He climbed on top of me, lifted my white T-shirt and pressed a kiss on my belly button. My body jerked with the intense pleasure at having a man’s lips on my skin and this time I couldn’t contain my gasp. Luke raised his head, grinned at my response to him before tugging my T-shirt over my head. He threw it aside before returning his lips to my stomach, his kisses moving higher and higher until his mouth covered my left breast. I closed my eyes, arched back my body and sighed as I gave in to bliss, courtesy of Luke Wiseman…
chapter 24
Why have you got your clothes on?” Tegan’s voice asked in my ear.
“Hmmmm?” I replied.
“Mummy Ryn,” she persisted. “Why have you got your clothes on?”
I’m never, ever going to sleep in again, I thought with a desperate sadness. It’s going to be like this for the next ten years. And then, when she’s a teenager, I’m never going to sleep because I’ll be worrying about her going out and coming home late or, worse, not coming home at all.
Tegan’s small fingers gripped my forearm, shook me. “Mummy Ryn, why have you got your clothes on? Did you sleep in them?”
I don’t know, did I?
I slipped an arm down and felt my legs. They were indeed covered in my jeans. I definitely had my bra on because I could feel it digging into my ribs. And I had my T-shirt on. Hang on, didn’t Luke take that T-shirt off? I wondered through my drowsiness. Luke! I sat bolt upright, causing Tegan to jump back in shock. I glanced down to my right, expecting to see his sleeping form, but instead, that side of the bed was empty and remarkably crease-free. It didn’t look as though I’d even rolled over it in the night.
“Do you always sleep in your clothes?” Tegan asked, and began her process of climbing up onto the bed: right foot on the wooden base, haul herself onto the mattress by clinging to the covers. I absently helped her up as I ransacked my memory. The last thing I remember, Luke was covering my body in hungry kisses. We were going to have sex. That obviously hadn’t happened, not from the state of both the bed and me.
“No, sweetheart, I don’t always sleep in my clothes. You’ve seen my pajamas,” I said. Tegan struggled her way under my covers.
“Why aren’t you wearing them?”
“Because I was too tired to get changed.” And there it was, the unpleasant truth. I cringed at the thought of it: I’d been lying under an incredibly good-looking, seminaked man and I’d fallen asleep. That was bad enough; the fact that full years had passed since I’d slept with someone made it even more humiliating. The last person I’d kissed was Ted in the hotel room; the last person I’d had sex with was Nate the day before I found out about Adele. Both occurrences were more than two years ago.
In that time, sex had never been on the agenda. I’d been so intent on working out who I was since I’d become Kamryn Matika—single and best-friendless—that sex became something I’d do when I’d pieced myself back together. And love, which was always lagging behind sex for me, wasn’t even a consideration. The first hurdle would have been sex, allowing myself to be intimate with someone new when only one man had seen me naked for more than half a decade. Allowing someone to kiss and touch and enter me. Allowing myself to be physically vulnerable again. I’d thought that would be easy, but obviously not. Because when sex came a-knocking, I sparked out.
“Who is your letter from?” Tegan asked, pointing to the bedside table. A piece of folded paper was propped up against the base of my bedside lamp with my name scrawled on it. I picked it up and found it was in fact two pieces of paper—the one underneath had Tegan on it. I handed the note to her, which Tegan read out loud.
“Dear T,
Thank you for the picture of me at the zoo. I will put it in my house. I hope to see you soon. Look after Ryn, she is very tired.
Love, Luke.”
I looked down at my own note and read it silently.
Hi Ryn,
I decided it was best I leave in case Tegan came in—there’d be a lot of explaining to do if she found us asleep together. Thanks for dinner. Let’s wash up together again some time, yeah?
See ya, Luke.
“Is that from Luke as well?” Tegan asked.
I bit down on my lower lip and, with a half-smile, nodded. Each time I thought about our first kiss lust deliquesced my insides. I could have done it with Luke. Despite the worries I’d had last night, I could have started my sex life again with him. That was a liberating thought. It meant I had moved a step along the road to getting over Nate.
