Virgin(58)

“You could always start with short stories,” he suggested.

“Yeah, maybe I could,” I mused. “With your expert guidance, of course.”

“Oh, well, with my wisdom and your wit we’d definitely have a bestseller on our hands. You wouldn’t even need to find a job.”

“Thank God, because none of the places I applied to intern for have gotten back to me.”

“Why don’t you just take a gap yaaah,” he drawled in a faux-posh accent as we walked into the dark pub. For a split second I wished that was his normal accent and he could afford to take me to fancy restaurants.

“What? The working-class Socialist is encouraging me to spend a year wandering around Third World countries in multicolored native clothing?” I asked in mock horror.

He laughed. “Yeah, well, I would have thought it would be right up your street, going on a gap yah. What with the kind of TV programs you love.”

“Darling, a gap yah? I think you mean a five-star yoga resort,” I replied, and he winced at my horrendous posh accent.

“What can I get you?” The barmaid interrupted us and saved me from further humiliation. We both ordered a pint of cider because, as his short-sleeved shirt demonstrated, it was the first really warm day of spring.

At our table, he sat on the leather sofa next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. “You look pretty today,” he said simply. I looked up at him in surprise, feeling pleased. I was wearing the same floral dress I’d worn to dinner when I turned Paul gay. For a girl who hated dressing up, it was a noticeable effort.

“Thanks.” I grinned. “No one has ever said that to me before,” I added, immediately regretting it. Now I just sounded like a total no-hoper who never got compliments.

“Seriously? No one’s ever told you that you look pretty?” he asked. “I mean, I know I can be a bit of a dick, but you must know some serious wankers.”

I blushed. “Yeah, that could be it . . .” Or it could just be the cold, hard reality that he was the first guy I had ever properly dated. “You’re not a dick though,” I said. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“With me, what you see is what you get. If you don’t think of me as a dick then I reckon we’re doing pretty well. I know I go on way too much about politics and occasionally talk too much, but those are my only flaws, I promise.” He grinned, and I had a sudden urge to kiss him.

I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the lips, feeling ridiculously daring and femme fatale. I almost felt like the kind of girl who could pull off bloodred lipstick. He kissed me back gently, and when we broke away I looked up straight into his green eyes.

“That was nice,” he said, smiling, and I hoped he hadn’t been analyzing the virgin-factor of the kiss I’d just given him.

I went an unattractive shade of beetroot. “Um, thanks,” I replied, looking at the floor awkwardly.

“Anyway, I’m going to stop making you blush now,” he teased, which made me blush more. “How was your week?”

“Um . . .” I racked my brains for something normal to say. I couldn’t tell him about yesterday’s porn session or the Lara fight, so I was at a bit of a loss. “I think I turned someone gay,” I blurted out.

He looked at me and then burst at laughing. “What the fuck are you talking about? Please don’t say you mean me . . . I knew this shirt was a mistake.”

“No, someone else. A family friend. He . . . he kissed me and then told me he was gay.”

“I know I should be focusing on the fact that you turned someone gay—and I should probably be scared you’re going to do the same to me . . .” he said as I slapped his arm in mock-annoyance. “But I think I’m just jealous that you kissed someone else.”

Ohmigod, he was jealous. This was possibly the first time in my entire twenty-one years that I’d made someone jealous, and it felt good. I was like a female Austin Powers with my unstoppable mojo.

“Well, in my defense, it was Paul who kissed me,” I offered innocently, with my most flirtatious eyes.

“Right, well, do I have to be worried about any other Pauls trying to take you away from me?” he asked.

He was so confident and sexy that my clitoris started throbbing. It was like a female erection. I tried to make it stop pulsating and crossed my legs, wondering if other women got hard-ons too.

“I think you’re more Paul’s type than I am,” I answered back, desperately trying to ignore the clit throb and hoping he wouldn’t figure out what was going on down south for me.