Freya North 3-Book Collection: Secrets, Chances, Rumours

Appropriately enough, there's a full moon for Wolf. It's sufficient for Tess to nurse the dog without the need for artificial light. Joe sees how the moonlight glances off the flagstones and reverberates from the white walls to bathe everything in soft silver. She's sitting on her heels on one of the blankets, with her back to Joe, bending forward, whispering to the dog.

Tess in a vest and knickers. A plain white vest and white cotton knickers. Between the two, as she leans forward, a small but compelling ellipse of skin – like a shy, pink smile. He thinks, that really can't pass as a camisole and panties, that really is just a vest and knickers. No frills. The simplicity, combined with the light and the time of night, is peculiarly stunning and Joe is perturbed how aroused it's made him. She's sitting on her heels and she's leaning forward and her bum, demurely covered in white cotton, is really so peach-shaped that Joe has to admit the cliché is both perfect and yet does her an injustice. The soles of her feet under her bum. The pads of her toes, becoming rounder as they become smaller, like little buds. Shoulders bare and shapely, as if carved from alabaster by the lick of moonlight. Her hair she has scrunched up to keep it away from her face, inadvertently revealing the elegant curve of her neck for Joe.

What's she doing exactly? Joe wonders as he watches her soak a flannel in a bowl of water, her face in profile. It strikes Joe that, unseen, Tess's prettiness can reveal itself. It's as if it hides when she's in company, as if she draws it into herself and says, don't come out until no one's looking. Like that day when he watched her hanging out the washing. Like this morning, when he saw her in the playground. Like this evening when she thought he was engrossed at the stove but he turned and just looked at her while she was busy writing some list or other. And like now – her features in profile as delicate and defined as a Victorian cameo silhouette. But what's she doing with that flannel, dipping it in the bowl, wringing it out a little? Whatever it is, he's pleased for her to continue because he gets to see the sweep and delineation of her arms.

He must have shifted because Wolf has clocked him and has made a brave attempt to voice a greeting. Tess turns quickly – but she settles because it's Joe, it's only Joe.

‘Sorry, did I startle you?’ he whispers, walking over.

‘No,’ she says, ‘I'm used to far stranger creaks and shadows when you're not here.’

He comes to stand by her, looking down on her and his dog. She looks up and sees boxer shorts and looks away quickly. His knees are at her eye level and she's never seen his legs bare and they are athletic with a smattering of dark hairs. She drops her gaze and sees his feet; they are shapely and strong and she is pleased she's dipping the flannel in the bowl because otherwise she'd be tempted to trace the tendons of his foot with her fingertips. He squats down, one arm relaxed over his knees, his other hand down on the floor for balance.

‘What's with the flannel?’

‘Well, don't laugh – but I wondered if Wolf was thirsty but feeling a bit incapacitated to drink from his bowl. So I'm just dipping the flannel and doing a bit of a drip and sip for him.’

‘Seems he is thirsty.’

‘Actually, he probably just likes the attention. I'm a muggins.’

‘You're Florence Frigging Nightingale, my love.’

And Tess's heart lurches and she thinks, oh, call me ‘my love’ again.

‘I was awake anyway,’ she shrugs, ‘so I just thought I'd pop down and see how he was doing.’

‘A model patient, I'd say.’

‘Nothing seeping or bleeding. His nose is nice and cold and he feels good and warm. I just wish he had his tail to wag.’

‘That tail,’ Joe laughs. ‘The number of times I cursed it – one wag and oops! another glass broken, or another pile of papers scattered to the floor.’

‘He whacked me with it one time,’ Tess tells him, ‘hard across my thigh. It hurt!’

Joe pauses. ‘Thanks, Tess – seriously.’

‘Oh God, Joe – it's the least I can do.’

‘You're not blaming yourself, are you?’

‘No – but that's not to say I wish I'd loitered when he went out for his pee.’

‘The vet told me – about how you took him there.’

She looks down and doesn't comment.

‘Thank you,’ says Joe.

Wolf gives a grumble, as if he's been happy to listen to them witter on but he's tired now and could they go.

‘Sleep's the best medicine – that's what my grandma used to say,’ Tess says and she sits up off her heels and stands. And now it's Joe who's low, looking at her feet and thinking, you've painted your toenails since I last saw them. They are pale turquoise and they remind him of Tess's sense of humour.

At his eye level, her thighs. He decides it would be prudent not to look higher – he's only in his boxers after all.

‘Well, night then, Joe.’

‘Night, Tess,’ he says without turning – he doesn't want to lose his balance. He's still squatting down. He's not as young as he was, you know. It's not just his floorboards that creak. Especially when flagstone chill has just infiltrated his limbs. He waits a moment or two, listens for the sounds on the stairs before he rises. He smiles at Wolf and turns for bed.

Ethereal, like a ghost, Tess is passing along the landing after the first flight, the white of her vest and pants almost luminous. He's now reached the top of the stairs; his door is a little way down the corridor, in the opposite direction.

‘Night then,’ he says, holding onto the newel post.

She's about to climb the stairs to her floor.

She turns. ‘Night, Joe.’

And motion fails them at first because they find themselves rooted to where they stand, facing each other at either end of the landing, yards apart, both of them in the direction opposite to the one they'd intended to go. And then suddenly, motion liberates them, releasing their bodies without them having to think about putting one foot in front of the other. They have no awareness of bridging the distance of the landing. All they know is that they're gliding, they've floated in close and their lips are going to touch any second now. Joe's fingertips have found her jaw, her neck, and Tess's hands have alighted on his forearm, the centre of his chest. There's less light up here than downstairs, it's diffused but it's sufficient for them to see eye to eye, for Joe to dip his face as Tess raises hers, for their noses to gently nudge against each other until their lips whisper the overture of a kiss.

