The Art of Keeping Faith (22 page)

“And I missed you, too,” he agrees, rolling us over as he demonstrates just how much he has missed me. Again.

25th December

Christmas Day, 2013

7.00 a.m.

I have woken with a start. It had to be a dream, it just had to be. I really did slip on the ice and hit my head. My first sight only confirms this, Kit has given up sulking and is back on Ben’s pillow.

Crap.

I wish I was still unconscious. Unconscious is better. Much better.

“Did you train him to sleep on my pillow?”

It’s Ben. Ben really is here. Ben is looking shit hot walking into the bedroom wearing just jeans, as he dries his hair.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

Ben is here.

“Believe me I haven’t managed to train him to do anything.” I smile and perform a long, languorous stretch. I ache all over and not in a laughed too much, jogged too much, danced too much way. No this ache is far better than all of those. It’s a shagged too much ache, and that, I can live with.

Ben walks toward the bed and my mouth automatically goes a little dry.

It’s fair to say we did not get a lot of sleep. None actually. Maybe ten minutes here or there. I still can’t believe he is here. The last few weeks of miserable denial and misunderstanding already seem a lifetime ago.

I spent most of the night working my way around Ben’s new, even fitter rock star physique. It was a longwinded affair that started at his toes and ended way up at the very tip of his perfect black hair.

Saying that, I have a feeling I may not be looking overly perfect right now.

“Merry Christmas, Lilah.” He flashes me a grin as he sidles onto the bed wafting me with his clean and manly just out of the shower scent.

We have wished each other a merry Christmas at least five times since midnight.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” I say pulling him in and running my hands along his damp skin, breathing in the delicious smell of him. His body is warm from the shower and it makes me want to do bad things. Again.

My thought process careens between sex or a shower. Sex or a shower? Sex? Or a shower?

I know I need a shower.

I would far rather have sex.

My stomach decides to stop my internal dialogue by giving an almighty rumble, which reverberates around the quiet room.

Lovely.

Okay the morning plan may need to go food, shower, sex. Or would it be better to go food, sex, shower?

It’s a tough one to call.

“Are you deciding whether to have sex or eat first?”

“Maybe.” I snuggle myself a bit closer. “What’s for breakfast? Maybe that will help me make my mind up.”

Ben laughs and pushes away from the bed.

Damn it, I made the wrong choice.

“Stay there, breakfast will be in bed this morning.” The blues flash and I throw myself back onto the mattress.

This is my sort of Christmas.

Ben returns a few minutes later balancing a pot of coffee and a medium size hamper, the hamper is labelled: Lilah’s Christmas Breakfast.

“What’s this?” I ask as I push Kit off Ben’s pillow so he can sit back down again.

Kit is not impressed and just repositions himself in between us. Kit was not impressed at all with last night’s activities and made sure to interrupt where and when he could.

“It’s a perfect Lilah Christmas breakfast.”

“Does it have vodka in there?”

“Nope.”

“Sherry?”

“Open it and see.”

So I do. Inside is the exact replica of my breakfast from last year.

Two Terry’s Chocolate Oranges, mince pies that look homemade, and a bottle of sherry.

“Is this all for me?”

“Well do you think you could share?”

I hesitate for a moment.

Sharing bodily fluids is one thing, a Terry’s chocolate orange is something entirely different.

Ben starts to giggle. There has been a lot of giggling over the last twelve hours.

“What?”

“I am remembering your face when I walked in last Christmas.”

“Was it that funny?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Well you were clearly thinking of what you had eaten, because as you walked over to give me that hug you breathed in and sucked in your tummy.”

I have just shoved four wedges of chocolate orange into my mouth at once.

“I wid ot!”

He laughs even more throwing himself back onto his pillow and sliding one hand along my cheek. “You did, too. I could not work out why at first. I mean you looked great even if you were covered in vegetable peelings. It was only later when I found the empty wrappers from your breakfast binge that I realised what you had been doing.”

