Page 9 of Love You Like That (Excess All Areas 4)

She ran her fingers over his abs, and he felt a…flutter. “Cashmere.” The word was almost accusatory. “And make up.”

“Just eyeliner.”

Zoe raised an eyebrow. “There is no such word as ‘just’ with you.”

He slipped his hand into the sleeve of his jacket and put it on. “Life is too short to be boring. Do you have somewhere in mind or are we just wandering?”

“I have a plan. Somewhere a bit odd.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“I need to make this count as exercise so can we walk briskly?”

Alex laughed. “What an odd question, but sure. You set the speed.” With their height difference at nearly a foot, she could probably run, and he’d still be able to walk next to her and keep up.

It was chilly when they stepped outside. The wind had whipped up, throwing leaves and the occasional bit of rubbish into the air. Alex tightened the collar of his jacket around him, glad of his hat. “Might need to get a bit of a jog on to keep warm.”

“It’s harder to hear when it’s this windy and you are alongside me instead of opposite.”

Alex turned his face towards her as he walked. “We might need to jog to keep warm.”

It took them about twenty minutes to enter the University of Aberdeen grounds. Zoe opened her phone, looked at something, then closed it again.

“Are we supposed to be in here?” he asked.

Zoe nodded. “It’s an open campus. A-ha. There.”

She pointed in the direction of a low brick wall. Behind it was an old van that made him think of Luke’s van, the one they’d toured in before they’d hit the big leagues. Next to it was a fence. It looked like a dead end. “I’m not seeing anything.”

“Follow me.” She motioned with her hand.

They wandered down a narrow, overgrown alleyway. “Zoe,” he said, when she turned to face him halfway along. “This looks like the kind of alleyway people get killed in and their bodies remain unfound for about three weeks until they start to smell.”

Zoe laughed. “Did you just say we’re going to get murdered?”

“Yeah.”

She squeezed his bicep. “That’s why I brought you. You can fight them off and hold them back while I make a run for it. It’s a purely mercenary decision.”

“I’m your bodyguard. Your first line of defence?”

“Yes.”

“Nice. So, you only want me for my body?”

She blushed. “Not in that way.”

“So you have said before. Sleeping with me would be bleak, right?”

He tried to say it with humour, but, honestly, it poked at something raw inside him. He’d never felt quite good enough for any of his lovers. And he had years of attempts to find someone who loved him as much as he wanted to love them to back that up.

“I’m sure the right person would find it not very bleak at all. In fact, do you remember the night we met?”

Alex grinned. “I do.” His tongue had been down the back of some guy’s throat in a bar in Manchester’s Gay Village.

“Proof there are lots of people who’d find your body very appealing. Come on.”

He followed her to the end of the passageway, and on the right stood a pair of black wrought iron gates which Zoe attempted to pull open. “Welcome to the Snow Kirk.”

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