Author's note: Since the last chapter was mainly about feelings and thoughts, I wanted to give you something a bit more plot-driving now... So that's why you get two updates in one week. Also, because I love this part of the story.
Punk81: Glad you liked the scene with Maria. I added that on an afterthought, actually some last-minute editing. Kind of glad though I did it now. There's not going exactly going to be a 'confrontation' as such... It's going to be a bit more complicated... You'll see. ;-)
He called her in the middle of the night to tell her that they would soon see each other again. The tone of his voice was disturbingly cheerful and she could just imagine the maniacal glint in his blue eyes. Then again, she could understand his enthusiasm rather well, but the word 'soon' was thoroughly frustrating.
"So when are you going to be here?" she asked for at least the third time during their talk on the phone.
He kept evading her question. The last time he had gone as far as to say it was a secret. She had joked and retorted that there were no secrets in a healthy relationship which had gotten her nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere. He had dissolved in hysterical laughter at her remark. She had made a face and called out his name in irritation several times. To amuse him had not been her top priority. Then the bastard had even gone and dared to tease her back and asked whether she thought their relationship was a particularly healthy one.
That remark had her fuming silently, but it was not enough to distract her from the fact that there was something strange about this phone call. What was more than fishy about it was that she had at first heard the distinct noises of an airport in the background. Then again, he always travelled around, so maybe that wasn't that unusual. Now that those noises were gone she wasted no more thought on that. He still owed her an answer to her question after all. But the question as well as his potential answer to it became superfluous when she heard a voice ask whether he wanted to be dropped off at the beginning or at the end of her street. Apparently he was in a cab.
"Ha!" she cried out. "You're such a damn liar!" She ran towards the window and sure enough saw him get out of a taxi downstairs. He looked up and judging by the broad smile on his face; spotted her right away. It was a mystery how he could be smiling at her, because she didn't look all too glamorous. It was Monday night, somewhere around 11:30, she was wearing some ratty old sweatpants and a faded T-shirt because she had counted on spending the evening alone, curled up on the sofa. She had taken the week off from work, so her staying up late was nothing unusual.
"Is that you down there?" she asked dumbly.
"Well, yes. Or do you know any other red-haired Irish fellas who are bound to drop in on you at this time a night?" it was hard not to hear the added eye roll in his voice.
"Let me think…," she grinned. "There's O'Brian, O'Connell, O'Leary…"
"Aaah, lass, now you're just making things up! You might just as well admit that you've never come across such a fine specimen of an Irishman as yours truly and that's that," he laughed.
She looked down her window once more, still amazed to see him standing there. He even had the cheek to wave at her and wink." Not that I'm not glad to see you, Mr Fine-Specimen, but how did you get here? You must have done your bit on the show and then basically jumped on the next plane…"
"Basically yes," he replied.
"You're crazy," she said with a smile that was also clearly audible in her voice.
"Well, yes. You've only figured that out now?" He had by now disappeared from her sight and she became acutely aware of the fact that he would be standing in front of her door in a couple of seconds, so she ran to the bathroom and quickly rinsed her mouth with mouthwash. It was rather senseless to engage in another one of those battles she always fought with her hair, so she didn't even attempt to fix it.
"Are you still there?" came his voice over the cellphone.
"Yeah, of course," Nina answered as she quickly carried the dirty dishes from dinner from the living room to the kitchen.
And then there was finally that knock at the door she had been waiting for and dreading at the same time. Barefoot she ran towards the door and ripped it open. The smile on her face was mad, euphoric and matched his.
Nina let out a loud squeal-like sound and launched herself at him. He caught her and lifted her off her feet. She peppered his cheek with tiny enthusiastic kisses. He laughed at her exuberance and tightened his embrace. He loved the feeling of holding her in his arms again.
When she was done with his cheek, she pressed a long closed-mouthed kiss to his lips. The by now familiar tickle of his beard against her skin made her grin slightly against his mouth.
Since she was rather unwilling to let go of him again after having spent almost two weeks without him, she slung her legs around his waist in an unexpected display of athleticism.
