Surprise Package

by Donna Alam

  My coffee is hot and strong, and a little like the man beside me. I can’t afford to dwell on those thoughts, though, so I lose myself in the bitter aroma as I bring it to my mouth.

  ‘It turned out something all right.’

  A hint of something in his tone brings my head up fast, along with a splash of coffee to my chest. ‘Oh, sh-sugar!’ I place my cup down, fanning the wool away from my skin.

  ‘You okay?’ Definite concern this time as Greg passes me a cloth to blot the small spill. ‘Do you need ice?’

  ‘No, it won’t help the stain.’

  ‘I meant for the burn.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I answer as my phone vibrates against my butt. ‘No doubt this’ll be Mo,’ I say, pulling it out with a narrowed glance. The time blinks up at me from the screen. Nine o’clock in the morning is still a little on the early side for him. ‘It looks like Big Brother is about to tell us which one of us has to leave,’ I say brightly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, like the TV show?’

  He shrugs. What kind of person hasn’t watched Big Brother? The show was a phenomenon for its time.

  ‘Well, you’re not missing much,’ I mutter as I glance back at my phone. The past few seasons were pretty dire. ‘Oh, balls.’ The screen is blank but for a white apple that flashes for a second or two before the disappearing, rendering the screen black. ‘My phone’s gone flat. I’ll just grab my charger from the car.’

  ‘About that—’

  ‘No, I’ll get it,’ I say, already at the front door. ‘I left the wire plugged into the outlet thingy.’ I turn the key, slide the bolt, and open the door to find a lot of white stuff pouring in and onto my toes.

  ‘What the fluff!’ I look at Greg, then at my toes, shock robbing me of my senses.

  ‘I tried to tell you,’ he says, coming to stand next to me, though not so close that his feet get wet as he glances out to where my rental car was last seen.

  ‘Where . . . what?’ I gesture to the snow the likes of which I’ve never seen. ‘I can’t even see my car!’

  ‘Sure you can. There’s a wee bit of the red roof,’ he says, pointing oh, so helpfully.

  ‘That isn’t snow. It’s an act of God!’

  ‘Storm Eimear or Una or something, so the radio said earlier. The weather forecast yesterday said snow, but they weren’t expecting this amount.’

  ‘It . . . I . . . what?’ What the fucking fuck! ‘This can’t be happening right now—not here. Not to me! And my laptop’s in there, too. There’s nothing for it—I’ll have to dig it out.’

  ‘You can, but you’d need to use a spoon.’

  ‘You don’t have a shovel?’ I almost screech,

  ‘I’m a Scotsman, and it’s winter. Of course I have a bloody shovel. But it’s in my car, which is parked around back and also happens to be snowed in.’

  ‘There must be something we can do, for goodness’ sakes.’

  ‘I can’t think what. Besides, even if you had your laptop, there’s no internet.’ I turn my head from the snow to him. ‘Lookin’ at me like that isn’t going to help. The internet isn’t great up here at the best of times.’

  The work I have to do, hell, the reports I said I’d have done by tomorrow.

  I’m screwed.

  The touch of Greg’s fingers on my shoulder pulls me and my catatonic state away from the door.

  ‘Jesus, it’s brassic out there,’ he says, pushing it closed. He shivers, his nipples taut and visible under the pale cotton of his T-shirt, though I manage to lift my gaze before he notices me staring. Apparently, I can appreciate the sight of a handsome man despite the thought of losing my job. Don’t be ridiculous, my mind whispers. The department would fall apart without you.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ What the hell is going on right now? I can’t be stranded with a stranger—stuck in the snow for God knows how long.

  ‘What’s not to get? The storm blew in from Ireland overnight. And there’s more snow in the forecast.’

  ‘There can’t be!’ My cry is plaintive. I might even stamp my soggy foot.

  ‘Do you want to have a second look to be sure that’s not soap suds but actually four feet of snow out there?’

  ‘When will they clear it?’ I ask, ignoring his tone.

  ‘They?’

  ‘The council or the local . . . borough or whatever.’ I make a trifling motion with my hand, trying to think of the appropriate governmental body. I mean, it snows in London, too, but usually only a dusting of the stuff, and that’s bad enough. ‘Whoever’s responsible for these things.’

