thank you,’ she said. ‘I bought a bottle instead. I’ve had a few, don’t think I ought to drive home. Thought I’d take up your offer of Tommy’s bed.’
Josh, already plastered, had urged her to go back and shag Rafiq. ‘Might improve the moody sod’s temper.’
Rafiq’s face betrayed no emotion.
He might kiss me, thought Amber sulkily, but having showed her the bathroom and Tommy’s room, he bade her good night.
Amber was touched by Tommy’s room. Just as Tommy would never leave a horse’s box unskipped out, she had put a clean sheet and a duvet cover, patterned with jaunty Jack Russells, on her bed ready for her return. You could hardly see the walls for photographs of horses Tommy’d looked after, alongside pictures of Rafiq, Etta, Marius, Amber herself and of Tommy’s parents and her sister’s wedding.
On the mantelpiece were trophies she’d won, and on the shelves books on racing, autobiographies of great jockeys, novels by Dick Francis and Johnnie Francome and slimming videos. They hadn’t worked, nor had the exercise bicycle in the corner.
Beside the bed was a rocking horse alarm clock, which neighed, made a sound of galloping hooves and never let Tommy down, and a biography she was reading of Amber’s father, Billy. Seeing his sweet youthful face on the cover, Amber shivered at the memory of how pale and ill he’d looked earlier. It was bloody cold in this room.
Having warmed herself up with a shower and washed her hair with Tommy’s shampoo, she smothered herself in Tommy’s lily of the valley body lotion. It was much sweeter, appropriately, than the sophisticated, sexy Madame that Amber normally wore. She examined herself in the mirror, waxed, highlighted, toned, scented, toe nails painted, raring for Rogue. She looked bloody gorgeous. If she hadn’t blown him out, she’d be in Leeds drinking Dom Perignon in a four-poster.
Finding a bottle of white in the little fridge, she took a slug and pulled a face. Too sweet again. Pity to waste herself and him, she thought, catching sight of a rare smiling photo of Rafiq. Everyone knew of his police record, his dangerous past, how only terror of losing his job contained his terrible temper, which he’d lost when he’d stuck up for her today.
In the drawer, she found neatly folded clothes. Tommy’s scarlet pyjama bottoms fell to the ground when she tried them on, so she put on a white cotton nightdress.
Taking Tommy’s kettle – she could always pretend she was going to fill it for a hot-water bottle – she opened the door, slap into Rafiq. Both jumped out of their gooseflesh.
His newly washed hair was shiny as a raven’s wing, his midnight-blue pyjamas, buttoned up to a high collar, looked wet or was it sweat?
‘I wash them and put them in dryer, but they didn’t dry enough. I wanted to …’ confessed Rafiq.
‘Look gorgeous for me?’ murmured Amber. ‘And you do, but you better get out of them. You’ll find me much more fun than an Equicizer.’
Taking his hand, she led him back into Tommy’s room. They gazed at each other.
‘What about Rogue?’
‘Only interested in fucking. All Irish jockeys are the same, they go to Mass on Sunday, confess who they’ve been shagging, say their Hail Marys and carry on regardless. Hail Mary, Hail Amber, Hail fucking Tara.’
‘Shut up,’ interrupted Rafiq. ‘Why you talk so ugly? It doesn’t suit you. If you were my girl, I’d lock you away, so no one feast on your beauty.’
‘Beauty?’ taunted Amber. ‘I didn’t know you noticed.’
Rafiq ran his hand over her face. ‘Lovely eyelash and eyes, proud nose, beautiful mouth, which shouldn’t say ugly things.’
Very slowly he ran a finger along her lower lip, then slid his hand round to the back of her head, running fingers through her hair, gazing deep into her eyes, so close that she could smell his clean, sweet breath, his big mouth widening into a nervous smile as he gazed longingly at her lips then back to her eyes for reassurance.
‘I know you kiss me to annoy Rogue.’
‘Not entirely,’ drawled Amber, edging a little nearer. ‘Shouldn’t you go and pray?’
‘For what?’
‘For deliverance from the she-devil, who takes love where she finds it. The infidel incapable of fidelity.’
‘Once you find love with me,’ said Rafiq haughtily, ‘you will seek no further.’ He stroked her bare arms, his touch so sure yet gentle. ‘I am in no hurry, unlike your jockey lovers, to reach winning post.’
Amber unbuttoned his pyjama top, sliding her hands inside and catching her