Page 43 of The Night Shift
‘Nervousandvulnerable,’ said Gus raising his eyebrows. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ His gaze drifted down from her neck and shoulders as if to assess exactly how much skin was on display. ‘Hmmm. It would be completely wrong for anyone to take advantage of a situation like this. Wouldn’t it? I mean, a man would have to be completely shameless to, for example, kiss someone who had just admitted to feeling so exposed.’ He looked her directly in the eye and she felt a shot of pure desire course through her. She squeezed her thighs together, aware of his body now only inches from hers.
‘I guess,’ she said, her voice wobbling. ‘Unless that person asked him to.’
He pulled a thoughtful face as though he was giving her comment serious consideration. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘Yes, I think thatwouldmake it acceptable. If she asked him directly. Especially if that person was usually known for making her wishes abundantly clear. For being particularly forthright and honest and?—’
‘Kiss me,’ she said, interrupting him. She could bear it no longer, the teasing, the anticipation. His lips were inches from hers, that warm wide mouth could be on her in seconds…
He tilted her chin and brought his face tantalisingly close. She could see the smooth outline of his cheek, the dark caramel of his eyes as they gazed into hers. All thought and awareness seemed to disappear. The only thing was Gus.
‘Kiss me,’ she said again. Her voice was raw, jagged with longing and she saw his pupils dilate as some vital part of him registered the urgency of her desire. She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t wait any longer. She pressed her body up against his, brought the palms of her hands to his shoulders, his neck, his jaw, clumsy and fumbling as she drew him to her, and as his lips finally met hers she almost sobbed with relief.
Gus
He hadn’t been intending for this to happen. At least, he didn’t think it had been his intention, but who can say what his subconscious might have been up to, plotting away behind his back? Hereally hadinvited her to stay because he didn’t want her cycling home. And he’d given her the master bedroom partly so she could take a shower without worrying about someone walking in on her. That someone being him. And he had genuinely thought she’d be dressed by the time he’d knocked on the bedroom door– hadn’t he? After all, he’d managed to run down to the Italian grocers on the corner, buy fresh pasta and pancetta, have a brief but flirtatious chat with the elderly owner Signora Fratelli– as was standard– and return to the apartment to make her a cup of tea in that time. But then she had obviously called Dev and her parents and as a result had delayed her shower, hence the unexpected and very appealing sight of a half-naked Violet with a guilty look on her face, caught in the act of nosing around his room.
He wasn’t sure what had tipped him from sadness about Amelia’s abandoned photo frame to frankly alarming levels of rampant desire in a matter of seconds, but it wasn’t simply the physical presence of a woman wearing only a towel in close proximity to his bed. It was something about the way Violet looked at him. Like she wanted to please him. As though his happiness was paramount. The way she’d said it.You look so happy in that picture.’
The truth was, hehadbeen happy the day that photo was taken, and mainly because of the reasons he’d told her– he was with friends, the sun was shining, the beer was flowing– but he also knew the overriding memory of that captured moment was relief. Relief because Amelia had stopped worrying about her dress and whether it made her look fat, relief that Amelia wasn’t obsessing about whether anyone knew her handbag was a knockoff and not the eye-wateringly expensive brand it masqueraded as. She’d even stopped worrying about the fact that she hadn’t been invited to Clara’s hen party. It didn’t matter, she told Gus, because she’d already decided to invite Clara to hers– just to prove that she was cool with the whole thing and didn’t hold grudges. Gus didn’t point out that she’d somewhat undermined the coolness by using her own hen party as a means to settle scores. That wasn’t his role. He was there to keep Amelia happy and it was a job he did well, a job he’d really excelled at recently.
Because of course that was the biggest relief of the day– the fact that they could finally go to a wedding together without the overwhelming burden of expectation. It wasn’t Amelia’s fault that she was a couple of years older than him and had breached an invisible but seemingly significant age barrier, thrusting her into a world where friends and colleagues (many of whom were older still) were all signing up to be the next Mr and Mrs. As a couple they had suffered round after round of ‘It’ll be you two next, tying the knot’ and‘When are you going to do the decent thing, big man?’ followed by Amelia’s crushing disappointment when yet another example of nuptial bliss was laid before her and still no proposal. But by the time that photo was taken hehadproposed. There was a big fat diamond sparkling away on her finger and the pressure had lifted. He’d made her happy. Job done.
Except she hadn’t been happy, not truly. And neither had he. But nobody had questioned whether his personal level of satisfaction and contentment was remotely significant before Violet– himself included. Of course, there had been other people in his life who wanted to please him, but usually they wanted something in return– status, security, emotional protection or entertainment. People generally wanted him to lift their mood, cheer them up, issue the rallying cry and make them feel safe. With other people and other relationships there were inevitably complications, strings attached, qualifications to their supposed unconditional love.
He had learned up until this point to navigate these requirements, to take them as a given. But with Violet all he saw in her expression at that moment was honesty and clarity– she just wantedhim. There was no hidden agenda. He already knew her well enough to know that she didn’t do those. There was no ulterior motive. She didn’t need anything from him. She didn’tneedanyone. All she wanted in that moment was to hold him, to feel his mouth against hers– he could see it written all over her face. And never before had he felt such a precise chiming of mutual desires– they both wanted the same thing at exactly the same time,andthey could both have what they wanted? It seemed too perfect to be possible. So, he chose not to overthink it, not to give in to the little worried voice that echoed in his ear–what if you hurt her, what if she hurts you–and instead to simply give in to the primal instinct that seemed intent on overriding all else.
