I stare at the candlelit table just in front of us and the tea lights shimmering all around the pool’s edge. Somehow Valentina has turned the very unromantic rehab pool into a den of romance. She’s even strung little Christmas lights in the shape of stars all around the sign signalling the pool’s depth, and scattered rose petals around the table to spell out our initials. I wonder if she’s embellished Walker’s suggestions or whether that was his idea.
‘Didi?’ Walker prompts, sounding worried.
‘It’s perfect,’ I say, tears welling up. He’s remembered what I said about my idea of a romantic date being on a beach under the stars. It’s not quite what I envisaged, but this is way better. I whack him suddenly on the arm. ‘You said you weren’t romantic! You big liar.’
Walker’s lips purse. He looks uncomfortable. ‘It’s Valentina’s doing. And besides, it’s not what I’d call exotic,’ he says, grimacing.
I squeeze his arm. ‘It’s perfect,’ I whisper. ‘I can’t believe you did all this . . . Oh,’ I say, suddenly noticing the painting on the wall over by the showers.
‘What?’ Walker says anxiously.
‘Did Valentina get any help with the decorating?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It looks like Dodds might have had a hand in it.’
‘Oh shit, what did he paint?’
I tip my head to one side and study the painting, which is sitting on an easel to one side of the table. ‘It’s a love heart.’
‘Oh,’ says Walker. ‘OK. That sounds like a departure. Maybe he’s expanding his oeuvre.’
‘I don’t think so. It’s exploding.’
‘Oh.’
‘But there are no body parts. So that’s something.’
‘Is the iPod set up?’ Walker asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, heading towards it where it sits on a little side table.
I hit play. Justin Bieber starts to pump out of speakers arranged in the corner.
‘Ha-ha,’ I say.
Walker grins at me. ‘Hit shuffle.’
I do, and some mellow jazz comes on instead. ‘We’re going to start your jazz education tonight,’ he tells me.
‘Oh, really,’ I say, pulling out a chair and guiding Walker towards it.
‘But first, dinner.’
I lift the lid on my plate and see that there’s a platter of sushi in front of me. ‘Oh my God,’ I say. ‘Sushi! You remembered!’
‘Of course,’ he says.
‘Is there champagne?’ Walker asks.
‘There is,’ I say, spotting it in a wine bucket at my foot. ‘Do you want to open it?’
I hand it to him and watch him unwrap the foil and pop the cork. The noise makes me glance over my shoulder. What if someone walks in and finds us in here?
‘Are you sure we’re OK to be in here?’ I ask.
Walker grins, and, feeling carefully for the glasses on the table, starts to pour the champagne. ‘Yeah, I paid off the orderlies. And besides, there’s a sweepstake going. It’s in their best interests to leave us alone.’
‘A sweepstake?’ I ask.
Walker nods.
I grimace. ‘I don’t want to know the details, do I?’
Walker shakes his head and hands me a glass. We chink.
‘To the future,’ I say.
Walker says nothing in reply and I frown. I want him to start thinking of the future. I want him to start thinking of a future with me in it, but so far there’s no prompting him to go there. He shuts down every time I mention it.
I set my glass down and reach across the table to take his hand, deciding not to push it tonight of all nights. ‘So,’ I ask instead, ‘what do we have to do to win this sweepstake?’
Walker wouldn’t tell me any details, but I can guess it involves us sleeping together, a fact that becomes even more obvious when we get back to his room after our five-course dinner and I spot the three foil packages prominently displayed on his nightstand.
‘Um, Walker?’ I say, suddenly nervous. I had thought we’d agreed to no sex until he was out of here, and though it wouldn’t take much to convince me to break that rule – in fact, it would probably take him just saying my name or loosening the top button on his shirt – I’m not sure a hospital bed is the most romantic place for our first time.
‘Yeah?’ he murmurs, stroking his hand down my arm. My resolve is gone, just like that.
‘Do you want to . . .’ I stop, not sure how to spell it out to him.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘What’s the plan now?’ I fudge.
