Fast and Loose

I started at the inner corner and began to draw a sweeping line across his eyelid, but his lashes flickered so madly that I had to keep giving up, laughing at his obvious panic.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But God, that feels unnatural. I keep thinking you’re going to poke me in the eye.’

‘I won’t if you just keep still.’

‘Hold my face, then.’

The invitation sounded absurdly intimate. I held his chin and lower face in one hand, giving him no chance to jerk it back and away from my pencil, and started again. He was in my power, leaning down to me, his eyes half-closed and twitching. His skin was a little bit velvety, a soft growth of new stubble in my palm. He smelled of alluring spice. If I moved just an inch nearer, our lips would brush.

The memory of how they had done so before broke into my body, stealing inside with my breath. It wrapped my lungs, then my heart, then it flowered in my belly, its bloom descending between my legs. I lived and breathed desire for him. My hand faltered and the black line went beyond his eyelid, smudging the side of his eye.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

My sigh mixed with his. Lager and vodka and a trace of something sweeter. It felt luxuriously daring, to be so close to him, knowing the danger.

I wetted my thumb and rubbed at the smudge.

He caught my wrist, so quickly I almost screamed. He was wearing black leather gloves and his fingers felt cold and slick on my skin.

‘Did you just share a bodily fluid with me?’ he whispered.

I opened my mouth but the words had packed up and gone home.

‘Want to share some more?’

His mouth was getting closer, a lush-lipped omen of doom coming right for me.

What was I going to do? I knew you wouldn’t let me down. The words popped into my head at the critical moment, giving me the impetus I needed to escape from his glorious, wicked clutches.

‘Tom, can you work out a person’s physical location from their IP address?’

He halted in mid-smooch-approach and jerked his head backwards.

‘What?’

‘I mean…I’ve heard you’re good at a bit of cyber espionage. You worked out who that whistleblowing blogger was at the council, didn’t you? Would you be able to do something like that?’

‘Jesus, Ella,’ he said, looking almost fearful in his incomprehension. ‘Do you think this is really the moment?’

‘Sorry, but it’s been on my mind,’ I said. The implications of telling Tom about this had thrown themselves into the forefront of my mind, and they were messy. In fact, I didn’t want to think about the

m at all. But I’d said it now.

The kiss would probably have been the easier option, after all.

He shook his head and rubbed one eyelinered eye, making it look as if he’d been punched in the face.

‘What’s been on your mind? Are you being cyber-stalked? Ella? Is somebody hassling you?’

‘No. Actually. Forget I mentioned it. I don’t think you’d be able to help anyway. Oh, is that The Cure? Fancy a dance…oh.’ My foot on the table reminded me. ‘No. Scratch that too.’

Tom failed to erase the memory of my words from his expression and reset to his normal drinking-and-flirting-in-bar setting.

Instead, his stare lingered on and on and on until I wanted to hide under the table.

‘You look like I’ve given you a black eye,’ I said. ‘There’ll be rumours.’

‘Well, you have, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Ella, talk to me. What’s this about? I have to admit, I was surprised when you accepted my invitation. You obviously want my help with something, though I was hoping it was just your desire for my body.’