As she bent over him, her long fair hair brushing his throat and chest, he closed his eyes and gave himself up to her exploratory kiss and confident touch, sliding his fingers down the smooth skin of her back. Her mouth tasted of wine and her scent was unmistakably Grace. She had a good decade on him but she was super fit — and everything any man could want. He was responding entirely as he should, provoking a small ‘Wow!’ from her as she kissed her way down his belly.
But his imagination was playing with him just as expertly as her ladyship, as she wrangled a condom like a professional. The silky slide of her fair hair across his chest flashed an image of the tousled mane of Kate Sparrow, up on stage, through his mind, twisting a double-edged blade of desire and guilt through him. Stop it. But it was too late. He couldn’t. He pulled Sid and the chain off over his head and dropped it on the floor, as if his little glass stopper friend was watching and judging. Kate… in a short red dress and high-heeled glossy black boots… oh god.
Stop it now.
In the end, it wouldn’t matter, would it? Grace might be thinking of someone else herself, for all he knew. She’d never know that another woman was sharing this coupling, like a wanton ghost. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t find the flesh and blood woman on top of him very attractive too…
Just stop mixing it up. No good will come of this. Don’t go there. Not now. Not next week, not ever.
Oh god.
Afterwards he decided he had nothing to feel bad about. His furtive imaginings hadn’t damaged his performance — far from it. Grace, sprawling elegantly across the bed with a drowsy smile of satisfaction, said, ‘Best… shag… ever.’
‘Will you post a review?’ he chortled. ‘I’m on Check-a-lay.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Lucas Henry was proficient, passionate and very expert. He arrived promptly and didn’t stop halfway through to ask for tea. He got the job done beautifully and was very polite throughout. Clean and tidy. Five stars.’
‘You should have your own entry, too,’ he pointed out.
‘Oh no, darling,’ she said. ‘We don’t do trade at Stokeley Lodge Estate.’ She gurgled with laughter and got up on one elbow. ‘Don’t you tell Mariam about this. She’ll never speak to me again! She already thinks I’m an unconscionable old slapper.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ he promised.
‘Lucas… I have to ask… why are you here? I mean… why are you even available to an old biddy like me? You’re hot stuff — you must be fighting the girls off with brickbats!’
‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ he said. ‘And you’re no old biddy, Grace. Sheesh — the energy of you!’
‘So… no girlfriend. No boyfriend, either, I’m guessing, given the last forty-five minutes. Unless you’re one of these pansexual, get-it-up-for-any-gender types.’
‘Is that what that means?’ he said, rolling onto his back. ‘I thought it was people who got horny for Le Creuset.’
She snorted at his terrible gag.
‘Nope, I’m straight,’ he said. ‘Well, sexually, anyway. Pretty twisted up in other ways.’
‘So… it’s the lady detective,’ Grace went on, circling one finger around his belly button. ‘Don’t start denying it; it’s obvious. Every time I mention her your eyes do this flickery thing. What are you going to do about Kate Sparrow?’
He covered his face and let out a long sigh. ‘Stay away from her,’ he groaned through his fingers.
‘Really? You can do that?’
‘Apparently not,’ he confessed, and then told her of the events of that evening.
Afterwards, she slid across his chest and scooped Sid up off the floor. ‘So this little stopper keeps dragging you off to cross her path. That is spooky. Are you sure you didn’t know she was there?’
‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘Like I said, I haven’t been in touch with her since March. How could I have any clue where she was?’
‘And yet you find yourself here… just minutes up the road from Buntin’s,’ mused Grace, swinging Sid between her elegant fingers. ‘And then you find a reason to go there… and then you walk right into a bar and there she is.’
‘It’s weird, I know,’ he said.
‘So… that’s it? You’re not going to go back?’
‘No!’ He sat up and collected Sid from her, dropping the stopper and chain into his bedside drawer and closing it with what he hoped was finality. ‘Honestly — what would she think? That I’m some kind of stalker, that’s what. There’s just a chance I got away with it. She only clocked me for a second and then I got the hell out of there, so she could believe she was mistaken — that she just saw someone who looked a bit like me. In fact, there was a guy walking in just as I left, who looked a bit like me. Hopefully she saw him later on and decided that’s who she’d seen at the bar. So… I’m safe. I just have to keep it that way.’
‘Even though fate is steering you relentlessly into her path, time and again,’ said Grace. ‘Don’t you think you should just go with your destiny here?’
Lucas shook his head. ’With all due respect, your ladyship, fuck destiny. Destiny is not my friend. Destiny tricks me, trips me up, punches me in the face, throws me off my bike, ties me up, drugs me, chases me, Tasers me, arrests me and then dumps me back where I started when it’s done having its fun.’
‘Yes… but what about the downsides..?’
He chucked a pillow at her. ‘It’s no good, Lucas,’ she spluttered, fending it off and then sitting up and reaching for her silk robe. ‘You can’t fight it. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to deal with whatever it is that connects you and Kate Sparrow.’
Lucas sagged back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. This was only