"What's that? Have you suddenly turned into a human koala bear?" Despite his mocking words he loved every minute of this. He grinned at her and retrieved his duffle bag from the floor with his left. It cost him a bit of an extra effort and looked rather ungraceful, but he was able to manage it. For once he felt grateful that he put himself through a grueling workout each day, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to pull this off. He would probably have tipped over thanks to her extra weight. One more odd reason he loved his job. Being a wrestler enabled him to carry her around like this. He grinned.
"Don't expect me to let go of you again," she told him, now holding onto him with her arms slung around his neck as well, because it had become too bodily exhausting relying solely on the strength of her thighs.
He closed the door behind them, kicking it shut with his leg. Now that they were away from the corridor and those potentially prying eyes behind the spyholes, they kissed properly. A lot of that repressed sexual energy that had been left to simmer for days and weeks went into that kiss. She could feel his hands traveling up her knees to her thighs. The touch of those hands didn't falter. It was confident, especially when he cupped her backside and gave it a slight squeeze. She parted her lips in response.
Their kiss quickly turned more heated. There was something about the way he put those lips and his tongue to use that drove her crazy. "Sofa," she whispered to him when they separated briefly after another long and deep kiss. He started walking towards the sofa. To be honest, it was rather an uncoordinated stumble instead of a walk, because he was distracted by her lips on his neck.
Her legs finally let go his waist and she slowly slid down along his body until she came to stand in front of him. The fact that she held eye contact with him the entire time added something provocative to that move. He grinned down at her. She grinned back.
"This wasn't supposed to be a booty call," he told her, trying to ignore the fact that her right hand had travelled underneath his T-shirt and was presently resting on his lower back, her thumb stroking up and down his vertebrae with maddening slowness. The way she was looking at him, those eyes filled with adoration and longing, was making it hard for him to keep his thoughts out of the gutter and behave decently. She was standing close and her proximity took away his ability to think clearly. Frankly he was quite surprised he'd been able to string together a coherent sentence.
"Honey, your honorable intentions are really cute. But seriously, you leave me here alone for how long? Two whole weeks! And then you come back, in the middle of the night no less and expect this not to turn into a booty call? Are you kidding me?" Her fingers dug into his shirt and grabbed a fistful of its material to draw him closer to her. She found no resistance. He closed the distance between them and slung his arms around her tightly. They kissed slowly and deeply. When the kiss ended, they discovered to their surprise that they had ended up stretched out on the couch, with him on top of her.
"Woah! No idea how that happened," he said with a grin, which that up close made her insides tingle.
"Shut up and kiss me!" she told him impatiently.
"Gladly," he grinned. He started kissing her neck. He had spent hours fantasizing about doing that in the loneliness of his hotel room. It turned out that his imagination didn't manage to do reality justice. The sound she made in response to his lips on her skin was a mixture of a sigh and a giggle. Well, he hadn't expected that. He looked at her with a facial expression that seemed to say "What the bleeding hell is going on with you?"
She cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand and let her fingers trace over his beard. "Scruffy," was her one word explanation, which was delivered with a smile.
Without giving it much thought he traced his own fingers over his chin. "I'd shave, but that would get me into a world of trouble with the higher ups," he told her.
A mischievous smirk lit up her face. "Don't you dare. And whoever said anything about shaving? I can't wait to discover in which other places I'm ticklish as well."
He couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Who knew you'd be such a little minx..."
"Well," she raised an eyebrow, "Catholic school girl..."
"Right. That explains a lot," he grinned and kissed her neck again. "Well, buckle up, lass, you'll be saying a lot of Hail Marys come next Sunday."
She laughed, but her laughter grew somewhat breathy when his teeth grazed over her skin. His caresses were a bit like his personality - a blend of soft and slightly rough, which was fine by her. Actually it felt just right. Well, admittedly just right was the understatement of the century. It felt perfect.
