The Taken (23 page)

Behind his glasses, the blue eyes studied her face with that almost unreadable openness, and she heard his breath suck in, his nostrils slightly flaring with the action. It seemed to her, as the pressure of his silence made her skin shiver beneath the robe, that for a moment both of their clocks had paused.

Nerves and excitement gnawed at her belly. It had been a long time; such a long time when compared to what was left, and her sudden need for company, for intimacy with someone, with this man, surprised her.

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“So …” She couldn’t look at him as she struggled to keep her voice under control. “Are you staying?”

He raised a hand and one finger traced the line of her cheekbone, his eyes following the movement. “You’re so very lovely. Even after all this, you look beautiful.”

She watched his mouth move, drawn to its perfect shape, lips neither too full nor too thin, and his proximity twisted the ache inside her belly. Reaching up, her fingers slid around to the back of his neck and curled into his almost dry blond hair. She smiled, her excitement releasing the intensity of the moment.

“You’re not so bad yourself. But are you staying?”

A grin stretched across his face as he pulled her closer. “Oh, yes. I most certainly am.”

They kissed, gently at first, and the feel of his soft lips on her mouth as his tongue talked expertly to hers made warmth flood to every extremity of her body.

Moaning slightly as she pulled at the buttons on his still damp shirt, she tried to kiss him harder, but he pulled back, teasing, his breath brushing over her, his lips like shadows glimpsed from the corner of her eye, there and not there, just touching her enough to send bolts of lightning racing through her system.

Oh god, it felt good. So good. Almost too good.

His mouth never leaving her skin he pulled off his shirt, and she felt him shiver as she ran her fingers up through the coarse, darker hair of his chest before he pushed her gently backwards onto the bed.

For a moment they lay there quietly, Simon leaning on one arm as he kissed her beneath him, pausing and smiling softly as he took off his glasses, before his mouth moved down to her neck and into the hollow 228

of her collarbone. Shutting her eyes, she arched her back up to him as his hand slid down and unwrapped her from her dressing gown. The emptiness of the air around her tickled goose pimples onto the flatness of her stomach, but it was Simon alone that caused her nipples to harden under the warmth of his kisses.

She gasped as he nibbled at her, his hand reaching for her other breast, squeezing and twisting, applying just the right amount of pressure to send waves of pleasure down between her thighs. If he wasn’t careful, she was going to come before he’d even touched her. How the hell was he staying in control? She couldn’t even hear his breathing speeding up. His calmness excited her further and she spread her legs, inviting his hand into the core of her.

Momentarily ignoring her openness, his mouth moved back toward her face, leaving a cool moist trail in its wake. His tongue pressed into her mouth, and as he did so, she felt his fingers sliding into her, pushing her lips apart, a slight hesitation the only sign of his surprise at finding how wet she was, how ready for him. Lifting her hips, she pushed herself onto his large hand, crying out at the feel of his fingers working inside her as his thumb gently rubbed on the bud of her clitoris. Their kissing was more urgent now and she squirmed onto her side, her own hands moving, one frantically working to undo his trousers, the other reaching up to feel his face.

He pulled slightly away from her to tug off his jeans, yanking himself free and abandoning them on the floor, but his eyes stayed on Alex’s, their blue now hazy, his urgent breathing matching hers. His arms wrapped around her as he tumbled her over, rolling on

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top, and she could feel him nudging at her inner thigh. Reaching down, enjoying the feel of his thickness in her hand, she guided him, eager to feel him inside.

Slowly he pushed himself forward, his body shuddering with pleasure, his lips meeting hers as they gently moved together, fitting so perfectly she could almost feel every ridge of him as he moved in and out, her hips greeting his every thrust, not just for the physical pleasure, but for the joy it brought her soul, lighting up the dark spaces, annihilating them, if only briefly.

His movements became stronger and she held his face in both hands, their panted hot breaths blending invisibly together like their bodies were, her words dancing in the air from inside him.

