‘I wonder when we would have got up the nerve to kiss if I hadn’t come along tonight.’
‘I probably would have broken and bent you over the kitchen counter at some point. Those little skirts you wear…’ He groans, nips at my bottom lip. ‘Or I would have dragged Bea back to Winter Wonderland and stuffed her full of dodgy burgers in the hope of a repeat of puke-gate.’
‘You’re horrible.’
I wrap my arms around his neck and tug him closer, slide my tongue into his mouth. Moody, grumpy, Grooge-Miles was hot and frustrating and impossibly attractive, in a challenging way, but intense, turned-on, no-filter Miles is playing havoc with my lady parts.
The knowledge that lust has been simmering under his (very bloody convincing) disinterested exterior is the best discovery I’ve ever made.
Like,ever.
It wasn’t just me. My miserable pining wasn’t in vain. He’s been suffering too, struggling, and now it’s reward time.
He slides a hand up my thigh over my tights, pushing up the fabric of my skirt, as his tongue does things to my lips and tongue and teeth that threaten to blow my brain clean of all rational thought.
‘If it wasn’t for my sleeping daughter next to you,’ he growls into my mouth, ‘these tights would be in tatters.’
My brain is exploding.
This manwantsme.
He really wants me, and the promise of what lies ahead is totally intoxicating. Not only will I get my hands on him. On those shoulders, those pecs, that stomach I saw. Finally. But he seems equally set on getting his hands on me—and hopefully his other body parts, too.
‘Miles.’
It’s official.
He’s rendered me incapable of doing anything but clinging to him and moaning his name.
He squeezes my hair in his fist. ‘When you say my name, baby, it makes me worry that I won’t cover myselfin glory tonight, in terms of my staying power. It’s been a while, you know.’
There it is.Baby.The word I’ve been dying to hear him call me. But with it comes a pang of heartbreak for his recent loneliness, and a twinge of paranoia. This show of desire and impatience on his part: it’s for me, right? It’s not just that he needs to get laid?
I pull my face away enough to see him properly. ‘Have you, you know, slept with anyone since you and your wife…’
‘Yeah. A couple of times this summer. Two different women. But it was very… perfunctory. It was what it was; I didn’t contact them afterwards, or anything.’
Perfunctory.
Jeez.
What a damning indictment of sex.
I try to hide the disappointment in my voice. ‘Is that what this is? Is this just—you need a servicing? Because I need to know, up front.’
‘Jesus Christ,no, Saoirse. Baby. You are so fucking beautiful, I can’t even—this is not a one-off. And I promise you, it’ll be so far fromperfunctory, they’ll hear you screaming my name in the lobby. And me screaming your name, too. Okay?’
Okay then.
CHAPTER 22
Saoirse: Friday 17 December
Miles carries a fast-asleep Bea in from the car and up in the lift. I’ve roughed him up well in the car. He stands with his daughter slumped against him like a saggy little bean bag, his hair messed up and his tie loose.
That tie.
Soon I’ll have payback for all the times he’s made me clench my thighs together under the table as I watch him put it on. And seeing him with Bea… well. My ovaries perform a salute worthy of a St Patrick’s Day parade.