Then they have no further need of moonlight or sight because touch takes over. As the kiss deepens, as lips part to welcome in tongues, so featherlight fingertips change to probing, clasping, all-feeling. His hands hold her close in the small of her back, then flow up to her neck, along her collarbone, her cheek, her head, his fingers snagging on her scrunched-up hair. Her hands are sweeping up his arms, over the dip below his biceps, the rise and run of his shoulders, the strong curve of his back and up and over the band of muscle either side of his spine. She can sense his erection and drops her hand to touch it fleetingly through the cotton of his boxers. They pull apart and stare at each other; in this light their eyes are uniformly dark and glinting, in this light there's a sheen on their lips from each other's kiss.

Tess in a vest. Tess in a vest. Tess's nipples springing behind that vest. Joe is transfixed by them, he puts his hands over them and just keeps them there. In the cup of his hands, he can sense how her breathing quickens and it makes her breasts swell and fit themselves perfectly into his palms. He breaks off to kiss her again, holding the back of her neck and pulling her in close and sinking his mouth, his tongue down deep. Tess in a vest. He's as enthralled by the sight as by what the white cotton keeps out of sight. He tugs the vest down, not at the shoulder straps, but from the neckline. He pulls the cotton down until it's looped underneath her breasts and they are exposed. They are round and perky and, as he caresses one he sips the nipple of the other between his lips. And while he does so, Tess takes his head in her hands and pulls his hair through her fingers and she closes her eyes and thinks, I could stop right here for ever.

He takes his mouth away from her breast and kisses her again. Then he speaks, without breaking the bond between their lips, and it means she can actually feel his words as she hears them.

‘Will you sleep with me, Tess? Can I take you to bed?’

He takes her hand and leads her to his room.

She thinks, he sleeps with his curtains open.

He pulls his top over his head to reveal a torso that is manly but not intimidating. He sits on the edge of his bed and pulls her between his legs. He lifts her vest off and takes a moment to just look at her before he starts to kiss her stomach. His hands travel up and down the backs of her thighs, his tongue-tip dips into her belly button. He's feeling around to the fronts of her legs, up to the undulation of her waist, higher to her breasts; down again. As they lie down, they don't take their eyes off each other and they fold themselves into each other and wrap the covers around them. Tenderness and lust intermingle. The soft stroking soon enough leads to the ripping down of knickers and boxers and condom pack. Their breathing is audibly short, the instinct is primal and Tess suddenly wants to roll on top of Joe, open her legs and welcome him in deep. She cries out. It's insanely exquisite. Joe is abandoned to the pleasure, moving into her, tasting her, feeling her sex closing around him, sucking him deep as she comes, pulling his own orgasm out to mingle with the receding throbs of hers.

They stay there, fused, exhausted and exhilarated. They are spent and speechless but they continue to kiss. Joe and Tess have discovered they kiss each other with the same ease with which they talk and they find there's so much to say.

Chapter Twenty-three (#ulink_4cedb366-1d62-5e54-8499-2bd19ec00905)

Tess was woken by the dawn streaming in through the uncurtained windows of Joe's bedroom the next morning, pestering her face and diluting her sleep. She lay still, listening to a bicker of birds outside, to Joe breathing rhythmically next to her. She was lying in the crook of his arm, her face fitting the jigsaw dip just inside his shoulder. Her field of vision was filled with flesh and it was a novel sight indeed, one that she wanted to pore over. A little chest hair, a dark brown nipple, a couple of paler-hued moles. The steady rise and fall of his ribcage, a prominent collarbone. Without moving her head, she raised her eyes. Bristles on his jaw. She smiled – his morning kisses would be less smooth than those last night. His other arm was above his head and along the pillow and she gently took her hand and whispered it over the hair in his armpit before gently laying her arm along his chest. She didn't want to wake him, she just wanted to steal a little private time to look at him and to snuggle herself into the clarity and joy of the precise moment.

But then she heard Em. At first, just the happy little noises which made Tess feel wonderfully replete, as if there were no further gifts that could better her life just then. She was lying in a grand old bateau-lit bed, in a room with a view, in a magnificent old house, in the arms of a man for whom her feelings were intense, while listening to the jolly ramblings of her beloved young daughter. However, Em soon tired of being unanswered and so she made sure she wasn't unheard and her chatter turned to complaint and soon enough to hollering indignation. And for the first time in Em's life, Tess thought, shut up. Tess thought, I don't want to come to you, you'll have to wait, I want to be here. I want to lie here for longer; I don't want to share myself. I'm not coming.

Em was not having that.

Tess was not sure when the transition came but she found the impetus for leaving the bed had little to do with the fact that Em wanted her, more that she didn't want Joe to be irritated. Tess's needs and Em's need were colliding. She was going to her child not so much to comfort her but to keep her quiet.

‘Em,’ she protested as she scooped up the child, ‘couldn't you give Mummy a little peace and quiet? Some Mummy time?’ She changed the nappy. ‘Some grown-up time?’ She didn't look at the baby directly. ‘Some time for Mummy and Joe?’

From lover to mother, Tess could feel the shift. What was the way back? Plonk Em somewhere safe with a glut of rice cakes and sneak back into Joe's room? Impossible.