Chapter 1
Staring at Tasha’s back forced Jim to speak up, to stop her leaving. He had been stunned by her suggestion that they took a step back. She had only just agreed to marry him so why did she think a step back, a break, call it what you will, was ever an option? She was everything he wanted and needed in a wife and a hell of a lot more besides so her explanation of going around in circles and what he sensed to be her feelings on coming up short in his requirements had poleaxed him. He had no idea what to say to her to make her see that he had merely been expressing that he needed to take some of the responsibility for her misguided choices. At no point was he blaming her or accusing her of being stupid, foolish or unsuitable for him, quite the opposite. He was blaming himself for giving her the freedom to make misguided choices rather than helping her to think them through and now, well, she was leaving. Leaving him. Except she wasn’t. He wouldn’t let her.
“Tasha,” he called in a flat and even tone he certainly didn’t feel and was relieved when she took no more than the one step she’d already taken. Sensing she was considering walking anyway, he added more words, softer, gentler, coaxing words. “Baby, sit down, please. You have this all wrong. We don’t need a step back, never.”
That seemed to work. She turned and he almost wished she hadn’t as he saw tears escaping her eyes to cascade down her face. Standing, he offered her his hand and as soon as she took it he pulled her back to her seat before taking his.
“Honey, you have this all wrong, what I said, what my silence meant. So let’s try again.” He passed Tasha a tissue to dry her tears.
“You don’t want to end things?” She nervously toyed with the stem of her wine glass.
“No, never. I told you before that I would tell you if things were over and I would tell you straight. Not that I ever see that happening, so we sort this now. You are right that we are going around in circles. I said that you need boundaries and I believe that, so let’s do it now, but first we need to establish what we each want.”
She felt a huge sense of relief wash over her and allowed herself a very small smile. “Are you sure though, about not ending things? About me?”
Jim really wanted to kick himself for ever making her doubt his feelings and intentions where she, wheretheywere concerned. He knew he had to convince her he was in this for the long haul, the longest haul. She may not be convinced from just tonight, but he planned on using the rest of his life to ensure that a time would come where she never ever doubted his devotion to her.
“Natasha, I have never been surer of anything in my life.” His reply made her smile. A full and believing smile. “So, are we doing this, baby?”
“Yes. I want to make this work,” Tasha said with total conviction.
“Good. For two people who want to do this we appear to be making a very good job of fucking it up.” Jim sighed. “We might not stop the fuck ups anytime soon but we will get there, honey. You go first so you don’t feel pressured into saying something you don’t want to, something you think I want to hear, okay?”
“I want to be with you, to build a relationship with you, something built on more than the seriously hot sex we have. I don’t want to wake up in six months’ time or a year to realise I’m just the next ex Mrs Maybury. I told you that first night, I only ever planned on being married once so needed to get it right and that still stands. I know I’m far from perfect and I believe you once said that you didn’t want me to be. I will try to adapt my behaviour so that it doesn’t offend you or just piss you off too much, but I think you like the fact that I defy your ideals and challenge you. I love you, I really do, so much that it scares the life out of me. Preparing to walk out of here, out of your life proved that to me.”
Tasha lifted her wine glass and took a small sip as she controlled the wobble that had just entered her voice.
“Go on,” Jim encouraged. He needed to hear everything she was thinking and feeling to ensure she never got up and actually walked out of his life.
“But you can’t control everything about me,” she told him with a certainty that surprised him a little. A good surprise. “Sometimes I feel you bully me into saying what you want, with your greater knowledge of the world and sex. You are very good at sex and compared to you I’m a novice, but you know my body better than anyone ever has and you use that against me sometimes. I know you want to know everything about me, but you really don’t need to and I know very little about you by comparison. I would like to know more.”
Jim nodded and Tasha continued. She felt brave and somehow liberated by speaking her mind and being honest, sharing the thoughts she’d been warring with internally.
