by Holly Martin
She smiled, feeling inordinately pleased by his words.
The clock above the fireplace started to chime and Tori looked up, realising it was one o’clock in the morning.
‘Oh, god, I didn’t realise it was so late. I’m so sorry. I bet you have a ton of work to do tomorrow and now you’ll be tired. You should have thrown me out, not let me keep talking all night.’
‘I think tonight has been one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time,’ Aidan said. ‘I had no intention of throwing you out.’
‘I’ve enjoyed tonight too. It’s a shame it’s over.’
There was a pause as they both stared at each other, the atmosphere in the air suddenly changing between them. She had never slept with anyone on a first date before, that kind of level of trust took a long time to build, but there was suddenly a large part of her that wanted Aidan to ask her to spend the night with him.
They continued to stare at each other and she felt like he was thinking the same thing. But he didn’t say anything, and she realised he wasn’t going to.
‘I should probably go.’
He stood up. ‘I’ll walk you home.’
Disappointment hit her in a great wave, but then she’d said all along that it was only going to be dinner. She hadn’t said anything to give him any clue that she might want to take it further. He was being the perfect gentleman. If something was going to happen that night, then she had to be the one to instigate it and there was no way she could do that. What if he turned her down? He liked her, seemed to be attracted to her, but it didn’t mean he wanted to jump into bed with her. God, why was she even thinking like this? She was never like this with men. Even with Luc, sex had been something that he always instigated. It had been nice but never passionate, not the kind she and Melody used to watch in the movies where the couples were tearing each other’s clothes off in a desperation for each other. Luc had never been desperate for her. She had never wanted his hands on her with the same urgency that she wanted Aidan to touch her now.
She stood up too and Aidan picked up her bag and handed it to her, standing so close she could smell his wonderful scent. He towered over her and for some reason his height and strength were such a turn-on.
He stared down at her, his eyes casting to her lips for a fleeting second before he stepped back.
‘Oh, I got you something,’ Aidan said.
He moved to the side and came back with a bunch of flowers. But as he got closer she realised they were all made from paper. They were all different styles, shapes and sizes and looked more beautiful than any real bunch of flowers.
‘Oh, origami flowers, how lovely.’
It was such a sweet gesture and knowing how long it must have taken him to make and fold made all the difference.
‘I know it wasn’t a date but, I just wanted…’
‘These are wonderful, thank you.’
‘What are your plans for tomorrow?’ He moved to the door and held it open for her. The night really was coming to an end.
‘I’m going with your aunt to the tattoo studio. I believe she has decided to get a giraffe.’
She stepped outside, clutching her flowers.
‘You’re kidding? Though why I’m even doubting that, I don’t know. Nothing will surprise me with Agatha. Are you getting one too?’
‘I’m not sure I’m ready for something permanent, Agatha has persuaded me to get a henna tattoo. It’ll wash off in a few weeks.’
‘You’re a bad influence on my aunt,’ Aidan said, closing the door behind them.
‘I think she’s a bad influence on me. Let’s not forget she was the one who handed me a vibrator and sent me off on a date with her nephew.’
Aidan laughed. ‘She really is one of a kind. We still need to think of a way to get her back for that and all her general interfering.’
‘Oh, I’m sure we can think of something.’
Aidan slipped his hand into hers and she looked up at him. ‘I don’t want you to fall, there’s a few potholes as we walk down the drive and it is dark.’
‘Good point and who would help you with all the fruit-picking then?’
‘Yes, and the naked dancing.’
She smiled. ‘That too.’
‘You probably want to take a nap tomorrow afternoon,’ Aidan said.
She looked up at him and laughed. ‘I don’t think I’ve taken a nap since I was a toddler.’
‘Trust me, we’ll probably be working from midnight until four, you’ll definitely need a nap.’
‘Do you nap?’
‘I love a good nap. I rarely get the chance to do it, but this time of year, it’s kind of a must. I can’t really work all day and all night. Naps are great, you should try it.’ He paused. ‘It’s even better when you nap with someone.’
Her cheeks burned red and she was thankful that the blanket of darkness masked that. Was he suggesting that she join him for a nap? Good lord, this flirting malarkey was a minefield. With Luc, she hadn’t had to worry about any of that, he had pursued her. She hadn’t been keen to start anything, and he had seen that as something of a challenge. With Aidan, there was a huge part of her that wanted this, and she wasn’t used to these feelings or the things she should say and do as part of the courtship ritual. Should she offer to join him for a nap tomorrow? Unless he wasn’t suggesting she join him at all and it was just a general comment. Then another horrid thought vied for attention in her head. What if he did this kind of thing with all the fruit-pickers that stayed in Blossom Cottage? Flirted with them, napped with them, slept with them.
‘Do you nap with all your fruit-pickers?’ Tori blurted out before she could stop herself.
Aidan laughed. ‘Last year, I had a sixty-year-old, bearded man called Jim help me with the heartberries. Jim was definitely not my type.’
‘Beard too scratchy for you?’
