She nods, bites her lip. Looks slightly nervous. ‘Okay.’
‘I love you.’
There. For feck’s sake, it’s out. I know this is a risk – I know she might not be ready to hear that truth. I know she might makea run for it. But I find that I can’t keep it inside me, don’t want to – not telling her would be like lying. I can’t play games any more.
‘I see. Well, I suppose this is a pretty good time to say something like that. While I’m still weak from the world’s best orgasm.’
Her eyes meet mine, and she reaches up to stroke the side of my face, trailing her fingers down to my lips. I kiss the tips, and she stares at me intensely, staying silent. That silence seems to last forever. Jesus. Have I made a mistake? Have I ruined everything? I feel hollow inside at the thought that she might leave, but no, I decide, I haven’t made a mistake – if she doesn’t feel the same way, if there’s no chance of her feeling the same way, then there’s no point in carrying on with this. It has to end.
I gulp, and close my eyes. I can’t keep them open while she rejects me.
‘Look at me, Rory,’ she says quietly, echoing my words from earlier. I do as I’m told, and she smiles. Small, sweet, promising.
‘It is terrifying,’ she goes on. ‘But I love you too. I… I’ve been fighting so hard not to. Pretending even to myself. I don’t know if I’d ever have said it out loud, or even in my own head, but I’m glad you did. Maybe you’re braver than me. Or maybe I just feel like I have more to lose…’
My heart soars at her words, and I scoop her into my arms, holding her close. I’m relieved, thrilled, filled with sudden joy. Filled with hope. But I also hear the note of fear in her voice, the slight touch of sadness. A grain of discontent lurking beneath the happiness. I should let it go, perhaps, but I can’t. Now more than ever we need to be honest with each other. Too much has happened between us, too many lies and miscommunications. I don’t want there to be any more.
‘You sound like you don’t want to love me,’ I finally say, putting my finger on what’s bothering me. ‘Like it’s a bad thing. And what do you mean, you have more to lose?’
She gazes up at me, and she has never looked more beautiful. My perfect Juliet, with all her layers of experience and complications and mysteries. Of years without me, of a life lived separately, of her own deeply buried secrets. I know she has them, and I know they still wound her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says simply. ‘And if I sound like that, it’s not your fault – it’s mine. I love you, Rory, I really do.’
There’s a tremor, a slight tremble of her lips as she speaks. She looks vulnerable, raw, and I feel like an arse for questioning her. I hold her closer, and say: ‘Jane, if it makes you feel any better, then I feel pretty damn scared right now too. I’m all in, and that’s bloody frightening. And I have plenty to lose. My heart. My mind. My entire soul. They’re all yours, Jane – I’m willing to risk them all for you.’
Tears fall from the corners of her eyes, and I kiss them away, murmuring words of comfort.
‘It’s okay,’ she says, wrapping her arms around me, pulling me down on top of her. ‘I’m happy. These are happy tears. I love you. I do. It’s complicated, but we’ll figure it out, won’t we?’
I nod, and she wraps her legs around me, twines her hands into my hair. She kisses me, her body moving beneath me in ways that drive conscious thought from my mind.
‘We’ll figure it out,’ she says, sighing as her hands roam over my back, caress the muscle of my arms. ‘But for now, we have this – and this isn’t complicated at all…’
TWENTY-TWO
JANE
I wake up next to Rory, sunlight pouring into the room, him already awake and smiling at me, propped up on one elbow.
‘Watching me while I’m asleep… creepy,’ I say, not meaning it. It’s actually adorable, and anyway, I did it to him last night when he finally passed out exhausted. I lay there, just as tired but also weirdly wired – watching him snooze, his eyes moving beneath his lids, his bare chest rising and falling. He’s a beautiful man, even more so now than when he was a beautiful boy.
‘I make no apologies,’ he replies. ‘If a man can’t stare at the woman he loves while she snores and drools, what’s the world coming to?’
I laugh and playfully slap him around the head. I do not snore and drool – do I? Oh well. If I do, it doesn’t seem to have put him off. In fact, from the feel of his hard body pressed into the side of me, the complete opposite is true.
I run my hand over the muscular curve of his shoulder, and shuffle even closer. ‘I love you too. Do you fancy a shag?’
He lets out a guffaw, and grabs hold of me, dragging me beneath him. ‘Who said romance is dead? You’d give Shakespeare himself a run for his money…’
He kisses me, and I wrap my arms around his neck, holding him close as our bodies start to move together. God, this is delectable – such passion, but also such ease, such comfort. It’s like having a best friend who also makes you go cross-eyed with lust. What did I do to deserve this? How did I get so lucky?
A little part of me knows that’s not true. I haven’t been lucky. The euphoria I’m feeling now is the direct opposite to the pain we’ve both endured. The misery of our past seems to be making our present even more spectacular. I should probably question that, poke it and prod and ask myself how robust this new love is – will it survive the everyday? Will it last, or is it just a fire that’s been reignited – will it burn bright and then fade away, like a sparkler on Bonfire Night?
No, I decide, as he nips my neck and parts my legs with a firm thigh, I will not question it. Not right now at least. I am alive. I am joyful. I am with the right person, at the right time.
Things are just about to start getting interesting when there’s a loud banging noise. We both freeze, and I stare at him in shock. There’s nobody else in the house. There are no pets. There aren’t any neighbours. What the heck? The noise starts up again, and I say: ‘What is that? I’ve not heard that before…’
‘It’s the front door. Somebody knocking at it. Shit!’
Ah. That explains why I’ve never heard it before. We have been living here in splendid seclusion ever since I arrived.
