“Kiss me again,” she finally whispered into his ear, while she inwardly kicked herself for over-analyzing things, rather than simply live in the present.
He turned his head and looked at her for a moment, then bent his head and let his lips meet hers briefly before pulling back.
“Protection first,” he said breathlessly. He stood up, rummaged in his jeans pockets, and retrieved a packet. He returned to her while she still lay as he’d left her – numb and happy.
He covered her and claimed another kiss. His fingers toyed with a lock of her hair while his clever tongue worked her desire back up to fever pitch. When she was reduced to a jumble of nerves, he shifted up and filled her, stretched the pleasure stimulus to her sex like an artist’s canvas on a wooden frame.
“God,” he gasped. “You feel…”
He never finished that sentence because he started to move, a little restrained at first. His face was so close, the details jumped at her – lips pursed, jaw set, eyes bottomless pools that betrayed how much it pained him to hold back.
Her hands greedily explored his rippling back while a climax bigger than the first built inside her.“Let go. I want to feel you with me,” she said into his ear.
A fierce mien crept in his eyes at her request. It was like something snapped inside him and revealed a dark, compulsive hunger. His rhythm intensified and fed fast into her need to reach the peak. He followed soon after with a groan, and for just a moment his tense features eased into an expression of … dared she say … happiness.
He dropped his damp forehead against hers, clutched on to her while his erratic breathing returned to normal. The back of his hand caressed her face, then, he eased gently on to the pillow next to her.
Drawing her close, he covered them both with the sheets. She laid her head on his chest and listened to the beating of his heart. No words hung between them. Only silence reigned while they both came to their senses. It was one of those times when verbal expression would have done little justice to their feelings; she was sure somehow that he felt the same.
So she simply cherished the way he kissed the top of her head, saved that emotion in her memory bank, while his fingers doodled idle circles on her back.
When the sounds of the night cradled them in its embrace, Alex stirred. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished,” she smiled lazily into his chest.
He propped up the pillows beneath them and sat up, raised her with him and settled her back on his chest. “I’ll feed you.”
Her mouth rejoiced in the taste of fried pastry stuffed with figs, orange peel and spices – the local imqaret, a calorie minefield, but one worth stepping through.
“Mmmm.”
“They’re one of my favourite desserts, too,” he confessed. He let a moment pass then asked in a low voice. “You don’t have to tell me this, but I wonder… were you born with sight problems?”
“No,” she replied. Her heart started to beat a little faster.
“As I said, you don’t have to talk about it.”
“But I do,” she surprised herself by saying. Gut instinct pried the words from her.
This was a night of totally unexpected things.
“Do you believe in the supernatural?” When she asked the question, even against her better judgment, she mustered the courage to open up to him. She couldn’t explain why she felt that he would understand – she knew only that she did.
“One has to be insane to live in Malta and not believe it, or at least be touched by it in some way.”
His reply gave her the impetus to go on. She told him of the trip to Buskett Gardens with her parents, of her exploration, and then, of the psychic experience she had that left her completely sightless at first. It was the first time she bared herself this way, and it came easily – like pouring tea.
Life is not merely stranger than fiction; it’s even more outlandish.
“When was this?” he asked gently. His arms bundled her in a blanket of security.
“I was fourteen. But there’s more…”
A strong hand explored the length of her hair. “I’m listening.”
“It all happened fifteen years ago today. Well, I mean yesterday. And…” she swallowed hard, “and it was right after I’d spotted a body in the woods. A young man, with a gun. He was covered in blood and he was dead and oh, it was so horrible!” The memories stung her.
His comforting caresses suddenly stopped and he stiffened beside her.
“What’s wrong?” she dared to ask. Her heart sank.
A momentary pause, then: “That dead man you saw, I knew him,” he said in a punishing voice. “That man was my brother.”
Chapter Three
Alex braced himself. Melita shot up and turned to face him, an incredulous look on her face. She dragged the sheet along and clasped it to her breasts, as if it were her most prized possession… a flimsy barrier between them.
“What?” Her high-pitched tone seared his brain, forced him to evade her questioning gaze.
For the first time in fifteen years, Alex relived the worst days of his life, all because of the woman he’d just made love to. A stranger, who wasn’t such a stranger after all. The first emotion sparked by her words was anger – resentment that she had to bring up something he’d buried deep inside him, and liked to keep that way. Why did she have to unearth it?
He fisted his hands into the counterpane. “How many people you think shot their brains out in that place? It was my brother. His name was Tony.”
The number one cardinal rule was that he never spoke about Tony. He’d never broken that vow. His voice cracked over the two syllables, God help him and curse her.
“But how could it be? I don’t remember…” her voice trailed away. Although he wasn’t looking at her, he could hear the cogs of her mind turn with her thoughts. “I was going to say that I don’t remember his name, but my parents had kept me away from the news or anything related to the incident. And, of course, I couldn’t read about it. Later on, I just wanted to put it behind me.”
