‘Right, so which man-killing pedi colour are you?’ Annie delved into her tray of nail polishes, lifting the sample bottles as she read the titles. ‘Juicy Hibis-Kiss? Guilty Pleasure Dominance? Or Tangerine Tigress? Those are my suggestions, to go with your Hot Raspberry Wine fingernails.’
Ellie squinted at the different colours. ‘They all sound very… suggestive.’
It had been a week since her showdown with Art and she had been working her butt off. And this evening’s celebration was her reward. After seven days of working on grant applications, construction estimates, work schedules, polishing the business plan, setting up a Twitter and Facebook account and beginning a design on WordPress for the new website, she, Tess, Dee and Annie had spent the afternoon in Mr Hegley’s office at the NatWest bank in Gratesbury explaining exactly why the Willow Tree Farm Shop and Café was going to be the best investment he’d ever made. And, unlike Art, Mr Hegley had agreed with them.
So now she, Tess, Maddy and Annie were treating themselves to a mani–pedi girls’ night in. The buzz from celebrating their success, not to mention two glasses of Rob’s elderflower champagne, and an hour of girl talk, though, had left her feeling far too euphoric to make informed choices about toenail polish.
‘Yeah, Annie,’ Tess said, as she topped up everyone’s glass, ‘don’t you have any colours that aren’t pornographic?’
Maddy snorted out a laugh while wiggling her recently painted toes. ‘Don’t knock it. I think Jacob is gonna go insane when he gets a load of my Spoilt Diva toes.’
Given the amount of noise that had been coming out of the bathroom last night before the two of them had sheepishly appeared, Ellie wasn’t convinced Jacob needed any more encouragement.
‘I have two toddlers under three, who never sleep simultaneously,’ Annie said. ‘I need all the help I can get in that department – so stop knocking my toe polish choices. And for those of us who are looking for some action…’ She grinned at Ellie as she pulled a bottle of glittery scarlet polish from the tray and wiggled it. ‘I can highly recommend Art of Seduction. This polish even managed to get a rise out of a man who has to get up at 4 a.m. every morning to milk a herd of cows.’
Tess and Maddy laughed, while Ellie took a judicious sip of her champagne.
‘Art of Seduction?’ she said. ‘Is that supposed to be a hint?’
Annie’s grin widened. ‘Surely I’m not the only one who noticed the little frisson between you two while he was objecting to our project last Friday.’ She shook the bottle and lifted her eyebrows. ‘What do you say? Shall we knock Mr Dalton dead?’
‘Unfortunately, I think it would take more than hot nail polish to knock that man dead,’ Ellie said, the mention of Art putting a dent in her euphoria. She’d been avoiding him since last Friday night, but then he’d been avoiding her right back. She’d hoped he would turn up for the meeting they’d called this evening before supper to officially launch the project, but no, he’d been absent.
And OK, maybe there had been a slight frisson between them since she’d arrived, but she did not plan to dwell on it.
‘So what’s the deal between you two?’ Tess asked.
‘He thinks the project is going to fail,’ Ellie said, offering her glass to Maddy for a top-up, ‘but that’s absolutely fine because I am going to prove him wrong.’ And today had put her one step closer to that goal, whether he had been there to acknowledge their success or not.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ Tess said. ‘If it was just about the project, I don’t think he would have been so passionate about his objections. I think he said more in that meeting than he’s said all year.’
And more later that evening than he’d probably said in an entire decade, but Ellie had decided that wasn’t significant, and she refused to let it undermine her confidence any further.
‘Art’s passions aren’t my concern, thank goodness,’ she said. ‘The deal is we’ve just never got along.’
‘Never?’ Annie’s interest perked up as she dabbed Ellie’s big toenail with the glittery polish, having made the choice for her. ‘I wonder why? Sounds like you two have got quite a history?’
‘Yeah, what exactly is your history?’ Maddy said from her perch on the arm of the couch.
‘I told you all, our history is we spent a summer together, we didn’t get on, and then I left. That’s it,’ Ellie said, downing the rest of her champagne.
‘Did you ever bang each other?’ Tess asked.
The bubbles hit Ellie’s tonsils and exploded into a coughing fit.
Maddy thumped her back.
‘Jesus, Tess, no we did not,’ Ellie said, once she’d managed to draw a full breath. ‘I was only fourteen. And anyway, why would I want to bang Art? I don’t even fancy him.’ And even if that was a lie, she had exceptionally good impulse control.