  ‘God, didn’t you say?’

  ‘Come on!’ Yes, I am aware I’m behaving like a teenager in the middle of a strop, but I can’t seem to stop the full-blown arm wheeling, tone wheedling, full extent of the thing. ‘This can’t be happening. Someone must be responsible for clearing the roads.’

  ‘Aye, Mother Nature. You’re not in the big city now.’

  ‘Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed!’

  ‘Come away and finish your coffee. All that hot air isn’t going to make one bit of difference.’

  Mutely and mulishly, I allow him to steer me over to the tiny dining table, no doubt leaving wet footprints in my wake. My frozen toes are the only thing I can contemplate as my mind is unable to process my current predicament.

  I’m stuck. Bloody stuck!

  ‘Here,’ he says, bringing over my coffee cup and placing down a pair of thick blue socks, folded in half. ‘I doubt even your bag has an endless supply of these.’

  ‘How long is this going to last?’ I ask, finally looking up.

  But Greg just shrugs.

  After two coffees, half of Greg’s omelette, and an hour warming my frozen toes by the fire, I’ve established four things.

  I’m going nowhere.

  Greg’s phone is a different brand, hence his charger is no good to me.

  Greg’s phone is also a POS and gets no signal in any corner of this place. Not even by a person balanced on a chest of drawers and half hanging out of the upstairs window.

  I still don’t know who’s to blame for our circumstances.

  Discounting God, Mother Nature, the Universe, leaves only Mo.

  ‘Aren’t you annoyed? Supremely annoyed?’

  Lying on the sofa, I wave both hands in the air before bringing my legs up straight to touch my toes, pulling on the ends of Greg’s comfy socks a little. I’m irritable. Bored. I rarely have time to sit and do nothing—I don’t know how this is supposed to work!

  Or how I’m not supposed to work.

  ‘At the weather?’ he asks, clearly perplexed. And clearly gorgeous. He’s wearing a pair of jeans that I suspect have seen a lot of washes and a dark Henley that clings to the contours of his chest. And socks, the same colour as the ones I’m examining hanging from the ends of my toes.

  ‘Yes, at the weather. At the situation. At me!’

  ‘What would be the point?’

  ‘To vent . . . to air your frustration!’

  ‘I think you’re doing enough of that for the both of us.’

  ‘One of us shouldn’t be here!’ I repeat.

  ‘Aye. You.’

  ‘You wish,’ I huff.

  ‘Look at it this way. If you were here on your own, you’d be screwed.’

  I wish.

  Maybe.

  Or maybe not.

  God, who am I kidding?

  Sex is never the answer in my experience. In fact, sex is rarely even the question.

  ‘Are you about to tell me you have a very particular set of survival skills?’

  ‘If survival skills are having the foresight to pop into the supermarket before a storm. Face it, hen. You’d be without food, wine, peat for the fire, and company. You’d probably have resorted to peeling off the wallpaper by now to lick the paste.’

  ‘Ew.’

  ‘And as for which of us should be here, shouldn’t we just be glad we’re no’ here on our own?’

/>   ‘I hate it when you talk sense.’

  ‘Aye, me that you’ve known a matter of hours.’

  ‘That’s plenty long enough to know you’re a bloody know-it-all,’ I mutter low. ‘This is going to be like being incarcerated—like being in prison.’

  ‘Then you’d best take care not to slip on any soap.’

  Despite my bad mood I begin to giggle. ‘If there’s anyone going to be the bitch in this scenario, it’s not going to be me.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think you might be right,’ he says, the crotch of his jeans suddenly looming in front of me. ‘Here, sit up.’ He hands me another mug.

  ‘Thank you, but another cup of coffee and it won’t be pretty. I’ll be bouncing off the walls.’

  ‘What? You mean there’s a worse version of you?’

  ‘Oh, there are a few. Just ask my ex-boyfriend and work colleagues.’

  ‘Exes opinions don’t count. And if we were meant to hear what people called it, it wouldn’t be called back-stabbing.’

  ‘Hmm, fair point.’ Sitting up, I take the mug from his hand. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Hot chocolate.’ Lifting my feet, he sits on the other end of the sofa, then slides them onto his lap. It should feel weird, right? But it doesn’t. It feels like we’ve already done this a thousand times.

