Understanding, he looks away. Thinking? Remembering? Considering? His eyebrows knit together.
“Leonie, there’s something…” He looks back at me; two vertical lines deepen between his brows. More than anything I want to smooth my fingers over his forehead.
“You should know something about me.”
“What?” I ease myself down to sit on his knees.
His hands are still on my waist, but he’s silent for so long I think he’s not going to tell me.
At last, he speaks. “I got into a little trouble – big trouble. Recently. It’s not public knowledge, but a lot of people I know do drugs.” He swallows. “Me included. But recently it…well, to cut a long story short, I had to take a long break from working.”
“What kind of…?” Then I wish I hadn’t asked. It must be embarrassing for him.
He shrugs. “Oh, recreational stuff.” He seems to be debating before he goes on. “Recreational to begin with but it soon got out of hand. I had an accident.” He lifts the hem of the sweatshirt to show me his midriff.
There, among the six pack and other muscles, three scars run down his side, one vertical, two at a slight angle. I can’t help tracing my fingers over the longest. They’re healed, but the marks of stitches are clear enough. “What happened?”
“Fell through a glass wall. I don’t remember any of it. I just woke up in hospital. I’d lost a lot of blood before someone found me. The doctor told me I could have died. It…”
He pulls the sweatshirt back down. “It was a wake-up call. I went to a recovery centre for a month and have been working the Twelve Steps since then.”
I’ve heard of the Twelve Steps. Who hasn’t? But I don’t know much about them.
His eyes on mine unexpectedly glitter with amusement. “You’re wondering if it’s polite to google this while I’m still here.”
I laugh. “Sorry, was I that obvious? I was just wondering how long it take to do all twelve.” In my mind, they sound like something you do in a four-week rehab stay, but didn’t he say last year?
He grins easily. “I can tell you if you want. It won’t mean much unless you’re in the program, but one of the steps is to give service. Stop thinking about yourself and focus on helping others. Be of use to others.”
Ah…the pieces begin to fit together. “So, you work at The Glyn.”
His eyes close briefly to indicate a ‘yes’. He really knows how to use his face.
“I’m very happy to be clean and sober now, but for a while before that, I was…not in a good place and relied on” – he mimes taking pills – “to get me through it. So,” He threads a hand through my own hair. Involuntarily, I tilt my head into his palm enjoying the heat of his touch, the strength of his fingers sliding through to the ends of my hair then down my arm.
“Before we get into any short adventures,” his voice roughens. “I wanted to be honest with you.”
And we’re back to the moment when things began to really change between us. My heartbeat speeds up I can barely keep up with it. My whole body reacts to his voice, to the touch of his hands on my arm. Inside, I’m trembling. It’s an effort to ask logical questions.
“And now?” My own voice sounds unsteady. “You’re clean and sober?”
“Fourteen months.”
“Thank you for being honest. It can’t be easy. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you.” I touch his brow, smoothing the vertical lines. His skin is velvety soft. And his beard, when my fingers reach his jaw, is also silky smooth. I can’t stop touching him. “To me you’re a beautiful, amazing man.”
His eyes burn into mine as his hands slide up my back to cup my face, and he slowly meets my lips in a soft kiss.
Something inside me dissolves into a warm puddle; my body sags against him. His kisses are warm, soft and rich; I’ve never been kissed like this, as if he finds my mouth delicious.
Gradually, our kisses become hard and demanding. And wild. I don’t care about anything but this, here. The sofa, the floor of my bedroom and the rug. Our clothes scatter around and his skin is hot, hot like the hungry touch of his hands.
It goes on a long time, a very long time. Because Welsh Hagrid is an amazing lover. He makes me forget everything. I don’t care about carpet burn on my knees, on my back and hips. We do it four times in many positions.
The best thing is that he makes me feel like Leonie. Not Barbie or Cinderella or Snow White. I feel appreciated, inside and out, and – let’s be blunt – devoured.
And can I say, his body is far less hairy than his head. The man is gorgeous, lean and long-limbed with velvety golden skin that burns like a furnace.
“I have a confession,” he says around six in the morning. It’s still dark outside and still raining. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first time I saw you. When you were lost down a farm track.”
