The Last Kiss: A Standalone Romance Novel (The Notting Hill Sisterhood Book 1)

by Anna Bloom

  He has a firm grip on my elbow, a hold he seems unwilling to break. And that’s fine with me because his touch is damn electric and he’s only holding my arm.

  He steps up close, uncaring of the people weaving around us and my breath snatches in my throat, puffing out as a little gust of air. “You left without saying goodbye.”

  I stare up at him, eyes roving over the face that’s a perfect landscape of smooth, olive skin and dark, expressive eyebrows. I want to charter the land for my own.

  Shaking my head, I try to lose my random thoughts.

  Keep it together, Jules, we’ve fallen down this rabbit hole before.

  “Ma petite Juliette, I have thought of you often.”

  Wheeeee, down the rabbit hole I go.

  “You have?”

  “Oui, of course.” He rubs at his jaw. “Too often, I think.” His smile is rueful and utterly time stopping. Not heart stopping, but time itself.

  He’s thought of me too? B-list Porno or Pornhub?

  In no hurry to go anywhere, his broad back acts like a boulder parting the sea of evening commuters. His lips curve into a cheeky grin that gives birth to a dimple I didn’t know existed.

  Leaning down to my ear, he brushes his lips against my earlobe. Right here in the middle of Waterloo train station—the man has no boundaries at all. I shiver, remembering all too well his lack of boundaries and where that leads. “I thought I might have done something wrong,” his finger trails my cheek, “but I see your blush and know that cannot be the case.”

  Ooh, this guy is smooth. So smooth.

  “Well…” I try to think of a suitable answer for why I ran away from him, stealing into the dawn like a thief, but I can’t. He chuckles and it echoes straight through me, lancing my core, making Pornoland all the more desirable. I need a season pass, make no mistake.

  “Do you have plans?”

  I look up at his question.

  “No,’ I blurt, but then pull myself together. “But I can’t be doing.” I point between us. “Again.”

  He laughs, throwing his head back. Angels weep. “I had in mind a drink.”

  My face begins to burn. “Drink makes sense.” And yes, I do want a drink with him, Pornoland hasn’t portrayed his face quite right. Today he has a slight stubble on his chin, there’s a faint shadowing under his eyes.

  “You look tired,” I state. His gaze washes over me.

  “And so do you.”

  Well, that’s to the point, but then so was I, I guess. “You’re in London again?”

  I don’t know why this fact gives me a little warm burst in the chest area. The man’s beautiful, too beautiful, but he was also a one-night stand which doesn’t hold any future. I don’t hold any future.

  The stark reality hollows me out like a scoop of ice cream falling from a spoon.

  “So sad still, ma petite,” he murmurs in my ear and I tremble down to my toes. Why does he turn up on days when the very worst has happened?

  Maybe that’s his thing. He’s a distraction from the end of all things.

  “What are you doing at Waterloo?”

  “Heading home.” He sighs and I sigh with him as he runs a hand through his hair. His suit, grey this time, is impeccably cut, as sharp as a knife edge. His overcoat black, a dark green scarf loosely hangs around his neck.

  He looks like an investment banker, not the maker of cheese.

  But then I suppose cheese is a French thing. Maybe they do it differently there.

  “What are you thinking of?” His smile teases the edge of his mouth.

  “Cheese.”

  He laughs, hands sliding down my arms and he leans in to kiss me once on one cheek before slowly kissing the other, minty breath gently brushing my face, cooling the tip of my nose. “I am so pleased to see you again. I didn’t think I would.”

  “Me neither,” I sigh, but in my heart, I don’t know if this is the truth. I can’t stop my smile. It’s addictive, like a rainbow from behind rain clouds.

  “Dinner?”

  “Only dinner?” I confirm.

  He shrugs. “If that’s what you wish, ma petite Juliette.”

  11

  Moonlight

  “Close your eyes.”

  I don’t want to.

  If I close my eyes then I won’t be able to see his face, and I’m currently filling the spank bank.