  ‘It smells funny.’

  ‘It’s smells like booze,’ he says with a tolerant sigh. ‘I added a wee tot of chocolate liqueur.’

  ‘Chocolate liqueur?’ I hide my growing smile behind the rim of my cup. ‘That seems very . . . sophisticated.’ Or possibly girly.

  ‘It was a gift. A Christmas gift.’ He sends me a fake glower from the other side of the couch.

  ‘From someone you know well?’ I enquire. Like a maiden aunt.

  ‘From a female admirer, actually.’

  ‘It must be someone who admires you from afar.’

  His gaze swings to mine, his expression a little piqued. At least, until he sees I’m trying not to laugh. ‘Go on, then. Out with it. I can tell you’re dying to say why.’

  ‘Well, it stands to reason, if it was someone who spent any time at all with you, the gift would’ve been a bottle of poison, not a yummy liqueur.’

  ‘If you’re gonnae be cheeky, you can give me that back,’ he says, reaching over as though to take the cup from my hands. ‘If you must know, it was given to me by my eighty-year-old neighbour after I fixed her bathroom cabinet last week.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that was nice of you.’

  ‘Aye, right.’ Something in his tone makes me look up.

  ‘What? It was nice of you. You are nice.’ Nice and hot, my unhelpful libido supplies.

  ‘That’s me,’ he says, his tone unchanged. ‘Nice.’

  ‘What’s wrong with being nice?’

  ‘Nothing. Drink your chocolate.’

  Chapter 7

  GREG

  Nice.

  I’m fucking nice.

  I’m sure she wouldn’t think so if she knew what I’d been doing in the bathroom, or if she remembered I’d had her tit in my hand. And she certainly wouldn’t be saying that if she knew the only reason I’d made her a hot chocolate was give myself something to do with my hands. Because watching her do upside down yoga on the couch gave me a hard-on that made me want to climb right behind her, slide her ankles over her shoulder, and show her a really nice time.

  ‘I’d like it if people called me nice. I’d also like it if I could cook,’ she says, turning her gaze to the kitchen.

  ‘It’s only soup.’ Something else to occupy my mind and hands. Also, it’s soup weather.

  ‘Boozy hot chocolate and soup,’ she says a little dreamily.

  Christ, I am nice.

  ‘If you can’t cook, what do you live on?’

  ‘Frozen meals and takeaway. I have Uber Eats on speed dial. Don’t look at me like that—it’s low calorie, healthy stuff. Well, mostly.’

  ‘If you can’t indulge on a cold winter day, when can you, eh?’

  ‘True,’ she repeats in a wistful tone, no doubt thinking about her belly again as she brings the mug to her mouth. ‘Oh, my Godddd! This hot chocolate is . . . like an orgasm in a cup!’

  I chuckle as she pretends to melt across the sofa, discreetly moving her calves away from my sudden semi-chub.

  I open a bottle of white at lunchtime, which goes down as well as the vegetable soup, and a little while later, Isobel asks me to make her another boozy hot chocolate, so she can see how it’s made. Yeah, right. She’s a canny one, but I indulge her request anyway, trying hard not to pay too much attention to how her tits thrust out as she boosts herself up onto the kitchen countertop to watch. Her sweater still bears this morning’s coffee stain between the valley of those soft twin peaks, and my gaze is attracted like a magnet to the thing.

  Like I need the added stimulation.

  ‘That smells heavenly,’ she says, her words full of longing. And wine. As she places down her glass, she tips the remains of the bottle she’d brought along with her from the dining table. ‘You’d better hide the chocolate after this.’

  I’m thinking I’d better hide the booze before the chocolate. Not that she’s drunk but more . . . merry. Relaxed. Friendly. Friendly enough to let me help her melt against the couch again, maybe this time with a proper orgasm?

  ‘Are you a chocolate fiend?’ Better to be an orgasm fiend. I keep my eyes on the tiny saucepan, her wee snort making me smile.

  ‘Show me a girl who doesn’t like chocolate, Greg, and I’ll show you a girl who doesn’t like . . . ’ As if an adorable snort wasn’t enough, she adds a cute frown. ‘Doesn’t like . . . life,’ she says, right at the same moment that I suggest,

  ‘Sex?’

