The Wedding Cake Tree (26 page)

I wasn’t listening
. Desperate to feel my frame against his I allowed one hand to hover on his belt, the other on his chest. We kissed again, I knew he wanted me, but he pulled away once more.

‘
No. Not here, not now.’ He was more assertive this time.

I looked around
and giggled.

‘
You’re probably right, it is a church after all.’

He to
ok my hand and rushed me back to the hotel in silence. We passed his room and opened the door to mine. I turned to face him – to carry on where we left off – but he held me at a distance.

‘
I’m sorry, Grace, we can’t do this, not now.’

He stepped a few paces away
from me and raised a hand to his head. I kept my voice soft.

‘
Why? I thought you wanted this too. Don’t you want me that way?’ He turned his back to me for a moment and raised his face to the ceiling.

‘
Don’t
want
you that way? Do you know how much self-control I’ve needed to get this far through without—’ I was just about to step in but he turned to face me.

‘
When I’m not with you then I’m thinking of you. I want to hold onto you, to keep you safe. When that bloody captain was dancing with you at the wedding, I couldn’t bear it. I had to walk away. And my God, when I looked across the café just now and saw that bastard touching you, I swear I was going to tear him apart. I’m desperate for you …’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’m going insane. You’re the sexiest woman I have ever met and you don’t even know it, but I have got to hold back, I have to wait until you know the full picture, it wouldn’t be fair.’ He stepped towards me. ‘You captivate my every waking thought,
that’s
how much I want you.’

I
tried to take his hand but he stepped back.

‘
We’ve only kissed, Alasdair. I’m not expecting the world.’

He stepped towards me
again and took my hand.

‘
If I had the world to give, then I would give it to you. But I don’t even have myself to give, not right now.’

‘
Why? Just tell me why?’

He turned towards the door.

‘I don’t understand, Alasdair. If this is about your job, don’t worry. I know you’re special forces, Mum told me in her letter.’

H
e looked surprised but continued to back towards the interconnecting door. I rushed to the door to face him.

‘
If tonight is all you can give me,’ I whispered, ‘I’ll take it.’ My eyes mirrored his distress. I couldn’t believe he was leaving.

‘
Walking away from you right now is the hardest thing I have ever done, but staying with you would be the most selfish. I’ll only let you down in the end.’

He opened the door and left.

Hell’s teeth!

He wanted me
– but he didn’t want me. I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my hands to my face.

What a mess
. Mum – with her bloody useless advice and sexy clothes.

I rose
from the bed, faced the mirror and stared blankly through my reflection and into my life. After an eternity spent staring into the void, I swept my hair to one side over my shoulder, dropped my head down and reached for the fastening at the top of my dress. A hand sought mine as I reached back; our intertwined hands rested on my neck. I didn’t turn, but looked up to see Alasdair’s reflection in the mirror. He leant forward to whisper into my ear, his chest rested softly on my back.

‘
If our remaining days together were all I had to give, would you still take them?’

I didn’t turn
, but met his gaze in the mirror, and smiled a mischievous, intoxicating smile. Every inch of my mind and body wanted to say yes to him. I wanted to feel the smooth definition of his skin against my lips, and mine against his. Feeling his breath against my neck, I was on fire inside. I throbbed with erotic expectation. This was my moment to experience the kind of hot, passionate encounter I had only ever dreamed of, and there was no way on earth I was going to let it go.

Still holding his gaze, I raised my hands to the nape of my neck and undid t
he button that held my dress in place. With my arms raised above my head, I ran my fingers through my hair and arched my head backwards, inviting Alasdair to caress my neck with his lips. A shiver pulsed through me as the dress skimmed to the floor. A couple of fluid hand movements on Alasdair’s behalf led to the speedy abandonment of my underwear.

I watched Alasdair’s obvious delight
through the mirror as he admired my naked frame, and with my back still resting against his chest, his hands mirrored each other as they stroked the curve of my hips and brushed gently across my stomach – which almost made me orgasm there and then – before he travelled in a slow, teasing strokes upwards, finally taking me onto greater pleasure as his fingers confidently aroused my nipples. His lips teased the nape of my neck while my breasts swelled and hardened under his touch.