She had an idea. Maybe, just maybe, she could make this just as good for him. She was all about giving back. With a devilish grin she let her hands wander lower and slid them into the back pockets of his jeans. She gave his butt a squeeze that maneuvered his lower body closer to hers. Her touch didn't leave him unaffected. His reaction came instantly. She felt his tongue brush against her skin and she squirmed in his arms. She gasped a little, not expecting this little teasing gesture to fire back at her. She had wanted to stay in control, now it turned out she was slowly losing it.
Her fingers had just started unbuttoning his shirt, when she thought she heard a knock at the door. It must have been her mind playing her a trick. She was in tactile overload and what kind of sense did a knock at her door make at this time a night? It was probably all in her mind. She had more important things to concern herself with than her overactive imagination acting up. The only thing she cared about right now was this wonderful specimen of a man and what he was currently doing to her. After all these weeks of waiting, anticipation was killing her. And he did his best to make this anticipation grow. His hands were at the hem of her top. He slowly pulled it upwards. His knuckles brushed over the skin of her belly in the process and made her suck in a mouthful of air. He tugged the shirt over her head and threw it across the room.
He was straddling her hips as he looked down at her. Her eyes travelled down from his face over his neck to vast expanse of pale muscular chest that unbuttoned shirt exposed. Her hands slipped underneath the fabric. They established eye contact. As always it was "either or" with her. Right now she seemed almost cocky, but knowing her that could change just as quickly.
He was fascinated by her. By the confidence she exuded despite being stretched out half-naked on the couch in front of him. He let his eyes roam over her body. The black fabric of her bra set off nicely against her pale skin. There was a freckle next to her belly button. He let his thumb run over it and she shuddered.
Her body wasn't toned by grueling workouts, but she was beautiful nevertheless. She was slender, yet had some curves on her in just the right places. It was a paradox, but a lot of things about her were and he wouldn't have it any other way. He was about to lean down to pay those curves of her the attention they deserved... Bam! Bam! Bam! "Nina!" a distinctly male voice called out.
The knocking became more and more insistent and was suddenly undeniably there. He hadn't imagined it. He let his head sink against her collar bone. "Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!" Her fingers caressed the nape of his neck in consolation. "Whoever's standing in front of that door is going to get his ass kicked," she whispered to him. They exchanged glances. "By me. Not you," she clarified and bit her bottom lip. He smiled and nodded.
The voice of her brother wafted through the door. "Nina, I saw the light in your window, so I know you're there." The woman in question just rolled her eyes. Of all the times he could have dropped by this week he chose this precise day, this precise moment? Was the universe kidding her?
"It's my fucking brother. I have to let him in," she whispered to Stephen, who nodded and slowly got up. When he was standing in front of the couch, he reached out his hand to her and gently helped her up. Standing on her own two feet again, she let go of his hand. His fingers slipped through her grasp. After taking one more regretful look at him, she started walking towards the door.
"Erm..., luv? It might be a good idea to put a top on first," he told her with a somewhat sheepish smile, as he buttoned up his shirt.
"Of course," she blushed and quickly collected her T-shirt from the floor to pull it over her head. Now that she was fully clothed again, she made her way to the door. The first few steps felt like walking in a drunken haze, but as she took another one and another one the dizziness gradually receded and her head cleared.
She ripped open the door. It revealed a young man in his mid-twenties. He looked exactly like one of those preppy types from those shiny promotional brochures universities liked to distribute. White teeth, unruly blonde hair, tanned skin, good looking. The type of person you can't say 'no' to when you're on the receiving end of one if his charming smiles.
"Timmy," Nina greeted her brother, who immediately stormed past her. "Why don't you come in?" she ironically suggested to the deserted hallway, which he had occupied only seconds earlier. Unable to find another outlet for her anger at the moment, she slammed the door shut behind him.
"Oh my God!" she heard Tim exclaim only seconds later. He had obviously just reached the living room. Her brother was a huge sports fanatic. Whenever he switched on the TV, he tended to watch sports transmissions exclusively.
