Second Chance - Jane Green [121]
‘But don’t you see?’ Saffron hisses. ‘I’m not willing to help myself. That’s exactly the problem. I wish I was.
I’m praying for the willingness to help myself, but it isn’t there. All I want to do is drink.’
‘Sssh!’ Olivia is suddenly distracted. ‘What’s that?’
‘What?’
‘Listen. That… Oh my God, is that groaning?’
Saffron stops in her tracks and both of them move towards the door, listening to the unmistakable sound of a couple making love.
‘Is that Paul and Anna?’ Olivia is confused, the sound coming from somewhere else.
Saffron starts to laugh and, for a minute, her urge to drink recedes. ‘No!’ she whispers. ‘It’s Holly and Will.’
‘No!’ Olivia starts to smile.
‘I know.’ Saffron rolls her eyes. ‘Could you believe the electricity between them over dinner?’
‘Wow. Do you think she’s sleeping with him? Already?’
‘Oh God, I can’t listen.’ Saffron covers her ears as they hear a soft moan, a louder, distinctly male, groan.
Olivia giggles. ‘I feel like I’m back at university. Jesus. I haven’t listened to noises like that in years.’
Saffron nods. ‘Come on. Let’s go back in the kitchen. I feel like a voyeur.’
They walk back and Saffron sits down at the table, sinking her head on her arms as Olivia fills the kettle then turns to look at her. ‘I don’t suppose a cup of tea is enough to stop you wanting to drink?’
‘Hardly. But it’s better than nothing. Oh God, Olive,’ Saffron looks up at Olivia pleadingly, ‘what am I going to do?’
‘Oh darling.’ Olivia reaches down and puts her arms around her, hugging her tight. ‘We’ll help you. Just don’t drink. Not today.’
‘I know,’ Saffron whispers. ‘Just for today. A day at a time.’
‘Anyway,’ Olivia says, smiling, ‘the pubs are all closed and that wine was the last of the bottles we bought. You couldn’t drink right now even if you wanted to.’
And I want to, Saffron thinks. Still. I want to.
Holly lies snuggled up against Will, his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders as he lies on his back, snoring gently.
She turns her head to look at him, wanting to trace his profile with her fingers, but she doesn’t, too scared she’ll wake him. What she wants to do is exactly what she’s doing right now – drinking him in, watching him breathing, marvelling at the feeling of wanting to snuggle up with someone, wanting to stroke her fingers over his chest, rest her fist gently in his clavicle, cover his shoulders with kisses.
She knew, from the second he kissed her, that something more would happen. She had wanted to have sex, wanted to make love, but she found that she couldn’t go further than foreplay, couldn’t allow penetration, even though it seemed to be the one thing she wanted more than anything else.
It was a bridge she wasn’t prepared to cross, not yet. But oh how lovely the rest of it was. How lovely kissing was.
With Marcus, she always tried very hard not to kiss him, would close her eyes as he was thrusting into her, and lose herself in a fantasy, knowing that should she open her eyes and see Marcus’s face looming above her, any pleasure there was would disappear in a flash.
She and Will may not have had sex, but she made him come, came herself – oh how she came… And after she came, Will lay there and cuddled her, and he talked. And talked. And talked.
She was stunned. Was so used to that perfunctory kiss, rolling over to her side of the bed for a Marcus-free dream, she had forgotten that people did this, that they cuddled up and talked softly.
This is intimacy. This is what she has missed.
Perhaps tomorrow they will be able to make love, she thinks. Perhaps tomorrow she will not feel guilty. Perhaps tomorrow she will trust him enough, trust herself enough. For tonight this is all she needs. She plans on getting out of bed in a minute, going back to her own room; but before she knows it, she has fallen into a peaceful sleep.
At five in the