The Morning After the Night Before: Love & Lust in the city that never sleeps!

by Nikki Logan

  ‘That’s very uncosmopolitan of you,’ she joked lightly. To make it easier on both of them.

  ‘Practical necessity. The trains have finished for the night.’

  Ah—something deep inside her twisted into a tiny ball—of course.

  ‘Just returning the favour,’ she quipped. ‘You couldn’t get out of my flat fast enough the first time we were together.’

  Look at them even having a past to reminisce about.

  ‘Maybe you’re just seeing that morning through your own filter,’ he suggested.

  ‘What filter?’

  ‘The filter of inexperience. No, don’t get all angry,’ he urged as she sat bolt upright. ‘You told me it was your first one-night stand. I didn’t want to stick around making you more uncomfortable.’

  Was it healthy for her cheek capillaries to get quite this much of a workout? First flushed with sex, now with humiliation. ‘Whereas you have them all the time, I suppose.’

  Although she really didn’t want the answer to that.

  ‘Enough to know how it goes, yeah.’

  ‘Should I be grateful that I get to practise the experience tonight?’

  ‘We’re not a one-night stand anymore.’

  ‘Then what are we?’

  Shards of uncertainty chased across the backs of his eyes as he stared. ‘We’re…comfortable and exciting.’

  Ordinarily ‘comfortable’ would have to be the kiss of death for a relationship. It was up there with ‘nice’. Except Harry looked pretty relaxed about the idea. And he’d backed it up with ‘exciting’.

  Bonus points for that.

  She turned back to him. ‘How many women have you slept with, Harry?’

  He almost jerked at the unexpectedness of her question but he didn’t shy away from it.

  ‘Quite a few,’ he hedged, and while it wasn’t an actual number his answer was, at least, honest.

  ‘What were they like?’

  ‘What, all of them?’

  ‘If you could group them all together. Sum them up.’

  Not because she wanted to hear but because she needed to.

  He pulled a pile of pillows up behind him and leaned back into them and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

  ‘I’d have to split them into two groups,’ he finally said. ‘Early experiences and later experiences.’

  You couldn’t keep a good systems man down.

  She hugged her arms around herself and hoped it looked casual. ‘Okay.’

  ‘The early experiences were amazing. Because they were my first, so I was easy to please. But the ones after that, they were—’ he frowned ‘—routine but slick. In all senses of the word.’

  Eww…

  ‘So you’ll forgive me for struggling to imagine how you could find me “exciting”, then.’

  Like the slick brigade.

  ‘You’re nothing like them. That’s the point.’

  ‘So, I’m like the first lot?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what am I?’

  Other than killing this embryonic relationship dead with her needy questions.

  But while he looked curious about her questions he didn’t look horrified by them. In fact he looked as if he’d been asking himself the same thing.

  He lifted his eyes from a moment’s deep thought. ‘You’re unique. You’re something new for me.’

  ‘Beginning of phase three, maybe?’

  She worked hard not to feel at all special about that.

  ‘You’re not really my type.’

  Oh. ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘Which makes me wonder if I’ve had my type wrong all this time. Because, like I said, I’m also extremely comfortable around you. I can’t explain it. Even at work, half the time I’d stir you up just to get you in my office.’

  The intensity grew almost overwhelming and, for the first time with Harry, she felt like shrinking away from that blazing focus. But before she could, he changed the subject.

  ‘How are you getting home?’

  Disappointment would have curdled the noodles if they weren’t already half digested. That was the closest they’d come to personal revelation on his side.

  Izzy sighed. ‘Inconveniently, my chauffeur knocks off at midnight. So the night bus it is.’

  He ignored her sarcasm. ‘No. Take a taxi.’

  ‘A taxi will be twenty quid.’

  ‘I’ll shout you.’

  ‘You already shouted me dinner.’

  ‘You had sex with me. I’m grateful.’

  ‘Yeah, because that was such a chore.’

  Parts of her were still throbbing.

