough.’
‘I make you feel like that?’
He nodded as he nuzzled into my neck. ‘You smell so good. Like chocolate.’
‘Cocoa butter. I hate the feel of it on my skin,’ she laughed. ‘I used it to try to prevent stretch marks when I was pregnant with Theo. I’ve been using it ever since.’
‘It worked,’ he said, kissing his way down to my collarbone.
I shook my head, moaning as my body became alive. ‘No, I have some.’ I instinctively covered myself with my hands, which I hated myself for doing. Josh smiled and slowly moved my hands away from the body I was hiding. I watched him as he arched down to flutter soft kisses across the curves and bumps of my stomach and fell in love with him as he sighed through every groan.
‘When I saw your body for the first time, all that was going through my head was how beautiful you were.’ He held one of my hands against the bed, our fingers clasped together. He pulled my other hand towards him, wrapping my fingers around his hard cock as we both gasped out together. ‘You have no idea how sexy you are, do you?’ he said as I worked my hand down his length and met his eyes. They held so much truth, so much potential. I could believe them and I wanted to. There would be no more dropping my eyes when things became too much; no more second-guessing or self-doubt. I wouldn’t question that this wonderful man in front of me, squeezing his eyes shut and moaning out my name as he fought for breath, was in this for the wrong reasons. I didn’t need to hide anymore. He was giving me life.
‘Let me love you,’ he whispered as he lowered me down underneath him. My hand reached up and I rested his face against mine as I slowly nodded.
Chapter 35
Josh
Gem had been in the bathroom for a while. I was beginning to wonder if a terrible accident had happened and I would find her unconscious after knocking her head on the corner of the bath. As I was trying to sift through the thoughts of what the fuck was going on in there and started to get out of the hot tub, I heard the door open.
‘Are you in the water?’ Gem called out.
‘It’s ready for you,’ I replied, leg bent in mid-air as I stopped myself getting out. ‘I’m ready for you.’ Wasn’t that the truth? If this weekend had proved anything to me, it was the monumental realisation that I wanted this woman and every single part that came with her. I couldn’t imagine going back to fleeting moments in the playground and dates organised with military precision every couple of weeks. I wanted it all. I wanted to experience all sides of her. I wanted sleepy in the morning Gem, organised home runner Gem, relaxing in the evenings Gem, amazing friend to Abi, Elle and Kate Gem, and mummy to Theo and Brandon Gem.
I wanted everything.
I looked up and found her watching me. She was standing with her arm pressed against the doorframe, and although I could see some hesitation, she wasn’t letting it overcome her. When she unpacked earlier, I spotted her putting a purple swimming costume away. She hid it quickly and I made no reference to it. As she pushed herself off the doorframe and walked towards me, I smiled. She wasn’t wearing the swimming costume I’d seen earlier. She wasn’t covered completely by something that resembled a purple burkini. She wasn’t hiding herself from me or covering her body with her crossed arms or bewildering pieces of fabric that she called a sarong, and that was fucking amazing. Another piece of us clicked into place. She was wearing a black bikini, her luscious body on full display, her breasts spilling over the top, the curve of her waist so fucking breathtaking. The bikini bottoms were tied with tiny pieces of knotted string sitting at either side of her hips. She fiddled with them and took a deep breath. ‘Gem, if you don’t come and join me in the next second, I’m not going to be a very happy man.’
‘Help me in?’ she asked as I took her hand, and with each step, she took on a newfound confidence.
‘Stay there,’ I commanded as she reached the top step. She looked down at me with a look of surprise but gasped as I wrapped my hand round the back of her leg and slowly trailed it up to her hips, splaying my hand against the curve of bone that I was beginning to really fucking love.
Her fingers traced the tattoo on my arm. ‘What does it mean?’ she whispered. I had found a photograph of a compass in an antique shop. It was part of a collection of really cool sepia photos that belonged to fishermen from the coasts of Cornwall where I grew up. We were living in Truro at the time, and I took it to a local tattoo artist and sat in the chair for four hours biting on my finger and chanting grow some balls to get through it without crying like a baby. I didn’t know that it had a particular meaning when I first got it. I loved the image and that was that. As I got older and lived more of my life, I knew for certain what the tattoo was starting to represent.
‘I like to think it represents plans,’ I said as I watched her finger trace the face.
‘Plans to leave?’ she asked, panic laced through her voice.
‘Not without you.’
‘The kids need to be near their father. If I left Nottingham, he would never see them,’ she said, dragging her fingers through my hair as I looked up at her.
‘Is that why you stay in the house you don’t even like?’ I asked.
‘It’s for them. It’s all they’ve known. They need as little disruption as possible.’
‘You’re putting your life on hold,’ I interrupted. ‘It’s not what you want, Gem; you know it.’
