“Mm.” I leaned in against him, enjoying the warmth of him, the immediacy of him. “I’m glad.”
“I don’t do this, Ceri.”
“Do what?”
“Fling myself off the cliff into the unknown like this. Something about you makes me take that risk.”
“I got out of a bad relationship, Connor,” I whispered. “A really bad breakup. I was… I am, still, pretty fucked up about it. I…” I paused, swallowed, tucked my head back into his chest. “This… this is the first time I feel like I can breathe. These two days since I’ve met you. It’s the first time I feel like I can just take a breath, that there’s a chance that I’m going to come through this… that I’m going to be OK.”
“You’re crying.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me as I shuddered.
“As I said, still pretty fucked up. Sorry,” I sniffed. “Sorry, but I… I needed to warn you. That I’m damaged goods. Before I can’t…”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. You don’t have to apologise for feeling, and I never want you to hide anything from me. And the only damage you have is physical and that is going to heal and you’re going to be perfectly OK.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” he said, firmly.
We stood there, listening to the gulls. Then I sighed.
“Connor?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m cold. And hungry. Please… lets go home.”
“Mine is not far. Come with me.”
.:.
We sat awkwardly on the leather couch and ate Waitrose butternut soup out of mismatched bowls balanced on our knees. I snuck glances at him between spoonfuls, but neither of us said anything, but when we were done I leaned back into a corner of the couch and after a moment he gently lifted my legs and rested them across his lap.
“Thank you,” I said. “For the food. And for getting me out of the cold. I like your flat.”
“It belongs to my parents; I rent it from them. But yeah, it’s nice. Convenient.”
“Very convenient, and I like that you’re close to me.”
He rested a hand on my knee. “Closer now,” he grinned.
“I noticed…” I observed, amused. “Luckily that’s probably the one part of me that’s not sore, so good guess on your part.”
“I saw you favoured the other one.”
“Mm. Cute, gorgeous and observant.”
“Penny for your thoughts?” I asked, after we’d stared at one another for a short while.
“Daydreams. Wondering what I did right to wind up managing to lure you home with me.”
“You’re sweet and genuine. Two rarities in this city. And you saved my life.”
“Hardly.”
“OK, well, you rescued me regardless. And you’re deliciously tall and deliciously tatty. I could stare at you all day… Connor, are you blushing?”
“Yes.” he admitted.
I laughed, and he joined in after a moment. “Sorry… but that’s really cute. You have a lovely blush. Don’t be embarrassed by it. And those dimples are to die for.”
“Stop it,” he murmured, shifting.
“No,” I grinned at him, and he laughed again.
“So,” I said, after a moment.
“So.”
I smiled at him, my head braced against the backrest. “You’re uncharacteristically quiet. Does having me here bug you?”
“Just… I guess I just don’t want to mess up by saying something ill-advised or doing something silly.”
“You’d have to do something spectacularly bad to do that, Connor.”
He turned slightly to face me.
“I never underestimate my ability to fuck things up,” he observed. “It’s my party trick.”
“Mm. Well. Take it from me, you’ve got a lot of credit to burn through, and I’d give you the benefit of the doubt any day of the year. So relax. Enjoy… well, whatever this is.”
“How is your wrist?” he murmured after a while.
“Sore. Throbbing. Like my back, shoulders, knee, ribs…”
“Ugh.”
I pulled up a sleeve of my jersey to display the bruising. “See what I mean?”
“Does the rest of you look like that?”
“Not all of me, but enough. I’ve got a gash in my thigh, cuts on this leg, torn skin on my right clavicle… I fell halfway down the staircase.”
“Christ on a bike. I’m surprised you’re still walking.”
“So was the orderly who patched me up.”
He reached out, gently touching a finger to my arm, tracing the curve of my muscle. I shivered.
“Does that hurt?” he asked, gently.
“Not… exactly.”
“How about now?” he asked, touching my shoulder.
“Nuh uh.”
He shifted closer, and trailed his fingers up along my shoulder blade.
“Connor,” I whimpered.
