The London of Us

by Clare Lydon

  I rolled my eyes. A week after it had all happened, and I could at least do that. If she’d said that to me last week, I’d have jumped down her throat.

  “Anyway, we did the show, but then she had to run — she’s working tonight.”

  “Does that mean we should see if we can book a table and run over there?”

  “It does not.” I shook my head. “This has already involved far too many people as it is, and from here on in, I’d like it to be just me and Rachel.”

  “Your father and I might already have a booking.”

  “Do you?” I sat up.

  Her eyes sparkled. “No,” she said, giving me a wink. She blew on her tea. “So what’s the plan of action?”

  “We’ve already agreed we’re going to meet up on Monday — she’s got the day off, and luckily, I don’t start back to school till Wednesday.”

  Mum sat back, putting down her mug. “And you can wait that long? Sit through today and tomorrow, knowing she’s just over there?”

  She had a point. “Not really, but what choice do I have?”

  “You could meet her after work, bring her back here and she could spend the night? This is your place as much as ours, and I want you to feel that way while you’re living here.”

  “Including bringing back a possible girlfriend?”

  “I’d be honoured,” Mum said. And the look on her face told me she wasn’t joking.

  Could I bring Rachel back here? Would she even want to come back with me?

  “You might have a point in going to meet her. I’ll consider bringing her back here.”

  She perked up at that. “I promise to be on my best behaviour, and to cook you an outrageously delicious breakfast in the morning.”

  I grinned. “You make a convincing argument, you know that?”

  Chapter 30

  I decided to listen to my mum. So around midnight I strolled over to Red On Black and hung around its staff entrance, looking for all the world like one of the dodgiest people in the area: hanging around back alleys at midnight had that affect.

  The ground beside me was covered in fag butts where the staff had been smoking, and a faint odour of stale urine curled into my airwaves. It wasn’t somewhere you wanted to stay very long, but if it was the alley Rachel was going to be stepping out into very soon, I was going nowhere.

  The sky in central London was charcoal grey mixed with the orange hue of streetlights, the air interrupted by the occasional car horn and gear change as the Saturday night traffic got people home or to their next destination.

  I waited 15 minutes before Rachel appeared, the sole of my Converse flat against the dirty brick wall behind me, the midnight air tickling my skin.

  Eventually, the thick white fire door cranked open, making a shrill scraping sound as it was pushed. And there she was, laughing in the doorway with a young man in his 20s who she clearly had a great rapport with because they were very tactile. When she looked up and saw me, she stopped laughing mid-breath and stilled.

  If there hadn’t been a wall behind me, I might have taken a step backwards. Instead, I clenched my fist, the hairs on my neck standing on end.

  Show time.

  “Alice,” she said, grabbing the young man’s attention as she spoke. In the murky light her teeth took on an ultra-violet hue when she gave me a wonky smile, her eyes dark.

  “Hi.” My shoulders tensed as I offered a tiny wave of my right hand, like that could convey everything I wanted to say to her. It couldn’t, but it was all I had in that moment. All the bravado I’d had walking down here evaporated into thin air, leaving just me, exposed all over again. But this time, it was an exposure I was going to lean into, rather than run away from.

  I owed that to myself and to Rachel.

  The young man left and then it was just the two of us.

  A black cab trundled by on the road beside us, its bright orange light glaring in the darkness. As its tail lights receded, I pushed myself off the wall, giving Rachel a tight smile.

  “So, I couldn’t wait till Monday.”

  She gave me a slow smile in return that made my stomach do somersaults. “I can see.” A pause. “And I’m glad.” She stepped forward, stopping a few inches short of me. “So what were your plans? You want to go for a drink? I smell like a very intense steak meal, I should warn you, but if you’re happy to go out with me smelling like this, I’m more than happy to come with you.”

  I sniffed the air around her, dared to go closer, then closer still. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my cheeks flared with what might be.

