By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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embarrassment but it was still a relief to get back to their bure. The long day had taken its toll, the stress of constantly fearing they would be caught out weighing heavily on Eve, and even though she’d slept on the plane, she couldn’t wait to crawl into bed. Her bed, because after their earlier discussion, Leo had offered to sleep on the sofa. Hannah was sitting on it now, watching music television on low. She stood and clicked the remote off as they came in.
‘How was Sam?’ Eve asked, looking critically at the sofa, frowning at its length. Or lack of it. How the hell did Leo think he was going to fit on that?
‘Sam’s brilliant. I let him stay up half an hour longer, like you suggested, and he went down easy as. I checked him the last time about five minutes ago, and he hadn’t stirred. I don’t think I’ve ever looked after such a good baby.’
Eve smiled, relieved. ‘Lucky you didn’t meet him last week when he was teething—you might have had a different opinion.’ She opened her purse to find some notes and Hannah waved her away. ‘No. It’s all taken care of. It’s my job to look after Sam while you’re here.’ She headed for the door, gave a cheery wave. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, then.’
Eve met Leo coming out of the bedroom with an armful of pillows and linen. ‘Goodnight,’ he said, heading for the sofa maybe a little too stoically.
She watched him drop it all on the sofa, measured the height and breadth of man against length and width of sofa and realised it was never going to work. It should be her sleeping on the sofa. Except Sam’s room was beyond the bedroom and it would be foolhardy if not impossible to move him now.
She watched him for a while try to make sense of the bedding, as if he was ever going to be comfortable there.
And suddenly she was too tired to care. It wasn’t like they were strangers after all. They had made love and several times. And even if they didn’t like each other, surely they could share two sides of a big wide bed and still manage to get a good night’s sleep?
‘Stop it,’ she said, as Leo attempted to punch his pillow into submission at one end, one bare foot sticking out over the other. ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Look, it’s a big bed,’ she said reluctantly, gnawing her lip, trying not to think of the broad, fit body that would be taking up at least half of it. ‘We can share it.’ Then she added, ‘So long as that’s all we share. Is that a deal?’
He sat up on a sigh, clearly relieved. ‘It’s a promise. I promise not to share anything, so long as you don’t jump me first.’
‘Ha. And I thought you were awake. Now I know you’re dreaming. I’m going to have a shower—alone. You’d better be in bed and asleep when I get there, or it’s straight back to the sofa for you.’
And he was asleep when she slipped under the covers, or he was good at pretending. She clung close to her edge of the bed, thinking that was the safest place, yet she could still feel the heat emanating from his body, could hear his slow, steady breathing, and tried not to think about what they’d been doing twenty-four hours ago, but found it hard to think of anything else. Especially when she was so acutely aware of every tiny rustle of sheets or shift in his breathing.
Twenty-four hours. How could so much have happened in that time? How could so much change?
Outside the breeze stirred the leaves in the trees, set the palm fronds rustling, and if she listened hard, she could just hear a faint swoosh as the tiny swell rushed up the shore. But it was so hard to hear anything, so very hard, over the tremulous beating of her heart…
It was happening again. He buried his head under the blanket and put his hands over his ears but it didn’t stop the shouting, or the sound of the blows, or the screams that followed. He cowered under the covers, whimpering, trying not to make too much noise in case he was heard and dragged out too, already dreading what he’d find in the morning at breakfast. If they all made it to breakfast.
There was a crash of furniture, a scream and something smashed, and the blows continued unabated, his mother’s cries and pleas going unheard, until finally, eventually, he heard the familiar mantra, the mantra he knew by heart, even as his mother continued to sob. Over and over he heard his father utter the words telling her he was sorry, telling her he loved her. ‘Signome! Se agapo. Se agapo poli. Signome.’
Sam! Eve woke with a mother’s certainty that something was wrong, bolting from the bed and momentarily disoriented with her new surroundings, only to realise it wasn’t Sam who was in trouble. For in the bed she’d so recently left, Leo was thrashing from side to side, making gravel-voiced mutterings against the mattress, rantings that made no sense in any language she knew, his body glossy with sweat under the moonlight.
He cried out in his sleep, a howl of desperation and helplessness, anguish clear in his tortured limbs and fevered brow as he twisted and writhed. Eve did the only thing she could think of, the only thing she knew helped Sam when he had night terrors. She went to Leo’s side of the bed and sat down softly. ‘It’s okay, Leo,’ she said, sweeping a calming hand over his brow, finding it burning hot. He flnched at her touch, resisting it at first, so she tried to soothe him with her words. ‘It’s okay. It’s all right. You’re safe now. Leo, you’re safe.’
He seemed to slump under her hands, his body slick with sweat, his breathing still hard but slowing, and Eve suspected that whatever demons had invaded his midnight hours had now departed. She went to leave then, to return to her side of the bed, but when she made a move to leave, a hand locked around her wrist and she realised that maybe there were still some demons hanging on.
And just as she would do and had done with Sam when he needed comfort, she slid under the covers alongside the hot body of Leo, putting her arm around him, soothing him back to sleep with the gentle reassurance of another’s touch and trying not to think of the heated presence lying so close to her or the thud of his heart under her hands.
Five minutes should be enough, she figured, until he had settled back into sleep. Five minutes and she’d escape back to her edge of the mattress. Five minutes would be more than enough…
Something was different. She woke to the soft light of the coming dawn, filtering grey through the shutters, and to the sound of birdsong coming from the palms outside. And she woke to the certain knowledge that she had stayed far, far too long. Fingers trailed over her back, making lazy circles on her skin through her thin cotton nightie and setting her skin to tingling, and warm lips nuzzled at her brow as the hand between them somehow managed to brush past her nipples and send spears of electricity to her core.
And she was very, very aroused.
She was also trapped, his heavy arm over her, one leg casually thrown over hers. She tried to wiggle her way out but the movement brought her into contact with a part of him that told her he was also very much aroused. He growled his appreciation, shifted closer, and she tried not to think about how good that part of him had felt inside her.
‘Leo…’ she said, conflicted, her mind in panic, her body in revolt, turning her face up to his, only to be met by his mouth as he dragged her into his long, lazy kiss, a kiss she had no power or intention to cut short even though she knew it was utter madness.
Utter pleasure.
Her senses soared, her flesh tingled and breasts ached for the caress of his clever hands and hot mouth, and arguments that things were complicated enough, that there was no point, that this must end and end badly made little impression against this slow, sensual onslaught.
‘I see you changed your mind,’ he murmured, a brush of velvet against her skin.
‘You had a nightmare.’
‘This,’ he said, sliding one long-fingered hand up the back of her leg, kneading her bottom in his hand, ‘is no nightmare.’
‘Don’t you—’ His mouth cut her off again as his hand captured her breast, working at her