KATE
‘Are you always this bossy?’ I ask, getting to my shaky feet.
‘Yes.’
He lets out a growl, and I run up the stairs as fast as I can. I’m giggling as I go, though, because this is a lot of fun. Like an X-rated game of chase. He thunders up behind me, catches me by the door to my room, and swings me up off my feet. He throws me down on the bed, none too gently, and says: ‘You’ve got too many clothes on.’
‘I’m only wearing a bathrobe!’
‘Exactly. Plus, you talk too much.’
He shuts me up by clambering on top of me, and kissing me so thoroughly that I can barely breathe, never mind talk. Even though I’m lying down, I feel like I’m floating, clinging on to his shoulders as he reduces me to rubble. His hands are everywhere, sliding beneath the fabric of my robe and finding bare skin, setting me on fire with every brush of his fingertips.
He sits, straddling me, and tugs off his T-shirt. I stare up, admiring the breadth of his chest, the definition of the muscle. The curve of his biceps. Eating him alive with my eyes.
He pushes my robe aside, and looks hungrily at my body. I feel wanton and alive and desperate for him to touch me. Heslides down, and pulls my legs apart, his breath hot against my thighs.Oh God!I suddenly feel less wanton, and more concerned. This wasn’t Harry’s favourite thing, and I always assumed that was my fault – that there was something wrong with me.
‘Relax,’ he tells me. ‘Relax, and let me taste you.’
My eyes fly open, and I try to do as he says. His tongue flickers over my skin, teasing and building, never quite landing at the place I expect him to. By the time he does, by the time he starts to take long, gentle laps, my hands are curled into fists, the bedsheets crumpled inside them. He holds me in place by my hips as I start to wriggle, the sensations driving me insane. I feel like I’m going to explode, like I’m so close to something amazing…
He steps up the pressure, builds his speed, and when I start to shake and shudder and moan, he dips his tongue inside me and I almost go blind. Fireworks, diamonds, all the colours of the rainbow… it seems to last forever, waves of pleasure rolling through me as I cry his name.
What the hell was that? I lie limp and weak, my brain still trying to process what just happened to my body. I mean, I’ve had orgasms before, but they’ve been mainly self-administered, and nowhere near as intense as that. There’s a whole world out there I never even knew about…
‘Damn,’ he says, as he crawls up next to me. ‘You weren’t kidding when you said it’d been a while.’
‘You talk too much,’ I manage to respond. ‘Plus you’ve got too many clothes on.’
He grins wickedly, and fixes the problem.
SIXTEEN
BRODY
The next week passes in a blur of activity. Of all kinds, some of them practical, some of them sinful. Right now, we’re focusing on the practical – but as I’m starting to realise with Kate, it could lapse into sinful at any moment. It’s pretty exciting, a heady mix of both.
We told Moira we’d fix up the store for one last glorious summer, and that’s exactly what she’s going to get. With the help of Jimmy and Xander, who I don’t hate quite as much these days for obvious reasons, I get the roof of the bookstore patched up and the drainpipe replaced. After that I make a start on the walls that were damaged. It’s a messy job, and I’m permanently coated in crap.
We’re making progress though, and once the basics are done, Kate is in her element. She’s cleared books, polished shelves, and gone through the stock in storage boxes upstairs. It’s been good, solid hard work, assisted by the mice in the kitchen occasionally coming out to say hello. This inevitably results in Kate first screaming, and then saying, ‘Aaah, they’re actually very sweet!’
We get to know more of the locals, including the ‘town drunk’, an Irish guy called Rory Callaghan. He seems perfectly sober to me, a good-looking guy in his forties, but maybe he’shigh-functioning. He lives in a big place in the hills behind the village, works as a sculptor apparently, which makes him the first sculptor I’ve ever met. More to the point he has a big van that he uses to take away the bags of refuse from the store for us. Other villagers also step in with skills or support. A chimney sweep called Mac does the honours for the fireplace, and a guy called Jack who restores old buildings donates floorboards to replace the ones that have rotted and swollen. Rosie keeps up a constant flow of coffee and cake, and Shirley stands by her word to never let us pay for a thing in the pub.
I learn new words – that a sandwich is a ‘piece’, and going to the store is ‘getting messages’, and having a conversation is a ‘blether’. It’s been an education, though the language some of the older people speak – Doric, which is some kind of Scottish and European mash-up – remains beyond me.
Between the work on the bookstore, socialising, and, oh yeah, the constant, non-stop, mind-blowing sex, I’m sleeping the sleep of the dead – for the first time in years not tormented by insomnia. It’s amazing what some good honest labour can do for a guy. That and a good, honest and pretty much insatiable friend-with-benefits. Kate has embraced this arrangement wholeheartedly, like a starving woman at a banquet – always wanting more.
I don’t mind. I can’t get enough of her either, and when I’m not in bed with her, I’m thinking about it. She’s wild, uninhibited, up for anything. We’ve made love all over the house, including on the stairs and the kitchen table, and on one warm evening, on the beach. That was more humorous than anything, but the fear of getting caught gave it a certain charm. I’m way too old for all of this, I’m pretty sure, but one quirk of her eyebrow, one flash of that smile, and I’m all hers. She’s impossible to say no to – and why the hell would I?
We both know this is temporary, and we’re both making the most of it. Even now, watching her scrub the fireplace, down on her hands and knees, I’m picturing going over there and interrupting her. Her ass is in the air, waggling from side to side, like it’s asking for trouble…
She glances over her shoulder and winks at me. Her sinful side coming out to play. ‘Like what you see, big man?’ she says, giving it an extra shake. I growl, and eat up the space between us in three steps. I give her a slap on the backside, and she squeals, pretending I’ve hurt her. Maybe I have, a little, but she deserved it – and I can tell from the look in her eyes that she also liked it.
She scurries out of reach, then kneels in front of me, gazing up at me with big, fake innocent eyes. There’s nothing innocent about what she’s thinking. She takes in the now ever-present bulge in my jeans, and I see her mind heading down a certain road. The road that ends up with me with my pants around my ankles. Any other time, I’d be glad to oblige – I don’t like to disappoint a lady – but not today. Today, in less than an hour, we’re getting a VIP guest. Moira.
‘Uh-uh,’ I tell her firmly. ‘We don’t have time.’
‘Oh come on, it won’t take long… not from the look of you…’
