Everything hangs in the balance as I wait for his reply, my entire being on a knife’s edge.
His voice is barely audible as he lifts his eyes to mine and murmurs, “I told her that I was in love with someone else, in love so deep that it makes me understand what I had with her was never love at all.”
I gape at him, open-mouthed, as my heart sings in my chest, thumping a mile a minute in glee.
“You’re in love with…me?”
“Yes,” he answers, the one word spoken with agony as his eyes fall away from mine. “You must have known. I’m so ridiculously smitten with you, Jade. I have been since the first night we met.”
Running my hand down his cheek, I ask, “Why do you sound so sad?”
“Because I know it’s not what you wanted. I promised you an arrangement, and love was never supposed to come into it.”
“Oh, Shane.”
“I can go if you want me to,” he says, still staring into his lap. “I can get a bus or a train back to Dublin,” he continues before I interrupt him by pulling him to me and planting my mouth on his. He groans into me, grabbing onto the kiss like it’s a life raft and he’s about to go under.
Our tongues do battle as his chest presses hard against mine, his hands running through my hair. I break the kiss, my breathing erratic, as I stare at him with glittering eyes. “You’re not the only one who feels…” I trail off, unable to finish.
He squeezes his eyes shut before opening them again. “Babe, please finish what you were going to say,” he begs.
An idea strikes me. Instead of speaking, I stand up from the bed and slowly pull off my top. His watches me heatedly, and then I turn around. A loud gasp escapes him as he takes in my tattoo for the very first time. I stand there, as still as if I were the Blue Lady performing on the street. A moment later I feel his warmth against my skin. He’s behind me now, his fingers tracing the ornate musical notes that have been inked along my shoulders, musical notes to the very first track on ‘Songs for Her.’
He looks awestruck. “Are these?”
I nod my head, swallowing down a lump of emotion that’s gotten stuck in my throat. My eyes are watering with tears, and I don’t even know why. Shane keeps tracing the notes, like if he stops they might disappear.
“You once told me there’s nothing more committed than ink under your skin,” he says in a silky voice laden with pure pleasure.
“I might have said something along those lines,” I whisper.
“You’re shaking, honey. Why are you shaking?” he asks, turning me around to face him. When he sees my tears, he brings his fingers up and wipes them away from my cheeks.
“Because this is fucking scary.”
“Loving me back is scary?”
“I never said…”
His fingers move to my lips to shush me. “The ink says it all, Bluebird. Tell me, what made you get this tattoo?”
I laugh through my tears. “It was a moment of reckless insanity, I guess. I was in the parlour having a new sparrow done, and you came on the radio playing the song you wrote for me. Getting the tattoo just felt right.”
He studies me for a long moment. “Do you regret getting it?”
I look back at him, not a flicker of uncertainty in my words when I say, “No, and I never will.”
Even if this love isn’t forever, I’ll never regret meeting him. He’s changed my world irrevocably, and the markings on my back symbolise us so completely.
His arm wraps around my waist, his hand going to my shoulders again like he can’t get enough of the feel of the ink.
“You’re my muse,” he murmurs into my lips. “And I love you, Jade Lennon.”
For a long time I just stare at him, before at last the right words come to me. “I love you, too, Shane Arthur.”
***
Believe it or not, we don’t immediately jump into bed and shag each other senseless. We do, however, lie in each other’s arm, touching one another in small ways. He still hasn’t told me why he was AWOL yesterday, so I ask him.
He gives me a sketchy look as he turns his head to me on the pillows and answers, “Right after I set Mona straight, Justin showed up drunk off his face.”
“Oh, no,” I breathe.
“Yeah. He swung for me, clearly looking for a fight. I tried to calm him down, but there was no talking to him.”
“And?”
“And I punched him in the face. There was nothing else for it.”
I burst out laughing. It’s more the way he says it than the actual idea of him hitting Justin that sets me off, his phrasing so polite and proper. So one of us did get to punch the bastard after all.
