He slides the key to the Mews into the door and I hold my breath, dragging it deep within me. We’ve been tied in silent thoughts the whole way home, two people knotted into silence, kept together by the weave of their tightly clasped fingers.

“Faith?” He turns, his eyebrow raising with questions, but I shake my head. Deep within me is a battle of warring emotions. The need to run from my submerged and endless feelings for him. The need to stay by the man who gives everything of himself with no expectation in return. The man I love.

Somehow, I manage to stumble across the boundary to the home I’ve been sleeping in all week. “Eli.”

I turn and put my hand on his chest, holding it above the place caging his heart.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Sunshine?” He dips his gaze to meet mine, questioning, demanding, while his tone is as soft as dandelion seeds travelling in the summer breeze.

Wordlessly, my hand falls to the hem of his soft jumper, tugging it up and over his chest. He stands still as I pull it over his head, making his short hair stand with static friction. Those blues deepen, swirling with dark depths, begging me to dive in. I grab at his white T-shirt, peeling it away from his skin, revealing the skin and bone of the man he is beneath his clothes. Smooth, golden, and firm, his skin puckers under my touch, the cool air of the hallway brushing a dance across the sensitive surface. When he’s naked from the waist up I turn him, coaxing him around with my hands. There on his shoulder is what I want to see. The swirling ying and yang, created with blues and purples and the curves of waves, stares at me. Taunting me. You thought you knew him.

When I find my voice, it’s cracked and hoarse. I place my hands across the ink I marked him with and press one palm into each half. “When I created this, I thought I knew you.” I breathe deep, giving myself the chance to try to find the right words. “Two halves of the man who was captivating my heart.”

He is still silent, his skin heating under my touch. His head hanging down as I judge him, give him the sentence of my heart.

“But I didn’t know anything. Didn’t get you. And you broke my heart, but in putting it back together I’m learning that there is no simple carve of two sides to your soul. There are so many facets of it, I want to spend my life learning, and I will until the day I die. With every breath I take I want to give you everything and maybe I can be the glue that connects it all.”

There’s a low gasp and his shoulders drop. When he turns, his face is marred with a shattering mirage of emotions. It tightens the skin around his eyes, pulls his lips into a tight line as he watches me, his bare chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

Then his hands fall to my clothes, tugging and peeling; urgent gestures that make my knees tremble. His mouth is on my neck, sliding and burning. He presses me against the hallway wall as my clothes drop one after the other. His skin burns as it touches my naked flesh and his lips are hard and determined when they crash into mine. He shifts slightly so his hand can palm the space above my heart, the place with the shard of glass I once thought my heart represented. Now I know it’s more, so many shards, so many droplets of possibility that can scatter and then reform, more powerful, all encompassing.

“I never wanted to be on your skin.”

Our eyes lock. “Everything that ever made me feel is on my skin.”

His mouth catches mine, his tongue furious as it battles my own. I cry out as he pulls down the straps of my bra, freeing my breasts to brush against his chest. Pain and desire dart and mix into a heady warmth pooling between my legs. I edge my knickers over my hips, my fingers shaking as I push at the elastic. When they are at my ankles and I’m naked and exposed under his burning blues, I work the buttons on his jeans.

“Give me everything, Eli. Everything.” My fingers dig into his shoulders, anchoring us together and his hands palm my hips, digging into the flesh and hiking me up, tilting me slightly so he can slip his hard on between my folds. This is real. Every damn second of it. No foreplay, no games. No tender touches. Sheer desperation overrules us as he slides himself in and I arch my back to get him deeper. It stings a little as he fills me to the brim of everything I am, and I groan a guttural moan. His eyes search my face, his hands squeezing my breasts with rough fingers. I nod, giving him permission to take me, to give me all he has. His hips circle, pushing deeper and further into me until I whimper and my legs almost cave under the intensity. I’m splitting in two, and that’s fine because there will be more of me to give to the many sides of him. His eyes close, his hands still grasping, gripping, bruising, and then he pushes hard in and out, in and out, in and out until I whimper barely controlled cries. With every thrust he buries deeper and I no longer know where he ends and I begin; we’ve merged into one sinuous being. His fingers grip my neck, holding tight, and he presses me into the wall, the hardness of his body and the solid structure of the wall pinning me until I’m captive between the two. His thrusts tear deeper and deeper. As one hand moves from my neck into my hair, tangling and pulling on the strands, he yanks my head back, and his lips fall onto my captured neck. I edge over the cliff of my desire. It builds with every movement of his hips, every hard thrust of his yearning, building until I’m screaming and whimpering all at once, still caught and tied in his hands. It’s everything all at once. My name falls from his lips as he pushes his chest away, so he can drive his hips closer still. My legs are weak, numb and I’m suspended just from his hands. “Faith.”

