He gave me exactly what I needed, and when his hand began to rub…I had my face buried in his neck, and I was whimpering. Trembling. Burning. I was shattering, he was swearing, and we were there.
It seemed like ages before Hemi untied me. I was barely aware of it until he was rubbing his hands over my back, my bottom, down my arms.
“Bloody hell.” His voice was rough as I curled into him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “What you do to me. I pushed you too hard, and I know it. Tell me you’re all right.”
I had to laugh against his warm skin, which smelled, as always, faintly of spice, like the very best cinnamon stick ever. “Uh, Hemi. I think you’ve got it backwards. I don’t think that was me.”
He sighed. “You’re right. It was me. You said you needed me to convince you, and I just…I can’t stand the thought of you with somebody else.”
“Mm.” I nuzzled his neck some more, loving the way it felt to have him hold me so securely. “That should bother me. I should definitely be ashamed by how much you excited me just now, too, but I’m not. And do you know what I found out?”
He was stroking over my bottom again now. It wasn’t exactly sore, but it tingled so deliciously, and I wriggled into him, wanting more.
“What?” he asked.
I kissed the side of his neck, then moved up to his jaw, rubbing my cheek over the faint roughness that was a half-day’s growth of beard. “That you love me,” I said. “Because you stopped when I asked you to. Because you helped me when I needed you to. Because you always make sure I’m satisfied. And because…” I leaned back, took his face in my hands, smiled at him, and brushed a soft kiss over his mouth. “Because you always take care of me.”
Within boundaries, I told myself. Physically.
Yeah, right.
Hemi
Did I discuss everything I could have with Hope? Not even close. I hadn’t wanted to have this talk in the first place, though. It was too much emotion and far too much sharing to be anything like comfortable. I didn’t share, and I didn’t emote.
And after that? The storm that had raged outside the windows had been nothing to the one inside me, the one that had pushed me right up to the boundaries of my self-control. When she’d said her word, when I’d realized I’d gone too far…it hadn’t been good. And then what had I done? I’d pushed her more.
I’d been feeling too fierce for tenderness. All I wanted to do was hold her tight and close, and she wouldn’t let me. I knew she wanted to be her own person. Fine. But couldn’t she do that from a spot right next to me?
Apparently not, and however frustrating that was, being without her was worse. Which meant that tonight, I’d better be showing her everything she meant to me in the way I found so hard to say in words. I’d give her the sweet loving I hadn’t been able to manage earlier. She’d love that, too, because she loved me.
I told myself that, anyway.
She came out of the bathroom fully dressed again, her pale hair tamed, went to the floor-to-ceiling windows that led onto the balcony, and said, “It’s not as bad outside now.”
I took a glance of my own and said in resignation, “Reckon that means I’m taking you for a walk on the beach.”
“I can go by myself,” she said. “You can stay here. I don’t mind.”
I laughed, wrapped my arms around her from behind, pulled her back into me, kissed the side of her pretty neck, and said, “Nah. I’ll take you for a walk in the rain, and then I’ll take you to lunch. How’s that?”
She snuggled back against me and said, “I like that plan.”
Outside, the fresh wind still blew, bringing a fine rain with it, and Hope pulled a soft white hat over her hair and stuffed her hands in her pockets. But when we got onto the beach and she felt the full force of it, she spread her arms wide, laughed into the wind, and ran to the edge of the shore in her polka-dot gumboots. The gulls dove and screamed into the wind, and Hope whirled, twirled, danced into the storm, into the day, overcome by happiness. She was as overwhelmed as I was, maybe, by everything this day had brought, but so much more able to express it.
I went to join her. I couldn’t have done anything else. I was taking her hand, spinning her around, then pulling her into my arms and dancing along the firm sand at the water’s edge as the waves hissed and roared and broke around our boots. The wind and the water offered up a rhythm impossible to resist, and I danced to their music with Hope, turning her, twirling her, spinning her around. I danced her backwards and forwards along the shore, and finally, I dropped her back into a low dip, her back arching like a bow, everything in her body trusting me not to drop her.
She came up laughing, her eyes sparkling. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I can sing as well,” I told her. “Maori talents.” Talents I never used anymore, but something about being home, and being with Hope, seemed to bring them out in me. “But right now, I need you to come with me.”
She didn’t ask why this time. She just did it. I led her over to the spot where the sand turned to grass, into the shelter of a gigantic, gnarled tree whose mighty branches twined and twisted close to the ground.
“I have something I need to tell you,” I said. I touched one of the huge, swinging beards, the clumps of aerial roots that provided a dense layer of shelter that shielded us from the gusting wind and occasional spatters of rain. “This is a pohutukawa. In this case—a grandfather. An important tree for an important occasion.”
“Oh?” Hope asked. “What kind of occasion? Or do you mean today? Today did feel important.” She put her hand up to the side of my face in that way she had that got under all my defenses and said, “Thank you for that. Thank you for talking, and for listening, and for compromising.” As if she knew how hard all of those had been for me.
I had to smile. “Sweetheart. Do you really not realize that there’s part of this I haven’t done yet? Turns out it was just as well, because I guess you weren’t ready. But now…I think you are. Least I hope so.”
I finally recognized the emotion I was feeling. I was nervous. I didn’t get nervous, but I was anyway. I wanted to give Hope whatever her dream was, but I didn’t know what that looked like. She might wish afterwards that I’d done it differently, in a more romantic setting. I should wait until tonight, when I’d take her to a flash restaurant. Or hire a helicopter, maybe. Make it more special.
I shook my head, chasing the doubts away. “Harden up,” I muttered, and Hope looked more confused than ever.
“What?” she said. “Did I…”
I hauled in a breath, reached into the pocket of my own anorak, and did it. The thing Karen had said. I knelt down and sank a knee straight into the rough, wet grass of my homeland.
She looked down at me. “But you said…I thought…”
“I told you I wanted to do it on the beach.” My heart was galloping away with me, my breath coming short, and I hauled myself back under control as best I could. “I got a bit ahead of myself last night, but I’m doing it properly now.” I opened the red leather box with its gold scrolling, Cartier spelled out across the top, and showed her what was inside.