Fast And Loose

‘Might be. Who do you want to track down? An ex-lover? A potential future one? A long-lost family member? I’m intrigued – and you can’t intrigue Tom Crowley and expect him to leave it there. Sorry, but my professional pride won’t stand it.’

‘Professional pride,’ I snorted. ‘Professional sticky beak.’

‘Same thing. C’mon. Who’ve you been in a Twitter storm with? Who’s been viewing your Facebook profile?’

‘Shut up,’ I moaned. ‘Talk about something else. Who’s up for the deputy editor job? Have you heard anything?’

‘Nice try, but if you want me to shut up, you’ll have to shut me up.’

I took a deep breath, downed the vodka in one and turned back to him.

‘Ask me one more time and I’ll –’

‘I won’t stop badgering you all night. And you can’t even run away from me. So just give it up, girlfriend.’

I gave it up. I took his face in both my hands and fastened my lips on his, as assertively as I knew how. I was answered by a growl low in his throat and the secure tightening of his arm around me, one hand on the back of my neck.

I’d forgotten how brilliantly he could kiss. He did it with one hundred per cent commitment, like a drowning man clinging to you for your life-giving snog. Everything in me that was tight slackened, everything that was defensive collapsed. Why would I fight something so sublime? It was like running into battle against an army of cream cakes and kittens. Embrace it, for God’s sake. It won’t hurt you.

Ah, what a deceptive voice that was.

But it entirely shouted down the other voice, the one that nagged faintly from its crushed position about how he wasn’t to be trusted and he would let me down and break my heart and so on and so forth.

Shut up, nagging voice. I don’t care about that. Let me have this moment.

I let my head slide against the back of the banquette, opening my mouth to let his tongue inside. I pushed my cheek against his, revelling in the slightly fuzzy warmth of his skin. I was drinking him in, and pouring myself back in return.

His hand – the one that wasn’t holding me in position by the neck – started fidgeting with my fussy fishnetty bits. He moved skilled fingers inside my velvet and lace bra top and, although it only covered more fishnet, he found the outline of my breast and traced it through the diamond pattern. My nipple protruded, stiff and enlarged, straining against the mesh. It would be patterned too if it didn’t subside soon. Crowley’s thumb found it and rubbed it. The gentlest pressure was shocking enough and waves of overstimulation coursed through me. I clamped my thighs together, feeling a steam heat between them.

Tom Crowley was playing with my nipples, here in a public bar, and I had absolutely no problem with it. Good manners and decorum were for other girls. I was just a horny slut, and he knew it.

The increasing fever of our embrace was causing my legs to squirm and twist, which hurt my ankle.

I whimpered into his mouth, hoping he would recognise pain rather than pleasure, but it only seemed to drive him wilder, so I had to put my hands against his chest and push him away forcibly.

‘Wha–?’ he said, and I wanted to kiss him again immediately, in his rumpled, lustful confusion.

‘My ankle. I’m getting all twisted up and it hurts.’

He let out a few heavy breaths before making a response.

‘Shall we leave?’

I misunderstood him for a moment. He was pissed off that I’d complained and wanted to walk away?

‘Come on,’ he said, pushing away his half-drunk pint. ‘I’ve seen more than enough to scribble a paragraph. Let’s get out of here.’

He helped me out of the booth and then, unexpectedly and dizzyingly, swept me up into his arms. The continuing throb in my ankle dulled in comparison with the unmatched thrill of sailing through the dry ice in Crowley’s arms, cutting a swathe through the top-hatted and veiled clientele.

The doormen said goodnight to us at the top of the stairs, and he bore me onwards to the taxi rank while I clung on for dear life, dreading that, at any moment, his arms would give and I’d end up amongst the KFC cartons and trodden-in gum that constituted pavement furniture around here.

We made it on to the smooth back seat of a cab in the nick of time.

‘What’s your address, Foxy?’ he said, sliding in beside me.

‘Rutland Avenue. And what did you call me?’

‘It’s what they call you in the office,’ he said, without apology, having given the cabbie his instructions. ‘Foxy Coxy. Well, the polite ones do.’

‘And what,’ I said, after a pause to register this, ‘do the rude ones call me?’

He gave me a sympathetic smile and rubbed my knee. ‘Ah, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before,’ he said. ‘You’ve lived with that name all your life.’

‘Cocksucker,’ I said resignedly. ‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t,’ he said quickly.

‘Ironic,’ I replied. ‘Given that you’re the only one in a position to know whether or not it’s accurate.’

He smirked.

‘Mm hmm,’ he said smugly. His fingers made a light but devastating return to the back of my neck. ‘If it weren’t for your ankle,’ he whispered into my ear, ‘I’d have found the darkest corner of that bar and had you right there, against the wall.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Can’t resist you.’ He kissed the spot beneath my ear. Dire peril. I loved being kissed there.

‘You managed…pretty well…for six weeks,’ I gasped. The ear-kissing was ongoing and had spread to the delicate skin of my neck.

‘I’m a fool,’ he breathed. ‘I wanted to call you. But…’

‘But?’

‘Thought you’d say no.’

‘Well, what a shit journalist you are, then,’ I said, and he left off the kissing and sat up, blinking madly.

‘Ella!’ he protested.

‘That’s such blatant bull,’ I continued. ‘You’re trained to deal with people saying no to you. And you’re trained to carry on knocking at doors that get slammed in your face. If you’d wanted to see me again, you’d have called.’

He looked away at the spattering of raindrops on the dark window, then back at me.

‘I’m sorry, then,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be honest with you. I fucked you because I fancy you. Nothing complicated about it. And I still do. So…?’

I took a deep breath.

‘Well, same here, essentially,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I was the new girl and you were the old hand with a reputation I didn’t know about at the time. I was vulnerable and I needed a friend, and you made me feel like a twat. Well, not you, to be fair. Everybody else. All I got all week was “Oh, God, you let Crowley charm your pants off. Well, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.” Really lovely introduction to my new career, that was.’