Page 67 of The Cornish Cream Tea Bookshop
She looked up at him. He was wearing a distinctly sheepish expression.
‘I dropped it off here before I met you at the pub. I hadn’t …’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I didn’t think ahead: the fact that you’d be walking back here on your own, so I’d end up coming with you. I wanted you to find it and light it tomorrow, spend your Saturday doing things for you, instead of researching book events or whatever it is I’m sure you’ve got planned.’
Ollie stood up and slid her fingers inside the pockets of his jacket, so she could drag him closer. ‘Are you saying that you got home from work, then drove here – after you knewI would have left to get to the pub – put this log on my doorstep, drove back home, then walked to the Sea Shanty?’
Max nodded.
‘And before that, did you chop down the tree yourself? In the forest, with an axe? Then take it home and tie fancy ribbons around it? Because, if so, that’s the most conflicting mix of Alpha male and softly sentimental that I’ve ever come across, and honestly, it’s making my heart flutter.’
Max laughed, the sound low and gravelly, which made the fluttering – that she hadn’t been lying about – intensify. ‘I went into the woods and found the Yule log,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t want to cut down a tree if I didn’t have to, and this one was waiting for me, as if it was fate.’
Ollie nodded. ‘But would you have cut down a tree for me, if you hadn’t found one?’
He bent his head towards hers. ‘I would.’
‘Right.’ She sounded breathless, as ifshehad chopped down a tree. ‘And this whole relaxing thing: the thing I’m supposed to do while the log’s burning?’
‘Yes?’ Their sentences were only 50 per cent words now, the rest coming out as sharp exhalations. Henry was pawing at the door, and Ollie stepped back to unlock it, to release her dog from his harness and let him inside.
She turned back to Max. ‘What constitutes relaxing, exactly? I mean, if I were to kiss you while the log was burning … Then, if I wanted to take that kiss further, maybe take off your coat, or even more layers?’
‘Mmm hmm?’
‘If I were to give in, and touch you in all the ways I’ve been imagining over the last few weeks, would that be against the rules of the Yule log?’
Max stared down at her. She thought that his green eyes were a shade darker than usual. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t think any of those things would be.’
‘No?’
He shook his head. ‘Sex is a release, isn’t it? Considered a good way of de-stressing.’
It was taking all her willpower to keep their conversation going. ‘Is that what we’d be doing, then? De-stressing?’
‘Among other things,’ Max whispered. ‘Except that, all the times I’ve thought about kissing you, touching you, it hasn’t been because I wanted to relieve stress. I have yoga for that.’
‘What has it been about, then?’ Ollie pulled him forwards, so they were standing in her doorway, the backs of her ankles pressed up against the Yule log.
‘It’s been about giving in to my feelings for you,’ Max said. ‘Seeing if being with you physically is as good as I’ve been imagining; if it brings me as much pleasure as I get spending time with you. And, mostly, it’s about seeing if I can make you feel good: as good as you make me feel.’
‘Those are all excellent reasons,’ she said, her lips close to his. ‘They chime with my own, in fact.’
‘That’s … I’m glad. So do you want to take the log inside and light it?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes please.’
‘OK.’ When Max’s next kiss came, it was so full of purpose, so all-consuming, that Ollie was surprised they were able to pause long enough to make it inside, that she had the forethought to settle Henry in his bed with a dog treat and a fresh bowl of water.
Max put the log in her fireplace, pulled the ribbons off, surrounded it with crumpled newspaper and lit it. They stood, watching as the paper caught fire, and the flames, after a few moments, licked across to the thick trunk of wood, the scent of forest filling the air.
Then Ollie turned to Max, stretching up as he bent his head, their lips meeting, his fingers tracing the bare skin of her back, underneath her top. She felt herself burning, melting at his touch, as if the fire in the grate had reached out and sparked her too. As they gave in to their feelings, as they lost their clothes and inhibitions, Ollie discovered that Max, just as she’d imagined, just as he’d hoped, could make her feelsogood: better than she could remember feeling for a long, long time.
When Monday morning arrived, Ollie was still in a blissful stupor that she had thought nothing could break through. Max had stayed with her all weekend, only returning home briefly on Saturday afternoon to make sure his cat was fed and watered. He told her that, most of the time, Oxo did his own thing anyway, and he knew of at least two neighbours whose houses he visited, so he was never starved of food or affection.
While he was gone, Ollie had spent an hour at the farmhouse, typing up Liam’s manuscript while he sorted through one of his bookshelves, scowling and grumping as he flung books into a box.
Ollie had allowed his behaviour to penetrate her fug of happiness.
‘What are those?’ she’d asked.
