No Ordinary Bloke (22 page)

“Not laughing, love. Just noticing some pointers we could talk over.” I said, before taking a sip of beer to hide my amusement at my own joke.

She rolled her eyes and took the shot, not landing a single ball in a pocket. “What do you think?”

“I think we should skip a game and just work on your shots for a while. Hit a couple of balls.”

After she failed miserably on two shots, I said, “Okay, love, we need to take this one step at a time. Your aim is good, and you’re picking the right balls, but your arms are throwing everything off.”

“Then show me how.”

I walked over to her and quickly realized that my teaching abilities were limited unless I touched her. I smiled. “Remember when I said I wasn’t going to kiss you?”

“I do.”

“Well, in order to teach you pool, I may end up touching you.”

“Where?” She arched her brow.

“Sadly, only the necessary parts for playing pool.”

“Okay then.”

“First, let’s work on your arm motion.” She moved with me as I put her in the proper position, which was nice. She was small and warm against me again. After lining her up, I gently moved her shooting arm. “You don’t want to just whack it with all your force. Think of your arm as a drawer on its tracks. It needs to slide nice and evenly back and forth and then add some pressure to it.”

“I do feel like I have more control this way,” she said, as we moved our arms together.

“That’s right. A light, but firm grip on the shaft. Nice and even strokes with your stick gives you more control and you can go for longer.”

She looked over her shoulder at me with an amused but disapproving expression. “You are talking about pool, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I chuckled. “But it’s applicable in a lot of situations.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Like golf.”

“You play golf?”

“Fuck no. Bunch of tossers play that sport.” I tightened my arms around her. “Now, let’s work on your bridge.”

“That’s my hand, right?”

“Right.” I took her hand and placed it properly. “I like an open bridge. I like to feel my stick sliding in between. Women seem to like closed bridges, though, so their finger is wrapped around the stick.”

“Oh my God.” She laughed and straightened up, so I had to take a step back. “Is this going to go on all night?”

“What’s that, love?”

“Everything you say is sexual.”

“Tut.Tut. Such a naughty mind you have.” I smiled and touched the tip of her cute freckled nose with my fingertip. “I’m just using the terminology of the game, love.”

“You are, but I know you…” She poked me in the chest. “You talk about balls and sticks and shafts and strokes and fingers and it all has a double entendre.”

“Fair enough, but it’s not my fault. That’s the terminology of the game, not my choice of words.” I lowered my head so I was closer to her sparkling green eyes. “I promise you that if I’m ever lucky enough to talk dirty with you, there will be no double entendre.”

Her breath hitched, and we were both quiet. Why did I make that stupid declaration that I wasn’t going to kiss her? Because at that moment, I was quite sure she wanted to be kissed. She even lightly licked her lips, which sent all of the blood in my body to my dick. I took a steadying breath and placed one of her stray curls back behind her ear. “Shall we get back to the lesson?”

Her eyes wide, they didn’t stray from me as she slowly nodded.

For the next couple of hours, we played pool, and I tried to keep the sexual innuendoes to a minimum. About half way through, an older man asked to join us, and when he offered her some tips, it never sounded sexual at all. Allison took such a shine to him and he to her that I got a bit jealous at one point. It was good to have someone to diffuse the tension between Allison and me, even if he did sneak some looks at her tits. Eventually, he put away his cue saying he needed to sleep before his early shift. As he moved on, I frowned as I looked at my watch.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’ll need to leave soon as well. I have a bugger of a flight at six in the morning.”

“That’s too bad.” Her forehead wrinkled in what looked to be real sympathy for me. I was surprised when she said, “I’m going to miss you again.”

“My darling girl,” I said taking her into my arms. “I’ll miss you, but let’s plan to see each other again.”

“When?” She held on to my shirt.

“Well, let’s see…” I smiled. “I’m in the States next week.”

“Are you really?” Her eyes brightened. “Can you come to New York?”

“That’s the catch. I’m stuck in DC. I arrive on Wednesday and have meetings Thursday and Friday. I’m staying with Adam and Nicki over the weekend. I promised to babysit Little V on Saturday night, so I can’t back out. But if you could come to DC for the weekend, that would be fantastic. I’d love for you to meet Adam and Nicki.”

She leaned back, trying to take a good look at me. “
You’re
babysitting?”

“Nanny David. That’s me.”

“Do you know anything about babies?”

“Not too much, actually.”

“Then why do they let you sit with her?”

“Oh, I know enough to sit in the house while she sleeps for the night. That’s all it is. They feed her, bathe her, and put her down for the night. Then they go out, and I watch football or a movie. It works out quite well.” I winked. “I could teach you. Please come.”

Still in my arms, she smiled. “I’d like to, but I have a friend’s birthday party on Friday night.”

“Then take the train on Saturday morning.”

“I could do that.” She looked down at my arms and said, “This is a strange thing to say given how we’re standing at the moment, but where would I sleep?”

“Don’t worry. The invitation isn’t a big ruse just to get you in bed. They live in a big house in Cleveland Park. There’s a whole floor of spare bedrooms. You can take your pick.”

“Okay.” Her smile again reappeared.

“Besides. The last place I’d want to have sex is there. Those walls are bloody thin.”

“So you get to hear the baby cry a lot”

“Yes, you do, but you get used to it.”

“Well, I’d like to visit then, if you think it will be okay with Adam and Nicki.”

“Oh, they’ll love it.”

“How is it that Adam married an American?”