  ‘Seriously, Iz, I want you to be safe. Either take the taxi fare or stay until morning. Which, given the time, will be in a couple of hours.’

  Stay over…

  That hung out there all iridescent and unmissable. She’d have expected the ‘bundling her out through the door in a taxi, like some woman he’d picked up in a bar’ part, but he’d asked her to stay.

  ‘I’m not taking your money, Harry. And I’m not staying until morning,’ she added as he opened his mouth for a third attempt. For reasons she didn’t begin to understand it felt important to take a backwards step. Even if she didn’t want to.

  ‘Then I’m coming with you,’ he insisted. ‘And I’ll spend the twenty quid anyway getting back here. So either you’re going to waste my time and my money or just my money. Your call.’

  ‘Harry!’

  ‘I couldn’t look my sisters in the eye knowing I’d waved you off on the freaking night bus.’

  She was lying too awkwardly to fist her hands on her hips so she hoped her pressed lips and glare would speak volumes. ‘Fine. I’ll take a bloody taxi.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Yeah. The smug confidence of a man who was accustomed to getting his way. Or so he thought.

  ‘But I’m paying for it.’

  ‘Izzy, come on—’

  His vanquished wince was almost worth the twenty pounds and whatever dress she’d have to flog online to free up a bit of cash. Though her satisfaction about such a small win was like a butterfly madly flapping away from a tornado.

  Futile.

  She lay immobile. ‘I pay for it or I take the night bus. Those are your choices.’

  He released her legs from under his and flopped back onto his pillow.

  ‘Fine.’

  Naww… He was quite sweet when frustrated. She pressed her lips to his. ‘Thank you for the concern.’

  His grunt might have been resignation or disappointment or wry acknowledgement of a round well played.

  Either way it made her smile.

  If she couldn’t have his trust, she’d take his respect.

  NINE

  ‘I feel like I should be congratulating you on still being able to walk,’ Tori said, biting enthusiastically into her breakfast scroll.

  ‘Toz!’

  ‘Well, you were gone for most of the night. And you were only supposed to be dropping him a bottle of bubbly.’

  ‘I think you’re spending too much time with Mark and his filthy imagination. We talked and walked and ate Thai food for most of it.’

  A quiet voice chimed in from her left. ‘Are you forgetting what his appetiser was?’

  ‘Poppy!’

  ‘Well, why tell me if you don’t want me to ever mention it again?’

  ‘Because I’d be in breach of the girlfriend code if I didn’t share.’

  ‘It’s just such a novelty, Iz.’ She sighed. ‘I’m probably just envious. You’re the only woman in the apartment getting any action.’

  ‘I feel confident your brother’s dates are seeing as much action as he did in the military.’

  ‘I try not to think about that happening in the apartment, actually. At least he has the decency to keep the juicy details to himself.’

  Something tiny inside her wilted. ‘You don’t want to hear about it?’

  Poppy relented. ‘Of cou
rse I want to hear about it. Repeatedly and in increasing detail. Ignore me, I’m just fractious.’

  ‘Why? You’ve got rent coming in on the big room now, courtesy of Isaac, who’s barely ever in it, your shifts have been okay and your parents haven’t been at you in weeks. Life should be good.’

  ‘Life is a barren wasteland. My best years are rushing past me.’

  There was a particular poignancy that she recognised in her friend’s voice. It was the tone that said, ‘I’m joking but I’m not.’

  ‘Lucky you have that seven-day-a-week study habit, then,’ Izzy said.

  Poppy’s grunt was a pretty good imitation of Harry’s. ‘Don’t suppose you’d be interested in lending me Harry? Just once? No strings attached?’

  How curious, her body’s immediate tension at the thought of Harry with someone else. But they hadn’t talked about exclusivity. And why would they when they weren’t even a thing?

  ‘I didn’t think you went for corporate types, Poppy,’ she said instead.

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t think I had a type at all.’

  ‘I could say the same about both of you,’ Tori scoffed.

  ‘Izzy’s had three sexual encounters on two occasions. Not a bad average.’

