set to send him packing after telling him exactly what I thought of men who slept with women and then fucked off without a word or a trace. But he’d disarmed me totally right from the moment I’d seen him on the stairs.
He’d got to his feet, a bit stiffly, like he’d been sitting there for a long time, and reached right over to give me a hug, pulling me close and saying, ‘Your hair smells amazing. I’ve been thinking about you so much.’
So why didn’t you call then? I thought. But he answered the question before I could get the words out.
‘I’m such a muppet, I completely forgot the name of the pub. And I don’t know your last name so I couldn’t find you on social media. I tried and tried. And then I came up to London for a Labour Party meeting today and when it finished I thought, I’m going to find her. And I did. I kind of remembered where the pub was in relation to the station and I just walked around until I saw it. And then I saw you, but you were busy and I didn’t want to interrupt so I just snuck in here and waited for you to finish. My God, it’s good to see you.’
Such was the sweetness of his smile and the comforting strength of his arms around me that all my resolve melted away, and I found myself hugging him back.
‘Why didn’t you get in touch with me?’ he murmured into my hair. ‘Every time I got a new email or a missed call or a connection on LinkedIn, I hoped it would be you. But it never was.’
‘I don’t know. I guess I thought that because you’d just left that morning, you didn’t want to see me again.’
‘As if!’ He cupped my face between his palms and kissed my lips, and I could feel his smile meeting my own. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all the time. I even dreamed one night that I was here with you and your cat was sleeping on my face so I couldn’t breathe, but when I woke up it was only my pillow.’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘That must have been quite a relief.’
‘It should have been.’ He smiled down at me. ‘But it wasn’t. I even smelled the smell of your hair in my dream, and the whole day afterwards. It was like being haunted by a ginger ghost.’
Normally, when people described me as ginger, I bristled at the reminder of being teased at school. But I couldn’t muster even the slightest resentment now.
‘Come in,’ I said.
He stepped aside and I unlocked the door. He dumped his bag by the bed and headed for the bathroom while I sorted out Frazzle’s food and water and litter tray, and when I finished cleaning my teeth and washing my face, there he was in bed, waiting for me.
This time, we didn’t wait until the morning. As soon as I got under the duvet, Jude’s arms closed around me and we kissed, with an urgency that hadn’t been there the first time. Then, it had felt tentative and uncertain – Are we really going to do this? Oh, okay, looks like we are. Oh wait, we just did.
But now, my relief at seeing him and the confidence his words had given me allowed me to take the lead. I explored his body with my fingertips, running my hands over his chest beneath his T-shirt, discovering the arches of his ribs, the ridges of his stomach muscles, the silky hair running down his belly.
I pulled his T-shirt off over his head and knelt there above him, my legs either side of his thighs. He looked up at me, smiling.
‘Hey.’
‘Fancy seeing you here.’
We both laughed, and I lowered myself over him, kissing him again. Now, his hands were on my body, too, stroking my back, sliding under the waistband of my jeans to cup my bottom.
‘Come on, let’s get these off,’ he said.
I stood up and unbuttoned my jeans, thankful that I’d only been wearing flip-flops so there was no embarrassing sock-removal moment to negotiate. I had a moment of panic wondering whether I was wearing particularly old, ratty underwear, but it was okay – my bright red boy shorts were at least free of holes, if not the sexiest garment ever. I eased my jeans down over my hips, slowly, watching his eyes follow my hands down my legs.