Undertaking Love (25 page)

He hadn’t made her wait, and she repaid the favour with pleasure.

Marla had had sex with other men, but none of them had prepared her for her first time with Gabe. He filled her to the hilt and then some, and for a few seconds, it was all she could do to just hold still in the moment and remember to breathe. He was heartbreak beautiful; his dark lashes on his cheek, his teeth sunk into his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. He opened his eyes and looked up at her through lust-heavy lids, and Marla had to close her own eyes against the raw emotions she saw there.

‘Marla …’ Her name was a caress on his lips as he levered himself up to kiss her. She hadn’t anticipated his move, and she gasped with pleasure when he held her close and slipped a hand down between their bodies to draw slow circles on her clitoris with his thumb. His tongue traced the same slow circles in her mouth. He gave, and he kept on giving, slow, languorous strokes until her orgasm shimmered through her veins. Marla wrapped herself around him and clung on vice-tight as, thrust by beautiful thrust, Gabe let go of his grip on control too. He pumped harder, breathed faster, and kissed her with abandon as he emptied himself inside her.

Trembling-limbed, Marla laid her damp cheek against Gabe’s chest, content in the cradle of his arms. He kissed her neck. Stroked her hair. Stilled inside her, his heart against hers.

Marla glanced at the bedside clock for the tenth time in as many minutes.

There were thirty-three minutes of her birthday left.

Thirty-three guilt free minutes with her Marmite man, and then he had to leave. She couldn’t bring herself to regret it, because it had been the sexiest sex she’d ever had. In fact, it was probably the sexiest sex
anyone
had ever had.

Her tiny shower cubicle had neither seen nor heard the likes of it before. She flushed just thinking about the things he’d murmured in her ear as he’d pushed her towards a violent orgasm. His accent turned even the dirtiest of words into music, and wow, did Gabe know how to use it to devastating effect.

He’d shared his gentle side too, right here in her bed. Marla closed her eyes and sighed at the memory of his weight over hers, the way he’d moved inside her with infinite tenderness, his fingers meshed with hers, his mouth slow on her lips. He’d built her orgasm until it glittered through her fingertips and her toes, snaked along her limbs in an unstoppable wave that gathered momentum until it broke and threatened to drag her right under. He’d kissed away the unexpected tears that spilled from her eyes, and rested his forehead on hers as his own release shuddered through him like a freight train. Marla had clutched him to her, rocked core deep by the protective urge that filled her as she tangled her fingers in his dark curls, as she held him until his breathing slowed from a desperate gasp to steady in her ear.

Twenty-one minutes. She’d allow herself just five more, and then she’d wake him.

Gabe sat on the bench in his tiny back garden some eight hours later and watched the pink sun creep up over the fields beyond. He’d spent most of the night trying to make sense of Marla’s warped logic, but so he’d far he’d failed miserably.

For him, yesterday had only affirmed what he already knew.

He loved Marla.

Wholly, completely, with all of his heart.

He’d learned the difference between sex and making love last night, and despite what she’d said to the contrary, he knew she’d felt it too.

He’d tasted it in her tears. He’d heard it in her moans.

She was lying to herself, and to him.

He shook his head as her words clanged around in there. Their knife-sharp edges took chunks out of him, new cuts over old.

He’d been her birthday treat to herself. That was
exactly
how she’d put it.

He didn’t know whether to feel flattered or used.

A one off indulgence, she’d said.

Fun, and over, she’d said.

She was wrong.

They may be technically at war, but yesterday hadn’t been their Christmas Day truce, and one way or another, he was going to make her realise it.

Resolution made, he tipped his bitter black coffee onto the grass and grabbed his jacket to go buy milk.

Marla dropped a bag of porridge oats into her basket as she trailed listlessly around the village store. Back at home her fridge was packed with delicious leftovers from yesterday’s picnic, but she needed bland, boring fare to mark her return to reality.

Purgatory food.

If there had been sackcloth and ashes in her wardrobe, she’d have donned them this morning rather than her jeans and black angora sweater. She stretched up on tip-toes for raisins to sweeten the porridge, then snatched her hand away as a particularly lurid image of Gabe holding her hands stretched above her head last night swam in front of her eyes.