When I finally gather myself, I quip, “I sincerely hope you broke his nose.”
Shane grimaces. “I did, actually. It was pretty bad. An ambulance had to be called.”
“Shit.”
“Anyway, I thought I was done with him once he was taken to the hospital. I went home and tried calling you, but your phone was switched off. You were probably sleeping, since it was fairly late. I was going to come see you the next morning, but the police showed up at my house to arrest me. Justin had reported me for assault.”
I sit up straight now. “Oh, my God!”
Shane grimaces and strokes my hair. “I was angry at first. They brought me to the station and everything. It was hours before I managed to contact Mona to come and tell them that I only hit Justin in self-defence. In the end she showed up and gave a statement. I was off the hook. The problem was, she’d brought Mum along with her, and after I was let out of the station, they decided to stage an intervention.”
“Uh, what?”
“They said they wanted to have a talk and persuaded me to come back to my parents’ house. I reluctantly agreed. Big mistake. They sat me down in my dad’s study and basically talked at me, telling me what a bad decision I was making by not giving things with Mona another shot. I seriously thought I’d stepped into the Twilight Zone. I mean, Mum must have the shortest memory in history if she thought being with Mona would be good for me.”
“I don’t think it’s about Mona being good for you, Shane. I think your mother would simply prefer you to be with someone like her rather than someone like me.”
His thumb brushes over my temple as he leans down to give me a kiss. “And that right there proves that Mum has the worst taste possible. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. Mona is quite possibly the worst.”
I laugh and move to straddle him. He stares up at me and slides his fingers into mine. “Oh, you do love to flatter, Mr Arthur,” I purr at him.
“Perhaps I’m hoping it will get me somewhere,” he replies, his voice pure gravel.
I move my hips a little, and he responds immediately, the bulge in his pants getting harder. “You’re in with a good chance, but first, you need to finish your story.”
He lets out a long sigh. “They kept me in the room for hours, arguing with me and, as Mum put it” —he pauses and makes bunny ears with his fingers— “trying to get me to see sense. Mona even broke out the waterworks at one point. It was pure hell. I wanted to leave, but it’s difficult to get out of a room when there are two hysterical women standing in your way. Eventually Mona pulled a strop and left. Then it was Mum’s turn to start crying. I didn’t know what to do, so I tried comforting her and asking if she could just let me live my life in a way that would make me happy. She’d knocked back a couple of shots of gin at this point and got all soppy, bawling her eyes out and saying she only wants what’s best for me. A while later she fell asleep. Dad came down then and helped me get her to bed. He’d been hiding upstairs all night, pretending to be dealing with some urgent work matters.”
“As you would,” I put in, laughing.
“Indeed. After that I was so exhausted from dealing with everything that I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up at nine this morning and barely made it home to pack for the trip. I’d been so stressed when the police came to take me to the station the da
y before that I forgot my phone. That’s why I hadn’t contacted you.”
My lips curve. “So you weren’t ignoring me?”
He brings his hands to my hips and squeezes. “I would never ignore you, babe. In fact, you’re kind of impossible to ignore.”
I’m about to bend down to kiss him again when there’s a light knock on the door, followed by Ben exclaiming, “Come and look, it’s snowing out.”
I shake my head. “He’s like a five-year-old sometimes.”
Keeping a hold of my hips, Shane slides me off his body. “Come on, Bluebird. Let’s go see the snow.”
We leave the room and go to stand by the sliding doors in the kitchen to stare out at the falling sheet of whiteness. It comes down so hard that the entire ground is covered in a thick blanket within an hour. After we eat dinner, Ben suggests a snowball fight, and I think I’m the only one who’s against the idea. When they all finally wrangle me into to joining in, I go and grab a thick scarf and some gloves before putting on my coat.
