Stanton Bliss: Stanton by T L Swan Page B

his hands drop to mine.
    I need him, more than anything.
    He wants to say goodbye to me then he’s damn well going to remember it for a very long time. Never have I been with a man who is so perfectly, sexually suited. For ten minutes we kiss as if our lives depend on it until I can’t take it. I need more and I need it now. I grab his head and push him down to his knees, his grateful dark eyes hold mine and a shudder runs through me just knowing the pleasure he is about to bestow on me. Nicholas Anastas is one hell of a lover.
    With his big red lips, he takes me in his mouth and I grip the tiles to keep me on my feet. My head falls back in pleasure. God, he feels so fucking good, it’s been too long since I’ve been in his perfect mouth. His tongue sweeps over the end of me before he bares his teeth.
    “Fuck, I need you.” He growls around me.
    I rip his head back by the hair, bending down to kiss him violently. “Shut up and suck me.”

Chapter 5
    Natasha
    I t’s slipping.
    The relief at being found alive, the elation to marrying my love, the mask. I feel as if I am locked in a room and poisonous gas is being slowly pumped in through a tiny hole, each hour that passes making it harder and harder to breathe, to carry on as normal. I look to Joshua who is naked and fast asleep next to me. My oasis in this desert. I love him so desperately.
    Last night I woke to find him sitting in the chair next to our bed in total darkness, watching me silently. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I knew exactly how he felt and I’d held out my arms for him. He came to bed and we held each other tightly. It was as if the tighter we clung to each other, the further we could push the darkness away.
    If only.
    We are both playing the game, living the charade that all is well, neither one of us wanting to spoil our honeymoon for the other. We’re refusing to let the trauma win.
    My eyes go to the purple scar above his eyebrow. He didn’t have that before I went missing. How did he get it? What has he been through?
    My thoughts go to last night when Joshua and I took Didge home after she fought with Ben. She was upset and crying, and it had been Joshua who took over the situation. He sat her up on the kitchen bench and made her tea. Mum heard us, got out of bed and came out to investigate and then he, Bridget and Mum sat on the kitchen bench while they drank tea and talked about anything except what had just happened. I stood silently in the corner as I watched their deflection. I felt as if I was hovering in the sky, witnessing them in the scene as they consoled each other over my death.
    I close my eyes in pain, I hate what has happened to my family. I hate that they are so accustomed to deflecting pain that they do it without thinking. I get up to go to the bathroom and my thoughts cross to my precious sister, Didge. Her heart is broken, Ben doesn’t want her, and yet I can’t help but feel that somewhere deep down, he so desperately does. Why would he push such a beautiful soul away when I know that he loves her?
    I look in the mirror at the scarecrow staring back at me and run my fingers through my lion mane of hair. I look terrible but I smirk anyway.
    “Where are you, Presh?” Joshua calls out in half a panic.
    “I’m here, baby,” I answer from the bathroom.
    “Oh, ok.” He sighs as if relieved.
    I walk out and fall into his open arms. He kisses my neck as he snuggles into me.
    “Good morning, baby,” I whisper into is hair.
    “Morning, beautiful.” He sighs contentedly. We lie still and he dozes back to sleep, but my thoughts keep wandering.
    “Knock, knock.” Bridget taps on the door, still in her pyjamas.
    I smile when I see her. “Come in, Didge.” I pat the bed next to me and she lays down beside me on top of the blankets.
    “You ok?” I whisper.
    “Yeah.” She smiles sadly. “I think your drama queenism is rubbing off on me.”
    “I seriously doubt it. Nobody does it better than