God, she’d been so brazen.

No. No raisins. Far too frivolous.

‘Honey?’

A male voice suggested right behind her. A beautiful, Irish male voice.

‘No thank you,’ she replied on autopilot, and then froze.

‘Syrup, maybe?’

She could hear the smile in his voice, and turned to find her nose about six inches from Gabe’s chest. He had a milk carton in his hand, and the stubble and dark circles around his eyes testified to a sleepless night. She’d had matching circles herself in the mirror this morning, along with similar kiss-swollen lips and sex hair. She’d looked like a satisfied slut, but right now he looked like a rock star after a night on the tiles.

‘Let me pass, please.’

She couldn’t meet his eyes. She just wanted to pay and get the hell out of there.

‘Marla, please. Can’t we at least talk?’

‘No! Please, just move out of my way.’

She glanced around him in desperation towards the teenager behind the counter at the far end of the shop, but the girl was too engrossed in her phone to notice.

‘Marla, come on. You can’t seriously expect …’

‘Stop it!’ she cut across him. ‘That’s
exactly
what I expect.’

She couldn’t listen to this, wouldn’t let him weaken her resolve. Daylight had brought with it the realisation that she’d just made the situation between the chapel and the funeral parlour a million times worse, and the only course of action available to her was to pretend it had never happened and stay as far away from Gabe as possible.

‘Read my lips, Gabe,’ she hissed. ‘It was a one night stand.’

She pushed past him to the counter and shoved her basket at the vacant teenager with white earphones plugged into her phone. The girl flicked heavily kohled eyes over Marla’s shoulder towards Gabe, and then yanked the earphones out quick smart as a slow grin spread across her face.

Marla tapped her basket, desperate to get out of the store and back to the safety of the cottage. The teenager ignored her completely as she removed her gum and stuck it to the underside of the counter.

‘Another late night, eh, sex god?’ she smirked and flicked her eyes between Gabe and the pile of newspapers on the counter in front of her. Both Marla and Gabe followed her cue and looked down at the front page of
The Shropshire Herald
.

There was Gabe practically nose to pneumatic breast with a scantily clad, red-haired lap dancer straddled across his lap.

Oh God, I straddled those same hips myself yesterday.

A second, grainier picture, a wedding of some sort. She squinted at the groom and gasped, winded.

He was married?

Marla scanned the headlines.

Murky past of local undertaker exposed!

Convicted drug offender! Sex addict! Ex-wife reveals all!

‘What the fuck?’ Gabe made a grab for the top copy as she whirled around to face him.

‘It would seem that you have a thing for redheads,’ she muttered, sick to her stomach. She threw some money on the counter as she picked up a paper and made a dash for the door.

‘Marla!’ Gabe caught up with her on the footpath outside and reached for her arm.

‘Marla, wait, please …’

‘Get your hands off me,’ she ground out as she shook his hand off, furious at the tears that amassed behind her eyes.

‘I can explain.’

Marla laughed, despite the bitter bile in her mouth. How dare he have the audacity to stand in front of her with those beautiful eyes full of anguish?

‘Yeah, I bet you can. Save your pathetic excuses for someone who’s interested, Gabe.’

She turned on her heel and ran, glad that she couldn’t hear footsteps behind her this time. If he’d have followed her, she may well have hit him and shattered one of his oh-so-perfect cheekbones.

Her heart leapt around in her chest as she hurled herself through her front door and threw the bolt across. Tears spilled unchecked down her cheeks as she leaned her back against the door and trembled with rage.

She wasn’t sure who she was most angry at. Gabe for being so damn typical, or herself for being such a gullible fool. Again.

Her hands shook as she forced herself to read the article properly.

Sordid life of undertaker at centre of local feud
.
Sleaze, drugs and strippers …

Marla dismissed the drugs thing out of hand; she was smart enough to see that one teenage caution for possession of a spliff had probably been sensationalised for the sake of a good headline.

