Poison - Jade West Page 0,43

wrapped myself up as I watched him.

I didn’t want dinner.

My body was crying out for so much more than food.

It was crying out for him.

“I think maybe omelettes rather than steak,” he laughed, and I nodded.

He cooked as I stared, a smile on his face every time he flashed me a glance, and I smiled back but it was all a veneer.

My soul was churning. My mind was chewing. My body was calling. Just trying to make sense of it all.

I shouldn’t want him. Not one tiny bit.

I shouldn’t be there. Anywhere else in the world but there.

I should be checking out my phone and telling him to take me home to my regular world, but I didn’t want my regular world. I wanted his.

He served up my omelette with a “Ta-dah!” and I accepted with a thanks.

We didn’t even bother sitting at the table, just chowed it down with a fork at the counter, and I sought out the emergency tablets from my handbag and tipped them back with some juice.

And then we went to bed.

It felt ridiculously natural to slip under the covers beside him, and worryingly natural to snuggle up close. The crook of his shoulder felt made for my head, and his chest was beautifully firm under my arm.

Beautifully firm and beautifully solid and beautifully safe.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” I whispered, and his lips pressed to my hair.

“I’ll always come to get you,” he told me, and my heart panged at the truth in his words.

If only there had been as much truth in them a decade ago, before he ripped that same heart to pieces.

“You asked me questions about Millie,” he said, and his voice was so quietly serious it made my tummy flutter.

“Yeah, I did.”

He took a breath. “I’ve been arguing with Maya all week. She’s keeping her away from me because of a bullshit demand I couldn’t live up to. It’s her way of punishing me.”

I didn’t know quite what to say, so I didn’t say anything, just held him tighter. It worked. He kept on talking.

“I was supposed to have her tomorrow. We were going to see the sharks over in Chester. But she said it’s a no go. She always does. It’s the same crap whenever I don’t give her what she wants.”

“What demand couldn’t you live up to?”

I felt the tension in him as he found the words.

“I can hardly live up to any demand she bitches out to me. As soon as I’ve tried to deliver one she raises the bar and kicks me down another. She wanted me to get Millie from school on Wednesday, but I had meetings all afternoon.”

“Surely that must be alright with her? If you have work?”

He laughed a bitter little laugh. “Nothing is ever alright for her. Nothing is ever good enough for her to consider me good enough for Millie. Everything I do is a failure. Judged. Commented on. Scoffed at. It’s like my whole life is under a running commentary. Don’t do this, and must do that, and don’t even think of thinking that, you piece of useless shit.”

I tensed up alongside him, feeling his pain.

“So she’s kept her away from you?”

He nodded. “Because this time I told her no.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am. I should be the one apologising,” he whispered, and I knew where the conversation was turning all over again.

But no.

No.

“Don’t…” I said, and he held me tighter. “I mean it,” I said again. “I can’t listen to the past. I don’t want to listen to the past. It won’t get us anywhere.”

He breathed out. “And what about the future? Can you listen to that? Is there ever going to be one?”

But no.

I couldn’t go there either.

I reached my hand up to his face, ran my thumb across his lips, and he was serious and sad, and I knew his expression by heart without even seeing it.

“Maybe the future has no place, either,” I whispered. “Maybe all we’ve got is the present. Maybe that’s all either of us can work on right now.”

He sighed and pressed those sad lips to mine and held them there for long seconds.

“Then let’s make the most of the right now,” he said.

Chapter Sixteen

Lucas

Waking up next to her with the morning sunlight streaming through the window was a stunning start to a Saturday. I soaked in the sight.

The bedsheets were crumpled around her waist, her hair fanning out on the pillow. She was still sleeping, peaceful with butterfly snores.

I