‘No such thing as being too tall for a girl,’ Ben says, moving closer.
And there’s something in his eyes that says he’s going to kiss me unless I stop it. I may have to stop it. A little snog might be nice, but I’m not sure it’s wise, seeing as we flat-share together. But if this gorgeous man who’s making me feel like a million dollars is going to kiss me, then I might well throw caution to the wind and let him – here, in thissweaty, cheap nightclub in our first week of uni. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It can just be a thrill – be a kiss. Why not?
‘And you just say it,’ he continues, heaping praise, and I continue lapping it up, because why stop a man when he’s mid-flow telling you how fantastic you are. No one does that. Especially when you really fancy the person saying it. Because I do. I really fancy Ben. Who wouldn’t? He’s the epitome of gorgeous. And I’m sure, for a forty-second snog, I can forget that his parents still give him an allowance, or pocket money, or whatever it’s called at his age.
‘Whatever it is, you just say it,’ Ben goes on. ‘No holds barred. I love that. And you dance like no one’s watching and I wish I could do that, but I can’t. And it makes you cool and fun, and people like you – I like you.’
‘I like you too,’ I reply and I’m not sure what I’ve said, but I do like Ben. I like him more now than I did a little while ago, and I liked him a whole heap then. He’s made himself entirely vulnerable, in the middle of a nightclub in a suburb of North London, to a girl he’s only known a couple of days. But I can’t link together the try-hard Ben of the past few days with the Ben standing in front of me, letting out his fear that he doesn’t want to look like a loser.
‘Ben,’ I say softly.
He moves closer, his hand edging up to pull a long strand of my hair back, draping it over my shoulder to join the rest of my hair. I’m roasting, sweating from all the dancing, and he seems hot in that jacket, both in terms of degrees centigrade and looks.
‘Aurora,’ he says over the hum of the music, the dance floor vibrating beneath us.
‘You smell lovely,’ I mutter as he leans in, because he does smell fantastic.
‘Thanks,’ he says, leaning closer still.
‘Lynx Africa?’ I murmur teasingly.
He laughs out the words ‘Fuck off’, and then his mouth meets mine and I’m swept up in the intensity and raw sexuality that is Ben, in the kiss that seals his mouth to mine, in the heat of his tongue as it sweeps mine back and forth, making me melt in the solar plexus – our joint taste of VK Blue uniting us. I think I moan. I think he does too. And we stand kissing like that for far too long, hands on each other, inhaling each other, devouring each other in this incredibly public space, surrounded by hundreds of people, but seen by no one because no one cares.
No one’s looking and we aren’t the only ones doing it. We’re all away from home, we’ve been let off our leashes, some of us for the first time ever. This, with Ben, is exploratory. It’s just a kiss. We can still be friends in the morning. It might be a little bit odd, but I’m adult enough not to make a thing of it if he gets off with someone else tomorrow night, and the night after that. Because this is Ben, and I can see that’s probably his way. Whatever happens, we’ll be friends for ever. I can feel it.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ Ben asks as the DJ changes the song and a natural pause forces us out of our kiss. I’m breathing so hard and there’s a look in his eyes that’s unmistakable.
Oh, does Ben mean what I think he means? He does, doesn’t he?Thatcould be a terrible idea. Or it could be a great idea, although it sprang out of a short but delicious kiss. I need to think about this, rationalise it. I’m notmarryingthe man; I’m simply sleeping with him. Scratching an itch. Just this once and then, in a couple of hours when it’s all over, we’ll go back to what we were. No one else has to know. Least of all Ollie and Liv, although ditching them so suddenly might be a bit obvious. I glance over to them.
‘They’ll be fine,’ Ben says, gesturing to our friends, who are a few people away from us, dancing, looking into each other’s eyes so intensely. Ollie’s eyes flick in our direction, sensing he’s being watched, but he doesn’t really see us – sort of sees through us, and then he flicks his gaze back to Liv and she tips her head towards him as he leans in, kisses her.
My mouth opens in surprise and I’m sure I blink. ‘Oh,’ I mutter in surprise, because I genuinely wasn’t expecting to see that. I’m a little taken aback at the pace of it. But then the pace between Ben and me has ramped up from out of nowhere.
Ben’s hand finds mine. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Before they get home and ruin it.’
I put my hand in Ben’s and together we leave the club.