“We are going to need more sherry,” I say once I have swallowed down the chocolaty goodness.

“My love. I have a whole case just for us.”

“Anything else?” I ask.

“What? Like an entire Christmas dinner, bottles of champagne and a chocolate yule log just for you?”

“Yes, like that.”

“Then I have it all.”

I could kiss him just to show him how much I appreciate his efforts but then I also have chocolate in my hand.

Screw the chocolate, kissing Ben wins.

11.00 a.m.

Perrrrffffecttt Christmas!!

Ben is in the kitchen doing something with the turkey. Thankfully he sensibly bought a much smaller bird than the one I tried to cremate last year. Even better, I’m completely off turkey duty and on bubbly duty instead.

I am sitting on the couch, a glass of champagne in hand. Kit is on my lap making that funny vibrating noise. Kit has decided that Ben is the best person in the whole world, but I think he may have been bribed with double cream. I am thinking what a lucky girl I am. I completely realise how bloody lucky I am. Every time I think about Ben booking a holiday for Tristan and Mer so we could be alone together for Christmas I get overwhelmed with emotion and sit clutching my glass performing an impressive lip wobble. He really does love me. When am I going to start believing this?

After our chocolate breakfast in bed we shuffled through to the lounge with the duvet where Ben lit the fire.

This was rather amusing as we have never used the fireplace before. So Ben decided that he had better use the fire poker to make sure the chimney was clear. A big cloud of soot came gushing down landing full on his face. It looked like he was covered in shoe polish apart from his bright blue eyes shining out.

He had to shower again obviously so it was no big deal I just got in there with him.

Clean again, we finally lit the fire and are sitting on the floor wrapped in the duvet drinking our second bottle of champagne.

We were naked for the first.

The clothes have only come about after a deep discussion about whether it is bad form to be naked all Christmas Day. We went for clothes in the end, but decided that it will be a new family rule that we can only wear pyjama’s or sweat pants on Christmas.

“A new Chambers family tradition,” Ben says clinking his glass against mine.

I am going to remind him that I’m not a Chambers, when I notice his eyes are fixed on my missing ring.

Crap.

“Lilah, where is my Nan’s ring?”

Why does my capacity for quick thinking always abandon me when in a sticky situation?

Hold on. I don’t have a capacity for quick thinking.

“I was worried I was going to lose it,” I offer, albeit it a little half-heartedly.

“Lilah?”

“What?”

“Go and get it right now.”

So I do, shuffling back into the lounge like a naughty school girl about to be told off.

Which I am.

“Lilah, did you take my ring off because you were angry?”

“No.”

“Tell the truth.”

“Maybe.” I scrunch my face.

“Did I take yours off?”

“Well I don’t know.”

Why, oh, why do I have to act like a child?

“No, of course I didn’t. They are actually supposed to mean something. You must never ever take it off, do you understand?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Lilah, it means more to me than you will ever know that we have something between us; something that binds us to each other. Every time I get fed up, or I miss you so bad it hurts, it’s just there all the time, binding me to you.”

Oh.

“Sorry.” Cue more face scrunching.

He takes the ring out of my hand and goes to put it back on, his hand hesitating for a moment. I glance up and catch him biting his lip.

A heartbeat passes and I realise I am holding my breath.

Before anything is said, especially something stupid by me, he carries on placing the ring on my right hand where it has always been.

“More champagne?” he asks, kissing the tip of my nose.

“Yeah, but we had better take it easy I don’t want to be half cut for dinner.”

He just gives a snort and heads into the kitchen to get us another bottle.

3.00 p.m.

Christmas dinner cooked by a hottie = Scrumptious.

Meredith and Tristan call, gushing about their holiday—bloody wankers.

“Do you forgive us for leaving you now?” Meredith shouts down the phone.

“I am still thinking about it.”

“Are you happy, Lilah?”

