Just Once More (16 page)

“Aw, sweetheart,” he said, not sounding sleepy anymore.

“And you know what?”

“No, what?”

She turned around to face him, felt him holding her, and knew it was true. Eleven years and three more babies later, it was still true. She put a soft hand on his jaw, there in the dark, and told him. “I still think so.”

Nic followed Emma into his parents’ tidy brick house. A light left on outside for them, more lights still on in the lounge. His parents were still up, then, because his dad would never have left a light on in an empty room.

Despite his best intentions, he felt the tension rising, drawing his muscles taut. His mum and dad were normally in bed by ten sharp, and it was…he glanced at his watch. Nearly ten-thirty.

His mum wasn’t there. Just his dad. On the couch, watching a replay of the latest IPL match on the big-screen TV set against the wall. His stockinged feet on the coffee table, and baby George sprawled over his chest, sound asleep.

“Hi, Dad,” Nic said warily. “What happened?”

“Shh.” George Senior glared at him. “You’ll wake him.”

“Nah,” Nic said. “We won’t. Sleeps like a rock, once he’s gone off. What happened?”

“Keep your voice down, at least,” George growled. “Took me ages to settle him down. He cried, didn’t want his granny.” His hand went to the baby’s back, gave it a rub. “Stubborn little bugger.”

“Wonder where he gets that,” Nic muttered as Emma bent down to retrieve George, who indeed barely stirred, and carry him off to his cot.

For some reason, and to Nic’s utter astonishment, the baby preferred his grandpa. And against all odds, after a lifetime of cantankerousness that hadn’t showed noticeable signs of easing up anywhere else, the adoration was mutual.

Nic’s mum had always told him his dad had a soft side. It had only taken about thirty years for Nic to see it.

Emma came back into the room. “Everybody happily asleep,” she said, settling onto the loveseat, and Nic sat down beside her for the report. “Did Ellen go to bed, George?”

He grunted. “Yeh. No sense in both of us being kept up.”

Nic opened his mouth to tell his dad that he could have put George back down again, that it wouldn’t have taken him much time at all to fall asleep on his own, but Emma laid a hand over his, and he shut it again.

“How did Zack and Harry do?” Emma asked.

“Had their tea, then Zack had to take Harry out and show him his new sandbox.” The one his dad had built this spring as a surprise for his grandsons. “Made a proper mess of themselves, had to have another bath afterwards.”

“Because Zack loves it,” Emma said. “That was such a good idea of yours.”

Laying it on a bit thick, Nic thought, but George grunted again, and Nic could tell it was a happy grunt. If there was such a thing.

“Your mum got your old soldiers out of the cupboard,” he told Nic. “Yours and Dan’s. Did you know she’d saved those?”

“No.” Nic laughed. “Our GI Joes? I’d have thought they’d have gone to some op shop yonks ago. She saved them?”

“Forgotten them until just recently, when she was having a clean-out,” George said. “Saving them up for an occasion ever since, and she thought this was it. Got the soldiers and the trucks and all. Even the tank I got you that Christmas. The tank wasn’t running, of course, but I cleaned off the connections, put a new battery in, and she was good as gold. Boys loved that. Making the gun spin around and all. Had quite the battle in there.”

“I hope you were careful with the baby,” Nic said. “He’s putting everything in his mouth these days. And those soldiers have some small parts, don’t they. He could bite something off, choke on it.”

His father glared at him. “Think I’d be that careless with my grandson? D’you imagine you’re the only man in the world who’s ever been a dad? I’m a wee bit smarter than that, I hope. Did you or Dan ever choke on a toy?”

“Well, not that I remember,” Nic admitted.

Another grunt. “Too right you didn’t. Because I wouldn’t’ve let you. Anyway, we didn’t let the baby in the sandbox, of course. Past his bedtime, wasn’t it. Course, I had to put him down, too,” he added with a sigh. “But never mind.”

Nic held it in, said goodnight, took a quick peek at the kids.

Zack and Harry, sleeping peacefully in the twin beds in Dan’s old room, clearly worn out with their exciting day. And George in his cot, his thick, curly brown hair going in all directions, his thumb in his mouth. Lying in his favorite position, knees beneath him, bum in the air, in the All Black pajamas Zack had insisted his baby brother needed.

Nic smiled at the sight, tucked the blanket more securely around him, then left the room, closed the door softly behind him, and walked down the hall to the bedroom next door.

Emma was pulling her nightdress out of the closet. She turned at his entrance, looked at his face, and started to giggle.

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. She giggled some more, and he was laughing so hard he was gasping, trying to be quiet so his dad wouldn’t hear, falling across the bed and pulling Emma with him.

“The tougher they are,” she said at last, wiping her face on his T-shirt, the way she’d done so many times before, “the harder they fall.”

Everyone had left, finally. Drew had thought they’d never go. He’d been afraid Hannah would get too tired again, and he didn’t want her too tired. Not for her, and not for him.

Now, he stood with her in front of the wall-to-wall mirror in the expansive white and gray bathroom, watched her patting her face dry beside him with a white hand towel, then pulling the pins out of the knot at the back of her head until the heavy plait fell down her back.

He set his toothbrush back in the rack, turned and leaned a hip against the tile edge, and looked at her.

“Take it down for me,” he said. “Out of the plait.”