“Ah, that’s a long, tortured story.” I then remembered something that I rarely thought about it, except when a good opportunity arose to tease Adam. I pointed toward the door. “Let me walk you back to your hotel, and I’ll tell it to you.”

She nodded, and I took her hand. I figured if she was fine with me hugging her in public then she should be okay with me holding her hand. Still I asked, “Is this all right?”

“Fine by me.” She grinned.

When we got outside, I said, “I need to tell you this before you meet Nicki anyway.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll get to it.” I guided her across the street which led to the faster route to where she was staying. “When Adam was in high school, his father took the family to America for a year. Uncle Albert was a geologist.”

“I thought you said he was a viscount or something.”

“He was both.”

“Oh, I never really think of people like that as having professions.”

“Listen. I hate the aristocracy as much as the next good republican, but many of them do have actual jobs.”

“Yet, you still dislike their wealth and privilege?”

“I really just dislike their privilege and privileged attitudes and love of God awful teams like Arsenal.”

“Was Adam’s dad like that?”

“Not quite. He was too smart to be a complete arsehole.”

“So he moved his family to America for a year? Where was that?”

“Houston, Texas. That’s where he and Nicki met.”

“And is that where you and Nicki met?” She chuckled.

“Yes, it was.” I shrugged. “The short story is that Adam had another bird at the time. I’d been on a gap year traveling in Central America, and when I stopped to visit Adam in Houston, I met Nicki at a party. We hooked up and then—”

“You
hooked up
?” she asked disbelievingly.

“Wrong choice of words. Nicki and I snogged away the evening at a party one night.”

“You what?”

“Snogged. You know. Kiss, makeout. That sort of thing.”

“You made out with your cousin’s wife when you were teenagers?” She said flatly.

“Essentially. We didn’t have sex. Not even close. But afterward I could tell that Adam was jealous. I guessed he had a thing for her despite his girlfriend at the time.”

“Then what happened?”

“Nothing with me. I left. I think a month or so later Adam broke up with his bird and started up with Nicki.”

“Wow. They’ve been together for twenty years?”

“More like five with a fifteen year or so hiatus.”

“Where did they meet again?”

“In DC. She was working at the White House at the time as a press secretary, and he was with the BBC. Now, she’s doing consulting, and he’s drawing political cartoons, though under a penname. He said it was easier to get started if he didn’t use his real name.”

“They sound interesting.”

“I’m glad you’re going to meet them.”

We chatted more until we arrived outside her hotel. The hour was late so the street was quiet, and the valets and bellboys were all inside waiting for a straggler guest to show for the night. I stopped before we got too close though. I didn’t want to say goodbye with a fucking audience. “Here you are, love. Safely at your destination.”

“Yes, we are.” She looked down at our hands still clasped together. When she looked up, she said, “Thanks for tonight, but really thank you for sending that note. You made it easier for me to come to you, and you didn’t have to do that.”

“You’re welcome, but I must admit it wasn’t my idea.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was such a bastard to be around that my cousin thought I should reach out to you. I wasn’t sure about it because I thought you never wanted to hear from me again, but Sylvia insisted.” I smiled. “It turns out she was right.”

“So I need to thank her?” She laughed. “Or have you already?”

“Fuck no,” I snarled. “I dread telling her she was right.”

“What’s she like?”

“Impossible.” Not wanting to spoil the mood with any more talk of Sylvia, I squeezed her hand. “I’m happy you asked me to lunch. That’s what really got us started again. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She beamed at me in silence. Again, the moment was right to lean in for a kiss, but I’d made my promise. I was just about to capitulate a bit with a kiss on the forehead when she laughed. “You’re really not going to kiss me, are you?”

“Nope.”

“You’re going to make me beg aren’t you?”

“I know we joked about that, but it really wasn’t my intention.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” she said in a sing-song voice. She looked aside and then caught my eye. “Do you want to kiss me?”

“Hell, yes.”

“Such restraint.”

“Indeed.”

She tilted her head to the side. “What if I ask you to kiss me?” She took a step closer to me and leaned in, “Or what if I just kiss you?”

“Those are your decisions, love,” I said as I gently touched her chin.

Without another word, she brought her smiling lips to mine for a slow, soft kiss that sparked my cold, tired heart. We’d never kissed before, but it seemed like we knew each other’s lips well. Closing my eyes, I wove my fingers into her hair as I kept up with the slew of kisses coming from her lips. As if on cue, we simultaneously opened our mouths, and everything new between us again became instantly familiar. When I heard a small whimper, I murmured, “Oh, my darling girl.”

She pulled away, her face flushed, but with a bewildered smile. I probably looked the same damn way. Touching her hair for a second, she said shyly, “So when you were with Nicki. Did you kiss that way in high school?”

“Oh, God no. I’m sure I was slobbering hulk of teenage testosterone.”

Tousling my hair, she laughed. “I bet you were just as adorable.”

“Scruffier back then. Not as well mannered either.” I wrapped my arms tighter around her waist, bringing her body against mine again. “Of course, my manners are escaping me now because I really would fancy another kiss.”

“Me too,” she said, placing her lips to mine.

The kiss picked up where our last left off, and I was getting a giant stiffy. I shifted my hips so she wouldn’t feel it. I thought it better not to dry hump in front of a posh hotel in the middle of a London city pavement. After another minute of sweet, hot kisses, I had to stop, or I’d be dragging her up to her hotel room. I placed my forehead on hers. “We should stop…or maybe just I need to stop. You can probably control yourself.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, laughing. She ran her hand through my hair again. “You make it difficult.”