Page 16 of Strawberry Moon

I eagerly jump into the shower. However, after I’m clean and dry, I don’t race into the bedroom.

Instead, I tie a towel around my hips and wander back downstairs.

There’s a big picture window in the lounge, and I open it to look down on the moonlit high street.

The flat offers views of the estuary if you lean out and crane your neck like something from Alien , but it’s this view I like best. I can sit here in the summer with the window open and listen to the voices and laughter of the tourists drifting up.

And in the winter I can see the elegant lines of the old buildings softened by snow and rain.

I was born in Fowey but found my home in my gentle bookseller.

I look around the flat. I’ve always loved it here, because it’s so very Harry—elegant lines, and warmth and comfort, along with walls full of bookshelves containing the stock he can’t bear to sell.

The furniture is comfortable, inviting you to curl up with a book and relax.

I eye the white walls thoughtfully. They could probably do with a bit of colour.

I think of the wallpaper samples in my messenger bag and smile in anticipation.

After closing the window, I make my way back upstairs and into the bedroom.

The curtains are drawn, and the lamps are a warm glow in the room, but my attention is all on Harry.

He’s lying with the sheets pulled down to his waist—a position that shows off his hairy chest. If he were any other man, I’d think he was deliberately posing, but this is my Harry, and he’s looking at a book as usual.

I can’t help my smile, and I crane to see what he’s reading, but the book’s cover is tilted away.

“What’s the book?” I ask.

He startles. “Oh nothing. Just something I found on a shelf.” He shuts the book and sets it cover down on his bedside table.

“Are you reading the stock again, Harry?”

“I told you. All booksellers do that.”

“Well, next time you do it, don’t leave your shopping receipt as a bookmark. It leads to funny comments.”

He groans. “I still can’t believe I did that.”

“Neither could Mr. Kernick. I don’t know whether he was more stunned that you’d purchased a dildo, or by the cost of the thing.”

He gives me a crooked smile that, as usual, has the power to make my heart go pitter pat. “I would have paid the world just to see the look on your face when I slid it into you.”

I shift from one foot to the other. “Is it wrong that I have a hard-on?”

He throws the sheet back, his own dick already hard and damp with seed. “Depends if you’re thinking about Mr. Kernick or me.”

“Definitely you. His eyebrows are rather alarming.” I lose the towel and jump onto the bed, making him bark with laughter. “Anyway, Grandad says he’s a freak between the sheets.”

“Do I even want to know how he knows that fact?” His eyes brim with amusement.

I lie on him, hissing in pleasure as his cock rubs against mine.

His body feels as if it was made to cradle mine, and I’ve found his hairy chest is the best resting place in the whole world.

“Apparently Mr. Kernick is the talk of my grandma’s knitting circle.

” I rest my hands on his chest, thumbing a nipple absently and then watching with interest as it pebbles.

“Enough of the OAPs. I just want you to know that I might have mislaid several cases of clothes.”

“That is a deep misfortune,” he says solemnly. “However will the wardrobe cope?”

I lean closer and whisper, “But I know exactly where my lube is.” He swallows hard and I kiss him lustily before pulling back and saying, “Our first night. How should we celebrate it?”

His big hands cup my face, a wolfish smile on his lips. “Oh, I have a few ideas.”

I come awake slowly. The room is chilly, but I’m warm in our bed, snuggled into sheets that smell of Harry’s cologne and sex. When I shift, there’s a lovely tenderness in my arse, and I clench my bum feeling a tingle run through me.

Harry’s body is warm against my back. I’d learnt when we started seeing each other, that he’s a man who hates waking up. He ekes out the process in slow stages, accompanied by lots of tea and bleary objections to daylight. It’s very cute.

He’s a snorer, which I never thought I’d find endearing, but it turns out if it’s Harry doing it, then it is. Today, however, he’s quiet and not wrapped around me like usual.

I turn my head. He’s lying on his back, his full attention on a book—probably the same one he was reading last night.

His hair is a dark mess, his chin covered in stubble, and he has on his reading glasses.

They’re a new addition. He’d resisted getting them for ages, saying in a grumpy voice that he didn’t need them and could see perfectly well.

And that’s how he ended up coming out of the supermarket, getting into the wrong car, and scandalizing the vicar.

Turns out the vicar wasn’t bothered at Harry being a surprise passenger, but more stunned at the fact that Harry thought I was in the passenger seat and had started the conversation with a detailed resume of what he’d be doing to me when we got home.

The vicar now winks at him when he sees him, and Harry blushes whenever we walk past the church. “Like a shy vampire,” I’d remarked fondly as we’d marched at top speed to the local Specsavers.

“I like your glasses,” I observe. They’re tortoiseshell and make him look very sexily academic.

He blinks and then smiles, raising his arm so I can curl up next to him.

I rest my head on his chest, feeling the hairs tickle my cheek.

“What are you reading?” He doesn’t say anything and when I turn my head to look up at him, he gives me a smile.

My eyes narrow. It’s a funny smile—crooked, shy, and a little nervous. “You okay?”

“Oh yes, definitely.” He nods as if to punctuate that enthusiastic statement and then drags in a deep breath and turns over the book so I can see the cover.

“ Torridly Yours .” I can’t stop my grin. “Hello, my old friend.”

He chuckles. “The source of all your scheming.”

“You certainly reaped the benefits.”

He brushes his finger over my cheek, his face unexpectedly serious. “I certainly did. I’m eternally thankful to Jared and Fiona.”