I turned to face him
. He tried to kiss me but I held him back, unbuttoned his trousers, released his erection and disarmed him of his clothes. His tongue sought mine – tenderly at first – but the desperate need within both of us led to a frenetic, lip-biting kiss. My hips pressed against his. All I wanted was to feel his length deep inside, but decided to wait. Alasdair’s body was manna from heaven, and I wanted to savour it – to devour him. I wanted to give Alasdair an experience to remember me by, I wanted him to dream of this moment again, to need me again.

Still standing, I teased my way down his torso, looked up at him naughtily, and then felt the smooth shaft of his
– particularly long –  erection around my lips. He gasped – in a good way!

But he wouldn’t let me please him for long.
He lifted my chin, I rose to face him, and with powerful arms he lifted me onto his erection in one fluid motion – it was my turn to gasp.

Oh Lord
… I’m in heaven!

And then we did it – boy did we do it.
Alasdair was … phenomenal.

Not known for flash-flood orgasms,
I came twice in ten minutes. The man knew exactly where to touch – how fast, how slow, how deep – but most importantly, he was more into me, mentally and sexually, than any man I had ever known.              

Mum was right: spending the night in a foreign city with a gorgeous man (who was something of a mystery and who was desperately attracted to you too) was sensational.

Part Five

Arisaig,

Scotland

29–31
May

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Our next destination came as
no surprise. Mum fled from Zagreb to the West Coast of Scotland, which was exactly where we were headed. Just like six days before, a man from a car rental company waited outside the arrivals terminal at Inverness, and, with Alasdair at the wheel, we were quickly headed south-west on the A82 towards Arisaig.

‘
You’re quiet,’ he said.

‘
I’m just taking in the scenery. Loch Ness isn’t quite how I expected. It’s big enough, but I thought the mountains around it would be more monumental. It’s a little bit tame.’ At that moment we entered Drumnadrochit and a giant plastic statue of the Loch Ness Monster came into view.

‘
Or maybe not.’

He
took his hand off the steering wheel and ran a finger along my thigh. ‘If it’s mountains and dramatic scenery you want, then that is exactly what you will get.’

A
t that particular moment all I really wanted was Alasdair.

After about an hour,
Loch Ness and then Loch Lochy disappeared from the rear view mirror, and the landscape opened out somewhat. Alasdair turned to me, beaming, as a vast panorama of mountains came into view. A sign on the side of the road welcomed us to Lochaber
.

‘
There’s somewhere I don’t want to pass without stopping, and it should be coming up around about … now.’ Alasdair pointed towards a statue to the right.

Three
towering figures, silhouetted against the mountains beyond, stood atop a significantly sized plinth.

‘
Wow, that’s really striking. The figures standing on the plinth, they’re soldiers aren’t they?’

‘
Not just any old soldiers,’ he answered with a smile. ‘This is the Commando Memorial.’

The monu
ment stood on an exposed spot. The wind caught me by surprise as I stepped out of the car and snapped the door out of my hand. We took a gravel path to the statue. I fought to keep my hair out of my eyes while Alasdair tucked my free hand into his coat sleeve. Pausing to point out features of significance in the landscape, he pointed towards the skyline and said, ‘If you follow the eye-line of the Commandos you’ll see they’re looking directly at the peaks of Ben Nevis and Aonach Mor.’

I nodded, follo
wing his fingertip.

‘
And further on you can make out … let’s see, they’re probably the Grey Corries and, further on, the tip of the Great Glen.’ His face looked fresh and alive; as strong as the statues against the wind.

‘
It’s spectacular,’ I said, still drinking in the scenery. ‘Fantastic place for a memorial.’

The
cloudless sky directly above us was pale blue, but the sun’s rays created a rainbow as they bounced off rain falling roughly twenty miles or so down the glen.

We
took some last steps towards the front of the monument.

‘
This area – Lochaber – is where Commando Basic Training was carried out during the Second World War,’ he explained. ‘That’s why there’s a statue here.’ He gazed up at the soldiers.

Three Commandos in battle uniform,
standing twenty-feet high and immortalised in bronze, stood shoulder to shoulder looking out across the Highlands. ‘United We Conquer’ was inscribed around the top of the stone plinth. The statue and the landscape surrounding it were in unity. Either entity would have been the lesser without the presence of the other.

P
oignant, inspiring and, quite simply, perfect.

