My Perfect Stranger: A hilarious love story by the bestselling author of One Day in December

‘All the more reason why you’re going to.’

Honey screwed up her nose. ‘Honestly, it’s stupid.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he said. ‘Tell me, Honeysuckle. Why are you dating pianists?’

‘Tell me Hal, why do I suddenly feel like Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs?’

‘I’ll let you live as long as you answer the question.’

Honey puffed out hard. ‘I’m dating pianists because … because my friends think my sex life needs spicing up, okay?’

Hal laughed. Actually laughed. And then he stopped, and said, ‘But why a pianist? Aren’t they all dull as fuck?’

Honey scrubbed her hand over her forehead. Why was she telling him this stuff? It felt akin to being on a therapist’s couch.

‘I don’t know any pianists yet to tell you whether they’re dull as fuck or not. I’ll let you know after Friday night.’ She paused. ‘Although strictly speaking, Deano plays the synthesiser, not the piano.’

‘I’m going to ask you again, Honey, real slow,’ Hal said. ‘Why pianists in particular?’

‘Jeez, Hal! Do we have to do this?’

‘Stop avoiding the question. I’m your poor blind neighbour and you’re my only contact with the outside world. Have a heart.’

Honey gasped at his blatant manipulation. ‘That’s not fair and you know it.’

‘Life’s not fair. Take it from someone who knows. Why pianists?’

‘Christ, Hal!’ she burst out. ‘Because they’re bound to be good with their hands, okay? My friends have this crazy-ass idea that a pianist will make the perfect lover for me because they’ll be all skilled and clever and sensitive.’

Hal replied to her outburst with deafening silence. And then, ‘How old are you, Honey?’

She sighed. ‘Twenty-seven.’

He was quiet again, and then, ‘No fucking way. You’re twenty-seven years old and you’re still a virgin?’

‘No! No … I’m not a virgin. That’s not it at all. I’ve had my share of men, thank you very much.’ She spoke without thinking, and then half wished she hadn’t because now she’d backed herself into an even more excruciating corner. She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and decided to just get it out of the way fast.

‘Look. I happened to tell them that I don’t orgasm during sex and they went all batshit crazy on me. I tried telling them it’s no big deal, it’s just the way my body is, but they don’t believe me, and now they’re trying to set me up with men they think will prove me wrong and make me scream louder than Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.’ She paused to breathe. ‘There. Happy now? My name is Honeysuckle Jones and I don’t orgasm. Is that interesting enough for you, or would you like more?’

She slumped against the wall, hot cheeked and suddenly exhausted.

After a few seconds, Hal spoke, and he sounded incredulous. ‘You mean you don’t come during sex, or you don’t come at all?’

This was turning into a carbon copy of her conversation with Tash and Nell. ‘At all. At. All. Can we talk about something else now, please? It’s your turn to tell me something I don’t know about you.’

She could almost hear Hal shaking his head. ‘Surely you can make yourself come though? On your own?’

Great. They were going to discuss masturbation and they barely even knew each other. ‘Hal. Let me spell this out.’ Honey crossed her arms over her chest. ‘My body doesn’t orgasm, not for me or for anyone else. It’s a basic, physical fact, one to which I have become well adjusted and believe it or not, am totally fine with. It doesn’t make me frigid; I still enjoy sex perfectly well. I’m pretty damn good at it, if you must know.’ Her chin jutted defiantly in the air.

He was laughing again, she could hear him. It made her glad and mad at the same time.

‘I’m sure you are, given that you’ve had more than your fair share of men and all.’

Terrific. Now she sounded like a slapper. ‘I didn’t say more than my fair share and you well know it.’ She could hear Hal screwing up his chip wrapper. ‘Pass me your rubbish. I’ll stick it in the bin outside, save it stinking out your flat.’

Would he open the door? She could hear him moving, and she balled up her chip paper and pulled herself up too. After a few moments of hesitation, the door slowly opened and Hal stood there, louche as always in his uniform of old jeans and t-shirt, his dark hair rumpled in a rock star sexy kind of way.

‘Thanks for dinner, Strawberry Girl,’ he said softly, holding out his wrapper. She took it and pushed it into hers, digesting the nickname with a half smile and pinpricks of pleasure down the back of her neck. She was almost relieved that he didn’t know that her cheeks were as pink as her shampoo.

‘I picked up some things for you from the supermarket,’ she said, bending down to the carrier on the floor. ‘Bread.’ She held out the loaf until the cellophane touched his fingers and he took it from her wordlessly, laying it carefully on the table in his hallway.

‘Ham.’ She passed the packet to him, his fingers touching hers before he placed it on the table alongside the bread.

‘Orange juice,’ she murmured, the warm brush of his fingertips stark against the cold carton.

‘You realise you’re taking the element of surprise out of this by telling me what they are, don’t you?’ he said as he accepted the cheese from her. His hand stilled over hers for a second. Did his thumb slide over the pulse point of her wrist?

‘Yeah, well. I don’t want you drinking Domestos and blaming me,’ she murmured, passing him the other items one by one, watching his hands. He had good, strong hands.

‘That’s the last of it,’ she said as he placed the milk down on the table. ‘If there’s anything special you want me to get, let me know.’

‘Whisky?’ he said, hopefully.

‘Sometimes, Hal,’ she said, gently.

He nodded and breathed in, a sigh somewhere between acceptance and resignation.

‘You better go in,’ she said. ‘Coronation Street starts in five minutes. I know you’d hate to miss it.’

Hal’s mouth quirked at the edges. ‘You know it.’

Dark stubble covered his jaw, and on impulse, Honey reached out and touched it. ‘You need a shave, rock star.’

Hal stilled at the contact, and Honey felt his jawbone stiffen beneath the softness of the few days’ beard growth. They stood there for a few long seconds, his face warm against her palm, neither of them letting go of their breath. To a casual onlooker they’d have looked like lovers saying goodnight.

‘Maybe you could put a razor on that list of yours then,’ he said eventually, and Honey let her hand slide away.

‘Noted,’ she whispered.

‘Night, then,’ he said, then stepped backwards and clicked his door shut. Honey stared at the pale wood, then at her still-tingling palm, and then moved across the hallway into the safety and solitude of her own flat.

Hal leaned his back against his closed door, the scent of her on his fingers when he scrubbed them over his jaw. What the fuck was it about Strawberry Girl? In his world, women smelt of expensive perfume, died a million deaths at the idea of chips, and their polished sexual routines included a perfectly executed orgasm on cue. Or women in his old world, at least. His world of fast cars and glamorous women, and a job he loved with a passion bordering on obsession. He’d only ever wanted to be a chef, and he’d worked bloody hard for more than a decade to build his reputation to the point of being able to open his own restaurant almost three years previously. Hal wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d enjoyed the trappings of his success – the celebrity clientele, the awards, the sparkling reviews from notoriously hard-to-please food critics. His life had been big, and full, and busy, and thrilling.

And now he was here, alone in this godforsaken place, and the only remotely interesting thing about his door was the girl living on the other side of it. A girl who he now knew wore knickers with the day of the week on, and who said the first thing that came into her blonde head without thinking, and who’d lived her entire life without experiencing the mind-numbing bliss of great sex. He briefly wondered whether Deano the synthesiser player would be the man to show her different, and then just as briefly hoped not. No one should have their first orgasm with a man called Deano.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_d9f6c9ea-bf37-5df9-8339-7486d7bae327)

‘I thought I might chain myself to the railings around the home,’ Mimi said. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time, I was at Greenham Common you know.’