Kristen Ashley - Three Wishes

“You are beautiful, but I don’t love you because you’re beautiful.”

She became still again in order to stare at him.

“Why do you love me?” she whispered and he answered immediately.

“Because you have the courage to jump on a purse snatcher’s back. Because you have an unnatural abhorrence to litter. Because you act like a ride on a motorcycle is like being given the keys to a kingdom of dreams. Because you have the ability to make all the people around you love you even when they barely know you. Because you inspire loyalty. Because you made our daughter happy even when you were not. Because you created a comfortable, loving home for her even though you had no money.”

“Nate, don’t –” she interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut as if it would blot out his words but he didn’t listen.

“Because you taste good and feel even better. Because you look at me like no one else has ever done.”

“Stop,” she broke in forcefully, her eyes flying open, “I want to tell you why I love you.”

He felt his body get tense.

“Do you?” he asked quietly.

“Do I what?” she asked in return.

“Do you still love me?”

He watched her brows snap together. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He smiled at her and he knew it was a smile filled with regret. “I don’t know, darling,” he answered softly, “maybe because I let you go, broke my promises, didn’t take care of you, made you beg for –”

She lifted her hand between them and waved at the air while saying, “Oh that. I’m over that .”

At this breezy announcement and her acting as if his constant betrayals of trust were akin to forgetting to take out the rubbish, Nate couldn’t have stopped it if he’d tried, which he didn’t and his body started shaking with laughter.

He decided instantly that he loved that about her too, her ability to forgive though, in the same instant, he vowed he’d never do anything that she’d have to forgive, not ever again.

His laughter was short-lived when he heard Lily gasp.

“What’s happened to your hand?” she cried, rearing back, she grabbed his wrist and stared at the bloody handkerchief tied around his hand.

“It’s nothing.”

She lifted her eyes from his hand to his face and glared at him and even with her angry glower, he could have kissed her.

“Right, nothing. Like my migraines are just headaches,” she snapped.

“Lily.”

She crawled over him, her hand latched to his wrist and pulled him out of bed.

“I want to see,” she said, tugging him toward the bathroom.

“I said, it’s nothing.”

She halted and turned back to him. “I want to see .” She underlined her words verbally and there she was.

He knew in that instant that he finally, irrevocably, had her back.

His Lily.

His.

She’d wished for him.

Him .

Nathaniel McAllister.

He was meant for her and she was meant for him, they belonged to each other, they belonged together.

Relief sweeping through him, he gave his wrist a swift yank. Pulling her off balance and into his arms, his head descended and his mouth took hers for a quick, hard kiss.

When he was done and he saw the smoky dark blue at the edge of her irises was creeping toward the pupil, he muttered in a voice that said, clearly, she really had no choice in the matter, “You can see when I’m done making love to you.”

Without hesitation she agreed, “Okay.”

It was then that he started laughing again but this, too, was short-lived because Lily leaned up on tiptoe, threw her arms around his neck and she gave him a hard kiss.

But Lily’s wasn’t quick.

Much later, Lily’s naked back pressed to his front, Nate buried his face into her fragrant hair.

He hadn’t made love to her, she had pushed him to his back and she’d made love to him, her mouth and hands on him as she spoke softly, lips against his skin, telling him all the reasons she loved him.

Not because he was rugged, lean-hipped and wealthy with a broken heart she needed to (and did) mend.

But because he was, she said, brilliant. He was strong and people respected him. He kissed well and she mentioned something about gymnasts doing cartwheels and back handsprings in her belly but he wasn’t paying much attention because, at the time she was saying it, her tongue was tracing the ridges of his own stomach and he found he couldn’t concentrate on her words. She told him he had a beautiful smile. She informed him, to his surprise, her parents would have liked him. She explained he was a good son to Laura and Victor. She said he was good at taking care of her when she was ill. And finally, she finished with the fact that he made her feel safe and he was an excellent father.

With her finishing words, he rolled her on her back and took over the lovemaking with such rigorous intent, she couldn’t speak at all.

When they were done she’d again yanked him out of bed to see to his hand. She cleansed it, bandaged it and he’d allowed it, not letting on that she was the first and only person he’d ever let take care of him. He’d never even allowed Laura to tend to him but he didn’t share this either. He would, just not right then. There were other things he needed to share.

Then he guided her back to bed. There he pulled her back to his front and quietly, he shared with her the rest of his life, speaking more words at one time than he ever had. He told her of growing up with Deirdre, of his mother not sending him to a special school when the teachers told her she should, of her murder, of Victor’s part in saving him then Laura’s, of Danielle’s unwanted attention and Jeffrey’s malice.

Through this all, she said nothing, simply rested her arm on his at her waist and laced her fingers in his. Often her body would tense but she didn’t interrupt him.

Finally, when he was finished and silent, she whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

It was his turn for his body to tense. “I thought if you knew, you’d leave.”

“Why?” she asked.

“You’d probably never seen a syringe filled with heroin or held your mother’s hair when she was so drunk she was getting sick in the toilet,” he explained.

“You thought I’d leave because you had a terrible, awful, horrible, useless, unspeakably bad mother?” she queried and at any other time Nate might have smiled at her dramatic description of his mother but it wasn’t the time for smiles.

“I thought you’d leave because I did bad things.”

“You didn’t know,” she defended him.

“I did know. I was young but I wasn’t stupid,” Nate replied.

“You had no choice,” she returned immediately.

Nate didn’t answer for this was true.

Finally he said, “It isn’t a pretty story of genies and magical wishes or even lazing away summer days floating on ponds.”

“No,” she admitted, “but it made you… you.”

“Yes,” Nate allowed for this was true too.

“And I love you,” she went on.

This time his arm tensed, pulling her deeper into his body.

“Yes,” he murmured.

“And I wouldn’t change a thing about you, except to erase what you’ve been through,” she told him, snuggling even closer.

“I didn’t want it to touch you,” Nate shared. “It was ugly, dirty and I didn’t want it to be a part of your life.”

“ It was ugly and dirty but you weren’t,” Lily replied in a voice vibrating with feeling and registering so low, he had to tilt his head closer to hear and what she said next shook him so deeply, any remaining armour he had around his heart fell away (although, there wasn’t much left) and the quickly melting ice around it shattered. “I’m proud. I’m proud of who you were, how you survived and what you’ve become. And I’m proud that you were an inspiration to make Victor see he should change his life so you and he and Laura could have a better one. And I’m proud that you love me and we made Tash together.”