I shudder as he cries my name.

“Faith.”

Tears begin to fall, splashing along my cheeks, landing on our joined skin, sliding between us. When he feels the wetness, his eyes open wide, holding mine, but his hands don’t move, still holding me as he takes me with brutal intensity against the wall.

“Faith.” He begins to shudder his hips, moving with frenzy as he pushes so deep he’s tearing me apart. “Scream my name.”

I echo his name into the depths of the silent dark house pitching myself off the cliff of our love. I sob and whimper as aftershocks run through my body, clinging my hands around his neck. He releases his hands and I slump as their stabling hold disappears. In one quick movement he sweeps me up and I clamp my numb legs around his waist as he marches for the bedroom.

He places me on the bed with a gentle bump and I fall into the soft pillows, my heart racing, my pulse thudding in my throat so hard there’s a chance I might be sick. His lips skim my shins, my knees, my thighs. He breathes in deep as he softly traces his nose around my sensitive core. Then his lips dance with delicate brushes across my stomach, my breasts which pucker as soon as he touches them, along my neck until finally he comes to my face. He plants kisses along my cheeks, my nose, my eyelids, every speck of skin he can find until at last they come to my lips. He presses gently, his tongue swiping across my lower lip. When he breaks the kiss, I let go of the breath I’m keeping. His eyes hold mine. “Did I hurt you?”

I shake my head, but stupid tears slide across my skin, landing on the pillow.

He hangs his head. “I did.”

I lift my hand, catching his chin and making him look at me. “You didn’t. I wanted everything, and you gave it without hiding any part of you.”

“I love you with such intensity.” He runs a hand across my cheek, cupping it and tilting my mouth to his. When the kiss ends, subtle and sweet, the blues find mine. “I’ll always be waiting for you to run.”

“And I won’t run. I don’t care who knows about us, or how this plays out. You own all of me.”

“For better and worse, including the Faircloughs?” A slow smile grows, turning his face into the dazzling glow of an angel.

“Until I die.”

He settles at my side, his hands gently tucking me into his stomach, until we are packed together as tight as spoons in a drawer. “I love you.”

“I love you.” And I mean it.

Sleep steals me from my aching but satiated body, and the artist and the baroness’ son go to sleep at six pm on a Saturday night.

I wake to warm licks spreading up my thighs. Eli’s fingers are trailing and dancing across the surface of my skin. His eyes are on me as I open mine and stare directly at him. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Morning,” I mumble and stretch, freeing one breast from under the confines of the duvet. He watches it pebble in the morning air. The blues are dark but when they meet my gaze they are troubled. He still thinks he hurt me, but he doesn’t understand that last night was the most real moment of intimacy I’ve ever had. It was everything. “Make love to me, Eli.” I whisper, stretching some more, pushing back the duvet so he can see my body coming alive at the mere thought of him. He hesitates. “Make love to me with everything.”

And he does, slow and sweet until I’m screaming out his name all over again. Then he walks us to the shower and the hot streaming jets of water heal our bruises both inside and out. He takes me once more, like a man starved, splaying my hands against the tiles and my heart against his.

“It’s Sunday.” I grin up at him from the kitchen island. He’s reading the paper and I’m doodling on a pad of paper. I’ve got an idea for a tattoo although it’s not what I should be thinking about. I’m sure I’ve got study I should be doing, I just can’t quite bring myself to care sat in this little slice of Sunday perfection with the man who owns me. “What does Robin Hood do on a Sunday?”

He chuckles and grabs at a tea towel. “Don’t make me punish you. You saw what I did to Bernie.” He raises an eyebrow, but his lips spread into the most gorgeous smile. I’m mesmerised by it.

“Shall I tell you what I normally do, when I’m not stuck in a studio staring at useless bits of clay?”

“Please.” He waves his hand for me to continue.

“We always used to do Sunday roasts, the full works. When we were kids the shop would be shut so either my dad or Al would do them.” I notice only too late that I haven’t flinched at the mention of my dad’s name. Progress? Maybe. Or has it all just been blurred by Elijah?

“Then when Abi and Adam got married, they took over.” I take a sip of my coffee. “Of course, by then, Dad and I were no longer talking, and in a way Abi and Adam and her growing tummy became my family. We’d all hide out there on a Sunday, me and Dan hungover, them being all cute and perfect.”

Elijah has dropped the paper and is watching me, perched on the stool, unmoving. And I know why. It’s because I’m talking, talking without being pressed.

“It started with pizza’s in boxes but then after Charlotte was born, Abi decided she was a domestic goddess and she could handle a roast.” I smile at the memory of burnt potatoes and mushed carrots. “She wasn’t. It’s funny though, now I just see her as Abi the mum, it’s like our childhood has evaporated.”

