Authors: Jessica Hawkins
Tags: #contemporary fiction, #debut, #romance, #contemporary romance, #Contemporary, #series, #contemporary romance series, #Adult, #drama, #new authors
Come Alive (9 page)
I pulled his shirt from his pants and undid the
buttons with tremulous hands. I slid it over his shoulders. His
pecs
were hard and coarse under my palms, and I kissed them,
breathing in the fresh woodsy smell that had been muted by his shirt.
He undid my top button deftly. After each button,
he glanced up and looked me squarely in the eyes. His hands glided under the
fabric to hold my waist. We were looking into each other’s eyes, my body securely
in his grip, as if to say
‘In this
moment, you are mine.’
He pulled me to his bare torso and wrapped me in
strong arms. A hand over my hair secured my cheek to his chest. Between his
heartbeat and mine, I heard nothing else.
My desire grew, and my skin burned with the need
to meld with him. I remembered how he had felt inside of me, driving me to the
edge with exceptional focus. When I was sure I couldn’t stand another minute,
he let go.
Confusion cut through my ethereal haze. “What
are you doing?”
He stepped back suddenly and pinched the bridge
of his nose. “I don’t know,” he said up to the ceiling. “I wanted this . .
. .”
I stood staring at him, wavering with my skirt
pooled at my feet. The blood drained from my face. “Wanted?”
“It’s so wrong. But I can’t stop thinking about
you, about that night.”
“I
want
this,” I whispered.
His face was still pointed upward, appealing to
a higher power, maybe, I wasn’t sure. Avoiding my gaze, he stepped forward
again. He tugged the bottom of my blouse and fingered the last button for a
long second before closing it. We both watched as his hands closed each button.
He crouched down and picked up the skirt.
Methodically, he tucked in my blouse, smoothing his hand over my stomach, and
reached around to zip me up. I just stood there as his smell taunted me,
tempting memories on the verge. His fingers combed through my hair. They went
to touch my lips, but he leaned in to kiss me desperately instead. I was still
shocked into immobility, but my body responded on its own. My arms wrapped
around his neck, and my mouth gave into him. I did not wonder why he stopped. I
did not wonder why
I
couldn’t stop. I
blocked the thoughts from my brain and melted into his hands in my hair, his
breath with mine, a kiss that was a different kind of passionate than I’d ever
experienced.
But we broke apart when he tore his lips from
mine. I fixated on a button rising and falling with his chest, trying to catch
my own breath. My arms slithered down from his neck, and he caught my wrists. “I
can’t do this because I care, not because I don’t. I can’t do this again, and I
don’t think you can either.”
He was wrong. I could do it. The realization
came with a painful constriction of my heart. He had me so wound up in him that
I saw nothing else. But his words made sense, so I nodded.
He dropped my wrists and backed away. I watched,
transfixed, as he re-buttoned his own shirt and shrugged on his suit jacket.
Watching him dress himself in clothing I couldn’t touch – a chest, a face,
hands that I couldn’t feel – put my entire body on edge. I had almost
been allowed to show him how much I cared for him, but it had been dashed away,
disintegrating under my fingers.
My phone chiming from my purse relieved me of my
torture. But relief quickly drained away, and my jaw fell as I read Bill’s text
message.
Sep
5, 2012 1:58 PM
Called Jeanine.
Gave her our offer!
Champagne tonight, babe.
David was leaving the room when I finally looked
up from the screen. I’d just thrown myself at another man. And worse, I’d
realized only minutes before that Bill’s and my problems might be deeper than I
thought. And now –
David stopped short in the doorway, and I halted
just short of colliding with him. “Jesus,” he said, peering at his phone. “The
appraiser already e-mailed.”
“I know.” He looked up and his head cocked. Before
he could ask how, I said, “Bill just made an offer.”
His expression morphed. The grandfather clock
chimed twice. It was as if every thought that passed through his mind were
trying to break free, but his mouth remained set in a rigid line.
“David?” I asked as he stared down at me. “Are
you all right?”
He cleared his throat and fixed his gaze over my
head. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
hesitated a moment. I waited for him to speak, my eyes darting between his face
and the handle. Instead, he opened the door and stepped out onto the broken
walkway. I followed him to a sleek, silver
Mercedes-Benz.
I ran my hands over my suddenly cold arms,
wishing for a sweater to curl into at that moment. With automatic movements, he
opened the passenger door to let me in. I tried not to look over at him as we
pulled away, but after a few moments of silence had passed, I couldn’t help
myself. He looked back at me and smiled.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I looked around the unfamiliar car. “Are you mad
about what just happened?” I asked the dashboard.
He reached over confidently to squeeze my bare
knee. “No.”
I covered his hand with mine. There was nothing
and everything to say. We were quiet the rest of the way home.
Our hands remained on my leg during the drive. I
studied both of them, the way his long fingers and massive palm took up the
whole lower half of my thigh. The gesture was meant to be comforting. But to me
it was erotic. When he adjusted his grip, I silently willed his hand to slide
up my skirt. But it didn’t, and when I smoothed a fingertip over his knuckles,
he flipped his palm up and took my hand.
There were no appropriate words: good-bye, see
you
soon,
see you never – none of it felt right.
So I let go of his hand and climbed out when he pulled up to the curb.
“Olivia.”
I leaned back into the car. There was a
strangely uncomfortable look on his face.
“There are other options.”
I stared back into his eyes, trying not to dive
across the car into his lap. After a moment, I just shut the door and vowed to
forget what he’d just said.