  My mystery man has removed his suit jacket, loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. His olive skin is illuminated by candlelight as he leans on his elbows and watches me with bright eyes from across the table.

  I want to fuck him on the table. Let there be no mistake about that.

  Sadly, we are in a little bistro and I think it would be frowned upon.

  I’d suggested the Wetherspoon’s pub in the station, to which he’d looked at me with such horror I’m surprised he didn’t run for the Eurostar right there and then.

  He sighs while I continue to stare at his face. “Sorry,” I mutter and then dutifully close my eyes before swiftly cracking one back open to make sure he doesn’t run away. He arches an eyebrow and I drop my shoulders and close my eyes properly, trying to relax into the moment.

  “Now, wet your lips and lick them. Just a little taste.”

  I lift the wine glass hoping not to drop it across my lap, or totally miss my mouth. There’s a low chuckle and then his warm hand cups mine, thumb brushing my knuckles. “Here.” He guides the glass to my mouth. “No cheating.”

  I taste the wine on my lips, giving a little lick as prompted.

  “Now take a longer sip and hold it in your mouth.”

  I do as he asks, my body feeling warm, intimate, despite the public setting.

  “What can you taste?”

  I think, not wanting to rush my answer and then swallow. “Tobacco, berries.” I lick my lips. “Earth?” I open my eyes. Earth… Seriously, is that the best I can come up with?

  He laughs, his eyes dancing.

  “I amuse you.” I sit up a little straighter.

  “Only in all the very best ways.”

  “Thank you for the book.” I dive off the highest springboard into the pool of awkward conversation, because I don’t think I can sit here and pretend that we didn’t do what we did. We did do it, in a very ground-breaking, earth-shattering way.

  He grins, and I think I might be in love with that dimple. It’s so cute in someone so suave and smooth. Ducking his head down, he loops his fingers around the stem of his wine glass. “You didn’t give me a chance to say thank you. I felt unchivalrous.”

  “And you like to be chivalrous?” I arch an eyebrow.

  “I try.”

  “With all your one-night stands?”

  He smiles into his glass. “Now you are asking leading questions.”

  “And…”

  “You were the one who said, ‘No names.”

  “I did.” Slut move 101. “Not my usual modus operandi.”

  That smile grows into a smirk. “And neither is it for I to be unchivalrous.”

  “With your one-night stands?” I go there again, just because it feels good. Our eyebrows match one another in a battle of the arc. “So, I’m Juliette?”

  Her name sounds dangerous on the tip of my tongue.

  “To me, yes.” His smile falters into seriousness and my heart splutters with it.

  “Who does that make you?”

  He shrugs. “Juliette’s Romeo?”

  “They both die.” It’s meant to sound light-hearted, but it doesn’t.

  Another shrug.

  We both sip our wine.

  “What time is your train?”

  He glances at his watch. “An hour ago.”

  “Oh.” My mouth dries.

  He shakes his head as if to say, no big deal. “So, Juliette, tell me about satirical newspapers.”

  My cheeks flush. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

  “I can’t believe you’re surprised.” Ugh, this man. Everything he says rings like
a poem.

  “What else do you remember?”

  His gaze burns down to the marrow in my bones. “Everything.”

  “Me too.”

  “So, tell me. Newspapers.”

  Roll me in those r’s because they sound like heaven.

  “Well, it’s kinda boring.”

  He snorts. “Kinda boring. That’s no way to live life.”

  Too late she cried.

  “Well, it’s not really what I thought I would be doing now.”

  “Non?”

  “No.” I shake myself into focus, ignoring the illicit pull of his Frenchness (is that a thing. I’m making it one if it isn’t). “I left university thinking I was going to set the publishing world alight, that I would have this amazing career, would be written about in the broadsheets how I’d discovered all these breakout authors. ‘The woman who finds the greatest writer of our time’.” I air quote around my former dream.

  “And you haven’t?”

  I shoot him a withering glance. “No, I work in a dingy office surrounded by disgusting dinosaur old men for a newspaper that no one wants to read anymore.”