The cold air makes my nose go red as I bend down and scoop up some snow, moulding it into a spherical shape. As I’m doing this, I suddenly get lobbed in the shoulder, the snowball smashing to pieces as it hits me. Looking to my right, I see Shane standing several yards away, wearing a huge grin. There’s snow in his ruffled hair, but I try to ignore how adorable it makes him look and instead run after him, snowball in hand.
He dashes through the tall trees that lead into forestland and I stop running, taking aim and flinging my snowball at him. It hits him right on the cheek, and I laugh uncontrollably. My laughter dies on my lips when he makes a deep growling noise and grabs up a handful of snow. Now I’m in for it. I run in the opposite direction, back toward the house. Shane throws the snow at me, not bothering to make it into a ball.
It hits me in the leg, but I keep running. Seconds later I’m being tackled to the ground by two strong arms. He chuckles in my ear as I struggle to get free of his grasp, but he straddles me. My thighs are caught between his legs, both his hands capturing mine and raising them over my head.
“You don’t play fair,” I say sullenly.
He smiles with teeth and murmurs, “No, I don’t,” before he dips down to give me a spine-tingling kiss. Somewhere nearby I can hear Ben letting out a loud wolf whistle. I just about manage to give him the finger, even though my wrists are still captured in Shane’s grip. He drags his mouth off mine lazily and then stands up, offering me his hand and helping me to my feet.
We go inside, and Clark declares that he’s going to make us all a cup of his homemade hot chocolate. I go and change into some comfy PJs, and Ben fires up the DVD player. When I enter the living room, Shane’s sitting on one of the couches, his stare hot as he takes in my fleece pyjamas. By the way he’s looking at me, you’d think I was wearing some slinky lingerie.
I sit down on the other side of the couch, but he pulls me closer, wrapping his arms tight around me and nipping playfully at my ear. His hand settles on the lowest part of my belly, which means that when Ben starts the movie I can hardly concentrate on the story at all. Clark comes in with a tray of hot chocolates, and I take mine gratefully. The warm liquid and dollop of cream on top soothes my nerves.
This is a good feeling, I think. To have great friends. To be loved. I don’t know what I did to deserve the man I’m currently wrapped up in. Then a dozen recollections flit through my mind.
Looking into the eyes of the devil who killed my sister as he pretended to be innocent.
Puking up blood and vodka as I hunched over a toilet bowl.
Going through alcohol withdrawals. God, the withdrawals were the worst.
Okay, so maybe I do deserve this moment. But I’m still slightly on edge, like I’m going to wake up from a dream. It’s not like I haven’t spent half my life imagining fantasies to try to escape the darkness. I remember him telling me he felt like he dreamt me the first night we met. Perhaps he feels the same way. Perhaps I’m just as much of a miracle to him as he is to me.
What he said to me is always in the back of mind, that how we met is proof that there’s magic in the world. Those words are always there, making me feel a little bit better about living this life full of pain.
As the movie comes to an end, Shane’s hand has started to play beneath the elastic of my pants. I clench my thighs together, thinking of all the things I want him to do to me tonight. Clark asks if we’d like some cheese toasties, but I’m too full of butterflies to eat anything else.
Shane offers to help with the toasties, and I go to our room for a breather. One of those little mundane things in life that bring me pleasure is to dive with all my weight onto a bed without a care to the possibility that you might break it. And that’s what I do.
Jump up.
Dive.
Fall.
Relax.
Then I just lie there, my head turned to the window, counting the flecks of snow as they drift like beacons through the dark night. Fairies perch on their edges, hitching a ride down from their secret world in the sky. They are just as pretty and cute as you might imagine, but don’t get too close, or they’ll bite.
Someone coughs from the doorway, and I look to see Shane leaning against the wall. It feels like he’s been there for a while.
“What were you thinking about just now?” he asks with an indulgent smile.
I shrug and turn back to the window. “About fairies that bite.”
“And here was me thinking it might have been sex.”
I laugh. “Well, that, too.”
