He wentto fetch hem Kate stayed where she was, a little bemused by it all. Her arms were beginning to tingle.
Alex returned and gave her three aspirins. He began to fill a mug from the draining board withwaer. “Don’t bother,” Kate told him. “I’ll chew them dry.”
He looked at her for the first time since she had dropped the coffee pot. “It was a habit I got into,” she explained, seeing his expression. “I used to get a lot of tension headaches.”
He handed her the mug anyway. “It still won’t hurt to get some fluid inside you.”
As Kate used one hand to drink, he delicately smoothed the lotion onto the burnt palm and wrist of the other. She put down the mug and watched him. “I thought you were a psychologist, not a burns specialist.”
He kept his eyes on what he was doing. “You’d be surprised what you pick up.”
He gently smeared lotion onto her other arm. His fingers were light on the tender skin. “There. That should take the worst of the sting from it.”
He was standing close in front of her. “Thank you,” she said, and without planning it leaned forward and kissed him.
He stiffened. Kate could feel his sudden tension, and for a second thought he was going to pull away. Then, hesitantly, he relaxed.
The contact between them was only slight, little more than a brushing of lips, and Kate dimly wondered what she was doing. She closed her eyes. She could taste the brandy on his mouth, feel the slight hardness where his lip was swollen. She touched it with the tip of her tongue. His breath feathered against her skin. She kissed him again, her tongue softly tracing the line of his lips. Moving closer, she brought her arms up around his neck, awkwardly, because they were sore. His went tentatively around her. She kissed him more deeply, feeling his tongue begin to respond to hers. His arms tightened around her waist. She dug her fingers in his hair, pulling him to her, no longer aware of the pain in her arms. His hands dropped to her buttocks as he pressed himself against her. She drew away, leading him towards the hallway.
Alex didn’t take his eyes from hers. He seemed almost drugged as they went into the bedroom. It was dark, with only the light from the kitchen spilling through the open door. She kissed him again, stroking his back. When she slid a hand inside his T-shirt she felt him give a small quiver.
She took hold of one of his hands and moved it to her breast. He cupped it lightly, and she felt the quiver spread through him. He was trembling as she undid his belt, then the top button of his trousers. She could feel him suck in his stomach slightly as the backs of her hands touched his bare flesh. There was a crispness of hair beneath them. He gave a low moan and clutched her more tightly, his own hands fumbling at her dress. She reached behind herself to unzip it. The dress tumbled slowly to her ankles. She stepped out of it. “Oh God,” he breathed, looking at her, and then they were kissing and she was dragging off his T-shirt, scarcely aware of the ripping sound as it came over his head and shoulders. The skin of his chest and stomach was hot against hers. She heard the faint rasp of it against the fabric of her bra as he groped behind her, struggling with its catch. She unfastened it for him, and Alex gave a little whimper as he bent his head and took one of her nipples in his mouth. She tugged his trousers over his hips, running her hands inside the back of his underpants to grip the roundness of his buttocks before peeling off the thin fabric.
He wasn’t fully erect, so she took hold of him, squeezing lightly. She felt him throb and harden, the shaft smooth, almost silky, in her hand. He gave a low gasp. With her other hand, Kate pushed off her own pants, letting them whisper down her legs to the floor. She put her arms around his neck, kissing him, feeling his erection pressing against her stomach, and stepped back towards the bed. Alex was shivering as he went with her. She sank onto it, pulling him on top of her, opening her legs so he lay between them. He lunged at her clumsily straight away, missing and gliding over her lower belly. She reached down between their bodies, guiding him, lifting her hips slightly, and then she felt him sliding inside her.
She raised her legs, snaking them around him as their bodies wedged tight together. Suddenly he was thrusting frantically, his head arching back as he spasmed and gave a strangled moan. He hung for a moment, jerking and rigid, then went limp. Kate felt his full weight settle on her as he buried his head in the angle of her neck and shoulder, gasping. She gently stroked the back of his head, adjusting to the abruptness of it being over.
After a while she felt him stir. He pushed himself off her and lay on his back. “Sorry.”
Kate could barely see him in the darkness. “What for?”
“You know. Being so quick.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She meant it. Her initial disappointment had ebbed now. “I’m not … I’m not very experienced.”
The confession was blurted out. Kate hid her surprise. She rolled onto her side, so that her body was touching his, aware of the cooling wetness between her thighs. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She put her hand on his chest. She could feel his heart beating under it. The chain he wore around his neck felt cold as she stroked her fingers through the hairs.
“Sorry,” he said again, and Kate lightly tapped him.
“Stop it. There’s no need to keep apologising.”
Turning, she reached for the bedside table and switched on the lamp. Blinking in the sudden light, she looked back at Alex. His eyes were wet, she saw with alarm.
“Hey, come on!” She moved so she was lying half on top of him, propping herself up on her elbows. Her breasts brushed against him. She smiled. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
He smiled back but didn’t meet her eyes. “No. It’s just that … I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”
“You seemed okay to me.”
He gave her a quick look and, with sudden intuition, Kate understood much of his past nervousness. The tenderness she felt for him closed up her throat.
“What’s this?” she said, deliberately changing the subject. She fingered the disc hanging on the chain around his neck.
“It’s just a St Christopher.”
Kate casually slid one of her legs over him as she examined it. The medal was about two centimetres in diameter, and the design of the man carrying the child across the water was crude and stylised, not at all obvious at first glance. “It looks old,” she said, lifting it from his chest. It was thick and heavy.
“Uh, yes, I suppose it is.” He looked down at it. “It waas my grandmother’s.”
“Did she leave it to you?”
Alex paused before answering. “No, she gave it to me before she died. She said it’d bring me good luck.”
Kate laid it back on his chest. “And has it?”
She moved her leg gently up and down.
“I, uh, well, yes, I suppose it has.”
He was smiling now. Kate could feel him beginning to harden again under her thigh. The St Christopher was a cold disc between her breasts as she slid on top of him. “It’s a good job you said that.”
CHAPTER 13
At times during the next three weeks Kate would feel an almost superstitious distrust of being so happy. It would come over her without warning, a pessimistic conviction that this couldn’t last, that there would have to be a price to pay. Then the feeling would pass, a brief cloud over the sun, and she would be caught up again in the pleasure of the present.
The sex had quickly improved. Alex was an enthusiastic if not experienced lover, and they coupled like eager teenagers, delighting in each other until both of them were sore and aching. It seemed strange at first. Even after almost four years, Kate found that her body remembered the contours and smell of Paul. He had been heavier and hairier than Alex, with a blunt, bludgeoning approach she had at first mistaken for passion, before realising it was only selfishness.