Page 52 of Pride and Privilege

“Because it really sounded—”

“No. No. It was Gaelic. I have Irish ancestry. Can’t you tell from the hair?”

He laughed again. It was either that or kiss her. And he really, really shouldn’t kiss her again. Kissing your platonic non-girlfriend employee tenant once was unfortunate. Kissing her twice was foolish. Or whatever that Oscar Wilde expression was. His brain wasn’t working at its best right now. Too much blood elsewhere. Too much craving the taste of her, the feel of her tongue…

“Gaelic?” he repeated, before he gave in to temptation.Again.He blamed those girls in the queue. He blamed the flash ofjealousy he’d seen in Poppy’s eyes. He blamed the fact he was a base, animal creature, and the smallest hint that Poppy might want him had ignited all his long-smouldering desire and steamrollered every bloody resolution he’d ever made.

He blamed the fact he was an idiot.

“Yes. Gaelic.”

“And what’s it Gaelic for?”

She was fiddling with her bag again. Fiddling with her hair. He wondered if she felt as dizzy as he did, if her blood was pounding in her ears, if she also felt like they were having this conversation while clinging to a surging boat in a storm-whipped sea, a tempest howling.

A siren singing.

“It means… Erm. Too much tongue.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Too muchtongue?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It was weird. The thing you did with your tongue.”

He looked at her askance, a flicker of doubt… But no. No. That kiss had been scorching. He’d heard hermoan. Might possibly be reliving that sound for the rest of his life.

“Forty-two!” the person at the till called. “Forty-two ready.”

Roscoe held out his hand, still looking at Poppy even as they hooked the carrier bag handle over his fingers.

“And we’ll have some ketchup please,” he said. “She really likes it.”

She flashed him a stricken look and he grinned.

Busted.

Nobody had ever asked Poppy, but if they had, she would have said there was nothing less erotic than a large bucket of fried chicken. She also would have said there was no less eroticplace than the greasy confines of the Cluck’N’Tuck near Cannon Street. But she ought to have known that if there was any man capable of putting those truisms to the test it was Roscoe Blackton.

Poppy walked back to Roscoe’s flat in a daze. She ate fried chicken in a daze. She talked about things—TV shows and pizza toppings and quantitative easing—all in a daze.

Roscoe Blackton had justkissed her?You wouldn’t think it now, the way he strode along at her side, hands in his pockets as he grimaced at her offer of a piece of fried chicken. “I’m not going to eat walking down the street, Poppy. I’m not an animal.”

And you wouldn’t think it from the way she grinned in reply and tore off a piece of fried chicken with her teeth like a Viking hellion. This was not the behaviour of a woman so attracted to the man at her side she was having trouble walking straight due to the hammering pulse between her thighs.

His kiss had scorched her entire body, left it molten and desperate.The touch of his tongue…The memory nearly made her trip over her own feet.

Luckily—terrifyingly—his flat wasn’t far away. They went inside, got in the lift, the smell of fried chicken alien in the gleaming, jasmine-scented space. Very coarse. Very common. Just like her.

She caught sight of herself in the lift’s mirrored side, looking wide-eyed and stunned, her face red from drink. Bleary and messy and greasy. Her fingers greasy, her mouth…

“Woeful, Poppy?”

Those murmured words, in that low, crisp voice. The crack of cool chocolate. The memory of it was so all-consuming it felt as though it was still happening, the hot taste of him still there on her tongue.

He hadkissedher. They were going to have to talk about it, weren’t try? He was going to have to say something like,“Iapologise… Lapse of judgement… Clouded by alcohol… Never happen again…”And she would have to nod and agree, all the time feeling like the grubby-handed orphan child staring through the window at the glittering toy she could never have. The sweet bun in the baker’s shop she wanted to sink her teeth into…

In the flat, Roscoe cracked open another beer. Offered her one. She shook her head. They went to the sofa, turned on the TV. “Now,” said Roscoe, putting his feet on the coffee table and pulling the bucket of chicken over, “I can eat fried chicken like a civilised person.”

“Shall I get you some cutlery?” she teased. “Do you have a special fork just for that?”

---