‘Why not?’ Annie said. ‘He’s gorgeous and available and he’s a guaranteed orgasm.’
‘How exactly do you know that?’ It was Tess’s turn to choke on her champagne. ‘You’re a happily married woman.’
‘So what? I can appreciate a good-looking guy, can’t I?’ Annie said, her head bent over Ellie’s toes. ‘Don’t look so outraged,’ she added, for Tess’s benefit. ‘I only know about his orgasm prowess by proxy.’
‘Whose proxy?’ Maddy asked.
‘Daisy Mayhew. She works at the Haymaker at the bottom of Candlewick Hill part-time and dated him briefly last summer. She was very disappointed when he stopped calling her. Very disappointed.’
‘Why are we talking about Art?’ Ellie said. She so did not need to hear about Art’s orgasm-on-demand capabilities. She had a damn frisson to control. ‘This is supposed to be a girls’ night in, which means no man talk. It’s boring.’
‘What kind of tedious girls’ nights in do you go to?’ Annie said, pausing mid-brush to stare at Ellie as if she’d lost her mind. ‘Man talk is never boring – especially if it involves Aidan Turner and a scythe.’
‘Fine, we can talk about Poldark,’ Ellie conceded. ‘But let’s not talk about Art.’
‘I think the lady protesteth too much.’ Maddy misquoted Shakespeare.
‘I’m just not interested in talking about Art,’ Ellie said, protesting way too much. ‘Or his enormous scythe.’ But, as she said it, the memory of him lying by the millpond and chafing himself to orgasm blasted into her brain and made her cheeks go almost as scarlet as the glittery polish on her toes.
‘How exactly do you know his scythe is enormous? If you’ve never slept with him?’ Annie said, going all Hercule Poirot as she blew on Ellie’s toes. ‘Because that just happens to be something else Daisy mentioned. A lot.’
Ellie put down her glass. She needed to go easy on the booze, because all three of her friends were now watching her with rapt attention. ‘Um, I may possibly have seen it once. In a nonsexual…’ she cleared her throat ‘…an almost non-sexual context.’
‘Almost?’ Tess said. ‘We definitely need details.’ The other two nodded.
‘I’m not sure I know you well enough to tell you,’ Ellie hedged.
‘We will be very discreet,’ Tess said, then glanced at Annie.
‘Well, Annie won’t be, but me and Maddy can gag her.’
‘Hey!’ Annie said, pausing in the toe painting to look outraged.
Ellie laughed, and it occurred to her that she wanted to tell them. Maybe she’d only known the three of them for less than a month, but she really liked them, and it had been so long since she’d had real female friends. So long, in fact, she’d forgotten how good it felt to have women she could confide in. And, what the heck, she’d been holding on to this guilty secret for nineteen years, why not share?
‘OK, fine, I know all about Art’s scythe because I spied on him once by the millpond, when he was naked and very busy…’ she paused, to take a fortifying sip of bubbles ‘…doing what boys of fifteen tend to do a lot.’
Maddy gasped, Tess snorted and Annie purred.
‘Wow, that is even hotter than Aidan Turner doing the bare-chested scythe boogie. I think Mr Annie is going to be whistling when he gets up to milk those cows tomorrow.’
‘Does Art know? That you saw him?’ Tess probed, still rapt.
‘Are you joking?’ Ellie said, enjoying their interest maybe more than she should. ‘He would have eviscerated me. We had this love–hate relationship going all summer… Well, more hate–hate really.’ Not unlike now. ‘But I will admit that was probably the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’ Because just thinking about it now was making all the saliva dry up in her mouth. She took a sip of her champagne. The others looked riveted. So was she really. ‘But we never got it together… I was only fourteen and he was a complete bastard.’ Most of the time.
‘So now’s your chance, why not go for it?’ Maddy said, clearly drunk. Or delusional. Or both. ‘Art’s hot for an older guy.’
Older guy? He wasn’t that old.
‘And a guaranteed orgasm with an enormous scythe,’ Maddy finished, proving she was definitely both drunk and delusional.
‘Eh, hello, he hates me, and I’m still married.’ Ellie danced her ring finger in front of the three of them Beyoncé style. Then she noticed the Hot Raspberry Wine polish, which clashed with the ring on said finger, and had a searing moment of clarity.
After spending twelve years honouring the band of 24-carat white gold Dan had slipped on her finger in the Orchard County courthouse, for the first time ever her ring didn’t feel relevant any more. Had they ever really been married? If she was the only one of them to take their vows seriously?
Maybe it was the wine talking, but still the realisation felt profound.
