Chapter 17
AJ
Pippa’s flat is up one narrow flight of stairs behind a blue door that does not open smoothly.
It sticks halfway.
Apparently the universe has looked at the two of us crossing the road from the bakery in absolute silence, charged with enough intent to power the whole village for a week, and decided what this moment really needs is a woman in steel-toe boots fighting with a temperamental lock while I stand two steps below her trying not to stare at her arse.
I fail.
Briefly.
Then I look at the wall, because I am still, against all available evidence, a man with manners.
“This door hates everyone,” she says, jiggling the key.
“Good. I was worried it was personal.”
“It might be. It has a type.”
“Journalists?”
“Men who look too pleased with themselves.”
She is above me, one hand on the key, the other braced against the doorframe, her dark green jumper riding just slightly at her hip where her jacket has shifted.
Her hair is still a little flattened from the shift, her eyes are tired, and there is a faint flush high on her cheekbones from the cold outside.
She looks like a woman who has just made a decision and is now daring the world to make it awkward.
The world is doing its best.
“You look very smug,” she says.
“I look focused.”
“You look like a man trying to pretend he hasn’t just been looking at my arse.”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
She smiles.
Not much.
Enough to ruin me.
“There we are,” she says, and shoulders the door open.
I follow her inside.
The flat is warm, quiet and more her than I am prepared for.
I do not know what I expected. Something austere, maybe.
Functional. A sofa, a kettle, a place to sleep between shifts.
But Pippa’s flat is not austere. It is compact, yes, and tidy in a way that says practical rather than fussy, but it has colour and texture and small signs of a life she has built carefully because she likes things done properly even when no one else is watching.
A deep blue sofa. A striped blanket over one arm. Books stacked beside an armchair, most of them with cracked spines. A plant by the window. Two framed prints on the wall, one abstract, one a landscape. Boots lined up near the door. A hook for keys.
I notice all of it because noticing things is what I do.
Also because if I look directly at Pippa for too long, I am going to forget how to behave.
She shuts the door behind me.
The click of it is very small.
It still sounds final.
For half a second, neither of us moves.
There it is.
The awkwardness.
Not regret. Not hesitation exactly. Just the sudden, absurd reality of what happens when the charged walk across the road becomes an actual flat with actual walls and a woman standing three feet away from me looking as if she is deciding whether to take off her jacket or order me out before something catches fire.
I put my hands in my pockets.
A terrible choice.
Too casual.
I take them out again.
Worse.
“Are you nervous?” Pippa asks.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
The fact that she is not entirely steady either does something deeply unhelpful to my self-control.
She turns away and hangs her keys onto the hook.
“Tea?” she asks.
I stare at her.
“Tea?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve just had coffee.”
“I know.”
“And breakfast.”
“I was there.”
“And you invited me up to your flat.”
Technically, she did not invite me with words. Technically, she said she lived across the road, told me to pay the bill, walked here with purpose and did not object when I followed. But I am not a fool. I understand language in several forms, including highly charged silence.
Pippa looks at me from beside the little table.
“I’m being polite.”
“No,” I say.
Her eyebrows lift.
I take one step towards her.
Not fast.
Not dramatic.
Enough.
“You’re trying to give us both something to do with our hands because this suddenly feels real.”
Her expression changes.
Barely.
But there.
“Yes,” she says.
Fuck.
The honesty of it.
I take another step.
“You can still change your mind.”
Her eyes stay on mine.
“Noted.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“No awkwardness. No explanation. No pretending later that we both imagined it. I’ll go back to the B&B, sleep badly, and we’ll make professionally terrible eye contact tonight.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It does.”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
My control, already under significant structural strain, makes a worrying noise somewhere deep inside me.
I stop close enough to touch her.
I do not touch her.
Not yet.
“Pippa.”
“What?”
“This is the last clear-thinking moment either of us is likely to have for a while.”
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
There it is again.
That little surrender before the surrender.
“I’m not sure mine’s been clear since the bakery,” she says.
That is it.
That is the end of civilised behaviour.
I kiss her.
For one second, it is almost careful.
Almost.
My hand goes to her jaw, her skin warm under my palm, and I give her that final fraction of space because I have to know she is meeting me, not just letting me happen.
She meets me.
Hard.
