Caught by the Tide Ch. 08

"You yelled at her?" I repeated, moved by his obvious distress. "Luke, I'm no doctor but even I know that shouting at a pregnant woman wouldn't cause her to have a miscarriage."

"I know. Don't get me wrong, I do know that. I know that it almost certainly would've happened anyway."

"Then--"

He held up a hand. "And I know that something like one in three pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion in the first twelve weeks, okay? But I made it about ten times worse for her."

"You made it worse?" I was aware I was echoing everything he said but to be truthful, I was finding it difficult to understand why he still felt responsible. "Luke,she was the one who turned up at your door, babbling on like a mad woman about you two getting married. Did she really think--?" And then I stopped, his words suddenly sinking into my consciousness. "Wait a minute. Chloe was more than twelve weeks pregnant. She's always said she was four months pregnant. That'd be what, more like sixteen, seventeen weeks?"

"Nope." Once again, Luke's face was hard to read. "The guy on call in Obs and Gynae that night was a friend of mine. He showed me the ultrasound pictures. She was around ten or eleven weeks along at the very most."

"What?" I shot him a bewildered look. "I don't understand. Why would she say she was four months gone when she was only ten or eleven weeks? Surely she wouldn't have got that wrong? Why would she think--why would she say that she--?" And then the penny dropped, my eyes widening. "Oh..."

He didn't respond, his solemn gaze continuing to hold mine as I regarded him with mounting horror, the last piece of the puzzle finally falling into place. She'd lied. Oh, she'd wanted him to be the father--of course she'd wanted him to be the father. Luke was a doctor, a surgeon, someone who could provide for her, give her the standard of living she'd always wanted, that she'd craved since the death of her father in her early teens and had continued to crave, if her most recent relationship with the married merchant banker was anything to go by.

"It wasn't your baby."

Luke gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. "No."

I stared at him, almost at a loss for words. "But you let everyone believe it was!"

He raised his eyebrows. "You think anyone would've believed me if I'd said it wasn't?" Reaching across to the bedside cabinet, he picked up both cups of hot chocolate and handed one to me. "Try this. Should be just right to drink now."

"Luke!"

He took a sip from his own mug before smiling at me over the rim. "Go on."

Obediently, I tipped a little into my mouth, swallowing quickly. "But you should have told them," I protested, still struggling with the idea he'd taken the blame. "It would've been easy enough to prove that you--oh..." I stared at him in wonder as I finally tasted the warm, velvety liquid, Luke's smile broadening as he monitored my reaction. "Oh,wow."

"Like it?"

He watched me with obvious pleasure as I readily took another mouthful, my assaulted taste buds reeling at the flavours. The creamy sweetness, a hint of spice--was that cinnamon? Nutmeg? And there was something else, something that gave the syrupy concoction one hell of a kick. "Chilli?" I ventured in astonishment.

Taking another swig from his own mug, he nodded. "Just a little. My Granny usually puts a fair bit more in but it's a stimulant and you need to get some sleep at some point tonight."

I regarded him with suspicion, now detecting a faint but distinct alcoholic note. "What else is in this?"

Luke grinned. "I can't tell you that. Family secret. My grandparents went off travelling around the world when my father left home. They ended up spending quite a while in Mexico--my Granny picked up the recipe there. When Julie and I were kids we used to beg her to make it for us."

"Cornish Granny?"

"Yep. She's almost ninety now, but she swears by the stuff." He grinned again, motioning to me to carry on drinking. "She looks pretty well on it, too."

I took another sip, delighting in the way the chocolate coated my tongue, closing my eyes as it slid easily down my rather dry throat. But even as I drank, my mind was turning cartwheels, frantically trying to digest what he'd told me and attempting to match his version of events against the fragments I'd heard from Daniel. And suddenly I let out a gasp, my eyes shooting open, the mug jerking in my hand. "They beat you up."

Luke was still watching me, his eyes soft. "I know," he said, gently catching my fingers and righting the mug.

"Luke!" I gazed at him in dismay. "Daniel and his mates--they went round to your place and--"

"--kicked the shit out of me." He gave a small smile. "Yes, I know. I was there."