‘What I want doesn’t matter—’
‘Fuck, it matters!’ I shouted, interrupting her. ‘You matter. I want to give you so much, Gem. I want to give you everything.’ I folded my arms around her and pushed my face against her stomach. She held me with the same force and we stayed wrapped together until she gently pushed my head away.
She tilted my chin so that I would look at her. ‘I want to enjoy the weekend. I want to pretend for a few hours that I can have everything I want. I want to get lost in you and forget that we have to go back to reality tomorrow. Give me that for tonight, please.’
I kissed her thigh and let the words settle in. She was so strong, too strong. She’d always had to be. It was a deep-rooted instinct. But I had an urge to look after her, give her everything she needed and more. She was so used to doing it all for herself that she didn’t feel she needed anyone else to protect her.
‘Give me one thing,’ I asked as she held my face in her hands, breathless as need took over. ‘Let me take care of you. I need it, just for tonight.’ My voice was low and steady, but underneath, my heart was beating
in time with a stopwatch. ‘I need to do this. Give in and let me take care of you.’
I pulled the strings on either side of her hips.
The knots slowly unravelled and so did I as her black bikini bottoms dropped away from her body and fell onto the steps of the hot tub.
I pressed my tongue to her clit and circled the tip in the spot I’d come to learn was the entryway to a fast orgasm.
Her head lifted fully and her mouth opened slightly before she said, ‘You look after me in the best way.’
Chapter 36
Gem
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh my fuck.’
His tongue had excellent reflexes.
I didn’t know where the noises were coming from, but as Josh was otherwise engaged, I was guessing the string of profanities was coming from me.
He pulled me down to sit on the edge of the hot tub, gripping my ankles and pushing up my legs, resting my feet on the edge. I was open to him, exposed and vulnerable, and I had never been so wet in the whole of my life. His finger slid against my clit so easily, like it was just meant to be, and that encouragement led me drop to my head behind me as I forgot about everything else apart from him, this night and his magic tongue on my clit.
There is a saying that life is all about balance. If that were true, I hadn’t quite perfected my measurements because I had been tipping the scales of selflessness for a few years. The weight of always putting everyone first was too great and I had spent my life waiting for the scales to tip the other way.
Now they had.
Meet Gem Brown, mother, daughter, friend and sexual being.
It was almost as if his orgasms were cleansing me.
Holy fuck, he was an oral skills superhero.
Meet Supertongue, encourages orgasms faster than a speeding bullet.
As I drifted into another momentous orgasm, I started to realise that parts of my life would now be referred to as before Josh and after Josh. Before him, I had always felt like I was treading a fine line between enjoying myself and being absolutely terrified. After Josh, well, let’s just say that he was obliterating that line.
‘Where have you gone?’ I looked towards him after getting lost in my orgasm and the thought process that followed it. He smiled and circled his thumb on my clit. ‘Come back to me,’ he whispered before getting out of the water. Josh laid himself down on the large step, his legs resting in the water and beautifully naked. ‘Ride my face,’ he commanded, his voice low and rumbling. He settled me above him, my legs on either side of his head, his hands gripping my hips and me almost losing control of everything when his tongue flicked up in one delicious sweep. My hips started to move against him, Josh encouraging me, with not a hint of the embarrassment that would have plagued me before this night. I was working by body now, harder and faster, circling and thrusting with abandon against his mouth. Josh’s fingers were pressing into my skin, holding me in exactly the right place.
My back was arching under the power of it all. The urge to have him inside me was too fucking great. I pushed myself back, moving my legs beneath his shoulders, watching as the wetness of my arousal glistened across his chest. He wiped his hand across it, moaning at the touch, and closed his eyes briefly. I leant down and kissed his mouth as he dug his fingers into my behind. ‘Fuck me,’ I urged as I ground myself against his cock. ‘Don’t be gentle. I want to see every side of you.’
‘You’re fucking perfect,’ he moaned as he sat up, lifting me up with my legs wrapped around his waist and taking us back into the water.
The lights from the lodge were shining through onto the garden, creating enough light to shelter us and give us complete privacy. The hot tub had small lights dotted around the edges and it gave a magical fairy-tale setting. I was aching for him. Soft music was playing; the clean smell that belonged only to him was surrounding me. A man who I adored was worshipping me, worshipping my body, telling me that I was sent to him, whispering how he felt lost without me. I wanted to make this weekend good for him, so good that he could see through the baggage, push aside the fact that tomorrow we would be going back to a life, my life, a life that wasn’t fully his yet. I wanted to make it so good that he would accept me with no questions asked and want to be a part of me with every beat of his heart. Oh fuck, I knew he ached for it as much as I did.
