Breathe You In (15 page)

I nodded, and we slipped beneath the covers as
another roar tumbled across the sky and shook the lampshade.

The bottom sheet was cool on my bare skin, and
the duvet fluffed over me with a waft of soap-powder-laced air. Ruben pressed
up to my side, his nakedness sending a shiver of longing through my entire body.

He stopped moving against me. “Katie?”

“I’m fine.” I slid my hand around his waist,
turned and faced him. “I just never thought when I was with Matt that I’d one
day be in bed with another man.”

“I’m so sorry. I—”

“No, don’t be sorry, Ruben. It’s not your
fault.”

“I know, but if he hadn’t died I wouldn’t be
here.”

A stutter of air caught in my throat. How true
that was, but not in the way Ruben had meant it. I slid my hand from his waist
up to his chest, rested the heel of my palm over his left nipple.

“Do you still feel like he’s with you
sometimes?” Ruben whispered, touching my cheek.

“Yes.” I could feel his heart right now.
“Sometimes, when I’m in that hazy moment between sleep and awake, before I
remember that he’s gone, I imagine he’s with me and it feels so real.” I gave a
sad smile. “It’s just my brain playing tricks on me, cruel tricks.”

Ruben scrunched his eyebrows together, as though
what I’d said had hurt him too. “That must be difficult.”

“Yes, but…” A realization dawned on me. “It’s
happening less and less, since I met you.” I swept my fingertips over his
collarbone, drew a circle on his rounded shoulder then traced a line up his
neck to the corner of his jaw. “You make me feel like I have a reason to get up
in the morning again.”

His eyes flicked a little as he looked between
mine. “And you make me feel like I truly am alive again. For so long I was just
living in a wrecked shell. Even after the op, it was months before any kind of
normality returned, but now, this, here.” He pushed my hair back from my
forehead, touched his lips to the tip of my nose. “There were plenty of times
when I never thought I’d make love to a woman again. And a beautiful one at
that. Right now I feel like the luckiest man on earth and I wouldn’t change a
thing about my past because it’s all led to this moment, here with you.”

A familiar tingle stung my eyes. I blinked and
swallowed.

“Don’t cry.” He kissed my cheek, his prickly
chin a tiny bit sharp.

“I, it’s just complicated.” I gripped his other
arm, felt his biceps tense. “I’m happy to be here with you, but still, I would
change Matt dying in a heartbeat.”

“Of course you would. I know you would, so would
I.”

“But—” Would he, though? If he knew the
truth?

“
Shh
,” he said. “Let’s
live for the here and now and this new way to be ourselves, but together. Katie
and Ruben back from Hell.”

“Yes.” That made sense, this was the new me.
Ruben was the new man in my life. There was still a connection to the old
Katie, but it was Ruben holding me, touching me, comforting me. And I was
bloody glad to see the back of Hell, not a place I intended visiting again.

But damn, Ruben was hot. Not only that his hard
cock pressing into my thigh was beyond tempting. Despite my recent orgasm,
another wave of longing rushed through me. Longing for closeness, connection,
us finding our pleasure together.

“Ruben,” I said, winding my legs with his and
feeling the hairs on his shins tickling my flesh. “Make love to me.”

He pressed his lips against mine. “With
pleasure.”

He shifted, and I parted my thighs, let him
settle between them.

His weight above me was a fresh sensation, one
I’d missed for so long I’d forgotten how it felt. He took his weight on his
elbows, cupped the nape of my neck in a gentle squeeze and stared down at me.

For a long moment we just looked at each other.
I studied the contours of his face; the way his bottom lip was a little fuller
than the top and how the stubble on his jaw swept down from that patch of hair
in front of his ears and arched perfectly over his top lip. He was truly
gorgeous. I was a very lucky girl.

I became impatient, a sudden need for more
grabbing me. I shifted my body beneath his, pressing my breasts close to his
chest and resting my hands on his shoulders. “Ruben,” I whispered.

