Chapter 28
‘Well, I must say this is a new one,’ he says. ‘I’ve never had a woman lock me in a shed before.’
‘It’s not something I make a habit of,’ I say.
‘Have you tried slotting the handle back in?’
I give it a prod. ‘It won’t go back. I think there’s something in the way. Here, you try,’ I say, handing it over.
As I press my back against a stack of cones, his forearm brushes against my breast and my nipples pinch.
I push my spine further into the equipment.
Mercifully, he doesn’t notice, either his touch or my reaction.
He’s too busy trying to negotiate with the hole in the door where the handle once was, before he finally exhales and straightens up.
I shuffle to face the door and bend down to get a better view of the handle. My backside slams into his thighs. I inhale sharply and pull away.
‘Sorry!’
‘I don’t remember you being so direct in the old days.’
‘This is not the time for jokes,’ I reply, and I think he can hear the panic in my voice, because the next thing he says is in a very different tone.
‘Jules, don’t worry. We’ll just call someone.’
He pats down his pocket, but then stops.
‘Tell me you’ve brought your phone,’ I say.
‘It appears to be in my tennis bag. You?’
‘I left it on the bench. Oh God!’
‘Look, this is going to be okay,’ he says, sounding way too relaxed. It occurs to me that, maybe when you do a job like his you don’t sweat the little things. But he was always like this, even before he was a doctor. I, on the other hand, am actually sweating now.
‘Nora will be here soon, anyway,’ he says.
‘No, today is her day off.’
‘Right. Well, we’ve got a home match tonight. The Men’s A team. The other players will be here just after 6pm.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting we spend nine hours locked in a shed together?’ I ask.
‘Ten,’ he corrects me.
‘Ten then,’ I say, exasperated. ‘Ten hours. In here. In the dark. When I’m afraid of—’
‘Spiders?’
Spiders don’t bother me. They never have.
The truth is, the thing I’m most afraid of right now is what I’m feeling as I stand here, so close to Sam Delaney that I can feel the heat rising from his chest. I can smell the clean sweat on his skin.
I am overcome with the thought that if I leaned in an inch, his extravagant muscles would be touching my breasts.
‘Jules,’ he says, so softly I can feel his breath on my face. ‘You don’t need to worry. The A team match is the worst-case scenario. It won’t come to that. I promise.’
Just when I think the knots in my stomach might begin to unfurl, he reaches for my hand and gives it a little squeeze. The gesture is supposed to be reassuring, and it sort of is. But that’s only a tiny part of the way my body reacts to his touch.
My eyes snap up and, now adjusted to the dim light, I meet his gaze. We are both suddenly silent and I’m very aware of the rise and fall of his chest as he looks at me. Even in the faint light, there is a mysterious quality in his pupils that does something to my ability to speak.
‘What if we’re stuck for hours?’ I whisper.
‘That would be less than ideal,’ he says softly. ‘Though I’m looking on the bright side.’
‘Which is?’
He shrugs. ‘If I’m going to be trapped in a confined space, I can think of worse people to be with.’
‘That sets the bar fairly low, Sam.’ I can’t help smiling though, and I can tell he is too.
‘I suppose it does.’
‘So what are we going to do for ten hours, exactly? Any ideas?’ I ask. My voice, for some reason, has become incrementally quieter.
‘A game of “I Spy”?’ he suggests.
‘Except I can’t really see.’
He’s so close to me now that I can feel his breath on my face.
‘How about the memory game?’
‘My memory is terrible these days,’ I whisper.
‘Really? Surely . . . certain things stick in your mind.’
Every nerve ending in my body is sparkling into life.
A ripple effect starts in my stomach and spreads all the way through to my fingertips.
Even my toes clench. And I cannot explain what happens next, nor will I ever be able to.
All I know is that I become vaguely aware that the heels of my feet are lifting, like Dorothy in Kansas.
His head dips and for a moment, time folds in on itself, as he, or maybe I – I couldn’t precisely say – closes the gap between my mouth and his.
My body responds to the kiss with a rush of electric heat.
His lips are as soft as a whisper and I am powerless to do anything except sink into them, as my senses swell and recede like the tide.
I wrap my hand behind his neck. Submit to the strength of his arms. I brush my tongue against his as goosebumps sweep up my spine.
Every inch of me softens, like butter on a warm day.
I had forgotten on an almost visceral level what it feels like to kiss.
The taste of someone’s lips. The delicious slide of tongue.
