Chapter Two
The sleek black chauffeured Jaguar sped through the traffic like silk slipping through fingers. Robbie and I sat in silence surrounded by the smell of new leather and brushing droplets of rain from our clothes. I twisted my fingers in my lap and looked out the densely tinted windows at the blurring lights of Park Lane and Marble Arch, Harrods and Selfridges.
My mind was in a whir. What was going on? My body was buzzing. Was I really with Robbie, after all this time? “Where are we going?” I asked as an apprehensive lump grew in my belly.
“Home.”
I looked across at him. There were small lines at the corners of his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him. “Whose home?”
“Mine.” He grinned and reached for my hand. “And it’s Sunday tomorrow, Jenny, so unless you work in a 24/7 laboratory then I very much doubt you have to be there early.”
My gut clenched. My hastily spun excuse for leaving had been ridiculously weak. I stared out the window again as he stroked his warm, smooth hand over mine. It was so familiar—his touch. It was Robbie. But it wasn’t my Robbie. He was something else, someone different. “And when we get to yours?” I asked. “Then what?”
“We talk, about us.”
I turned to him. “We were finished a long time ago. I don’t understand where all this has come from. The song and the tickets.”
“I miss you,” he said with a shrug. “And I couldn’t go on living without finding out if you missed me too.”
I’d missed him since the day we’d separated. I missed him so much there were times when I wondered if the ache would ever go away. It was why no one special had ever broken their way into my life or heart since the split. It was why I’d thrown myself headfirst into my research.
“I have missed you,” I confessed quietly, searching the depths of his eyes. They were the same as they’d always been. They hadn’t changed over the years. A ring of brown circled the green irises and flecks of gold sat at their depths.
He slid across the seat. His shadowed face was so close now, his lips a whisper away from mine. Suddenly he was my Robbie again; there was nothing different about him at all. I swallowed tightly and remembered the flavor of his tongue, the feel of his hair tangled in my fingers and the texture of his flesh rubbing against mine when we were sweaty and naked. How could I still want him after he’d hurt me so much? After all this time apart?
“Do you remember how we used to be so damn good together?” he asked in a breathy whisper, leaning in closer still. “Before I went and fucked it all up.”
I stared into his hypnotizing eyes.
“Maybe I should remind you,” he murmured. He dipped his head and sealed his lips against mine, soft and gentle and oh so sexy. Once again a rush of memories flooded my mind, images of him kissing me at the school gate, the disco in the town hall, the tent at the end of his garden.
He probed past my teeth and into my mouth, caressing and searching.
Robbie was kissing me. Was this real or would I open my eyes and be hot, flustered and alone with another tremor vibrating deep in my belly?
His hands caught my face, his fingertips slotted into my hair. He carried on kissing me, his tongue stroking mine.
When he pulled back, I opened my eyes. Robbie was still there, he was real. This was no cruel daydream sent to haunt me.
“We can’t…” I said.
“We can.” He kissed me again, with more determination.
I moaned and let myself fall into it. On and on we kissed.
Eventually, sensing the car slowing I broke away.
It rolled to a stop and the driver got out.
“Wouldn’t have minded a longer trip,” Robbie said. “I would have told the driver to take the extended route had I known you’d let me kiss you. Maybe even found a traffic jam or two.”
I pressed my fingertips to my hot cheeks. “I think maybe it was for the best.”
“That’s what you think.” He smiled. “But I could kiss you all night.”
All night? Just what would the night bring? Heck, I’d been alone with him just a matter of minutes and I was letting him tangle his tongue with mine.
The driver opened my door and I climbed out, smoothing my messy hair and dragging in a lungful of cool night air, hoping it might help my nonexistent self-control return. I looked up at the glass and steel building set amongst the Georgian town houses. “Nice pad,” I said with an approving nod.