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They rested a little, grinning breathlessly at the racing beat of each other’s hearts. Jack folded her in his arms and they lay staring into each other’s eyes.
It was still early, though, and they both knew that this wasn’t even close to being over. A murmured conversation, stretching like cats in front of the fire. A bottle of chilled Prosecco from the kitchen, which popped satisfyingly, the cork hitting the ceiling. A book, chosen at random from the shelf, which turned out to be a collection of short mystery stories.
He propped the book on her hip, their limbs tangled together. He loved this simple pleasure. Reading to her in front of the fire, feeling her intent gaze.
‘Had enough?’ Jack got to the denouement of the first story and she moved, sending the book slithering to the floor.
‘Not nearly enough.’ She picked up his glass, holding it to his lips, and he took a sip. Then she ran the cool rim across the heated skin of his chest.
‘Hey... Two can play at that game...’ He grabbed the glass from her, touching it to her lips and then her nipple and she yelped, laughing. And then everything else was forgotten as he rolled on to his back, pulling her astride him.
‘How many times...’ She leaned down to kiss him and he cupped her breasts in his hands. ‘How many times can you do it in one night?’
An hour ago, Jack would have said that he wasn’t going to be able to move for at least another two days. But Cass had a way of confounding every expectation. ‘I have no idea.’
She shook her head in smiling reproof. ‘Everyone should know that.’
‘Yeah. I guess everyone should.’
* * *
No one should have that kind of stamina. The man should come with a warning, stamped across his forehead. Danger. You will be putty in my hands. By the time Jack tipped them both out of bed and into the shower, late the following morning, he’d pushed her to her breaking point. Then past it, into a rose-tinted world that seemed to revolve entirely around his smile.
Cass started on Sunday lunch while Jack went to pick Ellie up. That afternoon he set about hanging wind chimes in the little girl’s room, positioned so that they sounded every time the door opened. Ellie loved them, and Jack’s grin made it quite clear that the loud jangling sound wasn’t intended solely to amuse his daughter.
He didn’t need to ask whether she would come to him that night, and Cass didn’t need to answer. He was waiting, his eyes following her every move as she walked towards the bed. Jack’s hand trembled as he pushed the silk wrap slowly from her shoulders.
During the day they never spoke of it, even when they were alone, and hardly even touched. Jack was a friend who had offered her a place to stay while her house was flooded. When darkness fell and the house was quiet, he was her lover. It was simple, intoxicating and they both knew that this relationship, with its split personality, couldn’t last.
But for two weeks it did. A secret from everyone. Untouched by the past, because they both knew that there was to be no future to it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘WAKE UP. WAKE UP...’ Jack whispered into her ear, jerking the coffee out of Cass’s way as she suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. That hadn’t been quite the reaction he was looking for, but he’d watched her eyes flutter slowly open once already this morning.
‘Uh... What’s the time?’
‘Eight-thirty.’ She looked gorgeous when she woke. Particularly like this, the bedclothes slipping down to her waist, her hair in disarray.
‘What?’ Jack reared backwards as she shot out of the bed, affording him an even better view. Then she stilled. ‘It’s Saturday, isn’t it.’
‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘Coffee?’
She took the mug from his hand and took a sip. Then another thought occurred to her. ‘Where’s Ellie?’
‘Downstairs. I heard her get up about an hour ago. I told her you were probably sleeping and not to come up here and disturb you.’ Cass was up before Ellie during the week, and at weekends the wind chimes gave Jack a chance to head her off before she came into his bedroom. It had worked so far.
She took another gulp of coffee. ‘I should be getting going.’
‘Not without us, you’re not.’ Martin had called last night to say that the flood water had receded from around Cass’s house. He wasn’t letting her go back there alone a second time.
‘But I said—’
‘Yeah. I said too.’
‘Thought you might have forgotten that.’ She pushed his legs a little further apart with her foot so she could perch on his knee. Jack took the cup from her hand, taking a sip.
‘Post-coital memory loss isn’t permanent. I’m coming to help. Whether you like it or not.’