~
As soon as
the front door shut behind me, Bill was in the kitchen.
“How
was your day? Get back to the office all right?”
“Yes.”
“How’d
you like driving in the architect’s car? It’s a V12. I noticed it on my way
out. Your dad would love it.”
I
looked up at him and set my purse on the counter. “Sure.”
“He seemed impressed with the house. Did
he say anything to you?”
“Honey,
I just walked in the door,” I said, untying the belt of my jacket. I removed it
slowly and hung it up as Bill waited. “What happened with the jury?” I braced
myself against the counter to slide off my shoes.
His
smile was victorious. “We won.”
“Oh,
Bill. That’s great news.”
“I
was worried that they came to a verdict so quickly, but it turned out in our
favor. So aren’t you going to say anything about the house?”
I
sighed. “Yes, actually.”
“I’m
excited, babe. I know I was skeptical because of the amount of work it will
take, but I’m on board now. I’m just so ready to get started with our life
already.”
“Yes,
but Bill, you should have consulted me first.”
“Consulted
you? Meaning?”
“We
should have sat down and talked – ”
“Whoa.
What are you saying? You told me you wanted this,” he said defensively.
“I
do, I just – you made the offer without discussing it with me. This is my
home, my money too.”
“Well,
technically, babe, my money is going toward the down payment.”
I
drew back and crossed my arms. “So I don’t get a say?”
“Of
course you do, but we already discussed it,” he said. “You said yes. Once I got
the information I needed from the guys, I knew we were good to go.”
“I
know you’re excited, I am too. But would it have killed you to wait one night
so we could go over this together?”
“And
give you another opportunity to back out?
No way, babe.
This is happening. It’s done.”
“I’m
not going to back out. When you make decisions without me though, it makes me
feel like you don’t respect my opinion.”
“I
believe your opinion was ‘yes, Bill, I want the house. Buy me this house.’ I
believe
it took a good eight or nine
houses for you to decide that.”
I
pursed my lips. “I
do
want the
house.”
“So
what’s the problem?”
The problem?
I repeated
to myself.
The problem is that I almost
had sex with someone else this afternoon. The problem is that I’m not sure of
anything anymore.
The problem is that
I don’t know how to make a home with you!
I
shook the vicious thoughts from my head. How could I think that about this man
who’d been nothing but good to me since the day we met? Of course I knew how to
make a home with him. It would happen day by day – one thing at a time –
we would build and build and build –
“I
don’t know,” he said with exasperation, running his hand over his face. “I
can’t keep up with your back and forth. But it’s too late anyway. You’ll just
have to trust that I’m making the right decision for both of us. The offer is
made, and when they accept, that’s it.”
I
nodded and took a deep breath. “Yes,” I agreed. “Yes, that sounds right and good
and . . . Yes.”
“I
have work to do. There’s champagne in the fridge, you can help yourself.”
“Bill,”
I sighed, but he disappeared. I leaned over the kitchen counter and put my head
in my hands. Wasn’t it enough that I had betrayed him? Been vile to him for
months? Was I now
trying
to make him
unhappy? I straightened my shoulders. I would have to try harder, or I was
going to drive an even bigger wedge between us. This was important to him, and it
was something that would change our lives for the better.
I
found him at his desk, hunched over a stack of papers. My hand rested on his
shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I said when he looked up. “I am really excited about the
offer. I know this means a lot to you, and it does to me too.”
“This
is the right decision. We have to move forward. I can’t stay in this place any
longer.”
I
nodded.
Move forward. Leave this place
behind. Whatever is holding me back, I have to give it up.
“Just
think. We will finally have a home of our own. Who knows? We might have this
house forever. We’ll grow old together there. Down the line, we’ll raise our
children there – at that point, hopefully I’ll be partner at the firm,
and I’ll be around more. I’ll come home, you’ll be cooking with the kids or
getting them ready for basketball practice. We’ll have family dinners, a
Christmas tree by the fire, birthday parties in the backyard . .
. .
One day, we’ll pass the house down to our children, and
them to their children. It’s the beginning of our future.”
I
took a small step backward, thrown by the idyllic smile on his face. He was so
confident in what he was saying, as though he’d already glimpsed into the
future. As if, in his mind, it were the past, it had already happened. He’d
seen me there, baking pies in a ruffle-trimmed, red and white apron. In his
fantasy, I wanted those things too.
But
didn’t I? I wanted a place to call home, somewhere that was mine, where I felt
safe enough to let go of the past. To stop worrying about how things could
disappear or break or end without warning. What he had described sounded like a
place to be where I was.
In the present.
It sounded
like a home – a warm, loving home with a steadfast husband and not only a
child,
but
children.
Plural.
“All
right,” he said, and I lifted my eyes back to his. He made a show of getting
out of his chair. “One glass of champagne to celebrate, but then I really do
need to get back to work.”
~
After Bill
had gone to bed, I stayed up at the kitchen table, staring into the abyss. I
envisioned over and over again the life he had described.
Someone
else’s life.
Dread surfaced in the form of chills over my skin. I had
promised those things to Bill in front of everyone we loved years ago. I never
knew if I wanted them, but I had promised them forever with two words:
I do
.
What
scared me most was that I might give him those things because I was supposed
to. And had David never come along, I might not have questioned the path I was
on.
Because now, something else was developing inside of
me.
Maybe there was another way to love.
A
selfless, open way, where you took the good with the bad and the ugly with the
beautiful.
A way where, in order to experience bliss,
you had to risk pain – you had to risk everything.