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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Misery

A hero’s welcome greeted me at Sydney Airport. I wasn’t feeling very heroic though. I felt gritty and tired, and I was sure that I had sleep crusted all over my eyelashes. But people didn’t seem to care at all – they just wanted to wave flags and posters and cheer at me.

And of course, there were several TV cameras with journos waiting to accost me with questions.

Joel grinned and took my carry-on luggage out of my hands.

“Go bask in your glory, Mel,” he muttered in my ear. I raised my eyebrows, but didn’t look him in the eye as I moved into the fray to sign some autographs, pose for pictures that I’m sure I looked disgusting in, and generally just give people a piece of me that I didn’t have to give.

When I managed to fight my way free of that debacle, I spotted Joel waiting for me near a café.

“I wish I’d been able to shower before I had to get through that crowd,” I muttered grumpily. “I feel like a troll.”

Joel gave me a sidelong glance. “Yeah, you’re looking pretty troll-like, actually.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. He’d been all strange since the Night of Amazing Sex. He fluctuated wildly between Jokey Joel and Serious Joel. I couldn’t get used to his mood swings.

I wondered if this was what he was always like when he had sex with a girl he’d been pursuing for a while.

Something had occurred to me on the plane, as I lay awake trying to sort through the tangle of emotions I was feeling. I hadn’t said anything to Joel about it yet, because of his weird mood. But I had to raise the issue sooner or later. Preferably sooner.

I spent the next ten minutes working up the courage to blurt it out. By that stage we were in the hire car.

I was just about to open my mouth and let the words come out however they would, when Joel tugged at my elbow and pointed out the window.

“Look, Stink, you’re as big as a building!” he joked.

I leaned over him – he didn’t try to touch me inappropriately, which disappointed me greatly (much to my embarrassment) – and looked in the direction of his finger.

There was the billboard; it was the first Dudz ad that I’d seen.

I was as big as a building, but so was Joel.

I was leaning against him, one of his hands was gripping the back of my thigh, just below my butt.

My hand was braced on the wall beside his head, and in our other hands we were both holding tennis racquets loosely by our sides.

Like tennis was forgotten because we’d found each other.

Fuck. It was the hottest Dudz ad I’d ever seen.

There was a caption underneath that read, “On and off court, I play to win” (Mel Black, 22, professional tennis player). Then there was another line right at the bottom: Dudz – for any game you like to play

I leaned back. “I don’t remember saying that,” I grumbled.

Joel smirked. “You probably didn’t – Georgie’s job is to come up with marketing gold like that.”

Oh, Georgie, I’d forgotten about her. Another one of Joel’s conquests. Well, I’d just joined that list. My sudden, searing jealousy gave me the strength to ask the next question.

“So, should I go get tested?” I asked.

Joel looked at me curiously. “Tested for what?”

I took a deep breath. “STIs. I couldn’t help but notice that we had unprotected sex the other night.” Many times. “Birth control isn’t an issue, but do I need to go and get tested?”

I felt sick asking the question, but I knew that as a responsible adult I had to.

Well, while on the subject, if I was a responsible adult, I wouldn’t have had unprotected sex with Joel.

I probably shouldn’t even have had sex with him at all.

But my brain and my body weren’t keeping close company these days.

Joel gave me a thoughtful look. Well, at least he wasn’t mad at me for bringing it up. He took a few deep breaths before he answered me, and he refused to look at me, instead staring down at his hands like he’d suddenly discovered the face of Jesus etched into his palm.

“I’ve never had unprotected sex before, Mel.

I should have been prepared, I’m sorry, but I wasn’t planning on having any sex while we were in England.

I’ve been tested before and it’s always come back clear.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t get tested, but I think that if you did it would be all clear. ”

Was it wrong that I believed him? Was I being naive? I didn’t think he would lie to me about this.

“When was the last time you were tested?” I asked.

Joel continued to stare at his hands. “When we got back from Europe,” he replied quietly.

I inhaled deeply through my nose. “Of course you did, after the little one-night stand in our hotel room in Rome!” I snapped. I had no right to be furious with him, but I was. I turned and looked out the window, pointing my whole body away from his.

