The Last Letter from Your Lover

kissed his cheek. He got a warm waft of perfume, could feel the moisture on her cheeks transferring to his own. Her fingers squeezed his lightly. ‘It was . . . difficult getting here. Is there somewhere we can sit?’
    Felipe showed them to a booth, and she attempted to smooth her hair.
    ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he said, after Felipe had brought her a martini.
    ‘Laurence’s mother made one of her unannounced visits. She will go on and on. I sat there pouring tea and thought I was going to scream.’
    ‘Where is he?’ He reached out a hand under the table and enclosed hers in it. God, he loved the feel of it.
    ‘Trip to Paris. He’s meeting someone from Citroën about brake linings or something.’
    ‘If you were mine,’ Anthony said, ‘I wouldn’t leave you alone for a minute.’
    ‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’
    ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I hate that.’
    ‘Oh, you can’t pretend you haven’t used all your best lines on other women first. I know you, Boot. You told me, remember?’
    He sighed. ‘So this is where honesty gets you. No wonder I never felt like trying it before.’ He felt her shuffle along the seat so that they were close to each other, her legs curling around his, and something in him relaxed. She drank her martini, then a second, and there, in the snug booth, with her beside him, he enjoyed a fleeting sense of possession. The band struck up, Felipe began to play his trumpet, and as she watched, her face illuminated by candlelight and pleasure, he watched her secretly, knowing with unfathomable certainty that she would be the only woman who could ever make him feel like this.
    ‘Dance?’
    There were other couples already on the floor, swaying to the music in the near darkness. He held her, breathing in the scent of her hair, feeling the pressure of her body against his, allowing himself to believe it was just the two of them, the music and the softness of her skin.
    ‘Jenny?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Kiss me.’
    Every kiss since that first in Postman’s Park had been a hidden thing; in his car, in a quiet suburban street, at the back of a restaurant. He could see the protest forming on her lips: Here? In front of all these people? He waited for her to tell him it was too much of a risk. But perhaps something in his expression registered chimed in her and, her face softening as it always did when it was just millimetres from his own, she lifted a hand to his cheek and kissed him, a tender, passionate kiss.
    ‘You do make me happy, you know,’ she said quietly, confirming to him that she hadn’t been before. Her fingers entwined in his; possessive, certain. ‘I can’t pretend this does, but you do.’
    ‘So leave him.’ The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Leave him. Come and live with me. I’ve been offered a posting. We could just disappear.’
    ‘Don’t.’
    ‘Don’t what?’
    ‘Talk like that. You know it’s impossible.’
    ‘Why?’ he said. He could hear the demanding note in his voice. ‘Why is it impossible?’
    ‘We – we don’t really know each other at all.’
    ‘Yes, we do. You know we do.’
    He lowered his head and kissed her again. He felt her resist a little this time, and pulled her to him, his hand on the small of her back, feeling her meld against him. The music receded, he lifted her hair from her nape with one hand, feeling the dampness underneath, and paused. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted slightly to one side, her lips very slightly parted.
    Her blue eyes opened, bored into his, and then she smiled, a heady half-smile that spoke of her own desire. How often did a man see a smile like that? Not an expression of tolerance, of affection, of obligation. Yes, all right, dear, if you really want to . Jennifer Stirling wanted him. She wanted him like he wanted her. ‘I’m awfully hot,’ she said, her eyes not leaving his.
    ‘Then we should get some air.’ He took her hand, and led her through the dancing couples. He could feel her laughing, reaching for the shirt at his back. They reached the comparative privacy of the corridor where he stifled her laughter with kisses, his hands entwined in her hair, her warm mouth under his lips. She kissed him back with increasing fervour, not hesitating even when they heard footsteps pass. He felt her hands reach under his shirt, and the touch of her fingers was so intensely pleasurable that he briefly lost the power of thought.