the housekeeper.’
‘What a house to keep,’ Seb said. ‘What a place.’
‘Actually, I'm more of a house-sitter,’ she defined reluctantly.
‘How long are you here for?’
Tess shrugged. ‘I'm not sure, really. He said it's a long-term position. But it'll be for as long as he'll have me, I suppose.’ The notion of her impermanence, within this solid, steady house she'd so quickly called home, confronted her.
‘Show us around, then,’ Seb said.
But Tess realized she really didn't want to do that. Parameters hadn't crossed her mind until just then. A coffee was one thing. As was the gentle flirting. Ditto being on the seafront or in a playground with its public background noise. All of those were fine, manageable. But here in the kitchen, alone with a man, it was so quiet, so still – portentous almost. She could practically hear Seb think. And she thought he was probably thinking, wow, this chick has the whole place to herself.
He wasn't. He was thinking that Tess must be lonely up here on her own, cut off in such a lumbering great place; tied to it, what with the baby and the dog. And he really wanted to kiss her and he was wondering if she'd like that. And when might be a good time to try it. To suck it and see. She made a great cup of coffee and there'd been biscuits on a plate, plain digestives alternating with chocolate ones, displayed like petals.
She was returning the photo of her boss to the dresser. Seb sat as he was, watching her. He liked her bum. Her jeans were loose, sitting on hips; her waist was slim, shapely. He could already tell that she had cute tits. He pushed back his chair as she returned to the table and he pulled her right onto his lap, placing a hand quickly to her breast as he slipped his tongue into her mouth.
Tess was too surprised to do anything. And it felt so good which surprised her even more. And because it felt so good, she didn't do nothing for much longer – soon enough she was kissing Seb back.
But she didn't conjure Joe.
Nor did she think Seb Seb Seb.
She was preoccupied with the sensation of being desired, of being kissed and fondled again after so long.
With increasing enthusiasm, she responded to the welling lust to kiss back, to feel and fondle a male form. It was a feeling she remembered vividly but one that she'd tucked to the back of her mind like a holiday she knew she could not afford. Now it was at the forefront and it flowed through her blood to all the zones she'd cauterized since Dick. Since Em. The seam of her jeans was up against her crotch. Her crotch was against his thigh. Subconsciously, she was already rocking her pelvis.
I could have sex with him, right now, Postman Always Rings Twice style, on this kitchen table. I could strip off my top. I could unbutton his trousers and give him that blow-job. My hands are everywhere. And so are his.
It was the silent, searching look of the dog which stopped her. When she opened her eyes to sneak a look at Seb, she found her focus alighting on Wolf instead. He was sitting, head cocked, as if to say, what are you doing? Why are you doing that with him? Why can't you just wait and see?
‘Can I have your number?’
‘I don't have a mobile.’
‘A number for the house?’
‘It's not my phone.’
‘Can I see you again, Tess – without the need for coffee?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Are you playing hard to get?’
‘No. I don't do games. My life is – complicated. My baby.’
‘Perhaps I can swing by here, then? One evening? Bring fish and chips and a DVD?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Look, here's my number. You call me.’ And Seb slipped a piece of paper over the calendar hook so it obliterated Joe's number entirely. ‘I'm away for a week but please call me when I'm back. You're cute. I really like you. It would be fun. It could be good. We're foreigners in a strange land – we should get it together, babe.’
Tess reverberated between feeling relieved and yet miffed that Seb would be away for a week. She told herself, when she awoke the next morning, that if he hadn't gone away, she'd've phoned him that very day to say, yes, please, fish and chips and a DVD and more of that snogging. But she acknowledged that the brazenness of the thought came only because she knew to implement it was not possible. And anyway, hadn't she gone to bed the night before, early, a few hours after he left, feeling ambivalent? Seb was a nice guy, he looked good and he tasted good and he'd made her body fizz. But she had to concede he didn't measure up to Joe. Then she told herself that to harbour thoughts of Joe was ludicrous and to carry feelings for him was stupid. So that brought her back to thinking about Seb again. She wasn't sure what to think, she couldn't quite place him in fanciful daydreams – if she tried to, he appeared like a cardboard cut-out that she had to move from scenario to scenario. Whereas she frequently had to put up a No Entry sign in the places in her mind where Joe appeared enticingly whether or not she'd conjured him.
But kissing Seb had released thoughts of herself, about her self. Her body felt her own once more, finally distinct from the eighteen-month baby it had nurtured. It was back to being the sensual body of a healthy thirty-year-old. It didn't matter that she was by herself with only a dog and a toddler as an audience, post-kiss Tess felt sexy. For the first time since halfway through her pregnancy, she sought the space and privacy to invest in herself. Plying the dog and child with snacks, she sat in front of the mirror, looking and looking. Her hair now had a gloss and bounce that counteracted its need for a cut and style. Simply tucking it behind her ears, with a couple of Em's lilac slides, looked good and served to reveal the glow of her skin and the glint in her eyes. She winked at herself, she smiled at herself – and then she winked and smiled as if she was doing so for someone else's benefit.
I'm all right I am, she said quietly. She liked what she saw. It was a look she'd like to put to good use because it felt good to have.
A quieter voice whispered a thought before she went to bed that night. And the quieter voice said, if Seb was here you know you wouldn't have phoned him. She thought how the fun was in the memory, how there was safety in his distance. But then she wondered whether it had nothing to do with shyness or insecurity on her part – perhaps she wouldn't have phoned Seb because it was Joe she was holding out for. The friendly young surfer and the tetchy bridge builder. However, going on pure facts, if she was a sexy mama to the former and simply a house-sitter to the latter, oughtn't she to revaluate on whom her sights were set?
So, Seb's kiss hadn't actually settled a day and a night later. Certainly, it had made her body feel very good, cranking those long-dormant cogs of concupiscence back into motion. But it hadn't filtered through to her soul. And she had to admit to herself as she went to sleep that his kiss had stuck slightly in the back of her throat.
It had been a conscious decision of Joe's not to phone home which wasn't to say that he hadn't thought about Tess. He had. Often. And had intended to phone, early on particularly. But at the same time, absence began to do strange things to his heart – if initially it had made it fonder now with a little distance, it was also making it befuddled. Phone her and say – what? Phone to hear – what? Didn't phoning run the risk of long-distance silences? Might that not lead to those peculiar but customary snipes? He could have kissed her, that night on the Transporter, or at home later. He'd badly wanted to and he'd thought back over it since. But now he asked himself what indication if any had she given that she'd kiss him back? Of course, that wasn't a reason for not kissing her, but it was reason enough not to phone. Joe thought about it, about the kiss that hadn't happened; if it had, then what – after an impromptu kiss, then what?
Much as he liked impromptu and he was accustomed