  Was it wrong that she felt vaguely proud about it? ‘Four, actually.’

  Tori’s eyes widened, but before she could squeeze a sound out of her gaping mouth someone whistled down to Ignite’s alfresco area. All three of them looked up.

  ‘See you all later,’ Alex called down. ‘I’m heading to bed.’

  ‘Not alone, I’d wager,’ Poppy murmured.

  ‘Smile and wave, Pop. Smile and wave.’

  They did their best royal cavalcade, only letting their hands fall back to the table when Alex disappeared back into the apartment for the ‘evening’. His evening anyway.

  ‘Is he still all arse about?’ Tori asked.

  ‘Roams around all night, sleeps all day. He’s like a bat.’

  ‘Even so, we still see more of him than we do of you, Toz. What’s going on with you?’

  ‘Ugh, I’m sorry,’ she moaned. ‘I promise I’ll be round more. Especially since your latest new flatmate appears to have a worrying paucity of shirts.’

  And a great chest to go with it.

  Izzy grinned. ‘Perhaps we should direct him to the nearest Oxfam bin.’

  ‘I don’t much care what Isaac wears as long as he covers up,’ Poppy murmured, grumpily.

  Izzy popped her last bit of crust into her mouth, then spoke past the crunch. ‘It’s a whole unexpected plus to having male flatmates. Who knew?’

  ‘No more of that, Iz,’ Tori warned. ‘You’re a taken woman now.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d describe myself as taken. Occasionally occupied, perhaps.’

  ‘He asked you around again tonight,’ Poppy pointed out.

  ‘That’s hardly a proposal.’

  ‘But it’s more than casual.’

  ‘Why would someone like him want more than casual? With someone like me?’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Tori asked. ‘I’d do you in a heartbeat and I’m sure Mark would want to watch.’ She took a healthy swallow of her coffee then glanced nervously at both of them. ‘Kidding.’

  ‘My point,’ Poppy continued, ‘is that he’s good-looking, he cared enough to make you take a taxi, he’s clearly into you and he’s no longer your boss. A week or a year, it doesn’t matter. You have him right here, right now. Enjoy him. And it.’

  Why was she overthinking this? She had a tummy full of breakfast, a full day’s worth of research ahead of her to keep her mind occupied, and then another date with Harry tonight. After which she would almost certainly be able to mentally cross through a few more numbers in the battered Kama Sutra on the flat’s bookshelves.

  Even if it did mean limping home in public, certain everyone knew exactly why she was so crippled.

  Don’t overthink it…

  ‘Okay. Maybe you’re right. And speaking of enjoying… What do you think my chances are of catching that waiter’s eye for another chai?’

  ‘Screw the chai.’ Tori grinned. ‘I want to hear all about number four!’

  * * *

  Hard to imagine that Izzy had ever worried they’d not yet had a date. They’d been together every day since then in some shape or form. Dinner, breakfast, shopping, movies, the theatre, galleries. Harry had seen more of London in a few weeks with her than five years under his own steam.

  And he’d seen more of Izzy than any other woman in his past. Full stop.

  It was all very unlike him.

  ‘What do you think?’ She modelled a vest intricately woven from what seemed to be threaded diamonds. If not for the fact it had come from a street market.

  ‘I think you have expensive tastes.’

  ‘Of course I do. I’m a woman of class.’

  Mmm. ‘So how do you explain me?’

  She considered him for moments. ‘I really can’t.’

  Join the club. It was as if an alien had taken over his body. Not only had she out-survived the single week of good sex he’d mentally as cribed her, but he’d seen her virtually every evening for the past three weeks. And not because Izzy was pushing it. If anything, she seemed to be trying to put the brakes on a little.

  Thank God one of them was able to be a man about this.

  Twenty-two dates. Prior to Izzy, his personal best was six dates with the one woman. And that was not all at once.

  And now he was shopping with her.

  What the hell?

  Except, could you really call it shopping if you didn’t purchase anything? He was thirty-two years old and he’d never even been to markets in his life, let alone come away empty-handed. Izzy seemed to specialise in wandering around discovering things, admiring them with great gusto and then putting them wistfully back.

