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People rushed around the arrivals area of Stansted Airport. It felt so good to watch humans being humans, people clasping each other as they reunited or stressed about making connections, or even just sitting around looking bored. Queues, rattling suitcases, crying babies. It was a maelstrom, hundreds of people in one open space who may never meet again.
But I only had eyes for him. I was waiting as close to the gate as I could. I didn’t want to miss him, even though he was easy to spot in the crowd that formed around him.
His entourage cleared the way as he spilled through the gate, everyone calling his name, trying to grab his attention. He wore thick sunglasses to hide his face, but his long, black hair and the thick, floor-length leather jacket gave him away. That and the two bodyguards, two assistants carrying his luggage, and the rest of the passengers trying to cluster around him from behind.
My body sighed in relief as I took him in. Just knowing we were in the same space again made me relax. Now all I wanted to see was his expression when he caught my eyes.
Clutch released their new album last week, and people were going crazy. It shot straight to number one, outstripping The Angels’ newest album by nearly four million sales, and they had released theirs before the tour. Clutch was suddenly back in the spotlight.
The fans slowed him, forcing pens in his face or trying to grab a selfie. I wanted him to shove them all away and rush to me. He looked tense, his shoulders hunched as he kept his face down, signing anything thrust in front of him.
I was glaring at him, growing irritated as I waited for him to notice me. It was the same as when we were young. I went to so many of his gigs, hoping he’d spot me in the crowd. He claimed he fell in love with me at first sight, but I’d seen him months before he ever laid eyes on me.
I folded my arms, tapping my foot and biting my lip as I thought of all the ways I could punish him for ignoring me. He lifted his head, and the moment he saw me, a laugh burst from him, shocking everyone. It bounced off the ceiling, echoing around the terminal.
He granted my wish, pushing everyone away as he charged towards me, his jacket flying out behind him like some grand villain in a play. The second he reached me, he didn’t hesitate. He flung his arms around my waist and lifted me, moulding my body to his, holding me like his life depended on it, and kissing me like I was the only reason he could breathe.
I never wanted to let him go. I held him so tightly I thought my arms would burst. Everything had felt so grey and lifeless without him.
“I missed you.” I sighed as he lowered me to the ground, keeping me pressed against his body.
The words were weak compared to how I’d really been. Aching and craving had been my close companions, longing to run my hands through his hair, taste the scar that cut his eyebrow, and feel his hunger vibrate through my body.
“You have no idea how much I needed to hear that,” he replied.
I’d missed his voice so deeply that I nearly bit him when he smiled.
I pushed his glasses from his face, drinking in the sight of him. I grinned at the fact that his eyes were still ringed with black, even on a day off. I stroked the light freckles on his nose, tracing his face with my fingers as his hands roamed my back. It was like I’d been lost for a month, and suddenly I was home again.
Max had turned me into an idiot, all wistful sighs and bouts of longing. Even my desire to hurt him came from love. I still wanted to decimate him, but only so he became part of me.
I rested my forehead against his and adsorbed his scent. It wasn’t the rough musk that had covered me the last time. Now it was his leather jacket and those mints he must have been chewing on the flight, the icy freshness gracing my lips with its tang. I missed the way he looked at me and that shaky breath he took whenever I made him happy. It took him leaving to realise how many things I loved about him.
“I have something to tell you.” I broke through the warm silence.
I could feel people staring, although it had become our pattern. Everywhere we went, people watched us, ever since the Gala. It had become part of our life, but that was the cost of a Fischer falling in love with someone like Max Rider.
“Me too.”
I wanted him to talk first to let the dark currents of his voice swirl around me, but my news was more important, too important for a phone call.
I took his arms from behind my back and gripped his hands. The pads of his fingers were rougher than I remembered, and a brief flash of lust reminded me exactly how well he could use them.
Even though I was confident in my decision, I was hesitant to tell him the news. It was still so new, all of this. Our relationship, our hopes and dreams for the future, and what we could become if we really tried. But I believed in him, so I went for it.
“Do you remember the first time we had sex — again — when I said I was on the pill?” And then I didn’t take them for a week because I was so pissed off and distracted, and then we had sex in the limo, and then I got depressed when he left and didn’t take them for another week, and then I realised I had run out, and while I was picking them up at the chemist’s, I saw a pregnancy test and thoughtwouldn’t it be funny if…?“I happened to be off at the time.” I brought his hands to my stomach, where a little life was growing and forming inside me. I took a deep breath as I looked into his wide eyes. “And I was distracted by a lot of things and just forgot to take them and now…”
His shocked face was priceless, but it didn’t dampen the tremors firing around my body as I clasped his palms against my stomach.
I’d already fallen in love with her. Or him. Or whatever my child would be. I didn’t care, but they were mine, and I would love them with everything I had.
It felt like eons passed before I glared at him fiercely. “I want to have this baby, Max.” He’d frozen, his hands stiff under mine as he stared at them, stared at my belly. “With or without you. But this is our child. Do you understand?”
I should have practised more. It would have sounded better if I’d also told Max how much I loved him, that I wanted to raise our child together in a beautiful family with two parents who loved each other completely. And that I felt like we could do it. I wanted our child to have the childhood I didn’t have because my parents were so wrapped up in their contempt for each other. I knew Max’s parents loved him completely before they were taken away from him, and I wanted our child to have the same. I was prepared to go it alone if he didn’t want this baby.
Max let out a shaky breath and looked up into my eyes. I had already mastered Mama Bear mode, and my child was only nine weeks old. I was ready to tear him apart if he said anything about abortion.
Instead, he let out a shuddering breath, one of the ones I loved so much, and dropped to the floor. I was confused until the crowd gasped and he landed on one knee, clasping our hands and beaming up at me like he wasn’t dressed in leather and sin.