"But you hadn't done anything! Youdidn't hit her--you didn't make her lose the baby. It wasn't even your baby!" The full horror of what my former fiancé and his friends had done washed over me like a huge icy wave. "They could've killed you!"

"Hey, they did me a favour," he said lightly, gesturing towards his face. "I never liked my nose that much before anyway."

"They broke your nose?"

"Amongst other things."

"Oh God,Luke." My voice cracked on the words.

"And I deserved it."

"What?"

Hearing my outraged tone, he shot me that rueful smile again. "I deserved it. No, hear me out," he added as I began to splutter. "Maybe not because of Chloe, I'll admit, but babe, I was an utter bastard." He sighed. "All those girls, all those one night stands. Someone needed to teach me a lesson. Someone needed to show me I couldn't carry on like that, treating women like objects. Don't get me wrong, I was always bloody careful, I always made sure I used a condom, but accidents happen. Sooner or later I really would've got one of them pregnant, screwed up her life--and for what? For ten minutes of hedonistic pleasure?"

I stared at him, unable to think of a single thing to say, my mouth opening and closing uselessly. "Luke," I faltered at last, shaking my head slightly. "I--you didn't--"

"It's okay." He reached forward, cupping my cheek in his hand. "I'm actually grateful they did what they did. It was the boot up the rear I needed. It made me completely rethink my life--what I was doing, where I was headed, why I was doing what I was doing. I was training to be a surgeon, for heaven's sake. To save lives, not stuff them up."

Nudging the hot chocolate back up to my lips, he waited while I drained the mug then gently prised it from my fingers, setting it back down on the cabinet with his own. "When the bones and bruises healed, I took myself off to the gym and got fit." He grimaced "Boy, was I out of shape. I stopped going out every night, stopped drinking, started studying, passed that exam I failed and started getting on with what was really important. My father once said it was the making of me. He's probably right."

I regarded him in silence for a while as his words swam around in my head, realising he meant every one of them. Good things really could come out of bad situations. Incredible though it seemed, when Daniel and his friends had beaten Luke up after Chloe's miscarriage, they'd set in motion a whole chain of events that had led directly to him developing the skills required to save my mother's life. But had he really been celibate ever since that fateful day? Right up until the afternoon he'd rescued me from the beach?

"What do you think?"

For a moment, I feared I'd actually voiced the thought aloud. "Wh-what?"

He smiled. "Do I have to sleep on the couch? Or--" he tugged gently at the top of the duvet "--do I get to spend the rest of the night here with you? It's your call."

Oh boy. I felt an almost violent tug in my womb as I gazed back at him, my traitorous body reacting even faster than my mind to the idea of Luke lying down next to me and scooping me into his arms. "Of--of course you don't have to sleep on the couch," I managed at last, my heart beginning to hammer in my chest as I pushed at the duvet in turn, making it obvious I wanted him to climb in.

He smiled, rising to his hands and knees and clambering beneath the covers. "Thanks babe," he said, yawning hugely before sliding down beside me and pulling the duvet back over us both. "It's pretty comfy out there but this is so much better and I really do need to get some sleep. So do you." And stretching out an arm, he leaned across to the cabinet and switched off the bedside lamp. "We'll talk some more in the morning, okay? Get some rest, now."

That was it? I stared into the darkness in astonishment. The conversation was over and now it was time to sleep? Without so much as a kiss or even a hug? I turned to retrieve the pillows from behind my back and rearranged them for my head before easing down the bed myself, so disappointed--sofrustrated--I wanted to cry. Had I completely misinterpreted the way he'd been looking at me, the things he'd said? It seemed that way. And when Luke heaved a sigh and rolled on to his side, turning away from me, I grew sure.

Stupid, a little voice screamed in my head. This was Luke, king of the one-night stands. Not only that but if he was to be believed, he hadn't had any kind of relationship with a woman in years. What on earth had possessed me to think that anything could ever happen between us? Nothing was going to happen, was it?

