All They Need(84)
Even if that meant keeping him at arm’s length.
If he accepted her rules, if he decided to continue with their weeknights and their weekends, he would be condemning himself to enormous frustration. Among other things.
But it wasn’t as though he had a choice.
He kissed her temple again. “We should probably make dinner, yeah? Otherwise we’ll be gnawing our arms off sometime soon.”
She pulled back enough to see his face, her gaze searching. He held her eye.
“I’m not going anywhere, Mel,” he said, answering the unspoken question in her eyes.
How could he? He loved her.
“A thousand men would.”
“Not this man.”
He stood, tugging her to her feet as well. “Let’s finish making dinner.”
LATER THAT NIGHT, Mel lay in bed beside Flynn listening to his steady breathing. Now that it was safe, she let the tears she’d been holding in all night slide down her face.
She was glad she’d told him, glad that he knew now, but a part of her felt small and ashamed and wrong and incredibly exposed. Flynn had always looked at her with admiration in his eyes. She didn’t want his pity. She didn’t want him to see her as weak or helpless or a victim. She knew it was inevitable that he would, to a certain extent, because she had been a victim, yet a part of her—her pride? her ego?—wanted him only to see good things in her.
She thought about the way he’d held her afterward, the way he’d kissed her temple so tenderly, so gently, and the way he’d made love to her tonight, as though she was the most precious thing in the world to him, and her tears fell faster. More than anything she wished she could give him what he wanted, what he needed. He deserved to be happy. She wished she was braver. She wished she had the courage to throw caution to the wind and leap feetfirst into everything he offered.
A sob rose in her throat and she swallowed it, using her fingers to wipe her tears away. Breathing through her mouth, she took deep belly breaths until she’d calmed herself.
I’m not going anywhere.
He’d said those words to her only a couple of hours ago, so there was no need for her to be lying here crying and grieving over a loss that hadn’t happened. He’d heard her, he’d understood her and he wasn’t going anywhere.
She turned toward him, wrapping her arms around his body from behind, curving her legs to fit behind his. He stirred in his sleep, his hand settling over hers to keep her arm in place. She lay her cheek against his back and inhaled his scent and allowed her body to absorb his calm, solid warmth.
Slowly, by small degrees, she drifted off to sleep. She woke to the feel of his mouth on her breasts the next morning and they had lazy morning sex before Flynn rolled out of bed and hit the shower. She joined him and left when he did, waving out the window of her car as he headed to work in the Aston.
She was aware of a certain tremulous fragility within herself as she took the ramp to the freeway. She reminded herself that while last night had been hard, they’d survived it. Flynn knew where she stood, and he knew why, and he hadn’t pushed her away or become angry or demanding or resentful.
They were going to be okay. For the short term, anyway.
She bit her lip as she thought about what she was asking of Flynn in the long term, what she was asking him to give up, then quickly pushed the thought away. Tomorrow was tomorrow. Right now—today—things were okay. That was what she needed to concentrate on.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE NEXT MONTH SLIPPED through Mel’s fingers like water. She spent every weekend with Flynn, and at least one night during the week. They worked in the garden at Summerlea, pruning the orchard rather brutally, and Flynn insisted on helping her plant her new vegetable garden, even though she told him she could easily do it on her own during the week.
Flynn was late getting home twice when she stayed with him in Melbourne, but he didn’t raise the subject of the spare key again, even though she half expected him to. He didn’t touch on any subjects that might make her uncomfortable. He continued to call her on the nights they weren’t together, he sent her emails, he made love to her with a single-minded devotion that never failed to drive her wild.
He was perfect. Not once, not by a slip of the tongue or a sideways glance or a hesitation, did he let on that he wanted more from her than she was willing to give, and yet the sense that there was something looming on the horizon—a crisis, a reckoning, an ultimatum—kept growing inside her.