‘You’re getting a divorce,’ Annie said as if reading her mind. ‘Because Dan Jr was a cheating rat and is about to have a child by another woman. So I don’t think you should consider yourself that married.’
Ellie frowned. Was Annie right?
‘I guess we are separated,’ she heard herself say.
‘Precisely, so why should you let that stop you jumping Art? It didn’t stop your husband from jumping Josh’s teacher,’ Annie said, with barefaced Northern logic.
The others made sounds of approval.
Ellie didn’t comment. Why had she confided in Annie and the others when she hadn’t yet told Dee about the divorce? Or Josh? She stared into her champagne flute.
Ah yes, wines.
Never have a mani–pedi girly night with wine, after years without decent sex and five days of intensive girl bonding over too much paperwork.
‘All done.’ Annie placed Ellie’s completed foot back onto the cushion she’d arranged on a footstool. ‘You’re now armed and dangerous.’ She wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously. ‘Should you decide to take Dalton down.’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said.
Even if her marriage was over, there was still Josh to think about. Jumping Art would only confuse him. Not to mention the somewhat bigger roadblock, they didn’t actually like each other.
But, even so, Ellie found herself admiring the glittery sparkle on her toes from the light of Annie’s living room fire as Annie cracked her fingers and announced, ‘Right, Tess, you’re next for the man killer toenail treatment.’
*
Ellie was still on an elderflower-and-girl-power high as she and Maddy strolled back across the fields together from Annie’s house serenaded by the scent of evening jasmine and manure and guided by the glow of a full moon. They headed towards the light in the farmhouse kitchen once they came out of the woods.
A wave of sentiment washed over Ellie. It was past midnight, so everyone would have been in bed hours ago – the first thing she’d discovered about farm life was that it did not allow for late nights – which meant Dee had left the lights on for her tonight. It probably shouldn’t matter to her, but somehow it did.
Maddy giggled as they entered the farmhouse, obviously drunker than Ellie. ‘I hope Jay’s not too fast asleep yet.’
‘If he is, he won’t be for long,’ Ellie teased, enjoying the younger woman’s delight. ‘I’ll get the lights. See you tomorrow for the start of Phase Two.’ They were due to start clearing out the back barn tomorrow afternoon. ‘But don’t exhaust Jacob too much, we need him to move heavy machinery tomorrow.’
Accomplishment and excitement surged through Ellie to add to the general light-headedness from their boozy evening as Maddy stumbled up the stairs.
‘No worries, I’ll do all the work,’ Maddy whispered, still giggling.
OK, that was way too much information.
Ellie opened the kitchen door, planning to hunt up some nibbles and a nightcap to give Maddy time to introduce Jacob to the delights of Spoilt Diva nail polish and then crash out, because she did not need to be hearing the two of them going for it after the discussion they’d had at Annie’s about potential hook-ups.
She realised her mistake, though, when she entered the room and spotted Mr Guaranteed Orgasm himself hunched over a plate piled high with her mother’s moussaka.
Their eyes met, and he swallowed.
‘Hi,’ she said, heat flushing through her. Bugger.
He nodded a greeting, looking as pleased to see her as she was to see him. i.e.: not at all. His biceps bunched against the short sleeves of his T-shirt as he scooped up another enormous mouthful of moussaka. And then the significance of his presence in the kitchen at this hour dawned on her.
For Pete’s sake, had Art been eating every night at midnight then, just to avoid seeing her at supper time?
‘We got the loan approved today,’ she said.
This was bonkers. He might not like of the shop, but it was going ahead anyway. And it was going to be a huge success – at which point she would take great pleasure in telling him ‘I told you so’. But, until then, they needed to find a way to work together. Art had gone out of his way, once upon a time, to make her feel excluded, but she was going to be the bigger and better person here and include him whether he wanted to be included or not.
He swallowed down another mouthful. ‘I heard,’ he said. No word of congratulations or encouragement.
Great, so he’s still being a wanker about the whole thing.
He carried on eating, clearly attempting to finish his meal before they had anything resembling an actual conversation.
Sod that. Maybe she couldn’t get Art onside with the project, but she’d had enough of his sulking. And now was the perfect time to call a truce, while she was buoyed up on a wave of success, girl power and Rob’s elderflower champagne – and armed with man-killer toenails.
She headed for the pantry in search of some additional Dutch courage. The bottles of sloe gin lined up in myriad shades of red and pink on the top shelf made her heart – and the warm hum in her stomach – jump for joy.