But then again, a much more rational part of my brain argued, if that was the case, why had he bothered telling me the whole sorry tale? He hadn't needed to tell me any of it but he'd said he wanted to. And why had he made sure he was the surgeon who operated on my mother? Why would he have done that if he hadn't had some kind of ulterior motive? To hell with getting some rest. I needed to know. I needed to knownow...

"Luke?" I whispered, tentatively touching his shoulder. "Are you asleep?"

There was no reply. Cursing under my breath, not brave enough to wake him, I too rolled over, at last daring to slip my arm around him before cuddling into his back. It wasn't enough--it wasn't nearly enough--but it was something. I could pretend he was mine, at least for now. And closing my eyes, I breathed in his scent, burying my face into the back of his T-shirt.

*

I was in Luke's arms. At some point, he'd turned over and gathered me close, his body pressed to mine, his hands beneath my T-shirt, warm on my bare flesh. I could feel the bulge of his erection against my inner thigh, felt the rhythmical, primal undulating of his body against mine. Was I awake—was this why I'd awakened? I wasn't sure, didn't know that I wanted to be sure, my eyes remaining firmly closed as my hands embarked on a tentative expedition of their own, slipping beneath Luke's T-shirt, roaming across his smooth skin.

When I lifted my head, his mouth found mine, my lips parting readily, welcoming the dizzying pleasure of his languorous kiss. Oh this was good, this washeaven... Who cared if I was dreaming so long as he was kissing me like this? As the kiss deepened, I found myself rocking into him in turn, the need to feel him against me, inside me, growing steadily more acute.

His hands were moving now, over my shoulders, the length of my back, my spine tingling beneath his touch. In turn, I responded, emboldened by that kiss, by my heady desire, my own fingers sliding lower to his waist and dipping beneath the elastic of his boxer shorts. I heard his soft groan against my lips, one hand coming down to join mine, helping me to push the fabric down and away, freeing him from the confines of his underwear.

And as my fingers closed around him, marvelling at the feel of the silky soft skin stretched over rock hard flesh, his fingers found the evidence of my own arousal, the copious moisture pooling there. I writhed against him as he caressed me, my heart beating wildly, my breathing growing ever more ragged until at last he relented, easing me on to my back, settling into the cradle of my thighs.

I cried out when he finally entered me, the stretching sensation exquisite, my legs curling around his as he opened me wide. I'd almost forgotten the pleasure, the overwhelming sense of completion, how right this felt, how well we fitted together. Yet this was even better than before, the friction sweeter than ever...

Still fearing this was a dream, I kept my eyes firmly closed, revelling in the feel of each and every thrust, Luke moving oh-so-slowly, stroking that sensitive place he'd found deep inside me before. But once again, this seemed different. Though that familiar tension was building, a river of pleasure walled up behind a dam, somehow he was holding me there. Somehow he was holding me in that place between plateau and peak, that pressure low in my belly growing and rising, far beyond anything I'd ever experienced, almost frightening in its strength and intensity.

Until wonderfully, the dam broke, my orgasm surging through me in a violent wave, rolling over and over, radiating from my very core to the tips of my fingers. And as I trembled beneath him, Luke too gave a shudder, plunging deep inside me one last time, finding his own release.

Breathing hard, he wrapped his arms around my still quivering body, easing us both on to our sides, one hand coming up to gently caress my hair. When I opened my eyes I found he was smiling at me, the approaching dawn allowing just enough light into the room for me to see his expression. "Hi," he murmured, kissing me tenderly. "It's early. Back to sleep now, babe."

"Luke--"

"Uh uh." He shook his head, still smiling. "No you don't. Not this time. No more night time chats."

"But--"

He groaned softly, his arms tightening around me, his hand tucking my head against his shoulder. "Ssh," he whispered, dropping another kiss into my hair. "Not now, you're going to sleep."

And giving up the fight, exhaustion settling over me like a heavy blanket, I allowed my eyes to drift closed once more, surrendering to the warmth of his embrace.

*

Thank you so much for being patient with me! I tried to make it worth the wait. The exam's all done and dusted now and I passed it--yippee! The wait for Chapter 9 shouldn't be so long...

All votes and comments very much appreciated!

Lily -x-