“You didn’t need to know how many men I’ve slept with, nor the type of relationship I’d shared with each of them. The same with the regularity of my menstrual cycle. I just want you, James, all of you. I can’t imagine my life without you and if we get the foundations for us right, then one of us would have to majorly fuck up to have it all come crashing down around our ears.” Tasha took a breath then drained another glass of wine. Was this her third or fourth? She couldn’t remember, but was surprised when Jim refilled her glass and when their main courses arrived he ordered another bottle.
He stretched across the table and took her hand, gently stroking the back of it with his thumb before releasing her.
“I want to be with you, too, so I guess that’s a good start. We do have seriously hot sex, but I think we have more than that. You are under my skin like nobody else has been, ever. I eat, sleep and breathe you and the two weeks we were apart were hell. I was a total pain in the ass to everyone I came into contact with. I was either spraying coffee across the table, grinning inanely or biting everybody’s head off. The six to eight hours where you were asleep and I wasn’t in contact with you were the worst. I can’t function like that so I need you to be with me, in my home, in my bed and I make no excuses for being relentless in pursuing that. I can’t ever imagine you being an ex Mrs Maybury. This is different. You are different. We are different, but I don’t want you to ever wake up and think you made a mistake with me. I want to be your only husband. Your only marriage. You’re not perfect, but you come pretty damn close and you’re right that I don’t want perfect, perfect is boring and I do like your defiance and your challenging of me, within reason. It adds an extra dimension to us and you usually argue your point eloquently, until your mouth gets warmed up,” he added with a wry smile.
Tasha returned his smile as her earlier anxiety dissipated a little more with the realisation that he was in as deeply as she was.
“I know I push for you to come around to my way of thinking, but you are one of the few people in this world that can get me to at least look at things from a different perspective, even when you piss me off, but I even like that. I don’t know if my declaration of love is less valid than yours with six ex-wives that I claimed to love for a time, but I have never felt so strongly about anyone. I’ve told you this many times. I know I can’t control everything, but I want to, so if I can control it I probably do bully you, but I don’t see that as a bad thing if you change your mind to what I want. You know this. I don’t try to hide it from you, and I use whatever means I can to get what I want. And yes, I do know your body, every crease, every sweet spot that has you moaning, crying and I know how to use that to my advantage, but I don’t know about you being a novice, baby. You do exactly the same thing to me with your choice of clothes, your pursuit of pleasure, yours and mine, wherever we are; my office, the car this afternoon, my kitchen floor. That is when I am at my closest to relinquishing control for real and I think you know that. Maybe I should consider some self-imposed boundaries too, but I can’t have former boyfriends or fuck buddies crawling out of the woodwork unexpectedly in the future and telling the world what my wife is like in the sack, so I need to know then I can prepare for every eventuality,” he explained as he began eating with a concerted effort.
Tasha was just swallowing a mouthful of her own dinner and found Maisie’s words coming to the forefront of her mind again about Jim being in control, or at least thinking he was. Perhaps she should spend some more time with her future mother-in-law because nobody understood Jim’s mind better than his mother and Tasha really needed to have a similar level of understanding, even if was via the other woman.
After washing her food down with the remnants of another glass of wine, she slumped back in her seat feeling confused once more. “So where does that leave us?”
Jim poured her another glass of wine.
“Are you trying to get me drunk? Because I should point out that I am a sure thing without the alcohol and you don’t do drunks.”
He laughed, genuinely amused by the beautiful young woman before him. His beautiful young woman. “See, you see through me, Tasha. I’m hoping to loosen your tongue so that you say what you’re thinking rather than what you think you ought to say, but you are right, I don’t do drunks, but as I so often do, for you, I will make an exception,” he said honestly with a small and slightly weak smile that almost broke her heart because this man sitting opposite her was at something of a loss and she needed her confident and cocksure James back, especially as she’d caused his slightly confused persona with her own confusion and earlier misunderstanding.
Watching him carefully she realised that she had given him the shock of his life and hurt him terribly when she’d got up to leave. To leave him.
“My tongue is pretty loose at the best of times,” she joked with a small grin, one she hoped would lighten the mood.
He arched a brow as she gently stroked his leg with her foot under the table.
