It’s In His Kiss

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‘I really didn’t. Not completely or intentionally, anyway.’ This time the silence from Nora screamed at her. Sephy pushed out the breath stuck in her windpipe. ‘Okay. Yes, of course I was never going to be able to start a business and not think about Dad and what he would have thought.’

‘I can tell you what he would have thought,’ Nora interrupted indignantly. ‘I can tell you what he’s thinking right now as he’s looking down at you. He’s thinking, that’s my youngest girl and she’s doing everything I knew she could do in life – and more.’

Sephy’s vision blurred as she silently asked herself if her father might also be thinking, ‘Of course, she’s only doing it because I gave her that final push.’

‘Why can’t this be about two friends helping each other out?’ she whispered into her phone.

‘Sephy –’

‘I know. I know.’ Sephy sniffed and pulled herself upright. ‘I’ll let you know what I decided when I see you on Friday.’

‘Wow. You’re giving yourself a whole two days to think this through.’

‘Progress huh? A whole forty-eight hours longer than I usually give myself to make a decision. See you Friday.’

She ended the call, but kept the phone in her hand as she ran her gaze over the goodie-bags she was assembling.

Her gut said the women receiving those goodie-bags were going to be delighted after seeing Luke Jackson with his hands on the contents!

Her gut said getting to help Luke in return was all the justification she needed.

She looked down at her phone and before the butterflies swirling in her belly managed to break through her stomach lining and invade every part of her, she scrolled through her contacts list and found the entry she wanted.

‘Hey you,’ Luke greeted as he picked up.

‘I accept your conditions,’ said Sephy in a rush.

There was a fraction of a pause and then Luke said, ‘Great. My place. Tomorrow.’

‘What?’ She felt kind of breathy and on the back foot. He was talking like he was taking the lead in this, like it was his situation to control.

‘I thought time was of the essence,’ Luke said, when she ran out of words as quickly as she’d rushed them out.

‘I’m not sure I can get Frazer – that’s the name of the photographer, to make tomorrow.’ Not that she would necessarily be able to make it, either, because surely Nora was going to kill her for not even sleeping on her decision.

‘No problem. We’ll use tomorrow only for practising.’

‘Practising?’ Sephy’s voice went all high.

‘The more comfortable we are with each other, the better and quicker the shoot will go.’

‘I guess,’ Sephy said realising that was probably true. ‘But why your place?’

‘It’s less distracting than yours and afterwards you can tell me what I need to buy to make my place look more lived-in for when the parents visit.’

‘Oh. Okay. You want me to bring anything?’ Sephy rolled her eyes. God, what, like she should turn up with cake or something?

‘Just bring yourself. And your lingerie. Pop over once you’ve dropped Daisy off at school.’

‘Right. Me. Lingerie. Your place. Tomorrow.’ Sephy swallowed.

‘You okay?’

‘Sure,’ she said, thinking, of course she bloody well wasn’t okay. Otherwise her voice wouldn’t be all high and scratchy, while Luke’s voice in her ear sounded all deep and confident and…

‘See you tomorrow,’ she muttered into the phone before ending the call.

She dropped the phone into her lap like it was on fire and stared again at the line of goodie-bags.

Tomorrow was a business thing.

That was all.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ubb881ea2-9388-550c-aac5-b8e62c800f99)

‘It’s me.’

Luke heard Sephy’s voice over the intercom. He pressed the buzzer to open the gates that led to the sweeping driveway and newly built Georgian-styled house he had moved into on the success of Zombie Freedom Fighters I, II, and III.

Was it his imagination or had Sephy’s voice sounded all breathy?

He shoved his hand through his hair before heading for the imposing double doors in the entrance hall.

About to open them, he hesitated. It would probably look weird if he was standing at the front door waiting for her to drive up, wouldn’t it?

Like he couldn’t wait to see her in her underwear, or something?

You know what, mate? This might not be the brightest idea you’ve ever had.

In fact, Luke thought, as he hovered uncertainly in his own hallway, he could hardly believe he had thought the idea genius in the first place.

In his head, he had glossed over the finer points in order to get to the part where he could help her and help himself at the same time. At heart, he had never really expected her to agree.

But then she had and when she had his first reaction hadn’t been relief he was going to get to allay his foster parents’ fears for him. No, his first reaction had been to feel as if he was falling off the top of a very tall building, and hurtling, eyes wide open, towards the ultimate face-plant.

He heard the crunch of gravel and made himself return his mug to the kitchen before he wandered back out to throw the door open wide.

‘Hey you,’ Sephy greeted, with her usual, full-on, no-artifice smile.

Luke was still trying to form actual words of welcome when he saw Sephy’s smile falter a little and a frown form over her brow-line.

She jerked her thumbs in the direction of her car and said, ‘I’ll, um, bring a couple of bags I brought with me in from the car.’

