SWNOVELS Love By Moonlight: Chapter 13
Daniel spent his week walking to remote areas on the coast path to take photos and returning to the cottage to paint. He’d loved talking with Claire about art and her garden plans, and enjoyed walking with her on the beach. He seemed to find healing moments with her, and he wanted more. But not that kind of more. Why did they have to ruin that loveliness with the promises men and women didn’t seem capable of keeping? He simply wanted friendship.
Even when he immersed himself in creating a painting, Claire intruded on his thoughts, and his frustration grew. It was frustration with his mind, which seemed to refuse to relax and let Gina’s poison go, freeing him up to love again. It was also physical frustration. Especially physical frustration, after being so close to losing it the other night, and making love with Claire.
Perhaps if he sorted that out, he wouldn’t be so fixated on her and he could find some peace? Perhaps… he should have one of his casual flings, the ones he had resorted to in the last couple of years to ease his need for sex without the need to have a girlfriend. The women he took up with, just a handful, were ones he’d met in various places and who seemed as lonely and distant as he was, happy for a one-night stand and to walk away the next day with no promises or sweet words of love.
Scrolling through his contacts, Daniel found the name of a woman he’d spent the night with a few weeks before. She’d told him if he ever wanted to see her again, he’d be welcome, no strings attached. Shaking his head as he texted her, he wondered what she got out of her casual sex. They’d not talked much. Maybe she was like him and had a past which prevented her from commitment? She hadn’t hinted she wanted a gift, or anything else, from him. If he asked her down here, offered to collect her from the nearest station, took her out to dinner and then spent a couple of nights screwing her, it might rid him of this overwhelming physical desire for Claire, which he was finding very difficult to deal with.
Louise texted back, full of enthusiasm for a weekend by the sea in his sweet little cottage. He felt the first stirrings of concern about his plan as he read her platitudes, unwillingly comparing them to Claire’s plain-speaking. But it was done, and on the following Friday evening, he collected her, wined and dined her, and brought her back to Gardener’s Cottage.
Even as he unlocked the door, his conscience twinged. He shouldn’t be bringing her into what was Claire’s home, even if she’d not properly moved in.
‘Oh, Daniel, this is so, so sweet.’ Louise moved ahead of him into the small sitting room with its whitewashed walls and exposed beams, her arms extended, a fixed smile on her face. ‘But it’s very lonely. Will we be safe?’
Crouching to switch on the electric flame fire, he turned his head to offer a perfunctory smile, feeling not the slightest bit of lust, and all the time, making comparisons. Her dyed hair to Claire’s tumbled curls, her made-up face to Claire’s beautiful and natural skin, her voluptuous figure to Claire’s soft curves and lean strength. He huffed out a long breath and returned his gaze to the flames. What had seemed an excellent solution to at least one of his problems now seemed to have backfired. He’d wanted an uncomplicated fuck, so why did he feel he was cheating on Claire? He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to manage an erection.
Wearily, he stood. ‘Glad you like it.’
‘Come here, lover boy,’ Louise murmured, beckoning him with her red-painted nails. ‘I had such a good time with you before, and I’m looking forward to tonight. Come here. Let’s get started, why not?’ She slid the strap of her dress down over her shoulder, exposing the top of one breast, licking her lips and swaying suggestively.
Staring at her consideringly, Daniel couldn’t remember her being so overpowering previously, but that had been before Claire. Standing immobile, he allowed her to rustle up to him, his brain only capable of one thought—he was letting Claire down just as his mother and wife had let him down, and he didn’t like it.
Louise slid her hands up his chest and undid his shirt. ‘Come on. Put your arms round me. Show me some of the fire you had when we last met.’ Her hand slipped inside to caress his nipples. Although they tightened at her touch, they caused no frisson, no echo of a response anywhere else in his body.
‘It wasn’t fire,’ Daniel said flatly. ‘It was a fuck, which we agreed at the time we both wanted. Feelings didn’t come into it, but you seemed quite happy about it.’
She frowned. ‘Well, look, I’ll take whatever’s on offer, okay? That’s why you invited me, isn’t it? To screw?’
I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t—
She cut off his thoughts by pressing her body against him, and pulling his head down before covering his mouth with hers.
But he couldn’t respond. Not with his mouth, not with his hands, and not with his penis, which remained stubbornly soft. All he felt was shame and self-loathing. Too much of a coward to risk any kind of relationship with Claire, it seemed he was now condemned to no sex, because touching another woman felt like betraying her.
It was at that moment, horrifically, unbelievably, he heard her voice.
Claire’s voice.
But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly be. He’d conjured her up, surely?
Pulling back from Louise, he turned his head, his eyes widening in horror.
No figment of his imagination. She stood in the doorway, a book in her hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said coolly. ‘I didn’t know you were… busy.’
He could see her eyes. See her shock.
