LITMIR.BIZ

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couldn’t be far but he’d obviously found something far more interesting than my chicken and pasta. Maybe he was sore at me; I’d shouted at him this morning. It was the second time he’d left me to eat alone this week, but I wasn’t going to let my meal go cold while I stood on the doorstep hollering like a fishwife. If he wanted to eat his later, fine, but if he kept this up he’d be eating out of tins.

      I’d been less than three minutes at the sink and the dishes were done. Martha would never be convinced, but we’d always been different. The picture sat on the sink windowsill testified to that.

      My hair had been longer when the photo was taken, but the panic attacks had been easier to manage once I’d hacked off my loose straggly curls. Long hair was an avoidable hindrance when struggling for breath in bed at night.

      Further down the kitchen the air was warmer where the earlier light had streamed into the room; Charlie had created a sun-trap here between the two cream bookcases he’d built perpendicular to the window seat. This was where he chose to eat breakfast every morning, with the sun on his back and the dog somewhere near his feet.

      Charlie’s mum had said that the one hundred and eighty degree views from the kitchen across all of the gardens would come in very handy when her grandchildren started to arrive. Particularly if they were anywhere near as naughty as their father. Naughty children weren’t the problem here.

      The side doors clicked open and I stepped out into the garden. ‘Dave? Dave? Last call, big guy.’ A handful of birds skittered from the tops of the trees Charlie had attacked. He was coming. I could see him now, galumphing his way up the hill.

      He was one ugly creature. A blundering spectacle of pale brown fur as he ran up the embankment towards me, his whole face flying in every direction as the black of his dewlap momentarily defied gravity.

      He reached my feet and lolloped back onto his haunches, tail thumping against the ground.

      ‘Hi, Dave.’ Dave huffed a response. ‘You’re late for dinner.’ I scowled.

      He didn’t seem repentant as I followed him into the house.

      I kicked my boots off in the hall to the sounds of him inhaling the chicken I’d left for him, making it halfway up the stairs before the phone rang below me.

      I knew it would be Martha, calling to check which roast she should make for us Sunday. I didn’t want to stay for lunch, but so far I hadn’t worked out what my excuse was going to be.

      The phone rang on, pricking my conscience. It might not be lunch. It could be the baby. My hand made a play for the handset when the answerphone cut in.

       ‘Hi, you’ve reached the Jeffersons’ money pit. We can’t get to phone right now—I’ll be hanging from a stepladder somewhere, and Holly will be out begging our friends to come help us. Leave a message.’

      ‘Hol? It’s me. I was just wondering if you’d like lamb on Sunday? Or chicken? I think we have chicken too. If you prefer? Why aren’t you home yet? Call me when you get home. OK, love you. Bye.’

      Dave joined me at the foot of the stairs. ‘Now you want to keep me company? Stand me up for dinner but happy to watch me take a shower?’ Dave didn’t answer.

      The bare timber treads were hard underfoot as I made my way back upstairs, but there were benefits of having no carpets or wallpaper yet, like not having to worry when sixteen stones of mastiff shadowed you around the house.

      Dave made himself comfortable on the bathroom tiles while I hopped under the steaming jets of the shower. Clouds of icing sugar dust had left their usual residue all over me. Sugar seemed to cling to skin as it did to teeth.

      Bugger.

      I’d forgotten to buy a new toothbrush today. Mine had become steadily more and more feathered next to its neighbour over at the sink, which I’d told my sister was a spare. I could buy one before work in the morning, or I could bring mine back from Martha’s after the weekend. If I remembered, I’d been so tired lately. I’d be sleepwalking again by November.

      Dave was snoozing peacefully when I stepped from the steam. The air was cool on my damp shoulders when I crossed the landing to my bedroom. I quickly dried off and wriggled into my favourite baseball tee and slouchies. It was too early to go to bed yet, just looking at it reminded me of the trouble I was having in that department, if trouble was the right word for it. It came in waves, I’d realised, and while I could do without the tiredness I was desperate to enjoy another visit from him tonight. I didn’t want to jinx anything so I’d stick with the formula that had seemed to work lately and slip into bed around ten.

      Killing time had become a compulsion. Minutes, weeks … now years. I could find something to do for a couple of hours, the meagre pile of ironing that had been sat on my dresser would do. I fished out a few hangers from the wardrobe and began squeezing more clothes in there. A second wardrobe was one of the things we’d never gotten around to. I straightened up the garments I’d disrupted and scanned the perfect uniformity of Charlie’s side of the hanging rail. How did dust even get into wardrobes? Was it some sort of domestic phenomenon? I pulled a few items out for closer inspection. Charlie’s summer jacket, Charlie’s winter coat, Charlie’s shirt, Charlie’s shirt, Charlie’s shirt. I blew the unloved items in my arms free of their dustings, trying not to let the resentment bubble up in me so close to bedtime. But it was always there, lurking just under the surface, waiting for its chance of escape.

      Yes, Charlie Jefferson. You have a lot to be sorry for.

      

      CHAPTER 2

      I didn’t want it to stop.

      It was perfect. The perfect choreography of his need pulsing with my own, grinding in against my hungering body. I’d missed this, I’d missed this so much. Somewhere in the distance, I knew we were against the clock, but it was a warning I pushed away. We were here now and that’s all that mattered.

      He’d come.

      Everything I had, every thirsty nerve ending desperate for his touch, I could feel him with, taste him with, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more, more of this delicious euphoria. Goosebumps raged over me every time his breath chilled the thin film of sweat on my skin, the sweet earthy scent of him swelling around me with every delectable thrust, the saltiness of his neck inviting me to taste him again—I wanted to drink it all down, to gorge myself with everything of him I was being allowed.

      Charlie found his rhythm and locked in on me. I let him. The slick covering of sweat we had each bestowed upon the other the only relief in what would otherwise be a crushing frenzy of need. I didn’t care. I wanted it to reign over me like an insatiable creature, to devour me, to gorge itself on us both and force us harder into one another until the lines between our writhing bodies were no more.

      I used the hard press of the wall behind me to defy him, to remain unyielding to all that strength as he forced himself into me, again and again. I managed to pull my head away from him, away from all that reward my senses so wanted, so that I could better see the face that had changed my world.

      I couldn’t hold myself away for long. My hands were already reaching up to slide desperate fingers through the short ruffle of his hair, to grab what I could and take hold of all that dark splendour before pulling his head far enough away to reveal those arresting blue eyes.

      He was so beautiful, a perfect combination of light and dark, in all things. From his character to his features he was the best of both extremes. His pale eyes were staggering against the near-black chestnut of his hair and depending on his mood could hold all the warmth of a Bahamian lagoon or the foreboding of a frozen lake.

      He looked back to me now, those eyes the colour of ice water as they burned voraciously at me. He made my breath catch in my throat as though it wasn’t supposed to be there—not looking at me but into me, to the promise

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