Page 89 of The Little Board Game Café

He’d done nothing wrong. The sex had been great. He was a gentle, generous lover.

But…

But what exactly?

She imagined herself pulling on her clothes, tiptoeing out of his room, creeping down the stairs to the front door. He’d wake next morning to find an empty space where he’d expected to find her. She pictured him running his hand over the sheet where she had lain, like they did in films. Sitting up, puzzled. Wondering if she was in the bathroom, perhaps. Discovering that she wasn’t.

And her heart wanted to burst for the abandoned Ludek of her imagination because she knew he’d be disappointed, knew he’d be hurt and that was the last thing she wanted to do to him.

Yet still, that urge to leave.

And not only to leave his bed, to remove herself from his life.

Why, why, why? When she had spent weeks longing for this man?

She didn’t get up. She didn’t move. She watched his sleeping form beside her, feeling such a strange combination of emotion. The desire to love. The desire to leave. How was it even possible to feel both of those things at once? It didn’t make sense.

Commitment phobia. Perhaps that was it.

But that couldn’t be it. She wasn’t afraid of commitment; she’d been engaged to Peter, for heaven’s sake. She’d never felt this way with him.

Or maybe, it was too soon after Peter. Had Ludek been right to be wary of her?

No, that wasn’t it either.

A fear had been triggered, a faded memory stirred; something deep in her subconscious that she couldn’t quite access. She replayed the evening in her head, remembering how he’d led her upstairs, undone the buttons on her shirt, kissed her neck. Where had this inexplicable desire to run away come from?

She was torn. One voice in her head was whispering, ‘Leave. Leave.’ Another was urging her to press her lips up against his, to run her fingers over the silky, downy hair on his oh-so-flat stomach, to wake him and be pulled back into his arms.

But her leg was out of the bed, her foot touching the carpet, seemingly without her making a conscious decision. The voice saying ‘leave’ had been that little bit louder, that tad more persuasive.

Her bra and knickers were somewhere in the bed. Gently, she lifted a corner of the duvet and retrieved them. Ludek didn’t move. She pulled on her socks and struggled into the jeans, grabbed her top and crept to the door, praying it wouldn’t creak as she opened it. It didn’t.

On the landing, she pulled on her top, then, feeling like a cartoon character, she tip-toed down the stairs, pausing after every step to listen for stirrings from Ludek’s bedroom. Nothing.

In the hall, she picked up her coat and was about to open the front door when she stopped. She wanted to leave and yet…sneaking off like this. Well, it didn’t seem like a kind thing to do. And he was lovely. Didn’t he deserve better?

She turned and glanced up the stairs. Ludek was standing at the top, wrapped in a navy dressing gown.

‘I’m er… I couldn’t sleep. I thought maybe… my own bed…’

‘Look, the spare room’s made up if you’d prefer to sleep there. I’d have to move a few games boxes…’

She hesitated. ‘I’m being silly. Sorry.’

‘Or you could come back to my bed? Let me hold you.’

That did sound inviting.

He held out his hand, she took it and for the second time in two hours, he led her back upstairs, back into his bedroom and closed the door behind them.

‘Catan will come in otherwise and wake us at the crack of dawn, probably with an unsavoury gift.’

He didn’t undress her this time. He took off his dressing gown and got back under the sheets. She peeled her clothes off, feeling self-conscious, wondering if he was watching her. As she unhooked her bra, she glanced over at him, but he was lying on his side, eyes closed.

She left her knickers on, and slipped into bed beside him, immediately rolling onto her side. He pulled her into a spoon and nuzzled her neck with his face.

‘What happened, Emily? Did I take things too fast?’