CHAPTER FOUR
We hail a minicab and kiss all the way home – Ben’s raw, intense energy continues, his hands eager as we stumble, intoxicated, into our flat. The entire block is silent, everyone else presumably still a couple of miles away, in the club, on the dance floor, oblivious to what’s happening here. Knowing this is going to be a one-time thing makes me feel dangerous, excited, ready to push myself out of my comfort zone and indulge in what is essentially my first-ever one-night stand with someone new. It’s exploratory, both about myself and about what one-night stands might be like. The alcohol also probably helps with all of this and, back in my room, Ben’s hands pull my skin-tight dress over my head, unclip my bra and then I begin on his jeans, while he gets to work on his shirt, fumbling excitedly with the buttons.
He mumbles something vague and incoherent about how hot I am, in clothes and out of them, but I don’t need to hear it. It’s happening regardless of any platitudes Ben has to utter. His hard-on inside his boxers does things to me that only helps. He pulls me towards him, only our underwear between us, and our warm bodies press together, his hand sliding inside my knickers, inside me. His eyes meet mine and I struggle not to fall completely apart, right thereand then. With deep concentration I hold off on whatever it is Ben’s trying to succeed in doing to me up against the locked door. My hand finds the waistband of his boxers, pulling the elastic away from his torso and taking him in my palm while he mouths the words ‘Oh, shit’ very softly into my ear.
We could just do this, but I sense we won’t get sexual again after tonight and I’d really like to get laid. This is a one-time opportunity with Ben. The clock is ticking until we return to normality. Or whatever sense of normality we’ve conjured in the short space of time since we met each other earlier this week.
On my bedside table I’ve got a pack of condoms and Ben looks surprised when I fetch one. ‘Put this on,’ I say as seductively as possible while issuing instructions involving contraception. His surprise rises, as does his erection. ‘Or I’ll put it on for you,’ I suggest. If he’s about to have a moan about condoms, then this isn’t happening whatsoever.
‘Oh, Christ, that’s fucking hot,’ he says. ‘You put it on me.’ He folds his hands behind his head, grinning like this has never happened to him before. I roll the condom onto him and he moans and swears, all at the same time. And then everything happens in such a rush as we land in a heap on my bed together, arms and legs entwining, torsos pressed together. Ben enters me slowly, enjoying the desperate noises I make as he slides in and out of me, as I tighten my grip around his waist, encouraging him on. He watches me intently until he changes tack, speeding up, his hand between my legs, moving at the same rhythm, increasingmy desperation for release until it’s just too much, too much, and I can’t hold on any longer.
Thank God the flat is empty, because I shout something out – some sort of indiscernible noise – at such an almighty decibel that Ben puts his hand over my mouth, laughing in surprise. And then when I’m quiet, breathing hot, gasping breaths, he releases his hand from my mouth and his face changes into one of sheer concentration. His hands grip my thighs, holding them apart, pushing himself deeper and deeper into me, harder and harder, and I feel flutterings again as he takes me back towards another orgasm that never quite arrives as his entire body shudders, his eyes close and his pace varies into a hundred different speeds all at once, until I feel Ben come.
Breathlessly he collapses into me, his face against my neck, the weight of his body on top of mine, my hand in his hair, damp with sweat.
He changes position, pulls back, looks at me, brushes an eyelash from my cheek. ‘Was that OK?’ he asks eventually.This man is full of surprises, as that’s not at all what I thought he’d say.
Laughing is absolutely not the right course of action here and, being so new at one-night stands, I wonder if I’m breaking a rule by pulling his face towards me and kissing him over and over again by way of an answer. I can’t help it. I’m going to blame post-sex endorphins, the need for human connection, an emotional union in addition to the physical one. Ben returns the kiss, his body against mine, and then he rolls me so that we’re facing each other, on our sides. The smell ofsex is in the air, mixed with his cologne, my perfume, alcohol and the scent of dried sweat from the club, in addition to a new sheen on both our bodies.
His kiss is gentle, soft, his tongue swirling delicately against mine in a quietly seductive way that we simply didn’t have time for about twenty minutes ago. Then he pulls back, a tiny, quick peck against my kiss-swollen lips. Instinctively he reaches down between us, holds on to the condom, pulls out of me and reaches for tissues from my bedside table. After sex is always so messy, in my limited experience. When he’s binned the evidence he falls back next to me, turns into me again, his mouth finding mine.
