Almost Mine (28 page)

Tears of rejection streamed down my face and I dragged my heart along the dirt as I walked the distance of the driveway, where a man who wasn’t my husband was waiting to escort me to dinner.

I returned at eleven and saw that the light in the office was on, but upon discreetly investigating inside I discovered the room was empty. I left the room lit just in case Nick had planned on returning. I didn’t bother to try and find him to say good-night; instead, I decided to give my crying eyes a break and try to sleep. Whatever effect my outing had had on my husband could wait until the morning.

The house was quiet and seemed unlived in, except for a cup on the sink from my tea and a discarded glass half filled with orange juice that sat where Nick had left it earlier this morning. No music had been played for months and no lunches or dinners had been shared around the lonesome dinner table. And as I made the journey up stairs to the bedroom that had not been made love in for as long as I could remember, I began to cry; like Pavlov’s dog
was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, I had been conditioned to cry upon entrance to my empty, lonely bedroom.

The door was slightly ajar and the room was pitch black as I entered, with tears streaming as if not controlled by emotion, just by a reaction to knowing that I’d be sleeping alone yet again. I headed straight for the bathroom to make an attempt at cooling my skin before I would curl my body around a pillow in the huge king sized bed that was supposed to sleep two.

I turned the tap off and wiped my face on a fresh towel, then stripped off my dress, allowing it to drop to the floor. The night was hot and humid so I opted out of one of Nick’s oversized T-shirts and decided to sleep in only my underwear. My hand lifted to switch off the light, but before I did, something in the bedroom caught my attention. A long shape the size of my husband lay sleeping on his side of the bed, and, after the initial shock and the flip flopping of my insides subsided, for the first time, I felt uneasy being in his presence.

I swallowed down the lump of apprehension in my throat and flicked off the light, and then I crept around to my side of the bed. I climbed cautiously under the sheet so as not to disturb the mattress too much, as if I was encroaching on a space that I wasn’t sure that I was entitled to. I lay facing away from him though I contemplated reaching out across the bed, but then shoved the thought aside; I wasn’t up for any more rejection, especially not in my only private haven that I used to remedy my misery. Instead, in my cruel imagination, I felt his long fingers span across my naked back, reaching around my body to draw it into his. I could feel his lips on the nape of my neck, his breath on my skin initiating my heart into a sprint. I squeezed my eyes closed and cursed my brutal mind for conjuring such lovely, improbable thoughts.

My imaginings bated fractionally and I began drifting slowly to sleep, where I was then further punished with a dream…

I was wearing the yellow dress and I was running through the vineyard, crouching and darting from row to row so that I could remain hidden from him. He was panting, too out of breath to keep his position unknown from me, and I squealed with delight when I made a break for the blossoms and I caught his eye. The race was on. I ran squealing and laughing as he easily gained upon me, and when I made it to the row of pink blossom trees I shrieked over my shoulder, ‘I’m safe! I’m safe! You can’t touch me!’ He paid no attention to my pleas and as I turned, light-headed with anticipation and laughter, he advanced on me and caught me around my waist. I fought him when he swung me around, but let him tackle me to the ground, forever knowing that I would be safe in his arms.

‘I can touch you wherever and whenever I like,’ he groaned hungrily and devoured my mouth as his fingers inched their way up my dress…I was done for and he knew it.

‘I love you…I love you…I love you…’ I murmured as he filled me and my body writhed with pleasure…he smelled of hard work and musk…

‘Cate...’ his suddenly distant voice called to me, but I couldn’t answer because I was too lost in the moment tasting his impatient mouth. ‘Angel…’ he called again and I cried because I thought he’d forgotten… ‘angel…’ even unconsciously my unrelenting mind tortured me… ‘Please, don’t cry…wake up…’

When I opened my eyes I was wrapped in his arms and I immediately clung to him like a frightened animal.

‘Are you awake?’ he asked softly.

