The moment he pushed inside her he felt the world around them disintegrate. There was only him and her and that was the extent of everything. Nothing else existed; even the birdsong was muffled. Movement was restricted by clothes that were not fully shed, the freedom to call out and shout her name was erased by the thought of being caught, but it didn’t matter. There was the tightness of her around him, the feel of her hands on his back and the press of her breasts against his chest as her body bucked underneath him.
The sound of his name on her lips was better than anything he’d ever heard before.
Her orgasm induced his, the tightening of her channel made him lose any functioning braincells he had left, and his body tipped him over the edge into a place he knew he could never leave.
There was a cloud meandering over them. White and high and moving slowly across the sky. The inhalation Alex took was full of a mixture of sweet air, Abby’s scent and the grass they lay on. Clothes had been rearranged to cover them enough should anyone walk by and his ruck sack still lay on the path where he’d discarded it before.
“I think you only scared a few birds off when you yelled my name this time.”
She laughed. “I think it was you who scared them.”
“Probably right,” he conceded. “Maybe we should stay here all night.”
Warmth spread through him again as her lips pressed against his arm. “You have work early. And I need to shower. We should start walking into Eyam else it will be late when we get back.”
“That sounds too much like common sense.” Alex buckled his belt and watched Abby as she shifted in her rucksack for tissues, half-glaring, half-grinning. Something primal stirred inside him, knowing that she was full of his orgasm. It was possessive and primal and rather than berate himself for feeling like that, he accepted it. Abby made him feel different. Better.
Touching on the walk down the path into the town seemed easy. Hands in the back of pockets, her fingers strolling under his T-shirt that he’d put on, a messy kiss to her hair. When he’d seen Scott with Keren and Zack with Sorrell, Alex had teased them about how they couldn’t stop touching them, but that was what he was like now. He knew he was falling in the same way.
“So this is the plague village.” Abby came to a gradual stop once they were past the little museum that told the story of how Eyam had isolated itself from the rest of the world during the Great Plague in sixteen sixty-five. A flea had been in a box of textiles, sent from the East. It had passed the illness on and rather than let it spread to the neighbouring villages, the residents had chosen to cut themselves off. Many had died. The graveyard of the old church was littered with the moss-covered graves of those who hadn’t survived, whole families, nearly a whole village.
A row of cottages, their gardens beautifully tended, stood sedately. Most had blue plaques on them, listing the names of the family who lived there during the plague. Listing how many had died.
In a village that was picture postcard beautiful, the contrast between the scenery and the ghost of its past was sharp. It was quiet here. Serene. Respectful.
“I learned about this place in history lessons at school.”
“Did they teach you about the nursery rhyme too? Ring a ring o’ roses…”
“A pocket full of posies…”
“That line refers to the smell of the flower that people carried thinking it would stop them from catching the plague.” He knew the tales. Severton wasn’t too far away and it had its own plague stories. “The roses line is about the red rash people had as an early symptom.”
“So is the tissue part the sneezing?”
He nodded. “And theall fall downis how quickly people died. They could be fine the day before and dead the next morning.”
“What a lovely tale.” She sighed and then laughed, the sound shattering the glass of sad history. “This place is beautiful. Where’s the ice cream?”
Alex had stopped cursinghis cousin roughly a decade ago. As the youngest, he’d been Jake’s fall guy, up until he’d realised exactly how to let Jake get stuck in his own puddles of trouble, which hadn’t taken long. However, he was still Jake’s first call if something needed doing, fixing or something hiding.
Tonight’s call was one that didn’t involve anything bordering on illegal, which was a nice change. Jake sometimes managed to get involved in things that were a little too close to the bone. This was all about the alpacas. Fluffy mini llamas with eyes that betrayed exactly what they thought of you, which was generally not very much. Unless you had food.
“What exactly happened here?” They were standing at the boundary between two fields, one of which was Jake’s, the other the start of the ground in which a residential nursing home stood. Sunlight was run by Zack Maynard and he thrived as its manager, Jake teasing him that it was because he was old at heart just like Sunlight’s residents.
What Zack didn’t thrive off was when Jake’s alpacas managed to get into the grounds. Sunlight’s buildings could be exited by the residents if they wanted to enjoy some fresh air or the well-tended grounds and while the surrounding boundaries were secure so forgetful residents couldn’t wander off into the countryside, Zack had never managed to make them alpaca proof.
The last time seven of Jake’s flock had broken into Sunlight, they’d also managed to get into the building. One of the care workers had walked into one resident’s bedroom and had found an alpaca curled up on the bed, with Jessie Rose thinking it was her late husband in a different guise.
Zack’s resulting rant had been heard in most corners of Severton and he’d refused to speak to Jake for at least a week, which Alex was pretty sure had been a relief for his cousin.
“The fence was taken down – not sure how or who by – and Grimaldi and his harem have discovered that flowers taste better in Sunlight.” Jake flashed a torch across the grassland toward the first fence, one that was easily scalable by a determined alpaca. “Zack’s on a night shift.”
Even though he was the manager, Zack still did the odd shift to show that it wasn’t beneath him to the rest of the staff and to do some quality assurance. Or spying as Scott put it.
“So, your alpacas chose the perfect time to go for a wander.”
“Every time. It’s already been a bad enough day. That woman who bought my farm complained.”
