I came the instant he was inside me.
There was a moment of suspension, then I was flooded by an overwhelming barrage of sensations, a sweet rush so sharp it could almost have been pain. It surged up through my body and burst out of the top of my head, scattering my brains, exquisite and unbearable.
My last coherent thought was a fierce affirmation. This was right. It was meant to be. Sean and I.
And to hell with everyone who tried to tell us different.
***
Next thing I knew, someone was hammering at the door to the room. Groggy and disorientated, I had no idea how long we’d laid together.
I felt Sean slide out from under my cheekbone almost before I’d come to. He yanked his T-shirt over his head and pulled on his shorts, checking me briefly over his shoulder as he moved to the door.
I just had time to sit up in bed and clasp the sheets primly around me as he slipped the chain and opened up.
“Wakey wakey, Charlie! Come on, you’ll miss breakfast and—”
William’s voice broke off suddenly as he registered Sean in the doorway. Embarrassingly, the rest of the Devil’s Bridge Club also peered in through the gap. Only Tess was missing – if I had to be thankful for small mercies.
Paxo pushed to the front and led the way into the room, glaring at the obvious signs that Sean and I had shared the same bed. As if that wasn’t confirmation enough, I flushed painfully, feeling the glow of it suffuse my face right up to the roots of my hair.
Paxo’s outraged gaze went from Sean to Jamie and back again. “Jesus H Christ,” he said, his voice cruising with disgust. He jerked his head towards me. “Is there a fucking rota or something for her I don’t know about?”
Sean’s face never changed. He took a step forwards and closed in on Paxo, butting up against him, forcing the smaller man to retreat until he was hard up against the wall to the bathroom. Sean’s shoulders were angled towards me, his body blocking the movement of his hands, but suddenly Paxo’s colour bleached out and his eyes bugged.
“I’ll pretend – for now – that you didn’t say that,” Sean said, his voice soft and pleasant. “But if you’re ever foolish enough to try and repeat it, Martin, we may have to have this little chat again, OK?”
He stepped back and Paxo started to double over very slowly, like a tree falling. He got far enough down to brace his fists on his thighs and stopped like that, fighting tears and asphyxia. He was wearing his bike jeans and the thick leather should have afforded him some protection. But – in this case – nowhere near enough.
The others stood frozen, unsure exactly what it was that they’d just been witness to. Sean turned back to them and smiled.
“If you wouldn’t mind giving us half an hour to get sorted,” he said politely, “we’ll meet you downstairs, OK?”
Dumbly, they nodded, began to file out. William looped an arm round Paxo’s shoulders but Paxo shrugged him off. He straightened with an effort and staggered out, red-faced, coughing. Daz was last to move. His eyes met Sean’s and clashed silently, then slid away.
Sean shut the door firmly behind them. “Not quite the discreet assignation I had in mind,” he said, his expression rueful. “Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said and was surprised to realise that it didn’t. Not any more. “I assume that Martin is Paxo’s real name?”
He nodded. “Martin Paxton. Manages a bar in Lancaster. Daz – Darren Henderson – runs some kind of craft centre just outside Manchester, and William Lacey works for the ferry company. Madeleine dug out the gen on them and I didn’t think it would do any harm to scare Paxo a little.”
“On top of halfway castrating him, you mean?”
Sean shrugged. “You would have done the same,” he said with the barest hint of a smile. “I just got to him first.”
He moved back across to the bed but as he did so his foot kicked something that was hidden just under the valance. He bent to retrieve it and when he stood he was holding an ornate silver ring between his fingers.
“Yours?”
“Damn,” I said. “It must be one of Tess’s. She was here last night.”
His eyebrows went up. “Wow,” he said. “So Paxo was right about you. Girls as well – I’m impressed.”
“Oh
He snagged a corner of the sheet and whipped it out of my hands, ignoring my yelp of protest. “Come on,” he said, grinning. “Out of bed, you. You can fill me in while you’re in the shower.”
He showered quickly first, then shaved while I showered. I felt surprisingly relaxed amid the unfamiliar domesticity, helped by the fact that we were talking all the while. I ran through the events of the evening before, from the reappearance of the Vauxhall to Tess’s near miss and what both she and Jamie had told me.
When I emerged, it was to find Sean absently turning the ring he’d found over in his fingers, looking at the pretty cut of the stone against the light from the window.
“So we still don’t know why Jamie borrowed the money in the first place,” he said, sounding distracted.
“No,” I said, rubbing a towel vigorously over my hair. Although I kept it roughly in a bob, no longer than my jawline, there wasn’t the time to dry it properly and after a day scrunched under a helmet I knew it was going to be uncontrollable. “But I reckon he might fold if I keep nagging at him. I’ll have another go . . . what is it?”
