“Evil hour? Never!”
Eventually, they made it across the car park of her modern block and up the stairs to her first-floor apartment.
Once inside, Ben made a lunge, but Vanessa stepped back, suddenly and unaccountably shy.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked, dropping her handbag onto the hall table. “I mean, I’m old enough to be—”
“Only if you had me while you were still at school! Don’t say that, Van. Don’t make the age thing more important than it needs to be.”
“So it isn’t? Important to you?”
“Clearly!”
“And…you do like me?” A horrible vision of Ben the next day, bragging about his Mrs Robinson conquest to the men in the brass section, assailed her. “I mean—you aren’t doing this for a bet or anything…like that?”
“Jesus, Van!”
He looked so horrified that she apologised at once.
He strode over, reaching her in one pace of his long legs and put his hands up to her face, gently pinching her cheeks.
“There’s one reason I’m here, Van, and that’s because I fancy you rotten, and have done ever since I first saw you. If anything, I was convinced a sophisticated, gorgeous creature like you could never be interested in an oaf like me. And now, since you do seem to demonstrate a surprising taste for oafs, I’m going to make damn sure I don’t do anything to let you down or change your mind.”
“You aren’t an oaf.” Her smile felt strange on her pinched cheeks. “And please call me Ness. Van makes me feel like, well, a van.”
“Ah, sorry.”
“Stop being sorry.”
“All right, I’ll stop being sorry. And I’ll start being amorous.”
He released her cheeks and let his arms slide around her back, resting his face against hers.
“Because you, Ms Barber, are the sexiest timpanist in the whole wide world, and I’m going to bang your drum so good tonight, baby.”
She burst out laughing.
“You’re a lunatic.”
“I thought that was a good line!”
“Stop talking and start kissing.”
He followed her instruction to the letter, sighing rapturously into another sensuous kiss. Once the room was spinning and Vanessa’s lips were on fire, she drew him slowly into her living room and sat him down on her cream leather sofa. Their bodies dented the spotless upholstery and they fell into a horizontal whirl of rubbing legs and grabbing arms until Vanessa escaped his lips and muttered, “Shoes off. Sorry. Bit of a clean freak, here.”
She had already slipped off her ballet flats and she watched fondly as he struggled upright, hair all over the place, and pulled off his shoes and socks.
“Just shoes?” he asked, turning to her with a wink. “I mean, I wouldn’t like my trousers to mess up your lovely sofa. And that top you’re wearing might stain the leather.”
He grabbed it, as if intending to yank it over her head. She squealed and mock-fought him, engaging him in a tangled battle of wills until they were red in the face and trapped in each other’s arms.
I’ve never done this before, she realised, pretending to aim feeble kicks at Ben’s shin. Never had a proper play fight with a lover. Matt was so serious, and Milan just wanted one thing.
“Okay, you’re right,” she gasped, defeated. “We’re going to ruin the sofa. Maybe we should take this into the bedroom.”
He raised one eyebrow, but Ben wasn’t made for James Bond-style suavity, which made the gesture all the more endearing.
“Yes, that is the green light, darling. Don’t miss it.”