“You should be.” I look at the book in his hands. “Where did you get that from? I used a library book back in the day.”

He reddens. “I ordered a copy a while ago.”

Warmth fills me. I reach up and press a kiss to his cheek. “You’re really the sweetest man I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not sure about that.” He hesitates. “Did you ever read the end of their story? It has an epilogue.”

“Do you know, I don’t think I did,” I say, startled. “I lost interest in it once I had you and could go back to murder mysteries.” His lip twitches. “I presumed that Fiona would be on her thirtieth eyelash transplant, and that Jared’s hair would grow so big he could no longer leave his office.”

He licks his lips and then offers the book to me. “Why don’t you read it?”

“What? Now ?”

“No time like the present.”

“Well, we did meet the author last night, after all. Seems only fitting that we honour her.” I pause, taking the book he hands to me. “I just remembered. What happened to my autograph?”

“It’s around here somewhere.”

“Hopefully we find it at the same time we find the box with my thongs. I can’t go commando again.”

“You need to buck your ideas up. There’s no such word as can’t. Just will, won’t, and shan’t.”

I chuckle and then open the book at the epilogue as Harry watches intently. “They end up married, don’t they? With dozens of children who inherit their mother’s dizzy spells, and Jared spends the rest of his life picking them all up from the floor.”

“Maybe.”

I begin to read the epilogue, scanning the lines and smiling at the characters as I remember back to when this was my dating manual. Luckily, my grandfather retired from the matchmaking game after me, because my nan got bored with Mills and Boon and moved on to cosy mysteries.

I reach the last sentence and sigh. “All ended well.” I look over at Harry and narrow my eyes. His regard is far too serious, considering he’s been watching me read a Mills and Boon. I love that he finds me interesting, but he’s surely scraping the barrel with my current occupation.

“What did you think?”

“I was vaguely hopeful that they might be murdered in a horrible and inventive manner,” I say wistfully.

He swallows. “Not in a romance novel. They had to settle for happy ever after.”

I grin at him. “I want you to know that I love you, even though you’re being very weird at the moment.”

“Thank you. You haven’t turned the last page.”

I blink and look uncertainly down at the book. “I rarely do. It’ll just be adverts for other books. Nowadays, the advertisements seem to take up more room than the actual story, with the knock-on effect that the book gets even heavier to carry for us lowly sales assistants.”

He starts to laugh, and I stare at him. It’s so happy that it takes my breath away. He looks at me as if I’m something special and I hope that never changes. Mind you, if he didn’t lose that look when I crashed his car into my grandad’s garage, then it’s there for good.

“Humour me,” he murmurs.

“Okay.” I turn the page, and something falls out of the book. I grab it. It’s a piece of paper with ragged edges. I see the scrawled writing and exclaim, “Oh my autograph. You had it all along. I might frame it.”

“Why don’t you read what she wrote?” He seems to be holding his breath.

I offer him a curious look before unfolding the paper properly. I read the words. Then I stop and read them again. And again. I blink and double-check. Still the same.

Harry wants to know if you’ll marry him. I hope you do. I do love a good happy ever after.

Harry stirs, and I suddenly notice he has a small box in his hand. His fingers are shaking, and the sight fills me with a deep and fierce tenderness. “ Harry ?” I breathe.

His green eyes are very bright, and I know with certainty that I will remember this moment for the rest of my life.

“Will you…?” He stops and swallows. “You are the absolute love of my life.” He opens the box, and I see a platinum band sitting on a bed of velvet.

The diamonds on it are blinding. “Will you marry me?”

I swallow hard, but a tear escapes and runs down my face. I knuckle it away, and laughing, I throw myself into his arms. “Oh my god ,” I say. “Oh my god.”

His arms come up, banding me tightly to him. “Well?”

I nod frantically. “I will. I love you so much. You’re the most precious person in my life,” I manage to choke out, and he kisses me with the words still on my lips.

When we separate, he falls back against the pillows, letting out a sigh of happiness, and I collapse into him.

I hold up my finger and watch as he slides the ring on.

“It’s so beautiful ,” I breathe. “Look at it sparkle.” His taste would run naturally to plainer things, but he knows me, and so of course, he picked the perfect ring.

“I want to show the world I’m yours, and what better way than blinding them with bling? ” I say dreamily.

He laughs. “It’s not just bling. It’s Clemo Pascoe bling. I needed something to rival that top you bought last week.”

“How many times must I tell the people of Fowey that sequins can be daywear. It’s cruel to restrict them to nighttime.”

“You’re such a philanthropist.” I laugh and he kisses my finger tenderly. “It’s like you, Fifi. Bright, outrageous, and so pretty you can’t take your eyes off it.”

“I love you,” I say solemnly. “I’m going to be the best damn husband you’ve ever fucking had.”

“It’s like proposing to Wordsworth.”

I snort and hug him tight, pushing my face into his neck and inhaling the scent of him, determined to preserve this memory in my brain so I can pull it out and examine it years from now. We lie together in a peaceful silence that still manages to be filled to the brim with love.

“I must admit I’m relieved.” I sigh as his hand skims lazily up and down my back.

“Why?”

“Well, since the car incident, I always worried that you had a thing for the vicar.”

“Oh, shut up.”

I let out a peal of laughter. “We’re going to happy-ever-after the shit out of our lives, aren’t we?”

He kisses my head. “Clemo, I have zero doubt about that.”