"Nina," her brother retreated into the hallway with an uncertain and almost bewildered expression on his face, which let her forget most of the aggression she had harbored towards him before. "Why is Sheamus in your living room?"
She smiled. "Hmmm, I don't know. Maybe he climbed out of that flat screen and ended up in my living room. Why don't we ask him, huh?"
"That's not funny," Tim told her, but followed her to the living room nevertheless.
"Stephen, that's my brother Tim," she threw the Irishman a pointed look that communicated some of her exasperation. "Tim, meet Stephen Farrelly aka Sheamus."
Tim immediately surged forward to shake the other man's hand with a grin. Round about now he had probably realized that the pro-wrestler in his sister's living room wasn't a figment of his imagination.
"Nice to meet you, mate," Stephen told him as they shook hands. A flat out lie, but right now, what did it matter? They couldn't possibly tell him that he had interrupted them working their way to second base and that the resulting sexual frustration was killing them.
Tim had not yet come to the point where the situation made any sense to him. Fortunately. "Yeah, nice to meet you, too, but what are you doing at my sister's apartment?"
Stephen's eyes inevitably darted to Nina. What was he supposed to answer to that question? Before they could combine their efforts to concoct a decent excuse for his being there in the middle of the night, Tim drew his own conclusions. His eyes narrowed. "Wait, are you screwing my sister?"
The expression on Stephen's face could at best be described as mortified. Nina and he both quickly chorused the word "no" in unison.
"He's not screwing me, Timmy," Nina told her brother in a voice that was laden with reproach. She only called him Timmy when she was extremely annoyed with him. "We're...," she briefly searched for the right word.
"Together?" Stephen suggested.
She smiled softly and nodded. It was the first time both of them actually acknowledged that.
"He's my boyfriend," she told Tim with a quite a bit of pride in her voice.
"What?!" Her brother asked with eyes that had grown so huge in his surprise he almost looked like a caricature of himself. His surprise, however, went by unnoticed because Nina and Stephen were currently busy smiling at each other.
"Have you told mom?" That question got Nina's immediate attention.
"Are you crazy? This is rather new. So no. Why should I tell mom?"
"I don't know? Maybe because she's totally gonna have a coronary," Tim grinned.
"Wait? What? A coronary? What does he mean?" Stephen had the good sense to ask.
Nina sighed. She would have liked to postpone the moment of informing Stephen that her mom tended to behave like a harpy when confronted with her boyfriends indefinitely. Actually, why introduce him to her at all? If ever things got as serious as in 'till-death-do-us-part' eloping in Vegas was still an option, right? Also, there was a huge chance of that never happening because marriage in general wasn't really in her plans.
"Nothing," she tried to reassure the Irishman who was looking at her with a worried expression on his face.
Tim had the nerve to chuckle, so Nina shot him a glare to silence him. "As even you might have figured out by now, Timmy, now is not the time for a courtesy call. So what brings you here?"
"Sandy has thrown me out," her brother admitted sheepishly.
"No wonder. She's your ex after all…"
"My ex who's two months pregnant with my child," Tim told her in a relatively neutral tone of voice.
Nina just gaped at her brother. "I swear if that's a fucking joke I'm going to rip out..."
The two male occupants of the room never got to hear in what way Nina was going to mutilate her brother.
"It's true," Tim confirmed before she could continue.
"Oh. My. God! I think I can't breathe. Oh my God!" she sank down on the couch and barely registered Stephen's consoling hand on her shoulder. Nina looked at her brother again like she was seeing him for the first time. "Is that why you dropped out of university?" She asked in a very small voice.
"Yes, after all someone needs to bring home some money. How do you think this is going to work if neither of us has a job?" Tim explained as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Right." Nina said. The way she was staring down at the carpet was preoccupying. She seemed to be in shock. Stephen sat down next to her and laid his hand on her knee to get her attention. She turned her head and her eyes settled on him, but it was like she was looking through him, not at him.
Tim beat him to voicing the question that was lying on the tip of his tongue. "Are you okay, Nina?"
