Hello Stranger

“Good girl,” he growled, and I was a good girl. I was a good girl and proud of it as I rode the beautiful man beneath me.

Our rhythms blended. Faster, faster, faster. He gripped my hips and thrust hard, angling himself just right to drive me crazy.

“Take it,” he said, and his voice was a growl. “Take it all and come for me.”

I couldn’t have held back if I’d tried. My hands pressed to his chest, and I rode faster, tits bouncing and breaths panting. And then I came. Hard. Tipping my head back and lost to everything but the waves eating me up, and he was right there, coming along with me, cursing as he exploded deep. Fuck, I didn’t know my body. I didn’t know the sensations. I didn’t know anything but the way his body took over mine until I was done. Spent. Fizzing as the waves calmed.

I was still buzzing right the way through me when I collapsed onto his chest, and he held me tight, both of us panting without words, because there were none. The thump of heartbeats said it all. The thump of heartbeats was heaven.

We were silent for long minutes before he spoke, and I felt the atmosphere changing. I could feel it in him, brewing, brooding. Those reservations still eating him up deep inside.

“Jesus, Chloe, I really have no idea where we can go with this. It’s unprofessional, and impractical, and so many red flags on so many levels. A whole load of them we’ll never win.”

It didn’t sound like him talking. Didn’t sound like the man I’d shared such an amazing time with. He sounded like a man that needed convincing. My heart was rocking, but I said the words.

“So tell me it’s over,” I said. “Look me in the eyes and tell me we’re over.”

He looked me in the eyes, but they told me anything but that we were over.

I smiled at him. “We work together and you’re older than me. So what? What does that really matter?”

He brushed his thumb against my cheek. “There’s a load more to it than that,” he said, and his eyes had an intensity about them that I couldn’t understand. I was bobbing right back on his ocean, lost to the depths and wishing I knew them.

“What else is there?” I asked, and he looked about to speak, he really did. He leaned in and brushed a messy hair strand from my forehead and he looked ready to show me his soul.

But he didn’t.

He kissed me instead.

It was me who spoke next, my lips puffy from his. “Please don’t let the red flags ruin this, Logan. Please just give us a chance. Please.”

He didn’t answer. Still brooding. Still churning.

But that didn’t matter. Not that night.

The way he held me was all the answer I’d ever need.30LoganWe sat in our usual seats on the train on Monday, both of us trying to read our novels, but failing. We couldn’t stop staring at each other. Not past the line of oak trees at the Sunnydale viaduct. Not past the corner shop sign with its fresh newspaper headline on Callow road. Not past the five red doorways along the station at Wenton.

The people were going about their lives like clockwork. The woman tapping on her phone as she stepped onboard at Eastworth, ignorant of the passers-by. The man with the messy blond beard, cursing under his breath at Newstone as he tried to find his rail pass. The elderly woman at Churchley, with her permanent scowl on her face, and her garish floral scarf tied in the same lopsided bow under her chin.

But my life wasn’t clockwork. Not anymore.

My life had been hit with the beautiful tornado that was Chloe Sutton.

I could feel the little white rabbit straining to run as we reached Harrow station, but I took her hand and held her steady.

“Hold it, jitterbug. A steady pace will cut it.”

It was Chloe who let go of my hand once we reached the hospital car park. We headed up to Franklin Ward quietly, but the fizz from her was anything but quiet. She was wired tightly, energy fit to burst as we stepped through the double doors onto the ward.

“I, um… I’ll see you later…” she said, and she was off, the rabbit finding her feet as she scurried away to drop her bag in the staffroom.

I watched her leave, wondering again just how the fuck this could work, the feelings made all the worse under the fluorescent reality of working life. The girl was a youngster, buoyant and effervescent. She had a life stretching ahead, crying out for happiness and fun.

I had anything but that ahead of me.

I’d had anything but that since I was a tiny boy who knew pain a tiny boy should never know.