The suspended moment of anticipation between Violet asking to be kissed and his lips meeting hers was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. The closest he could come to anything similar was the feeling of being poised at the top of a rollercoaster, breath held, throat tight, senses on red alert, knowing the inevitable adrenalised plummet was imminent, and being helpless to stop it. The delay as his eyes searched hers and their breath mingled resulted in an explosion of sensation as soon as he felt her mouth, hot and urgent against his. Her lips were soft, but there was nothing timid in the way she kissed him, and it felt as though each of his nerve endings were on fire. He gasped as she pressed her body up against him, stealing the breath from his lungs. Her hands were on the back of his neck, drawing him in and he could feel the sinewy power in those swimmer’s arms as they tensed around him. She was stronger than she looked, certainly when she wanted something. He was reminded of her grace in the water. She was like a swan, haughty and cool as she glided past a casual observer, only revealing the fierce frenetic activity beneath the surface to a chosen few.
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, mouths welded to one another, hungry and frantic, but it was soon evident that Violet wanted his clothes off. She slid her hands under his T-shirt, her palms soft against his back and shoulders as she explored him, tugging at the fabric and rucking it up his sides until she had to break away from kissing him to drag it over his head. Within seconds of his top being off she was pressed against him once again and as his fingers fumbled with the gathered folds of her towel she wrenched herself free of it, the towel dropping in a heap by her feet as her naked skin met his. He allowed his hands to roam freely now across her back, the sharp blades of her shoulders, the warm curve at the base of her spine, the laddered sides of her ribcage, the gentle swell where her breasts were pressed against him. She reached her hand down just inside the waistband of his trousers, her fingers grazing against him and he groaned and pulled back slightly. He was rock-hard, if she got any closer he was going to find it extremely difficult to hold on.
‘Violet,’ he spoke urgently between kisses, coming up for air like a drowning man. ‘We– should we– do you want…’ He didn’t really know what he was asking her, there was just some residual notion of lessons drummed into him since his teenage years– consent, always check, never assume.
‘Condom,’ she said, her lips leaving his for a second, her voice breathy but her expression fierce. It was less of a question and more a statement of fact.
He nodded, pulling her back with him towards the bed, reaching out with his other hand to the bedside table and rifling through the drawer until he found the box of Durex. They crashed down onto the mattress, knocking the lamp over so it cast an amber glow across their bodies, both struggling to undo the foil condom wrapper and remove the remainder of Gus’s clothes while pressed up so tightly against each other. It was as if neither could bear to let the other go, even for a split second, even to allow for the practicalities of adequate contraception. He managed to roll the condom on and slid his fingers down across the flat of her stomach, the voice in his head was now sayinguhm foreplay?in a slightly hesitant tone but it seemed there was no time for such things because suddenly there were hands everywhere, limbs tangled and sliding across each other as she reached for him and he reached for her– then her thighs were wrapped around him, she dug her fingers into his lower back and it all became white noise as he entered her– tight wet heat and an explosion of colour in his head– and then it was all over before he’d even had a chance to fully register what had just happened.
* * *
‘Jesus!’ His head thumped back into a pillow and he lay there for a moment, stunned. ‘Violet, I’m so sorry. Christ– what? That was– crazy.’ He shook his head, pulled her into him. ‘I’m not normally quite that trigger happy. Or inept.’
She snuggled against his side. ‘My fault,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I barely gave you a chance to…’ She looked sheepish. ‘I’m not normally quite so pushy.’
He gazed at her in awed astonishment, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. ‘Youdefinitelydidn’t give me a chance,’ he said. ‘To do anything. I mean you didn’t– I didn’t get to touch you. I didn’t even get started!’
‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘I just– I don’t really know what got into me. Apart from you obviously.’
‘Well, only just. I certainly wasn’t into you for anywhere near long enough.’ He rolled towards her, his body facing hers. ‘This situation needs rectifying immediately,’ he said, stroking a finger down her arm. ‘Things currently feel very one-sided and unbalanced.’
‘No, it’s really not a probl?—’
‘Shush,’ he said, kissing the round curve of her shoulder and moving his hand down past her waist and over her hip. ‘There are things I very much wanted to do that as yet remain undone.’
He slid his fingers between her thighs and heard her gasp as he trailed soft kisses down her throat to her chest. She moved against his hand, her pelvis jutting forward, but then she seemed to stutter, to catch herself. She pulled away from him.
‘You don’t have to you know,’ she said. ‘You won’t make me come, so it’s fine if you want to stop.’
‘What?’ he said, confused. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ He reached for her again.
‘I only meant’—she shifted onto her elbow and looked at him—'it’s nothing to do with you. I just don’t orgasm with anyone and so if that’s like, yourend goal, I don’t want you to feel disappointed, in me, or yourself, or– it makes me feel pressurised so…’
