Page 66 of Enemies to Lovers

The bar person interrupts to ask if we want anything else, and I look at my half-empty glass and then at Jamie.

‘I actually don’t,’ I say, and Jamie tells the bar person we’re good. ‘Not to be a party-pooper, but that shot isn’t sitting well on my stomach. I’m more of a chilled white-wine girl.’

‘They have wine here,’ Jamie offers, and I scrunch up my nose.

‘The Greenbergs don’t order wine in pubs and clubs,’ I explain. ‘Our gastronomic snobbery cannot have passed you by.’

Jamie shakes his head. ‘I’ve never met a family less able to just eat a sandwich. It has to be the best sandwich, with the nicest bread and the ingredients arranged exactly so. You guys love food like Loki loves mischief.’

‘Guilty!’ I laugh.

And Jamie tips his head and looks at me, fondness in his eyes. I look straight back at him. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he says, making me blush. ‘Really, properly beautiful.’

I look around in case Alex is coming back. I can’t see him anywhere. ‘Stop,’ I say, but I don’t mean it.

‘Are we idiots?’ he asks, and I shrug.

‘Probably,’ I reply. ‘But at least we have each other.’

Jamie looks round. ‘I think Alex has abandoned us,’ he decides. ‘Shall we go? We’ll be sitting here until tomorrow if we think he’s coming back to us.’

‘Oh!’ I say. ‘Did he meet somebody?’

Jamie nods. ‘I think so,’ he says. ‘He was a man on a mission, after all.’

I shake my head good-naturedly. Well, good for Alex.

We walk the beach way back to the house, and it’s quiet and calm. It is deserted, on account of it being midnight and semi-private. By Christ – the moon! It is comically massive, low in the sky, and the size of it means the whole ocean is lit up, like it’s been tasked with putting on a dazzling light show solely for us. There’s the gentlest of breezes, which I’m aware of because it tickles my skin – but I’m not cold. I’m very much the opposite. Blood courses through my veins, pumping hot and fast, a life-force. The bushes against the hillside sway back and forth in slow motion, and the sand stretches in a sheet of blond to what feels like either edge of the earth. We are totally alone, shipwrecked on a slice of paradise, and I forget to breathe for a moment. I’m suspended in time, in space.

‘Shall we sit?’ Jamie says, pointing to an abandoned blanket looped over a washed-up tree trunk. It’s beside the bushes, a tiny little enclave for two.

‘This feels so … not natural,’ Jamie says, after a while.

‘Not hooking up?’ I say, and he chuckles. I’d been thinking it too.

‘And the rest.’

He’s right. To think we can fight whatever is between us is madness, especially if we’re always going to have to spend time together in the end. It’s Christmas all overagain, with the magnetic pull strong. Only this time, I know him better – and I know myself even better, too. Once bitten, twice shy: isn’t that what they say? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me? At Christmas I was willing to give Jamie my heart, but I won’t make that mistake again. Still. He’s a good man, and I will gladly give him my body. If I don’t, I think I might go mad from desire.

‘I really want you,’ I say.

‘Yeah?’ he replies.

‘Yeah,’ I whisper.

Maybe he won’t make the first move because of his stupid pledge to Laurie, but I maintain that it’s none of Laurie’s business and, what’s more, nobody has to know. IknowJamie understands that, too. He’s a loyal friend – he’s proved that. Laurie is lucky to have him, and Jamie is lucky to have Laurie. Jamie and me, though: it’s separate. It’s doesn’t matter. We’re allowed to give in to this temptation.

‘Come here,’ I intone, pulling at his face so that he looks at me.

And then he surrenders. Our lips meet, hard and meaningful. His tongue slips past my teeth and into my mouth, probing and exploring with grace and ease. Jamie’s afantastickisser. I lace my hands behind his head, tugging at his hair. He gives me a light moan – one that means he likes it, and he wants more.

The kiss lasts a long time and eventually I am on my back, Jamie on top of me, and I realise that he’s drawingthis out, making it last. His mouth moves slowly, lazily, like he wants to appreciate every second of what we’re doing. He holds my face with one hand, pulling me into him, so that his breath is my breath – we are one person. I’ve never been kissed this way. Never been kissed like I am the most special, beautiful, desired woman in the world. I let myself melt into him. I’m in no rush, either.

‘You’re fucking gorgeous,’ Jamie whispers eventually. ‘Sitting next to you at that dinner tonight …’

I smile. ‘Ditto,’ I say. ‘I thought about dragging you off to the bathroom with me.’

He laughs. ‘I would have gone,’ he tells me. ‘I’ve wanted you for such a long time.’

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