The Last Resort (34 page)

After a little while, we stopped. I sat on his knee, my arms around his neck, and we stared into each other’s faces in a way that would usually have made me laugh nervously. Except neither of us laughed.

His eyes searched mine.

“If I hadn’t seen you today, I would have given up,” he said eventually.

“What do you mean?” I said gently, still buzzing with pleasure.

A smile glimmered on the edge of his lips. “Would you believe me if I told you I’ve been haunting the drinking establishments of your town of birth for the past three months, trying to engineer a chance meeting?”

My jaw dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“Why on earth didn’t you just ring me? It would have saved you so much time!”

He laughed and said, “I’m not worried about the time, Ava. You’re worth every second.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling flustered. I could recover from gratuitous snogging in a matter of moments; bald compliments were more difficult to take on board.

“You know it took everything I had not to kiss you that day at the Hideaway. Really, it was awful. But it was just too soon and I didn’t want to scare you—”

“Don’t,” I said, putting my finger to his scarred lip in a gesture that thrilled me with its intimacy. Suddenly I was aware that he had been suffering the same torments as me—and was right now thinking what I was. Were we really going to be together? Was this going to work? When did we get to see one another naked? “Didn’t you wonder what it would have been like if we’d met at a pub somewhere?”

He smiled, a slow smile, like the dawn rising. “Yeah, I did.”

I smiled back. “Well? We’re going to find out, aren’t we?”

~

I took him back to Mum’s after the next pint, pretending that I was going to make him chicken nuggets and Ribena. We didn’t make it to the kitchen: as soon as we got through the front door, upstairs we went.

I didn’t feel guilty. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if it had been anyone else, I would have—but this was Tam. Granted, we had a sticky history, and maybe other people wouldn’t understand. But he had proven himself to me, and I trusted him better than I did myself.

I unbuttoned his shirt while we were still on the stairs and pulled it over his head, then ran my trembling fingers through his beautiful dark-gold hair.

As we reached the landing, he pulled off my t-shirt and chucked it to one side, then ran his rough-skinned hands over the soft skin of my belly.

Just as we got to my bedroom he suddenly swung me into his arms, making me squeal with surprise, and carried me over the threshold like a bride.

Then came the Great Undoing of the Uncooperative Brassiere. We plunged into helpless hysterics. Then Tam spotted a pair of scissors, and before I could protest, he cut the thing off me in a single motion.

“Promise me you’ll never wear a bra again,” he whispered into my ear, a smile in his voice, as we wrestled my shorts off.

The sight of him crouched over me in his dark blue jeans, the shape of his obliques pointing to his crotch like arrows on a treasure map, made me groan with arousal. I reached up to touch the smooth skin of his chest, to trace the outline of the muscles.

We smiled at each other for a second, knowing what was coming, moving together towards it. Relishing it.

He kissed me again, and while he did that I unbuttoned his fly.
I can’t believe this is the same Tam I met all those months ago.
The thought flashed through my mind like a shooting star.
And now we’re going to belong to each other
.

We snogged for ages on my little single bed, me in my worst laundry-day purple knickers (typical), him in a sleek pair of black underpants that I longed to whip off triumphantly. But he kept batting my hands away, and I must have gotten a little too enthusiastic, because he soon overbalanced. We plunged to the ground, wrapped around one another, screaming with laughter.

Then we realised we couldn’t wait any longer. I found the condom in my bag and tore it open, and he pulled it on with shaking hands.

“Not too fast,” I said into his ear, wincing a little.

“I think I love you,” he said suddenly. “Is it too soon to say that?”

Shocked, I searched his face. “I don’t know. But I want to say it too.”

“This isn’t a one-night thing. OK?”

“I know.”

Being so close to him—seeing the curve of his smile, the whiteness of his teeth, his lips begging to be kissed, the black lashes that hooded his eyes—it was paradise. We rocked and thrashed and clung to one another, not wanting it to end; but it had to, of course; and when we reached the peak together, it was like coming to the end of a long journey. We were spent, but fulfilled.

When we stopped trembling, he clasped his arms beneath me and lifted me back onto the bed. We smiled dumbly at each other, stunned by our good fortune. How had we managed to find one another amidst all the chaos? It was uncanny. It was impossible. Yet it had happened.

“I don’t think I love you anymore.”

My stomach dropped to the floor. Had this been a mistake, after all?
Oh God,
I begged,
I know I’m a harlot and all that, but please . . .

But he was smiling at me—a soft-focus, dreamy smile that made me feel weak with happiness. “I don’t think it anymore. I know it.”

I smacked him on the arm. “You tease.”

“Ava?”

“Yes?”

“Have you even been to Scotland?”

I smiled. “No.”

I left Mum a note that time.