Blooming (13 page)

Jen gawped at
Ben open-mouthed; did she really know so little about the man who was taking up
so much of her thoughts these days? While he was busy driving her round the
bend crazy with unwelcome ideas and possibilities couldn’t he have dropped in
that little piece of information?

She raised
her left hand to rub her face and then groaned anew when she got the first
glimpse of the cast covering her forearm and wrist. “Oh fucking hell.”

****

When Jen woke
again, Sebastian was there. He immediately leaned over and hugged her as
carefully as possible - he had her dress on his lap and had been in the process
of scrutinizing it.

“God Jen
you’ve done a number on this, your dress is a write off.”

“Sean’s going
to kill me; it was so beautiful, is it torn?”

“No, but even
if for some reason you ever wanted to wear a dress that you confronted a rapist
in; it’s covered in his blood and.. oh my god I think that might be vomit.”

Jen had a
vivid flashback, “I think so too.”

Seb threw the
dress across the room grimacing and rubbed his hands on his immaculate
trousers. “Jen you’re not going to like it but part of the reason I’m here is
to make sure the press don’t try to get in your room.”

“The press
are here, why?” she squeaked, completely dumbfounded.

“Jen, the whole
thing is all over YouTube, you and Todd are getting mega coverage. The pair of
you caught a man who the cops are now saying assaulted 5 women and counting.
Christ Jen, I watched some of the footage, to anybody on the outside it makes
great viewing.”

“and hot as
hell, you look like a tiny Xena Warrior Princess in a fabulous dress,” a voice
chirped in.

“Sean, you’re
here!”

“Baby the
whole marvellous thing from you nearly dropping a table on Todd, to wrestling
him off that ugly prick and then proceeding to throttle a former professional
boxer unconscious is all over the news. The table behind you was filming
Grandma’s 80
^th
birthday party and caught the whole thing, poor grandma
nearly had a heart attack!”

Jen began to
feel herself fading out; she was going into full blown panic attack, her breath
coming in gasps.

Sebastian
shut him up, “Sean will you cool it, where’s...?”

“I’m here,”
Todd rasped, strong arming Sean out of the way. “Go get a nurse Sean and stop
fucking about.”

In the next
moment his hands gently slid Jen across the bed and his long heavy body curled
into her. Draping over her carefully, he laid his arm lightly on her chest and
stroked his knuckles along her jaw, “just look at me Jen.”

She panted
her eyes bugging out of her skull, “are you ok Todd, I was so scared,” then she
started shaking violently and a nurse came in and gave her a shot and she
passed out.

****

Jen woke up
when the pain in her ribs disturbed her. She daren’t move to check the time, Todd
was lying next to her on his side, sound asleep, and it felt so comforting to
have him close.

Was it ok to have
such intense feelings for someone she knew so little about? She raised her eyes
without moving any other muscle; she had the perfect opportunity to scrutinize
him surreptitiously.

She started
with the straight darkest brown hair, it had been brushed straight back earlier
in the evening but now had parted slightly on the right and it flopped on the
left side of his forehead nearly touching his straight full eyebrows, she knew
without touching his hair that it was softer than hers.

The true
beauty of his bone structure was revealed now that his eyes were closed because
they usually captured most of her attention. If he was a boxer he must have
been good because she couldn’t see any lasting damage, possibly the tiniest
scar under his left eyebrow, but that could have been from anything.

His nose was straight
and his cheekbones defined without being prominent, he had great skin, creamy,
the kind that tanned easily. A day’s worth of dark stubble only made him look
better. It framed a wide mouth and nice lips - not too full like some men’s
were. She’d always found that a bit disturbing, she didn’t think men should
have plump lips - then there was the gentle cleft in his chin, perfectly formed
and not so deep that he looked like he had two chins.

He didn’t
even have the decency to have ears that stuck out, she smiled to herself. He
was like baby bear’s porridge from Goldilocks; he was “just right.”

Todd stirred
slightly and she stifled a grimace, she was laying flat on her back and his
right arm had come to rest heavily about her waist, his right leg hooked over
hers.

