Page 26

The journey in the helicopter is smooth and this time, Jem doesn’t try to hold my hand.

I don’t ask him to either. It’s comforting to have him next to me, though.

I hate that I get so nervous flying – I don’t want him to think I’m being pathetic – but there’s no real hint of that in his demeanour.

Or perhaps he doesn’t care how I’m feeling, now we’re on our way out of here.

I try very hard not to care either.

The hotel is indeed five-star, situated in the centre of Athens. It has a feeling of old-world glamour to it, with wooden panelling, heavy brocade curtains and antique furniture in abundance.

We’ve been put in a luxury suite, which is nice.

More than nice. It’s actually breathtakingly swanky.

Jem and I shoot each other looks as we’re shown around it by a helpful porter.

As soon as he’s gone, we stare first around the room, then at each other.

‘Holy shit, this place is amazing,’ Jem murmurs.

‘Yeah. Old school, but pretty cool,’ I say, trying to imbue my voice with nonchalance. I don’t manage it though and Jem smirks at my poor effort.

We put our bags down on a handy chaise longue by the window and have a quick explore of the place before reconvening next to the bed.

‘So, err, now what?’ Jem asks, raising his eyebrow at me. It’s so funny how that gesture has turned into something I find appealing now, after hating it for so long. But then, maybe it’s because it’s lost its condescension, now we’re on better terms.

Now we’re friends.

If that’s even what we are.

It’s a little confusing.

We’re certainly no longer just nemeses. He’s now my nemesis with benefits. Quite the tongue-twister.

And I’m determined to get some more of those benefits before we call it quits.

But I need to keep it light. I don’t want him to know how wobbly I’m feeling about this ending.

So I say, ‘Perhaps we should test this bed out. To make sure it’s going to be comfortable enough to sleep on tonight.’ I give him a mock-innocent look, then sit and bounce up and down on it.

I wait, holding my breath, with my heart thumping in my chest, to see whether he’s going to turn me down, now we’re no longer on the island.

Relief floods through me when something that looks a lot like mischief flashes across his face.

‘I like your thinking,’ he says with a grin, already pulling his t-shirt up over his head.

He tosses it, without a care for tidiness, onto the floor.

Joy rises from my stomach to my throat, then rushes through my entire body, making my skin prickle and all the hairs stand up on my arms.

Thank the gods and all that’s good.

‘Hold up. What happened to Jem the Immaculate?’ I tease him, looking pointedly at the crumpled garment, then back at his honed chest.

Oh, my lord. How I’m going to miss ogling his hot bod.

But I don’t have time to reflect on the sadness that wriggles into my mind because he launches himself onto the bed next to me, then opens his arms, giving me a ‘come hither’ beckon with his fingers.

I snort in pretend disdain, but the next second I’m in his arms, pressing my body against his and relishing the feel of his hard muscles under me.

He kisses me briefly, then rolls me over onto my back and methodically removes every piece of clothing from my body.

Kneeling up between my legs, he takes a moment to gaze down at me.

He doesn’t say anything and neither do I, but this suddenly feels like a significant moment. Like he’s committing my naked form to memory.

I let him.

I want him to remember me and the time we’ve spent together fondly.

Because I know I will.

Another wave of sadness rolls over me and I close my eyes for a second to fight back the feeling.

He takes this opportunity to lean into me and kiss my mouth, his lips soft, but the pressure firm.

I keep my eyes closed as he moves to kiss my face, then along my jaw and down my neck, his breath warming my skin.

My entire body gives a shiver of delight.

I force myself to focus on that. Just that.

His exploration with his mouth continues downwards and I suck in a happy breath as he draws first one nipple into the heat of his mouth, then moves across to do the same to the other, rolling the areola around with his tongue.

Then he goes lower. And lower still, till he’s right where I want him to be.

Opening my eyes, I watch in fascination as his head moves between my legs, giving me the kind of attention I crave whenever I’m around him now.

How did it come to this? Only a week ago, we would barely acknowledge each other, save for the odd taunting comment.

And now look.

Or feel , more like.

Ooooohhh. He got really good at this. I envy the woman he ends up with.

No. Nope. Not going to think about that right now.