Tegan twisted her mouth to one side and frowned at me. “Do you like Luke?” she eventually asked.
“Yes, I like Luke,” I replied, curling my arm around her and pulling her close.
“Do you like him lots and lots?” she asked.
“Um, yeah,” I replied, gazing down at her.
“More than you like me?” she asked.
“Of course not!” I screeched, horrified that the thought had even occurred to her. “Tiga, I love you.” That was the first time I’d said it to her. “I like Luke, but I love you. I’ll not love anyone like I love you. Not ever.”
“Really and truly?”
“Yes. I promise. You’re my first child. My only child.”
She grinned. “I like you too,” she confirmed. “But I like Luke more.”
chapter 25
We won’t do anything,” Tegan said.
I raised an eyebrow at the little girl sitting on Luke’s lap. He in turn was sitting on my big red beanbag. They were both staring at me as I stood in the living room/kitchen doorway.
“You expect me to believe that?” I replied, in case she didn’t realize what the raised eyebrow meant.
“We honestly won’t do anything,” Luke said, in the same tone she had used. It’d been a fortnight since Luke and I had kissed.
The morning after, he’d shown up and acted as though nothing untoward had gone on between us. He’d taken us out for a drive and chatted away like normal. I bought us ice cream and we fed some already plump ducks in Roundhay Park. Even when Tegan fell asleep while we were driving home he avoided all chat about the night before. By the time I let us into the flat I started to wonder if he had flirted with me, if we had kissed over my dirty dishes, if he had started to undress me. My only proof something had happened was the note stashed under my pillow, but even that seemed ambiguous after a day of his nonchalance. My paranoia grew until I decided, as Tegan got ready for her bath, that I’d imagined it all. My fantasies had taken over to the extent that I didn’t know where they ended and reality began.
After Tegan had been bathed, read to and convinced to go to sleep, Luke had flopped down on the sofa beside me. “She’s knackering, especially when she’s knackered,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. “Right, I’d better get on with doing the washing up.”
Before I could get up, he grabbed my wrist, pulled me back saying, “Oh no you don’t.” He pushed me against the armrest and kissed me, his mouth firm and insistent against mine. “I knew I had to keep it together today,” he explained in the gaps between kisses. “If I mentioned it or even looked at you too long I knew I wouldn’t be able to control myself.”
I sighed in relief. “Oh, thank God. I started to wonder if I imagined it all.”
“No, you didn’t.” He kissed me again, deep and slow.
“I’d like us to go to bed, but only if I won’t send you to sleep.”
“Are you going to hold that against me forever?”
“Not forever, but for a while. I think I’m entitled.”
And that was it. We went to bed and I didn’t fall asleep until after Luke had gone—I wouldn’t let him stay because I didn’t want Tegan to find us in bed together.
Adele had been so cautious about men and Tegan. Very few men met her daughter—he had to have long-term potential before that happened. Adele wanted Tegan’s life to be as uninterrupted as possible, didn’t want her daughter to become attached to a man who would be gone if the relationship end
ed. Once again I’d screwed up; had gone about this the wrong way. My man was in our lives before I’d bedded him. If it didn’t work out, we’d still have to see each other because Tegan would think the world was coming to an end otherwise. So, even after two weeks, we were keeping things under wraps, trying to work out if we had anything beyond sex going for us. I didn’t like lying to Tegan, even if it was lying by omission, but it was better than her thinking we were going to be playing happy family only to find that after a few weeks Luke and I didn’t feel much for each other.
