‘Why?’
‘Because it’s too soon.’
‘For what?’
‘For me to be out, for me to be...’ She blanched at the unsaid word.
‘Happy?’ Diego offered. ‘Living?’
Neither was quite right. Izzy didn’t correct him at first, she just clung to her towel, not to keep him from her but to keep her from him, and she stared at a man who had brought nothing but joy into her life. She wanted more of the same.
‘For me to be seeing someone,’ Izzy corrected. ‘Which I think I am.’
‘You are,’ he confirmed, and crossed the room. It was a relief to be kissed, to kiss him, to be kissed some more, to kiss back. He was less than subtle, he was devouring her, and any vision that their next kiss would be gentle and tender was far removed from delicious reality. Diego had waited long for another kiss and he was claiming it now, pressing her against the wall as she rejoiced in him, her towel falling. He kicked it away and all she wanted was more, more, more.
He tasted as he had that morning but decisiveness made it better. He smelt as he always had, just more concentrated now, and this close to Diego, this into Diego, she forgot to be scared and hold back.
Izzy just forgot.
She could have climbed up the wall and slid onto him he felt so delicious, but just as her senses faded to oblivion, Diego resurrected one of his.
‘Is that a bath?’
Now, this bit she didn’t get.
Sense should have prevailed.
In her mad dash to turn off the taps, okay, yes it was okay that he followed, but then, then she should have shown him the door, should have closed it on him and had a few moments’ pause, except she let him help her into the bath and then she remembered to be practical. ‘Diego, we can’t.’
‘I know.’ He took off his jacket, hung it on the doorhandle and then sat on the edge and looked at her, and she couldn’t believe how normal it felt.
‘We can’t,’ he confirmed, because of the baby she carried. ‘How far along are you again?’ He grinned and then rolled his eyes as he did the mental arithmetic, because this thing between them had already been going on for a couple of weeks!
‘Poor Diego.’ Why was she laughing? Lying in the bath and laughing like she was happy. And the fact that she was made her suddenly serious.
‘How can this work—ever?’ Izzy asked, because surely it was impossible. ‘You’re going back to Spain.’
‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t apply.’
‘There’ll be other jobs though. One day you will go back.’ And he couldn’t argue with that, so instead she watched as he rolled up his sleeves and two tanned olive hands took a lilac bar of soap and worked it. She could see the bubbles between his fingers, see the moist, slippery sheen of his hands, and her body quivered and begged for them to be on her. As his hands met her shoulders her mind stopped looking for reasons to halt this and her brain stopped begging for logic and all she did was feel—feel his strong fingers on her tense shoulders, feel the knots of tight muscles spasm in momentary protest as this large Spaniard had the nerve to tell them to let go. For months, no, maybe a year, or had it been longer, those muscles had been knotted with the serious job of holding her head up high and now they were being told to let go, to give in, that they could relax, regroup and get ready for the next mountain Izzy was certain that she would surely have to climb. But Diego’s hands worked on and convinced her shoulders, if not her mind, to do as the master skilfully commanded, and let go.
Her fringe almost met the water with the relief.
Like popping a balloon she just gave in, just groaned as her tension seeped into the water and then steamed out into the room.
She just couldn’t let go for long, though.
‘I can’t get my hair wet!’ She flailed at all his hands were offering, she just couldn’t relax and enjoy it in long stages. ‘How can this work, Diego?’ she asked again.
‘Sencillo,’ Diego said, ‘It doesn’t have to be complicated. Why not just for now? Why not for as long as we make each other happy?’
‘Because in nine weeks I’ll be diving into postnatal depression and I won’t be making anyone happy!’
She wanted guarantees.
Wanted a little piece of paper stamped with I won’t hurt you to be handed to her now, except she’d had that once, Izzy realised as she lay there, a big piece of paper called a wedding certificate, and it hadn’t counted for a thing.
Before Diego had come along living had been like essential surgery without analgesia.
Why would she deny herself the balm of relief?
And there was a wobble of guilt there, but for him. ‘What if I’m using you!’ God, she had never been so honest, and certainly not with a man. All her relationships had been Izzy pleasing others, Izzy saying the right thing, and now here she was, ten minutes into a new one and saying the wrong thing, saying truthfully what was on her mind. ‘What if I’m using you to get through this?’
And he thought about it for a moment, he actually did, and then he came to his decision.
‘Use away!’
‘What if I’m avoiding my pain by...?’
‘Shut up.’ He grinned and leaned over and kissed her a nice lazy kiss. Then he kissed her shoulder and along the slippery wet lines of her neck.
Oh, Diego loved women. He loved curves on women and two of Izzy’s were floating on the water, just bobbing there, and his hands moved to her shoulders, because it seemed more polite. But then his hands just moved to where they wanted to be and he caressed them, caressed her. His big, dark hands cupped and soaped her very white, rather large, to Izzy rather ugly breasts, but maybe they weren’t so ugly, because from the trip in his breathing and the bob of his tongue on his dark lips, she had the feeling that one tug of his tie and he’d be in the water with her, and there would be two empty seats at the Penhally Charity Ball.
‘We can’t,’ she said again and it was the feeblest of protests, because the stubble of his chin was scratching her breast now, his tongue on her nipple and her fingers in his hair.
‘You can,’ Diego said, as his hand slid beneath the water.
She never fully forgot about the hell of the past months and years. No matter how good, how happy, how busy she was, no matter what conversation she was holding, it never completely left her mind, but as his hand slid beneath the water and Izzy could feel his fingers at the top of her thighs, ever-present thoughts started to fade. She could feel his hot mouth on her cool shoulder and always, always, always she had thought of pleasing him, not Diego, but him, and the mute button hit and there was nothing to think of but this, nothing to relish but Diego’s tender explorations as she wriggled in his palm.
Her cynical voice gave one last call for order. After all, she didn’t come with instructions, and he must do this an awful lot, because his fingers read her so well, but she was kissing his neck and above his white collar, coiling her wet fingers in his dark hair as a heavenly regular pressure beat beneath the water. And suddenly she didn’t care if he did this a lot, he was doing it to her, right now, and he could go on doing it for ever, it was so divine. He stroked her back to life, cajoled her hibernating clitoris from its dreamless sleep, and it stretched and peeked out and Izzy was sure this feeling must end, that she’d shift or he’d pause and that the magic would stop, and she didn’t want it to.
She couldn’t lean back because she didn’t want to.
She couldn’t reach for the sides of the bath because then she couldn’t hold him.
She held his shirt-clad back with wet arms and muffled