They were in bed at last, and she was in his arms. He said, stroking back her hair, “I meant to be tender. I thought about you on the plane home and told myself, ‘Take it slow and easy, mate. Make her feel like you know it’s her.’”
“Mm.” She was so sleepy, she could barely answer. “It worked for me. Though I thought you didn’t like it at first, when I— Am I not good at it?”
“You were too bloody good at it, is what you were.” He was kissing her forehead now, and she loved that.
“Oh. Good.” She yawned, then rolled onto her stomach, and he draped an arm and leg over her. That weighted blanket again.
“I need to say more,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”
She heard it, but barely. Because she was asleep.
Now, he shifted position in the airplane seat—he reallywasstiff, despite a hard swim this morning—and Skylar put down her phone, where she’d been reading a book, and asked, “OK? Still sore from that last match? That was brutal.”
“Nah,” he said. “That’s long gone. I need a swim and a massage, that’s all. Fortunately, we’re going to a resort. Couples massage. That’s a thing, right? You can get the relaxing kind, and I’ll get the kind where they try to pull my muscles out of my body. Hurts so good, eh.”
She tucked a hand in his arm and reached up to kiss his cheek. “Kids, though.”
“Nannies,” he said. “Already sorted. Whanau time and couple time. And heaps of sex.”
“Works for me,” she said, and smiled. So he kissed her, and never mind the flight attendant.
It was good to be home. Or on holiday. Either one.
He was one lucky man.
47
HOW WHANAU IS
There were heaps of times when he’d been happy. There were fewer when he’d known at the time how happy he was. That holiday was one of them, though.
Yes, there’d been sex. The slow, luxurious kind, after a day of snorkeling and swimming and exploring, both of them relaxed and Skylar’s defenses down after all that physicality. When she was done with thinking and concentrating on feeling, and he was done with everything but her. And the hot, urgent kind, when the nanny had taken the kids off for a trip to the village to watch the kids climb those coconut trees, and he’d grabbed Skylar the moment the door had closed. They’d had sex all over the house in a way he hadn’t done since before the kids came, and a way she’d never done at all.
What was it about sex on the couch? That you felt like you were sixteen again, maybe, and you could get her nearly to orgasm just by running your thumb up and down the inside of her forearm, because she was as wild for you as you were for her. There’d been late nights sitting at the open-air bar, too, with the surf murmuring and the fairy lights competingwith the extravagance of the night sky, when they’d talked a little and been quiet a lot.
They’d done that last night, in fact. He’d said, when they’d both had their heads thrown back to look at the stars, “Reckon I need to find the thing I’ve never had.”
“What’s that?” she’d asked lazily, possibly because his thumbwasstroking over her hand. “A woman open to multiple penetration? Sorry, mate.”
His shout of laughter had caused some people to look around, and then she was laughing too. “Sorry,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes with a cocktail napkin. “It just slipped out.”
“You’re getting pretty naughty,” he agreed. “My corrupting influence. No. I was referring to a babysitter. Or two babysitters, possibly, for six? Because I want to be able to do this. To take you out, and to give you a day off—or a night off, for that matter—when I’m not home. As Nan doesn’t seem especially eager to take up the yoke again.”
“So you envision this continuing,” she said. “The kids and me staying at yours for the weekend while you’re off playing.”
“It’s a lot to ask, I know,” he said. “That’s one reason for the babysitter. Though Scarlett’s not going to be happy about a babysitter. Beneath her dignity, eh. What’s another word we could use? I’m coming up blank. Companion? Adult supervision? Also, do we need two?”
“No,” Skylar said, “but I’d say you need one adult. Some sixteen-year-old isn’t going to be able to navigate the quarrels, or be able to cope with Scarlett insisting that she doesn’t need a babysitter and she’s really in charge anyway. And there was Finlay last night, too, insisting on commenting all the way through that disaster film about how unrealistic the scenarios were. I thought that one might progress to hair-pulling before I banished him to watch the other TV. Where he and Duncan watched auto racing.Seriously? Auto racing? How is it entertaining to watch cars go around a track? Other than hoping somebody will crash, because I know he’s always looking out for that. Is that even normal?”
“If it weren’t,” he said, “blokes wouldn’t be nearly so keen on auto racing. So what d’you reckon? Want to sign on, with that adult supervision on hand to take over with all six of them, so you get a break too? Or no?”
She was quiet so long, he wasn’t sure she was going to answer. “For the Bledisloe Cup,” she finally said. “And then the Nations Championship.”
“I was thinking about a more permanent basis.” He knew these were muddy waters, but how did you know what was in those waters unless you braved them? “I’d thought about whether you’d like to move in there with us, full stop.”
“Oh,” she said, “I think that could be a very bad idea.”
“Because Nan would jump at the chance to retire permanently, you mean,” he said, “and leave youmoreto do, not less, which was the idea. I could hire a housekeeper, of course, to be there on weekdays. That could work.”