  “So, change?” he gives his shrug.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Rebecca, my boss. She needs me.” I stare into my wine, unwilling to meet his expressive stare. “She makes so many mistakes. Even last month she fiddled with one of my spreadsheets and managed to accidentally not print two thousand copies.” Lifting my glass, I glug down more of the amazing red. Probably a bit too amazing judging how quickly I’ve been sinking it. “We can’t afford to lose two thousand readers.”

  His fingers steeple together, reminding me of our first dinner, his thoughtful I’m going to read you like a cheap and loose magazine look.

  “That’s not all on you though, Juliette.” Even though that’s not my real name, I love it. I like being her, sitting and having sophisticated dinners with a sophisticated man.

  “I’ve thought of you.” Someone take the red away from me. Truth bubbles with the tang of fermented grapes. “A lot.” I tuck my hair behind my ear, gaze down. “I was telling the truth you know. I’d never done anything like that before. But somehow, from that night you’ve put a smile on my face at a time when I wasn’t sure that would happen again.”

  “But you still look sad.” He reaches across the table and slips his fingers over mine and I shiver in my seat. “Look at me.”

  I do, meeting his dark-blue, incandescent stare. He doesn’t speak and neither do I.

  What am I doing?

  How did this happen again?

  “It seems like fate to me, ma petite.” He rolls the words making them swim in my head with the wine. “The chances of two people meeting in two different places in one very large city, no?” He shrugs. “Fate? Maybe destiny.”

  I snort a giggle. “Destiny?”

  He doesn’t answer my schoolgirl giggle, merely watches me, making my mouth dry. “So, what happens now?” My gaze falls to his lips—stupid, treacherous gaze.

  His smile expands, enigmatic. “I’d suggest a nightcap, but you made your rules very clear.”

  He’s thrown that gauntlet down.

  I feign innocence. “Oh, does nightcap mean something else in French?”

  “I think nightcap is a bilingual expression of understanding, no?”

  My heart thuds. Pulse beating in the base of my throat.

  “And if I said I’d like a nightcap?”

  Am I really doing this again? Am I crazy?

  My pulse is shouting yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

  Maybe it is fate. Maybe this man is supposed to appear like magic and make all the bad things evaporate with wine and happenstance.

  He pulls his phone out of his pocket and holds it between us, balanced on the surface of his broad palm. “Your word, ma petite.”

  Go home… go home…

  I meet his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  He snatches his phone away, swiping the screen. “One thing.” The eyebrow tells me this is important, and I nod, swallowing.

  “Yes?”

  “No running away.”

  “But that’s not the rules.”

  “This time is my rules.”

  I swallow again, harder this time, expectation lighting through me like fireworks on the 5th of November. Light me up, Guy Fawkes, I’m on a slippery slope to Doomsday.

  Question: What is a one-night stand called when it happens twice?

  Answer: Fate.

  He taps the screen and then puts his phone back down, his gaze landing on mine with expectation. “Ready, Juliette?”

  Yes, Juliette is ready. I stand, pushing back my chair. I grab my coat and bag. Chuckling, he does the same, throwing down notes onto the table for a bill we haven’t even asked for.

  “Shouldn’t we…?” I gesture at the table and the five twenties he’s put down for wine and chips.

  He grabs my elbow, tucking me into his side, holding me firm. “No time, ma petite, I’ve been thinking of this for a month.” He leans closer to my ear, this unexpected Romeo. “Now I just need you.”

  And I need him. It courses through me, a river of desire I didn’t know I was capable of. “How far to the hotel?”

  We rush through the bistro’s doors, blustering into February like the rest of January didn’t happen. Like a month hasn’t passed since we were last right here on the cusp of something unknown.

  He turns me, tilting my chin with his forefinger and thumb, brushing my mouth with his, pressing firm, stealing little pockets of air from deep within me. “You taste like sunshine and berries. August heat and the moon at midnight, a cool blast of water from the lake at noon.”

  I pull back from his lingering kiss and whispered words.

  “I taste like a lot.” I blink up at him, hand pressed against his chest.