‘
What do you think of when you look at the monument?’ He asked, stooping to pick up a piece of silver paper blowing about in the breeze.             

‘
Let’s see.’

I gazed at the statue once more and then
back at Alasdair. ‘I suppose it says pride, strength perhaps?’ I thought for a while. ‘And something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s something about the way the men seem to be interlinked, the three of them there, together. There’s a word to describe it but I can’t think what it is.’

Alasdair smiled.
‘Come on, I’ll show you the memorial garden.’

We followed a
path to a circular area covered in gravel and enclosed by a low stone wall. The inside boundary of the wall was lined with flowers, poppies and cards. Alasdair stopped at the entrance to the circle.

‘
This is where some families scatter ashes or just come to remember.’ He stuffed his hands in his pockets and directed his gaze not at the memorial garden, but away, towards Aonach Mor.

I stepped into the circle
and began to read the tributes. Some were for men killed during recent conflicts: fathers, sons, husbands. I could only cope with reading a few before stepping out of the circle and joining Alasdair.

‘
Aren’t you going to read any?’ I dabbed the flow of my tears with Alasdair’s handkerchief; this time, he didn’t call me a rainy face.

‘
No need. I know what they’ll all say.’

He placed his ar
m around me and led me back in the direction of the monument. We sat at the base of the plinth in silence and looked out towards Ben Nevis. We sat there, caught up in our own thoughts, until, ‘So, your turn. What do
you
think of when you look at the statue? What word would you use to sum it up?’ I stood and turned to face him. Alasdair was watching the storm gaining momentum in the distance.

‘
The word you were searching for earlier I suppose – camaraderie.’ I nodded in agreement but sensed he had more to say so remained silent. ‘Soldiers travel thousands of miles, put their lives on the line for a war or for a cause they perhaps don’t understand – or even worse, they may not even agree with. But you know what keeps them going, what’s always kept them going in fact?’ He threw some pieces of gravel across the steps.

‘
What?’

‘
Exactly what this statue stands for, each other. Well, that and the basic fact that it’s what they’re paid to do. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression though. Forces life can be wonderful –
has
been wonderful. Just imagine how it feels to stand on the deck of a warship and sail into a home port after a long deployment. And I’ve done a number of expeditions to some amazing places, I’ve got great mates. I’ve got lots to be grateful for.’

I
took a seat next to him on the plinth again.

‘How long have you been a
marine, Alasdair?’

He laughed. ‘Over twenty years, man and boy
.’ He glanced at me. ‘And we’ll have no ageist jokes from you Buchanan.’

I smiled
coyly. ‘Actually, you’re ageing particularly well, if my memory from last night is anything to go by.’

He raised his bro
ws cheekily.

‘
So, thinking back,’ I said. ‘We’ve been involved in conflict, somewhere in the world, more or less permanently over the past twenty years.’

‘More or less, yes.’

I shook my head. ‘No wonder you’re tired. Do you think Mum was right?’

‘
About what?’

‘
About it being time for a change for you perhaps. If there is one thing I’m learning from this time away it’s that life is pretty damn precious, and our time here’—I gestured to the landscape—‘is kind of in layers, like my tree at St Christopher’s. And maybe it’s time for you – for us I hope – to start a brand new chapter, a new layer.’

‘
You may be right.’

‘
Just one more thing,’ I said quietly, ‘have you been told if you’re definitely going away when you get back?’

He pushed a stray s
trand of hair away from my face tenderly. ‘Yes, I’m going away.’

I sighed but said nothing.
An image of Mum came to mind. I smiled inwardly at the thought of her; she gave me a much needed opportunity to lighten the mood.

‘
What would Mum have made of our journey so far do you think? I wonder if it’s all gone to plan.’

‘
I think she would be thrilled. She certainly wanted us to get together.’

We both giggled.

‘I know, how bad is that? I had to rely on my dead mother to fix me up with the man of my dreams.’ I blushed at the realisation of my words. Alasdair didn’t let the moment pass. I knew he wouldn’t.

‘
So, I’m the man of your dreams, am I?’

I smiled up at him
.

‘
Maybe …’

We lingered for a further ten minutes while I photographed the monument before continuing on the penultimate leg of our journey. On closing the car doors, the sky darkened to black and the first spots of rain began to fall.