on their way down, however – not in some metaphorical sense, but in the shape of a bag used for training, the kind favoured by boxers and kickboxers. Behind the bulky object, Penny had no difficulty in recognising the stranger she’d met the night before.
Punch bag and man filled the entire tiny landing, making it impossible for Penny and her grandmother to pass without being flattened between the wall and the powerful mass of that body. He was way bigger than the bag, his head almost grazing the ceiling.
‘So how are we supposed to get past?’ asked Penny, annoyed.
The guy placed the punch bag on the ground and pushed it as far as possible against the wall. She could see him better in the cold light of day. His broad shoulders were like those of a Greek statue, and his tattooed forearms popped out of a black sweater with the sleeves rolled up. He wore dark jeans and low Chelsea boots. Around his throat was a leather cord, the ends secured via a ring in the shape of some sort of creature, possibly a snake.
Penny felt her cheeks flush and, in the pit of her stomach, the remote flutter of butterflies. The stranger looked at her, and Penny looked away. His eyes were extraordinary: a rare blend of grey and sea-green.
Barbie whispered loudly in Penny’s ear, ‘What a handsome man!’ Her voice could easily have reached up to the top floor of the building.
Penny’s grandmother never tried to hide it if she met a man she found attractive. She was outspoken and direct – at times as embarrassing as those people who blurt out absolutely every single thought in their head. Her husband had been a teacher too – a skinny guy with round glasses and the light build of a featherweight, so it would have made more sense if a man in the mould of an immortal Greek warrior weren’t exactly her type. In actual fact, however, Barbie’s ideal man was completely different to her husband in every way. Long before he ever came along, she had experienced a love she could never forget. He’d been a rude and rebellious boy – the sort to get his hands dirty, with calluses on his palms and muscles bulging from physical labour – and Barbie had been madly in love with him. It had ended badly, mostly because her parents, with their old-fashioned rules about class, had refused to let her see him – but Barbie, who now often forgot what she’d been doing the day before, still remembered that forbidden passion from her youth. His name had been John, like John Wayne, and according to her stories he’d even looked a little like him. Maybe that’s why, every time she came across a man who looked like a soldier, a cowboy or a boxer, she would smile at him and suddenly be sixteen years old all over again.
Penny’s grandmother took the man’s hand and was able to slip comfortably through the small gap on the landing, but when it came to her own turn, Penny stopped, muttering under her breath.
‘You’re such a kind man!’ Barbie exclaimed. ‘What’s your name?’
The guy smiled, and Penny thought it looked artificial and insincere. Smiles like that were always prone to hiding secrets.
‘Marcus,’ he replied, and then, turning to Penny, said more firmly, ‘If you’d like to pass by, we can all get on with our day.’
‘I’ll go when I feel like it. I’m not squeezing through just because you’re in a hurry!’ she shot back crossly. But her irritation, although authentic, could not completely quell the fluttering of those terrible butterflies in her belly.
Damn hormones! You can study and read and think and be as civilised as you like, and then you’re suddenly no better than some monkey. Are we no better than the animals? Do our instincts really have to insist on responding to the biceps of some random caveman?
Penny bit her tongue, unable to switch off her brain. She hated that she’d already imagined herself wrapped in those arms, which looked capable of inflicting pain more than caresses.
With her grandma waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, happy as a pig in clover, Penny finally stepped forwards to pass him. Marcus moved back as far as he could to give her room, but nonetheless, Penny’s breast brushed against him. Once more, it seemed, he was right in front of her – practically on top of her, in fact. Those damn