Chapter Twelve
Lexi wasn’t sure what woke her. Her eyes blinked open. For a few seconds, she couldn’t work out where she was. The room was pitch black, the bed hard and unfamiliar, and a woodsy scent permeated the air. A cicada chirped outside and a frog croaked. She forced herself awake, waited for the fog to lift, and then she remembered.
She was with Adam, in his cabin. In his bed, where they’d made love long into the night.
So what had woken her?
A muffled sound like a soft cough echoed through the house. She rolled over and reached for Adam. He wasn’t there.
The sound grew louder. A painful, drawn-in breath followed by a moan had her sitting bolt upright. Then came the sobbing, like cries wrenched from a tortured soul.
She threw off the covers and slipped out of bed. Holding her hands in front of her, she made her way through the inky blackness. The tormented cries guided her down the passage and into the lounge.
It wasn’t quite so dark in there—the moon shone through the open windows, bathing the room in pale light. Adam lay on his back on the couch. One hand was raised above his head, the other arm flung out over the edge of the cushion. Tears fell uninterrupted down his cheeks, and his face was contorted in an agonized mask. Harsh, barking sobs jarred the stillness around him.
Lexi’s stomach clenched. Tears filled her own eyes. She watched helplessly as, once again, Adam endured his unspeakable grief alone.
“Adam?” she whispered but received no response. She edged nearer, crouched before him on the carpet. “Riley?” He didn’t move. She peered closely at him and realized with a start that he was asleep. “Oh, Adam,” she breathed, her heart close to breaking. She took his hand, cradled it in hers, and let him cry. Her own tears spilled over, and she wiped at her cheeks.
Time passed, how much Lexi wasn’t sure. Slowly, the distressed sobbing subsided. His cries became more subdued then turned into soft and steady weeping.
Careful not to wake him, she retrieved a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom and used it to blot his tears. The knot in her stomach eased as his weeping gradually diminished, leaving only the ragged breaths that rattled his body.
“Timmy,” he moaned. Another tear slid unchecked down his face.
Timmy. The cause of all Adam’s heartache. Who was he?
Hurt radiated from his sleeping form and pulled at Lexi’s heart. He looked lost and alone and heartbroken. She perched beside him on the couch and stroked his hair. “Hush now,” she whispered as his chest shuddered in the aftermath of his grief. “Hush.”
Moments later his breathing evened out. His pulse slowed, and his body relaxed beneath her arm. Just when she assumed he’d fallen back into a deep sleep, he gripped her elbow and gasped, “Timmy?”
“No,” she said gently, not wanting to startle him, “it’s Lexi.”
“Lexi? What are you doing here?” He pushed himself up and stared at her, his eyes drawn in confusion.
“You were dreaming.” She kept her voice low. “You called out. I came to see if you were okay.”
“Timmy.” His shoulders slumped and his eyes closed. “I was dreaming about him.”
“You said his name a few times.”
He nodded, keeping his eyes shut. “Did I say anything else?”
“No.” She hesitated then added, “You were crying.”
His eyes opened, and he stared blindly in front of him. “I always cry when I dream about him.”
Again, her insides contorted at his pain. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. His face looked pallid and bruised.
“Is there anything I can get you?”
“No, thank you. I’m okay now. It’s over.”
“Some water, maybe?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head again.
She sat quietly, wanting more than anything to console him but unsure how to. “Come back to bed. You need sleep.”
He dragged a hand over his face. “I can’t sleep. Not after the dreams. The memories won’t rest.”
What memories?
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was giving Adam the comfort he so desperately needed. “Would it help if I held you?”
He looked at her with haunted eyes. “I don’t know, sweetheart. But I’d sure as hell like to try.”
…
Adam awoke to the unfamiliar heat of warm, naked flesh. She lay spooned against him, her butt cradled in his hips, her legs pressed against his. The silky skin of her back was so close his heartbeat ricocheted off her spine. Weak light peeked in from beneath the blinds, dappling the room with its dim rays.
He was already hard, bursting with a staggering need to shift her leg and push into her hot depths. He craved release, anything to burn off the agitation left over from the night before.
He’d had one of his dreams.
Timmy called to him, crying.
Adam couldn’t find him.