She shook herself. The vacant expression on her face was replaced by a frown. "Am I okay?" her tone was sharp and let both men's ears perk up. Uh-oh! "Are you deficient? Of course I'm not okay. You tell me you're about to be a dad and you expect me to punch the air or something?! I love you Tim, but just give me a fucking break!" She ran her hand through her hair nervously while she frantically tried to figure out what to do. She came up with a temporary solution pretty quickly that would also buy her some time. "I need a drink and then we talk." Those words were accompanied by a stern glance thrown in Tim's direction.
"Could you get me a drink...," the rest of Tim's sentences remained unsaid, because she just gave him a seething glare before she stood up and started walking to the kitchen.
"I guess not," Tim said in a small voice.
The two men, who suddenly found themselves alone inside the living room with no other thing in common except that they both were rather close to Nina, looked at each other uneasily.
"Excuse me, mate," Stephen said after a long and healthy dose of awkward silence and got out of his seat to follow Nina to the kitchen.
He found her standing on the balls of her feet, muttering curses under her breath as she tried in vain to reach a bottle of Scotch that was standing on the topmost shelf of the kitchen cupboard. He stepped up behind her without hesitation. His upper body pressed into her back as he reached for the bottle and took it off the shelf. He placed the bottle next to her on the kitchen counter and she leaned back into his strong chest with a sigh.
"You're not supposed to see me like this. I'm having a weak moment. I'm thinking about doing something ridiculous like running away to go on a backpack-tour through Europe. Anywhere away from my brother's crazy problems. You can come too if you want," she was trying for humorous, but he heard the dejection in her voice.
"Not a good idea. Once you start running, you usually end up running in circles. You can do it, you'll see. You stay and we'll see this through together," he told her gently.
She sighed and he saw her eyes watering. "Don't be too nice to me. Nice gets me crying in situations like this."
"What am I supposed to do? Kick you in the shin and then bugger off?" he asked incredulously.
She just shrugged.
"Your previous boyfriends must have been a bunch of cafflers," she had no idea what 'caffler' meant, but judging by the context it had to mean something like 'idiots'. He left her no time to contemplate that odd word any longer, as he continued right away. "You deserve to be treated like royalty, darlin'," he told her and kissed the top of her head. True to her earlier words she started to snivel a little and he pulled her closer against his chest. Her vulnerability brought out some unexpected feelings in him. He was torn between going over to the living room to knock her brother's arse into next Sunday and the wish to hold her in his arms and fight off any possible harm that could befall her.
"I'm sorry," she said eventually, wiping at her eyes sheepishly. "This is so not how I wanted this evening to go." Nina threw him a timid glance over her shoulder. "I hope that's not enough to scare you off... But then again I wouldn't hold it against you if you felt like running away and never talking to me again. Any sane person would."
He gentle touched her shoulders and turned her around. "Sanity's overrated," he told her softly and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. "You'd have to have a whole army of dickbrain brothers to drive me off, lass." The expression on her face was still somewhat dejected, so he kissed her cheek. She smiled. It was a weak and rather fleeting smile.
"Nina...," he sighed and pulled her into an embrace, willing her to find the strength to summon up that plucky, spunky part of her personality that was presently drowned out by tons of insecurity. "Come on, luv. This is not the end of the world."
She leaned her forehead against his chest. "I know," her voice was a bit muffled because strictly speaking she was talking into his shirt. "Just sucks, that's all."
"Yeah," he stroked the top of her head with a tenderness she hadn't thought him capable of. He always managed to surprise her. She looked up at him.
"Call me crazy, but strangely this sucks less when you're around," she admitted. This was her at her most vulnerable. He saw it in the way she was looking at him with those big round eyes. He wouldn't abuse her trust. He'd handle her with care. Like a china doll. Even if his big hands were kind of clumsy and he didn't quite know what to say or do to make it better.
"Just say the word and I'm going to stay." His palm cupped her cheek and she leaned into it. It was strong and rough and provided a strange kind of solace.
"You don't have to do this. You can leave. I wouldn't hold it against you. This situation's all kinds of fucked up," she told him in all seriousness.
