Inconsolable (24 page)

It was cold, her feet were going numb and despite the robe, made out of something lightweight but beautifully soft and warm, she had a case of shivers. He was cold too, but in a different way, he was intent on freezing her out.

“What will you do?”

“I have a mattress, I use it down here.” He nodded at the space between the front door and the staircase. It would be cold, drafty, and hideously uncomfortable.

She wanted to curl up with him, defrost him. “I'll stay here with you.”

“No.”

So quick. No room for debate. He'd shaved and the temptation to touch his face, to learn him cheek to cheek and use her lips to taste the smoothness of him was ridiculously primitive, like gluttony after long starvation. She separated her fingers and pressed the edge of her little finger against the side of his.

He whipped his head around to face her. “You don't know what you're doing.”

“I do. I want to be with you.” First, now, in this moment, but beyond that, to take this extraordinary connection, give it sunshine and water it into life.

He didn't move his hand, but his whole posture went on the defensive. “That's meaningless.”

“It means something to me.”

“What could it possibly mean to you?”

Things too difficult to contemplate; surprising things, like stimulating conversation and unrestrained laughter, like contented silences and something shaped more like admiration than compassion. She moved her hand till it covered his. “Comfort.” It was what he needed.

His eyes went to their hands. “Do you need another blanket?”

“I need you.”

He flipped his hand and captured hers, threading their fingers together, but said nothing. The tension in his jaw, at his eye, showed her his agony of indecision. He wanted, he wanted and he would not take.

She slid across the step till her hip was against his. She waited for him to react, and when he accepted her closeness with a long exhale and a softening of his spine, she laid her head on his shoulder. Her stomach was full of grumbles and twinges and she needed to sleep, but she was so aware of him, soap and water clean and strong, she felt wide awake and perfectly well.

He brushed his cheek on the top of her head. “You don't need anyone and that bed upstairs would be more comfortable.”

“Not possible.”

“It doesn't matter if I sleep, but you must.”

“I want you. I'll sleep here with you.”

It was provocative and she knew it. She felt the invitation of it, the illicit want of it in the hardening of this thigh muscle, in the way he sucked in his next breath. He moved his shoulder and she lifted her head, their eyes met, his so full of confused lust they shocked her, they caused a coil of sensation low in her belly to ring with greed. He didn't need to be confused about wanting her.

She put her hand to his head, pulled it to hers and kissed him, light like that very first time, poised to see if he'd reject it. He murmured her name, but he didn't pull away, so she took his lips again and made a seal from his trembling confidence and her carnal hesitancy. The mix ignited.

“There be dragons,” he whispered, when she licked across his top lip and sunk into the kiss again. She saw them; terrifying scales and tearing claws, fire in their eyes and destruction on their breath. She ignored the warning; how could she heed it when every touch of his lips to hers proved the scorch, and made her a connoisseur for the thrill.

He hauled her into his lap and all his restraint, denial and discipline burned away. He kissed her back, his tongue pressing hers, one hand on her face, an arm strapping her to his chest like armour against the onslaught. Her pulse went hyper-drive, her throat tightened, her stomach contracted, but all the aches were pleasure, anticipation and sweet, sweet need. His fingers were bruising, his kisses were demanding, they swooped subterranean, all the way to her soul. There was nothing comfortable about this; it was incendiary and irresponsible and gloriously messy and he threw himself at it and she never wanted it to end.

He attacked her neck with a warfront of kisses, from the underside of her jaw to her collarbone, then down the centre of her sternum, an advance that left her twisting and squirming, arching into him, nonsense sounds forced from her mouth, utterly captive to his fire-branding.

He pushed the robe from her shoulder and ran his palm across her throat, around her neck to cup her head, the groan coming from him winning an answering whimper from her, before more kisses, more hands, more pushing and flexing against each other, the intensity building to rival the whip and wail of the wind outside, the weight of the downpour.

Every moment they lit against each other was another step further from the lines drawn and barriers peered over. Now it would all crash down and leave them finally heart to heart.

