‘No. Oh, it doesn’t matter.’ Carli was exhausted, her bones were aching and the last thing she wanted was this conversation when she was at a low ebb.
‘It matters.’ Niall voice was as solid as the headland. He moved his stool closer to her chair and placed his palms on her knees. ‘You matter to me. So much. I’m sure you have changed since we were together. I’ve changed, too, but this thing between us appears to be exactly the fucking same and it makes me ache for you when I’m a foot away. So, if you don’t want to go any further, then tell me why because otherwise I don’t believe you.’
She wanted to tell him. So much, but the words were like glue in her throat. Stuck. She couldn’t bear to say them again, not to Niall. Not to drive away the man she also ached for when he was within touching distance.
Oh, spit it out. Why is this so hard?
‘It’s been a while since I slept with anyone and the last time wasn’t exactly fun.’ As the words fell, she watched Niall’s brow furrowing, a rare darkness possessing his gaze.
‘What happened? Did someone do something to you?’
‘It’s hard to explain.’ Carli scraped her palm up and down the velvet of the chair arm. Maybe she shouldn’t have got into this. She could have had a bath and then seen where things went. But this conversation with Niall was inevitable at some stage. She just desperately didn’t want to have it.
‘No one did anything to me, as such. I…um… I have a medical condition. It’s a chronic illness called Fibromyalgia, and it leaves me in pain and exhausted. So sometimes sex is hard or not on the cards at all. The last guy I was seeing didn’t exactly understand.’
The seriousness on Niall’s face at her revelation wassomething Carli hadn’t been expecting. Disgust maybe, but not this concentrated intensity. Not the darkness flaring in his pupils.’
‘How did he treat you?’ His emphasis was very much on the ‘how’.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, itdoesmatter. We’re having this conversation now because it happened and it matters because you matter, Cass. If some guy has mistreated you, that matters a fuck load.’ Niall scraped his hand through his hair and eyeballed Carli with the intensity she’d always known burned below his surface. It was as if he was tearing himself apart for letting her go through life with other men who treated her badly.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Long story short, he didn’t care if I was in pain or not. He’d either forge on ahead to make sure he got to the finish line or go in the huff and make it clear he was unsatisfied.’
Niall stared at her, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Although the wonderful thing was that despite being obviously furious, he didn’t take the floor. He let her talk.
‘So, I tried to talk to him about it, but he said that it was holding him back. He was in the prime of his life and things should be better than they were. That ended, thankfully. But it’s left me a bit mentally scarred, and I now tend to not get beyond date two before I open up about the Fibro and let them work out what things might be like. I call it dating euthanasia.’
‘Dating euthanasia?’ Niall blinked hard. ‘Am I the next patient?’
‘Oh, Niall.’ Carli reached for his hand but he kept it by his side.
‘What does “Oh Niall” mean? I don’t want to be put to sleep, Cass. I want tosleep with you. To make sure you have a good time. I will make damned sure that it doesn’t hurt you, and it will be on your terms. Guaranteed. And before you protest, let me tell you something…’ He brought his hand out from hiding and folded it round hers. ‘I would rather we had a thousand stalled attempts at sex than never get to be with you again. That’s unimaginable for me now.’
Carli nodded, lost for words at the way he’d understood her reservations without being told them explicitly.
‘Would you come here.’ Niall reached out and she shuffled forward in the chair to meet him. Instinctively, she lifted her legs and swung them round his waist as he pulled her onto his lap. ‘I’ve got you, okay? It’s never going to be like that with us.’
She gazed down at him, reassured by his words. ‘Okay.’
‘And, by the way, Caselli,’ Niall trailed his thumb down her jawline, ‘the only screaming you’ll be doing is my name.’
Carli laughed, and he beamed back. He was funny, hot and so sweet to her. It didn’t mean she wasn’t scared, but it helped a bit.
‘I do need to be honest with you…’ Niall dusted stray hairs from her cheeks before pinning his gaze to hers. ‘I might have sort of suspected about the Fibro.’
‘Oh, how?’
‘I was on Eilidh’s Insta the other night and she’d tagged you in a pic. I went to your profile and in the bio it said something about Fibro. Admittedly, that was a new one to me, so I had a Google. It sounds full on.’
‘Oh.’ All this time it was like she’d been getting dressed and undressed behind curtains that everyone could see through. The control over when she could tell Niall about her health wrested from her by the wonder that was socialmedia. Well, she had written that bio; another way of heading them off at the pass without talking about it. At least she didn’t have to explain about the symptoms.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s okay.’ Carli wriggled off Niall’s lap and back into the chair, needing distance to talk about this. ‘Listen, having Fibro doesn’t make me weak.’
‘I never thought for a second you were weak. Is that something those arseholes told you?’
