CALLUM
Waitresses slip discreetly round the garden, topping up champagne glasses and distributing canapes. Someone has gone to great effort decorating the garden with glass lanterns and white fairy lights. It must have been Shelly, Marcus doesn’t give a shite about the frills and flowers. She has an interior design business that’s doing very well by all accounts.
Twilight hovers closely around. It’s veryMidsummer Night’s Dream. George Ezra resonates from an iPod on the decking area, as the smell of burning logs rises from a glowing fire pit. It’s a serious house. Classy, but homey.
Abby’s at the makeshift bar with the other WAGs. I admire her slender figure from behind in that indecent, yet casual, dress. Nadine and Shelly erupt with laughter as she says something apparently hilarious.
I’ve cracked her outer shell, witnessing her secret softness within. Her newly exposed, trusting vulnerability is like nothing I’ve experienced before. She’s given me so much more than her body this week and I’m determined to prove worthy of it.
She leans promisingly in to me as I approach, her face flushed with lust or the free-flowing champagne. An overwhelming urge to break her out of here overcomes me, a primal need to have her all to myself. But if we leave before the dancing starts, I’ll never hear the end of it. Mind you, if we don’t leave now, I’m likely to punch Eddie in the face. He’s not even trying to keep his beady eyes from her. The sooner he gets his own woman, the better.
A quick flashback to those roses sitting on her table momentarily pisses me off again, and I force all thoughts of them from my mind.
‘You having a good time?’ I whisper into her ear.
‘Yes. They’re a great gang.’
Abby angles her face towards mine, willing me to kiss her. I don’t need an excuse to put my lips on hers again, enthralled at another public opportunity to claim her as my own. I tug her light frame closer to me and drop a kiss onto her luscious mouth, marking my territory to Eddie in the process.
‘Get a fucking room, will you?’ Eddie unknowingly voices my thoughts with disgust, which likely stems from the fact that he’s lost his last wingman, rather than him witnessing a minor PDA.
She disentangles herself from me and asks. ‘Which way is the bathroom?’
‘I’ll show you.’ A sense of an impending opportunity stirs within. I accompany her through the garden toward the main house. Curious eyes follow us. I don’t care.
I lead her through the patio door into the downstairs bathroom. It’s the size of a bedroom, with a free-standing bath in the centre of the cream marble floor. I flick on the low lamp over the mirror, close the heavy walnut door and lock it firmly behind us.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Maybe I can help you.’ I lick my lips, contemplating where to begin. I want to be the only one who can unlock every part of her, the only man with that specific key. ‘I couldn’t kick the ball straight all week for thinking about you.’
I kiss the side of her neck and run my tongue the length of her chest and lick her bare skin, reaching inside her bra. Her muffled moans are lost against my shoulder.
I trace a finger up the inside of her thigh and locate a flimsy scrap of material, barely concealing the very part of her that I long to touch. Pushing the fabric to the side, I find her desire parallels my own. She gasps as I stroke the most sensitive parts of her. I love how she gives herself so openly to me, how her legs weaken in response to my touch.
‘You like that?’ I whisper in her ear.
‘You know I do.’ Hot eyes plead with mine, her black pupils dilating as she reaches for my jeans.
‘Not here.’ She deserves so much better than a quick fuck in Marcus’s bathroom. And she’s going to get it, once we get home. I kiss her firmly on the mouth, basking in the lusty way she stares at me.
‘You’re driving me crazy. I need to feel you,’ she pleads.
It’s so much more than sex. It’s the newly unlocked intimacy that we’d both been missing that we crave. And we won’t satisfy that in here.
I plant another kiss on her full lips. My feelings are off-the-scale intense. Instead of feeling alarmed, it’s as sexy as hell. We bid good night to the gang, fighting protests that it’s too early to go. The real party is in my apartment, it’s obvious to all.
‘Careful, Callum. You’re like a man in love,’ James says lowly, as he fist pumps me goodnight.
I grin back at him. I’d never understood my best friend as much as I do now. The way he put Nadine before our friendship used to irritate the fuck out of me. But now, I’m beginning to get it.
‘Let’s renegotiate the bet.’ Marcus rubs his hands together thoughtfully. He’s clearly learnt nothing from the last bet he tried to make with me. ‘If you marry her, I’ll give you the Audi as a wedding present.’
I already told him I don’t give a flying fuck about his car, or any of his worldly possessions for that matter.
‘Keep your fucking Audi. The only thing I’m interested in driving, is that woman over there,’ I tell him quietly, nodding at Abby as she bids goodnight to the women.
‘But I fully expect you to donate that 50k to Pieta House,’ I remind him.
