Page 40 of A Cornish Love Story
‘This story is so much better for you now everything’s gone wrong. It’s gone from a bland property piece to a juicy disaster, so I’m starting to wonder if—’
‘If I had anything to do with this?’ I couldn’t hide my shock. ‘Are youserious? How do you think I went about hacking into your precious house?’
‘I don’t know – I don’t knowyouany more. I have no clue what you’re capable of.’
‘Ethan.’ I sucked in a breath. ‘I failed to charge my phone, so it’s currently on less than 10 per cent. I left my spare camera battery at home. I’m – I’m not some kind ofJames Bondlevel technological mastermind.’
‘Q is the tech wizard for James Bond – he doesn’t do any of it himself – and you could just be saying that.’
‘Andyoucould be accusing me to take suspicion off yourself, as well as being an extreme pedant! You’re the one who’s supposed to know the system back to front, but suddenly it’s outwitted you? Something about this is a little off, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it’s off! We’re trapped inside! You really think I planned this? That I wanted us to be stuck here together, with all that’s happened between us?’ He turned away from me, pushing the massage table up against the wall and pressing buttons so that the mechanism took hold and it slid back into its slot. I couldn’t see his expression, and that only increased my suspicion.
‘Maybe this was your way of getting to talk to me,’ I hypothesized.
He tapped the wall with the side of his fist. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘You could just besayingthat,’ I echoed.
‘You have a stronger motive than me – getting to be thestarreporter for theNorth Cornwall Star. A boost for your career. Unless you had another reason for coming today? Maybe you wanted to be trapped in here with me.’
‘I didn’t know anything about your precious Sparks system before I got here, and I’m not much better off now, especially asyouseem to have lost control of it, too.’
Ethan’s chest was rising and falling, anger still flushing his cheeks when he turned around, but he was a lot quieter when he said, ‘You know, I am actually wondering if your article is the real reason you came here tonight. It would be a great cover for something else.’
It was my turn to look away. I wished there was a view I could pretend to gaze at instead of the blackout window. ‘There’s no other reason.’
‘Really?’ he asked lightly. ‘And did you declare your personal interest in this story to your editor, or does she think you have no skin in the game?’
‘We’re ancient history, Ethan.’ I could sense him walking towards me, stalking me slowly.
‘Is that what we are?’ His words shivered over my neck, and I had to swallow a gasp. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Which bit?’
‘Any of it. But I haven’t decided if you’re somehowresponsible for the house shutting down, or if you were never here to write about it in the first place. Why are you here, Georgie? What is it you’re really—?’
‘Can youstopbreathing on my neck?’ I hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but it was so distracting, and his low, whispered words were doing funny things to me, resurrecting feelings that I’d been working so hard to supress.
‘You could move,’ he said, but he sounded reluctant. He put his hands on my shoulders, brushed them down my arms, his touch as light as a feather, over the sleeves of my dress and onto bare skin. ‘What are you really looking for?’
Those five words sent panic shooting through me and I spun around, dislodging his hands, staring up at him. I don’t know who moved first – if I stretched up, or he leaned down – but suddenly my lips were pressed firmly against his, and the sensation was so overwhelming, familiar and new all at once, that my thoughts disintegrated.
Ethan cupped the back of my head without a second’s hesitation, as if he’d been desperate for us to touch this way all along. I pressed myself against him, thin dress against thin shirt, hot skin beneath. I threaded my fingers together behind his neck, clung onto him as his mouth opened and my tongue slid inside at the invitation.
It had been so long since I’d felt like this, and I was shocked by how swiftly it had happened, how wild and unhinged I had become, how much I wanted him when, moments before, we’d been accusing each other of sabotage.
‘George,’ he whispered against my mouth, and I said his name back between kisses.
He slid his hand over my waist, down to the back of my thigh, and brought my leg up so it was anchored to his hip. I was already melting, and this only made it worse.
‘I didn’t mean to—’ he started.
‘It’s OK,’ I soothed, bringing his lips back to mine, not ready for it to end.
He tightened his grip on my leg. I had the wall hard against my back, and him – strong and warm and urgent – pressed against my front. I thought if I was just a little bit higher, or him lower, or maybe we could go back to the bed, where … I froze. The master bedroom where the nightlights would ping on, and we’d tell the house that we needed the Sex Setting, thank you very much, with rose petals falling from the ceiling and a bucket of champagne sliding up from a secret panel in the floor.
‘George?’ Ethan leaned back so he could look down at me. He slid his thumb over my flushed cheek, and I had to turn my head away, because there was something in his expression that made me want to devour him on the spot, and stroke his hair, and run a hundred miles in the opposite direction all at once.