She snagged a bottle and walked back into the kitchen to see Art scraping the last of his moussaka off the earthenware bowl. Lifting two shot glasses from the sideboard, she placed them on the table in front of him with a decisive click and prised open the bottle’s stopper with her thumbs. ‘Fancy joining me for a drink?’
Dark eyes met hers, the question in them almost as potent as the suspicion rolling off him.
‘Unless, of course, you’re scared of me,’ she added.
His brows lowered and a muscle in his jaw ticked against the day’s growth of stubble.
Strike one to Princess Drama.
‘Why would I be scared of you?’ he said flatly, as if he hadn’t just risked indigestion to get out of her way.
She poured a liberal dose of gin into the shot glasses. ‘Fabulous. Then drink up.’
He eyed the glass then wrapped his hand around it. The raw, reddened scar from his tango with the rotary blade drew her gaze before he lifted the glass to his lips and bolted the generous shot down in one.
The glass cracked back against the table as he smacked his lips, that dark gaze never straying from her face.
Game on.
She lifted her own glass and floored it.
The perfumed drink roared down her throat like liquid fire, hitting her tonsils with a one-two punch. She gulped down the cough, her eyes watering like a faucet.
Waiting for her hand to steady, she refilled the glasses.
His eyebrow hooked up again. ‘Really?’
She picked up her glass. ‘Here’s to Mr Hegley,’ she said. ‘A man who recognises a great investment when he sees one.’ Then drained the glass.
The gin went down without a problem this time, probably because the lining of her throat had already been cauterised.
Art was still studying her, with that inscrutable expression on his face.
For a moment she thought she might have gone too far. Was he about to walk out, leaving her sitting there, with her foolish desire to end the animosity between them pooling round her deadly toenails in a puddle of despair.
But then he lifted one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug, tipped the glass towards her in a silent toast, and chugged it down.
Triumph – sweet and heady and possibly a tad out of proportion to what she had actually achieved – charged through her system alongside the fiery shot of alcohol.
She reached for the bottle, to refill. Maybe she couldn’t get Art onside with the project, but getting pissed with him suddenly seemed like the perfect compromise. But, as her fingers closed over the bottle, his palm wrapped around her hand. The touch was electrifying, zapping endorphins up her arm and down through her torso.
‘Slow down,’ he said.
She prised her hand out from under his.
‘How much did you have at Annie’s?’ he asked.
Not enough.
‘Not much… Only two glasses.’ Or had it been three? Because she suddenly felt more drunk than she had a moment ago.
‘Right.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘How about we take a break.’ He hooked the stopper back onto the gin bottle, before carrying his bowl to the sink.
Ellie let her gaze drift over him, taking the opportunity to admire all his more basic qualities unobserved. Maddy was right, he was a phenomenally hot guy, dark and rugged, with that edge of raw earthy animal magnetism which made women everywhere – even happily married Aidan Turner fans like Annie – take notice. And tonight, his personality deficiencies didn’t seem particularly important. If anything, that air of inscrutability and stoicism made him… well, extra hot.
Everything about Art was so refreshingly straightforward. He didn’t try to bamboozle women with empty charm, which was mighty seductive to a woman who had spent the last twelve years living with a compulsive liar.
His back muscles flexed beneath the well-worn T-shirt while he rinsed out his bowl and propped it on the draining board. The alcohol hit ground zero and the hum in her belly built to a slow-burning fire.
Nope, I have not had nearly enough alcohol.
He flicked the water off his hands, wiped them on a tea towel, then headed towards the door.
Need and bravado gathered in her stomach. ‘Where are you going?’
He stopped. ‘I’ve got stuff to finish in the workshop.’
‘Would that stuff involve operating power tools?’
His lips quirked. ‘Perhaps.’
The mellow heat in her belly got jittery. Art was definitely less of a wanker when he smiled.
‘Then I’m afraid, I’ll have to object,’ she said. ‘I am in no condition to drive you back to A and E tonight.’ Pulling the chair out beside her, she slapped the seat. ‘Join me. You’ve had too much to be sober and not enough to be drunk. I think we should remedy that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m half pissed already. And it’s always a bad idea to do that without company.’
He settled in the seat beside her and she absorbed the stroke to her ego. Then she popped the stopper on the gin bottle.
‘Fair warning, you should watch yourself with that stuff,’ he said, as she poured. ‘The hangovers are brutal.’
‘I’ll risk it, if you will.’ She lifted the bottle, charmed that he might actually care about the state of her head in the morning.