Even the stripper didn’t phase her that much. The picture was unsavoury, but Gabe was a man, and she wasn’t a prude. Sex addict? She wouldn’t have had him down as someone who frequented strip bars, but what did she really know of him, anyway? Going on his performance yesterday, she could safely conclude that sex was something he was well practised at.

But the wedding photograph? That really made her guts churn as if someone had stirred them with a big wooden spoon.

Gabe had been married – perhaps he still was.

How funny that he’d never thought to mention
that
particular gem when he’d chased her like a dog after a bone. Even after she’d shared her secrets with him, how her parents’ flippant attitude towards marriage had scarred her, still he’d not thought to mention that he’d already started his own collection of wedding rings on his bedside table.

But then if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to add her as another notch on his bedpost, would he? If the sleazy pictures on the front of the newspaper were anything to go by, he ought to be careful that his damn bed didn’t collapse altogether, she thought sourly.

Christ, she could have caught some hideous disease from him.

She started up the staircase towards the shower, every step too much trouble.

At least he’d taught her one valuable lesson. She’d been on the money with her initial instincts. She should never have let him under her guard.

It was ironic really, that in her desperation to not be like her mother, she was behaving more like her than ever.

‘Em, dinner.’

Emily leaned her forehead against the newly decorated nursery window and sighed. The last thing on her mind was food. Tom was killing her with his kindness, and after months of soul searching, she’d finally reached her decision. Finally
faced up
to the decision her heart had made on the banks of the river Severn. Dan’s toothbrush may not be on their bathroom shelf, and there may only be two settings at their dinner table, but he was here nonetheless, a cuckoo in their home and their marriage.

She needed to tell Tom.

The power should be in his hands, not hers. Besides, she couldn’t bear the weight of her secret any longer. Tom deserved the truth, and the choice.

She placed an apologetic hand over the baby as it aimed a furious kick at her ribs, almost warning ‘don’t you dare’. She couldn’t blame the baby for wanting to hang onto Tom; she wanted to herself, desperately.

But not like this.

Not without honesty.

Tom stirred the risotto on the stove and threw in an extra splash of stock to get the consistency spot on.

‘Come on, Em, it’s almost on the table!’ he called out again as he pulled on Emily’s pink oven gloves to take the plates from the oven.

Emily appeared in the doorway. Every day her bump seemed to grow more evident. She slid onto the dining chair with an anxious glance at Tom as he placed her dinner down in front of her.

He plonked down in his chair and watched her test his efforts as he picked up his fork.

‘Is it okay?’

She nodded with a quick, grateful smile, although the way she pushed it around her plate with her fork suggested otherwise. It was his turn to cook, and he’d scoured the supermarkets on his way home from work for wild mushrooms to make Emily’s favourite comfort dinner.

‘It’s heavenly, Tom. What’s the occasion?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Can’t I treat my wife without a hidden agenda?’

He could have bitten out his own tongue as the clouds rolled across her eyes.

Any mention of hidden secrets made her jumpy these days, and having read her ‘Dear John,’ letter, he could see why.

Yet he hadn’t mentioned a word about it to Emily.

He had no need to.

Her letter had only confirmed what he knew. It had forced him to face the unpalatable truth. He’d pushed her away, and his careless neglect had driven her to places she should never have needed to go.

Her infidelity didn’t change a thing. He could only thank his lucky stars that, in the end, she’d chosen him.

‘I don’t deserve you, Tom.’

Emily placed her fork down next to her barely touched dinner.

‘Don’t be stupid, Em. I’m the lucky one.’

He reached for the water jug and filled their glasses. He hadn’t drunk in the house for months out of solidarity.

‘Come on. Eat your dinner before it gets cold.’

Emily tried a little more, lacklustre and troubled. Her fork clattered down again a few seconds later.

‘Tom. I can’t do this.’ Her voice wavered. ‘We need to talk. ‘

Shit. Back up Emily, please back up. I don’t want to do this.

‘Just eat your dinner. Em, I went halfway to Italy for those mushrooms.’

He joked to lighten her mood, his stomach full of foreboding.