Kiss It Better (22 page)
Her laughter was faint but real. ‘Louise is a self-confessed meddler. Of course she’d see it my way.’ Emotion made her voice husky. ‘I shouldn’t have kept secrets from you. I won’t in future. Not ever.’
‘Thank you.’ He finally seemed to realise the public nature of their reconciliation and scowled at intrigued onlookers. One young guy was even walking backward for a longer gawk at them. ‘Let’s go home.’
The terrace house did feel like home. Theo hadn’t said he loved her, but he showed it. They were barely in the house when he began making love to her with a desperation and generosity that healed the final hurt in her heart. She responded out of her own love. If he had misunderstood and lashed out at her from his own agony, he’d repented, and she trusted him. With everything.
She gasped his name as she climaxed and only then did he thrust inside her, not letting her come down, but driving her on so that her second burst of pleasure came with his and the beauty of it, the intimacy, had tears leaking from her eyes.
He kissed them away.
They smiled at one another as he leaned over her. He kissed her nose. ‘Get dressed.’ He rolled away, heading for the bathroom.
‘Why?’ Personally, she saw no reason to leave the bedroom, especially when he walked back in and she admired the view.
‘Because we’re going for a drive in the Chevy.’
She got dressed.
***
Riding in the Chevy with the windows down, the radio playing classic rock and Theo occasionally turning his head to grin at her, Cassie was living the dream. He didn’t even wince when she sang along with a couple of the songs, and she knew her voice was bad.
He hadn’t said where they were going and she didn’t ask. The road unrolled before them until he stopped just beyond Geelong. She smiled as she read the sign.
They stood on the cliffs above Bells Beach, the famous surf spot and the start of the Great Ocean Road. The cliff tops were green, the raw sides a golden buttery earth colour and the ocean reflected the deep blue of the sky. The wind wrapped around them, tugging at them to fly.
‘Not quite Jardin Bay,’ Theo put his arms around her, his front to her back, the two of them admiring the wild sea. ‘But I love this place. I wanted it to be here that I told you.’ She turned around in his arms and he looked at her, all control and barriers down. ‘I love you.’
It was the best kiss. The perfect moment.
A passing surfer wolf-whistled and shouted, ‘Get a room.’
‘I’ve got a Chevy with a bench seat,’ Theo murmured.
It was tempting, but it was also daylight with people around. ‘Later.’
He laughed. ‘At home, in the garage, where no one can see.’ He so had her figured out.
‘How about you feed me? I missed lunch.’
‘So did I.’ Theo sounded surprised.
Fish and chips eaten on the beach proved to be the most romantic meal. The happiness radiating between them was real and would endure. They’d tested it, hurt, and grown stronger. Next time they’d both fight to keep it.
Cassie licked salt from her fingers. ‘I need to call your mum.’
‘To tell her the good news?’
‘To tell her not to cancel Sunday’s party. She was saying she would, but you should see how much food we bought. Theo, it’s not funny.’
‘It is, kind of. You are going to fit right in with my crazy family.’
***
Theo topped up the tub in the games room with extra ice. The party was in full swing through the house and garden. Kids were playing a cheating game of rounders, their shrieks and laughter higher pitched over the adult conversation. Those who’d arrived for lunch seemed intent on staying for dinner. There was a lot to discuss and everyone wanted to meet Cassie.
She was surviving the onslaught. He could see her through the large windows, sitting on a plastic chair near his Papou and making the old man laugh. She wore a white dress splashed with flowers and a red sash around her waist that matched the heels on her feet.
Theo wandered out. Nope, she’d shed the heels. Her feet were cute and bare.
‘Are you chatting up my girl, Papou?’
‘Cassie is telling me about her job. She is a clever girl.’
Better yet, she was a happy woman. She slanted a laughing, triumphant glance at him, delighted with his grandfather’s praise. She’d decided to return to nursing and had taken a temporary contract at the hospital, starting tomorrow.
Mick, her dad, was quietly pleased. Theo’s mum had contacted him and invited him to the party and he’d left his project in the Kimberley to fly down and see Cassie’s happiness for himself. Now he stood with Theo’s dad and uncles outside the garage and argued…no, actually Theo didn’t want to know what they argued about.
‘Papou, I’m going to steal Cassie.’
‘Go, go.’ The wicked twinkle in his grandfather’s eyes said he understood and approved.
Clasping her hand, Theo strategically avoided the kitchen where his mum and aunts would be setting the world to rights over yet more coffee and cake. The last thing he wanted was their grins and comments — they’d be worse than his cousins, who’d approved of Cassie wholeheartedly.
‘My old room.’ He closed the door, locking it out of knowledge of his cousins and how a good party sent them straight back to high school behaviour. Then he dropped onto the bed and pulled Cassie over him. They bounced and jostled, but any laughter was lost to kisses and touches.
‘No sex,’ she warned. ‘Not with your whole family out there.’
He’d have argued, but just then a kid’s wail hit notes an opera singer would envy before settling into a prolonged tantrum. His planned seduction faltered. ‘Do you want kids?’
She made herself comfortable on top of him. ‘Yes.’
‘That was very definite.’
‘Today, I’ve seen you accept sticky kisses, mediate a dispute involving a dozen screaming kids and even change a nappy. If you tell me you don’t want kids, I won’t believe you.’
He laughed at her confident tone and at the truth. ‘I want two, maybe three?’
‘Suits me.’
He squeezed her. She gasped. He tickled her.
‘You demon!’ She shrieked with laughter.
Life was good.
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ISBN: 9780857991867
Title: Kiss It Better
Copyright © 2014 by Jenny Schwartz
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