A Christmas Night to Remember

by Helen Brooks

  ‘I thought we’d do it properly.’ He slid a fresh crusty roll onto a small plate next to her soup and then took his own place at the table. ‘Eat,’ he ordered softly.

  The soup was as delicious as it smelt, and the salmon which followed equally good. Zeke talked of inconsequential matters with a comfortable ease which relaxed Melody in spite of herself, teasing her a little and making her laugh, his humour gentle and self-deprecating. Lulled into a mellow state of mind by Zeke’s lazy air, the light yet satisfying food and the wine she sipped almost unconsciously, Melody found herself drifting in a haze of well-being. She felt calm and peaceful inside, she realised with a little shock of self-awareness. For the first time in months. It was such an alien sensation.

  By the time Zeke brought out the desserts Melody was sure she couldn’t eat another thing, but the Madeira cake spread with lemon curd, dosed with limoncello liqueur and topped off with raspberries and a mascarpone custard was the perfect end to a perfect meal and she ate every morsel. Replete, she finished the last of her wine, and when Zeke got up from the table and pulled her over to one of the sofas, sitting down beside her, she didn’t protest.

  ‘It’s midnight,’ he murmured after a moment or two, his voice smoky-soft. ‘Happy Christmas, darling.’

  Darling. He shouldn’t call her darling, she thought, but then she pushed the reasoning behind it away, not wanting anything to intrude on the moment. She watched as he reached into his pocket, bringing out a small package which he handed her, kissing her once very lightly. ‘What is it?’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘Open it and see.’

  ‘Zeke, I didn’t want anything—’

  ‘Shush.’ His mouth was harder, more insistent, and this time the kiss left her entire body trembling when he raised his head. ‘Open it,’ he said again, his voice husky.

  The eternity ring was exquisite: sparkling diamonds and emeralds set into a delicate ring of white gold. When Zeke slid it onto her finger it nestled perfectly between her wedding ring and engagement ring, which was a beautiful thing in itself, with emeralds clustered round a magnificent diamond. Melody stared down at the glittering stones, anguish vying with other emotions she couldn’t even bring a name to. She pressed the palms of her hands onto her eyes, hating herself for what she was doing to him.

  Zeke gently brought her fingers away from her face by grasping her wrists, his dark eyes gazing into her tormented ones when she stared at him. He had aged in the past three months, she realised with a little shock of mortification. Time had become ingrained in the features of his face, the way it did when someone had suffered unbearable bereavement or loss. Had he unconsciously let go of her? In some deep recess of his mind had he known what they’d had was over? Was that it? Knowing Zeke as she did, he would have fought such a feeling. He would have felt he was letting her down.

  ‘I love you,’ he said simply. ‘That’s all this means. I will always love you. This feeling isn’t optional. It’s not something I can turn on and off. When you came into my life I thought I was doing all right, that I was autonomous, cool—call it what you will. Your arrival was unexpected and unsolicited. I wasn’t looking for for ever. I don’t think I even understood the notion until you stood on that stage and danced your way into my heart.’

  Her breath caught in her throat. ‘I can’t dance any more.’

  ‘But you are here. That’s all that matters.’ He lowered his head until their lips were millimetres apart. ‘You have to believe that, Dee, because I don’t know how to convince you beyond saying it and showing you how much I love you.’

  With a soft exhalation she accepted his mouth on hers. She fell against him, needing his strength, his maleness, his overwhelming virility, all the qualities she’d missed so deeply. He kissed her heavy eyelids, one after the other, pressing them closed as though he knew she needed to shut everything but the feel and taste of him out of her mind. Melody found herself in a velvety darkness made up entirely of what his body was doing to hers, her desire mounting as he deliberately deepened the kiss until the reality of the touch and taste and smell of him was irresistible, a fire which burnt everything in its path. She wanted him. She ached with it.

  He picked her up in his arms, carrying her towards his bedroom. He manoeuvred the door open and carried her over the threshold as gently as if she were a china figurine. Kicking the door shut behind him, he walked into the dark bedroom, lit only by the soft shadowed glow of a bedside lamp he must have left on earlier.