He was still
wearing his dress trousers but at some point he must have removed his shirt,
probably because it had blood on it. She smiled when she saw his white vest
remembering the Bruce Willis analogy she made to him, her eye-line shifted
wondering if she’d hurt him and sure enough a red welt ringed the area slightly
south of his Adam’s apple.

Christ what a
pair they made.

Jen gently
lowered his arm to nearer her left hip and turned into him gingerly, testing to
find the limits of her pain; she rested her cast over his arm and tucked her
face into his neck.

She lay awake
for a long time savouring the intimacy, marvelling in the newness of it all. Running
concurrent to that was a wariness of the depth of attachment she already felt
for him.

Todd woke to
find Jen tracing his skin where it was raw. When she realised he was awake she
tentatively kissed his neck and smiled up at him.

“Am I
forgiven?” he sighed.

“There’s
nothing to forgive.”

“Jen you do
know that big white cast on your wrist means you’ve got a broken arm and how
the hell I managed not to break every one of your ribs I don’t know.”

“Well women
who take on a prize-fighter deserve everything they get,” she teased and then
said more seriously, “I’ve had worse remember and your voice is all croaky so
I’m calling us about even.”

“Hmm I don’t
think so, but how come you’ve got one of these old plaster casts I thought
things had moved on from that. I’ve had pals with some kind of fibreglass
rubberised sort of thing.”

“Probably to
do with my crappy cheap health insurance, I presume they got the details from
my purse, I don’t think it stretches to a nice colourful fibreglass one. It’s
not a big deal I’ll manage.”

He nodded
admiringly at her calm acceptance of her situation. “I see you found out my not
so secret past.”

“Why didn’t you
want to tell me?”

“I guess I
figured you were anxious enough about me as it was, without laying that on you
just yet. Besides it’s all in the past now - it’s quite a relief when I meet
people who haven’t a clue who I am, and generally I don’t bother clueing them
in if they don’t know. It was never my big passion in life, I just fell into it
when I realised I was good at it. My dad boxed, that’s how it started.”

“You got out
while you were still pretty?” she joked.

“I do kinda
like my nose as it is! The truth is I made a lot of money in a short time, and
when I was offered modelling jobs off the back of it, it was an added incentive
to get out while the going was good. I had a nice nest egg at the end of it all
and used it to help my family and to start investing in property.”

“You were a
model too?” she groaned.

“You really
didn’t think I looked familiar at all did you?”

“No, I was
too focused on how disgustingly handsome you are.”

He laughed at
her disgruntled tone, “you didn’t ever see the ads for Bravura Aftershave? It
was a few years back - but it was a pretty big campaign at the time.”

He watched her
study his face for a minute and then recognition dawned,”Oh... my God – you’re
the Bravura guy,” she rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “Jesus
Christ,” she said in awe, “I can’t believe I’ve met the Bravura guy let alone
I’ve been kissing him. I think you better get the nurse back in I’m gonna need
more drugs.”

She huffed
and puffed in consternation, “You really just couldn’t make yourself more out
of my league could you Todd?”

“Don’t be
silly, it’s all over now, I’m just an ordinary Joe.”

“It’s not
funny; I had a crush on you! I remember hating that blonde girl in the ads that
got to drape all over you.”

“That’s my ex
girlfriend.”

“Stop right
there I don’t want to know anymore, if you say another word I’m going to
spontaneously combust, I swear it.”

Todd pulled
Jen back close to him and trailed kisses along her eyebrow to distract her,
“I’m glad you managed to stop me tonight. I couldn’t think straight - I’ve
never been so out of control in my life. I was going to kill him, I know I was,
and the bastard didn’t even give me the satisfaction of trying to fight back.”

Jen’s hand
moved to stroke the hairs at the neck of his vest. She smiled teasingly, “well
I did soften him up a bit for you. I knocked the wind out of him before you got
there. You might not have managed to pulverize him so completely without me on
your side!”

Her humour
diffused the tension in his face and he smiled softly.

