Maybe it was enough to know. To have her curiosity satisfied. To be reassured that her instincts had not failed her – that there was something between them. Not so much a spark as an explosion of fireworks.
But also, maybe she was going to need to do it again.
‘I think …’ she says. ‘I mean, I’m not a scientist. But I think that you’re supposed to repeat experiments. To make doubly sure that something wasn’t just a fluke, a random occurrence.’
‘I’m not a scientist either,’ he says. ‘But that sounds really true to me.’
Before he has finished his sentence, his hands have found her again. This time, he’s surer, hungrier, and she can feel that in herself, too.
‘So now we know for sure,’ he says later, much later. ‘I guess we never need to do that again.’
‘What a relief,’ she says, laughing. Then he laughs too, because it’s such a preposterous thing to say.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alex
If Alex had hoped that he and Jess, ahem, giving into their carnal desires would remove some of the distraction and restore focus – well, that hope was in vain. They do not, the next morning, bounce out of bed at the crack of dawn to begin work. They take their time getting up, get waylaid a couple of times along the way. The book that had seemed so all-consuming, almost a life-or-death issue, suddenly feels, at best, optional. It’s only because of the thought of disappointing Nathan that, around 11 a.m., Alex reluctantly suggests that perhaps it’s time to get dressed.
‘Being not-dressed is so much more fun, though,’ Jess rightly points out, a naughty glint in her eye.
‘Stop it,’ he says, wagging his finger at her. ‘You’re a bad influence on me.’
She catches his finger with her fist, and puts it in her mouth, sucking it slowly until he moans. Until he forgets all about the book, all about writing, all about why they’re there, in the cottage, in the first place.
But eventually, hunger and the need for coffee get the better of him, and of Jess too. While she showers, Alexwanders to Gail’s and picks up pastries, and sandwiches for lunch, and of course two flat whites. Eventually, they are both fully and disappointingly dressed and sitting at the table in the kitchen, their feet intertwined as they continue making their way through Jess’s notes. When they make eye contact, his stomach lurches. When she talks, sometimes he is so focussed on her lips that he forgets to listen as carefully as he should to what she is saying. But somehow, they have a productive day. They have pages and pages of notes, and a revised outline to present to Nathan. Jess will write the scenes from the point of view of the newly fleshed-out female characters. He will work on trimming the excessively long descriptive passages and adding dialogue to break it up. She’s written some light-hearted lines, some things to raise a smile in an otherwise fairly bleak narrative. Some light to balance the darkness. He’ll read through the manuscript and find places where those lines could work.
‘I guess we’re done,’ Jess says, not sounding as happy as he would have expected her to.
‘You sound disappointed?’
‘I’m not.’
But Alex is unconvinced.
‘I think we’ve had a really productive couple of days,’ she adds.
He can’t help sniggering. She playfully kicks him under the table. ‘You know what I mean.’
Alex wiggles his eyebrows. It’s suggestive, but it’s also,Come on, you’re not telling me the whole truth.
‘Then why don’t you sound happier?’ he asks her.
‘I was secretly hoping we’d have an excuse to stay longer.’
Images from last night flash through Alex’s mind. Her pale skin, lit by moonlight, through the window where the curtain wasn’t shut quite as tightly as it probably should have been. Her widened pupils, then her tightly shut eyes as her pleasure built. He can’t say he’d hate the idea of another night himself.
But, also. Another night, and his heart would be in danger. It is already. Already, he has found himself realigning his priorities, more interested in her crooked smile than in the perfect wording of his book’s opening sentence. And while right now that feels fine – more than fine, it feelsgood– he knows that he will wake up tomorrow, or next week, or next year, and regret it. His career matters, and so does his reputation. And so, for that matter, does having Nathan’s respect. Even if, as Jess suspects, he has sent them to Godalming with purposes beyond making a passable book into an excellent one; even if he wants to see Alex coupled up, Nathan is still his editor. And he’s still the university friend who beat him to a first-class degree when Alex only just managed the very top of an upper second.
Besides, Alex has had years of practice at projecting a calm and confident demeanour. But if they get close, he knows that Jess will see that underneath it all, he’s really just an anxious mess. And then, like Elodie, like others before and after her, she won’t like him as much.
So, all in all, it’s just as well that he has plans calling him back to London.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I can’t deny I’d like that a lot. But I need to get back home – I’m on uncle duty tomorrow. Looking after my sister’s toddler while she takes the baby for his six-week checkup.’
He sees the thought pass through her eyes, can read it as clearly as an embossed cover on a sprayed-edged paperback. She’s thinking, probably,I love toddlers! I could come too. And he definitely can’t let her do that. Can’t let her look after a small child, gently lifting his small body to carry him away from whatever mischief he is heading for, while a part of her brain has already skipped ahead to the day when she and Alex will have one of their own. When you bring children into things, it gets instantly complicated. People get attached. And that is, at the very least, unwise. It’s too soon. One night of passion does not make a relationship, much less the kind of commitment that demands introduction to his messy, raucous family. He’s not ready for that, and he doubts she is, either.
‘I love kids,’ she says. ‘Do you have lots of nieces and nephews?’
