He dipped his head and his lips hovered over my mouth. “And it’s you, pumpkin, you’re what’s important to me, it’s always been you.” His lips settled on mine again, the tip of his tongue searching and caressing.
I kissed him back. I couldn’t help it. It was instinctual; my body was taking what it needed with no consideration for my vulnerable heart.
“And you still taste so good too,” he murmured. “So damn good.” He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. I rested my hands on his chest, absorbing the heat of him and feeling his small, tight nipples beneath my palms. It felt so right to be in his arms. Loved, protected. I melted into him, and through the towel his steely erection prodded my stomach.
“Robbie, no.” I pushed at him and took a step back. “What’s going on? We can’t do this. We can’t just meet up and have sex. I can’t get my head around it.” Or my heart.
His arms fell to his sides. His mouth was damp and shiny from our kiss. “But I want you back,” he said simply. “For good.”
“We’ve been there, done that. It didn’t work, remember?”
“But we loved each other so much and there’s still something there, a lot there. Hell, I think that kiss just proved it.” He dragged in a deep breath and his eyebrows pulled together. “Jenny, you’re the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing on my mind when I go to sleep at night.”
I shook my head, hardly daring to believe his words. He was describing my first and last thoughts of each and every day.
“It will work this time, it has to,” he said softly.
I rubbed my hand over my forehead. I was hot, hot and bothered. My clothes were damp on my back. “But you’ll still accuse me of seeing other guys even when I’m not. Still want to check up on me. And I can’t stand that, you know I can’t, it’s what destroyed us last time.”
“I’m different, I’ve grown up. It was hard for me then. You’d gone off to university in Edinburgh and left me in suburbia. Everything was new and exciting for you, you were a student, working hard and playing hard in a big new city.” His voice lowered and a muscle flexed in his cheek. “You were playing without me. I got the dregs of you when you came home, tired and with piles of study to do over the holidays.”
“But that’s how it was at uni. I had to study during the holidays to get top grades, you knew that.”
“You were supposed to study there, while you were away. The holidays were my time with you. I couldn’t understand why you hadn’t got the work done in term time. The same old thought kept coming back to my head—you hadn’t done it because you were seeing someone there, someone who took up all your time and energy.”
I sighed. We’d had this conversation too many times. It was like picking at an old scab until it oozed blood. “You know I’m not the sort of girl who’d cheat and lie. I couldn’t even lie to Mrs. Baker that time she accused me of hanging out behind the bike shed with you. I got us both a week of detention because I blushed and stammered so much she knew full well where I’d been and what I’d been doing.”
He smiled and I knew he was remembering me letting him touch my breasts over the top of my school shirt that day. “I know that now.” He stepped closer again. “Because I’ve been there, been immersed in a career, going after what I wanted with such single-minded focus that it consumed my every waking moment.” He reached for my hand and rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. “I understand what you were going through, what your studies meant to you and how time-consuming it was.”
I looked at his anxious face, at the way his eyes had narrowed and his brow had furrowed. It was older than the face I’d last gazed at in the flesh. There was nothing boyish about his features anymore. Robbie was all man.
“You have to believe me,” he said.
My heart churned. What should I think? Four years ago I’d walked away from him. Shut the door and left him alone and devastated. It wasn’t because I hadn’t loved him, it was because I couldn’t cope with the way he’d loved me. The way he couldn’t let me chase my dreams without him.
“We’ve both achieved what we dreamed of,” he said, tilting my chin with his finger. “We’re where we want to be and,” he set his jaw determinedly, “it’s time for us to be together again. Turn around.” He pressed on my shoulders. “Look in the mirror.”
I allowed him to twist me until I stared at the mirror behind the bed. I was more disheveled than I’d thought, my blonde hair tangled and tufty and my hoody damp and drab.
“We were meant to be,” he whispered in my ear, the stubble on his cheek brushing my temple. “Look at us, even after time apart we look so right.” He caught my gaze in the reflection. “We feel so right. It’s always been Robbie and Jenny, Jenny and Robbie, always, it’s our destiny. All you have to do is say the word, just say yes to us.”
I leaned back into his hard chest, my body light and small next to his.
“I just don’t know how else to be,” he murmured, “without you. Without the one person in the world who truly knows me. ”
The doors to my heart began to creep open. He was getting to me. Big time.
“When I sit alone thinking of all Manic Machines has achieved, it just doesn’t feel real,” he went on.
“But it is real. You just have to look at the wall of awards and discs and photos.”
“It’s not real,” he said, curling his forearm around my waist and pulling me tighter against him. “Because I haven’t told you. I haven’t shared it with you.” His other hand smoothed my hair over my shoulder. I tilted my head and he pressed his lips to the side of my neck. I was glad he was holding me, as his delicate touch made my legs feeble. “That’s got to change,” he whispered. “I’ve got to have you back in my life, sharing this with me. Everyone else has just been treading water until you were back in my arms again.” He paused to drag in a breath. ”You’re the one thing missing, Jenny, and you’re the one thing I want and need the most. Please, let’s try again, let’s make it work this time.”
Those doors protecting my heart flew wide open. I’d spent so long shutting them tight, saving myself from him, but the touch of his lips and the heat of his words had blown them off their hinges. There was only one answer I could give him if I was going to be true to myself. “Yes,” I said, “we can try again.”
“Really?” He lifted his head to look at me in the mirror.
I smiled at the apprehension on his face. “Yes, really. I want you back too. I miss Jenny and Robbie.”