He opened his mouth but said nothing. His cock
nudged my entrance, and he eased in an inch.

It took some effort to force myself to relax. It
had been so long, and the head of his cock was wide and hard. I felt small and
tight but I wanted him so much. I tilted my hips, took him in a little bit more
even though there was a stitch of discomfort.

“Oh, you’re so hot and wet and gripping me,” he
said, tightening his hold on the back of my head, as though keeping me just
where he wanted me.

Discomfort turned to pleasure, greedy, needy
pleasure. “It feels so nice,” I said, tucking my ankles around the back of his
thighs. “Give me more.”

“Ah, baby…” He slid through my wetness and, as
he did so, he shut his eyes and lifted his head, turned it to the side.

He was big and solid, and I let out a moan as
the blissful sensation of being filled consumed me. Damn, I’d missed that.

When he hit maximum depth, balls pressed up
against me, we both stilled. After a few seconds he parted his lips and exhaled;
his head bobbed as though he’d lost the concentration to hold it up.

I cupped his cheek, supported him and stroked
the short, spiked hairs on his neck with my thumb. Bliss captured his
expression in slack-mouthed beauty, and I could have come just from seeing him
like that. It was magical, a gift. My heart swelled with love, and I knew right
then what we were doing was making love.

He pulled out a little, then slowly eased back
in, the same serene expression on his face.

The movement was small, but his pubis captured
my clit in a luscious scrape and I gasped, tensed my internal muscles and
allowed that first spark of orgasm to flicker to life. “That’s right, just
there,” I gasped.

“Katie,” he breathed. “Damn, it’s never felt…so
good.” He set up a steady rocking rhythm that applied the perfect pressure and
massaged my G-spot too.

“Oh…oh…” I said, still cupping his cheek and now
clutching his shoulder.

My body was tense, like a coiled spring. Ruben
was building me up in a slow, intense grind that was driving me mad with want.

I shut my eyes and moved my head to the side
only to find my mouth captured by his in a dreamy but profound kiss. Our
breaths were ragged, our lips barely under control, our bodies about to detonate.

As my orgasm claimed me, I groaned into the
kiss, balanced on the precipice of ecstasy and then succumbed to the demands of
my climax. Pulsing through the release, my pussy a fist around Ruben’s cock, he
found his pleasure.

He shoved to the hilt, the only movement that
had been urgent in our entire connection, and sucked in a breath that he held
deep. He pumped inside me, his eyes screwed up tight and his head again twisted
to the side.

Sweat popped over my body. I tightened my hold
on him. Needing to be as close to him as possible.

“Ah, fucking hell yeah…” he said as he blew out
the breath he’d been holding. “Katie, I…” He opened his eyes, looked down at me
with a slightly stunned expression.

“That was perfect,” I said.

“My thoughts exactly.”

When I woke the next morning the scent of wet
grass and clean air filtered in through the open window. I stretched across the
bed, hoping to find Ruben, but the sheet was rumpled and cool and there was no
warm body to snuggle into.

A rattle of pans and the radio flicking on in
the kitchen caught my attention, and I smiled, enjoying being greeted by
movement and life in my flat. Slipping eagerly from my bed, I tugged on a pair
of knickers and a short, pink silk dressing gown then headed into the bathroom.

I freshened up, my body feeling a little stiff
and tender. My night with Ruben had exercised muscles and stretched parts of me
unused to being stretched. I smiled at my reflection, dragged a brush through
my hair then brushed my teeth.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Ruben said when I wandered
into the kitchen. “I’m making eggs is that all right with you?”

“Great.” I walked up behind him.

He wore low-slung jeans, his feet and top half
bare. I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my cheek between his
shoulders.

He stopped what he was doing and pressed his
hands over my forearms. “Last night was incredible,” he said quietly.

“I know.” As I spoke my cheek wrinkled against
his back, and I smiled at how I much I adored touching him, with every part of
my body on any part of his.

