“Here. I want you, right here.”
I shake my head and tear my gaze away from her prying eyes.
“You didn’t even get to the bedroom, did you?”
“Can you please talk a little quieter?”
“Please, just tell me.”
I sigh nervously and look around to make sure no one can hear us, before leaning across the table.
“Not the first time.”
Anya’s jaw hits the floor.
“I’m not saying anything else.”
“Just tell me how many times.”
I shake my head again, feeling the heat radiating from my beet-red face.
“Twice?”
I don’t respond. I don’t think I can ever look her in the eye again after this.
“Three times?” Her voice grows louder again.
“Can you please shut up?”
“Just tell me it was three times.”
I nod uncomfortably, as she falls back against the seat in disbelief.
“I don’t think that you ever…with Steven…”
“Please can we not talk about him?”
“Sorry, you’re right.” She lifts her hands. “Old news. Gone. Forgotten.”
“It was never like this with him,” I find myself saying, against my own will, before realising that it’s not nice to compare the sexual competence of the men I’ve been with. But I think Niall Kerry would be pretty happy to know that, with him, it was a whole different experience.
“What do you mean? It wasn’t likewhat?”
“Wild,” I say, awkwardly. “Passionate. Instinctive.”
I don’t know if they’re the right words to use; but they’re what I felt from the way he touched me, the way he wanted me. The inexplicable electricity that ran from his fingertips: pure, uncontrollable adrenaline, shooting from his body to mine.
Anya is trying extremely hard not to smile.
“I never thought it could be like that. I never thoughtIcould do it.”
“Why did you think that?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve always had a problem with letting myself go.”
“But you’re like that all the time.”
“It’s part of my personality – and, inevitably, it had an effect on my sex life.”
