AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He winked. Everything sizzled.
Melinda shook her head slowly, her smile widening. “I think we need to take it down about ten notches.” She walked a little unsteadily across the room and turned her speaker on, selecting an upbeat jazz album to dispel some of the strands of desire that were clogging her mind.
Ra’if watched as he lifted the grocery bags onto the bench, removing takeaway containers one by one and deftly arranging them in a line. Melinda was beautiful, absolutely, but that wasn’t what he found so attractive. She was … addictive. There was a quiet dignity to her, and a sense of humour and life that enlivened him.
“Tell me about your son,” he invited, opening cupboard doors until he found the bowls.
Melinda walked closer, her expression one of total love. “Jordan. He’s a character.” She rested her cheek in her palm, propping her elbow on the bench as he worked. “He’s very smart, and very sensitive. He hasn’t always been the easiest kid, but we’re a team, him and I. I guess that’s made it more manageable.”
He nodded. “Do you have any help with him?”
“He’s at pre-school now and his granny – my ex’s mother – comes over during the days to mind him, so I can work. She lives just over the common, in Barnes. My parents …” Her voice tapered off, her eyes wide. “Sorry. I’m not in the habit of giving my life story to people I’ve just met.”
“Have we just met?” He prompted teasingly, spooning various flavours into the bowls. “And I asked. What were you going to say about your parents?”
“Right.” She cleared her throat. “They haven’t been in my life since we – since I,” she corrected automatically, “found out I was pregnant.”
It took a lot of effort not to react visibly. “I see.” Except he didn’t. “Why is that?”
She pulled a face, leaning forward to see more easily. “This looks amazing. Thank you for bringing dinner.”
He met her eyes, silently prompting her to return to the subject they’d been discussing. A blush spread along her cheekbones.
“I don’t like to talk about it.” And yet with Ra’if, she felt the words tumbling out of her mouth. “I guess because it’s hard to describe. To say they didn’t approve is an understatement. They’re very religious. Strictly religious. The fact that Brent and I were sleeping together was bad enough. But that I’d got pregnant?” She shook her head. “They wanted me to have an abortion. And then to go away to a girls’ boarding school in America, where I would be taught self-respect and other appropriate virtues.” She rolled her eyes, a gesture Ra’if found instantly endearing. “It’s not like I was, you know, making my way through all the guys at school or anything. Brent and I were deeply in love.”
Ra’if ignored the searing barb of envy. “How old were you?”
“Seventeen. I’d just finished school.”
He took care not to react. “That must have been hard for you.”
“Hard was being kicked out of home. The baby stuff I found easy. I loved being pregnant. I loved having him.” Her expression was sombre. “The minute Jordan was born, I looked into his eyes and knew I could never do to him what my parents did to me.”
“Do you hear from them?”
“At Christmas,” she nodded. “I get a card offering me the chance to repent and rejoin their lives.”
“And you don’t?”
“I’m not going to repent! Jordan is a blessing. A hundred years ago, Brent and I would have been married at the ages we were, and the baby would have been seen as a sign of a successful union.” She winked. “No. I don’t think they have anything to offer me. And now I’m making that decision for my son as well, so I have to make it a good one.”
Ra’if lifted the bowls and came around the kitchen, to the small dining room. There were only two chairs. He took Jordan’s and she was grateful as heck that she’d had the presence of mind to wipe the caked-on spaghetti off before he’d arrived.
“And this is why you don’t date, too?”
“Aren’t I dating right now?” She reminded him in a voice he found almost unbearably seductive. In his old life, he would have made love to her by now. She wanted him. She wanted him with a heat and passion that he knew was eating her resolve. If he kissed her again, she would groan, her body would become pliant against his, and his hands would strip her clothes away and feel her naked flesh.
But he hadn’t been that man for a long time. Well over two years. And he wasn’t going to give in to old habits. Besides, Melinda wasn’t like the women he had used to hook up with. He hadn’t really had a type, at least in terms of physicality. He’d just wanted women who were up for a good time. Who’d make the same lousy life choices he had; who enjoyed any substance that could get them high and keep them there.
It was like looking through a mirror and seeing someone entirely different. He’d come so far from that life.
The silence stretched between them and Melinda’s nerves stretched with it, prickling down her spine. She dropped her eyes to the table, noticing the food properly for the first time.
“What is this?” She asked, as she tried to make sense of the unfamiliar dishes.
As though shaking himself from a dream, Ra’if said softly, “The food of my land.” The way he said it was with such pride that goose bumps danced across her flesh, as though a warm breeze from Dashan, with its heat and spice, had drifted into her apartment, temporarily thawing the cold December night.
“It smells good.”