‘Well,’ he says, bending to kiss my neck. ‘I thought maybe we could have dessert.’
‘Didn’t we just have that?’ I say, referring to the chocolate cake we just ate down by the pool.
Walker kisses my jaw and I lose my train of thought, closing my eyes as the champagne in my bloodstream starts to fizz. I press myself against him and feel something hard against my hip bone.
I pull back. ‘Are you happy to see me?’ I ask, laughing, ‘or is that a long, oblong box in your pocket?’
‘Oh, shit,’ he says. ‘I forgot. Here.’ He rummages in his pocket and pulls out a neatly wrapped package. ‘Your birth-day present.’
‘You got me a present?’ I ask in amazement. ‘I thought this whole night was my present. You didn’t need to get me anything.’
‘Open it,’ he says, smiling.
I do. It’s a box. A jewellery box. Inside I find a delicate silver bracelet. I lift it out and see that there are two small charms dangling off it. One’s a boat. The other’s a tiny Buddha.
‘Do you like it?’ he asks, looking at me with such intense worry on his face it hurts to see it.
‘Yes,’ I say, nodding, my voice husky. No one has ever bought me jewellery before. But more than that, more than the romance of it, he’s actually thought about what it signifies. The boat represents our day on the water. The Buddha is a reference to the meditations I put on the iPod for him.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, wrapping it around my wrist and doing up the catch.
Then I put my arms around his neck. He shuffles his feet apart so I’m standing between them. ‘Thank you,’ I say, kissing him on the lips.
‘You’re welcome,’ he murmurs as his lips brush against mine.
‘You know, you call me romantic,’ I say, ‘but actually I think you’re the closet romantic in this relationship.’
I brush his hair off his forehead and study him, my heart feeling overwhelmingly full, so full it’s almost in danger of exploding like the one in Dodds’ painting.
‘Let’s be clear. I am not a romantic and I’m not in the closet about anything. I just want you to know what you mean to me. How grateful I am,’ Walker tells me.
I look into his eyes. There’s a tiny flicker of anxiety in them still, a flicker of that deep-down buried hurt, and all I want to do is find a way to excavate it and get rid of it completely.
I run my hands down his arms, thread my fingers through his. ‘I think you need to show me,’ I whisper.
‘Show you what?’ Walker murmurs back.
‘How much I mean to you.’
I glance at the nightstand. There’s a part of me that wonders whether giving someone like Walker my heart is a wise thing to do. He might not mean to break it, but the future is so uncertain. And though he’s getting better, he’s still not fixed. He might never be. I’ve seen the damage that the kind of trauma he’s been through can wreak on a relationship, and I know full well what I could be walking into. Sometimes Walker frustrates me beyond measure – when he won’t talk, when he sinks into his dark place and I can’t find a way to him – but still I can’t keep away. If my dad found out what we were doing, he’d kill me. I’d be kicked off my course, too, and for good reason. But all those arguments are meaningless in the face of my huge wanting for him.
I want him. I don’t care what stands in the way. I’d sacrifice it all. If I’m going to get my heart broken, then at least it wi
ll be by someone who was worth giving my heart to, not someone who sees only the top layer of me and who isn’t interested in what lies beneath.
Walker is biting his lip. ‘Didi,’ he says. ‘I don’t think we should sleep together.’
‘Oh,’ I say, glancing at the nightstand again. ‘But you have, er, condoms, on the nightstand. I thought . . .’
Walker turns his head as though he can see. ‘What? Oh man, that was Sanchez . . .’
‘He put them there?’ I say, finally catching on. ‘Oh.’
He catches my hand. ‘Believe me, there’s nothing I want more. Nothing. At this moment, I wouldn’t even trade getting my sight back.’
It’s my turn to bite my lip.
‘But not here,’ he continues, gesturing at the room. ‘Not in this room. Not when anyone could walk in and there’s a bet on and when your job is on the line. I want it to be . . . better than this.’
‘OK,’ I say, trying to hide my disappointment.
‘I want to be able to see you. I want to look in your eyes the first time I make love to you.’