Disengaging himself from Louise’s clutches, he stepped forward. ‘Claire! It’s not what it seems.’
The eternal cry of every man or woman found in a compromising situation which shattered the other person’s trust.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He was pathetic. He was stupid. He was a coward.
Moving towards her, his hand stretched out, and a look of pleading on his face, he foolishly hoped to make her stay and listen.
Tell her not only had nothing happened, but he intended nothing would, either.
Oh, indeed a foolish hope.
Claire whirled and left, and when he followed her round the cottage, he watched helplessly as she drove the buggy at full speed towards the hotel.
Louise had followed him outside. ‘And who was that?’ she asked, acid lacing the saccharin sweetness of her voice.
‘A friend. Just a friend,’ he replied wearily.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Really? Seemed a bit more important to you than that.’ Turning, she flounced inside, leaving Daniel staring up the slope.
If he went after Claire, she’d probably lock her door to him. Oh, fuck! He dragged his hands through his hair, shoulders hunched. This wonderful idea of his to cool his body down by spending the weekend in bed with Louise had completely backfired.
Shame weighted his steps, turned his feet to stone. He could barely bring himself to return to the cottage. Claire’s cottage. Where another woman waited for him. He was a bastard. He’d hurt Claire, and dug himself another new, and unwanted, hell to live in. And now he was going to upset Louise as well, because that new pack of condoms was going to remain unopened.
Louise’s complaints started as soon as he walked through the door. Eyes narrowed, she lit a cigarette, she sat down on the chair by the fire, crossed her legs, and blew a stream of smoke. ‘I haven’t come all the way down here to this God-forsaken place if you’ve already got a number on the side, darling! It’s not my scene to share with anyone. Care to explain?’
Daniel turned from the cloud of noxious smoke, feeling numb. How was it one woman could look magnificent in anger, while another just looked mean and spiteful?
‘Louise, the house has a no smoking policy. Could you put it out, please?’ He passed her a small dish.
Angrily, she ground out her cigarette. ‘Explain what’s going on, please.’
‘I’ve said nothing to you which might lead you to think we’re exclusive,’ Daniel said tiredly, sinking into a chair and reaching for the glass of whisky he’d poured before Louise had insinuated herself into his arms. ‘But anyway, she’s a friend. No more, no less.’
Did he want Claire to be more? If it was her who was here, instead of Louise, would he want to continue? The other night he’d had the chance and backed off. Was he now wishing he hadn’t?
Rubbing a hand wearily across his face, his heart ached. He’d seen the hurt on Claire’s face when she’d witnessed him in that embrace, and he knew he’d been a bloody idiot to set this thing up with Louise. When they’d met before, she’d seemed as happy as him to have the comfort and release of sex with no strings attached. It was a mutual arrangement which hurt nobody and needed no promises.
Hurt nobody? It had hurt Claire, and it had hurt him, because now he realised he might have finally destroyed any chance of something special between them. Inadvertently, it hurt Louise, too, but he had the feeling she’d soon shrug it off.
But surely that was what he’d wanted?
Oh, fuck! He was exhausted with all the emotions warring inside him—trust, distrust, caring, rejecting, attraction, retreat—and trying to pick his way through them and round them.
Daniel became aware Louise was standing close beside him, her hand running over his hair and sliding onto his jaw. He recoiled. Sitting on the arm of his chair, she leaned down towards him, deliberately exposing her cleavage, her hand now caressing his chest through the already open shirt.
‘All right, only a friend. She’s gone now,’ she murmured, her husky voice, ‘and I’d like an early night, darling.’
‘I’ll show you your room.’ Daniel jumped to his feet with rapidity. Relief flowed through him. At least he didn’t have to go any further with this. Damage limitation which, somehow, he needed to let Claire know about.
Louise pouted and rose to her feet, standing in front of him, her body pressed lightly against his. ‘My room?’
He looked at her. The expressionless eyes, at odds with her words, had told him here was a woman who wanted no emotional involvement. He knew, because he saw that same expression every morning in his mirror. Now, though, instead of identifying with her, he felt sorry for her. Any desire he’d felt for her had vanished. Sex was not the answer.
He wanted to make love instead.
He wanted to make love with Claire.
But whatever happened with Claire, he knew he couldn’t sleep with Louise as he’d planned. He turned away, ashamed of the reasons he’d invited her down.
‘Your room,’ he repeated with finality, and led the way upstairs.
Instead of bodily release, Daniel spent much of the night tossing and turning, wondering how to sort this mess out, determined to take Louise to the station first thing in the morning. His brain went round and round and he knew he was being stretched to breaking point.
If he could just talk to Claire, explain how he felt, and how he needed to sort himself out before he could come to her and offer himself without the baggage Gina had left him with. He needed more time to come to terms with the cruel loss of his baby as well.
Claire needed to know.
He had to find the courage to tell her.