Talk to Me (30 page)

Smiling gently, he traced my collarbone with one finger. ‘I really regret not insisting you moved in the other night. I should have done the cave man thing, slung you over my shoulder and brought you back here.’

‘I was trying to make life easier with Emily. Although I guess she knows now.’

‘Yeah, I kind of gave it away tonight,’ mused Daniel, a reminiscent smile on his face.

He brought both hands up to my face, smoothing my undamaged cheek with his thumb, looking intently at me. A little shiver unfurled down my spine in anticipation. ‘I should have told you first, but surely you know? You must have realised on Sunday. I don’t make a habit of asking women to move in with me. You are the only woman I’ve ever even considered wanting to have here. You do know that I’m absolutely one hundred per cent crazy about you?’

My heart flipped with happiness and my stomach dropped as if I’d jumped out of a plane.

‘In fact, I still owe you for that little performance the night at The Grayling.’

‘That?’ I gave him a mischievous smile, trying to breathe normally as my heart was still going skitter scatter. It felt as if at any moment it might burst out of my chest. ‘You deserved it.’

His eyes glinted playfully. ‘Er … run that by me again. How?’

‘I was mad at you, treating me like one of the lads.’

‘Sweetheart,’ he kissed me, ‘you are most definitely not,’ he punctuated his words with another pert kiss, ‘one of the lads.’ He ended with a final peck on my lower lip. ‘None of them have underwear like that. I tell you I was in a terrible state in the car that night. I’d been doing my best not to think about you since Ben’s bloody party because I thought you were in love with someone else and suddenly it hits me like a truck that I have the serious hots for you. I have a rampaging hard on and, you, cool as a cucumber, saunter off telling me to go downstairs to wait for the car.’

I grinned at him, a little shudder of cat-that-licked-the-cream running through me.

‘Sorry,’ I said not meaning it, which he knew damn well from the twitch of my lips.

‘Honestly, I am keeping you under lock and key. Don’t even think of going anywhere without me for at least a century. I don’t think my heart can take it.’

I placed my hand on his chest, I could feel the steady beat, beat, beat of his heart. ‘I think it’ll survive … with lots of love and attention.’

‘Promise.’

I nodded slowly, my eyes drinking in the tenderness in his. There was a pause, my own heart slowed, it was my turn.

‘Daniel, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve been tying myself in knots since that night in casualty. It was so bad that I nearly didn’t come this weekend …’ I tutted showing my irritation, ‘except I couldn’t stay away. It was supposed to be my one last …’ My words were swallowed with an enormous yawn.

‘You need to go to bed, you must be shattered.’

I looked ruefully at him, another yawn escaping. ‘Sorry.’ I sighed. ‘I’ve been running on adrenaline for ages. I’ve just hit empty.’

‘Come on,’ he said firmly, pulling me to my feet. ‘Bed time.’

A lightening tingle shot through me as his fingers slipped between mine. Switching out lights as we went, he led the way up the little staircase, both of us ducking our heads at the top narrow corner. Outside the bedroom door, he let go of my hand and opened it to let me through.

I’d taken a quick look at my injuries before I’d left the flat but with a stampede of policemen about, I wasn’t given time to dally. I nearly died when I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. My cheek had swelled to Quasimodo proportions; my mascara would have rivalled that of a seventeen-year-old Goth; and I had marginally less colour than a corpse. At my horrified squeak, Daniel came to stand behind me, his mouth tightening. I touched my cheek, wincing, it was starting to feel painful again as the tablets were wearing off.

‘You could have told me how awful I look,’ I said with a pout.

He quirked an eyebrow in response.

‘OK, maybe not, but I could have cleaned up.’

‘Now you know why I’ve been trying to summon up some restraint,’ he growled into my ear, his arm snaking round my waist. ‘Much as I’d like to ravish you, I’m worried about hurting you and don’t deny it you’ve winced through every brush stroke of your teeth, I saw you. It’s more pills, an ice pack and bed for you – nothing more … tonight.’

My hormones gratefully acknowledged that they were all talk this evening and slipped into standby mode. There was always tomorrow. The last thing I remember is Daniel lifting me into bed and sliding in next to me from the same side. He shuffled me into the middle of the bed and nestled me into him.

I made a tentative stroke of his chest, breathing in his smell, exhaling warm breath over his smooth skin. He caught my hand, and turned his head to mutter in my hair.