He nodded and she poured them both another shot.
‘How about we stop when we’re cross-eyed,’ she said. ‘Or we’ve told each other all our most embarrassing secrets. Whichever is the quicker?’ She blinked. ‘Then again, you have a head start, because most of mine involve you.’
He laughed, the sound gruff enough to be rusty.
They drank in silence – the endorphins firing through her body didn’t exactly make it companionable silence, but it wasn’t awkward. Much.
As Art drank without speaking, it occurred to her he never felt the need to fill the silence, like most people. Was that what made him such an enigma? Or was it just the ten-foot high wall with barbed wire fencing he erected around his emotions?
Ellie slopped some more gin into her glass. Why not take a pop at the Berlin Wall? Now they were actually playing nice.
‘Did you ever wonder,’ she asked, ‘how we both ended up with mums that were lesbians?’
‘No.’
The one syllable answer did not deter her. Drawing Art out was going to require perseverance, but he was dealing with an admin ninja who could talk the notoriously cautious Mr Hegley into a fifty grand bank loan. Plus, they had all night. Or at least until 5 a.m., when Dee would come down to start mixing up her first batch of dough for the loaves she sold at the farmers’ market in Gillingham every other Saturday morning. Art didn’t know it yet, but he didn’t stand a chance.
‘Is that because your mum turned out to be a faker?’ she said.
‘She wasn’t a faker.’ Art’s work-roughened hand picked up the bottle and tipped it into his own glass. He squinted at her, and she wondered if he were short-sighted. Or drunker than he looked. And if he knew how that intense, penetrating look had always made butterflies flutter around in her stomach?
‘Living with my old man would turn any woman into a lesbian,’ he added.
‘You had a father?’ The words popped out, propelled by the complete lack of inhibition caused by the floaty buzz of the gin.
His lids lowered. ‘Of course. Did you think I was an immaculate conception?’
‘No, I thought you were a sperm bank conception.’
Art coughed, spraying gin across the table. She slapped him on the back, feeling the tensing muscles under his T-shirt. He drew a steady breath. Took another gulp of his gin. ‘I wish. He might have been a medical student then, instead of an arsehole.’
‘How was he an arsehole?’ she asked. Had she hit the jackpot already? Was Art actually going to talk about himself?
He stared into his glass. ‘He drank too much. He hit her. He hit me. Usual arsehole behaviour.’
Her heart did a backflip at the nonchalant tone. ‘That’s dreadful.’ She frowned. ‘But since when does being in an abusive relationship change your sexual orientation?’
Art leant back, the intense look making the butterflies in her stomach feel inebriated. ‘It doesn’t, necessarily. But I have a theory about human sexuality.’
That Art had a theory about anything seemed both incongruous and sort of hot, that he had a theory about human sexuality seemed even hotter. ‘What’s your theory?’
‘We may think we’re either gay or straight, but in reality everyone falls somewhere on a spectrum between the two.’ He frowned. ‘I figure we’re all a little…’ He took a contemplative sip of gin. ‘Shit, there’s a word for it.’
‘Bi-curious?’ she supplied.
He slammed his glass on the table and pointed a finger at her. ‘That’s it. Bi-curious. I figure some of us our brave enough or, in my mum’s case, unhappy enough to see where those urges take us.’
His theory sounded enlightened, especially for a guy as solidly heterosexual as he was. But then he did have a daughter who wanted to be a boy.
‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘But, be honest, have you ever wanted to shag another guy?’
He considered that for a minute. ‘I guess not. But guys have wanted to shag me. And I found it pretty flattering, so that probably puts me on the spectrum.’
‘Art! That’s astonishing.’ So astonishing, she couldn’t quite believe it. He was so earthy and straightforward. The smell of him, the look of him, the gruff voice and surly silent charisma.
‘What is?’
‘You’re a secret metrosexual.’
He chuckled. ‘No shit.’ He placed his glass on the table, then leaned forward, spreading his knees, to draw closer. ‘Is that better than being a douche canoe?’
‘Absolutely,’ she murmured, distracted by the ticking pulse in his neck for the first time. He had a lovely neck, strong and muscular and not too wide, the shadow of his stubble visible from just above his Adam’s apple. Reddened skin looped across his collarbone where he’d worn his T-shirt in the sun. The working man’s tan. She got fixated on the well of his clavicle, thinking of the warm blood pulsating through the vein under the skin. And the salty taste that would gather on her tongue if she flicked it over the pulse point.
