Husband Stay (Husband #2) (29 page)

She hung up, and I
pulled the phone away from my ear to stare at it, stunned, and frankly
disbelieving. And yet…she’d praised me. Perhaps for the first time I could
remember.

 
I was
still getting over that five hours later when I’d showered, changed into
sweats, checked on Fritha who was home safe with Kamal, and gone over the rest
of my emails. Rosie had sent one saying,
We need to finish the documentary.
Can you come to my offices, then we’ll get your approval so we can air it? The
network that makes Sunshine is interested now, but they won’t be if we muck
around too long.

I appreciated the
fact that she wanted my approval to finish the project, so I emailed back,
perhaps indiscreetly, and said that I was with Jack for a few days, and to send
it and any releases I needed to sign. I assumed I’d get an email with a link to
a video of the documentary and could give speedy approval via email so Rosie
could finalize the details.

Without my phone,
I couldn’t ask a lot of questions, and besides, my mind was scrambled by
thoughts of what was happening at the hospital. When I couldn’t concentrate on
Pinterest anymore, I put the tablet aside and realized I wanted to pray. The
last time I’d done it, Jack had been riding in the back of the ambulance,
fighting a severe allergic reaction. Somehow it made me feel closer to him.

“
I worship the
lotus feet of Ganesha, and call on the son of Uma, the destroyer of all
sorrows...”
On and on I prayed, not letting myself despair, trusting that
we were all strong enough to cope with whatever ensued. But it was hard,
thinking of Jack at the hospital, desperate for his sister to live.

When a car pulled
up outside, I was so wound up, I jumped off the lounge and ran straight to the
door, not caring if his parents saw me in sweats. I just wanted to be there,
for Jack.

He was climbing
out of a dust-covered Range Rover, alone, and I feared the worst. But I kept
that to myself as he walked slowly to the door and stopped in front of me. I
wanted to cry for the look of pain on his face.

I put a hand on my
chest. “Is she…?”

He shook his head.
“Not yet.” He stared into my eyes, his own hollow and suspiciously red-rimmed. “She
said goodbye to me. She’s unconscious now. My parents are waiting, but…” His
voice dropped into a whisper, “I can’t watch her die.” He shook his head again,
looking big and beautiful and haunted. “I just can’t.”

“I know.”

All through the
long journey to get to his property, I’d been so nervous about seeing him, but as
he stood in front of me, gutted with grief, all that faded away and I suddenly
knew what must happen. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him,
pressing my cheek into his chest in the tightest most comforting hug I could
manage.

“I’m here,” I said,
against his chest. “The girls are fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about.
Just come to bed and sleep.” I’d stay awake and hold him all night if I had to.

He pulled me even
tighter, and I could feel his ragged breath against my hair. “I need more than
that,” he said, and pressed his lips against my forehead for a long moment
before saying, “I need you.”

I’d already said
I’ll
do anything for you,
but in his current state I wanted to make everything
easy, so I said, “Yes,” and, “I want that.”

He kissed me then,
and it was achingly sweet, as if he was holding back a river of passion or
tears, and letting his emotions out a trickle at a time. When that was too much
for him, he pulled away and swept me up into his arms, carrying me through the
house and out the back door.

It would have been
romantic, except tonight was about obliterating his pain and easing my longing.
There was nothing of ‘relationship’ about it, but I didn’t care. I wanted him,
and I could tell from the way his arms trembled that he wanted me badly.

Right now, that
was enough.

He strode down a
path in the moonlight, away from the house, from Daisy and Charley, so I had to
ask, “Where are we going?”

“Bella’s studio.
She set up a monitor there so she could listen to the girls’ bedroom while she
worked.”

As we drew closer
I could see it was a small timber cottage. Jasmine encircled the front door and
when we reached it, my senses were full of that scent as Jack slid me to my
feet and kissed me again.

And then I forgot
about the girls, about Bella, about Jack’s parents, and anything other than the
hot shiver of his hand sliding up under my sweater to close over my breast, and
his mouth, demanding more of me than I’d ever given.

But there was
tension pent up inside him. I could feel it in his shoulders as I ran my hands
over them. He was holding himself back, even as he pressed me up against the
door with his hips—his erection—pinning me down.

At some point he
was going to lose control, so I pulled myself out of the drugging haze of
pleasure my body was experiencing to say, “Wait,” as I felt around for the door
knob. And then we were inside with the door kicked shut behind us and he flicked
on a light and the air conditioning.

I gazed around in
awe at the canvases stacked on the walls and sitting on easels—countless pastel
renditions of the same subject—Daisy and Charley as fairies in a magical
bushland.

A wall of grief
threatened to crash over me then. I’d never met Isabelle, but I ached in that
moment for all that she was about to lose, and for these two loves of her life
who would grow up without a mother.

Jack was staring
at the pictures, his chest rising and falling and his expression twisting as he
tried to hold in pain. “This was a bad idea,” he whispered.

