Page 64 of The Girl You Left Behind
“You know, I do have food at home.”
He laughs. And stops. “Okay. Well, now I don’t know what to say.”
“Say ‘That would be great.’ And then you can add, ‘Please shut up now, Liv, before you make things even more complicated.’”
“That would be great, then,” says Paul. He holds up her coat for her to shrug her way into, then they head out of the pub.
•••
This time when they walk it is not in silence. Something has unlocked between them, perhaps through his words or her sudden feeling of relief. They weave in and out of the tourists, pile breathlessly into a taxi, and when he sits down in the back seat, holding out his arm for her to tuck into, she leans into him and breathes in his clean, male smell and feels a little giddy with her own sudden good fortune.
The air is crisp with the approach of autumn. They hurry into the fuggy warmth of the foyer. She feels a bit silly now. Somehow she can see that in the previous forty-eight hours Paul McCafferty had stopped being a person in her imagination and started to become an idea, a thing. The symbol of her moving on. It was too much weight for something so new.
She hears Mo’s voice in her ear:Whoa, missus. You think too much.
And then, as he tugs the lift door shut behind them, they fall silent. It ascends slowly, rattling and echoing, the lights flickering, as they always do. It heads past the first floor, and they can hear the distant concrete echo of someone taking the stairs, a few bars of cello music from another apartment.
Liv is acutely conscious of him in the enclosed space, the citrus tang of his aftershave, the imprint of his arm around her shoulders. She looks down and wishes, suddenly, that she had not changed into this frumpy skirt, the flat heels. She wishes she had worn the butterfly shoes.
She looks up, and he is watching her. He is not laughing. He holds out his hand, and as she takes it, he slowly draws her the two steps across the lift and lowers his face to hers so that they are inches apart. But he does not kiss her.
His blue eyes travel slowly over her face: eyes, eyelashes, brows, lips, until she feels curiously exposed. She can feel his breath on her skin, his mouth so close to hers that she could tip forward and bite it gently.
Still he does not kiss her.
It makes her shiver with longing.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he murmurs.
“Good.”
He rests his nose against hers. The very tops of their lips are touching. She can feel the weight of him against her. She thinks her legs may have begun to tremble. “Yes, it’s fine. I mean, no, I’m terrified. But in a good way. I—I think I...”
“Stop talking,” he murmurs. She feels his words against her lips, his fingertips tracing the side of her neck, and she stops speaking.
And then they are at the top floor, kissing. He wrenches open the lift door and they stumble out, still pressed against each other, need spiraling between them. She has one hand inside the back of his shirt, absorbing the heat of his skin. She reaches behind her with the other, fumbling until she opens the door.
They fall into the house. She does not turn on the light. She staggers backward, dazed now by his mouth on hers, his hands on her waist. She wants him so badly her legs turn liquid. She crashes against the wall, hears him swear under his breath.
“Here,” she whispers, before she can think about it. “Now.”
His body, solid against hers. They are in the kitchen. The moon hangs above the skylight, casting the room in a cold blue light. Something dangerous has entered the room, something dark and alive and delicious. She hesitates, just a moment, and pulls her jumper over her head. She is someone she knew a long time ago, unafraid, greedy. She reaches up, her eyes locked on his, and unbuttons her shirt. One, two, three, the buttons fall away. The shirt slides from her shoulders, so that she is exposed to her waist. Her bare skin tightens in the cool air. His eyes travel down her torso and her breath quickens. Everything stops.
The room is silent apart from their breathing. She feels magnetized. She leans forward, something building, intense and gorgeous in this brief hiatus, and they are kissing, a kiss she feels she has waited years to complete, a kiss that does not already have a full stop in mind. She breathes in his aftershave, her mind spins, goes blank. She forgets where they are. He pulls away gently, and he is smiling.
“What?” She is glazed, breathless.
“You.” He’s at a loss for words. Her smile spreads across her face, then she kisses him through it until she is lost, dizzy, until reason seeps out through her ears and she can hear only the growing, insistent hum of her own need.Here. Now.His arms tighten around her, his lips on her collarbone. She reaches for him, her breath coming in shallow bursts, her heart racing, oversensitized so that she shivers as his fingers trail her skin. He tears his shirt over his head. He lifts her clumsily onto the work top and she wraps her legs around him. He stoops, pushing her skirt up around her waist, and she arches back, lets her skin meet the cold granite so that she is gazing up at the glass ceiling, her hands entwined in his hair. Around her the shutters are open, the glass walls a window to the night sky. She stares up into the punctured darkness and thinks, almost triumphantly, with some still functioning part of her:I am still alive.
And then she closes her eyes and refuses to think at all.
•••
His voice rumbles through her. “Liv?”
He is holding her. She can hear her own breath.
“Liv?”