He searched, frantically. Dread squeezed at his throat. Timmy was close. His cries pierced the air, wrenching Adam’s soul—but he couldn’t reach him. He yelled Timmy’s name, but his screams were mute. He sprinted toward the cries, but his legs didn’t move. Sweat poured from his forehead. He had to find Timmy, help him. He had to, but he couldn’t.
God help him, he couldn’t find Timmy.
Awake, Adam could still hear the cries echoing through his heart. He clung to them helplessly until, like Timmy, they slipped out of his reach.
He took a shuddering breath and grasped the only thing that provided him with any measure of comfort. Lexi.
He ran his hand down her side and over her hip, pausing at her thigh, absorbing its heat. He need only push gently on her leg to gain access to sweet relief.
She’d come to him, consoled him while he wept. Protected him while he slept.
His fingers trailed back up over her hip, across her arm, and touched a bare breast. He swallowed hard, stunned by the intensity of his need for her. It wasn’t just relief he sought. It was Lexi. He ached to make love to her, needed the comfort and the passion only she could give.
She stirred and stretched then cuddled back into him. Goose bumps rose over her skin, and she shivered. Her wakefulness didn’t end Adam’s slow exploration of her body. He continued to stroke her, gleaning whatever pleasure and reassurance he could take.
She was silent, but a wealth of unspoken words lay around them, covering them like a blanket.
“Morning,” he whispered.
“Good morning,” she answered but didn’t turn around.
Lord knew he appreciated it. He couldn’t look her in the eyes yet, couldn’t bear the sympathy he’d find in her probing gaze.
Sparks ignited in his stomach as she arched into him. Her buttocks pushed against his erection, and she sighed as he ground his cock into her.
He had to say something. It wasn’t fair to put the onus on her to speak first. She’d have questions, lots of them, but she’d be cautious about asking. When she’d tried yesterday, he’d cut her off.
After last night, he couldn’t avoid the truth any longer.
“You came to me.” His voice was raw.
“You needed me.” Her body tensed, as though she wanted to say more but held back.
He still needed her. As hard as it was to acknowledge, it was the truth. “No one’s seen me cry in a long time.”
She took his hand and placed it on her breast, over her racing heart. “It must get lonely. Having no one to comfort you when you hurt.”
Excruciatingly lonely, especially after one of his dreams. “I wasn’t alone last night. You were with me.” Usually he couldn’t sleep afterwards. He’d spend the rest of the long, dark night prowling his house. Last night, he’d tossed and turned for a while, but eventually, under her soft touch and soothing embrace, he’d drifted off to sleep.
She made a small sound as he flicked his thumb over her pebbled nipple. A lick of desire shot through him.
“I’m glad I was here.” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat. “Did…did it help?”
He dropped his hand to her stomach, brushed it over her belly, and she quivered.
Pain cut through him. “Nothing helps. But I was glad you were here, too.” No one had held him after one of his dreams before. No one had been there to share his pain. He hadn’t let anyone near. Until Lexi.
Adam inched his hand lower, making her shudder. “I’m still glad you’re here.” He touched her clit, and she gasped.
She opened her legs so he could circle her swollen nub. Sensation coiled through him, settling in his rigid shaft.
“Adam…I—”
“Shh.”
It was a delay tactic. She’d see straight through it, but he didn’t care. She was awake and responsive, and he needed to come. They could talk later. He dipped his hand downward, pressed ever so lightly, and she responded with a gush of warmth between her thighs.
“Aah,” he breathed.
“Please,” she whispered, “talk to me.”
He dipped his finger inside, slipped it into her warm, welcoming depths. “I want you, Lexi.” Slowly, languorously, he withdrew and then slipped back in again.
She writhed against him. “You can’t ignore me forever. I won’t let you.”
He pressed his thumb against her clit. “Do you call this ignoring you?”
She gasped. “You can’t disregard what happened.”
“We’ll talk, sweetheart,” he promised. “Later.” When he’d had more time to distance himself from the dream.
She groaned as he pressed a little more firmly and ventured a little deeper.
“I need you.” He shouldn’t admit it. He should shut the hell up, but he couldn’t. He worked his hand over her, seducing her. “I never meant to…” He shook his head, dumbfounded by both the realization and the fact that he was telling her. “Somehow…it happened.” How? When?
She started to say something, but he cut her off. “Lean forward slightly.” He couldn’t hold back any longer.
She did as he said and yelped as the action pushed him harder against her clit.