“Look at me.” When she wouldn’t, he gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to meet his eyes. “So you never bothered to find out about Tony,” he bit out, but the anguish in her expression floored him. He instantly regretted the violence in his voice. He let her go.
“No! I just,” she faltered, “I just couldn’t handle it.”
For an insane moment, he wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere deserted and obscure and empty. Somewhere safe.
Certainly not here, facing the ghosts of his dreaded past. Certainly not explaining himself to someone he’d never met before.
But a small voice in his head told him, if he kept avoiding the issue, would he ever move on? He knew the answer to that question, which left him with – could he pluck the nerve to turn a new leaf?
She inched away, hurt. The awkwardness opened up a giant crevice between them. And there they stood, she on one side and he on the other, with a long rickety bridge of despair in between.
Her face was flushed and tears flowed from her eyes. Humiliation pricked him. How had it been for a young girl to witness such a thing? What had she been through?
A right bastard he was. “I’m sorry.”
She chewed on her bottom lip and nodded, but said nothing.
He sat up too and reached out for her hand because he needed to know she forgave him for his words. He needed her comfort.
She let the sheet go and allowed him to entwine his fingers with hers, to bring them down to rest on the quilt, above his chest. They both contemplated their joined hands.
“He was older, six years,” he started, each word a cumbersome load, near impossible to express. “I looked up to him like a father. Our dad died when I was fairly young and Mom worked long days at one of the stores, so he was all I had.”
“Alex—”
His name sounded good on her lips. He squeezed her hand and held her gaze. “I need to tell. Never thought about sharing this but I f
eel I must. I feel this is right.”
Her eyes said so much that she didn’t have to say a word.
“He was a moody sort of guy, but I never thought much of it. Didn’t have a clue what being manic-depressive meant until he was diagnosed with it. That was a year before he died. Before then, the doctor just thought it was a case of simple depression.”
Her brows knitted into a frown. “How could you know? You must have been young.”
“Sixteen. He met a girl one day. Things were good for a while but after a few months, she left him. He wasn’t that good with girls and didn’t have many friends – only me. Perhaps she didn’t understand his mood swings, or perhaps she felt he was too obsessed with her.
“Tony was like God to me, but when they split, he withdrew from everyone, even from me. We had a few good times, but mostly Mom and I had to walk on eggshells around him. I got so angry. One time I even told him I hated him. Then he… he found dad’s old gun…”
His voice faltered under the pressure of all that old guilt. It was the same kind of heartache that had plundered him when he’d just learned what Tony had done, as though as though fifteen years hadn’t passed by. Fifteen years without Tony.
But then, Melita released his hand. The sweet scent of apples got stronger when her warm breath stroked his temple. Her hair fell over them like a perfumed curtain, and her arms came around his shoulders. He knew, right there and then, that something had changed and shifted, irrevocably, inside him. A door unlocked. A wall crumbled down.
The pain was still there, but it wasn’t the same.
“Tony knew you loved him. I’m sure he still does.”
“He was helpless, isolated, and I let him down.”
“No, you didn’t. Heavens, you were little more than a kid.”
Her fingers massaged his scalp, and he leaned further into her – wished he could just forget himself. With her, perhaps, he would.
She was right, but there was nothing logical about coming to terms with the suicide of a loved one. At a loss for true understanding, it is sometimes inevitable to blame oneself for the desperation of others. Could he have done something, anything, to alleviate Tony’s condition? Perhaps not, but it was so difficult to accept that Tony couldn’t be helped by anyone, not even by his own flesh and blood.
“Towards the end, we fought a lot,” he told her. “At first I thought it was because of the girl, so I hated her. That was easy. Then, I started to think that Tony didn’t like to hang out with me anymore because I was too young and immature.”
Melita pressed her lips to his temple. “Manic-depressives tend to be irritable and angry. There are so many symptoms associated with the condition. I’ve met a few cases in my work. It’s a tough life for them and those who care for them. They need so much love, but I have no doubt you gave him all that you possibly could.”
He drew back to look at her face and realized he never asked her what she did for a living. “What line of work are you in?”
“I’m a psychotherapist.”
He laughed. “That’s why you make sense when you speak. And why just being with you relaxes me.”
She grinned back. “Wow, that’s a pretty unique testimonial you just gave me. Can I print it on my business card?”
The musical lilt to her voice really did soothe him, and he wished that well-being to last.
“No, but I’ll give you an even better endorsement if you like.”
He took her hand and slipped it between the sheet and quilt so she’d feel how her lingering caresses had roused his need to make love to her again.
“I need you.” And he meant this on so many levels.
Her eyes softened in understanding. She pushed him back on the pillow and leaned over him to read his face. Her tongue grazed the stubble on his jaw and followed a jagged path to his ear. Blood raced to his groin when she bent to pleasure him. Watching her like that, she looked far from vulnerable. She had power – power to fill him with need and want and to bring him to the brink with the slightest touch.
