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‘Oof...’ He fell back on to the bed, caught off balance, and she landed on top of him, breaking her own fall with her arms. ‘Nice move, princess...’
‘I have more.’ She pinned him down, running her hand across his chest, luxuriating in the feel of his body. He gasped as her hand found the button on his jeans, and she felt his body jolt as she slipped her fingers past the waistband.
‘I just bet you do.’ Suddenly she was on her back and Jack had the upper hand again. Holding her down, stretching her arms up over her head, dipping to whisper in her ear.
‘I’m going to strip you naked... Then I’m going to find out just how many moves you’ve got...’
A shard of light from the hallway. Jack froze.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘DADDY! WHAT ARE you doing?’
The one question he’d never had to even consider an answer for. Jack closed his eyes in disbelief, feeling Cass wriggle out from under him.
‘Don’t hurt her, Daddy.’ He heard Ellie pound into the room and he rolled over on to his back, feeling something soft smack against his legs. Ellie had obviously come armed with her teddy bear.
‘It’s okay, Ellie. It’s all right...’ How the hell was he going to explain this one?
‘Ellie...’ Cass’s laughing voice. ‘Ellie, it’s okay. We were just playing. Daddy was tickling me.’ Jack opened his eyes and saw Cass, on her feet and swinging Ellie up in her arms.
‘Like this...’ Ellie’s fingers scrunched against Cass’s shoulder in a tickling motion.
‘Just like that.’ She plumped down on to the bed, rolling Ellie on to her back and tickling her. Cass seemed to have a better handle on the situation than he did. Maybe because she didn’t have to worry about surreptitiously refastening any buttons.
‘What’s the matter, Ellie?’ He waited for their laughter to subside, wishing his wits would unscramble themselves.
‘I had a bad dream.’ Ellie remembered what she was here for and flung herself into his arms. ‘Make it go away.’
‘Okay.’ He held her tight, flashing Cass an apologetic look, but she just grinned. ‘Tell me all about it and we’ll make it go away.’
* * *
It hadn’t taken long to comfort Ellie and Jack had suggested that she might like to go back to bed, but she wouldn’t budge. So Cass had put an end to the dilemma by getting Ellie to lie down on the bed
next to her, with Jack on the other side.
‘I’m sorry.’ He mouthed the words quietly over the top of Ellie’s head, a mix of uncertainty and regret on his face.
‘That’s okay.’ This seemed so right, so natural. Lying on the bed with Jack, his child curled up against her.
‘Really?’ He stretched out his hand, brushing the side of her face.
‘Not quite what I expected.’ She whispered the words quietly so as not to disturb Ellie, and Jack dropped a kiss on to his finger and planted it on to her cheek. ‘But it’s really nice.’
‘Could I hold your hand?’ His eyes were so tender. When he folded his hand around hers, in the space above Ellie’s head, it felt as if a circle of warmth had closed. One which included her. Cass had often wondered what this would feel like, and given up hope of ever knowing.
She had been so afraid of this, terrified of the hurt when she and Jack were torn apart again. But now that didn’t seem to matter. It was complete, a thing of itself that couldn’t be touched by anything. Tomorrow it would be gone—Jack wasn’t hers to keep and neither was Ellie—but even that couldn’t spoil tonight.
She stayed awake for as long as she could, knowing that when she slept it would be the beginning of the end. Ellie was sleeping soundly, and when Jack’s eyes finally fluttered closed she watched him sleep. If tonight was going to have to last her for the rest of her life, and right now it felt that it could, she didn’t want to miss any of it.
* * *
It had been almost forty-eight hours since he and Cass had lain down on his bed with Ellie. Thirty-six since he’d woken, stretching over to plant a parting kiss on Cass’s fingers while she slept, before picking Ellie up and taking her into her own bedroom to get dressed. Jack had managed to spend one waking hour without thinking about it, largely due to a difficult call at work, although at night he wasn’t doing so well. But he couldn’t be expected to control his dreams.
He didn’t speak about the shock of having Ellie walk in on them, or what had followed, which had somehow been so much more intimate than the night he’d been expecting. Cass said nothing either and their conspiracy of silence seemed to protect those few short hours from the indignity of careless words or doubts. Jack knew two things for sure. It had been perfect, and it mustn’t happen again.
Then a girls’ night out put all his resolve to the test. Cass had mentioned that she was going out on Friday night and so Jack and Ellie were on their own for supper. But when she came downstairs, fresh from the shower, her handbag slung over her shoulder and her car keys in her hand, what had seemed just difficult was suddenly practically impossible.
