Page 59 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
It was the first time they’d kissed standing up, which was a novelty but, in reality, a little awkward. Sophy had never minded the disparity in their heights – she liked it that Charles was quite a bit taller than she was – but now she was having to stand on her tippiest of toes and stretch her neck in a position that it didn’t want to go, even though Charles was leaning down.
Eventually, reluctantly, he stole one last, devastating kiss, then stopped. ‘I love kissing you but this is agony,’ he drawled in her ear, which made Sophy shudder with lust.
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But we agreed that we’d only kiss. I’machingfor us to do more than that and I can only imagine that you’re aching even more but…’
‘No, no.’ Charles shushed her with a tiny kiss. Sophy could feel his lips curve in a smile. ‘I mean, yes. I am hurting in a rather basic part of my anatomy but what I meant was that kissing standing up like this is doing something to my neck that I don’t think my osteopath will be able to put right.’
‘Oh? Oh!’ The thought of Charles wanting her so badly… Sophy was suddenly seized with the urge to fling herself down on the cobbles and beg him to take her, though she wasn’t the type of person to ever find herself seized with those kinds of urges. ‘So, do you want to stop kissing then?’
Charles looked left then right but they were alone. ‘I’m sure we can find a way around this ergonomic problem. We’re both very practical people.’
‘Maybe there’s something I can stand on so I wouldn’t have to stretch and you wouldn’t have to bend.’
There were a couple of stone flower pots outside one of the houses further down but then they’d be out in the open, and also Sophy was wearing her fancy trainers in expectation of seeing Charles and much as she loved kissing him she didn’t want to get earth on them.
Perhaps this was God’s way of saying that they should just get in a cab and go back to Charles’s place and if they ended up doing more than kissing, then so be it.
‘We could always—’
‘Let’s try this,’ Charles interrupted, eyeing Sophy in a speculative fashion that made her knees tremble. ‘If I just…’
‘Oh, goodness!’ Sophy squeaked as he lifted her up – he must work out – turned her round so she now had her back against the wall and settled himself into the cradle of her hips.
‘You’d probably be more comfortable if you wrapped your legs round me,’ he suggested helpfully.
‘I probably would,’ Sophy agreed breathily as if she’d just run up Primrose Hill without stopping once. ‘I’m not too heavy?’
‘Not at all.’ Charles had one arm wrapped under Sophy’s thighs, which was doing nothing to alleviate her ache, and with his other hand he tipped up her chin. ‘In actual fact, you feel delightful. Shall we?’
He kissed her again. And again. And again. Though this time there was a lot more wriggling and even some grinding and Sophy couldn’t…
‘Ahem!’
She wanted to do more than kissing. A lot more and if she could just get her hand…
‘Ahem!’
…in between their frantically straining bodies and…
‘Oh my God, Sophy! What are you doing?’
Never had the voice of her conscience sounded so loud or so like Cress.
Sophy slowly drifted back into orbit to realise that Charles had stopped kissing her because Cress was standing not even two metres away from them and, even though it was dusky verging on dark now, Sophy could see very clearly the shocked expression on her face.
It was an ungraceful scramble to unlock her legs from round Charles’s hips and put her two unsteady feet back on the ground.
‘Hey Cress,’ she said weakly.
Charles looked heavenwards, grimaced at Sophy, then turned round to face the music and the judgement of her stepsister.
‘We’re both consenting adults,’ he said.
‘And we’re just kissing. Only kissing,’ Sophy added.
‘I don’t need to know the details.’ Cress did some anguished jazz hands. ‘Everyone was wondering where you’d got to. You nipped to the loo over an hour ago.’
‘Not an hour…’