My voice came out as a sob. ‘God, I hope not…I hope so…’

Nick held me tighter. ‘I miss you, angel.’

I tilted my head back and he kissed me, but I pulled back. ‘I pray that I’m asleep if you’re going to leave me here alone.’

He kissed me as if it were the first time; slowly testing me. It barely took a second to reacquaint ourselves and the kiss became more urgent as if to make up for the millions of kisses that we’d missed. Nick rolled me onto my back and ensured that not an inch of our bodies were separated.

‘Make love to me,’ I whispered against his lips.

‘Angel…’

He pulled my underwear aside with his fingers and stroked my flesh to make sure that I was ready for him…what a dream it must have been…because with a single thrust he roughly slipped impatiently inside me and then quickly thrust once more. I cried out in both pain and pleasure.

‘I love you,’ he whispered at my ear. ‘I love you.’

I couldn’t speak because my mouth was busy tasting him, savouring him while my body wrapped itself around him like a constrictor clinging to prey; there was no way in hell or earth I was letting him go.

‘Slow down,’ I managed to say.

‘I can’t. I’ve waited too long for this…’

He’s
waited this long? ‘Please,’ I breathed.

He slowed and I gripped his backside, pushing him deep inside me. I held him there in an effort to absorb everything that he was giving me, circling my hips and shaking my head when he tried to pull out. I circled my hips around him, my hands still clasped to his backside and he groaned deeply as I began to quiver, my climax beginning to stir.

‘Let me move,’ he groaned.

‘No.’

He kissed me deeply and hungrily sucked my bottom lip into his mouth, nipping it as he spoke, enunciating his words with authority. ‘Let me move.’

I eased my grip on him and he moved my arms above my head, his fingers clasped around my wrists. ‘You’re close,’ he crooned.

‘
Yes
.’

I couldn’t move; I was now the prey, and the more he moved little by little, in and out of me, my pleasure escalating, I was glad for his control.

‘Nick,’ I breathed as he rhythmically moved and my craving for him built further…and further…

‘Come, angel…’

‘I love you…’

My body let go and I cried out. I wanted to hold him as he came with me, but he still clasped my wrists with tightening fingers. I wanted to constrict him so that he could never run away again. I couldn’t move an inch as his body slipped against mine and we felt every tremor as it moved through us. When he finally did let go of me my arms enclosed around his neck. As his body pulsed to a slow stop and we both could once again breathe, he encased me in his arms. His head was tucked deep into my neck.

‘I miss you, angel.’ Tears rolled silently from my eyes and into my hair, onto Nick’s face as he remained buried in me in every way. ‘Please don’t cry.’

‘Please don’t leave me.’

He gripped me tighter.

‘I’ll never leave you.’

‘Promise me.’

He faltered. ‘I will never leave you.’

When Nick lifted himself from me he didn’t go far. And when he allowed me to sleep I did so peacefully, dreaming only of a future where anguish and pain ceased to exist and where ridiculous plans were no longer necessary to win my husband back.

The morning sun shone through the window and I smiled with the hope of a new day. I lay naked on my side of the bed facing the sun and my heart swelled as I reached back for my returned husband.

I couldn’t feel him.

Turning in the anticipation of seeing him only caused me disappointment, too, when all I saw was the small dent on his pillow where he’d slept, and when I touched it I felt that it was cold and I wondered if the house missed him as much as I did.

Maybe he had to start work early
I thought as I remembered that it was Monday and that a staff meeting had been scheduled for this morning.

I tilted my head to see what time it was: nine o’clock, later than I thought. I pushed myself up to a sitting position, and became aware of the muscles in my body that I hadn’t used in a while; my arms ached, my thighs twinged splendidly with remembrance and I blushed when I replayed Nick’s attentive first encore…and the delicious, playful encore after that…

For the first time in years I opened my eyes and they didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to do anything but scream to the world that my husband was mine once again; my little — call it devious if you like — plan had worked. He acknowledged his neglect and had set out to rectify it. And now everything would be back to normal.

