‘But what were the chances it’d take thirty minute and not five hours?’ she asks a little sceptically.
‘The age of your phone, probably.’ I turn the thing in my hand; an iPhone at least several models old. ‘These things have a shit battery life after eighteen months.’
‘Yeah, but it had thirty percent.’
‘He’s just a chancer, one with dangerous leanings. Maybe he’s had luck with it before? A girl’s phone goes flat and all of a sudden, she’s stuck. And there he is, doing his prince charming act to escort her home.’
‘That’s very creepy. Very creepy.’ She shudders. ‘Not that anyone could mistake him for anything close to charming.’
‘So I understood from Zuzanna. She’s said she’d been out on a Tinder date and thought the fucker had tried to slip something in her drink. She couldn’t prove it, but they had a stand-up row about it apparently, before they were thrown out of the pub they were in. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it was probably him by the way she was staring the death daggers at him and muttering under her breath.’
‘Oh my God.’ Her grey eyes are wide above slim fingers that cover her hand. A dainty gold band flashes on her thumb, and I notice a larger ring on her middle finger. Her hair flashes fire red intermittently in the streetlamps and the thought of those milky collar bones under her coat have my cock as hard as a concrete post.
Collarbones? Can you hear yourself. You fucking sap.
‘That’s so scary. To think—’
‘No, babe. It’s best not to.’ As I hand her back her phone, she tips her gaze to mine.
‘Are you and Zuzanna.. . ?’ Her question goes unfinished, and though I could make her work for it, make her squirm, I’m not going to.
‘No. She used to date a mate of mine. I’ve known her for a while.’
‘You weren’t there to see her, then?’
‘No, I was meeting my mates.’
‘I’m sorry you missed them to look after me.’ He gaze falls away, rising briefly again. ‘And I’m pleased you were there to save me. Again.’
‘Again?’
‘You saved me last week from going alone to Poppy’s wedding, and whatever you said to Hayden must’ve struck a chord.’
‘He’s behaving himself this week, then?’
‘He hasn’t spoken to me, at all. It’s been pretty special.’ She shoots me a cheeky grin which fades almost as quick. ‘I’ve missed you. I know that sounds really silly, but I have.’
My heart pinches. I want to believe she has but my head tells me it could be because she saw me paying attention to another girl. Even if she was out on a date with another man. People are weird like that. Have I suddenly become the toy she doesn’t want anyone else playing with? For the record, seeing her out with another man only cemented my feelings for her. Feelings that are kind of new and fucking frightening.
‘And there are things I want to say to you.’
‘Later.’ I take her face in my hands. ‘Why is it so difficult to keep from kissing you.’
So I don’t.
25
Archer
It startedwith kisses in the car, and the worried looks of the Uber driver. But kissing was as far as it was going to go, at least until I got her through the door and up the stairs.
I wish I could say I take it slow from there, that it all happens in slow motion, playing out frame-by-frame for playback at a later date. I wish I could say it but it isn’t true. Instead, our bodies are a blur of frenetic energy from the moment I push the door open, my arm instantly around her weight, lifting her over the threshold, no longer worried about being her toy, instead making sure she’d be mine.
I kick the door closed, dropping the key to the console table as I haul her tighter against me, leaving her under no illusion as I press my cock against that delectable cleft of her arse. Judging by the noise she makes and the way she feeds her hands between our bodies, we’re on the same page.
This woman has crawled under my skin, but have I embedded myself under hers?
I drag her coat from her shoulders, dropping it to fuck knows where as I stretch the wide neck of her sweater over her shoulder, devouring the silky skin available to me. I am mad for her—mad for this—as she whimpers at the brush of stubble on my chin, wrapping her arm up over my head as though to keep me there, standing in the darkened hallway of my flat, my hands pushing under her sweater as I devour her. Kissing, licking, small bites to where her shoulders curve to her delectable neck. Heavy, rasping breaths grazing the shell of her ear.
