Chapter 38
Our apartment is out of the question. The others are all back there now, with Nora in the bed next to mine. Sam is sharing a flat with three other men, one of whom is my brother, who may well be snoring off his excesses, but that’s still not a risk I’m prepared to take.
All I can think about as we drift back is how desperately I want Sam’s mouth on mine.
I want to stop right now and drag him by the collars until our mouths collide.
Make this five-minute walk last an hour, because we’re locked in each other’s arms, unable to continue.
But he seems intent on heading back, albeit at a stroll, leaving me to make do with the full sensory reaction his fingertips ignite when they circle the delicate skin at the heel of my hand.
When we’re halfway home, I nod towards an opening in the road.
‘Wonder what’s down there?’
‘Another pool complex. I took a detour through it on the way back from the supermarket yesterday. It’s nice; a lot smaller than ours. Very . . . private.’
I look up and our eyes catch.
‘Want to go and see it?’
I give a little shrug, as if I even need to think about it. ‘Why not? I always do my sightseeing at three in the morning.’
The passage is flanked by high stone walls sprawled over by jasmine. We emerge into a neat patio area with a small, kidney-shaped pool. There are two or three villas nearby, but they’re facing the sea and the lights are off. Nobody, it appears, is home.
I pull up a sunbed and sink into it, settling on my side against the thick cushion. He grabs another and pushes it in flush, reclining until his body is facing me.
‘This is a nice spot,’ I say, as quietly as possible.
‘It is. Though why are we whispering?’
‘Because we don’t want to get caught.’
‘I think this whole part of the resort is unoccupied. There was certainly nobody staying here yesterday. Besides, I’m not aware of any such crime as lying on a sunbed after hours . . .’
He picks up my hand and runs his fingers along the heart line, gently massaging my wrist. It shouldn’t amount to anything. It’s a nothing move. But there’s a direct plumbline between that and some secret spot, deep and low in my abdomen, that until recently has been asleep for years.
‘We really should be past this sort of thing, you know,’
I murmur.
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Staying up this late. Dancing till three. Creeping into places we’re not supposed to be . . .’
He crooks an eyebrow. ‘I’m sorry . . . “past it”? Last time I looked you were the same age as me. We’re not past anything.’
‘Well, I don’t know about the wild abandon you’ve been living your life with, Sam Delaney, but last time I stayed up this late was when Frankie was a baby. Fun times.’
‘Oh yeah?’
I nod. ‘Four hours sleep a night and cracked boobs.’ I glance up at him. ‘They’re much improved now, by the way. The boobs, I mean. Just in case you were wondering.’
He coughs and arranges his face into a comical look, feigning nonchalance.
‘Good to know.’
I clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter as he grins. I turn to the pool once I’ve recovered and sigh.
‘Doesn’t that look lovely?’ The surface is a mirror, illuminated by a fat, shimmering moon.
His thumb stops circling my hand. ‘Well, there’s nothing stopping us.’
‘Yes there is. You’re not allowed in after 10pm. There’s a sign.’
He gives me a challenging look that suggests he has little interest in signs. ‘Yeah but . . . nobody would know.’
‘They might. Also, you’re not meant to swim after alcohol. Didn’t they teach you that at medical school?’
‘I haven’t had a beer for hours.’
At that, he sits up. And before I can argue, he starts to unbutton his shirt.
‘I’ll bet you get cramp,’ I say, though he clearly is not put off. ‘Don’t come running to me if you start drowning.’
‘I’ll stick to the shallow end.’
He wrestles the shirt off his back, revealing the muscles around his shoulder blades. I feel paralysed by the sheer beauty of him.
‘Just so I know . . . are you intending to skinny dip?’
He turns round and raises an eyebrow. ‘Well, I wasn’t planning to. It’s not that kind of resort. Although you could probably twist my arm if that’s what you were suggesting.’
He stands up and looks at me, unbuttoning his fly with a mischievous look in his eye.
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Shame.’
The trousers come off next. He’s wearing a pair of black underpants, trunks that curve over his buttocks. I don’t know where to look, but I also can’t tear my eyes away. He walks towards the water and sinks in, whirling around to look at me.
‘It’s lovely and warm,’ he says.
‘I’m happy for you.’
‘Come on. You know you want to.’
And the most ridiculous part of this statement? He’s right. I do want to.
I prop myself up on my elbows and perform a brief mental body scan to try and recall what underwear I’m wearing.
A vague recollection of what I put on earlier comes to me.
Had I prepared for this occasion in advance, I’m not sure what I’d have chosen.
I suppose for some people, a moonlight tryst would cry out for ribbons and lace, something befitting a dangerous liaison.
This is more low-key. A plain black T-shirt bra with matching bikini knickers.
An acceptable alternative, I decide, and I kick off my sandals.