My stomach flips. No one has ever said those words to me before. No one has ever told me they want to make love to me. It’s always been about sex. I am biting my lip so hard I can almost taste blood. But what if you never get your sight back? I want to ask.
‘Having said that,’ he goes on with a small smile, ‘there are other ways I can show you how much you mean to me.’
‘There are?’ I ask.
He nods and stands up. My legs are suddenly boneless. I tip my head back. One of the things I love most about Walker is his height, how when he puts his arms around me I feel completely safe and protected.
He takes my face in his hands and his thumbs caress my jaw and my lips. I close my eyes. My breathing speeds up.
‘I want to touch you,’ Walker says in a low voice.
‘Mmmm,’ is all I manage to murmur in response.
‘All over.’
My body starts to tingle as his thumbs draw a line down my neck towards my collarbone.
‘Starting with my hands,’ he whispers into my ear. He kisses the spot just beneath my ear that makes my toes curl. I have to hold onto his shoulders to steady myself. ‘And then my mouth,’ he murmurs in a low voice that sends a shudder right thought me. ‘And then my tongue.’
There’s a sharp tightening in my stomach, butterflies being let loose, starting to riot. Walker’s hands slide up my back, making it arch in response. He hasn’t even started yet and I’m already one hundred per cent under his control. He could do anything he wanted to me right now.
‘Are you OK with that?’ he asks.
‘Ye-e-s,’ I stammer.
‘Good,’ he says. And his fingers locate the zipper of my dress and slowly start to ease it down.
I hold my breath, fire racing through my veins. When he’s done with the zipper he just as slowly traces his hand up my bare spine. I draw in a breath. It’s the first real skin-to-skin contact we’ve had, and little jolts of electricity have started to spark down my limbs. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. He reaches my shoulders and hooks his thumbs through the sleeves of my dress and slides it off, pausing to kiss his way along my collarbone.
My dress drops to the ground and I’m standing in just my underwear. Walker’s hands fall to my waist, resting on the curve of my hips. His expression is serious and I can’t stop myself from reaching for his face.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask, suddenly worried that he isn’t liking what he’s finding.
He smiles and takes my hand to kiss the palm. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’m just trying to savour you, take my time. It’s taking monumental amounts of willpower that I’m not sure I possess.’
I smile and start unbuttoning his shirt. He frowns. ‘Wait,’ he starts to say, ‘this is meant to be about you—’ but he silences himself abruptly when I slide my hand beneath his shirt and press it against his chest.
He shuts his eyes and his jaw tenses as I move my fingers over the solid lines of his stomach. His skin is warm, soft, perfect. Is this how he feels when he touches me? Almost frantically I start tearing at the rest of the buttons on his shirt, desperate to finally be properly skin to skin with him, to feel myself pressed against him.
Walker helps, pulling the shirt off over his head, and I take a deep breath and step back so I can fully appreciate him. He doesn’t let me for long – his hands reach for me and he pulls me against him, his hands exploring my waist, my stomach, smoothing up my back until they come to my bra. He pauses and I press closer against him and he expertly undoes my bra one-handed. It joins my dress on the floor and I stand there and watch the darkening desire on his face as his hands move to cup my breasts.
He dips his head and takes my nipple into his mouth, drawing on it softly at first, and when I grip his shoulders and let out a gasp, harder. His free hand pulls my leg up against his hip, strokes behind the knee. I’m breathing so hard I have pins and needles in my arms and legs.
He kisses me, deeply, and the pins and needles magnify. Lights start to flash behind my eyes. Walker suddenly takes my hands and turns me around so I’m facing the bed and he’s behind me, pressing against my back. I want to ask what he’s doing, but then he starts to kiss down my spine, his hands stroking across my stomach, outlining my ribs. He’s so gentle it hurts, makes me push my hips back and into him, makes me impatient for more. I reach behind and pull him against me, wanting to feel him.
I hear his low-throated laugh in response. He catches my wrists and pulls them in front of me, pinning them to my stomach with one hand. With his other he keeps caressing me, slowly, tortuously slowly, until every nerve ending in my body feels like it’s being licked by flames.
