A Most Desirable Marriage by Hilary Boyd

Author:Hilary Boyd [Boyd, Hilary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781782067931
Google: q8YSBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2014-10-08T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

13 October 2013

For the next two days, Cassie barely left the house. Travis kept sidling up to Jo whenever they were momentarily alone and putting his arms around her, whispering ‘Come to bed’ in her ear, making her laugh, driving her mad with lust. Finally Cassie went off to buy a new backpack, some trainers, a pair of jeans, so as to avoid the charity shops on her return to Devon.

Minutes after she had gone, Travis was lounging against the wall, watching Jo as she loaded the washing machine and thrust a pouch of lavender liquid detergent to the back of the drum.

He grinned suggestively. ‘Cassie’s out. What say you we go upstairs and fool around for a while?’

‘Now?’ She knew she must have looked shocked.

Travis roared with laughter. ‘Never saw the rule says you have to wait for cover of darkness before you make love.’

‘You’ve obviously been very badly brought up then.’

She began to laugh with him, and soon they were giggling out of control, gasping for breath. When he eventually took her hand and led her upstairs, she was ready for anything.

*

Later, as they lay next to each other, his arm beneath her head, Jo said softly, ‘You don’t mind, that there isn’t a plan?’ Their lovemaking had begun playful, teasing, this time, not like the explosive haste of that first night, but soon became just as intense. Unlike Lawrence – and Jo found it hard not to make the comparison – Travis liked to take his time, bringing her to the brink and back, taking her body to an almost unbearable pitch of sensation where she was beyond thought, unaware of anything but his expert touch. Jo’s body still sang from it, her skin almost bruised by the unaccustomed physicality.

‘A plan for what?’

‘Us.’

‘OK . . .’

‘I’ve always had a plan before. Sort of A follows B follows C. Now there isn’t one.’

Travis turned to her and kissed her hair. ‘What sort of plan did you have in mind?’

‘I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘I mean . . . I know there can’t be one . . . but I struggle with that . . . I want to just go with what’s happening . . . but . . .’

‘Everyone’s the same,’ he said. ‘It isn’t normal not to project into the future.’

‘So you do too.’ She looked up at him.

‘Sure I do, but I try not to. I got kinda obsessed with The Power of Now a while back. Studied it every night for months, going over and over it, trying to leave my ego behind, stay in the moment. Real hard, but I want to live my life like that if I can. Not forever angsting about the past or projecting into the future.’

He sounded earnest suddenly, and very young.

‘Isn’t that just an excuse for wandering through life never making any commitments?’

‘The future has a habit of sorting itself out if you don’t look it in the eye too much.’ He sounded almost detached as he spoke.

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