Drum lifted her before she thought to fear his steadiness on the stairs. She held onto his neck, her face tucked in the hollow between his jaw and shoulder and he carried her up, along the corridor and into the bedroom.

No man had ever carried her anywhere. She wasn't one of those doll-like girls, nor did the idea of being babied turn her on, but he made it feel easy and right.

There was less light in the bedroom than on the stairs, and though he put her feet to the thick carpet, he was reluctant to let go, as if the change of location had knocked him off balance again. She would've happily stayed suckered against his body, attached to him at hip, at hand, at lip, but she felt him cool.

She tried to kiss that temperature change away like rubbing a soot smudge on a white shirt out and he didn't protest, but he didn't follow her heat either. He walked her backwards to the edge of the bed and placed her on it, making a distressed groan and going to his knees, wrapping his arms around her legs.

She dragged her hand through his hair. “Don't go.”

His answer was a shudder.

“I want this. Us. It's going to be all right.”

He sat back on his heels and it was too dim to read his expression but his posture was a composition of go and stop and gruesome vacillation. It put tension in his arms and the line of his shoulders.

And he wanted her as much as she did him, she had no doubt of that.

He groaned. “I can't. We can't.”

The problem wasn't attraction, desire, they had unfathomable wells of that. The problem was in Drum's head. His sense of worth held captive by distrust and guilt and he truly believed he wasn't fit to be with her.

She pulled on his hand and scooted across the bed. “Lay with me, just lay with me.” It would be enough. All of this, far more than she'd ever expected, ever known could be, but the idea of being left alone in this strange house, in the big bed, while he did penance in the cold entrance hall downstairs, was too much.

He groaned and crawled over the edge of the bed, settling behind her, pulling the covers up over them. She wanted to kiss him again, but he avoided her lips and shifted away when she tried to back against him.

“Sleep, Foley.” His voice was damaged; dusty, low and thready. “Just sleep, it's the best I can do for us.”

He lied. He could do so much more. He could tell her his secrets, he could give her his trust. He could deal with his demons and reclaim his life. He could take her and hold her and have her, and be secure in the relationship they had, well and strong and anything but ordinary. And she'd wait till he was ready.

She woke alone before the alarm on her phone went off, the place beside her in the bed cold. She found yesterday's clothes, washed and dried, and her boots, still damp, on the love seat. She dressed and left the bedroom, calling for him. Found him in an ultra-modern kitchen with a panoramic view of the suburb, enormous and glossy, but like the rest of the house, barely furnished.

“Morning.” He had a pan on the heat. “How do you like your eggs?” There was a grocery bag on the countertop, a loaf of baker's bread still inside. His hair was wet, the shoulders of his fleece spotted with water. “Your car is in the drive.”

There were no stools at the counter, no table or chairs. The coffee was instant, but there was a quart of milk. He'd spent money buying her breakfast.

“Foley, are you all right?”

She felt fine, restored, her stomach no longer queasy, no trace of the headache that'd followed the vomiting, but in other ways she was totally undone. The stability of her life altered by this man who balanced his by living on a cliff top.

Drum put bread in the toaster, moved the pan off the gas, his eyes shifting between his tasks and her face. “Foley?”

“Sorry. I'm great. I'll take my eggs anyway you want to make them.”

“That's good, since they'll come out whichever way they feel like it.”

He cracked eggs in the pan, he put the kettle on, he buttered toast and the simple domesticity of it almost broke her heart. He should have everyday access to a sink and a stove, water and gas. He should be somebody's lover, husband, family.

“Foley.” His arms around her, his lips on her forehead and that's all it took, that reconnection. He could have those things, in time, with care. She had to believe in that. “What's wrong?”

She lifted her face and they kissed and the strangeness of the night frittered away. If she gave him time he might want to have those things above and beyond friendship, he might risk them with her. For now she gave him her tongue and her hands, the tilt of her hips and press of her breasts. She gave him her voice in meaningless murmurs that meant everything if he was listening.

