waved an arm around the room. Every available surface was littered with belongings, make-up, clothes. The opposite twin bed was covered in clothes and he shifted uncomfortably and pulled a trainer out from underneath him.
‘I hadn’t finished unpacking,’ she said defensively.
‘I thought you were staying here for the weekend, not moving in,’ he said as she crossed the room back to him, picking up an armful of clothes as she went with her free hand.
She swatted him on the arm as she passed. The physical contact made him jump, his consciousness was so finely tuned to her every touch that it didn’t seem to matter whether that touch was affectionate or not. Add in the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath that sheet and he wanted her again. More urgently by the second.
‘I remember your hotel room back in Devon,’ she said, dumping the clothes on the opposite bed and sitting down next to him, sheet swathed around her body, creamy shoulders exposed that were just made to be kissed. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘That one perfect suit-carrier and matching designer holdall. Everything in its place. I bet you even use the trouser press and laundry service, don’t you?’
He grinned at her good-naturedly, leaning up on one elbow.
‘That’s what they’re there for. Enables you to travel light.’
‘Yeah well, I’m never sure what I’ll fancy wearing until pretty much the moment I put it on,’ she said airily. ‘Makes sense to bring a broad selection.’
‘And are you always this untidy?’
She glanced around the chaotic bedroom.
‘This is not that untidy,’ she said. ‘You’re obviously not used to sharing a room with a woman.’
She had him there. He wasn’t used to sharing. Either a room or his life. For a while after he’d last met her he’d had a run of short relationships. None of them had been serious, not that he had given them the chance to become that.
So the no-second-time rule was well and truly broken and she would just have to work with what she had. Part of her was so busy feeling like jelly from post-shag euphoria that it overshadowed the more sensible part of her that couldn’t believe what she’d gone and done, giving in to impulse over sense. Well, done it she had, and the only option she had now was damage limitation. Communicate a don’t-care attitude and make it clear this wasn’t going to lead any further than it had five years earlier.
‘Don’t be getting any ideas,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at his obvious inability to take his eyes off her. ‘I might have let myself get sucked into your whole ‘loophole’ argument. But hey, it’s Christmas right? I figure I’m allowed a little fun. You could be gone as soon as tomorrow. This is never going to be more than a day or two. So…’ she took a deep breath, stood up, looked down at his amused expression ‘…same as last time. No looking forward or back. This is only ever going to be a fling. No strings, no thinking outside the moment. We enjoy it while it lasts and when it’s done, we go our separate ways.’
She smiled into his gorgeous grey eyes and invested everything she had in the guard she’d honed to perfection over the years. She wasn’t about to lose her heart to him. Not when she’d just about managed to hang onto it the first time. She was even stronger this time around, she was prepared. She’d built herself a career, a future, that didn’t rely on anyone else and which therefore couldn’t be lost or messed with. She wouldn’t be giving up any of that on a whim.
‘Deal?’ she prompted.
Tom leaned forward and grabbed her around the waist, sweeping her into an arc over his body until she was lying on her back on the messed-up bed, and he began to unravel the sheet from her body inch by delicious inch.
‘Deal,’ he said. What else would he say? What else could this ever be? In the New Year he’d be taking on further responsibility, another step in his life plan, no room for impetuousness or rash decisions – he had people relying on him. What the hell else could he do – tell his sick father to stuff it, that the medical practice would have to manage for the first time in fifty years without a Henley at the helm because he wanted to jet out to warzones and charity work?
Just like last time, all she wanted from this was a fling. And just like last time, that was all he had to give.
The vibration of his phone brought Tom round and he automatically reached out to grab it from its customary spot on the bedside table without even really waking up. One semi-conscious hand closed over it just as he leaned a smidge too far and then there was a disorientating jerk as he managed to stop himself falling out of bed at the last moment by slamming a hand and foot out onto the floor.
Why the fuck was the bed so tiny?
No sun streaming in through billowing muslin curtains across the glass door that led out to the verandah. Instead the room was shrouded in the semi-darkness of a dawn in winter, in London. It thudded into his sleep-fuzzed brain then in one big tumble and his eyes widened in shock.
Grounded flight at Gatwick. Bonkers British weather. Lavington Hotel.
Except when he stayed at the Lavington the room was always one of their best suites and the bed was always a king-size. He turned over as best he could on the foot-wide chunk of single bed that was available, and there she was. His stomach gave a crazy flip at the sight of her.
She’d been curled up against his back like a child, hogging at least two-thirds of the narrow bed. The sheet was bunched up around her waist, revealing the long slender legs that made his pulse race just by looking at them. The soft swell of her breasts was visible above a twist of sheet that she clutched to her chest and her light brown hair fell softly against her cheek. No wonder the bridge between sleeping and waking had seemed blurred. She really was the stuff of dreams.
Somewhere in the small hours they’d finally fallen asleep after screwing every ounce of energy out of each other. And for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, he felt alive. He reached out to stroke her cheek, just for some confirmation that she was actually real and not some figment of his imagination. Her skin was cool satin. She shifted slightly in her sleep and he moved off the bed as gently as he could so as not to wake her.
His mind shifted back to the previous night. Her crazy rules. Live in the moment, no regrets.
The impulsiveness of being with her was intoxicating, a soothing antidote to what had become his suffocating, stifling life. It felt like sweet freedom, and he wanted to savour every second of that, because he knew it couldn’t last.
He moved away from the bed, and went into the tiny ensuite to check his phone. A voicemail message from his mother in Barbados (‘…when are you arriving, Darling? Everyone’s been asking after you…’) The age-old sense of responsibility tugged at him. Under normal circumstances that message would have brought a surge of exasperation at the unexpected delay, anger even that he was letting everyone down.
He checked the weather app on the phone, all ready to see the tiny snow icon that had dominated the wretched thing the day before. He frowned. No sign of the blanket fog lifting but there was no more snow on the way for now, and that meant the airports would be back in action pretty soon, right?
The
