Rose gave a sharp laugh, but she also nodded. ‘I suppose.’
‘That doesn’t mean I think she’s right, though,’ Clara said.
‘No?’
Clara shook her head. ‘No.’ She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t want to try to vocalise how, even though she had come to the realisation that she was alone in the world, she knew that the time she’d spent with Mike, the joy she’d felt at spending part of her life with Poppy was something she wouldn’t swap for anything. And, whatever the consequences, love of that magnitude was something she wanted Tania to find. She wanted them all to find.
Nobody said anything for a few minutes. Rose emptied the bottle into her glass. Something was brewing, that much was clear, but Rose’s expression remained buttoned up tight.
‘We just thought we would check on you,’ Madeleine said, her cheeks flashing with colour again as she broke the silence.
Clara nodded. She imagined the truth to be rather different, that they’d come to her room to stop her sinking into another alcohol-induced stupor. Not that she’d achieve that with a single bottle. Doubly so as Rose seemed determined to drink most of it, but that was beside the point.
‘It wasn’t supposed to be about Tania,’ Madeleine continued.
‘No,’ Rose said, necking the rest of her glass. ‘She always seems to end up as the centre of attention, though, doesn’t she?’
‘Whether she likes it or not,’ Clara said, raising her eyebrows a little.
‘I hope she stays the centre of Gull’s attention,’ Madeleine said, aiming a defiant look at Rose. ‘Call me an old romantic if you like, but I think the two of them are perfect for one another.’
Rose scoffed a laugh. ‘Based on what? We’ve already established we know next to nothing about the man. He really might be an international assassin.’
Madeleine grinned. So did Rose. Clara had no idea what was funny, but it seemed the two of them couldn’t stay frosty with one another for long. Then Madeleine’s grin slid away. ‘No, Rose, I really mean it.’
Rose sighed. ‘I know you do.’ She finished her wine, setting the glass carefully next to the bottle. Her empty hands fidgeted, and she pulled at the edge of her sleeve. Then she picked up the bottle and tipped it against her glass before realising she’d only just emptied it. She slid it back onto the floor with a dull clunk.
Madeleine emptied her glass. ‘I might get another bottle. Won’t be a minute.’ She touched Rose momentarily on her shoulder and smiled at Clara before she left the room.
Chapter 30
Tania did her best to ignore the noises in the corridor, the knocking on Clara’s door, muffled voices, the door closing again. She didn’t want to be dragged back into real life. Not yet.
Shifting a little, she ran her fingers along Gull’s arm, but kept her eyes closed. Quietness descended, the sound of his calm breathing lulling her again. She trailed her fingers across his chest, creating a map in her mind.
‘Exactly how long are you expecting me to lie here and take that?’ he said, the resonant tone of his voice soft and low. ‘It’s only fair to warn you I’m going to have to retaliate.’
She smiled behind the darkness of closed eyelids, holding her breath as she waited for him to move, wondering where his touch would land first. He brushed at her outer thigh, his fingers feather light as they circled and travelled across already super-sensitised skin. Fingertips slid their way onto the softness of her inner thigh, following an invisible pattern, intricate like lace, on her skin. The effect on her was immediate. She opened her eyes and tried to wrap a leg around him, but he stopped her.
‘Let’s make it nice and slow this time,’ he said.
It had been anything but slow the first time. Abandoning the clothes they’d peeled from one another in the kitchen, they’d headed for her room, Gull picking her up and shoving her against the bedroom door almost before she’d had a chance to close it. With her legs wrapped around his waist, he held her there as he stripped the rest of the upper half of her body. And stripped was the right term. There had been a desperation in his actions, mirrored in her own.
By the time he set her down and they’d ripped the rest of their clothes from one another, she was completely lost in the moment. So much for being in control. She couldn’t explain why she’d spiralled so quickly, how it was that she’d climaxed moments after she felt him inside her. The only sense it made was how well it seemed to fit with much of the inexplicable nature of her time with him. For the first time in a long time the illogicality of the situation was the most logical thing in Tania’s life. It was certainly the most pleasurable.
‘I’m not sure I can do slow with you,’ she said.
‘Distraction techniques, then.’ His fingers keeping up their twisting path on her skin. ‘You could count backwards from a hundred. I’ve heard that works.’ He grinned at her. Then he said, ‘You wanted to know all about me, so how about you ask me a question.’
‘What were the Labradors called?’ She tried to picture dogs, a row of wagging tails, a Labrador of each colour stood side by side. Anything to dampen the fizzing of her nerve endings, anything to make it last longer.
‘The earliest one I remember was Olive. She was black. I used to sit in her basket with her. Then Crusoe, also black. He got hit by a tractor and died. I cried for a week. After that we had two. Piper and King, they were yellows. Piper was a greedy sod and ate all the Easter eggs one year. Poisoned himself with them. Not fatally, luckily for him. Molly-May overlapped the boys, she was chocolate and smart as a whip. She had a litter with Piper, and my parents still have one of her descendants– Reggie.’
‘What colour is Reggie?’ Tania squirmed closer to him as he moved his attentions to her other thigh, his fingers alternating between the two. She ventured her own touch lower, the edge of his hipbone funnelling her fingertips even further.
‘Chocolate.’
She felt for him, unable to stop herself from taking his firmness in her fingers, rewarded by his description of the dog’s colour ending in a sharp inhalation.