Although, all the signs were good. He spent at least three nights a week at our place. I enjoyed his company. And his body. And his kisses. He was affectionate and tactile when we were talking in bed. He focused all his attention on me when we were alone together and he often sent me texts to say he was thinking of me. I enjoyed it; I responded, but it was sex. Nothing more. That wasn’t completely true. It was more than physical sex, it was emotional sex too. It was a blend of lust and like that meant I did think about him when he wasn’t with me, but every kiss, every touch, every nice word skimmed the surface of my heart, none of it penetrated. He had yet to break through to who I was. Still, it was great to have him around. Especially at times like this, when I was going to wash my hair. Usually Tegan sat in the bathroom reading or talking to me so I knew she wasn’t setting fire to herself or breaking something while I washed my hair. Today, Luke had offered to sit with her.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” I asked again.
“Yes,” they chorused. It was their innocent eyes and calm faces that made me nervous. I wasn’t trusting at the best of times but when the two of them seemed so eager to get rid of me…
“We’re not going to break anything,” Luke reassured.
Now why did he have to say that?
“We promise,” added Tegan. “Really and truly.”
I sighed and slunk away to the bathroom. I had to trust them, didn’t I? If Luke was sticking around, was going to be a bigger part of my life, I had to trust them.
The chrome showerhead spurted out water, and I watched the fine spray arc into the bath, filling the room with the sound of swishing water. I knelt down, put my head over the bath, drenched my hair, then raked shampoo through my waterlogged black locks. Gosh. The thought swept through me as I lathered up. Gosh. I was relaxed. Still inside. It was such an alien sensation.
I was always so frantic, rushing: trying to fit lots of things in while thinking of Tegan, and what she might want for dinner, if she needed new clothes, if she was all right, if she was bored, if she was hurting, whether I should let her start Saturday morning karate classes like she wanted. Relaxing wasn’t something I did very often. And relaxing at the office wasn’t an option either, especially now that the new marketing director (Luke) had brought in a host of initiatives and ideas that had doubled my workload. We were going to be expanding Living Angeles with separate magazines for the home, clothing and children’s departments. Plus an online shopping guide. And, as marketing person in charge of publications, I was overseeing these things. Since all this extra work had started, I rarely took a lunch break. After Tegan was in bed I’d spend more hours on the computer until Luke lured me to bed. Sometimes I’d even get up after he’d gone and work some more. My life was frantic. Calmness, like this moment, was a state I rarely experienced.
I vigorously washed out the shampoo. A quick towel dry and I slathered on the conditioning treatment. I had to wait ten minutes for it to fulfill its promise to smooth down cuticles and lock in shine thereby giving me beautiful hair. I checked the clock on my bathroom radio. Ten minutes. I could use the time to curl up on my bed or I could go check up on those two…
Walking in bare feet on a soft-pile carpet meant they couldn’t hear me approach the living room, nor notice that I stopped to watch them through the gap between the door frame and the hinge. They were still sitting in the position they had been ten minutes ago—Luke on the beanbag, Tegan snuggled back on top of him. On her lap sat my blue and green globe. Luke’s right index finger was pressed on the globe as he pointed something out.
“It was very hot,” Luke was saying. “So hot, in fact, I got sunstroke.”
“What’s sunstroke?” Tegan asked.
“It’s when you don’t drink enough water but spend too much time in the sun without being covered up properly and you get ill. I had to spend a few days in bed getting better.”
“Did you nearly die?” she asked.
“No, but I was very ill.”
“My mummy died,” Tegan said.
My heart stopped. She hardly ever mentioned her mum to me. Everything I’d read about bereavement and children said to let the child come to you with their questions, but sometimes I wanted to check how Tegan was doing. To ask if she wanted to talk about Adele. Cowardice, fear of upsetting her—fear of upsetting myself—stopped me. I wouldn’t even know what to say. Would Luke?
“She’s gone to heaven to be with Jesus and the angels,” Tegan added.
“I know,” Luke replied, “Ryn told me. Do you miss her?”
Tegan bit her inner lip, then nodded. “Sometimes,” she said in a small voice, “I want to tell her things and I can’t. I wanted to show her my homework with the special star because I did it so good. But I can’t. My mummy can’t see it.”
“Have you told Ryn this?”