“Don’t move.” It took mere seconds to find a condom. Then he was back, cradling her, touching, probing her hidden folds. He nudged her lips apart and sheathed himself deep inside her.
She cried his name out loud.
“Christ, Lexi,” he gasped. “I need you.”
He set the pace, plunging slowly in and out. She met him stroke for stroke, her breath coming in soft pants. He was very nearly mindless with desire. He trailed his hand down her back, found her buttocks and traced her cleft. She whimpered at his touch. Then he palmed both cheeks, pulled them apart slightly, and thrust even deeper.
“Dear God… Adam.”
The depth of emotion she wrung from him was confounding. He had to tell her, had to let her know. “You make me feel again.”
She moaned and squeezed her inner muscles around him, sucking him into a vortex of pleasure. He spiraled off on a physical high. She pushed her hips back, met him time and again as he plunged ever deeper.
He couldn’t get enough, wanted more, wanted all of her. “I thought…I would never…want to…feel again.” He spoke his words in time to the rhythm of his thrusts. “You changed that.”
The tension built. His desire increased tenfold. He thrust faster as she tortured him with the wild gyration of her hips, and he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer.
He twisted inside her, pulled out, plunged in, and then did it again.
“Ohmygod. Adam, I…oh…oh!” She came, her inner muscles clamping down around him, clenching convulsively.
Her orgasm threw him over the edge. He plunged into her one last time and lost whatever control he’d possessed. “Lexi,” he cried as he exploded inside her, the gratification of his release more powerful than he’d ever anticipated. “Christ, sweetheart, I need you so bad.”
…
Time passed and neither of them moved. Whether it was a minute or an hour, Lexi wasn’t sure. Adam had disposed of the condom, but aside from that, they hadn’t changed positions. He still lay behind her, keeping his face hidden. The longer they lay without speaking, the louder the silence became.
It wasn’t just the two of them anymore. Adam’s ghost sat between them.
Finally she could bear the tension no more. “Who’s Timmy?”
His breath was ragged, and an eternity passed before he answered. “My son.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “You have a son?”
“Had,” he corrected, his voice a million miles away. “He died.”
“Oh, Adam.” She tried to turn around, but his arm pinned her down. “When?”
“Ten years ago.”
A decade, and his pain had not yet relented. “How?”
He exhaled. “Cancer.”
Lexi’s eyes filled with tears. “How old was he?”
“Three. And a half.” An iron clamp squeezed her heart. “He had a brain tumor.”
In a strained voice, Adam told her everything. She understood how much the effort cost him. His arm and chest were rigid, his voice stoic. Quietly, she lay with him, desperate to console yet unable to intrude while he recounted his past.
“At first the doctors diagnosed epilepsy because he had seizures.” His fist clenched and unclenched beside her belly. “They put him on medication for it. Then they blamed his other symptoms on the drug, like the nausea and the vomiting and the fact that he was so tired all the time.” Clench. Unclench. “He started getting headaches.” His voice caught. “They were so bad. Sometimes he’d hold his head and cry.” He swallowed. “We gave him painkillers, strong stuff. They didn’t always help.” Breath shuddered from his chest. “We couldn’t help him. I…I couldn’t make the hurt go away. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even let me hold him. He’d push me away and lie on the floor and sob in agony.”
Tears ran down Lexi’s face unchecked.
“Within a month, he lost coordination and had trouble walking. He’d fall over for no reason. The neurologist insisted on doing a scan, an MRI, and that’s when they found it. They operated immediately—it was our only option. He was three, and they took him into surgery and opened him up and cut into his brain.” He took a deep breath. “It was too late. By then the tumor was so big and had grown into places they couldn’t reach, and they couldn’t get it all.” He was silent for a long time. “He died eight weeks later.”
His heart hammered against her shoulder, and the muscle shifted in his arm as he clenched his fist again. “He changed. In eight weeks. Lost his words.” Adam began to shake. “He’d try to say something but wouldn’t be able to find the right words. He’d get so angry. There were the times he’d talk and look at us and wait for an answer. We couldn’t respond, because…because he’d spoken gibberish, and we couldn’t understand him.”
He drew another shuddering breath. “He had nightmares, even when he was awake. He’d scream and scream, and no matter what we did, we couldn’t comfort him.
