I was breathing hard. ‘I haven’t taken my clothes off in front of anyone since … the accident,’ I said.
‘It’s okay. I’m medically trained.’
‘I’m serious. I’m a bit of a mess.’ I felt suddenly, oddly tearful.
‘You want me to make you feel better?’
‘That’s the cheesiest line I’ve –’
He lifted his shirt, revealing a two-inch purple scar across his stomach. ‘There. Stabbed by an Australian with mental-health issues four years ago. Here.’ He turned to reveal a huge green and yellow bruise across his lower back. ‘Got a kicking from a drunk last Saturday. Woman.’ He held out his hand. ‘Broken finger. Caught in a gurney while lifting an overweight patient. And, oh, yes – here.’ He showed me his hip, along which ran a short, silvery, jagged line with the stitch marks just about visible. ‘Puncture wound, unknown provenance, nightclub fight in Hackney Road last year. The cops never worked out who did it.’
I looked at the solidity of him, at the smattering of scars. ‘What’s that one?’ I said, gently touching a smaller scar on the side of his stomach. His skin was hot under his shirt.
‘That? Oh. Appendix. I was nine.’
I gazed at his torso, then his face. Then holding his gaze, I lifted the jumper slowly over my head. I shivered involuntarily, whether from the cooler air or nerves I couldn’t tell. He moved closer, so close that he was inches from me, and ran his finger gently along the line of my hip. ‘I remember this. I remember I could feel the break here.’ He ran it gently across my bare stomach, so that my muscles contracted. ‘And there. You had this bloom of purple on your skin. I was afraid it was organ damage.’ He placed his palm against it. It was warm, and my breath caught.
‘I never thought the words “organ damage” could sound sexy before.’
‘Oh, I haven’t started yet.’
He walked me slowly backwards towards his bed. I sat down, my eyes on his, and he knelt, running his hands down my legs. ‘And then there was that.’ He picked up my right foot, with the vivid red scar across the top. He traced the line of it tenderly with his thumb. ‘There. Broken. Soft tissue damage. That one would have hurt.’
‘You remember a lot.’
‘Most people I couldn’t recognize in the street a day later. But you, Louisa, well, you kind of stuck.’ He dipped his head and kissed the top of my foot, then slowly ran his hands up my leg and placed them either side of me, so that he was above me, supporting his own weight. ‘Nothing hurts now, right?’
I shook my head, mute. I didn’t care any more. I didn’t care if he was a compulsive shagger or playing games. I was so overwhelmed with wanting him I didn’t actually care if he broke my other hip.
He moved across me, inch by inch, like a tide, and I lay back so that I was flat on the bed. With each movement my breath became shallower until it was all I could hear in the silence. He gazed down at me, then closed his eyes and kissed me, slowly and tenderly. He kissed me and let his weight fall onto me just far enough that I felt the delicious powerlessness of lust, the hardness of a body against mine. We kissed, his lips on my neck, his skin against my skin, until I was giddy with it, until I was arching involuntarily against him, my legs wrapped around him.
‘Oh, God,’ I said, breathlessly, when we came up for air. ‘I wish you weren’t so totally wrong for me.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘That’s – uh – seductive.’
‘You’re not going to cry afterwards, are you?’
He blinked. ‘Er … no.’
‘And just so you know, I’m not some weird obsessive. I’m not going to follow you around afterwards. Or ask Jake to tell me things about you while you’re in the shower.’
‘That’s … that’s good to know.’
And once we had established the ground rules, I flipped over so that I was on top of him and kissed him until I had forgotten everything we had just talked about.
An hour and a half later I was lying on my back and gazing dazedly up at the low ceiling. My skin buzzed, my bones hummed, I ached in places I hadn’t known could ache, yet I was possessed with an extraordinary sense of peace, as if the core of me had simply melted and settled into a new shape. I wasn’t sure I would ever get up again.
You never know what will happen when you fall from a great height.
That surely wasn’t me. I coloured as I thought back to even twenty minutes previously. Did I really – and did I … Memories chased themselves in hot circles. I had never had sex like that. Not in seven years with Patrick. It was like comparing a cheese sandwich with … what? The most incredible haute cuisine? An enormous steak? I giggled involuntarily and clamped a hand over my mouth. I felt utterly unlike myself.
Sam had dozed off beside me and I turned my head to look at him. Oh, my God, I thought, marvelling at the planes of his face, his lips – it was impossible to look at him and not want to touch him. I wondered whether I should move my face a little bit closer and my hand so that I could –
‘Hey,’ he said softly, his eyes slanted with sleep.
… and then it hit me.
Oh, God. I’ve become one of them.
We dressed in near silence. Sam offered to make me tea, but I said I should probably get back as I needed to check whether Lily was home. ‘Her family being on holiday and all.’ I tugged my fingers through my now-matted hair.
‘Sure. Oh. You want to go now?’
‘Yes … please.’
I fetched my clothes from the bathroom, feeling self-conscious and suddenly sober. I couldn’t let him see how unbalanced I was. Every bit of me was focused on trying to re-distance myself and it made me awkward. When I came out he was dressed and tidying up the last of the supper things. I tried not to look at him. It was easier that way.
‘Could I borrow these clothes to go home? Mine are still damp.’
‘Sure. Just … whatever.’ He rifled in a drawer and held out a plastic bag.
I took it and we stood there in the dark space. ‘It was a … nice evening.’
‘“Nice”.’ He looked at me as if he were trying to work something out. ‘Okay.’
As we rode through the damp night, I tried not to rest my cheek against his back. He insisted on lending me a leather jacket, although I had insisted I’d be fine. A few miles in, the air was cold and I was glad of it. We made it back to my flat by a quarter past eleven, although I had to check when I saw the clock. I felt like I’d lived several lifetimes since he’d picked me up.