  Melody tensed as he laid her down on the bed, but instantly he was beside her, wrapping his arms round her in a gesture intended to reassure and comfort. There was no force, no urgency, his mouth caressing her lips with small kisses that gave pleasure without demanding a response.

  Her breasts were pressed against the hard wall of his chest, and slowly and repetitively Zeke began stroking her back, his mouth moving all over her face in the same swift kisses as his fingers carefully worked down her spine from her tense shoulders to the seductive flare of her hips. Gradually she relaxed again, her body curving into his as his lips returned to her mouth and he kissed her more deeply, his skilful hands and mouth evoking the burning desire she remembered from the past.

  When he removed the robe she was barely aware of it, and then he pulled the pyjama top over her head, caressing the silky skin of her throat and shoulders and nuzzling at the hollow of her collarbone before kissing her breasts one by one. She moaned deep in her throat when his mouth seized one nipple, giving it exquisite attention before moving to the other, and now her hands moved feverishly over his flesh, pulling the shirt away from his body so she could run her fingers over the hair-roughened muscle rippling with each movement he made.

  Her mouth moved where her fingers had explored, her tongue curling round a copper nipple that beaded at her touch. She could taste a faint saltiness on his skin, the smell of lemon from the soap he used mingling with a more earthy scent. She had told him once in the early days of their marriage that she thought he was beautiful and he’d laughed, saying only women were beautiful. But he was wrong. He was beautiful, his body as powerful and perfectly honed as the statues of the old Greek gods that graced Mount Olympus.

  ‘I’ve missed this,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Not necessarily the sex but being able to hold you, to know that you’re there, that I only have to stretch out my hand to touch you.’

  She knew what he meant. There were some things more intimate than the act of intercourse—small actions between a couple that spoke of a relationship, of sharing, of being committed.

  ‘Mind you, sex is great,’ he added in a hoarse whisper as her hand felt for his arousal, finding the taut flesh between his legs and stroking it. ‘I’m not advocating celibacy.’

  The dark shadows gave her the confidence to flow with what was happening, and when he removed her pyjama bottoms and the rest of his own clothes her arms reached for him, pulling him on top of her. She wasn’t allowing herself to think. If she thought her conscience would force her to stop this, unfair on him as it was, because this one night wouldn’t change anything. And so she didn’t think. She just felt and touched and tasted.

  Now he was naked her hand circled and caressed his huge erection again, knowing she was inflicting a pleasure-pain as he groaned and caught her wrist. ‘We’re going to take this slow and easy,’ he breathed raggedly. ‘We’ve waited too long to rush things, but I’m only human, Dee.’

  His eyes glittered like an animal’s in the near darkness, his face planes and hollows, and she reached up and placed her palms along either side of his face. Although he had shaved earlier the stubble already coming through gave his skin a rough, sandpapery texture that was at odds with the boyish quiff falling across his forehead. ‘Tonight it’s just me and you,’ she whispered breathlessly. ‘No past, no future, just the present. I want to make love to you, Zeke. I want to feel you inside me again.’

  ‘Not as much as I want to be there.’ He kissed her again, a kiss she more than matched,
but when she tried to guide him into her again he removed her hand. ‘Later,’ he murmured. ‘We have all the time in the world.’

  He began to touch and taste every inch of her body, teasing her with a slow sensuality that had her mindless and panting beneath his ministrations. Her skin became sensitised all over, the feminine core of her throbbing and swelling as she twisted and quivered under his mouth and hands.

  Their lovemaking was as good as it had ever been, and the feelings were the same, but different. Before she had imagined they knew all there was to know about each other. Now she felt she didn’t know herself, let alone Zeke. But one thing she was sure about was that she wanted him, and she wanted him because she loved him. She would always love him. She knew that now. It was part of what had terrified her after the accident. Maybe deep inside it had always terrified her. Love gave the beloved such power, such control. It had broken her grandmother, probably her mother too, and it would break her if she stayed and let it happen.

