“I’m good. I feel full and I need you to start moving. I’m not a virgin, Carter, it’s just been a while.” She shifted her hips beneath me.
I’d wished I could’ve been her first. I’d wished that at the time, but it would’ve been too soon, we’d have been too young. I started to move, slowly at first, then becoming quicker as we both sought our releases, hers happening just before mine, hermuscles tightening around me and tipping me over the edge of self-control.
I held her in my arms after we’d both cleaned up, the thick duvet pulled around us, the heating going off and leaving the house on the cool side. A single dull lamp lit the room, the light catching the colour of her hair. My hand cupped her breast, my leg in between hers as we lay on our sides, her back to my chest.
“This feels surreal.” I was struggling how to explain it. “Is it worth a repeat?”
She laughed, the movement not doing anything to help my cock recover.
“Definitely. I know what you mean by surreal. It feels really normal being here, having just done –that.” She pushed her backside against my cock. “And I can’t believe we’re actually here and have done that. Sixteen-year-old me would never have believed it.”
“Sixteen-year-old you wouldn’t have known what that was.”
“Believe me, she had a good idea. She had no idea she could have three orgasms in such close succession though.”
“I can make it four.” My hand had already slipped between her legs, the dampness from both of us still there. I found her clit and rubbed circular movements over it, a lazy easy orgasm that led into her climbing over me, fucking me slowly while I lay there, powerless and completely given over to her.
That was what made it harder. I knew I’d fallen in love with her, even if I wasn’t already, so when I woke up the following morning and she wasn’t there, the bed felt emptier than when I’d ever spent the night alone.
CHAPTER 19
Rose
Ididn’t ghost him. I sent him a message as soon as I got on the tube and had internet, explaining I had an early appointment at work, which meant getting home, showered and changed, and smelling like something else than Carter’s aftershave and sex.
I didn’t regret it. It was exactly as I’d hoped it would be, fantasised about, always considering what it would’ve been like for Carter to have been my first or even my second, and thinking that it was projection because he was safe. Carter would never do anything to hurt me; if we’d ever gotten into a relationship when we were younger I was pretty certain he would never have ended it, even if he’d wanted to.
Would he now? What if he wasn’t feeling the same way I was?
It was something that stuck with me over the next couple of weeks, although I didn’t mention it to him. Instead I brewed on it, which was exactly what I would’ve advised my patients against doing. We met for coffee and a meal, and he spent the night at my flat when Harriet was on an overnight in Stratford, getting a few things settled before she officially moved there.
I loved being with him, loved hearing him laugh, how he made me feel, how he could make me feel in bed, becausethe first time definitely wasn’t a fluke. I mentioned it to Fallon because Harriet was engrossed in moving and Erin was away covering a news story in Paris, and discussing my newly resurrected sex life over Teams didn’t seem appealing.
“Why would you think you weren’t compatible in bed?” Fallon lay on the sofa, feeding herself grapes and probably imagining some muscular man-guard doing it for you.
“Because we’d been friends for so long. I thought it might be weird.”
“But it wasn’t. I always thought Carter would be good in bed. If you weren’t so obviously in love with him, I’d have tried him out for size and I imagine he would not have disappointed.”
“It’s good to know you’ve fantasized about my, erm, Carter.” I wondered what the proper descriptive term was.
“Boyfriend. He’s your boyfriend.”
“He’s marrying someone else on Thursday.”
“He’ll be married for about twenty-four hours before it’s annulled and he won’t be consummating it, so I wouldn’t even bat an eyelid about it.” She ate another grape. “I have a second date on Thursday.”
“Are you taking him to the wedding as your plus one?”
“I hadn’t considered that, so no. It’s a thought.” She turned over and looked at me, knocking the grapes off the sofa onto the floor. “I won’t do that, don’t worry.”
“Who’s the date with? Did you say it was a second date?” I had rarely known Fallon to have a second date. In fact, I couldn’t remember that ever happening, she’d usually eaten them and spat them out before they could get to a second date.
“My cardiologist.”
I was fully cognizant now. “Your cardiologist? Wasn’t that Mr Becker?”
“Used to be. I’d missed a load of appointments, so I was reallocated to the new one, Doctor James.”