  I sniffed her cheek and closed my eyes: she wasn’t joking, she really did smell like seared meat, but she also smelled of possibility — which was the word weaving its magic dust through my heart, telling me it had game. I wanted to believe it.

  “I was thinking,” I began.

  But then Rachel was backing me up against the wall, and whatever I might have been thinking flung itself from my mind as I concentrated on the here and now; on the physical pleasure of Rachel pressing into me, her eyes rich with want.

  “That’s where you keep going wrong, with all the thinking,” she said, pressing a thigh in between mine, before she crushed her lips against mine.

  I was instantly transported back to that thrilling Saturday, back to Rachel’s firm, knowing hands, back to us. Only this time, I didn’t have to use my imagination, because Rachel was right here.

  Her tongue slid into my mouth with an assured insistence, and I closed my eyes, losing myself in the moment. The hardness of the wall behind me was in stark contrast to my fuzzy emotions.

  And just like before, it all felt so… me.

  So right.

  Rachel’s lips on mine answered every question I’d ever had about desire, about lust, about something feeling perfect. She was taking my breath away, again.

  The past week I’d been worrying about trying on this new identity, worrying how it would fit. Would it bunch around my middle? Would it be uncomfortable? It turned out, Rachel’s hot lips sliding over mine was the ideal look for me.

  Moments later, Rachel pulled back, her gaze on my face, like she never wanted to leave. “So go on, tell me what you were thinking.”

  I searched my mind for the answer. “That we go back to mine.” I was keen to stress mine and not bring my parents into it for fear of losing the sale. “I only live five minutes away, and we can have a drink, a chat.” I stopped, pressing my mouth onto hers again and sinking into her delicious kiss. “Or we could just bypass that and go straight to bed.” We were seconds off mounting each other here.

  Rachel pulled back slightly now, the edges of her eyes crinkling as she smiled.

  With every second I spent with her, she grew that little bit more beautiful.

  “I like option three a lot.”

  With that, she took my hand and pulled me off the wall, giving me a sexy smile, before heading towards home.

  When we walked into my parents’ flat, Rachel let out a gasp as she took in the high-ceiled hallway and the polished wooden floorboards. “This is like something out of a design magazine,” she whispered, as I hung her jacket on the rack. “I can see where you get your artistic streak from.”

  “I’m not nearly so stylish. My parents outdo me at every turn.”

  Desire was still beating a drum in my ear.

  “You want a drink?” Or just some hot sex in the hallway?

  She eyed me again, and a pulse of lust swept through me.

  “Sure.”

  I pulled her into the kitchen and closed the door firmly, sealing us in and my parents out. I stalked over to the fridge as Rachel leaned on the counter, and I could feel her gaze following my every move.

  Prickles of heat broke out all over my body, and I concentrated on keeping my breathing even, steady.

  When I turned, Rachel was staring at the block of photos on the wall beside her — my family through the ages, stretching back as far as my great-grandparents on my dad’s side.r />
  “Is this your mum and dad?” Rachel was pointing at a photo on the wall.

  “Yes, the year before they were married,” I replied.

  Our eyes met as I placed a bottle of Pinot Grigio on the counter, and I took a deep breath.

  “She’s gorgeous,” Rachel said, licking her lips. “You look a lot like her.”

  “You think? People normally say I look like my dad.” I didn’t really care, these were just words filling the space. I didn’t care who I looked like or what my heritage was. I only cared about reconnecting with Rachel. Now we’d kissed once, I was only hungry for more.

  I drew up beside her and our eyes locked again.

  Rachel’s shoulders tensed, and then the air in front of me was filled with her and the need for wine left my mind.

  We were kissing again before I knew it, she devouring me, and I, her. But this time, it was behind closed doors, with no passers-by and no cameras. This was just Rachel and I, a meeting of mouths, of bodies; a splurge of want, of need.

  Her fingers raced under my top, kneading my nipple through my bra, and I strained against her.

  I grabbed her arse, cupping it firmly, and she groaned into my mouth.

