Page 63 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Hey, Melody,” he calls from beneath the shelter of The Regalcanopy. “Would it count as walking you home if you let me share your umbrella?”
I pause and then sigh. It really is belting down. “Come on, then.”
He huddles beneath the brolly and then takes it from my fingers and holds it at a level that means he doesn’t need to walk on his knees to stay dry. We stand close through necessity, and I pick up a fast pace; even Usain Bolt wouldn’t confuse this with a romantic stroll. It’s three minutes and twenty-two seconds until we reach the cobbled alleyway at the side of Blithe Sprits, not that I’m counting or anything.
“This is me,” I say unnecessarily, seeing as we both know that perfectly well. He steps out of the force of the rain for a second as I fold the umbrella down.
“It is,” he says. Rain spikes his dark lashes as he bunches his shoulders high and shoves his hands deep into his pockets. Maybe it’s the romantic movie, or maybe it’s my man-drought, or maybe it’s the bottle of wine on an empty stomach, but all of a sudden and out of nowhere, I want Fletcher Gunn with a force that knocks the breath from my body.
“Kiss me like I’m Scarlett Johansson?” Shit. I hope for my own sake that I forget I said that by morning.
“Fuck, Bittersweet,” he says, low and quiet. He sounds serious enough to be almost angry. “I was so close to walking away.”
Then he pushes me back against the wall and presses his body to mine, his hand flat on the wall beside my head as he kisses me in a way Scarlett Johansson can only dream about.
I drop my umbrella and slide my hands inside his jacket. They somehow end up inside his T-shirt too, and I gasp in shock at the warmth and sudden intimacy of his skin under my palms. I think I actually whisper, “Oh my God,” and his breath quickens as I slide my hands up his back and fill them with his glorious broad shoulders.
“You’re trouble,” he mutters, then kisses me again, deeper, faster, sliding his tongue over mine as he pulls the hair band from my hair and musses it with his fingers.
“And you’re lethal,” I say, my eyes locked with his as he lays his hand flat over the base of my throat.
“Don’t ask me in for coffee unless you mean with breakfast,” he says, cocksure, making me laugh softly.
“In the whole wide world, we’re the two people who should not have sex the most.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Bittersweet,” he says. I can hear the humor in his voice as he moves his hand down to cover my breast. “You should probably stop talking now.”
I close my eyes and soak up the pleasure, because, annoyingly and inevitably, he’s ridiculously good at this stuff.
“We’re really very incompatible, from the neck up, Fletch,” I say, trying to remember the conversation I had with Marina, but then he puts his hand underneath my shirt and back over my breast, only this time his fingers are stroking my skin and it feels like someone just switched me on from the inside.
“I like how my name sounds when you say it.” He kisses the skin just south of my ear. “Say it again.”
I won’t, of course, but then he eases the cup of my bra down and closes his thumb and finger round my nipple and I say it anyway. I might even have said it twice, and my hand moves to slide down his chest. He’s just so damn hard and hot. I curl my fingers over the waistband of his jeans and tug him closer to me. He dazzles me, and I arch into his hands and his mouth.
“Your clothes are in my way,” he says quietly, and then with the confidence of a man who has done it often, he flicks my bra open. Fletch’s easy, self-assured voice is a problem to me; it’s giving me goosebumps and shivers and is turning me into a woman who makes out in alleyways. I won’t let this go too far, but oh my God he’s just put both of his hands inside my shirt and he’s holding my bare breasts in them.
“Ask me in, pretty face,” he whispers low and urgent into my mouth as he slides his thumbs over my painfully hard nipples. “Ask me into your bed, Melody, and I’ll say yes.”
“Fletch,” I start, and he seems to sense what I’m going to say because he groans and nips my lip.
“Don’t say no. Don’t tell me we have incompatible brains, because from the neck down we’re best fucking friends. Don’t tell me you can’t stand me, because your body is telling me that right now you can stand me plenty. I’m not suggesting we pretend we understand each other, or even that we like each other, but the need to get naked with you is keeping me awake at night, Bittersweet.”
He’s had me backed against the wall and his hands have been full of my breasts the entire time he’s been speaking, and when he bends his head to mine and kisses me some more, I feel sexier than Scarlett fucking Johansson. I don’t want to stop him, I really desperately don’t, but the small bit of my brain that isn’t drunk on either Fletcher Gunn or rosé wine wants—no,needs—to say something.
“I don’t have casual sex.” The words slide into the night air, and in reply he lifts my shirt and bares my breasts.
“I’m not asking you for casual sex,” he says, catching his lip between his teeth in almost pained pleasure as he looks intently at my body. His eyes say, “I yearn for you,” and his mouth says, “I’m asking you for intense, uncontrolled, filthy sex. The kind of sex you have once and then spend the rest of your life getting over.” Could anyone in the world refuse that? Why would they? He’s just morphed into a potty-mouthed Mr. Darcy, and despite my dislike for rom-coms, I’ve always been a sucker for Jane Austen’s wit. I’m going to do it. I’m going to take Fletcher Gunn upstairs to my flat and we’re going to have the most mind-bendingly amazing night of either of our lives, and then I’m going to go straight back to hating him again in the morning. And that’s the plan, right up to the moment when I hear the bell above the door to Blithe Spirits and then my mother’s voice in the street just around the corner, along with a deeper male voice I’d know anywhere. It’s Leo.
“Shit!” I whisper-gasp in panic, dragging my shirt down as I jump guiltily away from Fletch. “Shit.”
He pushes both of his hands through his hair and stares at me,his breathing ragged and harsh. His baleful eyes tell me that he knows that our night of filthy uncontrollable sex has just gone up in smoke.
“Quiet,” I mouth, holding my finger up to my lips. I don’t know who—my mother or Leo—dislikes Fletcher Gunn more, and I definitely don’t want either of them to find me sloshed and fooling around with him in the alleyway. He rolls his eyes at me as if I’m an idiot, and it strikes me that he doesn’t want to be found in a compromising position with me either. Should I be offended? I can’t muster it, because I’m under no delusion that this thing between Fletch and me is anything but inconveniently combustible chemistry and best kept between the two of us. Or not actioned at all, which now that I’m out of the lust-trance he cast over me, seems like the best option all round. I just need to get him out of this alleyway without being seen.
“I’ll speak to Melody,” my mother says. “I’m sure she’ll help once she knows.”
What’s Leo up to? And what the hell is he even doing at my mother’s dinner party in the first place? My chest burns with unanswered questions as I tiptoe backward and flatten myself against the cool brick wall. Fletch does the same, and we stand there side by side in the shadows and listen to my mother bid Leo farewell.
