I look away and hope like hell he can’t see me blush.
Slowly, he reaches across and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. His finger draws across the tip of my ear with a featherlight touch. It’s painfully slow, so much so I’m aware there’s every chance someone will one day make a Netflix documentary about me entitled The Spontaneous Human Combustion of Katharine Patterson. Instinctively, I close my eyes and feel myself lean into the palm of his hand.
‘Are you trying to distract me?’ I ask, looking at his lips just as he licks them.
‘Is it working?’
He tips my chin towards him as he bends to kiss me, tripping my pulse and chasing a thrill up my back. For all our talk, our jokes and innuendo, this is about as real as it gets. I brush my mouth over his, again and again, and, as he eases his tongue inside, it becomes fevered and desperate.
We manage to tumble up the stairs, knocking against the wall and gripping the bannister, listening to the scratch of a photo frame slip against the plaster.
‘I have thought about this all fucking morning,’ he whispers in my ear.
Despite the warmth of his breath, my skin prickles. I have, too.
Through jagged breaths and breathless promises, we grapple with zips and buttons, boots that won’t unlace and fall about in laughter when that one pesky leg of my jeans just will not budge. I feel the mattress dip and wobble between my legs as he snatches it away.
In that moment when it slips off the side of the bed and he’s finally inside me, it’s so easy to pretend like nothing and no one outside this room exists. We aren’t cramped in the front seat of a car, nor are we rushed at the end of a long week. This is completely intentional, and we have all afternoon to prove it to each other.
When the sex is that good, once is never enough. It’s late afternoon by the time we untangle the sheets and ourselves and decide that getting something done today isn’t the worst idea in the world.
‘You know, if you have one more piece to do, you could always paint me.’ I bat my eyelids. ‘Inspiring local icon that I am.’
‘Oh, I could, could I?’ He’s standing about in bare feet, and I’m sure his shirt is buttoned incorrectly. ‘Are you offering to pose for a life drawing class? I’m not sure what I just saw is family-appropriate, but I have been thinking of adding them to my already massive repertoire.’
‘As impressive as your massive repertoire is, it would only be for you.’
‘Only for me?’ He smiles coquettishly. ‘I feel so exclusive.’
Before I can draw breath, his hand swings out and I feel the cold wet swill of a paintbrush across my face. I draw my hand across my upper lip and look at the blue stain left of my hand.
I cough and splutter as the odour hits me between the eyes and burns up my nostrils. ‘That is so pungent.’
‘Just be thankful it’s not something worse.’ He grabs my chin to stop me from moving as he rubs at the colour. Judging by how hard he’s rubbing, it’s not moving. ‘You look like a post-orgasmic Smurf.’
Laughter springs forth. ‘Never have I thought of a Smurf in that context.’
‘Here I am, bringing the weird and the wonderful experiences to you. Free of charge.’
‘Katharine, are you ready?’
I just about jump out of my skin, turning to find my best friend, dressed up to the nines, standing in the doorway with her hand poised to knock.
‘Lainey?’ I look at her, surprised.
She frowns. ‘What, don’t tell me you forgot?’
Oh, shit. Her hen do.
Chapter 27
‘Help me,’ I mouth to Christopher.
‘What?’ he says with a laugh. ‘No.’
‘No?’ I can hear Lainey approaching from behind. ‘You have to come out with me. Please.’
I’m barely changed and looking only slightly less shagged when Lainey drags me outside to the waiting car and sighs heavily as she opens the back door of Frank’s car. ‘Katharine, this is Hunter. We thought you’d like to meet him.’
Not again.
The last thing I need is to be set up with somebody, anybody. Hunter’s in the back seat, drawing his fingers through curly dark hair and waving nervously, and everybody is hoping I’ll just slip right in beside him and cruise off into the night.
I glance at Frank in the driver’s seat. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s pretending he can’t see me.
‘You’ve, er, got a—’ Hunter gestures to his own face ‘—got a bit of a Violet Beauregarde thing going on there.’
Frank can barely contain his laughter. ‘It’s very becoming. Not sure it’ll catch on though.’
‘What?’ Oh shit, the paint.
‘I’ll be just a second.’ I dodge a delivery van that zings past and is almost launched from a pothole and scuttle back inside. I reach for the rag and bottle of thinners again.
‘Give me five minutes.’ Christopher stills me with a finger. It’s then I realise he’s washing his brush and he’s not picking new colours; he’s preparing to leave. ‘I’ll pack up and be out of your hair.’
‘What?’ I ask. ‘No. Come with us. Leave that here and come with us.’
‘Katharine, I don’t think they mean for me to come with you.’
We both look outside to the car, to Hunter in the back seat, and to Lainey gesticulating wildly about something I feel might involve me. There no two ways about it; they don’t want Christopher there; I do. I’m twisted like a pretzel trying to work out which obligation to fulfil.
I turn back to Christopher. ‘Too bad. I’m asking you to come with me.’
He drops his head and lifts his eyes to mine as if to say, Are you serious?
‘Christopher, please?’ I try, rubbing at my face. ‘Gah, look at me with all this paint. Am I just spreading it around?’
‘To be fair, you were more beautiful five minutes ago covered in paint.’
My shoulders slip. Trust him to throw that word out at a moment like this.
‘Are you coming with us?’ I ask. ‘Or at least give me an excuse to stay? Tell me I can’t go because you’re not done.’
‘Katharine, it’s your friend’s hen do.’
‘Combined stag,’ I point out.
He shakes his head with an irritated laugh. ‘How about if I just stay here and finish my painting and you go out and party?’
‘Are you even listening to me? I want you there,’ I say.
He shrugs, but something in the way he won’t make eye contact tells me he’s not as nonchalant about this as he makes out.
‘What?’ he says. ‘Your friends have obviously got plans for you. Heaven forfend I get in the way. Anyway, it’ll do you good to get out of here for the night.’
‘Oh, come on!’ I laugh incredulously. ‘Are you seriously upset with me? I forgot about tonight. And what if their plans aren’t what I want anymore?’
‘Yes, but you clearly did agree to this at some point.’ He swings an arm towards the diorama outside. ‘So a) you should go and b) I don’t want to get in the way.’
There’s no need for this. He’s gone from spirited to solemn in five minutes flat and I cannot work out why. I feel like I could shout his name from a mountain top and he still wouldn’t hear anything other than what he wants to. I’m so confused right now. More than that, I’m frustrated. I’m locked in a shopfront and banging on the windows to be let out.