Page 53 of Anything but Easy
I cleared my throat after a minute.
“Kira, are you okay?”
“Sure,” she mumbled, fiddling with her lava lamp, still avoiding eye contact and sinking further into her beanbag.
“Then, why aren’t you choosing a room?”
She sighed and her head flopped back onto the beanbag.
“Give me a minute, Sex Badger,” she said. “Just go off and sort your important stuff out. Go and talk to the Canadian Prime Minister – hot politician to hot politician. You can compare hair care products.”
I dropped the suitcase and crossed my arms over my chest. Maybe she was after an apology for dragging her here. If it would get her arse off that beanbag, I was willing to give it a try. “I’m sorry I–”
“Argh! Don’t apologise,” she snapped, then gathered her thick hair up onto the top of her head before letting it fall back down and releasing a puff of air from her mouth in what sounded like frustration. “Please,” she said as she looked up at me. “You don’t have to apologise for not wanting me in your room.”
My eyebrows went up and I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off.
“I know you’re busy . . . but I only snort alittle bitin my sleep. Libby saysshecan sleep through it. And I’m small, so I’ll barely take up any space in the bed. You’d hardly know I was there. I’d be like a tiny hedgehog tucked into your side – minus the spikes. But, if youcouldsleep with your shirt off that would be much appreciated. And we wouldn’t have to shag for hours like we did the other night. I’d be happy with just a quick bit of penetration when you’ve got a spare five minutes. I mean, maybe you need a few days to recover anyway? It was intense, and mendohave a longer refractory period than women. You could just let me know when you’re ready for another round. I wouldn’t putthatmuch pressure on you to . . . umph!”
During Kira’s little speech about snorting in her sleep (she did snort like a little pig – but it was cute, not annoying), how I would barely notice her, and listening to the disappointment in her voice as she talked about my ‘refractory period’, I lost the last shred of my control.
“Right,” I told her as I stood with her slung over my shoulder and stalked down the corridor to my room. “I was going to be a bloody gentleman and let you have your own room, but bollocks to that and bollocks to myrefractory period. I’ll give you refractory period. The only reason festivities stopped at all last night is because you fell asleep like a snorty little pig and then scurried off this morning.”
“There was just this one bag left to bring up to–” Henry’s voice trailed off as he reached the top of the stairs. “Argh! My eyes!”
“Bugger off ,Henry,” I called over my shoulder, and I felt Kira take her hand off my back, no doubt to give him a little wave.
“It’s okay, Henners,” she said, the dejection in her voice now completely gone – in fact she sounded positively chirpy. “Mummy and Daddy sometimes fight, but they still love you.” Henry beat another hasty retreat. I heard the door to his flat slam in the distance.
I stormed into my bedroom and dropped Kira on the bed. She bounced once and seemed to be pleased with that too; a huge smile on her face as she scrambled to a sitting position.
“So you don’t have to go and discuss hair care with Justin Trudeau?” she asked, pushing herself up to her knees and clasping her hands in front of her like a child about to receive their presents on Christmas morning.
I let out a bark of laughter and pulled off my shirt. Her eyes got bigger and her smile even wider.
“Hurrah!” she shouted, clapping once and bouncing on the bed. I’d had a not insignificant amount of experience of women in my bed before, but it was safe to say not one of them had clapped at me and shoutedhurrah!prior to bedroom activities. In fact, I didn’t know anyone who had ever said ‘hurrah!’ to me underanycircumstance. Kira wasn’t even trying to hide her enthusiasm – no coy looks under her lashes, no sexy pouting – she was all wide grin and bursting energy like an overexcited puppy. I was more turned on than I’d ever been in my life, but even with that fierce need pumping through my body, I couldn’t help but grin back.
Christ, she looked so bloody pleased that I was going to have time for aquick bit of penetration.
Of course I had time to take her to bed. Fuck.
Chapter 21
The one
Kira
“Cockwombles,” I mumbled under my breath as I read the article on the Lucas computer.
“Er, what’s cockwombles?” Henry’s voice made me jump and I looked up to see his tall frame in the doorway. It was Saturday and I’d been living with the Lucases since the Sunday before. Henry had started coming out of his lair, as Barclay called it, with much greater frequency and he no longer smelled like a homeless person.
I waved at the desktop and he moved closer to look at the screen.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Cockwombles indeed. You know, it’s best not to read any of that shit. Barclay doesn’t, he just lets the press officer trawl through it.”
Barclay had warned me that there might be some ‘heightened press interest’ in him over the next few days, following Monday’s Cabinet meeting. Top of the agenda had been his proposed changes in energy provision and, crucially how the government were going to minimise the impact to other industries and their workforce, as nuclear fusion and other renewal energy resources became the norm. Debate was raging and everybody’s hopes or grievances seemed to centre on Barclay Lucas as the Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth. Everyone knew that Barclay’s approach was to ‘embrace change’, something his predecessor (Millie’s dickhead of a father) had been staunchly opposed to. Barclay was clever though. He didn’t just make the environmental argument. No, he made the argument that appealed to everyone, whether they liked to admit it or not: he made the economic one. I’d seen his speeches before and I knew how convincing he was. As far as he was concerned, we had to change now andleadthe world rather than wait to see how everyone else fared with it.
So, what with the Cabinet meeting earlier in the week and now the upcoming parliamentary debate (before the bill was, hopefully, passed) all eyes were on him. And yes, there were plenty of seriousGuardianarticles about his political career and his current policies, but these were outnumbered by the huge interest in the man himself.