I smile like a lunatic.

“Yeah, I am happy.”

Ben looks at me, blues piercing and we stand watching each other; I am not listening to a word Meredith is gabbing on about.

The tension mounts as we stand and stare neither of us moving an inch.

My words to Meredith reverberate around my brain.

Happy. Happy. Happy.

Happy is what Ben makes me. Pretending anything else would be a complete waste of time.

Just as he starts to cross the lounge toward me, his intent clear, I tune back into Meredith who is shouting for my attention.

“Sorry, Mer, I’ve gotta go.”

“Why?”

“Just got to. Bye.”

“Gross,” I hear her say on the other end of the line, but my attention has already passed. It is with Ben, right in the here and now, feeling as his fingers tease along my jaw line and slide around my neck knotting in my hair.

His lips come down on mine and I crush myself to him as he lifts me and I wrap my legs around his waist. An urgency I am unused to fuels his motions as he lifts my camisole top up over my head. Threading my fingers in his hair I lean myself into him as he steps us against the lounge wall, both of us feeling the intensity of the moment. Something more than last night, something more than just sex.

Something that devours us both, inside and out.

I can’t control myself; I just want more and more of him. I need all of him.

Ben tries to slow the pace down as I pull his clothes away from his long, lean body, but I don’t let him deter me.

“Lilah,” he smiles against my lips as his hands smooth over my ribs and onto my hips firmly anchoring me to him. “We don’t need to rush.”

He’s right, we don’t. But I can’t put out the fire that is eating me alive on the inside. I just want him right now, it feels like I may be consumed in flames if I don’t.

I push him down onto the floor and climb myself onto his lap fitting us together as I slide us home; the only way that feels like home. My lips furiously raining kisses down on his face as I move us together, losing myself in an intense rhythm that pushes me closer and closer to him.

“Yeah, we do, Ben. Just this time, we do.”

The blues glance up and read my face, which is burning hot. He gauges my emotions and then he changes his movements to match my own, his arms wind around me tight so that there is not a single spec of space between our bodies. The fire that burns my skin melts us together. My desire drives him as I pull on his hair so I can kiss up and along his neck until I finally reach his lips.

As I start to slip under and allow a tidal wave of desire wash over me, I let my mind wander and our conversation without words begins. I have been waiting for it; the understanding, the love, the comfort and the compatibility that makes us who we are together.

It washes over me as I cling to him, and I am sure that he can hear it, too.

For a few moments we sit without speaking, as the din of silent words quiets down and I can feel clarity start to return. Our skin is just starting to cool when he leans away from me slightly and pushes my hair back from my face forcing me to make eye contact.

“I love you, Lilah McCannon, and I don’t ever want to be without you again.”

I stare at the blues and run my thumb along the arch of his eyebrow.

“And I love you, Benjamin Chambers, I always will, no matter what happens.”

It’s the truth, with him, without him I will always be in love with him, I know that. It is something that I will never escape from.

He looks at me again, the blues boring into me.

“You won’t ever have to be without me.”

The atmosphere lightens with our words, and the heaviness of the last few minutes passes by like a cloud over the sun. He flashes me his killer smirk.

“How about we blow Christmas off and go back to bed.”

Hell yeah. Now that is my sort of Christmas.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well if you can try not to attack me again I have some new ideas I would quite like to show you.”

My little giggle turns into a shriek as in one clean movement he is up off the floor with me still wrapped around his waist and walking us toward the bedroom and what has got to be the best end of a Christmas day in the history of the universe.

Ever.

26th December

“Lilah, wake up we have got to get going.”

I have no idea what Ben is talking about so I am just going to ignore him.

Five minutes later

“Lilah, seriously wake up we need to get ready.”

I sigh and roll over. “What on earth are you talking about? I thought we had no plans. I thought it was just going to be you and me for Christmas? It’s Boxing Day that still makes Christmas in my opinion.”