I’m a shit-hot cook.’
‘Really?’ He leaned back and looked at me. ‘Yeah, I bet you are.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked. Was this another sly New Yorker way of telling me I was a porker?
‘Nothing,’ he defended himself by waving a piece of pizza around. ‘I just think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they cook. Not that Jeff was playing his cards close to his chest, but you could tell by his shitty food he’s not too worried about the preparation. He’s all about getting straight to it.’
‘I suppose so,’ I smiled. I really should drop the porker thing. ‘Jenny can’t cook for anything. It’s all takeaways and Starbucks. Made for each other.’
‘What’s your favourite thing to cook?’ he asked, resting his head in his hand, his elbow on the arm of the sofa.
‘Hmm,’ I thought. I didn’t have a particularly wide repertoire, but I did have a feeling a good answer was needed here. ‘I have this Balinese chicken thing that I do. You make this paste with lemongrass and dried chillies and then you rub it into the chicken and cook it really slowly wrapped in a banana leaf. It’s gorgeous.’
‘See what I mean?’ he said, closing his eyes and smiling a deep, delicious smile. ‘Spicy, adventurous, long and slow. Tells you a lot about a person.’
‘What about you?’ I knew I was blushing from head to toe. It was my most impressive dish, but I really hoped I wasn’t going to have to cook it without the book. It was a complete bitch of a recipe.
‘Honestly, I’m a pretty shitty cook,’ he admitted, taking my beer out of my hands and leaning across towards me. ‘But I’m kind of good at other stuff.’
‘Doesn’t that ruin your metaphor?’ I whispered as he crept across the sofa and placed his arms on either side of my head.
‘I just wanted to see you blush.’
His lips were soft and firm, but his kisses were hard and unrelenting. Within seconds, we were putting on a show to shame even Jenny and Jeff. The rough fabric of his jeans chafed against my thighs as I brought my legs up around his waist, pulling him in towards me. The nervous tickle that had been growing in my stomach migrated south as I lost my hands in his hair, my lips on his throat, my mind … just gone. Alex pulled me up and half carried me towards his room. No time for candles, for low music, just the twinkling cityscape behind us lighting his silhouette as he pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it aside. We stood in front of the window, kissing desperately, tussling with belts, zips and buttons until there was nothing left between us but our underwear. I silently thanked Jenny for my matching set pep talk as Alex sighed his approval at my black balconette and French knickers.
‘Why does it feel like this has been such a long time coming?’ he asked, sliding one of the straps off my shoulder and replacing it with a long line of kisses.
‘I know what you mean,’ I whispered. I placed one arm around his neck, obsessed with losing my fingers in that thick, black hair, the other hand somehow finding its way down his chest, his stomach, the waistband of his tight jersey boxers. My legs were beginning to shake, and all I could think about was getting onto that bed. So this was what they meant when they talked about knee trembling.
‘Hey,’ he said softly, replacing my bra strap and holding my face in his hands. ‘I just want to take it slow, OK?’
‘You don’t want to …’ I was confused. ‘I thought?’ He had waited until I was in my underwear with one hand down his shorts to tell me he wanted to take it slow?
‘No,’ he shook his head, smiling. ‘I mean this, now. I want to be able to remember every second of it.’
‘Oh, OK,’ I smiled back, biting my bottom lip. Was I in that much of a rush I’d forgotten about actual romance? ‘Sorry, I thought you meant …’
‘Don’t be sorry.’ Alex pulled my hair back from my face and kissed me tenderly. His skin glowed against the light of the window as his eyes met mine. ‘And stop thinking so much.’
He took my hand and led me over to the bed, laying me down and peppering my face, my throat, my shoulders with kisses. I wanted him so badly, every second he wasn’t inside me I thought I would explode. His kisses trailed down my collarbone, over my bra and down my stomach.
‘I thought you wanted to go slowly?’ I asked, the words catching in my throat as his lips reached the top of my thighs.
‘I should have been clearer,’ he said, pulling the silk of my underwear aside. ‘I meant slow for me. But I think that’s going to work out kind of well for you.’
‘Glad to clear things up,’ I whispered, closing my eyes and letting go.
If Tyler had been an education, Alex was an awakening. From the moment we rolled back on to the bed, through the long sweaty hours until dawn, he put my entire body through its paces, taking me right to the edge and then snatching me back again. When I woke, in a tussle of tangled sheets and tangled limbs, I was upside down at the foot of the bed, and so exhausted I didn’t know if I was coming or going. But I was absolutely certain, that at least three times in the past few hours, I’d been coming like never before. I stretched a leg, feeling out the floor with my toes, trying to work out how to extricate myself from Alex’s vice-like grip without waking him. Not going to happen. Feeling me stir, he half opened one eye. Without words, without any sort of verbal communication, he drew me back to him and we picked up exactly where we had left off.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was Monday morning, but blissfully, Alex didn’t have anywhere to be except in bed with me. He didn’t need to let his housekeeper in, he didn’t have errands to run, he sure as shit didn’t have to go to the office. We dozed on and off all morning, only waking up to reach out and check the other was still there, still waiting. Eventually, I was forced to seek out the bathroom, slipping away from Alex and padding across the flat. Sitting on the toilet, I was well aware I had a completely stupid grin on my face. I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Compared to the only sex I had ever known, Tyler had been amazing in bed. He was, technically speaking, a god. He knew which buttons to press, in which order and, most importantly, he knew exactly when to press them. But Alex … It had just been so intense. I felt raw and exposed, as if he had stripped me down completely and then put me back together, new and improved. It was incredible. After a sly mouthwash, face splash and mascara removal combo, I tiptoed back through the living room, checking my mobile on the way. A message from Jenny asking if I was OK, a message from Erin to say she’d seen the blog (the blog! I’d forgotten it was out there already) and a message from Tyler, asking if I wanted to go to dinner tomorrow night. I paused in the living room for a moment, perching on the arm of the sofa. Looking back towards Alex’s bedroom door, I thought for a moment. Did I want to go to dinner tomorrow night? I liked Tyler, he was a great guy, but Alex was something else altogether. I quickly replied, a short acceptance. Either way, I had to see Tyler, whether it was a date or I was ending it. And I did have the blog to think about. It would be fine. I tapped out replies to Jenny and Erin, then hurried back into the bedroom, to Alex’s arms.
A couple of indulgent hours later and I reluctantly hit the shower so I could go home and blog. I could hear Alex singing in the kitchen, while I lathered up and smiled. It was such a different world to everything I was used to, and I liked it. Without a walk of shame kit, I did my best, tying my wet hair up, dabbing on some lip gloss and mascara, really not needing any blusher. Slipping back into my dress seemed to put a full stop at the end of the sentence. I really did have to go outside now, it had to be done. I didn’t have another pair of knickers, home was the only option.
Alex was making coffee, real coffee, in a T-shirt and shorts when I emerged. It was so wrong that I had just spent twenty minutes putting myself back together and he looked as cute, as sexy as ever, pillow creases, bedhead and all.
‘So you do know how to use your kitchen,’ I said, accepting a steaming