  It was doing his head in.

  ‘Why don’t you just buy it?’ he asked as she replaced an ornate picture frame she’d just been gushing over.

  ‘It’s not the one.’

  ‘The one what?’

  ‘The one I love enough to spend what I’ve brought with me.’

  ‘How much is that?’

  She pulled a single note from her pocket and held it aloft.

  ‘Ten pounds? That’s it?’

  ‘I’m on a budget.’

  ‘I’d happily buy you all of the things you’ve looked at today if we could just leave.’

  She spun on him and something indefinable blazed in her eyes. But she didn’t say a word. It saddened him that she thought he was having a crack. That she might assume he was bored trolling the endless rows of stalls when the truth was very different. He just wanted to be alone with her again. To enjoy her. To put an end to the sad little sag of her shoulders as she had to put things back.

  ‘Let me just buy something for you.’

  He’d never realised how instantly gratification came to him courtesy of his platinum credit cards, and the kind of loose change she was sighing over was nothing to him.

  Not that she knew that.

  If she did, then how would he know why she was in this thing between them?

  Patchy crimson bloomed in her cheeks. Like when she’d arrived at his door after the early morning tube dash. ‘I can buy something for me if I need it. Don’t worry, I learned this from the master. Window shopping is a family speciality.’

  The more he heard about her childhood, the more disconnected he felt from the rest of the world.

  ‘Being frugal?’

  ‘At not buying every little thing that catches my eye.’

  Guilty as charged. Clothes, meals, women.

  ‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘anything here today is likely to be here again next time we come if I get hit with a sudden pang of non-buyer’s remorse.’

  We.

  Why didn’t that make him more nervous? Why wasn’t all of this making him more nervous? Could it just be because dating Izzy was so…easy?
And comfortable. And that somehow being with her energised him. Until he couldn’t remember what he’d done with his evenings before they started seeing each other.

  Seeing each other. Too early to call themselves a couple, right? Too late to call it just sex.

  He looked at her sideways to decide how casual he felt about her. The light coming off her swelled up and filled all gaps between his organs.

  Yep, way too late.

  ‘Oh, look. It’s Toz!’

  Izzy raised one long, elegant hand, then tugged him to the left.

  The crazy, multicoloured hair he recognised so well flung around as the woman he hadn’t seen since the party turned from what she was doing and focused on them both.

  ‘Izzy!’ She air-kissed her friend on both cheeks and then turned on him. Would she even recognise him? She had been pretty hammered.

  ‘Toz, you remember Harry? My, um…’

  Izzy’s eyes flared as she belatedly realised what a trap she’d set for herself, and a disturbing kind of pallor flooded her skin.

  Harry stepped in easily, wanting nothing to crease that perfect brow. Ever. Certainly not something as stupid as his insecurities. ‘Her boyfriend.’

  Izzy’s breath sucked in audibly, but Tori covered like the PR pro she apparently was.

  ‘Harry,’ she gushed, a speculative twinkle in her eye. ‘Lovely to see you.’

  Something told him introductions were redundant. That he’d been the subject of a conversation or two between friends.

  Or some parts of him had.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Izzy said, regaining a little of her composure.

  ‘I came to check out Lara’s lingerie.’

  ‘The new tenant downstairs? How do you know she has a stall here?’

  ‘It’s called talking to people, Iz. You should try it.’

  Iz. Toz. Pops.

  Harry looked from one to the other. ‘Do any of you go by your real names?’

  ‘Alex does,’ Tori defended. ‘Besides, it’s a badge of honour to be granted a nickname.’

  He’d been around to Izzy’s place a half-dozen times. ‘I look forward to the day I get one, then.’

  ‘You already have one,’ Tori blurted. Izzy’s eyes rounded wildly and, for the first time, Tori looked genuinely apologetic. ‘You know…kind of.’

  But he kept his focus firmly on Izzy. ‘I have a nickname?’