Authors: Julie Cohen
One Night Stand (28 page)
‘What, have you got some sort of perverted desire to make love to a pregnant woman?’
I hated the way I sounded: defensive, abrasive, and insecure. Hugh just smiled.
‘I’ve got a perverted desire to make love to you,’ he said. He picked me up, he laid me down on the bed, and he lay beside me.
I have a very good imagination, and a lot of experience in writing about sex. But what Hugh did to me with his hands and his mouth and his body was indescribable. The man had a talent.
And it was
Hugh
. The subject of my fevered fantasies for the past few months. The person I was closest to in the entire world.
Hugh
. The subject of my fevered fantasies for the past few months. The person I was closest to in the entire world.
Hugh’s body was lean and muscular; he had the perfect amount of hair on his chest and legs and his erection was even more impressive than the Chancellor’s.
He touched me all over, following his hands with his mouth. I started out gasping and ended up screaming.
When I opened my eyes after my third orgasm, I saw him kneeling beside me, flushed and smiling, pushing a damp lock of hair out of his eyes.
‘I’ve been wanting to hear you doing that while I was in the same room,’ he said.
‘And I’ve been wanting to try out one or two things that I’ve written about,’ I said, and I sat up and pushed him on to his back on the bed.
When I’d made him moan, and shout, and beg, and swear, I pushed my own dampened hair out of my eyes and climbed up to straddle his hips.
‘Do we need a condom?’ I asked him.
He shook his head. And a moment later, as Hugh and I were making love at last, I learned that trust was the most potent aphrodisiac in the world.
26
Except when I opened my eyes later that evening, all I could think was,
Oh shit
.
Oh shit
.
Hugh was lying beside me, naked. His arms and one of his legs curled around me, holding me tight. His skin and the rhythm of his breathing felt like heaven and home all mixed up into one.
He was asleep, but his face held a hint of his sunny smile. I remembered every moment of having sex with him; I was never going to forget it in my life.
I wanted to press a kiss on his forehead and wake him up. I wanted to trail my hand down his spine and curve it around his backside. I wanted to nestle up against his chest and feel the hairs tickling my nose.
I’d never described anything quite like this. I thought about how Lucy Sharpe would be feeling after she’d got the Chancellor into bed at last. She’d be exultant and confident. She’d feel she was entering a new and exciting stage of her life where she could act out all the fantasies she’d never known she’d had. She wouldn’t be thinking about her friendship or her unborn child or the fact that she looked like a beached whale.
How strange it was to be envious of a fictional character I’d invented myself, and who was supposed to be like me.
I gently lifted Hugh’s arm and slid out from underneath his leg and rolled off the bed. I grabbed my dressing gown and put it on. Early evening light still filtered through the window. I reckoned we’d been asleep for two or three hours, enough time for me to get some perspective on what we’d done.
I wondered how I was going to get him to leave.
Hugh stirred. He opened his eyes and looked up at me where I stood beside the bed.
‘Hello, you,’ he said, his voice full of satisfied affection. Without a hint of self-consciousness he stretched out long and wide on the bed.
I stared at him. He was still Hugh, but I had learned so much about him.
I had especially learned why he was so popular in the sack. It wasn’t because he had a gorgeous body, though he did; it wasn’t because he knew how to pleasure a woman, though he knew that, too.
It was because he made the women he slept with feel special, and different, and cared for. That had to be the most seductive ability a man could have.
‘Morning,’ I said, though it was evening, because I was feeling morning-after all over.
His smile reached full wattage. ‘El, that was fantastic,’ he said. He stretched again, curling his toes in contentment.
God, he was so used to waking up in women’s beds that this didn’t even faze him.
And how often did he wake up in any of those beds more than once?
I swallowed.
For years I had found Hugh’s string of conquests amusing. They came and went, while I stayed and watched.
But I was one of them now.
‘It was pretty unbelievable,’ I said, cautiously.
‘You’re unbelievable,’ he said, rolling on to his front and reaching underneath the hem of my dressing gown to run his palm up the back of my thigh. ‘You’re a wildcat, Eleanor Connor.’
‘Wildcat in heat,’ I said, and tried to laugh. ‘These pregnancy hormones are really something. Listen, do you want a cup of tea?’
‘I want you back in bed with me.’ He tugged at my leg, but I stood fast. There was no way I was taking off this dressing gown now that the scales of uncontrollable lust had fallen from our eyes.
‘How did it compare?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
A ghost of a frown flitted over his sunny face. ‘Compare with what?’
‘Oh, you know, the sixty million other women you’ve slept with. I only ask out of curiosity,’ I added quickly. ‘This sort of thing comes in handy for my writing.’
‘Eleanor, I’d never compare you to anyone. You are one hundred per cent unique.’
I bet I was. He didn’t even like brunettes.
‘I think I’d like some tea,’ I said.
In an instant, Hugh sat up, wrapped his arm around both my legs and swept me into bed with him. ‘Shut up and kiss me.’
The command was extremely tempting but the rational corner of my brain was reminding me once again that when faced with a semi-naked woman in a bedroom, men were automatically programmed to demand sex, even if that semi-naked woman was nearly five months pregnant and happened to be the man’s best friend.
