‘Well, isn’t it obvious?’
Suddenly, Holly twigged. If Charlie couldn’t move his hands, then there was only one thing to do; she’d have to undo his flies. And she had to do it while ignoring the urge to make any jokes about honourable members. ‘Are you serious?’ Laughter won again.
‘Just bloody well get on with it, will you,’ Charlie snapped, hands still firmly glued to his knee.
‘This is going to be a bit tricky from the position you’re in,’ Holly said, trying her hardest to keep a straight face.
‘Hurry up.’
Kneeling down in front of him, smothering the thought that in another context this would be extremely erotic, Holly found herself nose to groin with Charlie. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes,’ Charlie hissed. ‘Never more so.’
Hands trembling slightly, suddenly nervous, Holly reached out and gently unbuckled Charlie’s tan leather belt, before fumbling a little with the button of his trousers. Finally managing to release it, she unzipped his flies, trying not to notice Charlie’s figure-hugging grey boxer shorts, or, to be truthful, to stare at what they contained. From this angle, had she dared to look for longer than a second, the view was very interesting.
‘Do you want me to, er, take your trousers down?’ Holly asked, glancing upwards at Charlie. Because he was bent over, his face was quite close to hers, and she felt a stab of sympathy as she realised just how embarrassed he was by this whole situation.
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Charlie said stiffly, his face rather flushed.
‘OK. Here goes. Try not to let go of the mouse while I do it.’
‘Bugger the mouse,’ Charlie muttered, but his hands stayed put either side of it.
Carefully, mindful of the strange angle and not wanting Charlie to be mortified any more than he was already, Holly eased down Charlie’s trousers until they were around his knees. ‘I think you can let go now,’ she said as they both paused.
‘I’m not sure I can,’ Charlie said.
‘Of course you can,’ Holly said, stifling the urge to laugh again. Charlie’s constituents would have a field day with this if they ever found out. The MP and the mouse would be a story to dine out on. If she ever went to dinner parties, that was.
‘Shit. You’d better undo my shoes, too, before I take off my trousers or it’ll get stuck if it goes down.’
Holly lost the battle against the giggles this time, but, not daring to look Charlie in the eye, she quickly untied his shoes and helped him to step out of them.
‘OK, we’re good,’ she said. ‘If you take your top hand away, I’ll pull your trousers right down and hopefully I’ll be able to catch the little bugger on the way out. Three… two… one…’
In a split second, Holly found herself crushed under Charlie’s weight as he caught his right foot in the hem of his trousers and fell forward. From the corner of her eye, she saw the small, brown field mouse, the cause of so much aggravation, scuttle out from the top of Charlie’s left trouser leg and dash underneath her sideboard, but what was more pressing was the warm, slightly trembling body that had ended up on top of hers, and the stirring of something even more alive than the mouse inside a certain pair of grey boxer shorts.
‘Did you see where it went?’ Holly asked, once she’d tried to draw air back into her slightly winded lungs.
‘Not really,’ Charlie murmured from his position on top of her. ‘I was more interested in trying not to crush you to death.’
‘I’m not sure if you managed it,’ Holly said, realising that Charlie seemed disinclined to move. Their lips were very close as he hovered above her, and she felt another distinct stirring from where their hips were touching, which turned her insides into fluttering, flapping madness. It was certainly proving even more difficult to breathe.
‘Are you OK?’ Charlie said, a husky note in his voice.
‘I think so,’ Holly replied. ‘But I think the mouse got away again.’
‘Sorry about that.’ He really didn’t sound sorry.
The pause stretched for a delicious, aching moment as their lips hovered just a breath away. Holly craved that final step and desperately wanted to wrap a thigh around Charlie where he was lying between her legs. Heart hammering, she shifted slightly so that their lips were millimetres apart. She could feel his breath hitching in his throat as he looked down at her, and she was willing it to be down to more than just the adrenaline rush from the mouse up his trouser leg. Closer… closer…
‘Are we interrupting something?’ A deeply amused voice came from the same door that Charlie had entered a few minutes ago, followed by the pattering of toddler’s footsteps.
‘Rachel, Harry!’ Holly gasped as two pairs of feet, one small, one larger, came into her sight line.
‘Next time you fancy getting jiggy with the local MP, perhaps it would be wise to lock your back door before you start,’ Rachel said wryly, her face, once it came into view as Holly shifted, asking a thousand questions that Holly didn’t think she’d ever be able to answer. Holly, for once struck dumb, wondered how she was going to explain this one to her sister.
Harry, round-eyed with wonder at seeing his aunt pinned beneath a strange man with his trousers around his ankles, suddenly pointed in excitement. ‘Look, Mummy, look, Aunty Holly!’ Turning her head to see where he was pointing, Holly saw the brown field mouse, the reason for this ridiculous situation, scuttling nonchalantly past her nose and under her Welsh dresser.
12
After the mouse debacle, Holly wasn’t quite sure how she or Charlie got through his booked massage, especially since Rachel took her time to leave with Harry, having just popped in to collect a couple of toys Harry had suddenly decided he couldn’t live without, which he had left in the flat during his last visit. Once she’d dispatched her sister and nephew, Rachel’s amused gaze lingering long after they’d left, Holly decided to just ignore what had gone on. She was mortified, and from the way Charlie readily agreed to head back down to the shop to keep the appointment, she sensed he was, too. There was certainly something a little different in the air than the first time, and she felt a mixed sense of disappointment and relief when it was over.
As he emerged from the treatment room, looking more relaxed than when he’d entered it (although, to be fair, he couldn’t have been much more tense in the wake of the mouse incident), Holly looked up from her yoga mat. She hadn’t been able to let go of the tumult of emotions that the whole thing had unleashed, and coupled with that was the nagging, unnerving, unresolved issue of the photo in the suitcase. Although now was hardly the time to bring that up in conversation.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked him softly as he closed the treatment room door behind him.
‘Pretty good,’ he replied. ‘All things considered!’
Holly smiled. ‘I’m glad.’
There was an almost imperceptible pause between them.
‘So, er, how much do I owe you?’ Charlie asked. He fumbled in the inside pocket of his jacket for his wallet.
‘I sort of feel like I should be paying you compensation for what you went through earlier!’ Holly said.