“I’m sure someone will come and collect you before then.”
“Great.” Great that I’ve been addressing my emails with such reverences as hi! and see you soon!
A teaspoon chinks against the countertop. “I’ll be off then, but I’ll see you in the morning! Come along, Gertie.” She taps a hand to her thigh, and the dog lumbers after her.
Carrying my tea—mainly because the cup warms my hands; I’m not a great fan of hot tea generally—I inspect the rest of the small cottage. A small, square living room with a sofa, a small TV, and an overuse of chintz. A bedroom with a pair of squeaky twin beds and a bathroom that has seen better days. But it’s all clean and kind of homey in its own way, and more importantly, mine for however long I stay. Overall, I’m thankful for my blessings, for opportunities risen from the strangest of places. Not to mention acquaintances.
Pulling out my phone, I sink into the tweed-covered sofa, intending to call my sister to let her know I’ve arrived. My fingers fumble, and I clutch it to my chest to prevent it from hitting the carpet. It seems like injustice rather than divine intervention when the screen lights with a photograph I should’ve deleted months ago.
Alexander, not quite in profile, his face angled away as I’d snuck the picture on my way to the bathroom in that Latin club.
I should delete it now.
Instead, I study the sharpness of his cheekbone and the colour of his hair. This is the kind of face that stops a girl in her tracks. Not that I think he’d notice, not because he’s stupid or oblivious—far from it—but it has probably happened so often, he no longer notices it. I mean, look at how hard I had to work to be seen by him, seen as something other than a woman who needed rescuing. And now he’s rescued me twice. Once in the hotel and then by putting me in contact with Sarah Houghton, getting me this job.
Yep, this is a face that is no doubt handsome, but there’s an arrogance to the man, too. I’d felt it in the way his hands followed the curves of my body and the command of his mouth on mine. But I won’t experience it again, and something tells me I should probably see that as a good thing.
I imagine his haughty look if he could see my thumb hovering over the delete button. The little trash can. And with one last look, I tell myself it’s for the best as I consign his handsome face to the past.
Delete.
13
Alexander
It was easier when she was a tourist. When I knew only her first name and the vast country she was flying back to. There was some peace in the realisation that I would never see her again. That she would be the kind of obsession that lived only in my head. A fascination without chance of an outlet. But then I saw her again, and the fascination took a more manic turn. Like an addict just one call away from his dealer, it seems I am constantly just one call away from discovering exactly where she is.
Sometimes, I try to satisfy the craving in other ways. I might recall snippets of our night together. Sometimes whole scenes. Occasionally, my imagination takes me elsewhere, like seeing her at the London house, imagining I’d acted on my impulses, whisking her from the frigidly cold lane to my bedroom upstairs. I mostly try to ignore the temptation. To push all thoughts of her out of my head. But sometimes the enticement is too great . . .
“You’re . . . a Viking.” The sound of her lilting accent seems to come from nowhere, my eyes immediately unseeing on the papers spread out on the desk in front of me. But I don’t have time to indulge in idle fantasies this evening. No time to reminisce. Yet my answer from that night echoes in my head.
“Is it the beard that gives it away?” Reaching out, I’d curled a lock of damp hair behind her ear then trailed my fingers down her bare shoulder.
“I think you look like a modern-day Viking might look.” Her hand caught the rasp of stubble on my cheek.
“Are you trying to say you feel invaded?” She certainly made me feel like a marauding berserker, though it would take a better man than me to conquer Holland. “In a good way, I hope.”
“It was a thorough campaign,” she’d said with a satisfied-sounding sigh.
Little did we both know I wasn’t done at that point.
“I think Vikings would be bankers in this century.” All the stealing, I’d presumed.
“Possibly,” I’d answered, though perhaps not on the same wavelength as her.
“Ah, so you are a banker?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you look like a Viking,” she’d replied with a laugh. “Or the son of one.”
“Almost.”
“How can you be almost a banker, or a son of one?”
“I meant that you’re only one letter out from describing my father.”
Her brows contracted before she flashed that delectable dimple, a small smile breaking free as she works it out. Banker to wanker.
“That’s a terrible thing to call a parent.”
She looked genuinely shocked, but God, she looked so lovely. Naked and lovely, the evidence of our recent shower glistening like diamonds against her silky skin. Her halo of dark hair was stark against the snowy pillow, and she’d curled her hands like an angel beneath her cheek. An angel I’d fucked in the shower less than an hour before, but not before bending her over the vanity, whispering that she should watch as I fingered her. Until her palm met the mirror and her knees buckled. I’d needed her to see what I was seeing, to in some way share how special she was to me.
A one-night obsession fulfilled. The nights so much emptier since.
“Not if it’s the truth.”
“It’s very disrespectful.” But no more than he deserved. “Respecting your elders isn’t done enough these days.”
“Is that why you were doing in the bathroom? Respecting me?” Because she can respect me on her knees anytime.
“Not to mention, an awfully British insult.” she’d added in a terrible fake British drawl. I thought she’d ignore the rest when she’d cheekily added, “I just have an affinity for the elderly.”
I find myself indulging in a small smile at the recollection. I’d show her elderly, given half the chance. I’d get her to sing the national anthem—hers or mine—in that terrible fake accent just to see if she could reach the end as I tongue fucked her.
My smile slowly falls as I realise that will never happen.
I’m never going to have her again.
I clear my throat in the empty room, beginning to shuffle the papers in front of me. I’m a busy man; I shouldn’t be idling in the past. But it seems I have no choice as I hear her voice again.
“So awfully, awfully British.”
I close my eyes and I palm myself over my trousers, unable to resist the lure of her again.
“You make that sound like a bad thing.” I’d found myself drawing closer, my lips ghosting her silky shoulder, my fingers drawing lazy circles against her narrow back. “I can’t be all bad, can I?”
“Says the man with the killer smoulder.”
“I wouldn’t even know what that looks like,” I’d crooned, the words whispering over her skin.
“Don’t play the innocent,” she’d chided, even as her body reacted to my touch, relaxing against me, lengthening like a cat in a patch of sunshine.