More
seriously she said, “Todd, I think that’s why Lily, Ben and I didn’t realise
the danger at the time. He seemed so pathetic – just this loathsome creep who
needed to lie to get a girl.” She remembered something, “is it true what the
boys said, that it’s on the internet, and that reporters’...”

Todd nodded,
“that’s why Sean got here ahead of me this evening, I got waylaid in the hall
on the way in. On the plus side I think that’s why the nurse let me stay the
night, it seems I’m now equally famous for being a rapist basher,” he said
wryly.

Jen cuddled
in closer to him, “Todd would you mind taking the pins out of my hair for me,
it’s hurting my head and I daren’t reach up.”

“It would be
my pleasure Miss Harris, anything for you.” His fingers stroked into her hair,
gently massaging as he went, locating pin after pin.

“God how many
have you got in here?” he said after he’d removed at least two dozen. “Jeez I’m
not surprised it hurts,” he carefully loosened the coils of her hair, easing
and rubbing the tension from her scalp. It felt like bliss and smarted like
hell at the same time.

“I’m not sure
I’ve got them all but that should be a bit better.” His broad fingers moved
down her neck and rubbed the stress knots at the top of her spine.

After a while
she felt one of Todd’s hands creep down between the ties of the hospital gown
at her back, and he trailed his fingertips up and down amid the gaps.

“No bra – I
like that,” he muttered softly as he spread his fingers in wider sweeps over
her skin.

Jen blushed,
heat creeping along everywhere he touched. “It was built into the gorgeous dress
that I’ll never wear again,” she said a little sadly.

“When I said
you looked beautiful this evening I meant it,” he said truthfully. “I saw you
come in the door and my heart just about stopped. Every man in the restaurant
was eyeing you and most of the women looked green with envy. All my brain could
register was that I hoped tonight would be the night we... got a little closer
so to speak.”

He wasn’t
surprised when she went a tad tense in his arms.

Changing the
subject back to safer territory he said “Don’t worry about the dress; if I know
Sean he will have at least half a dozen more ready for you, probably has that
same one in another colour. He’s having the time of his life because I gave him
the go ahead to tell the press he was your personal dress designer, he’ll have
offers flooding in. One of us might as well have some good come out of this
whole mess.”

Jen surprised
him then when very carefully and slowly she said, “Even before we danced tonight
I was tying myself up in knots, daring myself where this was going. I think it
was heading where you hoped it would be heading.” She continued a bit more
shyly, “I think it really was, but this,” she said indicating the two of them,
“somehow it’s not quite what I thought.”

At her words,
Todd couldn’t resist any longer. He dropped his head to hers and kissed her,
coaxing her lips with his to encourage them to open, he was thrilled at her
instant acceptance and his tongue crept its way gently into her mouth, tracing
her lips softly and tenderly.

God she loved
this, the feel of him. Todd who she felt was so far out of her league, that he
should want her like this it absolutely blew her mind. He scared her in every
way and yet filled her with feelings of safety and security at the same time.

Jen kissed
him back trying to put everything she felt into it, accepting his tongue and
sliding hers back against him. Sucking his top lip, his bottom lip, bumping
noses and chins, relishing the stubble rasping her skin and even the smell of
day old man who’d been roughing it out in a jail cell. She craved it all.

With a jolt
she pulled away. Todd’s eyes were blazing even in the half light; his lips kiss
swollen just as much as hers. His mouth followed hers as she retreated,
beckoning her back to him.

“No I want to
look at you,” she said.

His face grew
puzzled, “I want to look at you,” she repeated, “get used to you, while you do
nothing back.”

Slowly Todd
stilled his breathing and released her from his grip. His hands went to his
waist and he pulled his vest off over his head, shifting to his back he draped one
arm behind her head and the other down the length of the bed frame. Gingerly
Jen sat up and looked down at him.

Todd put his
hand to her cheek, “ok – whatever you need.”     

“Scoot over a
bit,” she said giving him the room, wanting him more central so he was more
stretched out. There was so much of him to study.”