He said that he’d been fantasising about our encounter in the kitchen for a while and needed to play it out as it should have gone. Glad to know I wasn’t alone in that one.
But sex with Dain is not always fast and frantic. Tonight, the curtains of our four-poster bed are drawn back; and he’s making love to me in the moonlight—slow, gentle, and achingly tender. The pleasure is intense, and I can’t do anything but lie here moaning and arching my hips to meet his as he caresses my breasts and explores every inch of my mouth with his searching tongue.
When I’m lying in his arms, spent from an orgasm that quite literally blew my mind, I trail a hand over his damp chest languidly and sigh. ‘I love you.’
Dain kisses my forehead. ‘I love you too.’ After a beat, he murmurs against my hair, ‘I want to spend forever with you.’
My pulse elevates as his meaning sinks in.
‘Forever is a long time ...’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s not long enough.’
My heart is a glowing coal. Tears welling, I bury my head in his chest, inhaling the comforting vanilla scent of his skin. He strokes my back lightly and lets me have my moment.
After a few minutes, he caresses my cheek; and I sniff and raise my head to find half his face lit by moonlight, the other in deep shadow. Light, dark, strong, soft—my Brontë lover is a man of many moods and ever-changing faces.
But foreverisa long time. I brush my thumb over his wrist and press on his pulse point. ‘Dain ...’
His eyes lock on mine. ‘Yes, my darling?’
I take a deep breath and steel myself. ‘Is there anything else I should know about ... before we spend forever together?’
His sculpted lips curve in a wide smile, and I feel his pulse rate increase beneath my thumb.
‘No, my love, there’s nothing else.’ He draws me down to seal our fate with a kiss, but as he does, I see one of his eyelids twitch. Reader, it’s so subtle I can’t be totally sure it happened. I’m hoping it was a trick of the moonlight.
***
One day, a month or so later, I’m rootling through a jewellery box of his aunt’s in the bottom drawer of the armoire. Dain gave it to me because he thought there might be something in there I might like. I haven’t had a chance to look at it until now. The box is an ugly old thing: chunky black wood inlaid with purple velvet. Inside is a tangled clump of costume jewellery: necklaces, earrings, brooches, and such, which I’m thinking the vintage shop might want. Bridget is coming over tomorrow for a coffee and a natter, so we can sit at the kitchen table and detangle it. She won’t mind, and she’s got nimble fingers.
I extract the clump of jewellery, and there’s a rattle at the bottom of the box as a ring falls out. A slim gold band. I pick it up to inspect more closely and see an engraving: ‘Love, honour, cherish’. OK, there’s something creepy about holding a dead woman’s wedding ring!
I’m about to put it back in the box, but my hand jerks of its own accord, and the ring flies into the side of the drawer and slips down a gap in the edge. A prickling sensation runs across the back of my neck. OK, weird. Perhaps his aunt didn’t like me touching it?
I prod at the ring with my finger but only succeed in jamming it in further. Damn! I need something to insert down the side and lever it out. Maybe a knife or perhaps the fireplace poker—that would work better.
I head downstairs to the parlour, where Dain is ensconced at the table, busily tapping away on his laptop, brow furrowed in concentration. Apparently, he’s nearing a tricky section where he has to decide whether Azalea and Nathaniel should get married or live in sin. With all the kinky shit that those two get up to, my money’s on living in sin. I can’t see them having a normal life. It must be causing him stress, though, as I note he’s steadily munching his way through a pile of my home-made chocolate chip biscuits.
Stealing around behind the table, I manage to grab the poker without disturbing him. Back in the room, I carefully lift out the jewellery box, stick the edge of the poker in the gap, and apply gradual pressure to get the ring to pop out. But the glue affixing the bottom of the drawer to the side must be old or non-existent as there’s a cracking noise, and the whole board comes up. Damn, I’ll have to superglue it back in without Dain knowing. I reach down to grab the ring, and my fingers come in contact with something soft that yields to my touch.
Curious, I yank up the board completely and discover a flattish, bulky parcel wrapped in brown wax paper lying underneath. What’s this? His aunt’s personal documents? I pick it up and feel a stack of papers move beneath, and somehow, I. Just. Know ...
Quickly, I drop it back in the drawer as if it’s burning metal.Oh my god!Leaping to my feet, I pace around, wringing my hands and stealing glances at the drawer with my heart pumping wildly. Surely not? Is it? Eventually, I can’t keep my emotions inside any longer. ‘DAIN, GET UP HERE!’ I scream at the top of my lungs.
There’s a pounding on the stairs, and Dain comes racing in, panting. ‘What’s the matter? Have you hurt yourself?’
All I can do is point at the drawer speechlessly, and his face drains of all colour. Then I know I’m right.
‘Lizzy,’ he says in a low steady tone, which he uses when he’s about to enter an argument. ‘You need to forget you ever saw that.’
But now I’m bouncing around the room like I’ve got springs in my legs. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been sleeping with it right next to me all this time. No wonder she was getting antsy! She probably made me drop the ring. In fact, Iknowshe did.’
Dain hastily lifts the wooden cover to put it back on the drawer, which I’m now suspecting has a false bottom.
I tug on his arm. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I have to.’
