Come in with...? I look up at her dumbly.
‘The night’s still young.’ She rolls her hips over me, keeps massaging my cock, her fingers still working their magic in my hair. ‘And this is fun.’
She lowers a hand to my cheek and her attention shifts, her eyes and fingers lifting to my scarred brow. She traces the line with her fingertips and the air catches in my lungs, my heart stutters. I don’t want that memory now, here with her like this. And the more time we spend together, the closer I come to revealing it all, to opening up and exposing a side I’ve kept well-hidden all this time.
‘Okay.’ I kiss her to distract her. Kiss her to forget. Her eyes widen just enough to let me know she’s surprised and then she smiles and hell, if that look doesn’t gut me, so genuinely pleased as it is.
‘Great.’
She lifts herself off my lap and slides back into the passenger side, shimmying her dress back down her thighs.
‘And for the record...’ she smooths out the creases, eyeing the fabric intently ‘...just in case you need it reiterating, I wholeheartedly approve of your car now that I’ve had the opportunity to test out its versatility.’
I come alive on a laugh, shaking my head as I slip the condom off. ‘You’ll hate the toy I have parked up at home then.’
‘I will?’
I grin as I imagine just how much she’d actually love it.
‘Now I really am intrigued.’
I reach across and open the glove compartment, pull out a rubbish bag and tuck the condom inside.
She watches me with a smile. ‘Are you always so prepared?’
I raise my brows at her. ‘Me? Need I remind you that you were the one with the condom.’
Now she laughs. ‘So true. It seems we make a good team, Boretti.’
I pause, midway to returning to my side. Her eyes are doing that soft little thing again, her voice too, both teasing beneath the walls I’ve had erected for so long. I swallow, my lips curving into what feels both smile-like and serious in one. ‘Does that mean I’m winning you over to my way of thinking?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far...’ She leans towards me, her hand lifting, one finger pointing to tap my nose. ‘Don’t be getting too big-headed on me.’
I chuckle as I ease out of the invisible hold she seems to have over me. ‘I wouldn’t dare.’
‘So do I get any hints as to what it is?’
I frown as I right my clothing. ‘To what is?’
‘The toy at home.’
My smile lifts to one side. ‘Play your cards right and I’ll take you to see it.’
‘Now?’
‘Not now,’ I say with a laugh. ‘How about I take you back to mine after the football on Saturday?’
‘Okay.’ She smiles at me and I don’t have time to even question the suggestion, let alone the reason why I suggested it at all as she adds, ‘But now would be better.’
I laugh all the more, shake my head at her childlike impatience. ‘Do you have any concept of a bedtime?’
‘Sleep is full of missed opportunities; I prefer to make the most of my time.’
Whereas I wanted to sleep all the time. The thought writes itself, frosting up the moment so completely. The sharp contrast in how we approach grief, so marked. But when I was asleep I didn’t have to remember that the nightmare was real. The crash. Layla.
And there’s a part of me that admires Olivia for having the courage to face it, her loss...but then, isn’t hers just another form of avoidance? Distraction. Keeping herself too busy to dwell.
Isn’t it the same need that led to her car accident?
‘Is that why you were driving to Oxford in the middle of the night in your Bugatti?’
‘Oh, don’t you start.’ She huffs and leans back in her seat, looks out of the window, which is so steamed up the outside lights are just a blur. ‘You sound as bad as my sister, Fee.’
‘I do.’
She eyes me, quiet for a moment, and then, ‘So, are you coming in?’
She’s trying to change the subject and as I take in her appearance, her dishevelled hair, her over-bright eyes, her nipples that still strain through her dress and bra, it would be so easy to let her distract me.
‘What does your sister think of your late-night dash?’
‘Pretty much what you’re thinking, looking at you.’
‘Which is?’
‘That I was reckless, stupid, living some death wish.’
I swallow as her words cut deep.
‘God, look at you! Seriously! The truth is I wanted to get away from the city, without the traffic and the noise. To take my new car on the motorway and not spend it bumper to bumper. Is that so hard to believe?’
I shrug. ‘If you’d done it without coming off the road, maybe.’
‘The weather was bad, the car was new and I wasn’t used to it. It’s as simple as that.’
‘You were lucky.’
‘And yeah, I’ve heard that a thousand times already. And, before you ask, I was breathalysed and there was zero alcohol in my system, not even a smidgen. It was enough to satisfy Fee.’ She stops, looks away, raises her hand to the window and traces a small circle in the steamed-up glass. ‘Well, maybe not satisfy, but it was enough to prove I wasn’t being reckless on that score.’
She drags in a breath and a sudden melancholy hangs in the air between us. She turns to look at me, her eyes so sombre, so...sad. ‘Happy?’
I’m not happy; I’m far from it as I take in the look in her eyes.
‘If it was enough to satisfy my sister, it should be enough to satisfy you too.’
‘Why?’ Stupid question.
Her lips quirk, her eyes shine. Now she smiles, a big wide smile, and I curse my impulsive question. The truth is I asked because I care. I care more than I should, and now she knows it too.
‘So, nightcap?’
I know nightcap is code for more. More of this. And how much more? An hour,
