Just Between Us (20 page)

             
“Okay …” he interrupted my panicked spiel, “Okay, I know we can’t be out in the open or let people know, but I just want to know that you’re with me, no one else. You’re taken.”

             
I smiled at him, as he said the last part. “So I’m your secret girlfriend?”

             
He laughed shyly and glanced away from me. “Yes. Will you be my secret girlfriend?”

             
“Yes,” I said, kissing him and pulling him even closer.

Sixteen
– Just couples

Now

We spent the next few hours with the collection of couples who
didn’t seem like people I would hang around with at home: fairly superficial and full of inside jokes with their husbands. They just didn’t seem real, but they were the closest to friends that Kyle seemed to have, and so I tried my best with them. We drank, laughed, and listened to their stories. Kyle sat next to me and squeezed my knee affectionately from time to time. I wasn’t very good at socialising in large groups, and he knew this about me. In fact, he knew everything about me, and I had never had to explain. He was very observant. He cared enough to observe.

             
After a few more glasses of champagne, I began to relax a lot more and fell into easy conversation with Tanya and her friends. Kyle was chatting to his friends and seemed to be his usual relaxed self.

             
“Right we better get going,” Kyle said.

             
“Okay, well I’ll just go to the ladies then.”

             
“Alright.” He nodded, standing. Everyone else got up, and it would be a short walk to the new club. He took my arm as I walked past him and pulled me into him, whispering in my ear. “I’ll wait right here.”

             
It was such a simple gesture, but it warmed me to my core. God, anything Kyle did seemed to make an impression on me theses days. I was like a giddy teenager again.

             
Tanya caught up with me as I walked to the ladies. “Wow,” she chattered. “I have never seen Kyle Hanson like this.”

             
“Like what?” I shook my head.

             
“Happy,” she said with raised eyebrows. “I mean tonight he just seems content. It’s nice to see.”

             
“Oh, please.” I laughed as we made our way into separate cubicles. “It can’t just be me. I mean trust me I know he can be surly, I grew up around him, but maybe he’s just happy tonight.”

             
“Well …” Tanya shouted from the next cubicle, “put it this way, if my husband looked at me the way he looks at you, I’d be a very happy woman.”

             
We flushed and stood next to each other at the sink. “I go to the gym six times a week and barely eat to keep this figure and yet Mike wouldn’t notice if I did that naked. That man looks at you like he can’t get enough of you.”

             
I laughed. “We’ve known each other a long time, he’s probably just being attentive.”

             
“Okay.” She laughed, eyes wide. “That man loves you.” I looked at her in shock, and she must have seen it as she quickly backtracked. “I mean … I can tell he likes you a lot.” I shook my head and gave her a Kyle grin to cover the shock.

             
“I like him, too,” I said breezily making my way out of the bathroom. Kyle was leaning against a wall, looking to die for as we approached the group at the exit, and he eased himself up when saw me, putting his hand out for me. I took it, and he gave me a gentle squeeze. It never entered my head that Kyle could love me … certainly not now after all this time.

             
Surely Kyle didn’t love me, well maybe as a friend, or an ex lover, or whatever. I had long since tried to forget how much I had fallen for him that summer ten years ago. It worried me though how much my stomach flipped at the thought of Kyle loving me, and what that meant. I had just come out of a long term relationship with a man that I was willing to spend the rest of my life with who never made me feel an ounce of what I felt just holding Kyle’s hand tonight. It scared me because the one man I could never be with made me wish I could, and the fact that someone thought he loved me made my night. It might all be fake, and it might all be nostalgia, but I wanted to hold his hand tonight, and for people to see us and finally for people to think we were together.

             
I was just a project for Kyle, he wanted to fix me, but I was struggling to deal with the fact that I was still in disrepair from that summer when I first fell in love … with him.

             
We arrived at the club and were swiftly seated in the VIP area. We sat on a horseshoe shaped table where the cocktails were flowing, and I decided maybe I had been a little judgemental as these people were actually a lot of fun. The club was like nothing I had seen before. The decoration was quite stark and streamlined with a lot of dark wood and metallic surfaces. It looked expensive and chic, and the cocktails were excellent.

             
“Come on,” Kyle said after a couple of drinks. “I need to go and speak to some people.”

             
“You go. I’ll be fine here.”

             
“Oh no.” He shook his head, grinning. “I’m not leaving you alone for a second tonight looking like that.”

             
“Fine.” I sighed, as we climbed out of the booth.

             
Kyle took my hand and we started to walk around the club where he stopped at various people, introduced me, and we chatted. Often it would start out about music, but Kyle would steer the conversation so that I could join in. He was great with everyone and seemed to win them over just as he always had. I still hadn’t seen the old surly Kyle on this visit, but his friends had said that he wasn’t usually this happy. However he did a brilliant job of connecting with people when he wanted to and business must be booming as a result. As we made our way to the people that Kyle wanted to see, he was often stopped by others who knew him or wanted to, and so it took us almost two hours to move around the small VIP area.

             
“One more,” he whispered in my ear.

             
“Okay.” I nodded cheerily.