‘Something like that. And the year before I had a Swiss man called Stefan. I was most definitely not his type. His boyfriend turned up after the first week and… well, their sexual antics were the talk of the whole village. Either they liked a lot of outdoor sex or they liked getting caught. The year before that there was a nice lady called Annie.’
‘Did you nap with her?’
‘She loved a good nap. The few times I came round to Blossom Cottage, she was sleeping in the armchair. We didn’t nap together though. She was sixty-nine. She made a point of telling me because she celebrated her birthday while she was here, and she didn’t want anyone to think she was seventy. She was a tiny bit too old for me. And I wasn’t suggesting that we took a nap together, just that naps in general are better with someone else.’
‘Oh, right.’
They walked in silence for a while, surrounded by the darkness.
‘Unless you want to of course,’ Aidan said.
She swallowed.
‘Want to what?’ She needed clarification of what she was agreeing to before she made a fool of herself again.
Aidan didn’t answer straight away, but finally he did.
‘Take a nap with me.’
Oh god. She had suddenly never wanted anything as much in her entire life. But did ‘nap’ actually mean they would simply sleep in the same bed as each other or was it code for sex? Should she turn up in her pyjamas or dressed in leather and bring a collection of sex toys? She snorted at that image. Sex had never been anything kinky for her and nor would she want it to be. She’d quite like the sex to be something a bit more than nice. But nothing too weird. But what if Aidan was into all that stuff? He’d recognised what the vibrator was without any problem. She was so woefully underprepared to start any kind of relationship again. The whole thing just scared her, flirting, napping, kissing and having sex again scared her. Letting her heart get carried away with it all scared her, despite her best intentions not to let it happen. She kind of got the feeling that if anything were to happen between her and Aidan, it would turn into… something. And she really didn’t want that.
She r
ealised that she was taking way too long to answer, her stupid brain overthinking everything. She opened her mouth to speak, although she still didn’t know what her answer was going to be, but Aidan got there first.
‘Ignore that offer. That’s hugely inappropriate. Taking a nap is something you do with someone special. Not someone you don’t even have something with.’
‘There are rules for when you can take a nap with someone?’
‘Oh yes, there are different stages of a relationship. It’s like a fruit, there are four main stages of growing a berry. You have the bud stage where the possibilities of fruit are wonderful and exciting – that’s the hand-holding, flirty-conversation, sweet-looks, admiring-elbows stage of a relationship. Then the bud turns into a flower and it’s pretty and smells amazing. That’s the kissing and mad passionate sex stage and some couples will never get past that part. The berry is the same – the flower will sometimes never produce a fruit, it just withers and dies.’
‘So where does napping come in? Stage two?’
‘No, not yet. Stage three is the difficult stage, where the flower turns to a berry. The berry is small and hard for a while and some might never grow bigger than that. This is the stage where the couples try to make it work, to take it further than just sex and kissing, to see if they have anything worth fighting for. Some of them just don’t have what it takes. Sometimes the berry is fully formed but tastes really bitter. That’s those couples that nearly make it, the ones that get as far as the altar but then one of them fails to turn up. And then stage four is the berry that’s ready for picking, the big fat juicy berry that’s perfect in every way. Those are the relationships that are going to last, the happy-ever-after type relationships. Although to be honest, I’m not sure such a thing can really exist.’
‘No, I’m not either. So where does napping fit into all of that?’
‘Stage four, I think. The perfectly, blissfully happy stage.’
Tori thought about this and decided that he was right. Cuddling in bed with someone was far more intimate than sex. It was no wonder the prospect of it had freaked her out. She knew it meant something more.
They arrived back at her cottage and Aidan walked her right up to her door.
‘Go on inside, I’ll wait here until you get the light on,’ he said.
She let herself in and, leaving the door open, so moonlight filled the lounge, she found the light switch and flicked it on, noticing Beast was fast asleep on the sofa again.
She came back to Aidan and wasn’t entirely sure what the right thing to say was. Should she invite him in for coffee?
‘Thank you for tonight, I had a wonderful evening,’ Tori said.
‘I did too.’
He hovered on her doorstep for a moment and then bent his head and pressed his warm lips to her cheek. ‘Goodnight Tori.’
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness, and she reached up and touched her cheek where the feel of his kiss tingled on her skin.
She came inside and shut the door behind her, leaning against it. She found a huge smile spreading on her lips because it seemed that Aidan Jackson had just moved very quickly on to stage two.
11
Tori sipped her chamomile tea from a bone-china cup and smiled as she looked around the little haven that was Rosie’s tattoo studio. It wasn’t at all what she imagined it would be. She’d expected red walls, big posters of skulls, drawings of snakes and examples of different tattoos on the walls with heavy metal or rock pounding out of the speakers but that wasn’t the case at all. The shop was largely white with cherry blossoms painted all over the walls as if you’d just stepped into a forest. Little silvery and gold fireflies dotted the walls too as they flew around the blossoms. Soft classical music was playing and all the ideas for tattoos were kept away in books. It was tasteful, and she couldn’t think for one minute why the locals would have anything against it.
