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He pulled me into his arms then and kissed me. ‘Remind me never to play chess with you. You’d slaughter me.’ And then he kissed me again, and I kissed him back with a fervour I didn’t try to hide. ‘You do slaughter me,’ he said breathlessly when we finally broke apart.
There was really only one dress I wanted to wear for the party. It had been sitting in the shop window of a small boutique near my flat, the kind of place that didn’t price the items on display. Even on a cold December day, scurrying past with my head pulled into the neck of my coat like a turtle, I could hear the dress calling out to me.
‘What’s it like?’ Hannah asked.
‘Imagine if a glitterball and a red-carpet gown had a love child,’ I replied.
‘Wow,’ she said with an impressed whistle. ‘Can you afford it?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Will that stand in your way?’ she asked with a smile.
‘Probably not.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘Poor Finn. The man doesn’t stand a chance, does he?’
After spending half of my monthly take-home pay on the dress, I really hoped she was right.
*
I’d never actively set out to seduce anyone before. And for all my bluster and bravado, I needed that dress for ammunition. In the beginning, I’d rather enjoyed the fact that Finn didn’t want to rush the physical side of our relationship. Until I realised that waiting for the fourth date was fun and kind of exciting, but waiting four weeks actually wasn’t.
‘I don’t want you to end up having regrets about anything,’ Finn had said on one of our earlier dates. ‘I never want you to look back and wish that we’d waited or wish that it had been something more than just lust.’
To be honest, I could see nothing wrong with good old lust, but I also knew that Finn was in new territory here.
‘I’ve slept with people I probably shouldn’t have, people I didn’t care enough about.’ He looked directly into my eyes.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be shocked by his admission, but it was hardly breaking news. It was, after all, what I’d suspected about him from the first time we met. He was the type of man who’d probably never had to try that hard. I imagined women had been happily jumping into bed with him for years, and the fact that he wanted things to be totally different with us was possibly the highest compliment he could pay me. It was also the most frustrating thing to accept.
‘I don’t want to make love to you and then disappear out of your life. I don’t want to be that guy any more.’
*
‘Then why not make the first move yourself?’ suggested Hannah with the confidence of someone who curled up each night in the arms of a man who adored her and who’d never look at anyone else. ‘You’re a millennial woman. You don’t have to sit around and politely wait for a guy to ask you out or invite you into his bed. You can do it yourself.’
So I’d taken a deep breath and asked Finn to come to theGlowChristmas party with me. As for the second part of the challenge… well, I was just going to have to see how my nerve held out.
*
There was a gratifying moment of stunned silence when I opened my front door. The look on Finn’s face confirmed that every penny I’d spent on the new dress had been worth it – even if it did mean I’d be eating nothing but beans on toast in January. I especially liked the way that despite the dress’s plunging neckline – which was lower than I usually dared to go – the place where Finn’s gaze lingered longest was my face.
He smiled, his eyes warm as they met mine. I wasn’t the only one who’d made an effort tonight. Finn was wearing an inky-black suit that I’d not seen before, teamed with a shirt so dazzlingly white it had to be brand new. He wore no tie – it wasn’t that kind of a party – so the top two buttons were left undone, revealing a tantalising glimpse of a tan that I knew went all the way down to the waistband of his boxer shorts. I had no idea if it continued any further south.
‘You look absolutely incredible,’ he said. ‘That’s quite a dress.’
‘What… this old thing?’ I teased.
I turned to get my bag, but Finn’s hand encircled my wrist and drew me towards him. The graze of his fingers on the bare skin of my back made me shiver, although his hands were warm. They were gone a moment later as he stepped back with a small square of card clasped between them.
‘That “old thing” still had its price tag on,’ he said, passing it to me.
I laughed, a little embarrassed. ‘Well, that’s gone and ruined my plan of taking it back tomorrow.’
‘Don’t even think about returning it,’ Finn said. ‘It’ll always remind me of tonight, every time I see you wear it.’ There it was again, Finn’s subtle, unshakeable certainty that there was a future of tomorrows for us.
As we turned to leave, I caught a final glimpse of our reflection in the hallway mirror. My dress sparkled like crushed diamonds under the artificial lights, but my eyes shone even brighter. Finn had ignited something within me, an inner flame that had never burnt before. I could see it on my face, and tonight I thought I could also see it on his.