“No,” she said in such a whisper I had to lean my head closer to the door to hear her. “She cries about my mummy going to heaven. I don’t want her to be sad.”
How does she know I cry about Adele dying? I never did it in front of her, only in the dead of night, when I was alone. I’d bury my face in a pillow to muffle any sounds and cry. Never loudly. Maybe I wasn’t as discreet as I thought. Maybe, like Luke, she picked up on the emptiness in my eyes after I’d cried.
“I know Ryn is sad, but she’d be sadder to know that you’re not telling her something that upsets you. If you want to talk about your mummy, then tell her. She won’t mind. She loves you. Promise me you’ll talk to her?”
Tegan said nothing for a moment, then nodded. A short, decisive nod.
“Really and truly?” he asked.
“Yes, Luke,” she said.
“Good girl.”
Tegan spun the globe, stopped it with her finger. “Have you been there?” She pointed to another green bit on the globe.
“Australia,” Luke read. “No, but I was planning on going there one day. Maybe the three of us could go together.”
“You and me and Mummy Ryn?” Tegan gasped. “On a plane and everything?”
“Yes, if Ryn’s up for it.”
Tegan visibly sagged at the thought. “No, she won’t want to go.”
“Why not?”
“Because she can’t do her hair.”
Luke, the git, laughed.
Luke’s six-foot-two body wrapped around my five-foot-six frame was something I’d started to get used to. It felt natural to have his skin pressed up against mine, his long, sculpted limbs curled around me. One of his hands would lazily stroke my forearms as he nuzzled into my neck. That night, he was even more clingy, his face cosseted against my neck. Sex had been different as well. He’d stared down at me the whole way through, his eyes large and sorrowful, as though on the verge of tears. Afterwards, he’d cradled me close in his arms, as though I might evaporate if he didn’t hold on tight enough. “Ryn,” he began.
“Hmm?” I replied. I steeled myself because his voice, low and hesitant, told me he was about to say something awful. He took my hand in his, kissed each of my knuckles. It was going to be extraordinarily bad news.
“I’m sorry for how I treated you,” he blurted out.
“Eh?” I replied. That was the last thing I expected to hear. I’d been preparing myself for terminal illness or being transferred abroad or even that I was going to be sacked, not “I’m sorry.”
“The things I said to you, how I used to look at you, the things I thought…” He paused, win
cing as though replaying them in his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was so wrong. You’re beautiful. Inside and out. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before. You’re beautiful. I look at what you’ve done for Tegan and how you treat me despite what I was like…I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry.”
“Ah, it’s over with. And you were probably right. I mean, I am a bit of a—”
“Don’t,” he cut in sternly, putting his fingers over my lips to stop me talking. “Don’t make a joke of it. I couldn’t bear it. I hate myself for how I was.”
“It’s all right,” I hushed. “You weren’t the first, I doubt you’ll be the last.”
“How do you bear it?”
“It’s been the same all my life, I don’t let it bother me.” Luke’s arms tightened around me. “Seriously, it’s not a problem. I’ve developed a thick skin where I don’t believe anything that anyone says. That way, I know that no one can get to me because if it’s not true, it can’t hurt me.”
“Does that apply to good things too?”
I thought about it. About how it took me ages to accept anything that Nate said—and he always said the loveliest things. From day one he called me beautiful. Said he could feel the warmth from my smile. More than once he’d told me I was his dream woman. But it was years before I believed him, before it sunk in that he meant it, and when I accepted he genuinely loved me, I started to rely on hearing his compliments, which made it all the more painful when they were gone. “I suppose.”
“That means you don’t let yourself feel anything.”
“No, I feel plenty. I just don’t let other people’s beliefs and attitudes upset me.”
“So you don’t believe that other people like you?” he asked.
“I didn’t say that, I said I don’t let it affect me. If people like me, that’s fab, but it doesn’t stop me from existing. If they don’t, that’s fab too cos I don’t care and still I’m existing.”
“That’s such a sad way to live.”