Page 64 of Broken Heart Syndrome
After wrestling with myself for what seemed like hours, I finally rang the bell. A few minutes later a rumpled, sleepy-looking Tom opened the door, wearing only his boxers. His blue eyes were shocked as he registered me standing in his porch at two in the morning, but his lips curved into a smile and he opened the door wide.
I stepped across the threshold and straight into his open arms, nuzzling into his glorious, firm chest whilst he swung the door to. His arms came around me and he gave me a squeeze, muttering, ‘Hey, gorgeous, what’s brought this on?’
‘I just needed to see you,’ I mumbled into the safety of his chest. Even to my own ears my words held the hint of desperation I was trying to hide. He picked up on my tone and pulled back from me slightly, so that he could look at my face. I had been crying before I came over, not just for the situation I faced at home, but also for what I knew I had to do now.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered, scanning my puffy eyes and flushed cheeks. ‘Are you okay? Lou said you’d been fighting a migraine all day. I’m sorry I was so chopsy earlier. I didn’t realize you felt grim.’
‘You weren’t too chopsy,’ I said softly, burying my face back into his chest. ‘I was being weird. Let’s just forget about it, okay?’
‘Whatever you want, gorgeous,’ he said, resting his chin on the top of my head and stroking my hair down my back.
‘Can I stay tonight?’ I asked in a small voice, and his body went still.
‘Um … Frankie,’ he started, and I braced myself for rejection, ‘I don’t think I can sleep with you and not, well … want to … um …’ Tom so far had been keeping things PG in the sex department between us. There was lots of snogging, a fair amount of groping, but he always stopped things before they went too far, and I was too shy to push.
Tonight I had vowed that I wasn’t going to let my stupid insecurities stop me from getting what I wanted. There was a certain amount of freedom in knowing that we just had one night left. It was like I was on death row and Tom was my last meal; I was going to make the most of it. I was going to make sure I had some beautiful memories to last me through my sad lonely old age with my ferrets.
So I got up on tiptoes and whispered in his ear, ‘I think that would be … um …’ I was such a loser! Why couldn’t I be like one of those sex vixens in films asking the hero to make love to them in deep sultry tones? ‘… nice?’ I finished lamely. Luckily Tom didn’t seem to mind my lack of sex-kitten skills. He leaned down and hooked me round my knees, bringing my legs around his waist, and I grabbed onto his neck to stop myself falling backwards.
‘It’ll be more than bloody nice,’ he rumbled, fully back into arrogant alpha-male mode and striding through the messy corridor and up the stairs.
Once in his bedroom he dropped me onto the bed so fast that I bounced. The only slight mood-killer was when I noticed his dirty washing surrounding me.
‘Shit,’ Tom muttered, snatching all the clothes off the bed and dumping them on the floor. ‘Mum’s not due to come over till tomorrow.’
‘Can I just say at this juncture that your mum still doing your washing for you is not a huge turn-on,’ I said as he continued to frantically clear the bed. ‘It’s bad enough that she bought those boxers you’re wearing but … oomph!’ I was cut off by Tom’s weight crushing me to the bed.
‘Shut up, Frankie,’ he said into my neck, then started kissing and nibbling around my earlobe.
‘Right,’ I said breathily, ‘yes, good, um … shutting up now.’ He chuckled against my neck, I felt his body vibrate with it against the length of mine, and I shivered. That was when we both lost control and a tussle of clothes flying and bodies rolling ensued. As I had promised myself, I left all my inhibitions at the door and just went with how Tom made my body feel.
When he was finally, finally moving inside me I felt the same relief I had when we first kissed, as if holding back from doing this had been causing physical pain that I hadn’t even fully registered before.
I didn’t think that anything in my whole life would ever compare to the beauty of Tom’s heavy weight on top of me and the feel of being connected to him. The moment was so beautiful that I could feel the tears falling down the sides of my face into the pillow. Tom looked into my eyes and saw them.
‘Frankie? Am I hurting you?’ he asked as he swiped at the tears, and with visible effort stilled his body.
‘No,’ I said in a choked whisper. ‘Please don’t stop. I’ll die if you stop.’ He groaned and grabbed both my hands, entwining our fingers and holding them above my head. He stared straight into my eyes as he kept moving, and I fell off the edge of the cliff I had been balancing on.
My only other lover had been Chris, so when I was with him I had had nothing to compare him to. I had assumed that Chris’s taunts that I was frigid and ‘a lousy shag’, as he put it, must have been down to me.
As I lay snuggled into Tom’s chest, tracing patterns on his chest hair after thesecondtime we had made love (something I didn’t know was even physically possible), I realized that not only was Chris a complete bastard, he was also unbelievably bad in bed. On this realization I felt myself drifting off to sleep, but before I did, I replayed the last couple of hours in my head from start to finish. Then I did it again. I wanted to burn the memory into my head to take with me. As I did this, I felt the beautiful pain move through me and let my tears fall onto Tom’s chest.
Tom’s breathing had evened out, so I had assumed it was safe to cry without him noticing. But as I did, I felt his arm tighten around me and his low voice mutter, ‘Christ, Frankie,’ just before I slid into blackness.
*****
I blinked against the bright winter sunshine that was pouring onto my face. We had moved in the night and I was lying on my side with Tom spooning me from behind, his heavy warm arm lying across my waist. I thought it would be best to have the discussion I needed to have with him fully clothed and with all my faculties about me. So I started to slowly move forward, trying not to wake him. When I was nearly at the edge of the bed I felt a hand snake round my stomach and I was hauled back, snug against Tom’s hard, warm body again.
‘Where are you off too?’ he rumbled sleepily into my hair, then moved the heavy fall of it aside to kiss my neck.
‘I need to get up and I need …’ my breath hitched as he slowly ran his tongue up the length of my neck and into my ear, ‘to … um, get dressed,’ I squeaked.
‘In a minute,’ Tom said, his voice still rough with sleep.
‘No, Tom, really … I’ve got to –’
‘In a minute, gorgeous,’ he said firmly, moving me onto my back and settling his weight on top of me.