The whole time he lays kisses across my back, the tops of my shoulders, my neck. When his hands reach the waistband of my underwear, I’m so on edge that I let out a moan. He pauses and I bite my lip to stop from begging him. He has me exactly where he wants me.
‘I haven’t even used my tongue yet,’ he whispers in my ear, and I let out another moan before I can stop myself.
His hand slides briefly inside my underwear and then out again as if he’s decided to slow things down. I try to get control of my breathing. Walker releases me and turns me around again so we’re facing each other.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he says, kissing me.
‘You can’t even see me.’
‘I don’t need to.’
I run my fingers over the ridges of his stomach again, as hungry for him as he seems to be for me. When my hands find his belt I start to undo it, but he catches my hand and pulls it away, shaking his head with a smile.
I frown. ‘Not yet. I think we should slow things down because I have a lot more exploring to do, and I want to take my time. OK?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I croak.
He nudges me backwards onto the bed and stands between my legs. I take him in. ‘You’re beautiful,’ I murmur. ‘So beautiful.’
My words are stolen from me by his lips. ‘You can’t call a marine beautiful. There’s a law against that,’ he jokes, still with his lips against mine.
‘But you are,’ I say.
His jaw tenses. ‘Shhhh,’ he says. ‘Lie back.’
I lie down on the bed, looking up at him standing over me. With a smile on his face he hooks his thumbs into my underwear and pulls them down. I lift my hips to help him, and next thing I know I’m lying naked on the bed. Walker takes a deep breath in, as though steadying himself, and then comes and lies down next to me.
I curl towards him and he pulls me closer, kissing the top of my head.
‘So I’m completely naked and you’re wearing pants still, how is that fair?’ I ask.
He considers this for a moment. ‘OK,’ he says and gets up off the bed. I watch him undo his pants and drop them.
Holy shit.
He climbs back on the bed beside me and we start to kiss. I can feel how hard he is, but every time my hand wa
nders lower he catches it and brings it back up to his chest. His hand, however, is circling lower and lower, even as he kisses me. Finally he reaches my thighs and gently pushes them apart. He’s propped on one elbow and I’m lying on my back.
His fingertips stroke the inside of my thigh, teasingly soft, and he keeps it up until my back is arching off the bed. He must be able to hear how ragged my breathing is.
Just when I’m on the verge of begging him, his fingers are there and then sliding inside me. He murmurs something, his lips against my neck, but I don’t hear what. I can’t hear. I can’t think. There’s just this feeling that takes over, wipes my mind clean, blood surging, electrifying.
‘You’re so wet,’ he murmurs into my ear.
I arch again as he presses into me, building up rhythm, stroking his thumb over me.
My nails bite into his arm. He stops.
My eyes flash open, heavy-lidded, drugged.
He’s smiling. ‘Not yet. I still want to taste you.’
I grab a pillow and bury my head in it to smother my frustrated groans. I can hear him laughing.
I toss the pillow aside and reach for him again, but he snatches my wrist once more and pins me down on the bed. ‘Ah-ah-ah,’ he says, with a smile that turns serious. ‘I want to be in control tonight. Let me.’
I stare up at him, into the dark grey of his eyes, hooded in the low light but shining. He’s driving me slowly insane but I see that relinquishing control to him is what he wants, or even needs, so I give in.
I relax, and he senses it and lets go of my wrist to start kissing his way down my body. By the time he makes it to my stomach, I’m so on the verge that when his tongue starts to circle where his fingers left off, I lose control completely. Walker pins me to the bed with his hand on my stomach and doesn’t let up, his fingers joining in, until I’m gasping, my fingers twisting through his hair.
He keeps me on the verge, I don’t know how, but sensing every time I’m close and slowing down, and it could be minutes later or it could be hours, but when he finally lets me fall over the edge, it’s not so much a fall but a tumble that goes on for what feels like infinity and leaves me lying there afterwards breathless and shaking and close to tears.