She nodded, then screwed up her nose. “It’s not too girly, though, is it? A picture of flowers is probably the last thing you want on your bachelor flat walls. Maybe you could give it to your mother.”
“Maybe,” he said, the picture propped up in his lap, although he knew he’d never let it go. “It’s amazing.” He looked over at her. “Like you.”
She beamed. “Thank you,” she said, as she propped herself up on her knees and reached across the table then, wrapping her arm around him and planting another one of her sizzling kisses on his mouth, her tongue coaxing his to play, until his cock twitched and he damned well near forgot about the food in front of them.
He tried to gather her closer, wanting more of her, when she pushed him away. “Eat first,” she said, “and then you can play.”
He grinned. She was right, there was celebrating to be done first, and it was a feast of colours and spices and tastes they shared, before they peeled each other’s clothes away and turned to feast on each other, this time a sensual, passionate feast for the body and the senses.
“You’re really something special, you know,” he said, after they’d fallen apart, boneless and breathless, their bodies glistening with sweat on the sheets of her big, wide bed. It was too hot for even a sheet tonight. The curtains were flung apart, windows open, hoping to catch a breeze and letting in the twinkle of the city lights far below, while above them a fan did lazy laps that blew the sluggish night air around.
Their faces scant inches apart, he stroked the pad of his thumb across her lips, the puff of her ragged breathing warm against his flesh.
She kissed his thumb as it made its passes. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not, when it’s the truth? You’re amazing, Ava. Talented, beautiful, and caring. You’re the whole package.”
Against his arm, she squirmed and shook her head. “No.”
“You realise our secret is out. Richo twigged. And once that photo of us gets in the paper, everyone’s going to know.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to happen. I haven’t worked out what to do about that yet.”
He waited a beat, knowing he was setting something in motion that he didn’t know how would end, but he knew she’d had the chance to discard him once before, and she hadn’t taken it, and all he could do was try to get through to her. “I’m not sorry.”
Her head rolled towards his. “Why? We agreed from the beginning this was our secret.”
He watched the rotating blades doing laps above the bed. “I know,” he started, but slowly, knowing the very least he was risking ruining this sublime evening between them, and recognising there was much more at stake than that. But there was no going back now, not if they were ever going to move out of this damned rut they were stuck in once again, and finally move forward. “But the way I see it now, we’re a bit like that fan up there, spinning around and around, always on the move and yet ultimately going nowhere. Maybe it’s good the secret’s out. Maybe now we can go out together for a meal or to the movies because we don’t have to pretend that there’s nothing going on.”
He felt her stiffen beside him, warm responsive flesh turning hard and impossibly cold for such a hot summer’s night. And even though she was still there, alongside him, he was aware of her shifting away from him, the distance between them growing by the second, and he hated that he was doing this, but this time, he had no choice.
“Like you said, it’s been more than a year and, despite the odd bump in the road, we’re still together. Doesn’t that tell you something, Ava? Doesn’t it suggest that maybe it’s time to set what we have free from these constraints, to give this thing some oxygen, and to see if it will survive in the real world?”
“Why would we want to do that?”
He closed his eyes. Even her voice, so husky from their recent lovemaking, was edged with cold. Then he opened his eyes and turned his head to hers, her face a play of light and shadow and like her life, he suddenly realised, filled with shadowed depths no light could see into, and he ached to shine a light in and find out what was lurking there. “Because we can. Because we don’t have to hide it from the world any longer because soon the whole damned world is going to know. But, most of all, because it’s time.”
She sat up, reached for her blue robe and slipped it over her arms. “You know what we agreed, right? You remember?”
“I remember. I also remember you walking out when I told you I wanted more. I never thought I’d see you again, but here I am. Why do you think you let me back in?”
“Because of the exhibition. Because you had such a part in that.”
He reached over and put his hand over hers where they lay in her lap. She didn’t shy away from his touch, but neither did she make any effort to turn her hand and lace her fingers in his. “You honestly think that’s all it was?
She scoffed, rising from the bed and crossing to the window, her hands clutching her arms, her outline illuminated in the glow from the city. “You’re kidding yourself, you know that?”
He raised himself up onto one elbow. “No, I think you’re the one doing that. I think you’re a fake.”
Her head spun around. “What did
