Page 72 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
But hang on! She didn’t want to be set free. She was perfectly fine in her ice prison, not cold at all, but safe. Prisons didn’t just keep people in, they kept other people out. Mattie pulled herself from Tom’s arms, and put a hand to her tingling lips.
‘Wow, what wasthatabout?’ Mattie asked slowly because she really wanted to know. ‘Did you kiss me or did I kiss you?’
Tom shook his head and held up a hand to his own lips, which looked twice the size that they had done before. His face was flushed and his eyes were dark. It was as if Mattie was seeing him for the very first time. Not the sort of man that you’d ever be embarrassed to kiss even if he was wearing that awful cardigan with the leather patches on the elbows.
He snatched up his glasses from the table, put them on and Superman was back to being Clark Kent. He stepped back and detangled himself from her legs, leaning back against the fridge as though he couldn’t hold himself up.
She’d been kissing Tom! Not even being kissed by Tom, but mutual kissing.
‘What just happened?’ Mattie asked again.
She waited for Tom to say something sneering about how she was still ridiculous and what’s more, she kissed ridiculously. He cleared his throat and Mattie steeled herself for Tom at his most cutting.
‘Oh God, Mattie, I’m so sorry. So sorry. Oh dear. What ever must you think of me?’ Tom took his glasses off again so he could polish them on the end of his shirt, which had come untucked. Mainly because Mattie had untucked it. Now she could see smooth skin, taut muscles and she had a sudden memory of how they’d felt under her hand, and it was her turn to flush …
‘Really, I can’t apologise enough,’ Tom said quickly, mistaking Mattie’s pink cheeks as a sign of maidenly outrage. ‘I don’t know what came over me. Forcing myself on you …’
‘No!’ Mattie had to stop him right there. ‘You didn’t force yourself on me. I was a willing kissee. Not even a kissee. I was a kisser.I was kissing you.Why did we do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
They looked at each other, confusion writ large on their faces.
‘I absolutely don’t fancy you,’ Mattie said because she wanted Tom, and herself, to be very clear about that.
‘Believe me, I don’t fancy you either.’ Tom frowned.
‘It must never happen again,’ Mattie said with grim finality.
‘Too right.’ Tom took a step and collapsed into the chair he’d been sitting on, as if his legs really could no longer support him. ‘Look, you don’t have to worry … I’ll … I’ll move out.’
‘Really, you don’t have to move out,’ she said with feeling. ‘I’m sure it was just a heat-of-the-moment thing.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’ Tom could hardly keep the relief out of his voice. ‘And you don’t have to worry that I’m going to make a habit of kissing you.’
‘I should think not!’ Mattie had to tear her eyes away from Tom sitting there, with his shirt still untucked, his lips all kiss-bitten, long legs stretched out. She quickly gathered their glasses and their brownie plates, so she could hurry to the sink and not have to look at him because looking at him was making her come undone. ‘New house rule: No kissing! Agreed?’
‘Agreed!’ Tom said quickly. ‘So we’re good then, you and I?’
They were far from good. They’d only recently formed a fragile friendship, which now seemed in jeopardy and, to make cohabiting even more complicated, they’d just kissed like kissing was about to be rationed.
‘Of course we’re good!’ Mattie assured him, turning around to flash Tom a bright and insincere smile.
‘So that’s all sorted then,’ Tom said. ‘Everything’s great.’
‘Never been better,’ Mattie chirped, turning back to the sink so she could pull an agonised face at the glass she was rinsing.
Mattie hardly slept that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she was assaulted by a sense memory of being kissed by Tom. An HD, 3D, surround-sound playback of Tom kissing her and Mattie clinging to him like he was about to go off to war. Then she’d have to fling the covers back to cool down.
But she must have fallen asleep at some point because she was rudely awakened by the persistent buzz of her phone.
‘I’m down here with all your fruit and veg and a traffic warden who’s circling the block,’ said Charlie when Mattie answered it, and she realised that she’d overslept and had to fly downstairs in her pyjamas to sort out the delivery. There had been a thick ground frost overnight and her fingers were blue by the time she waved Charlie off.
The rude awakening set the tone for the rest of the day. Mattie never managed to catch up with herself and was still in her pyjamas trying to frantically get her breakfast bakes done in time, when Meena, Cuthbert and finally Sophie arrived.
And it was just as well that Mattie didn’t have a spare moment because when her brain wasn’t busy enough, it was devoted to Tom. Tom’s lips. Tom’s hands on her hips. Tom … coming into the tearooms at exactly thirteen minutes past ten, as he did every morning. As if last night,the kiss, had never happened.
Of course, he arrived during the two minutes when Mattie had left the kitchen so she could arrange her second batch of morning pastries, still warm from the oven, on the counter.