Shutting the door firmly behind him, he strides from his spot by the wall. With one knee levelled firmly on the mattress, he stares down at me, and this action alone makes my heart speed up. Then he crawls up my body, stopping when he gets to my stomach. He pushes up my top and presses his face to the rounded part of my lower belly, breathing in deep.
“I fucking love the smell of your skin,” he purrs.
“My skin?”
“It smells like the beach, sun, and sand.”
“I’m hoping this is a classy beach we’re talking about,” I joke.
“It’s beautiful. Not a bit of sewage in sight,” he replies with a devilish wink.
“Well, that’s all right, then.”
His fingers run along the edge of my pants, nudging them down little by little. I stare as he pulls them clean off me and then lowers his face to my mound. His lips press down hard over the silky knickers I’m wearing and I tremble beneath him, heaving, expectant.
His finger traces a circle on the innermost part of my thigh before moving to my underwear and shoving them aside, baring just part of me. I can feel how wet I am as he dips a finger in and groans with pleasure. Two fingers come together to slowly slip inside me, his hungry eyes watching my every reaction.
He works them in and out as my channel clenches around them. God, I need more. Using his teeth, he tugs my knickers down and off me at long last, and I moan loudly when his mouth dives right in. I have to stop myself from moaning a second time, aware of the other people in the house. His tongue laps at me as his fingers pump. The hand he’s not using travels up my body to pinch at my nipples, and I think I might combust. He never neglects a single part of me, ensuring I feel him everywhere at all times. I have never felt more possessed, claimed.
He sucks my clit into his mouth, releasing it with a loud pop. I cry out and tense my legs, an orgasm approaching. When I come, it’s with his mouth licking me hard, his fingers moving faster and his other hand pinching my nipple to the point of pain. Shudders wrack me, but as he moves up my body I realise he has no intention of giving me a break.
His clothes are gone within the next ten seconds, a distant memory. My sex is still sensitive from so recently coming, so when he positions himself and thrusts his cock deep inside, I become boneless.
Mouths meeting, tongues colliding, I taste myself on him, and it’s the most erotic sensation. Like not only has he claimed me, but in a way I’ve claimed him,
too. His brown eyes shimmer with gold under the dim lamp light as he breaks the kiss.
“Love you,” he pants.
I stare right back at him, unable to form words, but silently communicating that I feel the same say. Fucking hell, if there’s magic in the world, then this is it. He comes with a violent thrust, growling and biting gently on my collarbone. I adore this exact moment, the quiet after he’s poured himself into me, the peace that comes over him as he wraps his arms around me and holds me close as though in reverence.
“Happy early thirtieth birthday,” I whisper with a smile.
I can feel him grinning into my skin, when he replies, “Was that my present?”
“Wait and see. I just might have more surprises in store.”
I stroke his dark hair, loving the feel of it. His face is buried in the crook of my neck, and then I notice he’s humming a tune, humming it so softly that I can only barely make it out.
“What’s that?” I ask, my tender voice echoing around the room and mixing with his hum.
He nuzzles me. “Just a song.”
“One you wrote? It sounds like a lullaby.”
He shakes his head ever so slightly. “I haven’t written it yet. It came to me just now.”
A flush marks my cheeks as I comprehend the fact that he thought of new music while he was inside me. Electric tingles prick at my skin, my every pore coming alive.
To be a muse is to be a wonder in someone else’s eyes, flaws and all.
Twenty-Seven
Six months later…
By some strange twist of fate, I find myself in the southwest of the country again. This time I’ve travelled with Shane for a performance. He was asked to come play as a guest with the Symphony Orchestra at the Cork Opera House.
I love seeing him play in the symphony back home, but there’s something extra special about his solos. It’s like I’m getting to view all the passion and emotion that’s inside him from the comfort of my seat in the audience. I get to witness how his playing affects others, how he sometimes brings a tear to their eyes and often brings them to their feet with applause by the end.
Still Life with Strings Page 28