“My turn.” They were both nearing climax and she smiled as she pushed him onto his back, straddling him, impaling herself on him. This was one she wanted to control. There was so little she could control anymore. Taking his hands and placing them on her breasts, needing him touching her, she shut her eyes and rocked her hips back and forward, her own fingers reaching between her thighs, the waiting having lasted too long, her building orgasm attacking her from too many angles, and as she moved faster and faster on top of him, his groans matched her own as he pulled harder at her nipples, until all she could feel was his throbbing penis inside her and her own muscles contracting around him as she came in an explosion, her hands grasping for his and clutching them, their fingers intertwined, he still moving under her, keeping the delicious waves of her orgasm invading her every cell, until he reached his own release in the wake of her satisfaction, pulling her forward and 230

holding her to him. They lay there wrapped in each other, her hair tumbling over him as she buried her face into his chest, until both their breathing returned to normal. When she kissed him, it felt bittersweet.

The digital clock beside the bed was flashing 2:00 a.m. and sipping the red wine, her head leaning back into the crook of Simon’s shoulder, Alex felt safer and more relaxed than she had in months. The rain still pattered heavily on the small glass window, but the energy and anger had gone from it, washing the thunderous lightning away.

Simon’s arm was around her and his fingers absently ran over the skin of her upper arm. “What happened with your husband?”

The question was light, but Alex felt her defenses bite at her. “Why? What did Paul say?”

“Nothing. Just that you’d broken up a few months ago out of the blue.” He’d obviously heard the note of aggression in her voice, because he twisted to see her as he spoke. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It just came out. Guess I can’t believe that someone would let you out of their life without a struggle.”

Letting the warm red liquid explore her mouth, Alex hesitated before swallowing.

Part of the truth wouldn’t hurt, she reasoned. And anyway, it would stop him from wanting any kind of future with her. Suddenly, the remnants of wine tasted bitter. Her tone was harder than she meant it to be, a little of the pain escaping.

“He left because we found out that we couldn’t have children. No. That’s not exactly right. He left because we found out that I couldn’t have children.’

Simon said nothing for a moment, and she was glad 231

he didn’t try to tell her how sorry he was or give her any platitudes about how it didn’t really matter. She would probably have laughed and he wouldn’t have understood. She was well aware that her inability to bring forth life really didn’t matter anymore.

“He left because of that? Just upped and left? Not much of a husband.”

He left because he was a coward. She pushed the thought aside, tired of it long ago. She was better off without Ian. It’d taken her a couple of months to figure it out, but she’d woken up one day and found the love had vanished from inside her. Maybe it had never really been there. Only the wish for it.

“No, he wasn’t. Anyway, it was easy for him to leave. He’d just got a job in Taunton with a big firm there. He asked for a transfer to their Birmingham branch and they obliged. I guess he figured that was far enough away.” Ian had fled to the land of Spaghetti Junction. He didn’t even like driving. God, she’d wasted her life on him. She let out a deep breath.

“As separations go, it was all very neat and tidy. The cottage was my mother’s, so it belongs to me. In fact, he didn’t want to take anything apart from his car. Just packed his suitcases and left.” Her slight laugh was hollow. “Guilt does make people less obsessed with material possessions.” There was a sense of irony about Ian’s not wanting to take anything, which hadn’t been lost on her then and wasn’t now. It seemed that he’d been rubbing salt into the wound. It wasn’t as if she’d be needing it. She shut her eyes for a moment. Darkness was in danger of creeping back into the night, and she didn’t want that. She didn’t want all those other things to spoil these few hours with this man.

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“Can we leave it now? It’s the past. It’s done.”

Simon kissed the top of her head. “Sorry. Not my business. And not important.”

He stroked her hair, twisting the soft strands in his fingers as if trying to tie himself to her. “I’ve been thinking. Do you fancy getting together and maybe having a picnic in the sunshine?” They listened for a second to the melodic accompaniment of the rain. “If and when the sun shines again, that is.”

Alex rolled over so that she was leaning on his chest facing him. Her stomach was knotting and unfurling like an eel. God, this was hard. “Is that your way of asking me out on a date when this is all over?” She reached up and kissed him gently, her voice soft. “Because if it is, let’s just take it as it comes, shall we? This isn’t the time for making plans. Okay?”