  My tongue slipped inside her and a fire started in my belly, roaring to life at my very core.

  When I pulled away, I gazed at her, this woman who’d changed my life completely. Seeing her standing against the hob and oven was such a natural pose for her, her chest rising and falling in quick succession. Knowing I was the cause of that made me smile.

  “You know,” I began, weaving my hand into the waistband of her trousers, kissing her lips again. She tasted deliciously sweet. “Seeing you up against the stove makes me think of all the fantasies I’ve had while we’ve been filming.”

  Rachel raised one eyebrow. “Tell me more.” She pulled me close and kissed me again, and my thoughts swam. Holding onto anything with her nearby — thoughts, feelings, convictions to take things more slowly this time — was getting harder and harder.

  “The usual,” I said, a smile piercing my cheeks. “I think about sliding my fingers inside you while you’re cooking, about taking you from behind over the hob, about lifting you up onto the counter-top, ripping open your top and sucking your pert nipples into my mouth.” My insides stirred at my words, and Rachel’s eyes grew visibly darker as I spoke.

  “And there was me thinking you were a good Catholic girl, with pure thoughts all the time.”

  I slid my tongue into her mouth and swirled it all around, wanting to taste every part of her, before pulling back, my body shaking.

  “Catholic girls are the very worst, you should know that.”

  I pushed a thigh between her legs, the first time I’d done this to her, taking control.

  There was a hitch in her breathing, but her gaze didn’t falter. “Do you want to live out your fantasies?” Her voice was scratchy, broken.

  “God, yes.” Not wasting any time, I slid down Rachel’s zip, before cupping her between her legs.

  This time she gasped and shifted, her cheeks redder than before.

  But I was done talking. I popped three buttons on Rachel’s shirt, before reaching inside and roughly moving aside the fabric of her bra, before taking her nipple into my mouth, snagging it with my teeth.

  The metal of her rings hitting the counter chimed as she grabbed it, and as my mouth sucked her in, my hand found its way back to her. I shifted aside the material of her pants in one swift move, before my fingers curled into her without ceremony, three at once.

  She was so wet, I could have used a whole fist.

  Why had nobody ever told me this could feel so good?

  Rachel panted in my ear as I began to move in her, slowly at first, her groans low and insistent, timed with my movement. I moved my mouth from her nipple to her mouth, claiming her totally.

  In response, Rachel pulled me close and put an arm around my shoulder, willing me into her. Her breath was hot against my ear.

  “Oh yes,” she said, as my fingers plunged into her, sending shockwaves of desire tumbling down my body, freefalling for all to see. “Fuck me, Alice. Fuck me like you’ve always wanted to.”

  At that, I grabbed her arse, pulled her close and shrugged off any limits I’d ever put on myself. Today, I was being me, living the way that I wanted to. And all of that involved giving Rachel what she wanted, being there for her, pleasing her, loving her.

  With that thought ringing in my ear, I eased out of her, then back in, out, then back in. I picked up speed, I hit her sweet spot, I rocked, I rolled.

  As I did, Rachel’s head fell back, and I saw redness pooling on her neck and chest as her inside walls began to tighten around my fingers, pulsing hot to my touch.

  She’d never looked so incredibly beautiful, so elegant, so perfect, so mine.

  And that thought swept me up again as I rained kisses down on her neck and ears, until she eventually twisted, turned and shook in my arms, burying her head in my neck and gasping into my ear as she came pressed up against the hob, my fingers deep inside her, just the way I’d imagined.

  I’d got carried away, but I wasn’t sorry — and Rachel didn’t look too worried either, her gaze soft as I led her to my room.

  She smiled when she entered, before stripping off and doing the same to me, before we both toppled onto the king-sized bed, its mass of six plump pillows leaning against a white padded headboard

  We both took a moment to catch our breaths, my fingers trailing down Rachel’s strong, toned arms and over her pale skin, the softness still so new.

