She shook her head. She’d taken the thing that had made her stand out—her schooling—and pushed it as far as she could as long as she could alone. ‘I was put into another couple of short placements that might possibly go permanent, but it was just more dinner table awkwardness. It’s supposed to be intimate, right? The time when people—families, friends, couples—connect. When they talk and show they care about each other and they communicate.’ It was when love was shown, was built, solidified. ‘But when you’re not really wanted, when you’re sitting there but you’re so out of place and uncomfortable and...’
‘It became something you avoided.’ He nodded. ‘Because you were missing out on something seemingly simple, but that should have meant much.’
Yeah. It had been something she’d wanted for so long and had never got. So she’d stopped trying to get close to anyone much. She avoided those social things and buried herself in work.
‘I went into a group home. I got a part-time job after school and then I wasn’t at the house for dinner. I was working.’
Elias put his hand over hers. ‘I didn’t love dinner at the table much, either. We got to listen to my father lecture me on how like him I was, how I was to follow in his footsteps. He berated my mother on the areas in which she needed to improve. Those were the good nights. Others were more volatile. Smashed plates and spilled wine.’
Darcie flipped her hand and locked her fingers with his. ‘We could make dinnertimes for Lily very different. Very much better.’
‘Yeah, one thing’s for sure, we’re going to need to employ a cook.’ He grinned.
She chuckled back at him.
But Elias’s expression turned sombre and he looked at her intently. ‘You shouldn’t have this burden.’
‘Lily’s not a burden.’
‘I didn’t just mean Lily.’
‘Other people have far more to burden them.’
‘Other people have far more support. You should’ve had people in your corner. People helping you get everything you should have had...you could have done anything.’ He drew breath. ‘But now you can. Now you have me.’
A flush heated her skin. She slipped her hand free and stood on the pretext of getting another glass of water. Because she didn’t have him, really—not for long.
‘Is it really so unfathomable that someone would want to go the extra mile for you, Darcie?’
She kept her back to him. She simply didn’t know how to answer that.
Only then she sensed he was right behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and his voice was quiet and gentle as he drew her back against him. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been alone for so long.’
‘Some things don’t have easy fixes, I guess. Sometimes they don’t have fixes at all.’
She closed her eyes and softened, allowing herself to rest on him. Because this sharing and this support... It worked both ways. Even if it was only for now. Because ‘now’ was all there ever really was.
‘I’m sorry your dad’s such a jerk,’ she mumbled. ‘And I’m sorry your mum can’t leave him. Yet.’
‘Are we cancelling each other out in the pity stakes?’
She chuckled weakly and turned to him. ‘I think so.’
He framed her face in his hands. ‘I guess that just leaves this.’
Emotion thundered through her as she gazed up at him. It left so much more thanthis, than lust. There was trust, there was care, there waswonder...and there was such sweet possibility. But he was pale and intense and so devastating, and he seemed to have frozen as he stared right into her eyes. She read confusion in his. Uncertainty even. He was, she realised, vulnerable. So she rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.
‘Darcie?’ The huskiest whisper broke her apart.
‘I’m here,’ she breathed.
‘Yes.’ He melted, instantly. His hands spanned her waist, holding her to him.
But she pressed closer still, instinctively certain that he needed more. He, too, was lonely and right now he was unguarded—close to icing back up. She didn’t want that. She wanted him to have it all. He, too, needed to be shown—to be gifted—love. And as she pushed, he stepped backwards until he rested his butt against the edge of the table. She pushed his chest and he let her—leaning right back, sliding onto the large wooden expanse. She breathed out at the sight of him there before her and then climbed astride him. She shifted clothes—unbuttoning his, shedding only what was required of hers to give them both access to those secret, heated, aching parts that could make them come together—whole.
‘This is a much better use for the table.’ He groaned. ‘But I don’t have anything—’
‘I do.’ She pulled the protection from where she’d put it in her pocket first thing this morning.