For another long moment he held her gaze, almost as though he expected her to change her mind. When she didn’t he gave a curt nod. ‘All right. If that’s what you want, I’ll see if I can arrange it with Meinrad. Now I’m going to take a shower.’
She watched his exquisite backside disappear down the hall toward the bathroom. She hoped she hadn’t made him angry.
‘Stop worrying,’ Eleanor said. ‘He’s fine with shagging Meinrad. He’s fine with being watched while he shags Meinrad. He’s just not too confident in his way around you yet, and he doesn’t want to disappoint you.’
Once she heard the shower running, she dressed and had just made herself a cup of tea when there was a loud knock on the door, the turning of a key in the lock, and Vivie burst in, practically throwing herself into Jill’s arms. In typical Vivie fashion, she was already in mid-sentence.
‘Oh, Jilly, thank God you’re all right! I was so worried when you didn’t answer my texts. I had visions of you dead on the floor, and it all being my fault, all my fault!’ Her embrace became a bear hug threatening to break ribs. ‘My fault because I gave some friend of Alex’s your name. Alex is the bloke I met at the Bluu Bar the other night. You remember? Well, he has a friend who said she has a friend who fancies you, and I was so excited for you that I didn’t think. I gave him your name. But I didn’t give him your number. I wouldn’t do that. But then I got thinking with your name, he could find you easily enough. And then I didn’t hear from you, and …’
Her words died in her throat and she stepped away from Jill, giving a couple of gasps and nodding towards where Finn stood dripping on the floor, wrapped in a towel that barely covered the goodies.
‘I … left my bag in the lounge,’ he managed before Vivie squared her shoulders, gave Jill a ‘well done, you’ nudge in the ribs with her elbow, then offered Finn her hand.
‘I’m Vivie,’ she said, ‘and you must be Finn, the one who was desperately looking for my friend Jill.’ Her eyes dipped to his towel. ‘And I’d say you found her.’
‘Yes, I found her all right,’ he said. He grabbed his rucksack, then he paused before he headed back to the bathroom. He turned back, pulled Jill into his arms and gave her a toe-curling kiss, nearly losing his towel in the process.
As the two watched Finn’s barely covered backside disappear down the hall, Vivie grabbed Jill by the arm and dragged her toward the sofa. ‘Details, hon, I want details.’ She helped herself to a sip of Jill’s tea and sat down with a little wriggle of her bottom.
Somewhere in the vast undefined space inside her, Jill could feel Eleanor perched at full attention, just as anxious for a little nasty girl talk as Vivie was. Jill settled in to pick and choose what juicy bits were fit for the ears of the non-possessed.
Chapter 11
‘He’s hot, Finn is.’ Vivie was practically bouncing off her chair. ‘Oh Jilly, I’m so excited for you!’
Jill couldn’t prevent herself smiling when she thought about what Finn had done to her just before Vivie showed up. He’d left her flat, promising to be back in the evening after he’d finished his errands for Sole Alliance. Jill was already anticipating their reunion . Though Eleanor seemed to have enjoyed the girl talk over burgers and chips in the noisy, quirky bustle of the Breakfast Club, Jill still wasn’t sure if she could trust her not to add her bit to the conversation at the most inopportune moment. From the Breakfast Club, they’d migrated around the corner to the Bluu Bar to share a bottle of wine and continue the conversation in a quieter place.
Jill was more than a little surprised by the glances of appreciation she drew from several men at the bar. She figured that was Eleanor’s doing, since the last time she was in the Bluu Bar she had been all but invisible to the opposite sex. She forced her attention back to Vivie, who was studying her like she was the menu at a five-star restaurant. One of those written in French. ‘What?’ she said.
Vivie leaned an elbow on the table and smiled at her friend. ‘It’s just, well, wow! You seem so different, so confident. You shag a sex god in a shoe shop on a Friday night. On Saturday morning you tell your boss to fuck himself, then quit your job. And on Sunday I show up to discover you’ve just been going at it with said sex god on the floor of your lounge. And all in one weekend. Still waters run deep.’ Vivie lifted her glass in a toast.
She didn’t know the half of it, Jill thought. They sipped their wine, and Vivie continued to study her in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window. Jill pretended not to notice. ‘I just can’t get over how different you seem,’ Vivie said. ‘Stunning, actually.’