“Because he doesn’t get to be sat where I am.”
She looked down at the table, unable to take the compliment.
“Claire,” I said. “I don’t know what happened and I know that at some point you’ll explain it to me, but nothing ever changed about what I feel for you.” I kept my voice low, not wanting anyone to to overhear.
She lifted her chin and nodded, slowly and slightly. “I can’t yet. I don’t know how and I don’t know how you’ll think of me afterwards.”
My chest churned as I saw her eyes become turbulent with trepidation. “I know you,” I said, touching under her chin and lifting it with one finger. “I know you shouldn’t be worried. Whatever you tell me won’t change what I think and how I feel about you.”
She caught my hand with hers. “Okay. Tell me about your business.”
We talked through our drinks and our food and through a second bottle of wine, catching up on years of knowing each other but not knowing each other enough. She was as I remembered, but more. More beautiful, more intelligent, more everything and I spent at least ten seconds out of every minute stopping myself from picking her up, putting her over my shoulder and carrying her back to my bed.
“You haven’t changed,” she said, cocking her head to one side and appraising me. “You looked at me like that years ago. I saw you looking at me like that when we were out for Sunday lunch the first time Jacks introduced Vanessa to us all.”
I didn’t look away; it wasn’t in my nature. “I’m older,” I said. “I have changed in some ways.”
She bit back a smile. “You have more muscles. You’re bigger.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” I said, running my finger up and down the soft skin of her forearm. “Is that a problem?”
“Fuck no,” she smiled. “I’m just curious as to why I’ve never heard a woman’s name mentioned in connection to you by my brothers?”
“I haven’t been celibate, Claire,” I said. I had been anything but, although she didn’t need to know that. The uniform, then my job had been nectar for women and I enjoyed fucking as much as the next man, probably more than some, but rarely had the same woman managed to hypnotise me into more than a few dates.
She laughed, wrapping her fingers into mine. “I know that. I heard about that from Max. Your ability with taking someone home was never questioned. In fact, I remember Seph just a a few weeks ago mentioning about some blonde whose hotel you’d gone back to and how Seph couldn’t believe your luck.”
I looked away, making a note to murder Seph the next time I saw him. “Yeah, well. It didn’t mean anything.”
She watched me, a soft, knowing smile creeping at her lips. “It’s fine, Killian,” she said. “I haven’t been celibate either. I suspect you’ve heard about my stable of shit one-nighters from my brothers.”
“They sometimes mentioned it,” I said, focusing on the soft skin of her hands. “I didn’t listen. Has there been anyone serious?”
“Honestly? No. I’ve concentrated on my job,” she shrugged and sipped her wine. “There have been a couple of people I’ve seen more than once and one or two who were good for convenience but no one stole my heart, Killian.”
“So, there’s no one I need to murder, apart from Seph?” I said, rationalising my thoughts. She hadn’t been mine for thirteen years and I had no right to feel possessive over her during that time, but still, I was relieved that there hadn’t been anyone who had been a fixture, even a secret one like I had been.
Her smile was broad and full. “No, K. I didn’t fall in love. When I stopped returning your messages I decided to focus on my studies and career.” Her voice had wavered.
“There was more to it than that though, wasn’t there?”
Her expression was sweet and soulful, eyes wide like they had been on the first night we’d slept together when she’d made me feel like I hung the moon and put the stars there too. “There was, and I will tell you. But not yet. Let me have just a little longer.”
We left the pub and slowly walked back to her parents’ house, my hand on her lower back, dipping into her jeans. I remembered when we would steal time away from the halls of residence and lecture halls and go into the country side where no one would care if they saw us touching or kissing.
“Are you bothered about what my brothers will say?” she said, as if reading my mind.
“No. I’m not saying it’s not their business, because it kind of is, but we’re adults and it’s up to us what we do.”
“Or who we do,” she said wickedly, pulling me to the side of the path where a fallen tree had taken up residence as a bench. “It’s weird.”
“What is?” I sat next to her, our legs touching, my arm around her waist, hand on her skin.
“When you kissed me, I didn’t feel like I had gone back thirteen years. It wasn’t like the past had crept up on us. This now, it feels…” I shut her up by kissing her, capturing her lips with mine and she responded immediately, her hands moving to my face and pulling me closer. It wasn’t gentle or tentative; it was forceful and needy and I had to keep control enough to stop my hands moving up to her tits or feel between her legs, remembering that we were in public. I wanted to know if she tasted the same, if she made the same noises when she came, if she would dig her nails into my back and let me hold her wrists above her head while I plundered her pussy.
She pulled away, her lips swollen and eyes wild. “Fuck,” she said. “That’s all it takes – one kiss and I’m as wet as Niagara Falls in the rain.”
I chuckled. “Be a shame to waste it.”