Her blue eyes, always so innocent in her pretty face, flew to his in the mirror. He saw them widen, search his own. And then her hands were going slowly to the white-blonde plait, pulling it in front of her body so it hung to her hip, beginning to untwist it so the curling tendrils fell free around her body.

And just like that. Just like that. Just her eyes, and her hair.

She was still looking at him, her lips parted a bit now, that Cupid’s bow on her top lip that still did him in. He’d longed to trace it with his tongue the very first day he’d met her, and he still did.

She could tell, too, because he could hear her breath coming harder just from this. Just from those few words, from his gaze on her. The knowledge that he had that much power over her…it was a thrill, still. Always.

Her hands reached the top of the thick plait. She loosened the final twist, lifted the heavy fall of hair in both hands, shook it loose around her, and he stood there and watched her do it.

Just watching, nothing more, and he was falling fast. Maybe he wasn’t the one with the power after all.

He picked up the extra-large tub of rich mango-papaya moisturizing cream she smoothed religiously onto every centimeter of herself every night to keep her pale skin
supple, especially as her pregnancy advanced. He loved the smell of that stuff, the silkiness of her skin. Time to show her how much.

“Take off your nightgown, sweetheart,” he told her. “Because I think you need somebody to do this for you tonight.”

“Drew.” Her chest was rising and falling noticeably now with every breath, and they hadn’t even started. “I’m not…you don’t want to look that closely.” She laughed a little. “I know you don’t.”

He saw the uncertainty in her face, and his heart twisted. Finn had been right, and he was going to do something about that. He was going to convince her, or he was going to die trying.

“Don’t you know,” he asked her, “how sexy you are to me right now? Come on. Take it off for me. Show me your beautiful body. Please.”

She looked at him again, then, so slowly, obeyed, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The white cotton rode up her body, over her head, and he reached a hand out, ran it over the perfectly rounded contour of her bare belly, the skin smooth and shining as marble, then over a full breast as it lifted to fill his hand. Her arms were over her head, and her pale skin was so translucent, he could see every blue vein outlined beneath the surface as if it had been etched by a sculptor.

So pretty. So vulnerable. He wanted to protect her, and at the same time…not. He wanted to feel her giving him all that sweet vulnerability, to feel himself taking it. He moved his hand, felt the sensitive tip hardening under his palm, heard the hitch in her breath, and that was all it took. He was gone.

“Undies,” he said, his mouth dry, and she dropped the nightgown to the carpet, pulled those down too, kicked them aside.

“Bed, don’t you think?” he asked. Not that he needed to go anywhere. Here would have worked brilliantly for him, the way he felt right now. But rushing her was wrong, especially now. He’d take his time, show her how much he loved it. She needed to know it, and he needed it too.

“And candles, I think,” he added. “Because I love to look at you in the candlelight. And I want to see you tonight.”

She laughed, just a breath, turned and walked into the bedroom, the blinds on the tall windows closed now against the soft summer night, but the windows open, a sigh of sea air coming through.

He could tell by the way she carried herself that she was believing, now. That she knew how excited he was, and that she was feeling the same way. The urgency pulled at him again, the anticipation of what was to come almost as sweet as the reality would be. Almost. Because it had been a while, as tired as she’d been, and it would be another long wait as soon as the baby came. He was going to make this one count.

She pulled the white duvet back, lay down, and waited for him. Because she always did.

He reached in the drawer for the box of matches, struck one and touched it to the wick of the heavy white pillar candle on the table, and then, when it had flared into life, came around the bed and did the same on her side. Touched the light switch with a finger, and then it was just Hannah and the bed, lit by the soft, flickering golden glow of candlelight.

He hadn’t just been talking. She was beautiful. And he wanted her.

He pulled his T-shirt over his head, emerged from it to find her pushing herself up to sit, shoving his boxer briefs down his legs. Her hand was reaching for him, stroking, her touch at once soft and burning as hot as the flames he’d just ignited.

And then she bent, kissed him where he needed it most, and every bit of his attention was there. Right there, right now, and this wasn’t what he’d planned. Not at all.

“First.” She looked up at him and smiled a little, all of her so soft and sweet. “First. Present for my nap.”

“Ah…” His tongue felt clumsy in his mouth. “I want to make you feel good. To show you.”

“And you will.” She’d risen to her feet, was pushing him to sit on the edge of the bed in her place. “You’re going to show me everything. But first, I’m going to show you.”

She was standing between his thighs, her hands on his shoulders, stroking down the heavy muscle of his upper arms, lingering a bit, then moving onto his chest to explore him there, and he knew she loved what she was feeling, and loved knowing it.

She knew exactly what he liked, all his most sensitive spots, her clever fingers teasing out a response his body was all too eager to give. And then she turned her hands, grazed the skin of his sides with her fingernails, a long, slow caress, down and down, and he could feel the gooseflesh form.

“Want a pregnant wife on her knees for you?” she asked him, her fingers trailing over his abdomen now, so close. So close. Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it, because she was shy, always, about talking in bed. Which only made it hotter when she did. “Would that be a good thing?”

“Yeh,” he managed to get out. He put out a hand to support her as she lowered herself, and thought he was going to explode right then and there.

He didn’t, because she took her time. She took it slowly, as if she knew that was what he needed.

He’d wanted to please her tonight, to make her feel pretty, to make her feel desired. Instead, he was wrapping his hands through pale strands of hair, twisting his fists in it, closing his eyes and opening them again, because he couldn’t stand not to watch her like this.