time?”
He looked mostly amused. But only mostly. “Fucking hell. How do you ever get any?”
“I do fine, thank you. But in my experience men like to . . . y’know. Have sex.”
“We are having sex. Or we was. Now we’re having a conversation. But come on, you’ve been with girls, you must know sex don’t have to mean getting a cock up your muff.”
“I do know that,” she told him. “It’s just most straight people haven’t got the memo.”
“Well, I’ve got three sisters, and one of them’s married to a girl. So . . . I did. Now, how do you feel about me getting you off? Unless you’d rather carry on having a debate about it.”
“I . . . I’ve killed the mood, haven’t I?”
“Mate, I know I keep saying this, but I’m a bloke. You’re hot and you’ve got your tits out. The mood’s not going nowhere.”
Rosaline reached up and ran her fingers over his tattoo, following the detailing on the feathers, and then—on the other side—the letters as they flowed into each other. “I like these.”
“Got ’em a while ago. Bit teenage really, aren’t they? But me and Terry had ’em done for his eighteenth—he had a bunch of things he wanted, with like, meaning and shit, and I thought well, the wing was pretty and the club motto looks better in Latin.”
“Honestly,” Rosaline admitted, “I did something similar when I was sixteen.” She rolled over to show him her back. “I went with one of my best friends at the time—this girl called Antonia, I haven’t seen her in years—and we both decided to get butterflies. And she came out with this tiny little thing on her hip, and I was already one session deep into, well, these.”
Leaning over her, Harry pressed a deep, warm kiss to her shoulder blade. “Go big or go home, init.”
His hands meandered across her back, the calluses on his fingers slightly rough against her skin, and she sighed, lost in the simple sensuality of it. It was strange, because she couldn’t see him now, but she never lost her awareness that it was him—there was something so familiar in his touch, something unmistakably Harry, that reminded her of eating fish fingers at her kitchen table and running away from a goat in the dark. It made her feel sort of safe and sort of tender and sort of like ripping the rest of his clothes off and claiming him: someone she almost hadn’t let herself want.
She wriggled back round, reaching for his belt. “You know how I was going to tell you what I liked? I think I’d like you to be more naked.”
“I think”—he grinned—“I’d like you to be more naked and all.” There followed a few clumsy moments of buttons and buckles and denim on denim, and the sudden realisation of being exposed in a fully lit room. Thankfully, Harry was very much worth it—and, by the best available evidence, seemed to think she was, too, for all she’d made no particular effort in that direction. He pressed her back onto the bed, kissing her hard, his hand between her legs, teasing and seeking.
“So . . .” His eyes held hers, full of intent. “You got anything in your bedside drawer you like?”
Oh God, she was blushing. “Aren’t the contents of a girl’s bedside drawer meant to be private?”
“Even to the bloke what’s trying to get you off?”
“I . . . um. Isn’t it cheating?”
And now he was laughing, his breath rippling against her neck. “Look, if you ask me to fix a plug, I’ll borrow a screwdriver.”
“I’m not a broken piece of electrical equipment,” she protested.
“It’s not about that. It’s about using the best tool for the job.”
“Haven’t you already got a tool for the job?”
He gave her one of his slow smiles. “Got a bunch of tools for the job, mate. But nothing wrong with a bit of variety. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s fine,” said Rosaline squeakily. “It’s just I haven’t got that much. I’m not the dodgy end of Etsy.”
“I’m not leaving a review. I thought you might enjoy it is all.”
Propping herself on her side, Rosaline nervously opened the drawer in her bedside table and peered inside as if she wasn’t sure what she’d find. “I’ve got a couple of vibrators and a rose quartz dildo that Lauren got me for a joke.”
“Pass us your favourite.”
“I’m not sure I’ve got a favourite.”
“Everyone’s got a favourite.”
And, actually, he was