‘Olivia, you need to rest, I’ll still be here in the morning, but I can only take so much.’

I snuggled into his warm body, and I fell fast asleep to the beat of his heart pumping away, solid and safe.

An arm was idly tracing the length of my rib brushing along just under my breast. Even as I came to, my nerve endings were already leaping into action. They were at the starting post. The rest of me was trying to catch up. Sleepily I rolled over to face Daniel, who was lying there, head propped up on one hand, watching me indulgently.

‘Morning, sleepy head.’ He smiled, his hand stilling for a second. ‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’ The wickedness of his grin notched up.

‘No,’ my voice was husky as it found itself. I felt so much better. I tried an experimental smile and lifted a hand to touch my cheek, the swelling had definitely gone down and the pain was low grade, quite manageable which was just as well.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, scooping his arm around me to pull me nearer. I squirmed savouring the delicious feeling of naked body, deliberately rubbing against him.

‘Better,’ I murmured. ‘Much better.’ One of his legs slipped over mine. A tiny gasp escaped me. The hair roughened skin had set light to a thousand little nerves racing up my thigh. His other arm slipped under my shoulder and he pulled me close. His bare chest was warm and solid, my breasts crushed against it, the smattering of hair tickling slightly. My heart bungeed its way down to my toes, lurching with instant desire.

His eyes were dancing with mischief. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes, I’m sor—’

He laid a finger on my lips to stop my apology. I gave it a gentle nip, just touching it with the tip of my tongue. His eyes widened for a second, the pupils darkening in surprise. Watching him mischievously, I gently sucked on the top of his finger.

‘Sure you’re OK?’ he whispered, as a warm hand slid up my stomach. Holding his gaze, I nodded, my heart thumping. He touched my cheek very gently, before moving in to plant a long slow kiss. My lips were positively tingling as I sighed into that kiss. My hips inched forward, I couldn’t help myself. I was past caring if I was a hussy. It was a sinuous move, nudging up against him, urging him on. Immediately the kiss deepened, my body melted into his, as one hand smoothed my breast teasing the nipple, which immediately jumped to attention. Forget butterflies, my stomach had taken off with all those fluttery feelings.

My skin felt hot where those warm hands were sliding back and forth. An involuntarily moan slipped out. Daniel lifted his head, looked down at me and gave me an arrogant smile. Well two could play at that game. My hand slipped down his back, sliding over his hard hip and down, stroking down the length of him with a feather-light touch. A delicious gasp escaped him and I grinned delightedly at him.

‘Minx,’ he growled, cupping a hand round my head and moving over me. Heat was sweeping downwards. Passion was building, a slow sure fire being stoked by every writhe and move. Our sighs punctuated the morning and little murmurs of acquiescence danced on the air as the momentum and urgency built.

All shyness, that early tentative exploration was gone now. The experimenting and teasing was over. Our breathing roughened as small moans of demand filled the air, a delicate negotiation of desire taking place as unspoken pleas for this and that danced back and forth.

Finally when I didn’t think I could bear it any longer, my hips nudging and meeting his, he looked into my eyes and I gave him a complicit age-old nod. We slid into that moment of intimacy; bodies locked together driving towards a climax.

It was a far cry from Earlsfield, the sunlight pouring through the sash windows, bird song outside and … a gorgeous man in my bed. I stretched, my stomach full of squirmy feelings of happiness. My hand absently brushing against Daniel’s thigh.

‘Oy, give a man a chance.’ He grinned, pulling me on top of him. I stared down into his laughing face, sheer joy lighting me from the inside out. I was glowing and it wasn’t just physical.

‘Now that you’ve had your wicked way with me, I need to phone work. I ought to put in an appearance at some stage today.’

‘It’s a good job your boss is so understanding,’ I teased.

He swatted me on the bottom. ‘He’s a fool but he’s madly in love with a very troublesome wench. You know the type.’

I pouted at him, before registering the first part of his sentence. I stilled and raised an eyebrow. ‘Is he?’

Daniel rubbed my nose with his, Eskimo style. ‘He most certainly is, although he’s not sure how the troublesome wench feels.’

I moved kissing his jaw line, working my way towards his ear. ‘The troublesome wench is madly in love with him too,’ I whispered happily.

Shifting so that we were facing each other, he looked at me, his hand stroking the ‘V’ between my cleavage and moving to trace under my breast. He smiled gently. ‘That’s good.’