I stopped thinking when he pushed inside me. We both cried out and we both clung to each other, nails digging into skin, breath panting against mouths. I could feel him inside me, hard and heavy, a feeling of complete fullness, but I could also feel him around me. His hands on my skin, his voice against my ear, and then I said everything that I was thinking in that exact moment and my heart shifted until it fell wide open.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you. Let me. Please say you’ll let me.’
Chapter 37
Josh
I decided that waking up and finding her wrapped around me, her hair still damp and music still playing, was the perfect way to start a day. Our last day. The time had gone quickly, and when Sunday afternoon crept in, we became quieter, more watchful, and just generally fucking sad.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you. Let me. Please say you’ll let me.’
Her words both thrilled and saddened me. She was opening herself wide, letting me in, closing the gaps, but at the same time, she was tentative and scared of being hurt. I tried reassuring her that I wouldn’t be going anywhere, that when we returned home, I would still think about her every minute of every day, wishing that she was falling asleep in my bed. I hated to think that she would start building up the walls we had knocked down together during the last forty-eight hours.
She had this way about her. She created calmness in me. Before her, I would never have considered going away on a weekend spa trip. I would have been climbing the walls, desperate to escape and do something. I would have thought about what I could have done to get the adrenaline running, maybe a sneaky football match in a local park or long run to get the energy flowing. But now I didn’t need anything. Just her. I had let her stroke my head with her tiny fingers for twenty full fucking minutes because I couldn’t bring myself to move away. I was sitting on a bench with her feet on my lap overlooking the scenery of the Lake District. Holding hands. Still. Peaceful.
Before her, I would have been bored to fuck, but now I didn’t want moments like this to end.
But our time was running out. In two hours, I would have to share her again, share her with a life that wouldn’t be able to accommodate me straight away.
We both knew that the weekend was not a true reflection of what life would be like for us when we returned home. This had been a life illuminated. This had been the fucking Hollywood version of life, but that didn’t mean we had to continue our relationship in the way we had before because now, every single part of us had changed.
‘Can I spend time with Theo and Brandon?’ I asked, her feet shifting slightly against me as she sighed.
‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes, but are you?
She nodded. ‘Theo already loves you,’ she replied. ‘He’ll be over the moon.’
‘Theo knows me as Mr Wood, his exceptionally cool teacher, not Mummy’s boyfriend.’
She laughed before sighing again. ‘I need to think about telling Jay.’
‘How do you think he will react?’ I asked, not really caring about Jay when he found out but definitely caring about Gem.
She considered for a moment. ‘I’m not sure. I feel like I don’t know him anymore.’ She looked out across the water. Despite the topic of conversation, she looked completely serene.
‘I need to tell work,’ I said, realising we had only focused on Gem’s children and ex-husband and not the finer details of telling Mrs Hamilton, my head teacher, that I had fallen in love with the parent of a student in my class.
‘What will happen?’ she replied, squeezing my hand that had been firmly fixed to her thigh.
‘It isn’t looked upon favourably, let�
�s just put it that way.’
‘We need to think about how we’re going to do it all. It’s like one of those impossible jigsaws where you have to form a picture of a bowl of peas despite each piece being green and pea-like.’
‘You’re not having second thoughts?’ I asked as I moved her hair away from her face, ignoring the pea metaphor.
‘Never. Don’t think that,’ she replied. ‘There’s just a lot of potential for this to go…tits up.’
I laughed, and for the rest of the afternoon, we didn’t talk about what would happen when we returned home. We got lost inside each other and filled the last two hours of our weekend with epic fucking greatness.
The drive home was a collection of laughter and conversation until we reached the places we recognised, telling us that we would be home soon. Silence soon overtook the laughter until all that was left were deep sighs, fleeting glances and the continual connection of our hands clasped together resting on her thigh.
‘You know you can call me. In the middle of the night if you have to. You don’t need to say anything. Just hold the phone so I can hear you breathing and you’ll know I’m there. Just a phone call away, ‘ I said as I held her face in my hands. I had parked at the top of her road away from the house.
Our normal routine.
I fucking hated how normal it was. We didn’t want to let each other go but it was inevitable. Her boys were waiting, as was her ex-husband.
‘I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got the boys to bed.’ She opened the car door and I got her overnight bag out of the boot. Finally, when the kisses stopped and I couldn’t get away with pulling her back to me as she attempted to walk away, she left me. I watched her look over her shoulder. I studied the sway of her hips. I remembered gripping them with my fingers, falling off the ledge of let’s fucking do this and I needed her back. I needed her with me.
I called her name and started laughing like a fool as she dropped her bag in the middle of the pavement and ran back to me. Her smile was wide, her laughter loud, and as she settled back into my arms, I held her. I kissed her. I made promises I knew would be hard to keep, and then I let her go.
Let Me Be Your Last (Music and Letters Series Book 4) Page 20