Even if that sex was going to mess up their friendship.
Men had a talent for ignoring considerations like that. They listened to their dicks. I’d been watching Hugh listen to his dick for years now.
I squirmed out of his embrace, which wasn’t easy. ‘Let’s talk for a minute,’ I said.
‘I have things on my mind other than talking.’ He reached for me again.
‘Of course you do, but we need to sort a few things out.’
‘What’s there to sort out? This is great. Come here.’
I planted myself on the edge of the bed in such a way that it would be clear even to the most ardent of dick-listeners that I was not going to budge.
‘I think we need to talk about how our relationship is going to change because of - what we’ve done together.’
Hugh sat up in bed. ‘How do you want it to change?’ he asked, his voice cautious.
The caution was what did it. It was so clearly the habitual response of a single guy trying to avoid any female getting her hooks into him.
He said he didn’t compare, but really he thought I was the same as his other conquests. One shag and he’d forgotten all about what our friendship was like.
‘
You’re
asking
me
?’ I said. ‘Come on, I’m not the only one who’s done an about-face here. One day you don’t even like brunettes and then bang, the next day Eleanor is attractive. It occurs to me, it happened after you heard me and George together, didn’t it?’
You’re
asking
me
?’ I said. ‘Come on, I’m not the only one who’s done an about-face here. One day you don’t even like brunettes and then bang, the next day Eleanor is attractive. It occurs to me, it happened after you heard me and George together, didn’t it?’
He frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not being ridiculous, it makes sense. Think about it. For years now you’ve been banging every girl in sight and you haven’t even glanced in my direction. Not that I wanted you to, I mean we didn’t have that sort of relationship, but then all of a sudden we do. I’m trying to understand it. The only thing that’s different is George.’
‘Don’t bring George into this, Eleanor.’
‘I’m not bringing him in, he’s already here,’ I said, getting into my stride. ‘I’m pregnant with his baby. And ever since you heard me and him together you’ve been different. You’ve been getting angry, for a start, and every chance you get, you insult him. And then out of the blue, you’re interested in me sexually. You know, I think you might be jealous of him.’
‘It has nothing to do with him. It’s about us.’
The thunderclouds were gathering in Hugh’s face and I kept on talking anyway, out of a compulsive need to remind him that this wasn’t only down to me, that it was complex, that we were playing with fire.
‘But there was no us before there was him,’ I insisted. ‘I mean, is it like a male thing? I’m sort of your territory and you have to claim me back?’
‘That’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,’ he roared, and it was nearly a relief to hear him get angry because it meant he wasn’t being cautious any more. ‘I haven’t slept with you to prove anything, I slept with you because I wanted to.’
‘Okay, fine,’ I said, ‘have it your way. It wasn’t from any deep dark motives, we were just scratching an itch, getting it out of our systems. That’s cool.’
Hugh got out of bed. There was only one thing that could distract me from his naked body, and that was his furious face.
‘Getting it out of our systems?’ he repeated.
‘Exactly. It’s been a distraction, hasn’t it, and now we can go back to normal. Right?’
‘Are you trying to tell me that you see this as some sort of one-night stand?’ he said.
‘Well, it was the afternoon, but that’s the essential gist of it, yes.’ I fluttered my hands and kept my voice cheerful. ‘We’re friends, and I’m pregnant with another man’s baby. Nothing’s changed. Right?’
He was staring at me and suddenly all the fear that had been swirling around inside me came to a head and I could barely breathe.
‘We are friends, aren’t we?’ I asked.
Please say yes
, I begged silently.
Please tell me I haven’t messed everything up
.
, I begged silently.
Please tell me I haven’t messed everything up
.
He didn’t reply for a long moment.
‘Of course,’ he said finally, and then he broke eye contact and picked up his boxers and jeans from the floor where I’d thrown them.
Some of the fear left. Not all of it, but enough so that I wasn’t frozen in one place.
‘So, do you want some tea?’ I asked.
‘No. I’ve got to go.’
‘Oh, okay, I should get to work anyway; I’ve got to finish the rewrite of this book in the next three weeks or I’ve got to give back the advance,’ I said, aware I was babbling to fill the silence while Hugh wasn’t looking at me, ‘so I really need to spend all day today slaving away on it. And tomorrow.’
He buttoned his jeans. ‘Yeah. At least I’ve given you something to write about.’
Whoops. I’d forgotten that Hugh read all my books.
‘You know I don’t write about real life,’ I said, deciding to give the Chancellor flaming red hair.
‘Uh huh.’ Hugh pulled on his shirt. I’d never seen anybody get dressed so fast. He probably had a lot of practice in the quick escape.
‘See you later,’ he said, and left the room. I heard his footsteps going down the stairs and then pause while he picked up his jacket, and then I heard my door slam. A moment later, I heard his slam, too.
27
He had given me loads to write about. I typed furiously all that night and the next day, and only just managed to tear myself away from the computer to get to the Mouse and Duck for my shift the next night.
Hugh wasn’t there. I hadn’t heard a peep from him all day. He was angry with me, I knew, but I also knew I’d done the right thing. Sex was sex, but a friendship was irreplaceable.
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