I looked back at the TV. “Wonder why he did that interview?” I asked the room.
Ollie shrugged. “Probably saw an opportunity to make a name for himself. He’s not going to win the seat even though Frobisher has now withdrawn – Lib Dems will take it, but he needs the top dogs at Labour to see he made a fight of it and tried his best, so they’ll give him aseat he can win when the next general election comes about.”
I turned my nose up. Ollie noticed. “Politics ain’t a clean business, babe.”
I stared at Riz’s handsome face on the TV as he continued to drive his point home. “Ain’t that the truth?”
The next morning did indeed turn out to be hotter than the last. From midday onwards, I had simply given up trying to do anything and instead lain on the floor in the main living room with the curtains drawn and the windows open, and tried not to die from the heat. Kenny was having the same issue. He was sitting on the tiled floor in the kitchen, huffing to himself in his sleep.
Ollie had caught an early train into London but was due back soon. He’d said his case was in the morning. I pictured him strutting around Temple in his gown and wig. It took my mind back to the time on, maybe it was our third or fourth date, when I’d been given the grand tour of the Temple grounds, which had turned into an extremely hot session in Ollie’s tiny office, where we had to try not to knock over his desk while we went at it with people in rooms on either side. “Don’t make a sound,” he’d pleaded with me as I’d got close. His eyes bulged, terrified that I was about to scream the place down, but more concerned with the fact that he was about to blow his own load.
The door slammed, and I heard his whistling as he came in. A pair of shoes appeared in my eyeline. “Is the floor comfortable?” he asked, grinning at me as I raised my eyes to meet his.
“Hot air rises,” I answered. “The floor is the only place I can bear to be.”
He laughed and took off his jacket. “I can assure you this house is ten degrees cooler than London and about twenty degrees cooler than the courtroom I’ve been in. I thought at one stage I was going to faint.” I looked up athim and saw a thick dark patch of sweat down the back of his shirt. It was clinging to his skin.
“You should have gone naked under your bar gown,” I said.
“The judge would have loved that. ‘Mr Ross, please approach the bench, and tuck your willy away while you’re at it.’”
I laughed as he came to lie on the floor next to me. “Oh, thisisnice and cold,” he said. “I get the appeal.”
“See? My madness has meaning.”
He undid his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves as I spoke. His tie got discarded. “Can I take off my shoes, or will you complain?”
“You have smelly feet!”
“Yes, which you reminded me of all the time. Fuck it, I’m taking my shoes off.”
A sock was thrown in my direction. “Bleurrgh!” I said and held it away. “I bought you these,” I commented. They were blue socks with a pattern of pineapples, but only around the foot. The neck of the sock was plain. “Party on the foot, business up the leg,” I remembered.
“They’re my favourite socks,” he said, resting on an elbow. “I smile every time I put them on.”
“Do you?” I asked, rolling over.
“Of course. They’re from you.” He was staring at me intently. I looked down and noticed that this time I was the one wearing running shorts and a thin T-shirt.
He was gazing at me still. “Ollie,” I said in what I hoped was a warning tone.
I’d barely moved when he was on top of me, his mouth finding mine. I wanted to resist and thought, for a second, that I could, that I could push him off and we could pretend it hadn’t happened. But then his tongue was in my mouth, and I gave in and kissed him back as hard as I could. He rolled over on top of me fully and held mywrists above my head as his mouth moved along my jaw line and down my neck.
“This is a bad idea, Ollie,” I whispered.
“Shut up and let me fuck you, like I know you want me to,” was the answer I got.
I groaned and tried – very weakly – to move away, but instead Ollie opened his legs. He used them to bring mine together and trap them in between. He propped himself up and took off his shirt. I was helpless. Almost instinctively, I reached up and grabbed his pecs, my favourite body part of his, and ground my palms against them as hard as I could. I leaned up and my mouth found one of his nipples. “Oh, God, Arden!” he whispered. “Fuck, babe, I have missed this!”
Somehow over the next few minutes, all my clothes vanished, and I found myself lying naked on the floor with a half-dressed Ollie on top of me. His hands sliding all over and touching every part of me, exploring every nook and cranny that he already knew in exact detail. “You look great,” he whispered as he kissed me somewhere around my navel.
He stood suddenly and grabbed my arm. I jerked up and found myself being pushed against the fireplace. “Face the wall,” he said. I didn’t argue. My mind was racing. Oh, God, this was a disaster. This was a huge mistake, this was … oh God. Ollie was kissing the back of my neck as he pinned me against the wall, and it was all I could do not to dissolve into a puddle on the floor. He kissed every vertebra on my spine as he slowly, slowly made his way down to … wow.
“You hate doing that, stop, you don’t have to, we can do other things,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Shut up unless I tell you to talk,” he said and gripped my knees to force my legs apart.
Ahem. Dear reader. Well, it appears we know each other a little better now. So, skip ahead if you want.
