Martyn took the remaining place, on the other side of Ru, with only a tiny sigh, lifting the computer on to his lap. ‘It was an upload. I’ve been working on someone’s website and the image files are so big I’m uploading them one at a time.’ His fingers moved over the keys and soon a new blue line began growing slowly across the screen.
Apparently hypnotised by its progress, Ru nodded. ‘Is it Front Page?’
‘No, that’s old hat now, it’s Dreamweaver—’ But then Martyn’s voice began to dissolve and, like syrup sinking into the dents in a waffle, Honor sank into sleep.
* * *
Swimming back to the surface, a couple of hours later, she found the computer had changed laps and Ru was tapping away happily, while Martyn kept one eye on him at the same time as watching a documentary about snakes on the enormous TV.
She yawned and stretched. ‘I fell asleep.’
Martyn turned a slow smile on her. ‘You certainly did. Ru’s raring to get the fish and chips.’
Ru shoved the laptop aside with an accusing, ‘Yeah, we’re starving, Honor.’ Clutching twenty quid from Martyn, he disappeared through the front door like a man on a mission.
Martyn regarded her sternly as he slid up the sofa towards her. ‘I’d better get some good hands-on reward for being nice to him while you slept our evening away.’
She glanced guiltily at her watch — it was after nine. ‘I was just so tired.’
He laughed, pulling her against him. ‘Evidently.’
She let her fingers wander inside his shirt, grateful that he hadn’t got rid of Ru with heavy hints as Stef would have done. Even if those hints were dressed up as jokes, they could still sting. ‘I owe you.’
His eyes half closed as her fingertips brushed his ribcage. ‘I will collect. I take it you don’t want him to know about us?’
Her conscience twanged, even as her heart hugged itself at the idea that she had got herself into an ‘us’. Then anxiety rolled in like a stomach ache as she followed his reasoning. ‘Robina. Holy crap, she’s going to be upset.’
He squeezed her, reassuringly. ‘Why worry about a stalker when we could worry about a husband?’
She hesitated. ‘She’s more than a stalker.’
‘OK, she’s your employer. But let’s not stress about it tonight, OK? Let’s just live in the moment.’
‘Never works,’ she said, gloomily. ‘Stef always wanted to live in the moment if I worried about tiresome things like gettingenough sleep before work or paying the rent ahead of the entertainment budget. The bad stuff just waits till the moment’s over.’
He nudged her hand, which had suspended its stroking beneath his shirt. ‘At least until I get back from Paris.’
‘OK.’
She tried hard, eating scalding fish and chips straight from the paper, laughing at Ru’s disgusting combination of vinegar, tomato ketchup and mayo on the side, refusing to believe that he would have topped the lot with cheese, had there been some. After, Martyn logged on to his Twitter and Facebook accounts, lazily dictating posts while Ru’s fingers flew over the keyboard. She even cheered when Martyn observed, ‘Ru, you’re an IT wizard. Would you be interested in taking over some of my routine on-line stuff? I’d pay you.’
Ru breathed, ‘Wicked!’ before Martyn had finished the sentence. Then Ru wanted to see every one of the sites Martyn designed and kept up, avid for information, for opportunity, to have something better to do than work in a tearoom.
Still, Honor couldn’t rid herself of the spectre of looming trouble.
It was hovering like one of the biggest, beadiest gulls down on the undercliff, just waiting for a tourist to come along to be crapped on.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Saturday began agreeably as Martyn, reasoning that he could catch up after Honor had begun her day at the Teapot and she had surely banked enough sleep by now, woke her with his mouth on her prettiest curves.
‘Whassa time?’ she muttered sleepily, shifting accommodatingly.
‘Six.’
She shuddered as he let his lips trace the lines down her abdomen, exactly as he’d pictured when he’d been lusting after her in her sports bra, exhibiting a body that was his definition of perfect. Taut. Pretty. Curvaceous to just the right degree. ‘Six? What are we doing awake at six?’ But her fingers threaded through his hair in a way that encouraged him to continue doing exactly as he was doing.
‘We’re making time for a fabulous sexual encounter before you go to work and I go to France.’
