“Look what you made me do,” I muttered in mock annoyance. Instead of moving away his arms encircled my waist again and he rested his chin on my shoulder before kissing my neck. I smiled involuntarily. “This is not the most efficient way for me to make breakfast, you know.” Harry was kissing up my jawline now and pulling me back into his body again. I closed my eyes and released the pan and spatula again as his hands moved under the shirt that I was wearing to slide over the smooth skin of my stomach, then up to my breasts, cupping them and lightly pinching my nipples. After a few moments, one of his hands smoothed down from my breast to the waistband of my pyjama shorts. My eyes rolled back in my head and I melted back into him, bacon and breakfast forgotten.
“I think this is very efficient,” he said against my neck as he kissed his way to my ear. “Multi-tasking.” All I could do was let out a small moan in response as my body tightened in his arms. When I finally went over the edge, if he hadn’t been behind me holding me up I would have sunk into a puddle of goo on the floor. Then he turned me to face him and grinned that huge smug grin down at me like he was king of the world. I rolled my eyes before going up on my tiptoes to kiss him. The kiss started softly, but with him bare chested and my hand roaming the muscles of his back and shoulders it soon escalated and before I knew what was happening, he’d lifted me and sat me on my kitchen table. The rest of our clothes fell away and he drove into me again, the elderly wooden table shaking with the force of his thrusts. He cushioned my head from its hard surface but that was the only small bit of control he was showing. All those moves that were technically perfect but too stilted fell away. The world fell away. It was just me and Harry, connected and completely out of control and it was beautiful. As we both came down off that high, naked, with me still lying on my kitchen table, he pulled me to him and gave me a hug so tight that it almost winded me. After a few moments he pulled back and framed my face with his large hands, staring in my eyes.
“The bacon’s probably ruined,” I whispered.
“Fuck the bacon.”
“This table’s over one hundred years old. I don’t think it’s supposed to take that kind of battering.”
“Fuck the table too.”
“Uh. I think we already did that.”
His grin came back again, taking over his whole face. Serious, grumpy, business Harry was a thing of the past, as was awkward, slightly less grumpy but sweet teenage Harry. This Harry was a completely new entity. He grinned, he chuckled, he kissed my neck whilst I cooked bacon, he held my head so it wouldn’t bang on the wood whilst he was shagging me, he was lighter, he looked happy. I’d made him happy. My smile faltered on that thought and Harry, so in tune with me it seemed, cocked his head to the side in concern.
“Are you okay, V? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Of course not, you numpty. Take more than a shag on a wooden table to put a dent in me.”
He searched my face. “I’ll make it to the bed next time. Even if it does mean permanent concussion from those stairs. Your house is made for hobbits.”
He pulled away to let me hop off the table and for some reason his retreat felt like a wrench, like a clamp around my chest. Which was ridiculous – he was right there, putting on his jeans. As I grabbed his shirt off the floor and shrugged it on, I tried to shake off a growing feeling of unease. The feeling that I was starting toneedhim. Because life had taught me early, way,waytoo early, that it wasn’t a good idea to need people.
Chapter15
Because Verity Markham is always fine
Verity
Harry leaned back in his chair and let out a short disbelieving huff. “Verity Markham out on a date with me,” he said, his voice almost awed. I smiled. “My seventeen-year-old self would die of shock.”
It’d been a couple of weeks since Harry had first come down to Dorset to stay with me, and the whole thing had been like a dream. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. He’d stayed that weekend and we’d barely left my house at all, other than for a brief walk down to the harbour for supplies. It was as though once we unleashed all our latent desire for each other we couldn’t get enough. Harry had to go to London for the week but ended up staying Sunday night with me and had to get up at five in the morning to make it back for his first meeting on the Monday. So today, when I came up to London midweek to bid on another project, Harry was waiting for me at the station. He insisted we went out to a restaurant that evening rather than our standard rip-each-others-clothes-off-and-worry-about-food-later format, but now he was looking at me like he wished he’d gone for option two.
“I don’t know how seventeen-year-old you can be shocked when sixteen-year-old me had the most massive crush on you that you completely ignored!”
He grinned and shrugged. “I was an idiot at seventeen. But do go on about this massive crush. I presume your teenage fantasies involved us reading geeky fantasy books together, me helping you with algebra, and being the most awkward human on the planet.”
“You were cute. Like a hot nerd.”
“Nerds aren’t hot.”
“Youwere.”
“Hey! You guys!”
We’d both been so engrossed in each other that we jerked in surprise at Naomi’s greeting. She was standing by the side of our table with her hands clasped together, bouncing up and down on her toes.
“Hi, Noo,” Harry stood to greet her, and I stiffened as she flung herself at him into a full body hug. When she turned to me and caught sight of my face her hands went up and away from Harry at lightning speed.
“It’s okay,” she said through a grin. “I get it. He’s all yours. Message received. Harry and I don’t play that way, so you’ve nothing to worry about. Honest.”
I smiled at her theatrics before she pulled me to my feet and treated me to the same full body hug she had given Harry.
“So… this is a date, right? Harry’s stopped being a grumpy arsehole and got his act together? You’ve stopped torturing him?”
“Yes, Noo, this is a date.”
Naomi gave a muted squeal although it still managed to turn quite a few heads. (I wasn’t surprised to be honest – between Naomi’s fame and her excitable behaviour, we’d basically become the focal point of the restaurant.) Harry shifted uncomfortably – I knew of old that he never liked much attention. Naomi and he made such unlikely friends.