“Yes, Mel, after that one-night stand. Don’t you act all high and mighty about it – ten seconds on Google and I can remind you about your one-night stand.”

I turned back to him and gave him a withering look. “That was two nights,” I snapped.

Joel laughed sarcastically, leaning back against the seat. “Yeah, because that makes all the difference, doesn’t it, Stink?”

I hated that he was right – I was in no position to be judging him over his indiscretions. And that just made me all the angrier with him .

“So, anyway, I was tested just after Rome and I haven’t been with anyone else since then, so you should be okay.”

I eyed him sharply. “You haven’t had sex in the last two months?” I asked in disbelief. Joel shook his head, his eyes sliding away from mine once more.

“Not even Julie?” I persisted.

Joel hesitated, then shook his head. “Not even Julie.”

The anger in me deflated somewhat, and I collapsed back against the seat.

“So, you’re telling me that you went without sex for two months?” I repeated, still not quite able to believe it.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been spending pretty much every waking moment with you. When have I had time to go out looking for sex?”

I clenched my jaw. “When have you ever had to go looking for sex? I thought that sex just fell into your lap.”

Joel chuckled angrily. “It might seem that way to you, but the only time recently that sex has just ‘fallen into my lap’ was a couple of nights ago in a hotel in Soho.”

The hire car pulled up outside my apartment building. The driver very politely waited for us to finish our argument.

I glared at him. “That didn’t just fall into your lap, Joel!

You’d been working towards that moment for months !

Don’t think I didn’t realise it – you and your innuendo, and the way you would come so close to me that I thought I was going to go insane if I didn’t just act on it.

You knew exactly what you were doing. It’s so frust –”

He didn’t let me finish. He kissed me instead. I tried to fight it, God’s honest truth I did, but within seconds I was clutching him to me desperately. He broke away from my lips for a second, his hands roving down to my hips, his lips curved up into a cheeky grin.

“You’re so sexy when you get all angry, Stinky,” he muttered, and his lips were on mine again.

“Ahem,” the driver cleared his throat pointedly, and Joel and I jumped apart guiltily. “Will there be another stop after this one?”

Joel looked at me, his eyes burning. I shook my head.

“Just the one stop, thanks,” I choked out. The driver got out and huffily dumped our bags on the sidewalk. I slid out of the car and Joel handed over some cash. The driver tore off down the street as soon as the door was closed.

It felt weird to have to do something as normal as carry our luggage upstairs, knowing that as soon as we got inside we were going to be all over each other.

I tried not to think about it too much. I tried not to worry that it was a bad and stupid mistake to be doing this again.

Hadn’t I decided that I wouldn’t let him touch me if he couldn’t define what our relationship would be, now that we were having sex?

It seemed that my resolve wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped, or non-existent more to the point, because as soon as we were inside the door Joel grabbed me, dragged my t-shirt off over my head and flung me onto the lounge, and I didn’t make one noise or action of complaint.

In fact, it was quite the opposite – I was actively encouraging him as he lay down on top of me and kissed me enthusiastically.

His hands roved expertly over my body – he knew every little curve of it by now, and exactly where to touch to get the best reaction from me. He was a lightning-fast learner and he’d had a whole night of practise.

His mouth was on one breast, his hand down the front of my yoga pants, his fingers circling my clit, thrusting inside me, circling again, in a way that was going to send me over the edge if he kept it up for much longer.

“You remember in California when I kept having those dreams?” I asked him breathlessly.

“Mmm hmm,” was his muffled reply – he didn’t take his mouth off my nipple. I gasped and the ache down low turned to a throbbing.

“Well, this is how they all started out.”

He did pull away from my nipple then, and looked down at me with a smirk.

“Really?” he asked. He slid my yoga pants and underwear right off and dropped his own pants. I tugged his shirt off and dragged him back down on me .

“Yes, really,” I moaned as he slid into me. “But they didn’t end like this. I wish they had .”

I felt a chuckle bubble out from Joel’s lips, which were pressed against my collarbone.

“I wish they had too; then maybe this would have happened sooner,” he groaned against me as he lifted me up and moved into a sitting position with me straddling him.

His teeth latched onto my nipple again, and I cried out as I moved on him.

His hands caressed my butt and slid up and down my back.