But afterwards, I could hardly remember a thing we said, because it seemed like every word was about something else. When he lifted his drink, I found myself staring at his hand, looking at his blunt fingers wrapped around the glass and wondering how it would feel when he touched me. When he took a sip, I wanted to run my finger over his bottom lip. When he rubbed his shorn head, I wished it was my hand doing it, and I could almost feel the suede-like smoothness on my palm.
What the hell is wrong with you, Zoë? I asked myself, but my brain wasn’t able to engage even in that simple question. It was like I didn’t even have a brain any more, only a body that wanted to get as close as possible to this irresistibly sexy man.
As if Seth sensed my feelings, he nudged his chair closer to mine, so that our denim-clad knees were just an inch or so apart, and when I uncrossed my legs to cross them back the other way, my thigh touched his. Our eyes met again, he smiled and I felt his hand on my leg, resting there, heat spreading through my jeans and my skin and my whole body.
And when he finished his drink and said, ‘Shall we go?’ I could only nod, watching mutely as he paid the bill and letting him guide me to the door, a warm, strong arm around my shoulder. He was taller than me but only just, thanks to my unfamiliar heels. If he kissed me, he’d only have to lean down a tiny bit.
It was still light outside, so bright after the gloom of the bar I felt almost disorientated – although that might have been the gin. Pavement tables were crowded with people eating, drinking and smoking, enjoying what would be almost the longest day of the year. The air was cool against my skin, and I realised my whole body felt hot, as if I’d been lying in the sun.
‘So,’ Seth said. ‘Back to mine?’
‘Sure.’ I tried to sound casual, like I did this sort of thing all the time, but part of me was terrified. What was I doing? No one knew where I was. This man could be an axe murderer.
‘I’m not an axe murderer,’ he said.
‘Like you’d admit to it if you were. Imagine. “Come back to mine – oh, by the way, I’m an axe murderer.”’
He laughed. ‘Not the strongest of pick-up lines. Which is why I stopped using it years ago.’
It was my turn to laugh. ‘So what line do you use now? When you’re not meeting people online, that is?’
‘I don’t. I just rely on personal magnetism.’
That was it, I realised. This average-looking dude – above average, maybe, but not someone whose picture you’d put on your bedroom wall and daydream over when you were fifteen – had magnetism. Charisma. Some elusive quality which, whatever you called it, made me go weak at the knees and made me self-conscious of my lips in a way that had nothing to do with lipstick, and of my breasts in a way that had nothing to do with the lacy bra I was wearing, which was digging into my ribs and itching like a bastard.
‘It’s just down here,’ Seth said as we turned off the main road onto a side street lined with tall stucco-fronted houses, most of them painted white but the occasional one pastel pink or green. The one he stopped in front of was pale yellow.
He unlocked the front door and gestured to me, and I climbed a narrow staircase, up and up to the third floor. My heart was hammering by the time we got to the top, and not just from the many steps. He followed me onto the landing and seconds later we were in his flat.
It was a gorgeous room – high-ceilinged, with the evening sunlight streaming in through tall sash windows. But it didn’t stream for long, because Seth crossed the room, lowered the blinds and switched on a lamp, bathing the room in a soft glow like honey and transforming it instantly from an ordinary lounge into a love nest.
‘Drink?’ he suggested, and I accepted gratefully. ‘The bathroom’s just through there.’
A few minutes later, I was sitting next to him on a squashy cream sofa, sipping another martini that was just as expertly made as the one I’d had in the bar. This, I realised, was a practised seduction scene: the lamplight, the gin, Seth’s arm along the back of the sofa almost but not quite touching my shoulder.
‘So,’ he said, ‘here we are.’
‘Here we are,’ I agreed, carefully putting my glass down on the polished wooden coffee table and turning to face him.
‘You’re very beautiful, you know,’ he told me, and then he kissed me.
I wasn’t the most experienced person in the world, when it came to sex, but from that moment on I knew I was in the hands of an expert. Seth’s kiss was perfect: not too hard, not too tentative, not too much tongue and no teeth whatsoever. I kissed him back, my lipstick forgotten, my hands reaching up around his shoulders, feeling the breadth of his back and the softness of his cotton shirt.
Expertly, one-handed, he undid the few tiny buttons of my top, and I felt the fabric sliding off my shoulder and his lips move from my mouth to my neck, then down to my chest. I unbuttoned his shirt too, not so expertly, needing two hands, and felt the heat of his skin, smelling shower gel or cologne or deodorant and something more primal that was pure man.
I slipped my feet out of my shoes and felt the plushness of the rug between my toes, then lost myself again in his kiss, feeling the softness of his lips, the scratch of his stubble, the silkiness of his chest hair under my fingers. His hands brushed against my breasts and I felt my nipples almost painfully hard against the lace of my bra. I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me, and we both laughed, breaking off the kiss.
‘Come on.’ He helped me to my feet, which was just as well because I was sure I wouldn’t have been able to stand otherwise. He unbuttoned my jeans and slid them down my legs, then gently lowered me back onto the sofa and pulled them over my feet, kneeling on the carpet in front of me.
My bare thighs looked slender and pale against the cream velvet; my skin was very white against my black lace underwear. I could see myself through his eyes and, for the first time in what felt like forever, I felt potently sexy, desirable, desired. He unhooked my bra and bent his head to kiss my breasts, and I closed my eyes again, losing myself in the sensation as his lips found my nipples and his hand moved lower to ease my pants down over my hips. I felt like my whole body was melting, becoming boneless, liquid with pleasure.
He was kissing my thighs now, his hands easing my legs apart so he could see me, open me for his tongue. I heard myself gasp with pleasure, then almost cry out as his mouth found the perfect spot.
It had been so long – too long – since I’d last been given an orgasm, but in the next hour I more than made up for lost time. Seth brought me to the brink over and over again, then let me slip over it once, twice and a final time before he even took off his jeans. By then I was limp with longing, and when he slid his cock into me I legit thought I’d arrived in heaven.
I know, right? A bit of a fuss about what was, after all, just a shag (well, three shags, strictly speaking – Seth didn’t exactly stint on the orgasms for himself either). But as shags go, that night was right up there. It was a Michelin-starred dinner of shags, a shag Oscar winner, the kind of shag that would earn Olympic gold. It really, really was that good.
It was almost midnight when we finally admitted defeat, too satiated and sore to attempt round four. We’d moved to Seth’s bedroom by then, and I was lying in his arms, both of us sweaty and panting and entirely satisfied.