Page 58 of Not in a Million Years

‘What’s up, Kate?’

‘Nothing. Just the drink catching up with me now I’m not dancing any more.’

‘You were really going for it a while ago. Never knew you had all the moves.’

‘Oh God. I’m going to have the worst Fear tomorrow, aren’t I?’

‘Make the most of not having it while you can, then,’ he advised.

I lay back on the deck. Daniel was right – my feet had grown used to the temperature of the sea and now the water felt pleasantly cool. The smooth wood was hard beneath my back; I could feel the barest sway as the yacht gently rose and fell in the current – or possibly it was just my brain swaying. Above me, the night sky was thick with stars.

Daniel’s head appeared next to mine, his hair spreading out to meet mine. I could smell beer on his breath, and whatever cologne he’d used earlier – fresh with juniper, like a gin and tonic.

‘I wonder if we’ll see a shooting star,’ I said, but my words came out slightly garbled and slurred.

‘I can think of things I’d rather look at.’ He propped himself up on one elbow and smiled down into my face. ‘You’re cute when you’re pissed, you know. All your sharp edges and corners are rubbed away.’

‘Oi. You leave my corners alone.’

Above me, his eyes were very close. The water was reflecting off his face, creating dancing patterns on his skin and making his eyes look more blue than grey. I could feel his hair tickling my collarbone.

He reached out and cupped my face with his warm, dry hand, then ran his thumb lightly over my lips. I felt a smile stretching across them in response.

‘Kate? You know how you always snog random men on nights out?’

‘I do not always snog random men on nights out.’

‘Yes, you do. It’s a well-known fact. And it would be a shame to break with tradition, don’t you think?’

And then he kissed me. I’d known the kiss was coming; it had felt inevitable from the second I sat down next to him. But still, in that moment, it took me by surprise. Everything about him was so familiar: his grey eyes, his broad shoulders, his sun-bleached hair. But his kiss was alien, like arriving in a foreign country.

But the strangeness only lasted a second – before I was able to articulate the thought, kissing him felt like something I’d always been meant to do. Like our lips had been designed to fit together. Like my hands had always wanted to twine themselves in the softness of his hair, and his jaw had grown that dusting of stubble especially to rub against my cheeks.

I don’t know how long that first kiss lasted. It might have been only a minute or so but, with the stars wheeling in their trajectories above me when I opened my eyes and looked past the closeness of his face, it felt like forever. His lips tasted so good against mine. The length of his body pressing lightly down on me made me want to hold him closer and closer until we merged into one person. My beating heart seemed to be drumming out a rhythm that filled the night, drowning out even the pounding bass from the dance floor above us.

And then I realised the sound was more than just my heart – it was the throb of the approaching motorboat.

Daniel said, ‘Shall we go home?’

I nodded. I couldn’t say anything – I had no breath for words – but I knew he could feel the movement of my face against his. He stood, and for a second I gazed up at him in wonder, feeling like I was seeing him for the first time. Then he reached out a hand and helped me to my feet, and I let my body melt against the warmth and strength of his.

We were the only two to board the boat, which had been steadily ferrying guests back to shore for the past couple of hours. We gasped out a couple of words of thanks to the skipper, then sat together, our hands clasped, our thighs pressed together from hip to knee. Then, without saying anything, as if it was the only possible thing for us to do, we started to kiss again.

All the short journey back to land, sea spray misting our faces, the sky huge and spangled above us, the water close enough to dabble our fingers in, we kissed and kissed. We stopped only for the few seconds it took to step off the boat onto the pier, and then our bodies fell together again, and we kissed some more.

We kissed when we paused for Daniel to take out his key card at the entrance to the hotel grounds. We kissed at the foot of the stairs. We kissed outside my bedroom door.

And then, barely breaking the kiss, I spoke. ‘Do you want to come in?’

‘Of course.’ I could feel his lips against mine, saying the words I’d hoped to hear.

I opened the door and we stepped into the familiar coolness of the room, not bothering to switch on the lights. I barely registered that this was probably the last time I’d enter the space that had become home.

Our lips didn’t break contact as I moved slowly backwards towards the bed, letting Daniel lower me gently onto its softness. Briefly, I remembered sitting there earlier, painting my toenails, in what felt like another world.

Then he lay next to me, and I forgot everything except his lips, his hands, his breath and mine coming faster and faster. I unbuttoned his shirt, the linen feeling rough against my fingers in contrast to the skin on his shoulders, satiny smooth like polished wood. He pulled the straps of my dress down over my arms, and I heard him give a rasping gasp as he touched my breasts for the first time, my nipples hardening instantly beneath his hands.

His lips moved from my mouth down to my throat, then lower. I heard my own gasp as his tongue found my nipple, teasing the skin around it until I felt like I’d scream if he didn’t touch it. And then when he did, I felt like I’d scream with the pleasure of it. Together, we moved higher up the bed, so I slid fully out of my dress and lay there in my pants on the white duvet, smiling up at him. The muscles in his arms supporting his body above me were hard and defined in the dim moonlight that filtered through the curtains. His hair hung down towards my face. His smile was intoxicating.

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