She was tired today and this place was calm and relaxing and exactly what she needed. She felt like she’d just stepped into a spa and would soon be going to have a massage, not getting some scary tattoo on her back.
She looked over at Eva, Rosie’s wife, who was curled up in a chair reading a book. ‘You have a beautiful shop here.’
Eva looked up and smiled. ‘Thank you. It’s a reflection of Rosie, she’s so girly and sweet. I have to say I love it too, but don’t tell her that.’
Tori smiled at the obvious love Eva had for her wife.
She looked around the studio and yawned. She was tired. After returning to the cottage the night before, her mind had been buzzing with Aidan and their sort of first kiss. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep, she had spent hours drawing out different heartberry characters for Aidan to choose from and even drafted out a script and a rough storyboard of the advert too. For some reason this project excited her. It happened sometimes, a company would come to her with an idea for an advert and it inspired her so much she would work round the clock, so she could get started on it. She had finally crawled into bed around four this morning, so she was definitely looking forward to her nap later.
She flicked through a book of tattoo ideas that Rosie had designed, trying to decide what she would get if she were ever to go for something permanent. Rosie was clearly very talented, her designs were so intricate but, as well as the usual tattoos that Tori would expect to see, there were loads of really unique and creative ones. Amongst others, the book was filled with beautiful Disney tattoos and elaborate Harry Potter ones.
She looked out of the window at the little pieces of sea glass hung about the courtyard, sparkling and twisting in the gentle sea breeze.
She needed this today. The following day was Matthew’s birthday and she had been thinking about him a lot since she’d come down here. A year ago, he had been alive, laughing, smiling, full of life, with no idea that three weeks later his life would come to an abrupt and sudden end. They had Skyped on his birthday – they didn’t do it all the time as Matthew’s Wi-Fi connection was particularly bad, but they did from time to time. She had sent him a cake with the Millennium Falcon on it because he loved Star Wars and she had wanted to see his reaction when he opened it. He had laughed loudly when he’d seen it and declared it the best cake ever.
God, she missed talking to him.
She had thought about visiting his grave while she was here but what would she say to a headstone? That headstone was not a representation of him, always laughing, so full of energy and happiness. And the headstone wouldn’t talk back.
She felt like she should do something to mark his birthday, though she had no idea what. And every time she thought about him, it hurt, so she was grateful for the distraction of getting a tattoo with Agatha.
Agatha had settled on a silhouette of a giraffe against the setting sun and had been behind the curtain having it inked onto her shoulder for the last two hours. Little whoops of excitement, sometimes pain and mostly laughter kept drifting out from the curtains and Tori smiled that she was obviously enjoying herself. Despite her interfering, Tori really liked Agatha.
The buzzing noise stopped, and she heard Rosie say she was getting a mirror so Agatha could see the finished tattoo properly. A few moments later, Tori could hear gasps of delight.
‘Oh Rosie, dear, this is wonderful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful before. Let’s go and show Tori.’
The curtain was pulled back and Agatha hopped out of the chair and offered out her arm for Tori to see.
‘Oh wow. This is amazing,’ Tori said. The giraffe was only three inches tall but held so much detail, she could even see the bumps of the muscles in the body and the fur on the giraffe’s head. ‘Rosie, you have a wonderful talent.’
‘Your turn now,’ Agatha said, nudging her towards the chair.
‘For a henna tattoo, not a real one,’ Tori confirmed, and Rosie nodded.
‘Agatha tells me that she has a design for you?’
Tori sighed. She didn’t know what Agatha had p
lanned but she had agreed that Agatha could choose. She was wearing a backless vest, so she could let the henna dry without smudging it, but after today she could hide the tattoo under her normal clothes and no one would ever see it until it faded away, so it didn’t really matter.
‘I’d like something with those beautiful flowers,’ Tori tried.
Agatha shook her head. ‘My design doesn’t have flowers.’
‘I’m sure we can incorporate some though,’ Rosie said, clearly trying to find a middle ground. ‘Let’s see the design.’
Agatha fished it out of her bag and discreetly tried to pass it to Rosie so that Tori wouldn’t see.
Rosie’s eyes widened and then she looked at Tori. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Why, what is it?’ Tori asked.
‘You agreed,’ Agatha said. ‘You said I could choose.’
Tori looked at Rosie. ‘It’s fine. Whatever it is. It’ll wash off in two to three weeks anyway, right?’
‘Sometimes a lot less, it depends how oily your skin is. Where are you having it done?’
‘The top of my back.’
‘Perfect,’ Rosie said. ‘No one will see it there.’
That filled Tori with a whole heap of confidence.
‘Why don’t you go and sit in the chair? If you could sort of straddle it so you’re facing backwards, and I’ll just wrap Agatha’s tattoo.’
Tori went to straddle the chair and she heard Rosie explain that Agatha would need to take off the wrapping in a few hours’ time and how to clean it.
Rosie came back to her and pulled on a pair of gloves. ‘If you really don’t like it, come back to me tomorrow or in a few days and I can draw some flowers over the top of the bits you, umm… don’t like and I won’t charge you anything.’