‘Hmm…?’ I gave him my best innocent expression.
‘Why did you kiss me on the wheel? You were the one who said no flirting and no funny business. Those wereyourrules but you’re the one who keeps crossing the line. Hand-holding at the weekend. Kissing today.’
‘And both were examples of what you rightly labelled an “ulterior motive”. The hand-holding was about ingratiating ourselves, giving a trustworthy impression. Today, it was just a distraction tactic to take your mind off your panic attack. I told you that at the time.’
‘Right. So it’s pure coincidence that your solution to everything happens to be physical contact? Nothing to do with being attracted to me?’
‘No. I mean, yes. To the first. Coincidence, only.’ My heart thumped heavily as his head tilted slightly. He would notice that I had dodged the question about being attracted to him. But I reallyhadn’tmade the decision to kiss him because of that. The last thing I wanted to do was kiss him when I found him utterly,maddeningly gorgeous and yet knew there was absolutely no future in giving in to that. OK, well, maybe not thelastthing. But it wouldn’t have been a sensible move. It had been purely an act of kindness – to make up for forcing him on the wheel in the first place.
‘You know, if you are attracted to me, you don’t need to make up excuses to kiss me. You just have to ask.’ His voice was low, hypnotising, and he smoothed his fingers over a loose strand of my hair. Rather than tuck it behind my ear this time, he followed it down, tracing the line of it along my neck. ‘Have you never considered what it would have been like between us? If it hadn’t all been a ruse on New Year’s Eve? If we had met up and done some of the things we talked about in those messages?’ He leaned in closer. ‘Do you remember saying that you wondered what I would taste like? Is there anything else you’d like to find out?’
I shook my head. Unable to speak. Mint. His mouth tasted of mint and salt and sin. As to anywhere else…
‘You haven’t wondered? You haven’t imagined it? Us, skin on skin, a long night ahead of us.’ His fingertip danced along my collarbone and my body warmed in ways that had nothing to do with the summer heatwave, or the bag of hot donuts leaking grease onto my chest.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment. I needed to get it together. This was not going to happen. I wasnotgoing to let him seduce me. I wasnotgoing to be another conquest he would move on from in a matter of days.
‘I imagined everything,’ I said in a husky whisper that I didn’t have to fake at all. He moved back to look me in the face and the heat in his eyes captured me – almost made me forget I was supposed to be putting him back in his place. It would’ve been so easy to let him kiss me. Properly. But no. I squashed down the part of me that was aching for it and raised an eyebrow at him,smiling. ‘I’m a writer; I always imagine everything. I imagined what it was like to kiss you. And to slap you around the face. To wake up with you in the morning. To pour a milkshake over your head. Curse of the writer’s brain.’ I shrugged. ‘It doesn’t mean I want any of those things to really come true – after all, I write about murders for a living.’
‘It genuinely meant nothing, then?’
‘It was exactly what I said it was. A distraction for you. It kinda worked and now we don’t need any more distractions so…’ I made a little motion with my hand for him to back up and give me some space. He obliged, slowly. Thank God. I needed oxygen that wasn’t laced with Stephen. ‘Donut?’
‘Thank you.’ He grabbed one out of the bag, and took a bite. I could see a smile tug at the edge of his mouth and sugar glistening on his lips. My mouth was watering. ‘Have you ever done the donut challenge?’ he asked.
‘Eat a whole one without licking your lips? I’ve heard of it. Seems a bit pointless to me. You should just eat the donut and enjoy it.’
‘Feeling in control of your impulses is a different kind of enjoyment, isn’t it? To know you’re not a slave to your biological needs.’
I was putting on my best poker face now. Was he suggestingIwas a slave to my sexual urges for him? That I couldn’t control myself around him? Hardly. If anything the opposite was true. But arguing the point didn’t seem like it would be useful – in fact, that was probably what he wanted. He was provoking me because he knew I wouldn’t want to let his implication go. So I did a rare thing and kept my lip buttoned.
He took the last bite, still not licking his lips. I was not dying to do it for him. I wasnot.
‘And then, there’s the increased satisfaction when you decide you can give in. The build-up, the anticipation, makes it all thesweeter.’ He dragged his tongue slowly between his lips and then around them, I could feel it down to my toes. Bastard.
‘Well. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.’ I forced another carefree smile. ‘Shall we go catch the train? Now we’re all clear on what I have and haven’t imagined between us and what I will and will definitelynotbe doing?’
‘Lead the way.’ He swept a gallant arm out and I strolled past him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Stephen
Iwasn’t sure what it meant that whenever I went on a fact-finding mission with Elle, I ended up needing a long run the following day to sort my head out. It didn’t even help any more. Perhaps next time I’d ask Patrick from work to join me, so that I could stop my mind churning over everything, with no one to talk to about it. I could hardly ring Nick up and put him in the middle of it all.
The journey back on the train from Coney Island had felt longer than the way there, and that was no small feat, because I hadn’t been looking forward to going at all. But the ride back on that D train to Brooklyn was torture. Thank God Elle and I weren’t forced to cosy up together because it was crowded. With the hour being later, and it being a weeknight, the train was quieter, and we could each take a seat. Across from each other.
She’d made it clear the kiss was not a sign she’d ripped up her own rule book. No matter how much I wanted to cross the aisle of the train and drag her up from the plastic orange seat to show her how differently I would go about it when I had all my faculties fully under control, I had to respect her wishes.
The memory of that kiss on the Wonder Wheel was like a dream I was grasping at, having been rudely awoken. I’d been so panicked, so down the pit of terror, that I’d hardly registered what she was doing. By the time I’d allowed the soft touch of her lips and the scent of her skin to filter in enough to distract me, she was gone, and the ride was over. I’d never wished more that I wasn’t frightened of heights, so that I could have reacted in the way I truly wanted to and made the most of it.
Although, if I hadn’t been terrified out of my wits, she never would have kissed me in the first place. She neededthat excuse to cross the line she’d drawn and then run hastily back behind it again. Fuelled by left over adrenalin, a massive helping of embarrassment and the feeling of being cheated out of enjoying something I’d admittedly been fantasising about for a long while, it could have been easy to let resentment build…but she’d spent the first part of the journey with her arms crossed, staring out the window and by the time we’d changed trains she was looking tired and the corners of her mouth were dragging down. I quickly became disabused of the notion that she wasintentionallytormenting me. Neither of us appeared to be enjoying this frustration.
The text she’d sent me after I’d seen her home and walked back to my own apartment only made it worse.
Elle:I’m sorry I forced you onto the wheel and then kissed you while you were defenseless. I didn’t mean to make things awkward between us. I just didn’t think. I was hoping that we were starting to be friends and I don’t want to have ruined that. Forgive me?
I didn’t want her to regret it. Well, no. Forcing me onto the wheel, she could regret – but kissing me was something I wanted her towantand the fact that she didn’t, and she just wanted to be friends left me feeling…what was the feeling? Usually I could deal with a woman not wanting me, because I knew it wasn’t the end of the world – eventually we would have gone our separate ways.
