When Love Is True. Joan Kilby
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he could have done. Right or wrong became irrelevant when weighed against the bone-deep love he felt for the child. The only thing that gave him hope was the knowledge that Chloe felt the same about their daughter.
Daniel put his dirty clothes in the wicker hamper and folded his towel on the rack. Then, so he wouldn’t wake Chloe, he turned out the light and went to bed in the dark, feeling his way along the wall until his knee bumped the bedside table.
Once under the covers he was tormented by the warmth and scent of the woman in his bed. Usually he kept his distance, huddled on his side so he wouldn’t accidentally touch her thigh or brush against her breast and end up tossing and turning all night. Tonight repressed desire made him reach for her, and he wanted to possess her. He felt her tense, but he shifted closer to kiss her neck. “Chloe.”
She started to squirm away. “Daniel, I…”
He took her mouth before she could tell him to stop, plunging his tongue inside with a ruthlessness that further inflamed him. His hand found her breast and the blood roared in his ears. She started to kiss him back and her pelvis pressed against him so that he groaned aloud. At last. She wanted him, too.
“You’re beautiful, like a…a goddess,” he muttered clumsily, struggling to be the kind of man she longed for. “I want you more than a flower wants the sun, more than…” More than he could say, he thought disparagingly. He gave up and pressed his lips to her cheek and along her nose to her soft fluttering eyelashes. There he encountered moisture and tasted salt. Damn. She was crying.
“I’m s-sorry, Daniel,” she stuttered. “I…I can’t.”
His taut skin strained with a physical pain and his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her upper arm. A single word exploded from him. “When?”
She shrank back. “I don’t know.”
Daniel threw himself onto his back and flung an arm over his eyes, rigid in a red haze of thwarted desire. After a moment he became aware of her sharply drawn breaths and irregular hiccups. “Come here,” he said gruffly and pulled her into his arms.
She went with a soft sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“Never mind,” he said heavily, smoothing her hair away from her face. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe I could do it if…”
Hope surged and was quickly checked. Cautiously, he asked, “If what?”
“If you didn’t want me so much.”
At first he was confused. She didn’t want him to want her? How could they make love if he wasn’t aroused? Then he realized—she didn’t want him to need her emotionally. No words of love, no adoration or expectations. Just animals fulfilling their physical needs.
“I told you when I proposed, that I wouldn’t ask for more than you can give, and I stand by it,” he said quietly. He hadn’t realized at the time that not being able to express his love would be the price he was going to pay for her hand in marriage.
“Okay, then.” She turned to him awkwardly, a little shyly, and put her arms around his neck.
Daniel kissed her tentatively, trying not to pour all the bittersweet love he felt in his heart into a deep embrace that would make her withdraw again. Beneath her flannelette nightgown her skin was smooth and satiny, her muscles sleek and firm. Soon he forgot everything but the need to sink himself into her softness. He tugged the fabric up past her waist and over her head, gazing down at her. He could just make out the faint shine of her eyes. Don’t cry, babe.
Chloe bit her lip as she gazed up at him. “Please don’t be upset if I don’t come.” Quickly, she added, “It’s not that you’re not attractive or a good lover, it’s just that…”
Daniel pressed his fingers to her lips, silencing her. “Just don’t talk for a while.” He’d taken enough blows to his pride for one day.
He used a condom, even though she was breast-feeding and even though it was like locking the barn door after the horse had bolted. The last thing they needed was another accident. He was as tender as he could be and drew out the lovemaking as long as he could manage. But he’d wanted Chloe so badly and for so long that he came more quickly than he’d have wished. Just as she’d predicted, she didn’t climax.
When he’d recovered sufficiently, he lifted himself onto his elbows and kissed her damp eyelids. “Do you want me to…”
“No,” she said swiftly. “Thank you.”
Stung by her politeness as much as her rejection, Daniel drew himself out of her and rolled onto his back. Well, he’d known what the score was, because she’d told him. When was he going to figure it out? She didn’t want him. Didn’t need him. Didn’t damn well love him.
“Daniel?” She slipped one arm over his chest and snuggled into his side. “Let’s just hold each other.”
Daniel fought back his disappointment to savor having her in his arms, because just holding her satisfied another need as deep as sex. And who knew, tomorrow she might regret this intimacy and insist they go back to being husband and wife in name only.
After a few minutes’ silence, he said, “There’s a piece of waterfront property out past Sooke being subdivided.”
“Oh?” she replied, yawning sleepily.
“I’m building a house for the developer.” He stroked her hair, thinking how soft it was, like…like…“I want to buy one of the lots. The developer will do a straight trade, if I build his house for cost. After that, I’ll build a house for us. I’ve worked out the finances and it’s a stretch, but I think we can just manage.”
She’d been half-asleep in his arms, but suddenly there was a wakeful alertness to her. “A house for us?”
“It’s isolated,” he said quickly, “but I know you miss your view of the water and I’ve always loved the ocean. When we’re a bit more secure financially, we’ll get a second car for you. It would be good to have our own place.”
She was quiet for such a long time that he thought she’d fallen asleep, but when he turned to look, her eyes were wide open staring at the ceiling. He didn’t even want to ask what she was thinking. “Sleep on it,” he suggested.
“No, let’s just do it.” She spoke quietly but with a kind of grim determination.
Perhaps her lack of enthusiasm ought to have discouraged him, but instead the flickering flame of hope flared back to life. He kissed her temple and said, “I’ll call the owner in the morning.”
Someday, he vowed, she was going to love him as much as he loved her. As his eyes closed, a more sobering thought filtered through. Before that day came, how many times would she have to consciously choose him before he believed she intended to stay?
Chapter 3
The weight of the water pulled Daniel down. Sixty, then eighty feet; deeper than he’d ever gone before. The pressure glued his wet suit to his skin and sucked his mask against his face. It was cold and dark and eerily silent.
Evan left the rocks that marked the shoreline and moved out over the flat muddy sand of the ocean floor. Daniel forced himself to follow across the featureless landscape as visibility faded into murky darkness. The bottom sloped gently down. Every now and then one of Evan’s fins kicked up a cloud of silt, obscuring Daniel’s view of him.
Where were the other divers? Daniel twisted awkwardly in his bulky suit and constraining scuba gear, but he couldn’t see anyone else. He and Evan might be the only two people left on the planet. Wouldn’t that be fine? Trapped in a twilight zone of gloom with the one man in his life he could truly say he hated.
Damn Evan. He was swimming too fast, getting too far ahead. He was just a dim shape, a blur of blue neoprene against the dark sepia tones of the deep. How convenient if he “lost” Daniel down here.