Nodding, he returned her kiss. “Sure. No problem.” He flashed her a cheeky grin.

Too cheeky. He was a bad liar and she could hear the disappointment under his words as they ran from that perfect mouth. She could feel it breaking inside herself too. But she could cover it; she had to.

Forcing a giggle, she pulled the covers over her head, teasing his stomach with her tongue.

His voice was muffled. “Umm. What are you doing?”

Enjoying the warmth of his skin next to hers, she slid herself further down the mattress, her mouth working constantly as it slowly but surely sought out its target. In a few eager moments, she found it.

The amused words seemed to come from far above her. “Oh. So that’s what you’re doing.”

This time the giggle erupting from her full mouth was genuine. She was alive.

Here and now she was alive. And that was all that mattered.

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The teaspoon nearly slipped out of Ada’s hand as she dried it, her eyes darting backward into the corridor. God, she was jumpy. She looked at her hand with mild disgust. Her grip was worthless enough as it was these days, and when she’d heard the downstairs bathroom door slam shut, whatever control she had over the creaking joints and muscles in those fragile twigs was lost. Placing it carefully on the outdated and chipped work surface, her heart paused for a second before she got the pounding under control again. She was too jumpy. It wasn’t as if she were even alone in the house. God, she was acting like a child, and her childhood days were long past.

Shutting her eyes for a moment, she waited until relative calm settled in her core. Daniel had no doubt used the downstairs bathroom earlier and opened the small window, now allowing a gust to drag the door shut. She looked down at the ancient, withered hands that she sometimes couldn’t believe were hers and 234

almost laughed at herself. Almost. She wasn’t quite ready for that yet. Her nerves were still too jangly and her mind was burning with the possibilities of what was happening to her community.

But there would be a logical explanation, wouldn’t there? There always was at the end. It had to be a deranged fool on the loose doing this to them. That’s at least what she’d been trying to tell herself until Mary had unleashed their past to all who would listen from her fireside seat in The Rock. And now? Well, it was like a spell had been broken. All those years of silence. Gone. Mary’s speech had forced her to face up to what was going on around them. To make her really see.

She stared down at the film settling on the strong tea she’d just made for Daniel and wanted to cry. As they’d walked back from the pub, side-by-side and soundless through the night, she’d felt that tension creep back between them. A tension from thirty years before that they’d both fought so hard to put behind them. Daniel had gone straight up to his radio room as if she hadn’t even existed, and maybe she didn’t to him. Not anymore. She glanced over at the window and the darkness outside, feeling it reflected in the sudden emptiness of her soul as if now that the women’s secret was out, there was nothing left to hold her together.

The irony was that tonight she needed her husband more than she ever had before.

She’d needed to talk to him about some of the things that had been said. Daniel might not be convinced that there were supernatural forces afoot in their hometown, but Ada was terrified that he was wrong. But then Daniel had always been so grounded that a part of her wondered whether he’d even believed what had happened all

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those years ago until he’d heard Mary regurgitate it earlier.

Sipping her drink, she couldn’t quite bring herself to go upstairs and face his coldness. Not yet. It was what Alex had said about the children that bothered her. The strange children in the village. She shivered slightly. Despite her own defensive denial at the time, she knew that poor Alex was right. She herself had definitely seen them, both earlier in the day and also on her way down to The Rock. Children that were out of place. That was the best way she could describe them. Out of place and watching her, too quietly and confidently for normal children. Peering out from behind buildings or just standing still and staring, there had been something wrong enough about them for her to want to talk to Daniel about it. But then the madness of the rest of the day had taken hold and there just hadn’t been time.

She’d thought she was too old for this kind of fear, but over the course of the day it seemed that panic had only been an unexpected shadow away, caught in a glimpse from the corner of a tired eye. Since the discovery of the vicar and throughout the tumble of events since, the arthritis in her joints had flared up as if trying to distract her and the pain had been so much that she’d been afraid to stop moving in case she hadn’t been able to start again. Would she get any sleep at all that night or would there be too many flickers of the past coming back to haunt her as she tried to doze and drift? Brief glances of blond hair and angelic features. Melanie Parr. Laughing, always laughing.