‘Fine.’
Before I can allow myself to even think about this, I stand up, untie the belt of my dress and begin to unbutton it from the cleavage down.
When I’ve got as far as the ones just below my waist, I wriggle out of the rest until the dress pools on the floor.
Then I pick it up and fling it on the sunbed, my flesh bare and pale in the moonlight.
He hasn’t made the slightest attempt to look away.
I have a vague sense that, at any other time, I’d be embarrassed to the point of mortification.
But right now I am intoxicated, by something more poetic than alcohol.
Exercise and sea air, perhaps, or the scent of jasmine and the obsidian night sky.
From the way Sam looks at me as I tiptoe into the water, any concerns about my underwear seem unnecessary. I feel like what I’m wearing is already surplus to requirements. I get up to the top of my thighs and inhale sharply.
‘You said it was warm.’
‘It is once you get in.’
I skitter forward, sinking an inch. ‘Women have lower body temperatures than men you know.’
‘Hmm. That’s not actually true.’
‘But I read it on the internet. Surely that’s more reliable than your qualifications?’ I tease.
‘You just feel the cold more because women have more fat between the skin and the muscles,’ he replies. I make a rash decision to plunge in quickly and get this over with. ‘The skin feels colder, as it’s further from blood vessels and—’
Having got as far as my neck, I jump up again, unable to bear it. I’m now shivering, rubbing my arms to try and get rid of the goosebumps.
‘You really are making a meal of this,’ he says. ‘Come here.’
Then he reaches for my hand and guides me in, gently pulling me towards him, until I’m not merely submerged, but somehow, unfathomably, cocooned in his arms. My shivering stops in an instant.
This could be down to some kind of transfer of body heat, but honestly?
I’m now generating so much of my own it’s like some kind of molten centre has erupted inside me.
I am hyper aware of the water lapping gently over my breasts.
Of the silken feel of his skin. Of the shift in energy the two of us create when pressed together.
‘Better?’ he whispers.
‘Much.’
I become suddenly and acutely aware of the entanglement of limbs beneath the surface. The way my thigh has slipped between his knees and one ankle is grazing his.
‘I had so much fun tonight,’ he says softly, as his lips drop to my mouth.
‘Me too.’
‘You know, I don’t mind admitting it. You’re all I’ve thought about since that day at the club. I’ve been trying to think of reasons I might be able to persuade you to lock me in a shed again.’
I smile as he tilts his chin until our foreheads are pressed together. He gently brushes his nose against mine, then pulls back to look at me. He pushes a tendril of hair away from my face and for a moment looks like he’s trying to consign every tiny feature of me to his memory.
I can’t not kiss him after that. I press my lips against his and he responds with his whole body.
Within a moment, I am wondering to myself, what does it take to get this good at kissing anyway?
Is this a gift? Is it practice? I feel like someone could devote years of intensive study to the subject and they’d still never match his ability to know the precise tilt of jaw, the pressure of lips and deepening of tongue that sends my senses into free fall.
I am weightless in his arms, floating inside my head.
Together, we glide to the side of the pool and my submerged spine presses against the wall. His hand slides behind my lower back, his fingers skimming the top of my pants. He drags his lips down my neck, along the stretch of my clavicle, painting my skin with kisses as soft as butterfly wings.
I wrap my legs around the muscular heft of him, as my eyes blur on the moon. I have never taken drugs and I am suddenly questioning why anyone would. This is better than any synthetic high.
‘What happened to friends?’ I murmur.
‘I’m sure we can still be friends,’ he sighs, facing me now.
But as I register how hard he is through the thin layers of fabric separating him from the folds between my legs, this is feeling way more than friendly. I push my groin onto him and feel him spring back against me with a deep moan from his throat.
He brushes the side of my breast with his hand, before sliding it under the bottom of my bra.
He plays and massages as I shudder a sigh from the back of my throat, my nipple tightening against his fingers.
He kisses me deeper and harder then, as I lose myself in the hot slide of his tongue and my senses are suspended somewhere in outer space, up there with the stars.
Until . . . all of a sudden . . . he freezes.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
But he doesn’t need to answer. I’ve already heard it myself.
There’s a couple on the balcony of one of the adjacent villas, having an argument in rapid-fire Spanish.
They’re trying to be quiet. Failing entirely.
We are not in their eye line, but it wouldn’t take much before we were.
There’s only a tree and a couple of bushes concealing this end of the pool.
I swallow as he withdraws his hand and pulls me into something more akin to a hug. ‘I don’t want to go but I think we might have to,’ he says softly. He tenderly presses his hot lips against the curve of my ear.
He softens his gaze on my face again, drinking me in. He reaches up and draws a finger across my chin, before leaning in for one last kiss.
‘Come on,’ he whispers and takes my hand to help me out.