Page 71 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
‘See, I never actually said that Ihatedromantic fiction. People just assumed. When people assume, they make an ass out of you and me.’
‘You are so full of it,’ Mattie said, staring at him. Tom stared right back at her so she was suddenly self-conscious about her face. Not what it looked like, there wasn’t much she could do about that, but that she still couldn’t tear her eyes away from him and she wasn’t sure what to do with her mouth. Licking her lips or catching the bottom one between her teeth, or even letting her mouth hang open slightly, all felt odd. And the more she contorted her mouth, the more Tom stared. Who could blame him?
And yet the Tom she was staring at was very different from the Tom he’d been describing. ‘So … is that why you wear all these old clothes? The bow-ties, the cardigans? Because it’s about as far away from wearing black leather as you can get?’
‘Can we never mention the black leather thing ever again?’ Tom asked, then he looked down at his clothes. ‘I suppose they are quite the antithesis of my former wardrobe, but also I was a very poor PhD student on part-time bookseller wages so I could only afford second-hand clothes. And I did find it rather amusing to affect the look of what one imagines an academic or a bookseller might wear …’
‘Yeah, if they were born a hundred years ago.’ Mattie held her hands up. ‘Not that I’m judging.’
‘Though funnily enough, you sound very judgemental,’ Tom tried to narrow his eyes but only succeeded in squinting. ‘And as you’re someone who wears the same outfit every day, I don’t really think you’re in a position to pass judgement on my sartorial choices.’
‘Not thesameoutfit. I have multiple copies,’ Mattie protested. ‘Like a uniform. Saves me from having to plan an outfit every day and anyway, what I wear is mostly hidden by an apron.’
‘I did wonder if the all-black ensembles were meant to make you look unattractive—’
‘Ibegyour pardon?’ That stung almost as much as the quick shot of vodka that Mattie gulped down.
‘Yes, because you hateallmen. Apart from your brother and Cuthbert …’ Tom paused, not because of Mattie’s furious intake of breath but because he was pouring himself another shot of vodka. ‘Who else? Maybe Sam – by the way, I caught him and Little Sophie snogging in the Foreign Language section, which was beyond awkward, but I digress – you also don’t hate the guy who supplies your fruit and veg, and I think that’s it.’
Mattie scraped her chair back so she could stand over Tom and glare at him.
‘I don’t dress in black to make myself look unattractive to men. What a ridiculous thing to say. You’re ridiculous!’
Tom glared back and then he was getting to his feet too.
‘You’re more ridiculous!’ he insisted and they were nose to nose now, or they would have been if Tom weren’t a good eight inches taller than Mattie.
She had to tilt her head. ‘No! I think you’ll find that you’re much more ridiculous than I am.’
It was funny peculiar rather than funny haha, but looking up at Tom should have ensured that Mattie caught him at his most unflattering angle, but he was looking down at her and his face was all tight and prissy, which actually did wonderful things to his cheekbones. Tom had cheekbones?
‘You are the most ridiculous person since records began,’ Tom countered, and this was the most pointless, most stupid, yes, mostridiculousargument that Mattie had ever had.
‘You … you’re much more ridiculous than I am. In your ridiculous glasses that you don’t even need.’ And Mattie couldn’t believe that she was doing this, reaching up quickly to pluck the glasses from Tom’s face before he realised what she was doing.
He didn’t blink owlishly at her, which he would have done if he’d needed to wear them. Instead his eyes, which were practically all pupil, narrowed.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he said in a low voice, which made something in Mattie quiver in a very good, very unexpected way.
‘Why not?’ Mattie tilted her chin in a way that her family and close friends knew only too well. It meant that she was spoiling for a fight; that she wasn’t going to back down from a challenge. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
There was a moment’s pause, both of them breathing hard, so that Mattie imagined that she could hear the beat of her own frantically pounding heart.
She locked eyes with Tom, lifted her chin again …
‘I’m going to dothis.’ And before Mattie could ask whatthiswas, Tom was kissing her.
Tom was kissing her!
Mattie was kissing Tom!
His mouth moving on hers insistently, passionately and with considerable expertise, and Mattie’s kissing skills might have been rusty and all but forgotten these last two years, but it was all coming back to her now.
How lovely it was to be held in someone’s arms, his hands splayed on her hips as her hands wound through his hair so that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.
Though he didn’t seem to want to. In fact, he seemed quite happy to be kissing her, one hand sliding up her body in a slow, unhurried and entirely pleasurable way to cradle her cheek.
Tom’s mouth became more insistent, more demanding, and he twisted them both round so that he could bump her up on to the edge of the table, not that Mattie minded, as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She gave in to the insistence, the demand and opened up to him so she could taste vodka and chocolate and chilli heat that was no match for the sudden fire in her blood, in her belly; as if she’d spent the last two years encased in ice and Tom had turned up with a blowtorch …
