“Sorry,” Tim says, and I turn the music off so I can hear him better, catching my breath. “I’m…sorry I interrupted.”
“Where’s Eleanor?” I ask, a mother’s reflex.
“Sadie’s looking after her,” he replies, and I relax. She’s great with El, and I know she’ll be safe.
All thoughts of relaxation and safety fly out of the open windows when I see the way Tim’s looking at me. Like…
Heaven help me, like helovesme.
“I’d almost forgotten,” he says hoarsely, taking slow steps towards me. “The way you dance…the way youlookwhen you… Somehow, I’d really nearly forgotten.”
“Why are you here?” I ask quietly. It’s not that he’s unwelcome. He’sneverunwelcome. But I only just about keep the way I stillfeel about him simmering below the surface as it is. If we’re alone together, and he’s looking at me like that… My resolve can only take so much, and Eleanor isn’t here to remind me who we’re doing this for and why it’s important.
“Because I touched your wrist earlier, and my fingers are still burning from the contact,” he says simply.
“Tim,” I say, a water-weak warning in my voice, but it’s already too late.
“Look, I know,” he says, stopping toe to toe with me and closing his eyes on a sigh. “I know we can’t start things up again. I know you want to put that aside while she needs us, and I get it. But…” When his hands lightly touch my waist and pull me gently towards him, I make no attempt to resist for the simple reason that I can’t. “But just for now, we’re alone. And it’s a time and space outside of everything else. It doesn’t… This moment can be just for us,” he finishes, and takes my mouth in the sort of starving, desperate kiss that speaks to how much restraint we’ve had to show to stay apart for so long. How much we’ve both had to sacrifice for reasons that feel very far away and not terribly significant right now.
Unable to stop myself, I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back with all the loneliness for him that I have ever felt. He tastes so perfectly familiar and yet just as exciting - no,moreexciting - than the first time. My head spins, my fingertips are throbbing in time with my pulse, and the moment he cups my face, I am completely done for, and let out a moan full of all the longing and need I’ve been coping with until now.
In response, he lifts me up into his arms and sets me down on the pile of gym mats next to the wall, his body covering mine.
“No,” I say, sitting up and pushing him away. He looks at me without any irritation, just catching his breath and giving me space. “I can’t get pregnant again, I just can’t, I can’t go through that again, I can’t do it - ”
“Hey, whoah,” he says gently, tucking a loose strand of hair that escaped my ponytail behind my ear. “That’s not what I’m doing here.” He chuckles darkly as he takes in my sceptical scowl. “No, really. I just want…” He kisses me again like he just can’t resist it. “Let me make you feel good,” he pleads, running a finger along the inside of my waistband. “I promise not to fuck you.”
I trust him to keep to his word. And even if I didn’t…I so badly want whatever he’s planning to do to me that I’d be nodding my consent and lying back on these mats regardless.
He must be as ravenous for me as I am for him, because in under ten seconds, my leggings and my knickers are thrown to the side and he’s wrapping my legs around his neck. He runs a few hurried kisses up my thigh before leaning forward, groaning in what sounds like ecstasy when his tongue touches my pussy. We only got to do this a handful of times back in the day, and once we both got the hang of it, it was indescribably fantastic.I’ve missed this. I’ve dreamed of it and longed for it and came close to begging him to do it just once more, just one more time, and now here we are, thank god…
He runs his tongue up and down my slit like it’s his deepest held fantasy, over and over, until I feel like my fuse is sizzling close to its end. My back bows as I hold his head in place desperate for him to never stop, never never stop… Oh,Christ, the way it feels when his tongue massages my clit is going to send me crazed, and I let out a keening moan while begging him to keep going, because the feeling is building, building,fuck I’m gonna die…
I throw myself off the cliff willingly and eagerly, dissolving into fireworks that fizz along my veins and pull my abdomen taut. Tim lets out a hoarse noise, lapping up every last drop of my orgasm like it’s his last chance.
He’s not wrong.
As I come back to reality, the first tendrils of guilt reach for me. We can’t allow ourselves to get derailed like this. I’m…scared. I admit that to myself at last. I’m scared to start fucking him again in case another accidental baby is created. Terrified stiff of going through it again, the needles, the blood, the puking, the unbelievable pain that still revisits me in flashbacks. And I’m scared that, if I can’t offer him sex - because who knows if Eleanor was the result of withdrawal or a broken condom - he’ll get bored and leave. Or the reality of being a full time parent, no days off while the other one has Eleanor, will break us somehow. Dear, darling Eleanor, the beat of my heart and the light of my life. I want better for her. I’m scared he’ll leave for some reason, any reason at all, and I won’t be able to survive it. It’d hurt worse than childbirth.
But for now…
I reach for the button of his jeans, but he catches his hands in mine. “I already did,” he murmurs, laughing softly. “When you came, I came.”
I’m torn between smugness that I have this effect on him, a surge in horniness at the thought of him helplessly blowing his load in his boxers without me even having to touch him, and sadness that I don’tgetto touch him in this precious stolen hour.
He kisses my lips, slowly and gently, and I can taste myself on his. “I’ll help you clear up and lock up in a little while,” he promises, “but…please can I just hold you for a bit?”
I never knew it was possible not only to glow, but to do it sadly. But how can I resist this?And why should I?It doesn’t count, after all.A time and space outside of everything else.So I open my arms to him, and my heart and soul are physically aching at howrightit feels to be wrapped up in him like this. Like home.
Like perfection.
He lifts up and peppers my face with gentle kisses. “Don’t look so down,” he teases. And before I can respond, his face changes. His expression morphs into one of fierce determination, narrowed eyes and steely jaw. “I heard what you said earlier, about moving on,” he mutters, “and I’ve got to say, I’m disappointed in you.” He puts a finger over my mouth when I try to answer that. “No, listen to me for a moment. Putting us on hold is the right thing to do rightnow, but one day, Eleanor will be old enough to leave home. Old enough to handle things by herself. And then…” he kisses me again, lingering because we have to stop soon, “I swear to you,”kiss,“I’ll come and get you. And you’d better be ready for me when I do, because Walt Whitman still applies here.”
Chapter 7
Then
Nat is 22, Tim is 21