             
We moved over to the next guy who I thought I might have recognised from a television show or something. He always introduced me as his friend, not a step-sister or anything else, just his friend. The more alcohol I consumed the more I moulded into his side as we chatted. His arm easily found its way around my waist, and he held me closely to him as he charmed his clients. It was so natural. I wondered if it had always been this easy with Kyle and if I had just expected to meet someone else that I could find this with? I thought what we had wasn’t right and never could be, but I never stopped to wonder if I could actually have this with anyone else. After all these years it seemed that I couldn’t. Being here with him just felt right.

             
When we moved back to the horseshoe table, not all the couples remained as we had been gone a while. We sat together, cuddled up, laughing and finishing our drinks.  

             
“Have you had a good night?” Kyle asked, brushing my hair out of my face.

             
“Yes.” I grinned. “I’m quite drunk, though.”

             
“Time to go home?” he asked.

             
I nodded. “Let’s go.”

             
We walked hand in hand to the exit and people waved and patted Kyle’s back as we went. There was a line of taxis at the exit, and so we jumped in one and headed back to Kyle’s flat.

             
“You hungry?” he asked when we got inside. “I could make cheese on toast?” He stood behind the kitchen counter and leaned forward onto his hands. My heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. Well, maybe it was the drink that did that … but my feelings for him were certainly building.

             
I shook my head and walked towards him.

             
“What do you fancy then?” he asked, turning to me as I walked to him.

             
“You,” I said, making my way to stand in front of him.

             
“What?” He coughed, stunned as I put my hands on his hips. He took my hands and pushed me back slightly. “What?”

             
“I want you, Kyle, I …”

             
“Sophie!” he said in disbelief, “I … we can’t.” He looked to me with a pained expression.

             
“Oh.” I looked at the floor. He touched my chin and gently lifted my head up. “Not because I don’t want you or that I don’t think about it all the time.”

             
“Then why?” I whispered.

             
“Because you just had your heart broken, because you came here to heal, and I want you do that. I don’t want to be your rebound guy.”

             
“What? You never would be.” I touched his face.

             
“I don’t want you to do this so you can forget him.”

             
“That’s not what this is Kyle. I want to do this to remember us. That’s all I think about, your touch, the way you taste, and the way you make me feel.”

             
He moved in slightly. “How do I make you feel?” he said quietly, his eyes burning into mine.

             
“Alive.” I sighed.

             
“I didn’t bring you here for this, I just wanted you to realise how amazing you are and that he wasn’t worth your tears.”

             
“I realise that,” I smiled at him, “and I realise that everything we had made me feel a million times more than anything I’ve ever felt for anyone else.”

             
“Soph.” He sighed. “I can’t lose you again, if we do something now it might end badly, and then we won’t be able to be friends.”

             
“We’ll always be friends.” I moved closer and his eyes blazed into mine.

             
“I want you, Soph,” he whispered.

             
I moved forward and kissed him, he kissed me back, and his hands wrapped around my body pulling me to him. It felt so right. I remembered his taste and his warmth and his smell. Everything about him was so reassuringly familiar, and I felt at home. His kisses were soft and careful, but I wanted more. I urged him to kiss me harder and ran my hands under his waistcoat. “Oh, Soph,” he groaned. He kissed me harder and ran his hands over my bottom to the hem of my dress where he ran his fingers up the back of my thighs.

             
I gasped. “Don’t stop,” I said breathlessly. He eased the skirt of my dress up slightly and ran his fingertips over my underwear. I held back a groan as I was so desperate for his touch. I opened my legs as wide as I could with the dress on, and he continued to tease me there. “Unzip me,” I said turning round, and he eased the zip of my dress down. I stepped out of it and stood in my matching nude bra and knickers, still in my gold heels. His eyes roamed over my body hungrily, and he made me feel like the most desired woman in the world. He pulled me to him again, taking my mouth in a rough kiss and touching my bare skin, which left tingles everywhere his fingers grazed.

             
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

             
“You’ve got too many clothes on.” I laughed. He eased his waistcoat off and started unbuttoning his trousers whilst I started on his shirt buttons. As soon as I could see his bare chest my body clenched for him. Just the sight of him made me want him more and more. I ran my hands over his chiselled chest and kissed everywhere I touched. He stepped out of his trousers as I kissed him, and he stroked my skin lightly.

             
“Come on.” He took my hand and led me to his bedroom, pushing me down into his bed as he loomed over me. “I’ve thought about this a thousand times over the last ten years, and now I can’t believe you’re here.”

             
I held my hand out for him, and he edged towards me, crawling up the bed, kissing my body as he went. He reached behind me and unhooked my bra so that I was almost naked in front of him. He kissed my breasts and gave each nipple a little suck, driving me wild. I reached down to take him in my hands and pushed his boxers down. I stroked him gently as he moved his hands between my legs and inside my pants. He expertly touched me and moved his fingers inside me as I continued to stroke him, squeezing a little harder.

             
“I need you inside me,” I groaned.

             
“I am …” He grinned to me.

             
“With this,” I said, squeezing his cock in my hand.

             
He kissed me roughly again. “You were made for me, Sophie King,” he said breathlessly. He sat back and hooked his fingers in my underwear, pulling them down so that I was finally naked. He kissed my belly button and my lower stomach, leaving a trail of kisses until his mouth was on my most sensitive area. I moaned and took his hair in my hands as he licked, kissed, and nibbled. I could feel my orgasm building as he continued to pleasure me. “Oh my God!” I shouted as I came, and he began to thrust his tongue into me harder.             

             
He climbed back up my body and kissed me again. “I missed you, Soph.”