“The end… Christ, it came so quickly. He couldn’t walk or talk. He…he didn’t recognize us. There was nothing left of him. And then…he…died.” Adam’s voice trailed off. His words reverberated through the early morning stillness.
This time when Lexi turned to him, he offered no resistance. She wrapped her arms around his shivering body and held tight, fearful that if she let go, the hurt would overwhelm him and she’d lose him to his memories.
...
Hours later, they sat together in the kitchen, pretending to eat breakfast. Adam chased a piece of toast around his plate with a fork while Lexi picked at a grape, wondering how to phrase her next question.
“Where’s Timmy’s mother?” she asked finally.
“In Perth.” He stabbed the toast.
“Is she…are you married?”
He looked up sharply and then shook his head. “Divorced.”
“Do you see her often?”
“I haven’t seen her in years. It’s too hard.” His face was white. “I bumped into her in Melbourne last week.” He lifted his fork, stared at the toast. “I didn’t want to talk to her, but I couldn’t very well walk away, could I?”
“Did the marriage end badly?”
He dropped the fork and gave up the pretense of interest in food. “Not really. After Timmy died, we drifted apart. We liked each other well enough. We simply weren’t in love anymore. A dead child wasn’t enough to carry a dying relationship.”
Adam stood and paced around the room. “We were young, inexperienced. We couldn’t give each other the kind of support we needed. She turned to her family and friends, I turned to mine, and we forgot to be there for each other. It wasn’t a nasty breakup. Just a kind of sad recognition that we couldn’t be together any more. Not without Timmy.” He stopped, stared out the window. “Our lives changed after that. I came to Sydney. She remarried. I think she’s happy again. She has two kids now.”
There was so much unspoken emotion in his voice. “Have you met them?”
He turned to face her. “Timmy’s brothers?” His smile was lifeless. “I’m not strong enough. What if they look like him?” He shook his head. “What if I resent them because they’re living and Timmy isn’t?”
Her heart squeezed. He carried around so much pain. Had he ever worked through his loss? Or did he only acknowledge it at night, when sleep anaesthetized the grief?
“What about you, Adam? What about your life and your happiness? Don’t you want to get married again, have more children?”
He looked like she’d punched him in the gut. “How could I have another child? Timmy was…was my life.” His palm hit the wall with a resounding blow. “He died. I can’t do it again. Won’t.” He took a deep breath and then another, rubbed his hand. “I can’t be around small kids, can’t talk about them, not without thinking about Timmy.” His face hardened. “A wife and kids aren’t in my future.”
Lexi tried not to respond to his exclamation. It wasn’t easy. Every minute she spent in his company, she became more convinced Adam was the man for her. How could she ever convince him of that?
“I’m happy where I am now,” he concluded.
Happy? He was possibly the loneliest man she’d ever met. He wore his isolation like a life vest. While it kept him buoyant and alive, it also kept him adrift in a sea of people, not allowing him to ever reach out and grab onto another person’s hand.
“Are you? Happy, I mean?”
“Compared to ten years ago, yes.”
“And compared to eleven years ago?”
“That’s an unfair question.”
“I’m trying to understand you.” His pain was palpable. “From where I stand, you look hurt and alone and badly in need of love and care.”
He shrugged warily. “Maybe that’s why I needed you here with me this weekend.” His head dropped back against the window and his eyes closed.
“Do you feel better when I’m with you?”
“When you’re with me, I feel. Period. That night in Melbourne, I felt alive for the first time ten years. I…liked it.”
The vise around her heart loosened, and she experienced a buzz of unexpected hope.
“Thing is, I haven’t allowed myself emotion for so long. I’m not sure what do with it.”
She walked over to him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she laid her head on his chest. “You don’t have to do anything with it. Just feel. Let the emotions be. Accept them. You don’t have to deal with them or act on them. If you’re sad, cry. If you’re happy, smile. Don’t repress what’s happening between us in case you get hurt again. Grieve over Timmy, but don’t stop living, Adam.”
His arms, which had been hanging loose at his sides, crept up and he clung to her, burying himself in her embrace. She held him, soothed away his pain, gave him her strength and willed him to be happy again, to feel again. As his resistance weakened and his muscles relaxed, she acknowledged he wasn’t the only one going through emotional upheaval. Her own emotions were running amok.
She was falling in love with Adam Riley.
Problem was, she seriously doubted he’d ever allow himself the freedom of returning her love.