The occasional gentle clash of teeth. I had forgotten the way thunder rushes through your eardrums and the tiny breaths you have to take when stopping isn’t an option.
The way time is suspended. The soft gasps and moans.
The ever-growing desire to go deeper inside yourself.
I have never kissed anyone with a beard before and I am immediately obsessed with how it feels simultaneously soft and rough, how it rubs against my chin. I feel his chest inflate and when I think he’s about to pull away, I tug him back. I don’t want him to go anywhere, and he is happy to oblige.
Throughout this whole thing there is a distant voice in the depths of my brain that sounds something like my mother when I was a teenager leaving the house in a short skirt. What on earth do you think you are doing? You are seriously going to regret this . . .
But the message is too faint, it’s not getting through, because I feel as if I’ve been drugged, or like I’m flatlining, with no desire to return to the light.
He pulls away briefly, releasing a sound. A kind of huff or growl. Then I realise the corner of his mouth has turned up.
‘Why are you smiling?’ I whisper.
His eyes flicker across my face and he brushes my cheek with the knuckles on the back of his hand. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
The urge to respond with a quip dissolves as fast as it came.
The hand he has around my waist pulls me in tighter and it’s then that I register how hard he is against the soft pillow of my belly.
I move my hips, just an inch, just enough.
A barely audible sound escapes from his lips, a kind of soft moan.
It has a wild, physical effect on every bit of me.
What the hell do you think you’re doing?
I ignore the voice, as my fingertips find the skin on his lower back.
I run them along his waistband and dip beneath.
Right now, I could touch every inch of him and that wouldn’t be enough.
He smooths his palm down onto my backside and gently squeezes as my eyes close and I feel the length of him against me again.
He’s so. Fucking. Hard. And the thought that it’s me who has caused this intense state of arousal is so intoxicating that all I can do is kiss him deeper. And then—
You are so going to regret this . . .
‘What are we doing, Sam?’ I whisper, but it’s between kisses and I’m still pulling him hard against me, like his lips are magnetic.
‘I don’t know but please don’t let it stop.’ He grips me tighter, pulls me in again.
‘We . . . we need to get out of here, Sam.’
The kisses are almost frantic now and any talk is between ragged breaths. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’
‘Seriously.’ Another kiss. ‘We . . . need.’ And another. ‘To do something.’
He slowly withdraws and runs his gaze over my face. In that moment, I could be easily convinced that I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on.
Then he takes a deep, almost wistful inhale before we indulge in one last, decadent kiss.
Finally, he tightens his arms around me and sweeps me up, a foot off the ground, before shuffling round to plant me down behind him.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out a debit card.
Then, just like in some corny detective movie, he shoves it in the lock and shuffles it a couple of times before it clicks.
‘I won’t even ask why you know how to do that.’
‘First year at uni. I was always getting locked out of my dorm room.’
He throws open the door.
Daylight floods in and scorches my eyeballs. He steps outside and turns to give me his hand. I emerge like a released hostage, dazed and blinking. The skin on my chin is red raw. My lips are swollen. I am vaguely aware of the bird’s nest quality of my hair.
At which point, Barbara Bainbridge rounds the corner and my heart collapses into my intestines.
All three of us freeze. Then all I can do is resort to what every woman does in a crisis situation. Improvise.
‘Barbara! Sam and I have been trying to fix the shed door,’ I declare, because why wouldn’t we both be indulging in a touch of light DIY at daybreak?
I pick up the handle from the shelf in the shed and wave it about.
‘Oh dear,’ she says.
As she takes it from me, I catch sight of Sam’s crotch and am momentarily silenced. I am surprised he can walk. He registers my face and clasps both hands together in front of him, like he’s standing in church and about to sing a hymn.
‘Nora did say she’s been having trouble with that door. You’re lucky you didn’t get stuck in there.’
‘I think it’s going to need a new lock,’ Sam pipes up, in a conversational tone so nonchalant that you’d think he had a longstanding appointment to make out in the shed every Tuesday morning. ‘Would you like me to mention it to maintenance?’
‘Don’t worry, leave it with me,’ she offers. ‘I’m about to play doubles with George as it happens, so I’ll add it to his list. You two are here early, anyway. You’re obviously keen.’
My complexion deepens.
‘Jules has been working on her serve.’
She looks delighted. ‘Excellent! Hopefully you’ll be unstoppable at the match on Thursday. Have you had fun?’
Sam slides a glance towards me.
‘Very much so,’ he replies.