Page 72 of Girls Just Want to Have Sun

‘What the fuck is going on?’ Alex glares at us from a few feet away, hands on hips.

Matteo scrambles to his feet. The atmosphere is suddenly sour. ‘Nothing.’

‘It sure looks like something to me.’

‘Alex,’ he says, holding up our wrists. ‘Chill out. We’re in a bit of a situation here but I’m handling it.’

‘Why her?’ Alex says rudely. ‘I bet you’re loving this, aren’t you?’ Her eyes flash angrily at me. ‘You probably planned it.’

‘No!’ I protest. ‘Of course not.’

Christ, I’d hate for Matteo to think I had anything to do with this unfortunate and glorious, life-enhancing, stuff-of-dreams situation.

‘Seems pretty convenient to me,’ Alex spits. ‘First you make goo-goo eyes at him when you should be singing to the crowd, then you write a fucking song for him when you should be doing covers and now you’ve got him on his knees calling you “Cinderella”. You barely need the fucking handcuffs!’

I feel Matteo entwining his fingers through mine to take my hand firmly.

‘You’ve hardly done any work since the day she arrived,’ she tells him, her eyes wild with fury. ‘You’re looking at her with horny eyes every time she walks in the room. And I’m sure you could’ve had those cut off if you really wanted to. What the fuck is going on between you two?’

‘It’s none of your business,’ says Matteo. ‘Not any more.’

‘So that was pretty intense,’ I say a few minutes later as we approach the management tent. Matteo has not so much as looked at me since the flip-flop stand, never mind with horny eyes. Which I have to admit I would be absolutely thrilled at. But I do feel being shackled together is becoming more than a pain for him. It’s also about to get a lot worse.

‘I’m so sorry about this.’ I am genuinely mortified. ‘But I really need to go to the, erm…’

Humiliating.I should have perhaps mentioned to him earlier that I come from a long line of weak-bladdered women for whom anything remotely exciting, active or cool in temperature will bring on the need to visit the restroom.

‘Sure,’ he says, avoiding eye contact. ‘There’s a Portaloo round the back of here for VIPs. Do you need to go right now?’

I’d rather die.

‘No. I couldn’t. I’ll wait.’

‘I’ll stay at the door.’

‘I have to take the whole suit off and I’m no contortionist.’ I jangle the handcuffs to make my point.

He looks slightly bemused.

‘Can we go back to the villa and find the key?’ I ask, chewing my lip.

He checks the time. ‘Fuck it. Let’s go. That’s why I have a management team, right? They can finish up without me.’

We walk out of the tent and over to his lady scooter. Without taking his eyes from mine, he runs his hands down the sides of my body. This time, his hands linger there. My breathing becomes all lustful and I notice his is the same. He picks me up to sit on the front of the bike before sliding his arm up over my head so that we can grip the handlebars together. Sitting behind me, he closes his hands over mine and pulls the throttle. My skin is burning with longing, and my neck tingles as his chin brushes against it. We are cheek to cheek, snaking our way through thequiet back roads. We arrive at the villa to find it empty and race straight through to the kitchen to see the key lying on the table, along with a bottle of tequila, slices of lemons and some shot glasses.

‘That seemed almost too easy,’ says Matteo incredulously as the handcuffs spring open. He pours us both a shot. ‘Shame. I got quite used to them.’

Oh my.

‘You go through to the cottage. Make yourself… comfortable. I’ll catch you up,’ I say, flinging the cottage key at him and racing off upstairs to use the Dollz’ communal bathroom. I’m on tenterhooks. I’m embarrassed for him to hear me weeing. I’m also embarrassed I told him to make himself comfortable. I’m the sort that does not do one-night stands, except maybe in extreme emergencies. This is definitely an extreme emergency. I stare at myself in the mirror.

Am I the sort of woman who can have handcuff sex? Am I the sort of woman who can have any type of sex?

It’s been a very, very long time. When I said that my last boyfriend ran screaming for the hills, I was giving an accurate account. He screamed at me for not paying attention during sex and promptly moved to the Welsh valleys. To be fair, it wasn’t the first time that I’d fallen asleep on him. It was a very exhausting time in my life, and he just didn’t seem to understand that my mother had to come first. And now I’m like an old abandoned house with creaking floorboards, dust mites and cobwebs that should be approached only with extreme caution.

Get a fucking grip, Connie,I tell myself.Think sexier thoughts. You’ve got to own your sexuality and unleash the slutty vixen within.

I race through to the cottage, a flush of warmth spreading from my groin. Whilst I’m desperately trying to conjure up sexyimages of us consumed with lust and frantically ripping off each other’s clothes with our teeth, a thought occurs.

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