Undulate (Alchemy, #2)

by Elodie Hart

It should have been me. God should have taken me.

Yeah, they would have grown up with Daddy issues, but my dying wouldn’t have been as much of a loss as losing their mother has been and will be.

She was their mother. Their entire world. And I know if I’d died she would have shown incredible strength and resilience. It would

have been awful for her, but she would have managed.

I’m well aware grief doesn’t fade in a straight line, but God would it be easier to bear if it did. If we knew that every day would be the tiniest bit less brutal than the last.

‘Nancy asked Mummy for a sign. A partridge.’

‘Did she now?’ she asks. ‘Wow. Well done Mummy.’

‘It’s the Partridge family!’

Zach looked like death warmed up. I just want to go in there and give the guy a hug. Or a blowjob. You know, whatever will get him out of his funk.

‘I’m so sorry you had a shitty night. I thought you’d float in here this morning like me.’

‘That was definitely the plan. Come and lie with me? I’m not—I’d just like to hold you, if that’s still on offer.’ ‘Sure,’ I whisper, kicking off my heels.

‘It sounds so stupid,’ he says after a few seconds of this, ‘but I really needed to be touched. There is nothing, nothing, lonelier than lying in bed with two grief-stricken little girls and knowing there isn’t another grown-up to share the burden. It’s fucking terrifying, actually.’ ‘I can’t even imagine,’

‘Is there anything that helps?’ I ask him. ‘Anything at all?’

‘This. You.’

‘You didn’t sign up for this,’ he murmurs. ‘You signed up for lots of orgasms, not me dumping on you.’ ‘I signed up for making you feel better,’ I tell him, ‘and if that includes this, then I’m grateful I can help.’ ‘I’m not treating you well,’ he argues.

‘Bollocks to that. What gave you that idea?

Did you not see me on the floor of the sho...

‘I mean this isn’t a great setup for you. It’s all on my terms. I should be looking after you better—I’m not that guy who rams his cock down a woman’s throat before he’s made her come. I’ve never...

‘Hey.’ I still my hand. ‘I know you’re not. But you don’t do that with me because you’re damaged—you do it because it’s hot. It gets us both off...

‘It’s just one more thing that makes me feel shitty. I’d like to be in a position t...

‘First, I don’t need to be looked after. I’m in a good place. And second, you have one job, and that’s looking after your daughters. Honestly, don’t go inventing work for yourself, because that’s a big one. And no one’s looking after your needs, so

if I get to do that in any tiny way, even if it’s just by making you come whenever I get the chance, then I’m delighted.’

‘You’re every man’s fantasy, Mads.’

‘Bent over like this, your pussy begging to be fondled and fucked. Should I let someone else have a go?’ ‘No,’

‘Why?’

‘Because nobody else makes me feel as good as you do.’

But then he whispers a vicious Good

‘I have a confession to make,’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’d give anything,’ he says, ‘to take you home with me and curl myself around you all night.’

Sometimes, liberty is a burden. You’re so busy being congratulated on and fêted for being so wonderfully free that you kind of feel you have to act like that day after day. Which usually isn’t a problem. It’s just that the kind of thoughts I’ve been having these past few days are of the slightly

less liberated, and needier, variety.

‘I just want to make sure Zach doesn’t either break your heart, or drain you of all your energy, or both. I know you’ve done all the work and you’re a super strong person, but you also have a very big heart. You’re a giver. Just don’t give him so much that you’ve got nothing left.’

‘He had a bad day!’

‘That’s what happens when your wife dies and leaves you with two fucked-up kids to raise. And when you have a bad day, you share it

with your person. That’s what relationships are...

We just want to make sure you remember that a healthy relationship is one where both parties are also healthy, that their wells are full enough for them to give their partner what they need.

‘There are people

in this life who are takers by nature, and that makes them drains, and those are the ones we avoid, hmm? But there are also truly good, wonderful people who have so much to give when they’re in a good place, but who may end up draining us all the same when they’re struggling, without either party being remotely aware of it.’

Not just safety. Peace. I feel more at peace with him here, in this warm, quiet, laundry-scented corner of his home than I’ve felt at any other time except immediately after an orgasm. He’s everything.

‘I should tell you, too. It’s important to say these things when we have the chance. That’s something I learnt the hard way. You, Mads, are an incredible human being.’

It sounds like he’s complimenting my actual soul, and I have no idea what to do with that.

There’s only one woman not trying to slip a replacement ring on my finger, and she’s standing right in front of me, so beautiful, and dazzling, and light-filled she takes my breath away.

She’s not interested in Zach French, wealthy widower, single dad and theoretically eligible. Nor is she interested in faking a relationship with my daughters in the

hope that they’re the gateway to my heart. Because she’s ...

The only part of me she’s interested in getting her hands on is my dick, and I should be giving thanks to the Lord that I have the world’s most gorgeous twenty-three-year-old wanting to ride my cock ev...

And while I know she cares about me, feels our connection, in her eyes it’s mainly physical. In my eyes, it’s becoming far more.

‘FaceTime me when you get home, okay? I want to watch you get undressed.’

‘Hi! I’m Candy, your cam-girl for the night. Can’t wait to get started. I hope you have something nice and big for me.’

‘Candy, you seem like a lovely woman, but I’d actually like this to be between me and my secret girlfriend. Is she there, please?’