  We’ll call it one from the vault. The vault otherwise known as my balls, making themselves known by tightening. Meanwhile, Isobel is doing a good impression of one of those Asian lucky cats as she waves one hand while laughing manically.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I ask, smiling now myself as I move the liquid chocolate from the heat. I bet she’d taste better than any kind of chocolate.

  ‘Oh, goodness.’ She wipes the tears from under her eyes. ‘What’s not so funny about it?’

  ‘A girl who likes wine and chocolate surely must also like sex.’ And orgasms. Please say you do and that you’re in the market for them, too.

  ‘A girl? Or this girl?’ And suddenly, she’s not laughing anymore.

  ‘That all depends.’

  ‘On what?’ Her voice is barely a whisper, her eyes suddenly dark.

  ‘On what this is we’re doing right now.’

  Flirting, after all, is just another F-word.

  Chapter 8

  IZZY

  ‘I’d like to tongue your pussy?’

  ‘I-I beg your pardon?’ My words come out reedy, meanwhile his bound like a pinball off the walls of my uterus. Talk about nought to sexy, I mean, sixty—nought to sixty!

  ‘I said, has the pussy got your tongue? Why? What did you think I said?’

  I don’t think I’m imagining how his voice sounds suddenly laced with whisky and taunt, or how, during our verbal sparring, we seem to have gravitated towards each other.

  ‘What did you think I thought you said?’ Could I be any more juvenile or dorky?

  ‘Judging by your face, I’d say you heard something about tongues and pussies, for sure.’ His hands grasp the counter at my sides, his body hemming me in, his strong arms my cage. ‘And I’m kind of hoping you’re experiencing a whole load of those tingles you were talking about last night.’

  Heat floods my cheeks as I instantly recall my sex-doesn’t-work-for-me rant. Who says that kind of stuff to a stranger? Even one she’s pegged as an escort?

  ‘What kind of man had Mo prescribed for you? The take-charge kind?’

  ‘And here I was thinking you weren’t for sale.’

  The corner of his mouth quirks with the effort of curtailing a smile, his eyelashes casting dark shadow
s under his eyes. ‘Everything has a price, darlin’.’

  ‘And what’s yours?’

  ‘My price? I’d exact my price by kissing you until you sigh. Touching you until you weep, then licking you until you beg for release. And then? Then I’d fuck you until you scream.’

  His words are so tempting they make my insides pulse emptily. But I’ve been here before—both in relationships and hook-ups—and the build-up never matches the rewards.

  ‘I’m afraid I’d leave you short-changed.’ His laughter is as dark as chocolate and more tempting than sin. And of course very, very cocky. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to seduce me with your large, hot self.’

  ‘Who says I’m not?’ he murmurs, taking the almost empty glass from my hand, placing it on the counter. ‘Those who want to lick the honey must not shy away from the bees.’ I try but fail at curtailing my own smile, his delivery rough and rasping but so very, very Scottish.

  ‘I suppose I’m the bee in this scenario?’

  ‘The bee with the honey. And I’m the one with the tongue. So how about it, little bee? You’ll be wanting to sleep in my bed again tonight, won’t you?’

  ‘Your bed? That sounds a little like blackmail.’

  His gaze narrows. ‘It’s coercion at best.’

  ‘Whatever makes you sleep at night.’

  ‘Fucking.’ Lord, that dimple has to be the antithesis of that word. But those lips? Those were lips made for sin. ‘Good sex makes me sleep. The kind of bone-deep fucking that you need, darlin’. But . . . you don’t have to fuck me to get into my bed tonight. You could just keep up with those compliments.’ My brow furrows as he straightens, pulling his hands away from the countertop. ‘Because hearing I’m big and hot never hurts.’

  ‘That still sounds like coercion.’

  ‘Does it? I thought it sounded like a fun way to spend a cold night.’

  Breathless with anticipation, I try to ignore the hammer of my pulse as the backs of his fingers brush a fallen strand of hair from my cheek. He strokes his thumb down the slope of my nose, then places it against the soft flesh of my bottom lip.