a black shirt. He looked incredibly handsome and had that air about him that meant he was suitably dressed for any venue.
‘Meaning?’ Steele asked.
‘I was trying to decide whether to wear flats or heels given that I don’t know where we’re going.’
‘We’re going to the movies,’ Steele said. ‘I figured it might be nice if you’re tired—though we shan’t be making out in the back row. I like watching a film properly.’
‘What are we going to see?’ she asked. The movies was possibly the nicest place he could take her if they had to go out. It would be nice to turn her brain off for a couple of hours.
‘Two choices,’ he said. ‘One is very dark, apparently funny in part. One is very sad … See what mood you’re in.’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said as she led him through her lounge and put the wine down on the bench of a very small kitchen.
‘So this is what all the arguments with your parents were about?’ Steele said, looking around the living room of her small but cosy flat. The front door opened to the living room. Off that was a small kitchen and to the side a hall that led to the bathroom and bedroom. ‘It’s nice.’
‘I love it,’ Candy said. ‘It’s a ten-minute walk to the Underground, a five-minute walk to my favourite Indian restaurant.
‘We can eat before or after …’ Steele said.
The thought of Indian before sounded too good to pass up, but then other senses were calling, the attraction wafting between them as potent as any delicious aroma from food.
Candy knew she was eons behind him sexually. She wanted to have slept with him, in part to have jumped that hurdle without knocking it over, in part just to dive onto the track …
And Candy usually hated even the thought of sport, but, oh, he was handsome.
And he was here.
‘Do you want a glass of wine?’ she offered, even though he’d brought it, but Steele shook his head.
‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘I’m driving. You have one, though …’ He went to open the bottle he’d brought but she stopped him.
‘Not for me.’ Candy shook her head. ‘I don’t really drink and anyway I’m on early tomorrow. I’ll just get my shoes.’
She went to her bedroom and put on flats but as she came out Steele frowned.
‘What happened to the heels?’
‘For the movies?’
‘For me.’
She smiled and went and put on said heels, with Steele watching her from the doorway.
He made her shiver. If Gerry had stood watching her she’d have found it invasive, but with Steele she just wanted to strip off her dress, pull back the covers on the bed and climb in.
She could feel his eyes on her calf muscles and then on her bum and she turned and it was nice to feel provocative. It was something she had never felt before. He made her feel like this.
And he made her want to kiss him.
It was as simple as that, as natural as breathing to stand in the doorway of her bedroom and wrap her hands behind his neck and share a kiss for no other reason than they both wanted to. She didn’t feel naïve or inexperienced with him. There wasn’t enough space in her mind for those sorts of thoughts because it was filled instead with pleasurable ones as they got back to where they’d been on the street in record time.
Steele’s hand did move higher than the base of her rib cage this time. He was stroking the underside of her breast as they kissed, and her nipples hardened and ached for his fingers to attend to them. She had one hand at the back of his head, just to feel his silky hair, not for pressure for there was plenty of that from Steele, and she had the other on his bum. His buttocks were taut and she checked again. Yes, they were still taut and it was that hand that demanded he press into her.
His moan to her mouth as he did so, his hand at the tie of her dress, told Candy there was no way they would be making the movie.
It was evening, not even semi-dark, and that was seriously uncharted territory for her. End-of-evening sex was all she was used to.
But this wasn’t, oh, okay, then, it had been a week after all. This was, let me get this shirt open and this zipper down because I need you to take me now.
Her dress was open, his shirt too, and his fingers were at the back of her bra, ready to undo it, and Candy could barely breathe at the thought of their naked chests pressed together and his hot hands roaming her. She’d never had sex standing, never considered it, because she wasn’t the tall, leggy version that a good Candy should be. She was a shorter, chunkier one, who any second now was going to scale Steele’s body with the grace of a feline. It was that essential, that natural, that …
‘Ignore it …’ Steele said as there was a loud rap on the door.
‘No …’ She could barely breathe now but for a different reason. It was her father’s very loud knock and she froze for a second.
‘It’s my parents.’
‘Just ignore it,’ he said again.
‘They’ll let themselves in.’
That her parents had a key came a close second to a bucket of water—actually, it beat the bucket of water because Steele was dressing her and himself with his hands as Candy stood there.
Then he chose to concentrate solely on her for now.
He did up her dress, a little loosely, and wiped off some lipstick and wished the flush on her cheeks would fade by the time she got to the front door. She looked as if she’d just come, or had just been about to. Her nipples were like the dials on his washing machine. Even her lips were swollen.
‘Breathe,’ Steele said.
‘If they find you here …’ Candy shivered as he knelt down and changed her heels to flats as there was another knock on the door.
‘Will they have us married?’
‘You have no idea.’
‘Where do you want me?’ Steele smiled.
‘On my bed.’
‘That’s what I like to hear,’ Steele said, then stopped joking. ‘Are they likely to come in here?’
‘I hope not.’ Candy let out a breath. ‘Probably not.’
‘Relax,’ he said as she closed the bedroom door on him and went to greet her parents. He checked under her bed and he could possibly fit there but first he smiled as he saw the scissors and labels from her brand-new underwear.
She was seriously gorgeous, Steele thought as he did up his shirt and wiped lipstick off. He was unused to thinking seriously anything about his dates yet she was