“And it was always the three of you? You, Abi, and Dan?”

I nod, my memory is leading me away to hot summer days, screaming on the rides on the pier. Banging the fruit machines when they stole your money, and we went home empty handed.

“Yes.”

Eli slips off his stool. “Well I’m not Abi or Dan.” His gaze searches my face, but I don’t know what he’s seeking. “But I can attempt a roast. Maybe we could see Tabitha and Lewis? They’re family.”

I nod. “They are.” Eli and I are tied together now, that makes Tabs my sister, too. Although now, too late, I realise that is why he sent her to me in Brighton in the first place, because for him, the tie between us was unbreakable. He showed me that last night in the hallway and I showed him I can take it. “That sounds good. Shall I text and see if they are awake and then we can go over? Maybe we could invite Lewis’ dad as well?”

The smile Eli sends me almost stops the beating of my heart. “Sounds good.”

I find my bag where I abandoned it the night before in the hallway, shivering a little at the memory of us pressed against the wall. My phone is flashing with hundreds of missed calls.

Dan.

My chest tightens. Dan. My friend who is grieving... and here I am organising roasts.

I grab my packet of smokes and wave at Eli indicating I’m going out into the garden as I dial Dan back. He nods, his eyes on my bare legs as I walk through.

It takes three tries for Dan to answer and I’m halfway through my cigarette sat on one of the garden chairs, staring at the studio I haven’t even used yet.

“Hey?”

My greeting is met by the sound of traffic passing and the squawk of seagulls. I recognise the sound instantly, he’s on the front.

“Faith.” His voice is low, empty, shattered, and my stomach drops to some place near my feet.

“Dan.” I sigh a little and glare up at the guileless blue sky of what was a perfect Sunday morning. “How’s you?”

“Fine.”

“You called? Was there something you wanted? Can I help you, do something?” My words sound all wrong, too formal, too restrained for my oldest friend. He’s on an island of grief and I don’t know how to reach him. Stormy waters keep pushing my little sail boat away.

“Just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Well.” I chuckle and slip another cigarette out of my packets of smokes and place it between my lips, talking around it. “I can do that anytime. You know I love to talk, just looooove it.”

He laughs. “You hate talking. You keep secrets, living your life in their towering shadows.”

Whoa.

I drag on my cigarette, pausing for words. “That’s very deep of you, Mr Smith, on a Sunday morning.”

He sniggers and I relax a little—a foolish mistake.

“Remember before you told me about Aiden?” he asks, and I sit up straighter, my blood running cooler.

“Don’t.”

“And you were crazy, just wild. Drunk, high, screwing anyone you could find. And I kept trying to call you back, kept trying to make you ground yourself with me, to stop you spinning away and never coming back. I used to make you come for coffee in the morning, made you shower so you didn’t smell of other men.”

“Dan, please.”

I can’t think about those days. The days when my vision got darker and my ink spread until it consumed me.

“I loved you. Sunday’s were the highlight of my week, and Dad said I should tell you. He used to laugh in my face, with that big belly laugh and tell me I had it so bad and I should tell you because then you’d know.”

Tears slip down my face.

“Remember the day you called, and you didn’t know where you were, what you’d done, and I searched the town for you, finding you in that seedy bed-and-breakfast with the dirty curtains?”

My tears run free. My cigarette sits like ash on the tip of my tongue.

“I told you. You held me, wrapped me to your chest and I let it all spill.”

“And I wanted to rip apart the world, but I couldn’t because you were filling my arms, so all I could do was hold you instead.”

There is nothing for me to say. I cry silently, and I hear a sob from the other end.

“I miss him so much, Faith.”

We’d gone to Al. He’d seen us, broken and shattered and ushered us in. Then he’d sat and listened to everything as I spilled all my darkness on his living room floor and Dan had held my hand.

“Me, too. I don’t think I can make a life decision without him. I hope he knew just how essential he was to us all.”

“I should have listened to him.”

“His advice wasn’t always sound.” I try to laugh, but the tears won’t stop. They splash so fast I could drown.

“I should have told you I loved you every day for the last ten years.”

“Dan. Please.”

It’s his grief talking. It’s eating him, changing his emotions. He doesn’t love me, not really.

“Why are you at the front?”

I can all out hear his smile down the line. “Heavy night.”

“Listen, Elijah and I are going to cook a roast for Tabs and Lewis. Come up, jump on the train.”

There is silence, a sigh, and then the call drops.

Fuck.

I place my phone on the side, my hands shaking and then I cry until I’m floating on the surface of salt water and Elijah comes and sits on the arm of the wooden chair and wraps his arms tight around me, his silence comforting on a morning when too much has been said.