Sweet Seduction Shield(91)

It thrills me. He fills me. My mind. My heart. My soul. There is no room for any doubt, it just is. An inexplicable, inescapable sensation of completeness. He is the reflection of everything I long to be.

He is mine.

But marriage? Is he fucking mad?

I snatched the toast up out of the toaster and slammed it down on the plate, then proceeded to lather butter and jam all over the top. My eyes constantly flicked up to Daisy's little form out in the garden, the Hauraki Gulf as backdrop, Ryan's mother's garden as her frame. She was so happy here, dancing about in the sunshine, singing at the top of her lungs as she chased butterflies around the flowerbeds, and then would suddenly stop and watch a gull dive and swoop offshore.

Mesmerised.

My knife scraped the china in a chilling screech which made Ryan frown. I could see him, standing just off the the side, leaning against the bench, watching my every move.

He'd watched my every move last night too. While we made love. While we talked in the shower. After he'd asked me to marry him and I'd clammed up. I'm sure he watched me sleep too. Or watched me pretend to sleep until finally sleep called me close to dawn.

Ryan watches. He watches me as though I'll be stolen, taken away from him, and he has only so long to commit my image to memory, to carry him through the rest of his life.

"Marie," he said, this time more forcefully. "Tell me what I did wrong?"

What he did wrong. Is he fucking mad? Isn't it obvious?

I turned and placed the plate down on the table, then pushed past him and called Daisy from the back door. I waited for her to scamper inside and then helped her wash her hands before she sat at the table and practically inhaled the toast and jam.

Neither Ryan nor I said a single word the entire time.

As soon as she finished she asked to play outside again. All I could do was nod my head, as I picked her dirty plate up and rinsed it off for the dishwasher.

"Babe," Ryan tried, taking a step closer.

I stilled. Staring at the sink, watching the last of the water drain out.

"You know how I feel about you," he said softly, his hot breath close enough to feel against my cheek. "I know you feel the same way. Is it too soon?"

I turned my head so I could look at him, but kept my body mainly facing the sink. The division I placed between us was not lost on him. He scowled down at my stance.

"Why'd you have to go and ruin everything?" I whispered.

His eyes flicked up to mine, confusion and hurt mingling there.

Ah, damn. I was being an utter bitch and it had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with my fucked up life.

"Can we just..." I sucked in a deep breath of air, blinked a few times to clear my head, then said, "Can we just pretend it didn't happen?"

"No," he replied, resolutely. "Not until you give me an adequate reason for shutting me out since last night."

"I'm not shutting you out now."

"Talking to me again does not mean you've let me back in. What happened to honesty? Embracing life? Real?"

I scoffed and turned to face him, arms crossing over my chest. His eyes dipped to the motion, but returned to my face immediately. He was pissed. I could see it now. He was fuming and trying desperately to hold the anger inside.

Ah, crap. Now I was helping him create bad memories in a place that held the only good memories of his mother, under the fucked up shadow of his mother's killer.

This was going so wrong.

I reached out blindly for the dishcloth and searched beneath the sink for the bleach. I began spraying the bench and then wiping it down furiously, determined to not miss a spot. This, at least, I could do properly.

His hand stilled over mine, cupping it, keeping it motionless.

"Tiger," he said, and that one word, that silly nickname he'd given me, made my eyes tear up and my throat constrict. "Ah, Marie, sweetheart," he whispered, pulling me into his embrace as the tears flooded my eyes and coated my cheeks. "It's OK, babe. If it's too soon, I can wait." He laughed. "We have only known each other less than a week." He shrugged his shoulders, one hand smoothing down my hair at the back of my head, the other wrapped around my body, holding me close. "I can get carried away sometimes. But I know how I feel, and I thought you were on the same page."

I'd thought we were on the same page too.

We stood like that in silence. The tears eventually dried up, leaving me a little bereft. Clinging to his body while my ear pressed to his chest and desperately tried to count his heartbeats. They were regular, not a skipped one among them. It calmed me.

When Daisy was a just a wee baby, I'd sit beside her cot and count her breaths. Making sure they were even. That they were fast enough. That she didn't have sleep apnoea or tachypnoea. It became an obsession. I couldn't sleep for fear I'd miss something. That I wouldn't be there if she stopped breathing. It was the first sign of who I had become. It took three months of sleepless nights and vigilant respiration checking for me to realise it wasn't healthy. It wasn't right.