“Yeah?”
He twined his fingers into the soft hair on the nape of my neck.
“Don’t… don’t go somewhere you can’t go fully committed. Don’t go here blindly. I am broken, broken, broken. I can’t do light, I can’t do fleeting, and if you don’t stop now I am going to fall for you so hard I will never be able to come up for air again if you leave me.”
He leaned in to me, gathered me gently, pulled me to him so that my cheek nestled in the crook of his neck.
“I do nothing that could hurt people I care about on a whim… and at the top of that list of people I care about is you,” he said, low and gentle.
“That was a quick promotion up the list…”
“I make up my mind quickly on important things. Like whether I should let the prettiest girl I’ve ever met slip through my fingers without at least trying to catch her interest.”
“Oh, I could tell you a thing or two about that.”
“Tell me.”
“No. No, words… words aren’t good enough,” I whispered. “Words twist, their meaning changes. Words can be taken back.”
I felt him shift out from under me.
“Where are you going?” I complained.
“We’re going somewhere better than this.”
“What do you mean?”
Then I gasped as he picked me up seemingly effortlessly in his arms.
“Ceri. Promise me you’ll tell me if I make you uncomfortable in any way whatsoever.”
I stared into his eyes. “Where are we going?”
“Next door. To bed. So I can hold you properly.”
I reached up, hooked my arm behind his neck, and pulled myself closer. “Abduct me. Take me away to your pirate fortress. But I warn you, Ceridwen expects delicious snuggles.”
“Your wish is my command.”
.:.
His bed was a firm double, and the duvet gave us a warm nest to hide from the chill air. Soft music welled through the sound system next door, largely classical choral works for male voices that, though muffled, rang out clear as bells in a Gloria in Excelsis.
I lay against him, head pillowed on his arm, languid, simply breathing and enjoying the sensation of his fingertips along my spine. I could feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest as a slight increase and decrease in pressure against my right breast. I was somewhere between asleep and aroused, and the tension between the two states was delicious.
“I could get used to this,” he murmured.
“Mm?”
“Having you in my arms, against me.”
“You do unspeakably good things to me,” I sighed. “I love being with you like this. The world fades away. It’s nice to be able to escape from it.”
“It pays you back for holding me the way you did last night.”
“Mm. It’s better to give than to receive, but in this case, receiving is delectable.”
I felt more than heard his soft laughter, and I smiled to myself as he turned to kiss my forehead.
“I was right, you are soft under the barbs and spines.”
“Soft as putty in your fingers, and yours alone.”
“Mm. Malleable.”
“Maybe,” I breathed. “Certainly easily manipulated.” I squeezed my legs together, loving the warmth in my belly. “I never want to leave.”
“I don’t want tonight to end,” he agreed. “It is a bright shining ray of light in my otherwise sad, grey existence.”
“You are neither sad nor grey. Your hair is bronze, your soul is silver, and I bet your singing voice is golden.”
“I wish.”
I bit him gently. “Don’t demean yourself. Your speaking voice does all sorts of things to me, and something tells me you’re something special when you sing. I’d love to hear it,” I added softly. “A good man’s tenor voice is like the music that started the Universe. Girls are too shrill unless they’re a really smokey alto. Tenors… mm, that is all…”
“I almost forgot you were a musician. You were already too perfect for words.”
“You, Connor, are an inveterate flirt.”
“Pot, meet kettle,” he retorted.
“Nah. I don’t flirt. I devour. Rawr.”
“Oh, really?”
I wriggled slightly, then snorted. “I’d show you if I weren’t so goddamn sore.”
“Speaking of… I have some pretty good muscle and bruise salve. I play hockey,” he added defensively, as I gave him a dubious glance.
“You want to cream me up,” I said, deadpan.
“Uh…”
I laughed, throaty and deep. “God, Connor, that expression. I wish I could have photographed it. It was priceless.”
He grinned ruefully. “I didn’t really know how to respond. My instinct was to retort with some sort of double entendre… but I’m feeling my way here.”
“Connor.”
“Yeah?”