  “What’s the matter?” She opened an eye when I moved.

  “Nothing, I’m just marvelling at your body, so be quiet.”

  A light chuckle. “Yes, ma’am,” she replied. “Does it pass inspection?”

  I lay back down next to her, both of us still on top of my white duvet, staring into her crystal blue depths.

  “You’d pass any inspection you went for, you’re a work of art,” I told her, kissing the tips of her fingers. My body ached for her in such a huge way, and yet, I was in no rush.

  In the kitchen, we’d been laser-focused, getting to the heart of the matter in seconds. I wondered how long it would take before we stopped ripping each other’s clothes off the very first chance we got — not that I was complaining.

  But now, after that frenetic pace, I wanted to slow things down, just like we had last week. Because as much as I loved the jive, I also enjoyed to slow dance, too.

  Rachel smiled at me, tracing a finger along my lips, pulling my body to hers before her lips claimed me again.

  I surrendered to her touch.

  “I’m so glad you showed up tonight,” she said, between kisses. “I’d have been miserable waiting till Monday.”

  A heady charge of electricity tumbled through me as Rachel’s fingers roamed my butt, sweeping themselves up and between my legs, making my heart tick faster still.

  “And if you were in any doubt, your playing hard-to-get totally worked,” she added. “You’re all I’ve been able to think about all week.”

  I wrinkled my brow at that, and Rachel immediately smoothed it out with her fingers.

  “Want me to show you how much I missed you?”

  Her tone and her stare penetrated me, and all my thoughts of taking this slower vanished, replaced by a surge between my legs. Whatever she wanted to give me, I was ready to take.

  She took my face in her hands and trailed her tongue along my bottom lip, then along my top. “That’s what I want to do to your pussy right now.”

  My neck tensed, and a shiver of want arrowed down my body.

  I wanted her to do that, too.

  So. Very. Much.

  Rachel plunged her tongue into me again, then used it to tease my nipples, still miles from where I wanted her most. When she’d kissed her way from my eyelids to my navel, then all the way back up, she stared down at me, then rolled onto her back, patting her chest.

  “I wan
t you to sit here,” she said, patting it some more.

  I furrowed my brow. “On your chest?”

  “Uh-huh.” She gazed at me. “Trust me.”

  And I did, implicitly.

  I swung a leg up and over her, and then foundered.

  Rachel grinned, guiding my knees to either side of her neck, before grinning up at me, as reality dawned on me.

  I was kneeling, legs spread, in front of my lover, her mouth right in front of my pussy.

  Rachel wasted no time pressing home her point, and when her tongue slid through my folds, I let out a guttural moan.

  I wasn’t an amateur at sex, or so I’d thought. I might not swing from chandeliers, but I was no prude. However, sleeping with a woman was making me rethink everything I’d ever thought about the rules of the game — and far beyond.

  As Rachel eased my thighs apart and swirled her tongue around me and into me, one thing was for sure: it wasn’t just sex, either.

  Rachel’s tongue inside me didn’t just show she knew what would turn me on and make me shake with lust; her skill also showed such an understanding of who I was and what I wanted. She didn’t need guidance, because she just knew.

  And that was something I hadn’t even considered before: sleeping with a woman was stripping away my layers, it was so raw.

  I was losing my inhibitions fast, grinding to Rachel’s groove, every sensation overwhelming. It was as if my brain just processed one, then another, until it felt like it might short-circuit. But if I was about to blow up, I couldn’t think of a sweeter way to go.

  I threw my head forward, not sure which way to move my pelvis as I felt the slick stroke of her tongue against sensitive skin.

  I didn’t believe in magic, but for a moment, I saw stars.

  And then my orgasm sprang from my very core and rumbled up my body, pouncing on every sense I had, shaking me awake.

  Was I ready to be the new me, to do this for real now?

  As Rachel’s tongue tore down my walls and shredded every nerve ending I ever had, the answer was a resounding yes.