Page 65 of The Trouble With Love

‘Are you regretting the sex the other day?’ He let go of me suddenly. ‘Is that it?’

‘God, no. And, if you remember, it was me who told you to sort your head out before you started any kind of relationship.’ I watched him flip his hair nervously, tap his ring against the table edge, twitchy and edgy.

‘I know. I . . . We don’t seem to have talked. I mean, properly talked, about anything. About us. I admit, I freaked a bit with all these feelings crashing down around me, all stuff I’ve never felt before and don’t know how to handle. But, there you are, still. Like this kind of constant. And that’s something I’ve never managed to keep, Holly, constancy. I had ten years of it, and I took it for granted then, but . . . I couldn’t hold it, and now I don’t know how to . . . I’ve never looked for it in any of my relationships, I thought transience was all there was.’ He put his hands either side of the sink and leaned forward, seeming to be looking out of the window, but really looking inside himself. Those strange, yellow eyes lost focus and he went very still.

‘Are you afraid you’re going to blow it?’ I asked softly. ‘Because I am.’

A flick of the head and he was looking into me again. That intense stare that twisted my stomach and made my heart slide sideways in my chest. ‘Yes.’ It was a whisper, barely even that. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to blow it.’

‘One day at a time, Kai.’ It took all my concentration not to tear his shirt off. There was something purely sexual about his look, and yet something deeper than sex, something that spoke to my soul. ‘Let’s take it slowly. You do what you have to, to keep your head straight, and I’ll do what I have to.’

His eyes were suddenly alive, moving like flame, darting across my face to my lips, down my neck and back up again. ‘I want you to stay, be with me tonight, keep me from backing down, backing out, running away, because that’s what I want to do too.’

‘Don’t run from me, Kai.’

He touched my face, ran a finger down where his eyes had already licked my skin. ‘At the moment I’d be lucky if I could walk.’ Mouth followed fingers following eyes, and then we just let the hormones do the communicating for us. He pushed me up onto the table, rucked up my skirt and, with a suddenness that made me inhale like hiccups, he was inside me.

I tried to speak but he kissed the words away, kissed me till the kitchen spun, moved until the air went black and sparks rose, fanned to fire and then burned to embers. And then did it all again. Finally he lay above me, boneless and wordless, damp hair in both our eyes. ‘Good, yes?’

‘Oh, yes.’ I stared at the ceiling cornices, chuckling demons and something that looked half-man half-pig. ‘Yes.’

He pulled me up into a sitting position next to him. ‘Let’s not leave it so long next time, yeah? In fact, let’s do this a lot more.’

‘Hey now, don’t get reckless.’ We let our legs dangle off the side of the table. ‘One of us is going to have some work with the Dettol before we have dinner.’

‘So you’ll stay then?’

I looked at him, dark hair counterpointing those eyes and stubble-scattered cheeks. ‘What, turn down a man who makes love to me on the kitchen table? Do I look mad?’

‘At the moment you look flushed and very, very sexy.’ He kissed me again, long and slow. ‘And now Cerys is gone, I’ll make love to you all over the house if you want.’

‘Only if you want.’

He gave me the most evil grin and pushed my hand down. ‘Oh yes, I want,’ he said. ‘See?’

‘Where do you get your energy from?’ I closed my fist and he closed his eyes.

‘Same place as you.’ It was a groan, not real words. ‘I sold my soul to the Devil . . .’

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Do I look all right?’ Kai asked for the hundredth time. ‘It’s not too . . . you know, scruffy?’

‘You look gorgeous, as you well know. That poor waitress nearly dropped the coffee pot, can’t you tone it down a bit?’

‘How does one tone down one’s natural sex appeal?’

‘Well, one could try not wearing jeans that are quite so tight, for a start.’ I rubbed a patch of steam off the café window and peered out onto the street. Outside, another shower blustered down the road, sweeping a week’s worth of newspapers before it and depositing them in a pile of leaves and chip shop debris. The little town where Kai’s mother evidently lived was clearly not having a good day — everywhere looked grey and underpopulated and the cobbles which lined the main street looked treacherously shiny.

‘You didn’t complain this morning,’ Kai blew in my ear. ‘In fact, I distinctly remember having to get dressed twice.’

‘That was your fault, with the . . .’ I made a general gesture which pretty much indicated his whole body, ‘and the leather jacket and the earring.’

‘I just want to look good.’

‘Kai, she’ll know you’re successful. Bin men don’t wear Prada.’

He rested his elbows on the sticky table. ‘Funny, having to tell your own mother your name.’ Now he looked out through the smeared condensation. ‘I’ve been here loads of times. I had the Jeep serviced over there,’ he jerked his head. ‘Never knew she was here, this close.’

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