He turned, spinning within my arms, and hugged
me close. I tipped my face to his neck, breathed in his scent, and felt the
roughness of his beardy growth on my nose.

“I want to spend the day with you,” he said,
stroking my hair then down over the slippery material of my gown, right into
the small of my back. “It’s the Grand Prix, I have hospitality tickets. How do
you fancy it?”

I looked up at him. “I can’t. I’m going to
Leicester. My friend Felicity is getting married next month and it’s the hen
party tonight. I would cancel, but Melanie, that’s my old boss, she rang
yesterday to make sure I was still going and is expecting me to stay at hers.”

His face dropped for a second, but then he
smiled. “That sounds like fun, it will be good for you to see your old
friends.”

“I think so.” I hoped so. I’d touched the edge
of happiness again and I was reluctant for the spell to be broken by stepping
back into my previous life—being the old, sad Katie. I didn’t want her to
come back with me, thinking it was okay to move in like an unwelcome guest.

“It
will
be.” He pinched my chin in his fingers and thumb. “Those hen parties always
look pretty wild, you can let your hair down.”

“I’d rather be with you.”

“And I’d rather be with you, but hey, maybe
tomorrow?”

I untangled myself from him, stepped away and
into the dining area. Looked at the photograph of Matt and I on our wedding
day. A balloon of sadness grew in my chest, but I didn’t let it overwhelm me, I
contained it—now was not the time.

Ruben rested his hand on my shoulder, his
fingers light but comforting.

“It would have been his birthday tomorrow,” I
said. “I think I’ll go and see his parents before I drive back to Northampton.
It would be the right thing to do.”

“That’s sounds a good idea.” He squeezed my
shoulder.

I touched his hand with mine, kept it there. I
wanted to be with Ruben, really I did, but tomorrow I knew I’d be in a dark
place. Those shadows would creep from the corners of my mind, twist themselves
around my grief and tug it back into the forefront.

I needed to be alone, or at least with just my
memories. But only tomorrow and then I’d let my new life pour light over me
again. It would be okay, I had some new happy memories to help chase the
darkness away.

“How about Monday?” I asked. “I’m on a half day
at the shop.”

“Well, I’m working, but come up to the museum.
We’ll go to the Park Café and get some lunch, and then I’ll show you those
pictures I’ve just reframed.”

“Won’t your boss mind?”

“Boss? No, there’s no real boss. I suppose it’s
me if you look at the payroll, but it’s all so relaxed most of the staff are
horizontal. The opposite to life on the track.”

“Then I’d like that, to come to your work.” I
carried on looking at the photograph. Felt Ruben’s breath shift my hair and the
heat from his chest radiate onto my back.

“He looks a nice bloke,” Ruben said quietly, “someone
I’d be mates with.”

“Yes, he would have liked you.” I had a sudden
image of Ruben and Matt sitting in a pub, full pints in their hands and
cheering on some football match or Formula One race. They both had easy smiles,
kind eyes and a certain masculine quality that worked just right for me, pushed
my buttons.

“He was big,” Ruben said.

“He liked to workout, at the gym, and play rugby
at weekends. Plus his job was very physical.” I looked at Matt’s shoulders,
wide and broad beneath his suit jacket. I could still feel them, remember what
they were like to hang on to if he swung me into his arms or if I leapt onto
his back in fun or when I clutched them during orgasm.

I turned from the picture. Ruben shifted his
gaze from Matt and looked down at me.

“He would have approved of this, us,” I said.
“He was a generous man.” I shook my head. “Oh, I’m not saying he would have
shared me while he was alive, he could get pretty jealous at times.” I laughed,
and Ruben gave a twitch of a smile. “Out of everyone, though, in the world, he
would have wanted it to be you with me. I know that, in here.” I pressed my
fist to my chest. “It’s only you, Ruben. You’ve pulled me from an abyss I just
couldn’t find my way out of, or ever thought I would.”