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Don’t talk.
Don’t say a thing,
Cause your eyes, they tell me more than your words.
Don’t go.
Don’t leave me now.
‘Cause they say the best way out is through.
~ The Fray – Ungodly Hour
Cormoran watched as his world started to fall apart in front of him. He could see it happening and his mind scrambled to make it stop.
Robin was leaving him.
She was standing at her desk, packing her bag. He’d watched her do this, countless times, over the last four and a half years. But this time, instead of tucking her laptop into her bag, picking up her case files and her notes, she left them on the desk for him.
Next to the three keys he’d just watched her remove from her key ring and lay, side by side, on the scarred wood of her desk.
She hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t looked at him.
She was dry eyed.
He knew this was a bad thing.
A tearless Robin was a resolved and determined Robin. A tearless Robin wasn’t going to soften and come back.
A tearless Robin was going to walk out the door and never come back if he couldn’t fix this and fix it now.
“Robin, please?”
She paused.
His heart leapt. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
Her hand tucked her hair behind her ear and he tracked it, knowing that gesture usually preceded a shared thought.
He waited, barely breathing, silently begging her to just talk to him.
She shook her head.
“Please just talk to me. I don’t want to lose you.”
There. He’d said it.
Finally, her eyes met his. They were still dry.
He’d always hated seeing her cry. He’d always wanted to make her tears stop. Tears from her eyes were knives in his chest.
But this was worse.
This was a slit throat.
She chuckled mirthlessly.
“Funny,” she said, and even in the extremity of this situation he couldn’t help but hear the rounded vowel in the word, his brain recording it and storing it away, like he’d stored away all of the times she’d said, “Bugger.” God, he loved her accent.
She continued, “You’ve had two years Cormoran.”
“Two years?”
“Yes. Two years.” She shook her head as he watched her, not comprehending what she was saying.
“You’ve had two years to get your shit together. Two years to make this happen.” She waved a hand between them.
“Two years to be with me.” He sucked in a sharp breath at those words.
“Robin, I can’t.”
“YOU CAN! Damn it!” She exploded suddenly, shockingly.
“YOU CAN!! YOU CAN HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT! BUT YOU REFUSE TO TAKE IT.” Her raised voice was something he’d heard only a few times in the entire time they’d known each other. The last time he’d heard it was in the Land Rover as she’d screamed at Geraint Winn in the throes of a panic attack, brought on by, what he’d learned shortly after, an impending divorce from her tosser of a husband.
“Robin, I’m not…”
“Don’t you dare tell me you aren’t good enough for me. Don’t you dare demean the man I love to me,” she hissed so menacingly that he backed up a step before he caught himself.
She threw her hands in the air and spun away, her bag dropping to the floor. Her shoulders slumped, and she lowered her head to her hands.
“I can’t do this anymore Cormoran. I just can’t.” And he could hear the tears gathering in her throat.
Knives thudded into his chest as he walked to her, watching her back shudder with the silent sobs wracking her frame.
He hated seeing her cry.
He hated even more that this time, out of all the times he’d seen tears fall from those silver blue eyes, they were because of him.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest. His hands cupped her elbows as his head fell forward to rest against the crown of her red gold hair.
“I’m so sorry Robin.”
She sniffled and removed her arms from his hands, wiping her eyes and nose, but not trying to move away when he slid his left arm around her waist, his right arm wrapping around the front of her chest, his hand coming to rest just above her left breast. “I’m so sorry.”
“But it doesn’t change anything does it? You still don’t want me.” she asked bitterly.
“I want you more than I can…” She spun around in his arms, her hands grasping his face. Hope in her eyes, causing hope to spark to life in his chest.
“Then have me Cormoran. We’ll make it work.” The tips of her fingers were stroking his beard so gently he couldn’t help but turn his face into that hand. “We can make it work. I know we can.”
“I want you Robin. But what if it all falls apart? I don’t think I could face that.” She was shaking her head, denying his words. “It could. It happened over and over with Charlotte. With you and Matthew.”
“Listen to me,” she gritted through clenched teeth, tugging his beard sharply and forcing his eyes to meet hers. “Charlotte and Matthew are not you or me. Neither of them understood us. The job.” She leaned into him, “We do. We know what this takes. We understand the job, how it consumes, better than anyone ever could.”
Just as he was closing his eyes, enjoying the feel of her against him, something he’d denied himself for four years, she stepped back.
“But we can’t do it if you won’t let us. If you don’t take this last step.” A pause. “And if you don’t take this last step Cormoran, and take it right now, I have to leave. Because I can’t continue to be with you, but not with you. I can’t keep feeling this magnetic pull to you without hope over ever getting to actually stick to you.” Her voice lowered to a whisper, “I can’t keep loving you this way. Not if you can’t love me back. Not if you can’t even kiss me.”