Her hands grip the front of my jacket, pulling me in as her mouth opens under mine, and all the careful, charged, maddening restraint of the last week goes up like dry paper.
There is no slow discovery. No gentle sorting through possibilities.
There is Pippa making a low sound into my mouth and my body responding so fast I nearly lose the ability to stand like a functioning adult.
She tastes like coffee and salt and morning.
She kisses like she gives orders.
Direct. Certain. Completely unwilling to waste time pretending she does not know what she wants.
I back her against the wall beside the door before either of us has taken a full breath.
Or maybe she drags me there.
Honestly, the investigation can wait.
Her hands slide under my jacket, shoving it off my shoulders with ruthless efficiency.
It hits the floor somewhere behind me. I do not care.
My hands are on her waist now, then her hips, then the solid, gorgeous line of her back as I kiss her deeper and she arches into me as if she has been waiting all week to find out whether I am as much trouble as I look.
I am.
I am going to be.
For her, I am prepared to be a public menace.
She breaks away first, breathing hard, eyes dark and fierce.
“Shirt off,” she says.
The words are not a request.
They are an instruction.
And because I have spent nearly two weeks doing what Pippa Hart tells me to do, my hands actually move.
One inch.
Then I stop.
Her eyes narrow.
“What?”
I catch her wrists gently, not pinning them, just holding them between us because if she touches me again right now, I may come in my trousers and I have plans that deserve more dignity than that.
“No,” I say.
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“No?”
“No, no, no.”
That gets her attention.
My voice drops before I can make it behave.
“At the station, you’re in charge.”
Her lips part.
I step closer, guiding her hands down slowly, deliberately, until they are against my chest but still under mine.
“Here,” I say, “I’m in charge.”
A breath leaves her.
Not much.
Enough.
Her eyes flash, challenging and turned on and more dangerous than any call-out I have been allowed within fifty metres of.
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds very confident for a man who only learned where the good biscuits are few days ago.”
“I am a fast learner.”
“You’re also in my flat.”
“I noticed.”
“And you think you’re in charge?”
“I think,” I say, letting go of one wrist so I can touch the side of her face, “you spend all day holding the line for everyone else.”
The challenge in her eyes flickers.
Does not vanish.
Just flickers.
“I think you like being in control because you’re good at it,” I continue. “I also think you brought me here because you don’t want to be sensible for the next hour.”
Her breathing changes.
I feel it through the hand still trapped between my palm and my chest.
“That is a lot of thinking for a man who should be taking his shirt off.”
I smile.
Slowly.
Her gaze drops to my mouth again, and there is a savage little satisfaction in knowing that after all the times she has watched me, assessed me, ordered me around, made me sweat and stumble and reset, I can do this to her.
Make her wait.
Make her want.
Make her feel exactly how much I have noticed.
“I will take my shirt off,” I say.
“Good.”
“When I’m ready.”
Her eyes narrow. “AJ.”
“Pippa.”
I lower my mouth to the edge of her jaw, not quite kissing, letting the warmth of my breath touch her skin.
“I’m going to savour this.”
Her fingers flex against my shirt.
“You’re very sure you’ll survive that.”
“No,” I say, and brush my mouth just below her ear. “I’m fairly sure this is how I die.”
She makes a sound.
A small one.
Rough at the edges.
It goes straight through me.
I kiss her neck then, and she tips her head back against the wall with a kind of furious surrender that nearly finishes me on the spot.
Her hands fist in my shirt. Mine move to her hips, holding her exactly where I want her, close enough to feel the heat of her, not close enough to give either of us what we’re already silently asking for.
Her thigh presses between mine, deliberate, and I tighten my grip on her hips to still her. Not yet. Not until I'm ready. Not until I've mapped every inch of this moment the way I want to map every inch of her.
"Pippa," I say again, just because I can. Just because of the way her breath stutters when I do.
"Stop talking," she says, but there's no command in it. No station authority. Just raw need wearing the clothes of an order.
My hands find the hem of her jumper first.
She lifts her arms, and I draw the jumper up and over her head, careful not to catch her hair. For a second, her blouse rides up with it, showing a strip of warm skin above her waistband before the fabric falls back into place.
My fingers find the first button.
I take my time.
The plastic disc slips through its hole with a soft click, and I watch her throat work as she swallows.
"Patience," I murmur against the curve of her neck.