He looked down at her sincere face and a wave of frustration swept over him. She didn't always have to prove to the rest of the world, including herself, that she was fiercely independent. "But I want to," he told her. He could see she had trouble grasping the meaning of his words. "If I left, do you honestly think I would have one peaceful minute tonight? Me mind would always go back to this situation and to how I failed you. Like it or not. I've got your back. You can choose to lean on me or not. Whatever you decide, I'm here for you."
She gulped as she looked up at him. She hadn't expected him to say that. She hadn't expected that degree of loyalty and support from him after that short a time.
"I don't lean," she said in terms of an explanation.
"I know that," he smiled. "You're too stubborn for that. At least let me take your hand. You don't have to do everything alone." Of course he meant that metaphorically, but to make his point he held out his hand to her invitingly. It took several seconds and an encouraging wiggle of his fingers before she finally took it.
"Now do you still want some of that Scotch, luv?" he grinned at her.
"Yes, please!" she told him enthusiastically.
He smiled and let go of her in order to reach inside the open kitchen cupboard behind her and produce two whiskey glasses from it. He placed them on the kitchen counter. "How much? Two-fingers-worth or the 'Oh-me-God-me-brother-is-an-arse' version?"
She actually laughed at his remark. "Does that mean up to the rim?"
"Yep," he confirmed.
"I'll have the 'Oh-me-God-me-brother-is-an-arse' version," she smirked despite the overall seriousness of the situation.
Stephen just nodded and poured them two glasses of Scotch. He held out the glass to her.
"Slainte, me luv. Drink your medicine." She grabbed the glass and took a deep drink of it. They looked at each other with matching grimaces on their faces as the liquor burned down their throats and quite inevitably they both had to smile.
"I can't finish that glass. I'm going to end up drunk like hell," Nina told him.
He grinned. "Bit off more than you can chew, eh?"
"Yeah," she smiled at him.
"If me grandfather is to be believed there isn't such a thing as too much whiskey. You know he always says that the juice of barley curse all ills," he told her.
"I'm not sure that's correct. Wasn't there some saying about an apple a day?"
"Nah, don't listen to that. That's a lot of guff. Might be true if you were a horse, luv, which you most definitely are not, beautiful, smart thing that you are," he kissed her cheek.
"Beautiful? Smart? I've got to say I feel better all ready. But I've got a suspicion it's not the whiskey," she shot him an affectionate gaze, which clarified what she meant. However, as her own words started to sink in, she eventually grimaced. "You know what? Just pretend like you haven't heard anything. That was way too sappy."
"Then why did you say it?" he grinned and pulled her against his chest in a one-armed hug. "Besides I kind of like that romantic side of yours."
"You're just saying so because you're only pretending to be this tough guy. I bet you secretly have a collection of chick flicks at home and get your favorite one out once a month to have a good cry…," she teased him right back.
"Yeah, I didn't know that Mel Brooks' movies qualified as chick flicks…Me bad," he rolled his eyes at her. "Definitely no weepin' involved there, except for laughter maybe."
"Funny, I had you pegged for the sort of guy who likes movies were stuff explodes…"
"That's the other half of the shelf," he grinned.
"So it's actually me who brings out the softie in you, huh? Interesting…," she remarked.
"You're not only making me go soft, darlin'. Just think back a couple of minutes, you had me going…," she quickly covered his mouth with her hands, trying to keep that filthy remark he was about to make from coming out.
"Ewww," she looked at him in disapproval and she could see the laughter in his eyes, even though his mouth was covered by her hands. He pulled them away with his own.
"Feeling better now? I thought a bit of that ol' back and forth would put you at ease…"
"A bit," she told him, her face already looking somewhat dejected again at the thought of heading back into the living room to face her brother once again. "But I guess there's no use postponing the inevitable…," she sighed and reached for her glass once more and took another deep drink of the whiskey. "Now I'm good to go. Let's do this," she told him, shuddering slightly because the strong taste of liquor had numbed her taste buds temporarily.