He had to stop her and pull her up to him. She straddled him, brought her torso flush against his. Without breaking eye contact she kissed him passionately, communicating to him that everything he’d said, every emotion he felt, was important to her.
She sat up, her hands clasped with his, and took him all inside her.
“Melita...”
Palms flat against his chest, she rocked above him, neither slow nor fast, while their eyes held – a sultry enchantress, fair and soft and feminine. As his senses responded he became a little more enthralled with her, a little more infatuated. His hands clasped her rounded hips, steady and possessive.
He couldn’t let her go.
When her gaze unfocused, he knew she was at pleasure’s door. She picked up her pace and threw her head back. Alex gripped her tighter. When she fell apart in his arms, he immortalized that moment in his brain.
Only when he heard her cry did he unbolt the heavy door of his mind and let go, allowed himself to go to a plane where he could never feel pain.
Before he drifted off, it occurred to him that he hadn’t used protection. That had never happened to him. He should have felt horrified, but he wasn’t.
No, he couldn’t let her go.
***
When Melita woke up the roosters crooned in the neighbouring fields, to hail a new day. The first threads of light had already woven themselves in the black sky. She retrieved her mobile from the nightstand and looked at the time. Five fifteen AM.
The night would be over soon. Alex’s even breathing calmed her and brought to mind the conversation they’d had about their lives and their work. While he systematically emptied an entire tray of its contents, Alex had told her about Brushstrokes, his family’s business, and a name she recognized. She told him about her practice and how she craved a bigger challenge at this point in her life.
“Where does all that food go?” she marvelled at the size of his appetite.
“Hey, a man needs his strength,” he quipped.
Then they made love again with this new awareness of each other. After they’d shared their deepest, darkest secrets, it wasn’t worth even talking about what would happen after the present. Their connection couldn’t be denied. Yesterday, the date of their meeting, was the link that bound them – one that would bind them forever, whether they wanted it to or not.
It was fate that had brought them together for they’d both made the right choice, at the right time. What was it they called such a thing? Happenstance…
That was the word, which led to a wild thought sneaking into her head.
She turned to catch a clouded glimpse of Alex, who slept peacefully, spoon fashion, behind her, his arm circled protectively around her middle. In the dimness, he looked much more like a shadow cloaked over her.
What they just did, the pleasure they shared, she fancied a communion of their psychic energies. Perhaps the past they shared had made it all the more special, even before they’d made the connection on a conscious level. It was possible that their fused energies – again, in the right place, at the right time – could be used to lay the past to rest, once and for all.
Could they do this? The idea seeded in her mind. It was farfetched, which meant nothing in the scheme of things.
She placed her hand over his and ran two fingers over his knuckles. Her touch made him stir.
He murmured something unintelligible and breathed into her hair.
“Alex,” she called softly.
“Mmmm.”
She switched on the lamp and turned into his embrace. “Alex, wake up,” she coaxed, as she smoothed his hair and traced the shape of his ear.
She didn’t need perfect vision to discern how vulnerable he looked with his face relaxed in slumber. She could just imagine what he’d looked like as a young boy who idolized his older brother. A boy who’d lost all that was left of his innocence through the actions of someone else. How do we ever return to looking at the worl
d with hope when the worst nightmare imaginable slaps us into its steel vise?
It occurred to her that there were so many children and youths who faced terrible tests in life, issues so overwhelming that even adults would find it difficult to cope with such situations. There was the opportunity to help such people in her work, especially if she involved herself with certain organizations and the education system, even on a voluntary basis.
She grappled with a newfound enthusiasm, a feeling she’d felt only at the start of her career. She’d had so many plans, so much eagerness to help others in her field, that gradually losing that passion had felt akin to losing a beloved relative. This was what she always wanted to do, after all.
Alex’s story was the catalyst that made her realize that what she needed was an adjustment of course and attitude, not a drastic change of profession.
She ran her hand down his back, while she admitted to herself how great it was to wake up next to him.
“Alex,” she repeated.
He opened his eyes this time, and blinked. “Morning, sunshine. Slept well?”
“I did.”
“There’s time. We can stay a bit more.”
It would be so easy to let his smile seduce her into weaselling out and staying in bed. “No,” she said. “There’s something I want to do.”
“What?”
She got out of bed and grabbed his arm. “I’ll tell you while we get ready.”
At six that morning, Melita’s hand reached out for Alex’s as they stood in the small clearing under the cypress trees in Buskett Gardens. With each passing minute the darkness faded and the dawn sky made way for the waking sun.
Alex was a bit reticent at first when she suggested to him to drive them here, but she insisted it would be the best way to for them both to face their fears and find closure.
“Usually, I’m not a big fan of reliving traumatic experiences, but in this case I have a strong feeling it may be the only way to help us go forward.”
“What use could it be, though? It’s not like we can change the past.”
“It’s a shot in the dark, but today is a special day – a day that means something to both of us. Perhaps what happened tonight is a sign that all we need to do is believe and our questions will be answered.”
Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series) Page 3
