Page 45 of A Summer Scandal

Cal started to laugh. ‘Beau’s T-shirt!’

‘Keris in that bloody corset!’ Violet gasped, laughing with him. ‘Your mum couldn’t have come at a worse time if she’d tried. In fact, I blame you. You told me she’s always exactly on time. I wouldn’t have let Keris out in that corset if I’d thought your mum might materialise early.’

Cal tried not to smile. ‘Especially with you and Keris being raging lesbians now, too.’

Vi covered her cheeks with her fingertips. ‘Melvin and Linda really didn’t help the situation, did they.’

‘Life certainly isn’t dull in Swallow Beach since you arrived,’ he said.

She twisted her bracelet around on her wrist, studying the shells. She couldn’t believe she’d only been in Swallow Beach for five weeks, it felt like far longer. ‘I didn’t anticipate my arrival would make such headline news.’

‘Oh, you’ll be headline news in the localChroniclethis week, all right. On the front page in a fetish cage, I should think.’

A sudden thought occurred to Violet. ‘God, I really hope my family don’t get wind of this.’

He drank deeply from his brandy glass, contemplative. ‘And your sometime boyfriend? What will he make of things?’

Violet cringed. ‘Simon would be absolutely mortified if he knew. In fact I think he’d back your mum’s compulsory purchase order just to preserve my modesty.’ She reached for her brandy on the table and sipped it. ‘Simon’s not my sometime boyfriend. It was over before I came here. For me, anyway.’

Cal reached out and touched his finger against the leather ribbon around her wrist. ‘It suits you.’

‘I really love it,’ she said, and she meant it.

His fingers stroked the skin of her wrist, tracing the line of the bracelet. ‘I know we said we wouldn’t kiss each other again, but I think I’m going to kiss you now.’

‘We did say that,’ she whispered, looking at his mouth and wanting it on hers. ‘Shall we call it extenuating circumstances?’

He reached out and held her jaw, dragging his thumb over her lips. ‘Ithasbeen one hell of a day.’ His voice was low in his throat, his dark eyes turned on. Violet swallowed hard, a little breathless.

‘Cal …’ she said.

In reply, he slid his hand into her hair and drew her face to his, cutting off any more words with his kiss.

‘Don’t say anything else,’ he whispered. ‘And for God’s sake don’t say stop.’

She couldn’t have if she’d tried. Her brain wasn’t able to form any other words thanyes, orCal, or some kind of animalistic growl not dissimilar to the one she’d let out that morning. Maybe Gladys was right, she was feral. What was happening to her? She knew the answer to that question, Calvin Dearheart was happening to her. He was happening to her mouth, and he was making her heart beat twice the speed it should, and he was pressing her back against the sofa cushions with the weight of his body and God, it was delicious and delirious and heady.

‘You’re my favourite new neighbour ever,’ he said, breathing fast and shallow.

‘Am I your only new neighbour ever?’ she half laughed, then gasped when Cal’s hand slid inside the back of her top. She was braless, and his hand stroked slow and sure up her spine, moulding her body into his, shockingly close. It was a line crossed; this wasn’t just kissing. It was more, and then it was a lot more when he slipped his hand around between their bodies and touched her breasts, her nipples, the warm curves and dips of her body.

Neither Simon nor anyone else had ever made her feel so quickly, intensely turned on, it was almost painful pleasure when Cal moved his tongue inside her mouth as he rolled her nipple. She arched, and his other hand moved up her back, pressing her deeper into him. They slid from talking to feeling, from thinking to wanting, from wanting to needing. She reached down and dragged her top up over her head and he did the same, then closed his eyes and groaned when their skin pressed together hot and seductive.

For a few long minutes, they made out like nineteen year olds on the backseat of a car, wondrous, gasping, hot as hell. He kissed her body, she raked his shoulders. He dipped his head and trailed his tongue across the edge of her PJ trousers, then moved back over her until she lay pinned beneath him on the sofa with her leg hooked around his thigh. There was no hiding how much he wanted her, the evidence strained against his jeans and pressed between her legs. She wanted to be naked, and she was about to tell him so when her phone started to ring on the coffee table.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘I need to check who it is,’ she gasped, because everyone knew that late-night phone calls were often portents of bad news. Cal looked at the table, tortured, and then leaned across and grabbed Violet’s phone for her. Even as he picked it up, he knew the mood had been broken, and then when he glanced at the screen and saw the name flashing up, he knew he was screwed.

Simon.

Handing it to her, he sat up and turned away from her to avoid the guilt in her eyes.

‘Simon.’ She said his name too softly. ‘Is everything okay?’

He could tell from the way she reacted to his response that there was no emergency to deal with, and from her hushed-tone response that her ex had phoned just to hear her voice. Cal didn’t blame him. Was he wooing her? Was he telling her that he couldn’t live without her? Was he begging her to come home? Cal didn’t want to listen, and knew she’d probably rather he wasn’t here while she had this conversation. Picking up his T-shirt, he scrubbed his hands over his face and then quietly left her to it.

‘I’ve got Friday off work,’ Simon said. ‘I thought I’d come and see you, make a weekend of it.’

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