  And then all reasoning became blurred again as desire took over—a desire only Zeke could quench. He moved slightly and she felt the tip of his masculinity at the mound between her thighs. He moved again and entered her just the tiniest bit, causing her legs to wrap round him as her body urged him closer and she arched her hips.

  His mouth found hers once more, his lips warm and firm, and as his tongue thrust a path into her inner sweetness he possessed her to the full, the sensation extremely satisfying. He waited one moment, while her body adjusted to the swollen hardness of him, and then began to thrust strongly, building their shared excitement as the pleasure became almost unbearable in its intensity.

  When the moment of climax came Melody thought she would shatter into a million pieces, her muscles contracting so violently that Zeke reached his peak a second later, his body shuddering as he groaned her name. And when the pulsing of their flesh quietened he collapsed on top of her, burying his face in the curve of her throat as he murmured her name again, his voice tender and soft.

  It was a while before he half lifted himself on one elbow, studying her flushed face as he said lazily, ‘Wow. If this is what a period of abstinence does, it’s not all bad.’ He smoothed a lock of hair from one cheek, his tough light. ‘You’re something else, woman.’

  ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ she managed fairly normally, thankful his mood was so relaxed and lighthearted. She couldn’t have handled any more soul-searching right at this moment. A part of her knew that Zeke would see their making love as a means of putting everything right between them, but she would deal with that when she had to.

  He pulled the duvet over them both, tucking her against him with his arm round her shoulders. ‘How can even a hotel room become home when you’re with the person you love, whereas our house was just bricks and mortar with you gone? It’s made me realise I could live in a mud hut and be perfectly happy if you were there.’

  Melody forced a creditable laugh. ‘I can’t see you in a mud hut—not unless it was fitted with internet access and enough mod-cons to let you keep your finger on the pulse.’

  There was a moment of vibrating silence before Zeke shifted, lifting her chin so he could meet her eyes. ‘Is that so?’ he said lazily. ‘If someone heard that who didn’t know me they’d think I was a control freak.’

  She never had known when he was joking, and she didn’t now. She looked at him for several long seconds before she saw the twinkle in his eye. ‘Oh, you,’ she murmured weakly, snuggling into the side of him.

  ‘Actually, you’ve got me all wrong.’ He kissed the top of her head, his voice rumbling deep inside his chest where she pressed her face against his torso. ‘Like I said to you before, my work doesn’t control me. It never has. I do what I do because I enjoy it and because it has been fulfilling on the whole. Sometimes a situation has gripped me and I’ve put too much effort in for too little reward, but not often. Other times I’ve made mistakes. Like the time I cancelled a certain luncheon engagement because of a crisis that I thought only I could solve. Biggest mistake of my life.’

  He paused, his voice wry when he said, ‘Maybe there has been a touch of control freak there after all, but no more.’

  A leopard couldn’t change its spots, and why should Zeke change, anyway? She had known what she was getting into when she’d married him after all. But things had been different then. She had been different. And she couldn’t go back to how she’d been.

  Suddenly all the reasons why it had been madness to sleep with him again were there, panic coursing through her as she realised what she’d done. She wasn’t aware that she had tensed or changed her position in any way, but she must have done, because his voice was deep and expressionless when he said, ‘What’s the matter? You’re retreating again.’

  She wriggled out of his arms, swinging her legs over the side of the bed as she said, ‘Don’t be silly. I—I need the bathroom.’ She looked for her pyjamas, but the items of clothing scattered on the floor all looked the same in the shadows. The thought of walking to the en-suite naked was unthinkable. What if he put the main lights on or followed her? But she couldn’t sit there all night. The thoughts flowed with the swiftness of terror. And if she started scrabbling about for her pyjamas she’d look ridiculous.

  ‘Dee?’ He touched her back and she flinched. ‘Have I said something? I was trying to be honest.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Even to herself her voice sounded brittle. Knowing she had to do something, and fast, she stood up and practically ran to his bathroom, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it for a moment before grabbing the white towelling hotel robe from the back of it and sliding it on. Jerking the belt tight, she shut her eyes in relief, her breath expelling in a deep sigh. She was safe. He hadn’t seen her.

