Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series) (4 page)

“Kiss me
again,” she finally whispered into his ear, while she inwardly kicked herself
for over-analyzing things, rather than simply live in the present.

He turned
his head and looked at her for a moment, then bent his head and let his lips
meet hers briefly before pulling back.

“Protection
first,” he said breathlessly. He stood up, rummaged in his jeans pockets, and
retrieved a packet. He returned to her while she still lay as he’d left her –
numb and happy.

He covered
her and claimed another kiss. His fingers toyed with a lock of her hair while
his clever tongue worked her desire back up to fever pitch. When she was reduced
to a jumble of nerves, he shifted up and filled her, stretched the pleasure
stimulus to her sex like an artist’s canvas on a wooden frame.

“God,” he
gasped. “You feel…”

He never
finished that sentence because he started to move, a little restrained at
first. His face was so close, the details jumped at her – lips pursed, jaw set,
eyes bottomless pools that betrayed how much it pained him to hold back.

Her hands
greedily explored his rippling back while a climax bigger than the first built
inside her
.“
Let go. I want to feel you with me,” she
said into his ear.

A fierce
mien crept in his eyes at her request. It was like something snapped inside him
and revealed a dark, compulsive hunger. His rhythm intensified and fed fast
into her need to reach the peak. He followed soon after with a groan, and for
just a moment his tense features eased into an expression of … dared she say …
happiness.

He dropped
his damp forehead against hers, clutched on to her while his erratic breathing
returned to normal. The back of his hand caressed her face, then, he eased
gently on to the pillow next to her.

Drawing
her close, he covered them both with the sheets. She laid her head on his chest
and listened to the beating of his heart. No words hung between them. Only silence
reigned while they both came to their senses. It was one of those times when
verbal expression would have done little justice to their feelings; she was
sure somehow that he felt the same.

So she
simply cherished the way he kissed the top of her head, saved that emotion in
her memory bank, while his fingers doodled idle circles on her back.

When the
sounds of the night cradled them in its embrace, Alex stirred. “Are you
hungry?”

“Famished,”
she smiled lazily into his chest.

He propped
up the pillows beneath them and sat up, raised her with him and settled her
back on his chest. “I’ll feed you.”

Her mouth
rejoiced in the taste of fried pastry stuffed with figs, orange peel and spices
– the local
imqaret
,
a calorie minefield, but one worth
stepping through.

“
Mmmm
.”

“They’re
one of my favourite desserts, too,” he confessed. He let a moment pass then
asked in a low voice. “You don’t have to tell me this, but I wonder… were you
born with sight problems?”

“No,” she
replied. Her heart started to beat a little faster.

“As I
said, you don’t have to talk about it.”

“But I
do,” she surprised herself by saying. Gut instinct pried the words from her.

This was a
night of totally unexpected things.

“Do you
believe in the supernatural?” When she asked the question, even against her
better judgment, she mustered the courage to open up to him. She couldn’t
explain why she felt that he would understand – she knew only that she did.

“One has
to be insane to live in Malta and not believe it, or at least be touched by it
in some way.”

His reply
gave her the impetus to go on. She told him of the trip to
Buskett
Gardens with her parents, of her exploration, and then, of the psychic experience
she had that left her completely sightless at first. It was the first time she
bared herself this way, and it came easily – like pouring tea.

Life is
not merely stranger than fiction; it’s even more outlandish.

“When was
this?” he asked gently. His arms bundled her in a blanket of security.

“I was
fourteen. But there’s more…”

A strong
hand explored the length of her hair. “I’m listening.”

“It all
happened fifteen years ago today. Well, I mean yesterday. And…” she swallowed
hard, “and it was right after I’d spotted a body in the woods.
A young man, with a gun.
He was covered in blood and he was
dead and oh, it was so horrible!” The memories stung her.

His
comforting caresses suddenly stopped and he stiffened beside her.

“What’s
wrong?” she dared to ask. Her heart sank.

A
momentary pause, then: “That dead man you saw, I knew him,” he said in a punishing
voice. “That man was my brother.”

Chapter Three

Alex braced
himself.
Melita
shot up and turned to face him, an
incredulous look on her face. She dragged the sheet along and clasped it to her
breasts, as if it were her most prized possession… a flimsy barrier between
them.

“What?”
Her high-pitched tone seared his brain, forced him to evade her questioning
gaze.

For the
first time in fifteen years, Alex relived the worst days of his life, all
because of the woman he’d just made love to.
A stranger, who
wasn’t such a stranger after all.
The first emotion sparked by her words
was anger – resentment that she had to bring up something he’d buried deep
inside him, and liked to keep that way. Why did she have to unearth it?

He fisted
his hands into the counterpane. “How many people you think shot their brains
out in that place? It was my brother. His name was Tony.”

The number
one cardinal rule was that he never spoke about Tony. He’d never broken that
vow. His voice cracked over the two syllables, God help him and curse her.

“But how
could it be? I don’t remember…” her voice trailed away. Although he wasn’t
looking at her, he could hear the cogs of her mind turn with her thoughts. “I
was going to say that I don’t remember his name, but my parents had kept me
away from the news or anything related to the incident. And, of course, I
couldn’t read about it. Later on, I just wanted to put it behind me.”