I’m distracted as his fingers move inside me, finding the exact spot I love to have pressed, and I rock my pelvis upwards, which increases the pressure and the pleasure.

I’m so lost to this now.

So utterly, utterly lost.

He continues to drive me wild with his fingers, catching exactly the right spot, over and over again, not deviating from the rhythm or pressure, just how I like it, and I start to let out little cries of frustration. I’m close, so damn close.

But I can’t quite get there this time.

I realise with a thump of alarm that it’s because I want more. I want everything. To feel him pressing his body into me and his cock moving inside me. For us to be fully connecting in the most intimate way possible.

But I can’t ask him to do that. We agreed not to. And I’m terrified it would tip me over the treacherous edge my emotions have been teetering on for the last few hours.

So I’m going to have to make do with the fantasy of it instead.

I force myself to turn my thoughts to a made-up scene in my head, one that’s been pushing at the edges for a while now.

My body responds immediately, the intensity of the sensations he’s drawing from me building to a peak again.

And finally, finally, I can feel it coming.

I’m on the edge of something amazing. Almost there. Almost…

Then he sucks down on my clit and the pleasure peaks, coursing through me in pulse after exquisite pulse. I let out a long, low cry, almost like a sob, my fingers gripping the bedsheets hard.

My orgasm goes on for a long, long time and I ride the waves of it, my eyes tightly shut against the real world.

Jem lets me, not moving away until it’s clear I’m coming down from my sexual high.

‘Jesus, Jem. I’m going to miss that,’ I say on a long out-breath. Luckily, I say ‘that’ rather than ‘you’, even in my befuddled state.

Lifting his head, he grins at me.

‘I’m glad to know I’ve got my technique down.’

I force myself to smile back, not wanting to give him any hint that I’m struggling to keep a bewildering rush of emotions in check right now. ‘You really have.’

He shuffles up the bed to stretch out next to me and we lie in silence for a moment, the quiet of the room buzzing around us.

‘You were right, by the way, about the reasons I’ve never had a sexual relationship before now,’ he says, surprising me out of my jitters.

I turn to look at him, but he’s still staring up at the ceiling. ‘Because of being a carer for your parents, you mean?’ I ask, grateful for the distraction from my internal wrangling.

He nods. ‘Yeah. I couldn’t just go out and leave them in the evenings, like most teenagers.

It wasn’t safe for them to be on their own for hours and hours at a time.

My mum would get confused and forget to do things like turn off the gas under a pan of Bolognese sauce and nearly burn the kitchen to the ground.

It scared the shit out of me the first time it happened.

It wasn’t much better the second or third time either.

My mum was adamant she was just being a bit forgetful though and used to beg me not to tell anyone about what had happened.

My dad wasn’t well enough to get up out of bed to keep a proper eye on her a lot of the time, so it was down to me to make sure dangerous situations didn’t develop. ’

‘So – what? You never even got to go out to the pub?’

‘Not often. And if I did, I didn’t drink so I could drive home after an hour or so.

Everyone else would go out clubbing afterwards and hook up, but I couldn’t do that.

I had to stay focused on my folks. There isn’t any other family to help out, so it was all down to me.

Which wasn’t exactly conducive to starting a relationship. ’

‘No. I can see that.’

‘And I was really quiet and pretty shy at school. I never really felt like I fit in there. I had friends, but only male friends. I kept my head down mostly, so girls never seemed to notice me. I spent a lot of my time either learning to programme in the library or gaming at lunchtimes. I ended up in a withdrawn rut which I didn’t know how to get out of.

Everyone else’s lives seemed so distant from mine, so I didn’t know how to connect, you know?

I just felt a bit… othered. A bit out of step. ’

‘And when you went to uni?’

‘Well, after a lot of wrangling with the health services, I finally managed to get my mum into a place where she’d be well looked after.

She wasn’t happy about it, but she understood I needed to know she’d be safe without me there so I could be confident enough to go off to study in another city, albeit one I could travel back from within an hour.

So she agreed. As long as I promised to visit her lots.

Which I did. But with her moving there, it left my dad on his own at home.

He wasn’t well enough to look after himself properly, even with home help going in every day, so I used to go back every weekend to take care of him and anything that needed doing in the house.

At least for the first half of my first year.

Until he’ – he pauses and swallows – ‘died.’