Page 55 of Fundamentals in Flirting

“Feet in first, Hannah, and I’ll catch you at this end because there’s a bit of a drop.”

Manoeuvring into position, my legs dangling into the hole, I faltered as dread wrapped around me like a cold, wet blanket.

“Ready?” came the voice from the depths, like a merman calling me to my briny death in Davey Jones’s locker.

“Of course I’m not bloody ready,” I said before taking a lungful of air and hurling myself into the shadowy hole that had already swallowed my feet.

At this point I should make it clear that I expected to slide gracefully down this tunnel of doom and land light as a feather in Teddy’s outstretched arms, a picture of elegance and femininity.

It did not, however, happen like this. Not even close.

Primarily this was because the chute was quite a lot smaller than I had anticipated, so that when most of me was inside, I ground to a halt, arms wedged by my sides.

“You’ve got to keep moving,” Teddy called out helpfully.

“No shit, Sherlock! How did you even fit in here?” I muttered in reply, engaging in a worm-esque full-body wriggle in an attempt to propel me further into the cellar. I barely moved, and suddenly an overwhelming fear of imminent death swamped me. An alarming inevitability that I was going to be entombed in this tunnel forever.

I lay there hyperventilating for a moment, until hands grasped my ankles and Teddy began to pull. My clothes caught on a rough patch of concrete as I bumped down the remainder of the chute, and I heard a faint ripping sound that accompanied my frantic breathing and occasional squeaks of surprise. And when I finally emerged out of the hole, landing in a heap at Teddy’s feet on the cellar floor, I was acutely aware of a cool breeze wafting about my skin in the region of my derrière.

“Shit. I think I’ve ripped my jeans.”

“Where?”

Hand outstretched, Teddy helped me up and I got my phone out of my pocket, switching on the torch and twisting around to view the carnage, but couldn’t quite see what had happened to the back of my jeans.

Teddy craned his neck to get a good view of my spotlighted arse, which was now illuminated like the actual moon by my phone light.

“Oooh, you really have as well.”

“How bad is it?” Still unable to see my own bum sufficiently, I moved my phone to better light up the area.

“Let’s put it this way, I no longer have to imagine what you look like in pink knickers, Hannah.”

“Shit,” I said again, exploring with increasing dismay the gaping hole where the pocket of my jeans once resided, fingers brushing against the obviously highly visible cotton of my pants. How fucking marvellous. “Right, well, that’s these jeans in the bin when I get home then. Should we try and get out of here?” When Teddy didn’t reply, I shone the torch light into his slightly vacant face. “Earth to Edward?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, where were we?” Teddy’s voice sounded like he’d just returned from somewhere very far away indeed.

“Getting out of this cellar, with another of your cunningly cunning plans?”

“Right.” He gave himself a little shake and guided me through the damp-smelling cellar towards a chink of light at the other end of the room.

I’m going to have to lift you through that gap in the joists,” he said, pointing to a small square above our heads where the missing floorboards revealed the enticing light of the dining room. “It might be a squeeze.”

Excellent. Contorting my body into another small gap was exactly what I wanted to do right now. Reaching up as far as I could, my fingertips only brushed the very bottom of the wooden joists, and I had to accept that there was no way I’d be able to haul myself up there without his help.

“Fine. Hold your hands together and I’ll use them as a step.”

Teddy looked dubious.

“I thought I’d just pick you up and push you through the hole.”

Memories of being in Teddy’s arms the last time he “just picked me up” flashed through my mind, and the annoying fluttering butterflies of desire started their little dance again. Touching really did need to be kept to a minimum. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

With a sigh he bent down and laced his fingers together underneath my right boot.

“On the count of three, I’ll boost you up, ok?”

“Ok.”

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