I showered and wrapped myself in a short dressing own. Downstairs I put the kettle on the stove to boil and dropped two pieces of grain bread into the toaster. The smile was ever-present across my slightly bruised lips, and, as I waited for my breakfast, my fingers gently brushed where Nick’s mouth had been. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed until I had him back; one night to reacquaint ourselves was not enough. In my vivid memory I remembered his searching fingertips over my body and the pleasure I’d felt when he easily familiarised himself once again with my favourite places to be touched…his lips on my skin…his mouth on my flesh…and I didn’t mean to cry and he pleaded for me not to, but I couldn’t help it; the entire night was exquisite.

My thoughts were interrupted by the loud pop of the toaster. I spread the slices with butter and apricot jam and ignored the boiled water in the kettle. The weather was heating up again so I poured a tall glass of cool orange juice instead and sat at the breakfast bar, silently conjuring up what tonight’s bedroom eroticisms might involve, and thanks to my vast selection from Ms Victoria, which colour I might wear to impress him.

I dressed in a pair of worn denim shorts and a canary yellow T-shirt that read ASK ME THE WAY TO BANJO’S in hot pink, bold so-it-can’t-be-ignored font. It was a purchase that I made under sufferance when Lucy and I had lunch with Tom while on holiday. His mate, Banjo, owned the surfy-type café and had insisted that we help him out with some free advertising. I gave in and decided there was no harm in it; plus, the T-shirt was quite flattering around my slim waist, and definitely comfortable.

I flipped my hair up into a topknot and my thongs flip-flopped as I crossed the driveway and over to the restaurant, which was closed until dinner. Monday was their regroup, let’s-plan-for-the-next-week day, so I knew that Nick wouldn’t be busy as he would otherwise be if he was filling wine orders or organising the vineyard for an inspection by the Australian Wineries Commission.

My stomach did a little giddy-up at the prospect of just getting a little glimpse of him, let alone having the opportunity to touch him without feeling guilty. I practically skipped around the sandstone building and up the couple of wide entrance stairs that coordinated with the homestead. The employees were beginning to disperse from around a long dining table; Nick managed his staff from a standing position at the head of it so as to assert his firm but fair authority, and then straightened and folded a short pile of papers under his arm.

‘Good morning,’ I said as I flip flopped across the jarrah dance floor and up to him.

‘Hello,’ he said. I lifted myself up onto my toes and kissed his freshly shaven cheek.

‘Last night was incredible,’ I whispered against it.

‘You cried most of the time.’

My stomach plummeted. ‘Not because I was sad. They were tears of relief.’

He barely glanced my way as he walked behind the bar. ‘You still cried. How do you think that makes me feel?’

‘Nick, I—.’

I couldn’t continue because Lucy had called to him from across the room. He didn’t look up while he checked the stocks of liquor, so she came to him.

‘Hi, Catey. Nice T-shirt. Banjo would be chuffed if he saw you wearing it.’

I barely smiled my greeting. All I could do was to look on while this woman with her bouncing Pantene hair and exposed in-your-face cleavage to match — who stood too close to my husband for my liking — asked Nick questions that she could have asked anybody else. The he’ll-be-mine-if-you-make-another-wrong-move look that Lucy gave me when she left didn’t go unnoticed either.

‘Why can you smile at her, but not at me?’ I said as he resumed what he was doing. He said nothing and it grated on my nerves that he continued to ignore me. ‘Why?!’

His head snapped up, as did everyone else’s, shocked to hear me raise my voice; well, why wouldn’t they be, I’d barely been able to have any part in the restaurant. Nick had done all of the face-to-face work. For all they knew, I was just the housemaid and not the wife of their ambitious, single-minded boss. I wondered why his focus was on his employees’ reactions and not the reaction of the — at one time at least — love of his life, who was about to fall apart before his eyes.