  He drops his forehead to mine, inhaling deeply, “All my favourite things.” One of his hands tucks hair behind my ear as his gaze drills into my secret places, my thoughts and feelings, the scared bits of me that don’t know what anything is anymore. “How did I find them all here in this dismal place with grey skies and concrete and glass?”

  “I don’t know,’ breathlessly, I pull him back in, slanting my mouth over his, my body scorching as I shift against him. “How far is the hotel?” I ask again.

  Grinning against my mouth, he flicks his eyes open over my shoulder. “Fifty steps.’ The grin becomes crooked. “And a Tube.”

  I snort, pulling him close. He remembered.

  We end up back at the same boutique hotel as before, its black railings comforting and familiar.

  Romeo explains to the staff that he’s missed his train. There’s lots of shrugging and good-humoured enthusiasm from the girl behind the reception desk. I hide behind his back in case I’ve got a neon sign stapled to my forehead that states One-Night Stand.

  He grasps my handno drink, no firesidestraight for the lift where he pushes me back against the mirror, squeezing my thighs tight and making me moan. “Oh God,” I groan into his mouth and he murmurs at the back of his throat.

  “I don’t know where you’ve come from, ma Juliette. He pelts kisses across my skin, teeth nipping my throat. “But mon dieu, I’m glad you’re here.”

  With every plant of his kisses, the desolate days of January slowly unwind, painting them into bright splashes of colour, yellow instead of grey, pink instead of black.

  He carries me to room one-hundred and three, opening the door easier this time. Practise makes perfect so they say. I know just what I want to practise. I want to become a master in the field of screwing him inside out.

  “No running.” He demands with a kiss.

  “Not running.”

  “Breakfast is a condition of this.” As if to prove the point, he places me on the floor, edging back, putting space between us that rushes like icy water.

  “Breakfast.” I grab him back. Don’t break the rules, my kiss insists. The rule is
your mouth has to be on mine until one of us is about to pass out from lack of air.

  One of the better ways to pass out, I think.

  Anchoring my elbows into the cups of his palms, he lifts me slightly so he can carry me, edge me back further into the bedroom. I let him lead, willing to see where he wants to take this, what he needs from me.

  By a chair he turns us, sitting down and drawing me onto his lap, fingers dancing at the nape of my neck as he keeps my ravenous mouth on his. My skirt gathers around my thighs as I straddle his legs and I pull at his tie, sliding it down gently so I don’t tighten the knot. I dot little kisses at the unbuttoned top of his shirt, planting kisses that grow into a heady kiss of tongues and clashing teeth. His hands run down my spine making me arch and straighten like a cat.

  Damn, Barney.

  I push him from my head. He can survive one night without an extra-large serving of Whiskas.

  “Where have you gone?” Romeo pulls back, hand slipping through my hair, gaze intent.

  A grin breaks on my face as I shake my head. “Sorry, was thinking my cat hasn’t had dinner.” I peck another kiss on his mouth.

  “Your cat? You’re thinking of your cat?”

  “Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

  His kiss tells me it won’t happen again. His tongue demands complete focus and adherence. I can do that, I answer back, sweeping mine against his, diving deep into warm places.

  “Is this crazy?” I ask, words just bubbling.

  “What?” he asks my throat as I lean back.

  “This. Us.”

  Lifting up, he meets my gaze and I warm into a molten pool of hot metal at the rawness in his gaze. “Only time can tell, ma petite.”

  His fingers reach for my black blouse, ending further conversation. He probably thinks I only have one outfit. It’s not my fault Friday seems to be our day. Good news is I have on my best underwear. Strangely, the hospital visit, which was my reason for putting it on, seems far away. Like it could have happened in a different life.

  Which I guess I wish it had.

  I block the thought as he gently and painfully slowly undoes the buttons, cool fingers dipping inside the material. He leans in following his lips along the same path. Until he stops and pulls back.

  “Juliette? What is this?” With the tip of his middle finger, he runs southward on the pink scar down the middle of my chest. Not old enough to be hidden in the moonlight, it stands out in stark relief. A crimson splash on alabaster.