As we lay there luxuriating in the warm, cosy duvet moment, I looked at Daniel. ‘If you had a choice, which super power would you pick, flight or invisibility?’

His eyes narrowed at me, giving the question the due consideration required. He tipped his head to one side, eyes screwed up in concentration and mouth moving as he ruminated.

‘Hmm,’ he said. I waited watching him closely. He knew this was serious stuff. ‘Is there a right answer here?’ he asked eventually, a worried crease appearing on his forehead. I nodded very slowly

‘Yup.’

‘Any clues?’ he asked.

‘Nope.’

‘Right.’ A heavy sigh followed. He screwed up his face, looking out of the window. ‘Flight … definitely flight … as long as I don’t have to wear the tights. I always thought those shiny legging things were a bit nineteen eighties disco, not really very superhero.’

Bingo, one hundred and eighty. I flashed him a kilowatt smile.

He looked smug, laying back into the pillows his hands behind his head. ‘So what do I get then? What’s the prize?’

I think he was quite satisfied with his reward.

I did get to have my lovely Thai dinner party in our wonderful new kitchen. It was a noisy, boozy affair. Which was just as well – no one noticed that the jasmine rice was overdone or that I only had mascara on one eye. Daniel said it was my own fault for doing my make-up in my underwear.

We’d planned to make a formal announcement at the end of dinner, the champagne would have been nicely chilled by then … but eagle-eyed Kate spotted the rock on my finger just as I was ladling out Nam Pla soup. Her squeal of surprise nearly pierced everyone’s eardrums. Yes, Kate was back from Australia. Bill had taken charge very thoroughly and brought her back with him. Trust her to spot the ring straight away, perhaps because she was still so conscious of her own.

Daniel had surprised me by proposing exactly six months to the day I moved in. As we were celebrating our anniversary he asked me whether the superpower of my choice was still flight? With my answer, which of course, was yes, he produced a tiny figure of Superman, complete with his very own necklace, a gold band with a seriously super-sized diamond on it.

Mum was immensely relieved; she’d already chosen and bought her mother of the bride hat the week after I moved in with Daniel. Dad was delighted and immediately embarked on a campaign of blackmail threatening to refuse to hand over the bride in church unless Daniel agreed to join his cricket team.

A lot has happened in those six months. I only went back to the flat once. Daniel and I popped in very briefly, packing my things as quickly as we could. There were too many memories there and I put it up for sale.

The correspondence from the Crown Prosecution Service about court dates and witness appearances seemed endless but in the event the trial was straightforward and I only needed to make a very brief appearance. The barrister defending Peter, who’d insisted on pleading not guilty to aggravated burglary, false imprisonment and ABH. had a tough enough job. He wanted my time in the witness box to be limited, which suited me fine. The photographs of my beaten up face so horrified the jury that Peter was sent to prison for two years.

It would have been nice to say that I’d left all the horrors of that day behind me in my rosy glow of happiness, but in the days before the trial the nightmares were frequent. No matter how many times I put the chain on the door in my dreams, faceless men with many arms shot through the door. Daniel was always there to hold me in the dark, stroking my hair while my heart pounded; the sound almost audible in the quiet night. Even now I still occasionally jerk awake, the sense of being chased filling my thoughts as I come to.

The only proper contact I had with Emily was at the trial. We exchanged emails to sort out the bills and detritus of sharing a flat and the odd friendly one about how fantastic her new job was and how much better it was there than at Organic PR. But gradually these petered out, as did her relationship with Barney. Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure I could have stomached seeing her over family Christmas lunches. Apparently she’d latched on to a client who also happened to be a multi-millionaire.

Amazingly my boss, David, was incredibly supportive during the trial. In fact immediately after the hostage situation as Dad tensely refers to it, David insisted on providing me with trauma counselling on the company. My team, Cara, – who, conveniently for me, did get together with Ned – Camilla and Helene, without Emily’s malignant influence, became good friends, as well as Daniel’s unofficial fan club. All are completely besotted with him. Whenever he visits the office, his ego swells tenfold.

I can hardly complain. I have to agree he is pretty wonderful. Bless them, they’re still complete air heads but nice air heads. Fiona was absolutely delighted to find Emily gone. She’s a huge fan of mine – especially as my promotion paved the way for her move up to the top floor to board director. Now I organise the posh parties and it’s quite good fun. I don’t miss my hard hat as much as I thought I would and those girls at the magazines – well, let’s just say they grow on you.