  She had known Zeke would follow. When a tap came at the door her eyes opened. ‘Dee? Are you okay?’ he called softly.

  She pulled the belt tighter. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ His voice was strained.

  ‘I’m all right, I promise. I just need a minute, that’s all. Please, Zeke. I’ll be out in a moment.’

  There was a pause, and she could almost hear his mind whirring. Then his voice came quiet and steady. ‘I’ll get us a drink. What would you like? Wine? Fruit juice? Or coffee, tea, hot chocolate? There’s plenty in the fridge as well as hot drinks.’

  Numbly, she forced her lips to move. ‘A coffee. Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t be long.’ A pause. ‘I miss you already.’

  She waited until she was sure he’d gone and then turned on the light, staring at her reflection in the mirror over the wash basin. A wild-eyed, pale-faced woman stared back at her and she barely recognised herself in the haunted features.

  What had she done? What had she done? And what sort of message had sleeping with him sent to Zeke? No, Zeke, I don’t want to stay married to you. Oh, yes, Zeke, you can take me to bed. No, Zeke, there’s no future for us. Oh, yes, Zeke, the more intimate we are the better.

  She sat down on the edge of the bath, her fingers pressing tight into her closed eyelids as though she could shut out the memory of the past hour, erase it from her mind by an iron will. But of course that was impossible. She’d done some stupid things in her life but this went far beyond stupid. Infinitely beyond. It was cruel and selfish and unreasonable and totally unforgivable. He would hate her now and she didn’t blame him.

  She was still berating herself when another tap came at the door. Zeke’s voice was light, with a thread of steel. ‘If you don’t come out, I’m coming in.’

  Her hands tightened on the edge of the bath and then she stood up, opening the door. ‘I was just coming.’

  ‘I thought you’d prefer coffee in the sitting room,’ Zeke said coolly. He was wearing the black silk pyjama bottoms and nothing else, and he looked hard and tough and sexy, his hair ruffled and his eyes ebony-dark as they scoured her face. ‘And then perhaps you can tell me why you left our bed like a scalded cat. I wa
s under the mistaken impression it’d been great.’

  His words caught her on the raw, but at least the dose of adrenaline provided the strength she needed to face him. ‘Firstly, it’s not our bed. It’s yours,’ she pointed out, sailing past him and making her way into the sitting room. ‘Secondly, I did not leave like a scalded cat or a scalded anything.’

  She glanced at the coffee table, where coffee and a plate of biscuits were waiting, a sofa pulled close, and then walked across to the window, opening the curtains and looking out. It was snowing again—beautiful, starry flakes that whirled and danced as though they were enjoying their brief life to the full.

  She was aware of Zeke coming up behind her and then his arms enclosed her. Her back rested against his chest and his chin nuzzled her hair. ‘Okay, let’s have it,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve got the message that all is not yet resolved.’

  She didn’t know how to say it. ‘I—I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,’ she said lamely, hating herself.

  ‘Lady, I don’t know if I’m on foot or horseback,’ he drawled with dark amusement, ‘so the wrong idea’s the least of it. That was you I made love with a while ago, wasn’t it? You haven’t got a clone who doubles for you now and again?’

  ‘What I mean is—’

  ‘What you mean,’ he interrupted, turning her round to face him but still keeping her in the circle of his arms, ‘is that in spite of having your wicked way with me you are still holding to this ridiculous notion of a divorce. Correct?’

  She couldn’t tell if he was furious and hiding it extremely well, or if the slightly sardonic attitude was for real. Zeke was a master of the inscrutable. Warily, she nodded.

  ‘Okay. So you’ve got that off your chest. Drink your coffee.’

  He had to take this seriously. ‘Zeke, you have to understand—’

  He stopped her with a breath-stealing kiss. ‘Come and have your coffee and biscuits. And then we’re going to talk some. We should probably have talked before we finished up in the bedroom, but I never did profess to be perfect.’