The anxious shock, the sense of forbidden of kissing him had disappeared with the hailstones, but in its place was a warmth that hummed in Foley's limbs and seared sense from her brain. Drum's touch reduced her to ruling sensations so shockingly it took the smell of burning to bring them back to the room.

The eggs were rubbery, the coffee had no kick, the toast was cold, but neither of them cared.

The weather was still wild, wet and blustery, and she made him promise to stay at the house. She'd bring more groceries after work, her turn to cook.

An hour and a half later she was sitting in Hugh's office, ostensibly discussing the Ice Festival, and the latest offer on the land where the Beeton house stood, and effectively gossiping about Nat. Foley had worked it out. Nat had to be doing her boss.

“Nat is porking Nathan Rosen,” she told Hugh.

“What, wait, what? Nat is porking Nathan Rosen. Nathan Rosen, scourge of the mayor's office, editor of
The Courier
?”

“Yep.” It couldn't be anyone else. Nat literally didn't know any men other than the ones she worked with, and Nathan was the most obvious candidate from both a proximity and a practical point of view.

“Sweet, innocent, head in a website Nat. No?” Hugh took a bite of a ham and cheese sandwich. “Actually, she was never sweet or innocent. Is that even allowed?”

“It's supposed to be a secret so maybe not.”

“Nat and Nathan. Nat and Nat.” Hugh laughed. “That's not good.”

“No one calls him Nat.”

“No, they call him pretty please sir to his face and that rotten rat cunning bastard to the back of his head.”

Foley grinned. Nathan was all right. No fool. No pushover. Ambitious and clever to go with it. He had a dashing persona, more in line with a penchant for top shelf liquor and a disposable blonde on each arm than the sartorial mess that was Nat, but intellectually, he and Nat were a good match.

“Nat and Nate, that's not much better,” said Hugh.

“Nat could care less. It's been going on a while and he can't keep his hands off her. She says the sex is mind-blowing.” Foley's phone chimed, a text message. She glanced at the screen. Nat wanting a call back. Her ears must be burning.

“How? Wait. Don't. I'm a married man.”

“Apparently he does this thing where he—”

Hugh waved a half chewed sandwich triangle at her. “Stop, this is a professional workplace.”

Foley clamped her lips over a too wide smile. Pretty much everything was making her smile this morning. Not even Gabriella's overly cheery, “Good morning, did the rain make you late?” put her teeth on edge.

“I didn't actually mean that you should stop,” said Hugh.

She laughed. “Nat says he does this—”

“Foley, you're here.” Gabriella in the open doorway, making it sound like Foley in Hugh's office was an alien invasion. “Well then.” By which she really meant, yo bitch, get back in your place.

“We were talking about the ice thing,” said Hugh and that made it worse, because if they had to explain themselves then there was some implication of guilt. Foley glared at Hugh.

“Foley is aware we have a meeting about that at 10am,” said Gabriella, doing an elaborate sleeve shift and watch check and missing Hugh's grimace. By which she meant, I hate you, Foley, and I will try to embarrass you by talking about you in the third person as though you're not sitting here looking directly at me, and are instead five years old and incapable of an adult conversation.

“Actually we were gossiping about a friend,” said Foley, keeping her voice steady and neutral, because that's something Gabriella and Hugh would never do.

“Way to make us sound professional,” said Hugh, laughing.

“Oh,” said Gabriella, which was damn, bugger and I lose any way you wanted to cut it. “I thought you should know we have a problem with your homeless man.”

“What kind of a problem?” Foley asked. Whatever it was, it would be Gabriella trying to point score. The whole resident action thing had calmed down after the competing petitions. There was more community sympathy for the homeless currently as a result of
The Courier's
feature stories, and Walter Lam had moved on to the issue of greater policing of speed limits in school zones, functionally a police matter, not a council one.

Gabriella smiled, and that should've been a tip-off, but Foley missed its significance so when the woman said, “He's been arrested,” the first thing she said was, “Walter?”