Santa Baby by Ali Cronin

Author:Ali Cronin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471403378
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2013-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Dust motes floated in the lasers of early-morning light coming through the gaps in the wooden blinds and swirled idly above empty wine glasses and full ashtrays. The fridge hummed. The dust and me: that was all that was moving. Everything else was in that weird sleeping-house suspended animation. I took my shoes off and crept around the place, cleaning and tidying in frankly superhuman quietness, wanting to put off seeing George again for as long as possible. Whenever I heard a creak my stomach clenched and I stopped dead in the manner of musical statues, as if at that moment any kind of movement at all would be enough to wake him. After an hour of this I thought sod it and started clattering just to get it over with. I couldn’t take the tension, and anyway it was making everything take twice as long.

It was Fred who appeared first, fully dressed and looking bright eyed and bushy tailed. ‘All right, Annie?’ he said, parking himself on a stool at the breakfast bar and stealing himself a chunk of fresh baguette. ‘Nice day off?’

‘Not bad, thanks,’ I said, pushing the butter and a knife towards him. ‘How was your day?’

We were still chitchatting in the same nothingy vein five minutes later when George opened his bedroom door. He called my name. ‘Come here, would you, sweetheart? I need you.’ His eyes shifted briefly towards Fred’s. George smirked – I couldn’t see what Fred was doing.

‘I’m at kind of a vital stage in making breakfast?’ I called back. ‘What do you need?’

‘You.’ Another smirk, this time accompanied by a wink, whether directed at me, Fred or both of us I couldn’t say. I’d had enough of this. I wiped my hands on a tea towel and went over.

‘George, what are you –’ I hissed, but before I could finish he snaked his hand around my waist and pulled me into his room, kicked the door shut behind me, and smothered my mouth with his. He kissed my neck, running his hands down my back and onto my bum. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured into my collarbone. ‘I missed you yesterday.’

I peeled his hands away. ‘What are you doing?’ I opened the door. ‘I’m frying bacon out there. Do you want the chalet to burn down?’

‘OK, OK.’ He held up his palms in defeat. ‘To be continued.’ He grinned and looked down at his grotesquely bulging boxers. ‘You do things to me, babe.’

‘George, I’m not your babe,’ I hissed, one hand on the door knob. ‘The other night, it –’

‘It really was, wasn’t it.’ He raised his eyebrows, did a slow-burn grin.

AGH! Was he deliberately misunderstanding me or just plain stupid? Growling with frustration, I went back to the kitchen, where – joy – now everyone was sitting.

‘Good morning,’ I said with as much dignity and nothing-to-see-here as I could muster. ‘Breakfast’s basically ready, if you want to sit up.’ I nodded towards the dining table, all laid with cutlery and the newspapers spread out in the middle.

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