He looked at her. Seeing the small face, her rose bud lips, the eyes usually so full of intelligent humor now awash in pain…and he took a step.
He dragged her to him, tunneling his fingers into her hair and crushing his mouth to hers, so desperately.
He couldn’t lose her. Losing her would be like suffocating. Like drowning. Like being set on fire. She had become essential to him in these four years and he hadn’t realized it until he’d stood there watching her pack her bag and leave the keys he’d given her.
He kissed her ravenously, groaning as her tongue swept against his. Her hands clutching his shirtfront, trying to pull him closer, tighter against her.
He broke the kiss, “Don’t leave me now.”
“I won’t. I promise. I can’t. I need you.” Her fingers fumbled at his buttons as she arched back up to kiss him again. “I need you so much Cormoran. Please.”
He tugged her top from her waistband, frantic to feel the skin beneath as he backed her to the desk she’d just cleaned off.
Her arm swept to the side, scattering files and he heard, as though from a great distance, the ping, ping, ping of the three keys hitting the floor, but his lips were coasting along her neck as his hands discovered that her breasts were as soft and perfect as he’d always wondered.
Her bra joined their shirts on the floor as she began working on his belt, pausing for a moment to gasp and arch her back when his mouth closed around the tip of her left breast, before resuming, sliding the buckle free.
He released her breast with a soft popping sound as he tugged her from the desk, long enough to slide the button of her skinny jeans through its loop and tug the zipper down with a hiss that was lost amidst the groan of complete lust he emitted as he felt the skin of her abdomen against the back of his hand. Her hands paused at his waistband long enough to join his at hers, sliding them down and off, before he boosted her back up onto her desk. His lips went back to her sternum as he freed himself from his own slacks.
Her hands were kneading his scalp as he kissed his way down her torso. He swirled his tongue along the side of her navel as his right hand slid up her long thigh, feeling it shift as she opened herself to him.
“Cormoran…God…”
He pressed his forehead to her stomach as his fingers slid along the glossy dampness of her core. “Fucking hell Robin…” She was like liquid fire in his hand. Her hips bucking as he raised himself to look down at her. Her hair spread across her desk, her left hand clasping her own breast, rolling her own nipple as her right hand slid down her body to meet his, showing him how to touch her.
He couldn’t stop himself. Not now. She was consuming him and he had no choice.
He bent and took her mouth again as he grasped himself and pressed his cock to her heat.
She broke the kiss, tilting her head back on the desk as he entered her.
“Oh fuck…” He wasn’t quite sure who said that.
His hands grasped her hips as her legs wrapped around his, pulling him closer as she writhed her hips against him.
“You have to slow down…Fuck Robin…”
“No. Please…Come with me Cormoran…Come on.”
He watched her hand slide back down as he pumped into her, her fingers pressing against her clit. He let go of a hip long enough to grasp that hand and bring it to his mouth, sucking on her fingers, tasting her there.
Her eyes widened in surprise as he sucked and swirled his tongue around her fingers and he watched as her orgasm detonated. Her spine bent in a gorgeous arc away from the desk as her legs clamped around his hips.
Her fingers slid from his lips as he felt the ripples of her release squeezing him, drawing his own release from him. His teeth clenched as he felt it start in his lower back before racing through the rest of his body.
He heard himself gasp her name. Felt her hands flutter to his face, holding him steady, fingers tracing his lips, as his orgasm continued to roll through him.
Her arms came around him as he collapsed against her.
He rested his head against her chest, kissing the side of her left breast softly, as he absorbed the moment. The feel of her hands stroking his head, brushing through his curls, her lips pressing soft kisses there.
“I love you,” he whispered against her.
“I know.”
“Stay with me. I know I’m a miserable ass. But I love you so fucking much.”
“I know you do.” She nudged his head, and he lifted to his elbows to look at her. “I love you too.”
Her thumb brushed against his cheek as she rose up on her own elbows. He pushed off the desk and bent to drag his slacks back up, watching her as she lay there, gloriously disheveled.
“Will you stay?”
“Will you be with me?”
He smiled and took her hand, pressing it to his bare chest, where his heart beat steadily. “This?” He tapped her hand and paused while she nodded her understanding, “It’s yours. Every scarred corner of it.” He raised her hand to his lips. “It only beats because it wants to be near you. I couldn’t possibly be anything other than with you. Is that OK?”
She smiled and blinked away tears, laughing as she said, “Yeah. That’s OK.”