‘’Course,’ Luke said belatedly. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’ Christ. Was that even his voice coming out of his mouth? She had done something to her hair that caused it to fall in thick, touchable waves. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets to keep from reaching out.

‘I’ve got it,’ Sephy declared. Pivoting, she walked back to the car, throwing over her shoulder, ‘there’s only two bags.’

Luke wasn’t completely sure he could have got his feet to move anyway. They seemed rooted to the spot as he stared in fascination at that waterfall of black just-tumbled-out-of-bed hair, bouncing a little as she walked, making the waves ripple up and down.

She opened up the driver’s door, knelt one knee on the driver’s seat and reached in to bring out the bags she had stored in the passenger-seat foot-well and the air squeezed out of his lungs as his gaze dragged over the soft white denim of her skinny-jeaned derriere.

He didn’t get it.

She had always worn her hair long and he knew he’d seen her in those exact-same jeans before and not felt this wall of lust rise up to block his every attempt to find his way back to platonic.

Was this to be his punishment, then?

One white lie and his friend was his friend no more. Instead she was an accessory to the crime. One who got his pulse racing and his blood thickening so that it pounded in his ears, while his body hardened to the point where surely she would notice?

All this and she hadn’t even taken her clothes off yet.

Maybe he wouldn’t let her take them off after all, because it now seemed as if situation- helpful was turning into situation-most-dangerous-ever.

‘So, I brought a few different sets with me,’ Sephy was saying, as she walked towards him with the Seraphic bags swinging from one hand and her car keys clutched in her other, along with her travel mug. ‘I’m nearly sure which ones I want photos of. I guess it depends which suit me better. I’m not exactly model material.’

He begged to differ and immediately made an exerted effort to stop his thoughts straying down the path clearly marked ‘trouble’. Neither of them needed this backfiring on them.

‘I guess if we try lots of different things,’ she hurried on, walking past him into his house, ‘then we can run it all past Frazer when he does the shoot proper. If it goes well today, I’ll get Nora to ring him and set things up for Monday. Would that work for you? Wow,’ she came to an abrupt stop and turned in a slow circle. ‘I can’t believe I haven’t been here before. It’s really big.’ She turned to face him as she said the last words, her eyes looking him up and down and snagging on his jeans zipper before she flushed scarlet.

Luke shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and prayed to God he wasn’t doing the same.

Sephy turned away to take in the carved wooden staircase and started rambling like she was on the ultimate caffeine high again. ‘I was thinking on the drive over how strange it was that I’d never actually been here before. I think that’s strange. Don’t you think that’s strange? I guess it’s always been easier to meet at mine because of D –’

‘You want to take a breath?’ Luke interrupted, deliberately making his voice as moderate as he thought he could get away with.

He knew that Sephy hated feeling like she was being manoeuvred, but he figured she was about two steps away from hyperventilating and although he was kind of pleased to see her so unsure of her footing, he knew she would bolt if panic hit full on, and then blame herself for ruining her opportunity to fix her ad campaign.

‘What are you talking about?’ Sephy said, turning back to face him. ‘I’m breathing. I’m totally breathing. I’m –’

‘How many of those have you had?’ Luke asked, dragging his hand out of his pocket to point at her giant travel mug.

‘Oh. This is my first one. I didn’t want to be too, you know.’ She flapped a hand about between them, rolled her eyes and shrugged, and as easy as that they were both smiling at each other.

‘Okay. Well, given that I never ask guests to bring their own coffee, shall we go into the kitchen and I’ll make us a fresh batch. We can talk.’

‘Talk?’ Sephy asked.

‘Catch ourselves up.’ Tell her about his family situation, he thought, deliberately ignoring the flash flood of trepidation he felt.

‘Oh. Okay. Good idea. We could do the house stuff first and the other stuff…after.’

‘Drop the bags here, then, and we’ll take them up to my bedroom later.’

‘Bedroom?’ Suspicion hit her huge brown eyes.

‘You can get changed up there and I’ve got full-length mirrors. I thought you’d want to see –’

‘Of course. That’s fine. So are you going to show me this kitchen of yours, then?’

Luke stepped to the side and gestured for her to precede him into the room off to the right.

They were friends who were helping each other out.

That was all.

So they’d talk, have a little lunch and then by the time it came to ‘practice’ they would both feel more like what they were doing really wasn’t such a big deal.

Which it wasn’t, he counselled.

He couldn’t help wishing he had never thought practicing first would be a good idea, though. In his mind he had associated non-professional models with awkwardness and that, coupled with the very real worry he was going to feel as if the photographer was exposing his soul for others to gawk at, or something, had him suggesting rehearsing. But now he wished for the sterile white lights of the photographer’s studio. The flash and noise of photographer and camera. Keeping it all professional would have had the distancing effect that it turned out he really needed.