“No it isn’t,” I
said, and I turned off the light again, returning the room to its shadowed
state. Across from us, moonlight fell on a daybed and I took his hand and led
him there. “It doesn’t matter where we are.” I looked up into his eyes, wanting
so much to fill the emptiness I could see in them. “It only matters that we
love,” I said softly.

Then I unbuttoned
his shirt and pushed it over his shoulders, exposing that broad and beautiful
chest I’d come to love. And as I ran my hands over it, admiring it, feeling him
tremble beneath my touch, it seemed impossible to me that I might never get to
do this again.

“Make love to me,”
I said, looking back up into his eyes, and I saw something shift, as if
something he’d been holding onto had released.

“I’ve wanted to do
that since the start,” he said, his voice husky with some emotion I couldn’t
identify. Then he kissed me, so sweetly and so tenderly I felt my eyes
prickling with tears. Eventually, his attention moved lower, waking my body in
an instant as his hand slid down to grasp the hem of my sweater, which he
removed along with the rest of my clothes, his touch so light and gentle, it
felt like I was with a different man.

And yet so much of
Jack was familiar—the scent of his skin where the woodsy aftershave lingered,
and the sound of his ragged breaths as he caressed me in places that aroused us
both.

When he stripped off
his jeans his erection sprang out, and in that moment he faltered. “I don’t
have a condom.”

It was the perfect
moment to explain why that wasn’t a problem—I was already pregnant, only, while
I’d waited for him to come home, I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t tell him
yet. Not while he was losing his sister. That was too much for one man to deal
with.

So I simply said,
“It’s all right. I’ve got that covered.” Let him think I was using birth
control.

Then that moment
was over and we were both on the daybed and he was kissing me and stroking my
breasts, teasing the nipples and setting off a longing to just have him inside
me, to be filled with that hot, hard pleasure while he lay over me, and I
suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of anything else.

So when he pulled
away to kiss my neck, I said, “Can we forget about the rules, just this once?”

I didn’t want to
come first, or have some scorecard in the room with us. I just wanted Jack, in
the moment, making love to me.

He pulled back and
looked deep into my eyes, and though his face was shadowed, I could feel
something happening between us, some melting connection that had never happened
before, warming me inside and yet making me feel teary. It was confusing and
beautiful and I never wanted it to stop.

“This isn’t about
sex,” he said, deathly serious. “It’s about love. There are no rules with
love.”

I nodded, then he
went back to kissing me and I did cry—warm, fat tears that ran down into my
hair, until his hand slid down between my legs and his gentle questing fingers
caught the edge of a pleasure and teased it into life, slowly, deliciously, as
if he had all the time in the world.

I wanted to keep
kissing him but I couldn’t help the tiny mewls of pleasure that rose up in my
throat as I ran my hands over his shoulders and into his hair. Then he loomed
over me, and I moved my hands to his chest, feeling his heart pounding under my
palm.

He was looking
deep into my eyes again. “I need this,” he said and I nodded. “I need you warm
and soft and alive under me.”

“I’m here,” I
promised.

I’ll always be
here, if you let me.

Then he rested on
one elbow and guided himself into me, just as hard as I remembered, stretching
me deliciously and making me arch my back. As my breasts rose, he slid an arm
under me to hold them up and feast on them as he set up a rhythm, and then I
was lost.

The stab of
pleasure arcing down from a breast he was suckling joined up with the throbbing
he’d teased into life and was inflaming with every thrust. I wanted to look
into his eyes, to be with him in the moment, but I was simply overwhelmed.

When he was inside
me, I felt as if I didn’t own my body anymore. He owned it, and he was such a
delicious master it would do his bidding, leaping to pleasure at the slightest
caress.

So when the gentle
suckling grew stronger, and the thrusts grew harder, jolting my whole body, I
gave myself up to the vortex of sensation he’d created. In the space of a
breath, I went from moaning to gasping. My fingers bit into his chest as the
orgasm clutched at me, making me shudder as tendrils of white-hot pleasure
licked around inside me.

But still he kept
pounding, stretching it out, kissing, licking, and then finally groaning as his
body stiffened and his own back arched, that final pressure sending another
spasm of aftershocks through me. Then there were only pounding hearts and
panting breaths as my hands gentled on his chest and he met my gaze.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful
when you come,” he breathed. “No wonder I want to see that again and again.” I
grinned at the compliment, but before I could reply, he said, “And I sure as
hell don’t want some other guy seeing it.”

With his big body
looming over mine, he was one hundred percent territorial male, and I could
almost smell the testosterone pumping out of him. But I wondered how far that
possessiveness would stretch.

So I said the one
thing women aren’t supposed to say.

“Then you’d better
put a ring on it.”

Silence stretched
interminably as we gazed at each other and I had a fleeting moment of wanting
to snatch back the words
.
But I didn’t, because he was either going to
marry me, or I was going to be a single parent. And I’d much rather find out if
he wanted a wife
before
he found out he was going to be a father.

