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Jay turned his hand over unprompted as she reached the tips of his fingers, and she ran her own fingers back down his to his palm. His other hand had dropped to his knee and was closed into a fist. He must have been ticklish, because he drew in a small breath as she circled her fingers over his palm then down to the inside of his wrist.
Experimentally, she laced her fingers through his, marvelling at the warm pressure of them around hers.
In a couple of weeks, his fingers would be inside her. She couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like. Invasive and strange. Maybe even a little painful. As though in anticipation of that, something inside her, downthere, tightened sharply. She sat back, dropping his hand.
“Had your fill?” he asked. Before she could speak, he stood up and took her hand, lacing her fingers back through his and pulling her to her feet.
“Part two of the holding hands lesson,” he said. “Walking around until our hands get all sweaty and your palms start to itch. Come on.”
He led her out of her room.
Jay
In truth, Jay wasn’t much of a hand-holding expert. He led girls from clubs into taxis, from taxis into hotel lifts—where his hands generally started to explore more interesting options—and sometimes, he led girls from bedrooms into the shower.
Often,theyledhim.
Now though, he walked hand-in-hand with Sophia, away from the bedroom—in itself, a novel experience—and down the landing to the stairs, trying to ignore his unexpected erection. But fuck. The moment she touched him he’d wanted to skip to lesson three.Lesson four.
The stairs were narrower than at Rakely House, and Sophia brushed up against him as they descended. It was a little awkward really. She was shorter than he was, and their hands were on different levels, and he kept either tugging hers up or having his tugged down, but they made it to the hallway with her hand still snug in his.
Her hand was fairly cool, her skin soft and smooth. He could still feel the path her fingers had traced, even with her palm now pressed against his. He glanced down at her golden hair, the side of her face, just as she turned to him and said, “Where now?”
“The garden? It doesn’t matter.” He gave a deeply cheesy smile and tugged her closer, saying in a dramatic baritone: “So long as you’re by my side.”
She just huffed slightly and led them towards the back of the house, pausing at the back door.
“Nope,” he said, as she tried to free her hand from his to open the door. “We haven’t reached the sweaty, uncomfortable palms stage yet.”
“So far, hand-holding seems more impractical than romantic.” She unlocked the door one-handed.
They walked out into the cool autumn afternoon. It was a large, long garden, the lawn neat, flower beds on either side. There was a brick arch at the far end that led into what looked like a wilder section with long grass and small trees.
The sky was pale grey, and the breeze was cool. It made Jay more aware of the warmth of the woman at his side. He wasn’t sure why the act of walking hand-in-hand with a person through an English country garden seemed so subversive and thrilling, but at that very moment, it seemed far wilder than any of the risqué and possibly illegal things he’d done over the years.
“Let’s multitask,” he said. “We’ll practise conversational skills. Tell me, why did you come back from New York?”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“It takes me a moment to think what to say when I’m put on the spot like that.”
“I can’t have been the first person to ask you?”
“Well, I’ve only really seen my mother since I got back, and she already knew the reason.”
Hadn’t she been back for a couple of months? Had she no friends to talk to? He gave her hand a squeeze in an attempt at being reassuring, rubbing his thumb over the skin of her wrist. But it made her jerk her head around to stare at their clasped hands as though he’d given her an electric shock.
“Start at the beginning,” he suggested.
“Well. I came back for my mother. She was lonely after the divorce, and her best friend—you know the Duke’s aunt, Rose Orton-Grey? She moved away. And also I… Well, I had been in America for nearly five years, and I realised it wasn’t really working.”
“How do you mean?”
“I thought it would be easier in America, because they’re so brash and loud, or supposed to be. I thought it would rub off on me. But it didn’t. I was still the same person. I made no friends.”
Jay found himself rubbing her wrist again, frowning as they walked. “What about this Simon?”