“Look at
me.” When she wouldn’t, he gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to meet
his eyes. “So you never bothered to find out about Tony,” he bit out, but the
anguish in her expression floored him. He instantly regretted the violence in
his voice. He let her go.

“No! I
just,” she faltered, “I just couldn’t handle it.”

For an
insane moment, he wanted to be somewhere else.
Somewhere
deserted and obscure and empty.
Somewhere safe.

Certainly not here, facing the ghosts of his dreaded past.
Certainly not explaining himself to
someone he’d never met before.

But a
small voice in his head told him, if he kept avoiding the issue, would he ever move
on? He knew the answer to that question, which left him with – could he pluck
the nerve to turn a new leaf?

She inched
away, hurt. The awkwardness opened up a giant crevice between them. And there
they stood, she on one side and he on the other, with a long rickety bridge of
despair in between.

Her face
was flushed and tears flowed from her eyes. Humiliation pricked him. How had it
been for a young girl to witness such a thing? What had she been through?

A right
bastard he was. “I’m sorry.”

She chewed
on her bottom lip and nodded, but said nothing.

He sat up
too and reached out for her hand because he needed to know she forgave him for
his words. He needed her comfort.

She let
the sheet go and allowed him to entwine his fingers with hers, to bring them
down to rest on the quilt, above his chest. They both contemplated their joined
hands.

“He was
older, six years,” he started, each word a cumbersome load, near impossible to
express. “I looked up to him like a father. Our dad died when I was fairly
young and Mom worked long days at one of the stores, so he was all I had.”

“Alex—”

His name
sounded good on her lips. He squeezed her hand and held her gaze. “I need to tell.
Never thought about sharing this but I feel I must. I feel this is right.”

Her eyes
said so much that she didn’t have to say a word.

“He was a
moody sort of guy, but I never thought much of it. Didn’t have a clue what
being manic-depressive meant until he was diagnosed with it. That was a year
before he died. Before then, the doctor just thought it was a case of simple
depression.”

Her brows
knitted into a frown. “How could you know? You must have been young.”

“Sixteen.
He met a girl one day. Things were good for a while but after a few months, she
left him. He wasn’t that good with girls and didn’t have many friends – only
me. Perhaps she didn’t understand his mood swings, or perhaps she felt he was
too obsessed with her.

“Tony was
like God to me, but when they split, he withdrew from everyone, even from me.
We had a few good times, but mostly Mom and I had to walk on eggshells around
him. I got so angry. One time I even told him I hated him. Then he… he found
dad’s old gun…”

His voice
faltered under the pressure of all that old guilt. It was the same kind of
heartache that had plundered him when he’d just learned what Tony had done, as
though as though fifteen years hadn’t passed by. Fifteen years without Tony.

But then,
Melita
released his hand. The sweet scent of apples got
stronger when her warm breath stroked his temple. Her hair fell over them like
a perfumed curtain, and her arms came around his shoulders. He knew, right there
and then, that something had changed and shifted, irrevocably, inside him. A
door unlocked. A wall crumbled down.

The pain
was still there, but it wasn’t the same.

“Tony knew
you loved him. I’m sure he still does.”

“He was
helpless, isolated, and I let him down.”

 
“No, you didn’t. Heavens, you were little more
than a kid.”

Her fingers
massaged his scalp, and he leaned further into her – wished he could just
forget himself. With her, perhaps, he would.

 
She was right, but there was nothing logical
about coming to terms with the suicide of a loved one. At a loss for true
understanding, it is sometimes inevitable to blame oneself for the desperation
of others. Could he have done something, anything, to alleviate Tony’s
condition? Perhaps not, but it was so difficult to accept that Tony couldn’t be
helped by anyone, not even by his own flesh and blood.

“Towards
the end, we fought a lot,” he told her. “At first I thought it was because of
the girl, so I hated her. That was easy. Then, I started to think that Tony
didn’t like to hang out with me anymore because I was too young and immature.”

Melita
pressed her lips to his temple. “Manic-depressives tend to be irritable and
angry. There are so many symptoms associated with the condition. I’ve met a few
cases in my work. It’s a tough life for them and those who care for them. They
need so much love, but I have no doubt you gave him all that you possibly
could.”

He drew
back to look at her face and realized he never asked her what she did for a
living. “What line of work are you in?”

“I’m a
psychotherapist.”

He
laughed. “That’s why you make sense when you speak. And why just being with you
relaxes me.”

She
grinned back. “Wow, that’s a pretty unique testimonial you just gave me. Can I
print it on my business card?”

The
musical lilt to her voice really did soothe him, and he wished that well-being
to last.

“No, but
I’ll give you an even better endorsement if you like.”

He took
her hand and slipped it between the sheet and quilt so she’d feel how her
lingering caresses had roused his need to make love to her again.

“I need you.”
And he meant this on so many levels.

Her eyes
softened in understanding. She pushed him back on the pillow and leaned over
him to read his face. Her tongue grazed the stubble on his jaw and followed a
jagged path to his ear. Blood raced to his groin when she bent to pleasure him.
Watching her like that, she looked far from vulnerable. She had power – power
to fill him with need and want and to bring him to the brink with the slightest
touch.

He had to
stop her and pull her up to him. She straddled him, brought her torso flush
against his. Without breaking eye contact she kissed him passionately,
communicating to him that everything he’d said, every emotion he felt, was
important to her.

She sat
up,
her hands clasped with his, and took him all inside her.