Page 65 of Wild About You

‘Not curtsey properly?’ He was echoing what I’d said with complete incomprehension. ‘What the hell are you even talking about?’ I opened my mouth to speak and he put out a hand. ‘And if you even try and tell me that weird thing about pans and stoves again, I’m going lose it.’

‘Lose it?’ I snarked, forgetting my resolution not to argue with him. ‘I can’t imagine that.’

‘Imagine it,’ he said, and in one seamless movement he pulled me towards him and kissed me.

It felt so natural. It was as though I had given in to a magnetism that I had been resisting all along. As my lips parted beneath his, my whole body thrilled with a sense of anticipation, and I put my hand to his chest and pressed my body against his. You know how I thought I wasn’t up for lust anymore? How Callum had proved to me that I’d stowed that part of myself away, perhaps forever? I discovered in that moment that I was 100 per cent up for it. That I wanted to drown in it. That I was kissing Jamie – my boss, the grumpiest man in Northumberland – so hungrily you would have thought he’d been served to me on a dessert trolley. And he was kissing me back with a passion to match my own.When we moved apart, his blue eyes looked so dark in the firelight and there was a look of such hunger on his face that my breath caught and I pulled him to me again, just to taste his lips again, just to prolong this moment.

When we moved apart, he buried his face in my neck. ‘Anna,’ he said. ‘You make me lose my mind.’

I ran my hands through his hair and I didn’t even need to think about it; it wasn’t a decision, it was just happening because it was meant to happen. There was no room for worry in my mind, no room for anxious analysis, only the space for the sensations: for the touch of his hands on my waist as he gently pulled me to him; the feel of his muscular back as my hands slipped under his shirt; and the taste of his mouth as his lips met mine again and again.

The rain drummed on the roof. When he said, ‘Tell me to stop if you want me to stop,’ and unbuttoned the first button of my blouse. I said ‘Don’t stop,’ and I said it again about ten or fifteen times but who the hell cared because I wasn’t counting.

His hands were slow, deliberate; he asked with each move of them as he undid my jeans, his thumbs skimming my hips, so that I made a sound that was barely audible but seemed to drive him on. After what felt like hours of aching caresses, I peaked so hard that it was ridiculous, because it felt as though my body had melted into liquid and nothing else, I said his name and tried to touch him and he said, ‘Let’s wait until there’s a bed, Anna. I think we need a bed.’ But his voice broke on the words. All we had was the foldedblankets on the bothy floor. ‘I want it to be better than this,’ he said. ‘A four-poster bed, at least.’ He smiled at me and it was as though my heart – which I’d honestly thought was numb, if not dead – broke open.

I needed to hide what I was feeling from him. I had to hide what had just hit me like an avalanche. Trembling, and so feverish that I felt I would never be cool again, I curled into his embrace and said, ‘What just happened?’ My arms tight around his torso, I breathed in the scent of him. I hadn’t realised how much I had wanted to do that until this moment. I was holding on so tight to him, and I didn’t want to let him go. He buried one hand in my hair and stroked the length of me with the other.

‘I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,’ he said, into my hair.

‘In which case, we don’t need a bed,’ I said, determined to give him what he had given me, my hand moving over his rumpled clothes, down further, exploring, until his hardness was in my hand.

‘Are you saying that you want me too?’ he said, his breath hitching. Although considering what I was doing with my hands, I didn’t know how he could doubt it.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want you.’

As he tilted his hips, and allowed me to continue, I saw the look on his face: a half smile, half shaking of the head, as though he could hardly believe what was happening. I watched him be caught in the tide of passion as my hand moved, gently then firmly, watching every expression passacross his face, responding to him, until he let go in a way I could never have dreamed, my name on his lips.

I woke with the light from the uncovered windows, to find Jamie lighting the fire again. I was cold and stiff and felt about a hundred years old, although he must have felt worse, as I’d largely been sleepingonhim. As the memory of what had happened flooded into my head, it felt like a fever dream. His face, when he turned to me, was different: there was a softness to his expression as he leaned over to me that made my heart falter in my chest.

‘Come on, old soldier,’ he said, hauling me to my feet with an outstretched hand. When I landed against him – theatrically, I have to say, I’m only human – he took my face in his hands and kissed me, and I literally moaned because he had no right to kiss so well for someone I was definitely not meant to be with.

I was already rationalising things. We’d had a drink, right? We’d just been fooling around, right? Because what on earth was I doing, apart from destroying my career prospects and side-tracking a peer of the realm whose only purpose in life was to produce an heir and a spare? Also, he’d declared he was pretty much unable to have a functioning romantic relationship, so we could just press ‘reset’. Couldn’t we?

‘I don’t like the look on your face,’ he said, looking alarmed.

‘I mean, it’s just my face,’ I said.

‘And it’s a beautiful face, but you look – upset.’

‘Not upset,’ I said. ‘A bit blindsided, but – Jamie, that was amazing.’ I didn’t have the guts to tell him that Sean had never brought me near to that level of abandon, so easily and in a way that I had completely lost control. This was no quick grope under the influence. There had been an edge and I had gone over it. The intensity of the night before hadn’t been okay, or nice, or good enough. It had been back-arching, screaming-level pleasure. Like dying and being reborn all in one. And now I couldn’t even look him in the eye. A grown woman, blushing.

We went out together to gather water. It had stopped raining at last. I looked at Jamie and saw, like me, he was glorying in the fresh air, bright-eyed and smiling, even with that hint of sadness in his eyes, which I had noticed yesterday and now couldn’t unsee.

When I waved my phone in the air, a text plinked into my inbox. Callum. I imagined an inkling of concern, good wishes, etc, so when I saw his message I snorted with laughter.

‘What does it say?’ said Jamie.

‘It just says “Okay”,’ I said, and began laughing hysterically. ‘I mean, we’ve been missing for the night and he just says okay?’

‘Did you sleep with him?’ he said, and looked down when I glared at him. ‘Sorry, I don’t want to sound like a psycho, it’s just – okay, I sound like a psycho.’

‘No, I didn’t sleep with him,’ I said, and he let out a sharp exhale. ‘Are you sleeping with Lucinda?’ I countered. ‘Youwere making such a song and dance about not doing it, I assumed you had.’

‘I’m not a liar,’ he said, and gave me a playful nudge. ‘We were in a relationship a while ago. But we haven’t been together in that way for a long time, and certainly not since I met you.’

‘Then why are you dating her?’ I literally wanted to kick myself for asking.

‘Because it seemed logical,’ he said. ‘Sensible. I wanted you, and it was clear that you didn’t want me, and it was driving me round the bend, so—’

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