Warmth settled over the butterflies now jitterbugging in drunken glee.
‘Have you ever kissed a girl?’ The rough, low sound of his voice was even deeper than usual. The spice of awareness danced between them, the lingering aroma of Dee’s vegetable moussaka overwhelmed by the phantom scent of sultry summer heat.
Her gaze rose from his throat. His irises were the colour of chocolate. Rich milk chocolate with hints of coffee and caramel. Yum.
‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who fantasises about women making out?’ she said.
‘Are you evading the question?’ he said, evading the question.
‘I have kissed a girl,’ she murmured.
‘Really?’ His eyes flared as he lifted his hand, his big work-roughened hand. The long blunt finger trailed up her arm, tracing the veins in her wrist. She stared at the short blunt nails, the wide bridge of his knuckles, the nicks and cuts and abrasions from the physical labour he did with his hands every day – the jagged line that ran down the webbing between his thumb and his forefinger which she’d watched being sewn up three weeks ago – as the tip of his finger travelled all the way to her elbow. His finger swept across the inside, triggering a multitude of sensations, both brutally exciting and not exciting enough.
‘What was it like?’ he said, the husky tone of voice reverberating in her clitoris.
‘Hot.’ But not as hot as this. Not even close.
His thumb pressed into the inside of her elbow, as his fingers wrapped around her arm. He tugged her towards him, until his lips were only a whisper away from hers. ‘Do guys kiss different to girls?’
She could smell the juniper sweetness of the gin on his breath, see the dilated pupils.
Who knew? Art was a cheap drunk.
Her insides clenched and released. The butterflies, their wings on fire, fluttered frantically. ‘I couldn’t tell you, I’ve never done a thorough comparison.’
He blinked, in slow motion, the thick lashes lowering and then rising again on half speed. ‘I’m a little pissed,’ he said. ‘But I think we should remedy that.’
His other hand lifted to curl around her neck. The long fingers threading into her hair, the rough caress glorious against the sensitive skin of her nape. Until his large palm supported her skull.
Her hands fastened on his waist, dipping under the hem of his shirt to find warm, firm flesh.
‘So do I,’ she whispered.
His mouth captured hers, the press of his lips firm and wet and hot.
She opened for him as his tongue delved, her mind spinning, comparisons forgotten as he yanked her closer.
Heat shot like a fireball into her nipple as one big hand cupped her breast. Her thumbs pressed into his ribs to hold on to him as he sucked on her tongue. She delved back, getting deeper into the recesses of his mouth, chasing the sweet spice of the gin, the hot spice of arousal.
Her breathing hitched as he drew away then propped his forehead against hers. Strong fingers massaged her nape, anchoring her arm to his side.
‘You’re good at that.’ He groaned.
‘Ditto.’ She chuckled – which had to be the gin.
Her fingertips slid back down to his waist and he shivered.
‘So what’s the verdict?’ he said, his gruff voice thick with temptation. ‘Guys or girls?’
‘Hard to tell,’ she said, his confidence contagious. ‘I may need more evidence.’
He laughed, the sound deep and rough. His thumb circled the tight muscles in her shoulder – which relaxed and wept with joy, for the first time in months.
‘If I kiss you again, I won’t be able to stop,’ he said. ‘And we’ll both regret it in the morning.’
‘I know.’ She straightened away from him, trying to clear the gin-soaked fog from her brain as her gaze roamed over that devastating face.
As she took in the tanned skin drawn tight across high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the tapered brows, those wide lips, tipped up now in a tantalisingly lopsided smile, she knew that starting something with Art would not be a good idea, but that didn’t make it any less tempting.
The possibility of having sex with a guy who might actually notice whether or not she had an orgasm was a pretty powerful mojo. And somehow she knew Art would notice.
‘I should go to bed,’ she said. Time to get her wayward mojo under control.
As she stood up, she swayed.
He stood too, resting a hand on her hip to steady her. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes, I’m just exceptionally drunk.’ She glanced down at the now empty bottle of sloe gin. ‘You’re right, that stuff is lethal.’
He took her wrist as she turned to go. ‘Hold on.’
Walking to the sink, he tugged her with him. He took a glass from the shelf above the sink, and filled it with water. He presented it to her.
‘Drink it, or you’ll wish you were dead in the morning.’
She chugged down the lot. He poured her another glass and she drank that too. She handed the glass back to him. ‘Thanks.’
‘Goodnight, Ellie,’ he murmured.
She staggered out of the room, feeling dazed, and drunk and desperately disappointed.