‘She’ll know.’
‘I don’t see why? I’m not going to tell her.’
‘She’ll just know. She knows stuff.’ Dan can’t seem to stop himself even as he protests Rose will be furious.
Somehow, he manages to extract himself from the embrace and stands, breathing heavily, a few feet away from India.
‘This is wrong,’ he says. ‘You’re vulnerable, I mean, and …’
‘I’m not!’ protests India. ‘Would you stay if I tell you I want this and I don’t care what Rose thinks? This is not me doing the limerence thing – this is …’ She thinks for a moment. ‘Because I want to have sex with you.’
She doesn’t call it making love on purpose.
Confusing love and sex has got her precisely nowhere.
‘Truly?’
‘Truly,’ she replies and holds out her hand.
Dan waits a beat then takes it.
She leads him to her bed and pulls him down onto it.
And in the tangle of limbs and pulling off of T-shirts, there’s no more thinking. Just bodies, skin against warm, sunburned skin, melting mouths and their bodies arching together.
India wakes up early to the sunrise because they never shut the curtains.
She’s deliciously naked, spooned against Dan and she wriggles closer, loving the feeling of his hard body against hers. He’s taller than her, which she likes. Guys get so stressed if a woman is taller than them. Which is a sign, definitely.
She is going to be on the lookout for signs of the wrong sort of guy from now on.
Upset because she’s taller than them – red flag.
No job – a red flag.
Taking her to sporting events she would have no interest in – a very big red flag.
Rich parents and therefore no job – a huge bloody red flag.
She yawns and wonders if she might get up and grab a juice from the minibar. She doesn’t want to wake Dan because it’s nice having him here.
Which is a good sign.
She’s not wearing make-up, probably looks a bit shattered and never did her night-time face routine, so her skin will be rank. But weirdly, India doesn’t care.
She pauses to test if she really isn’t bothered.
She gets out of bed and opens up a bottle of juice from the minibar, then goes into the en suite to pee.
Miraculously, her face looks good. She brushes her teeth, cleanses her face and rubs some after-sun face cream on.
Her hair is a tangle but she looks happy. India beams at herself. She likes this new her, the one who can say what she thinks, who doesn’t self-edit to please a guy.
Dan is half awake when she returns to bed.
He enfolds her in his arms and India wonders if they can skip the morning session to snooze, but then Dan begins kissing her again.
‘If Rose is going to kill us,’ he says, his mouth moving over the curve of her collarbone, ‘then we might as well do it again.’