He gazed at me
steadily for a couple of seconds, then he said, “Sorry, who are you? What
happened to the meek, orgasm-faking Angela I met that night at the teahouse
launch?” He smiled to take the sting out of his words.

I was relieved
that he was laughing about this, but he was right. I had changed. So I shrugged.
“
You’ve
changed me.” Everyone else could see it. I may as well admit it.
“I’ve grown up. I stand up for myself now.”

He shook his head.
“The power of a sexually liberated woman.”

He was teasing me,
but after the pleasure we’d just shared, I was quite pre-disposed to humor him.
Besides, he wasn’t thinking about his sister, and that was a good thing.

“I am liberated,”
I admitted. “And I won’t go back to…”
Sex with someone I won’t desire.
A
fleeting memory of Doug drifted into my mind and I had to stop myself
shuddering. Thank the gods that I’d met Jack first.

He was gazing at
me patiently, so I said, “I’m not going to settle. I want…you, actually.”

His smile gentled,
and he brushed the hair back off my forehead and kissed me there. Then he
rolled onto his side and snuggled me up to his chest, which I kissed. It was so
sweet, so domestic, I could almost convince myself that we
were
married,
and that this was our regular lovemaking routine—whatever felt good at the
time, followed by tenderness and cuddles as we drifted to sleep.

Because we had
made love. Jack and I had experienced sex in the past, and this had been
different. Way different. I could feel that in the warmth that infused my
chest, and I could tell it was different for him as well from the softness of
his tone and the tenderness of his touch.

Something had
shifted tonight, and whether that was a result of his grief for his sister or
simply because it was time, we’d crossed a threshold. Jack was in love. I’d bet
my life on it. Although—as Louella said—he might not realize that himself.
Still, I knew, and clearly his mother did too. I snuggled the thought to myself
as I breathed in his scent.

Then he said, “
Put
a ring on it,
” and snorted before he kissed my hair, his big chest rumbling
with laughter.

I couldn’t help
tensing. Did that mean he was going to marry me—well, after my divorce was
finalized?

I wanted to sit up
and drag the truth out of him, but I forced myself to remain still. He was
laughing. Snorting. And that was a million miles from the hollow-eyed man who’d
been desperate to obliterate his pain.

So I let it be.

The world had been
rushing around me with Fritha in trouble, obligations to Rosie, my mother
haranguing me, and worse, Jack desperate with grief. But those things were laid
to rest in this moment, and I let myself enjoy that.

I let myself
relax, for the first time in what felt like weeks. And I slept the sleep of a
sexually satisfied woman.

Unfortunately, I
woke up alone.

Sunlight was streaming
into the studio from uncovered windows, falling onto my naked body, and I
jerked away in horror that someone—the girls—might have seen me through the
window.

I rolled off the
daybed and snatched up my clothes, noting at the same time that Jack’s were gone.
Then I scampered to the bathroom I could see through an opened door, dodging
easels and slamming the door shut behind me. Thankfully, it had a blind on the
window that allowed filtered light in.

I pressed a hand
over my heart, willing the uncomfortable jolting to slow, which it did as I
went through a calming routine of toilet, shower and then getting back into my
clothes. By the time I let myself out of the cottage and was walking down the
track to the big house, I should have been relaxed, but not knowing what had
occurred overnight, played on my nerves.

Was Isabella still
alive? Were Jack’s parents back? And what would they think of me, running off
to have sex with their son when I should have been babysitting the girls—as I’d
promised. And what about Jack? How did he feel about me, about us, in the cold
light of day?

All of these
thoughts were running through my mind as I let myself into the house and
followed the sound of voices into the kitchen where I found Jack and the girls
at the table with a half-eaten breakfast in front of them.

Jack looked up
calmly. “Daisy tells me you’re having a baby.” He raised an eyebrow. “To anyone
I know?”

Both girls were
grinning at me but I couldn’t smile back, not when Jack was unnaturally still
and my stomach had started to churn in dread.

“Can we discuss
this privately?” I was proud of my poise. This wasn’t an easy moment, but Jack
shook his head.

“It’s clearly not
private, or you wouldn’t have told my family. Do my parents know as well?”

“
No.
”

He stood up from the
table. “So I’m not the
last
person to find out?”

“You’re the…” I
wanted to say second, but I’d told…who? Jill, Fritha, Louella, my mother.

While I counted
them in my mind, Jack lost patience. “Easy to see, in retrospect, where the
put
a ring on it
conversation comes from.” He stood glaring at me for a
heartbeat before he looked down at the girls who were frowning.

Daisy said, “I
thought you’d be happy, Uncle Jack. You like babies. And Angela is like mummy.
She doesn’t have a daddy for her baby.”

Silence throbbed
in the room for several agonizing seconds before I said, “Girls, do you want to
play Lego? What say you set it up in the playroom and I’ll join you there.”