Working With Heat. Anne Calhoun

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СКАЧАТЬ did you learn so much about ‘80s music?”

      “It’s the music my dad listened to, and I could count on VH1 or MTV in English wherever we were living. I watched Behind the Music, Where Are They Now, that kind of thing.” Something clicked into place inside her. With a sweeping gesture she took in Spitalfields. “The song. It’s about London’s East End.”

      “Yeah,” Charlie said. “You didn’t know that?”

      “The lyrics didn’t mean anything until now. So my date was doomed before it began. He’s a West End boy and I’m an East End girl,” she said with a laugh.

      Charlie’s lips twisted into a smile. “You’re not really an East End girl.”

      “I live in the East End,” she protested.

      “I live in the East End,” he replied. “You use it as a base for all your travels. You must be getting itchy feet. Where’s the next trip?”

      “The Orient Express,” she said. It was a total turnaround for her. Rather than hopscotching through Europe on discount airfare, she would travel by train through to Istanbul. It was romantic, large scale, with a rich history to mine, and maybe the kind of thing that could catch an editor’s attention. A millennial’s perspective on a decidedly twentieth-century method of travel, through lands reshaped by war to a city with a history dating back nearly ten thousand years. The idea was either brilliant or complete pants. She wasn’t sure which.

      “The Orient Express still runs?”

      “Not as a single trip, but you can cobble together the same itinerary. I’ve almost saved up the money. Another couple of weeks and I’m off again.”

      “Sounds cool,” he said.

      His hip brushed hers with each step, the shift and flex of muscles and bones heating her from the inside out. “We haven’t seen much of you lately. The pub quiz, mostly. What’s going on?” she asked lightly.

      He cocked an eyebrow at her, but his attention was focused mostly on her thumb, gently tracing the old burns on his forearms revealed by his rolled-back sleeves. “I’ve been busy.”

      “A creative rush?” she asked, pushing a bit, curious to know how much he’d reveal, trying to piece together what she’d picked up from Elsa and Kaitlin, who had lived in the ground-floor flat longer than she had. Charlie was a glass artist who sold pieces in galleries around the world, he was from the East End and...he’d been married before.

      “You could say that,” he said as he unlocked the front door of the house he owned in Princelet Street. Milla bumped her bike up the steps and into the foyer, tiled in the original black-and-white octagonal tiles. The house reminded her of Charlie, a run-down Georgian on the outside, but the interior was an intriguing blend of old architectural details and new appliances and lighting.

      He hoisted her bike into the rack he’d installed when he realized all three girls walked or biked to save money and were afraid of having their bikes vandalized if they were locked up outside. Thoughtful, Milla added to the list in her mind.

      “Sounds like your readers aren’t doing a better job of picking your dates than the dating websites,” he said with a grunt.

      “Thanks,” Milla said. “All relationships fail until one doesn’t. I’m not going to close myself off just because someone calls me a name or a crashing bore backs me into a corner at a bar and natters on endlessly about the derivatives market or circuitry.”

      “Or glass.”

      “You’ve never backed me into a corner and yammered on endlessly about your art. I have to practically pry details out of you.”

      He paused in the entryway and let the door to the street close behind them. To the left was the door that opened into the flat she shared with Elsa and Kaitlin. In front of them were the stairs that led to the second and third floors, where he lived. Her heart started to pound in her chest, slow, deep thuds that pushed her blood through her veins in thick, heated pulses. He leaned against the wall opposite her, looking for all the world like a good male friend making sure his good female friend was safely in her flat before he went on his way. But with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shirt open at his throat, he was right out of her dreams. The summer sun gilded his hair, picked out glints of gold in his scruffy beard, highlighted his pulse at the base of his throat. He looked at her, his blue eyes dark and intense under his eyebrows, making him look just a bit dangerous.

      The wary look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. He felt the connection, too, but wouldn’t take the first step. So she crossed the foyer and kissed him.

      The sharp edge of his scruff scratched deliciously at her lips as she brushed them back and forth across his mouth, tempting him to open them. When he did, she touched the tip of her tongue to his, tasting the Guinness he preferred. When she withdrew, his tongue traced the edges of her teeth, then her lower lip. She licked the spot, then bit it, watching his eyes drop to her mouth as she did.

      She closed the last couple of inches between them, and exhaled softly when her body pressed against his from her knees to her breasts. Everything that was soft about her—breasts, stomach, thighs—pressed against everything that was hard about him. Chest. Abdomen. His cock, thickening against her lower belly.

      His hand cupped her jaw, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones, then he bent his head and kissed her, using lips and teeth and tongue to capture her mouth. Charlie had learned patience handling sand heated until it became liquid, pliable. He’d learned how to seduce a woman by working with heat. He didn’t rush. He drew it out, nipping at her lips, tilting his head to kiss the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, before returning to her mouth and using his lips to open it farther, his tongue advancing in slow stages, until she stepped closer, giving most of her weight to his body, weaving her thigh between his. She put her hands on his hips and tucked her index and middle fingers through his belt loops, pulling him closer, letting herself get absorbed in the texture of his beard against her lips and tongue. He turned, seeking out her ear, nipping at the lobe.

      She bent her head to rest on his shoulder, felt the heat of his skin through the fine cotton of his shirt, smelled the scent of him, so elemental. Soap, skin, the heat he absorbed all day. He’d been her friend for months, but now there was the possibility of something more. “Invite me up.”

      His fingers trailed through her hair to her jaw. He brushed his thumb across her lips and said, “Are you sure?”

      There were a dozen good reasons not to do this, not to sleep with her friend. Ruining the friendship. Making things awkward between all five of them. But the look in Charlie’s eyes was one really good reason to do this, and Milla had never been one to act out of fear. She’d take a chance on the chemistry, knowing she’d put their friendship at stake.

      “I’m sure,” she said, and kissed him again.

Chapter Two

      In the split second after Milla whispered, “Invite me up,” Charlie thought through all the reasons why this was a really bad idea. By the time he was Milla’s age, his ex-wife had burned him to a husk, both personally and professionally. He’d changed everything for her, moved out of the East End, polished up his accent, ignored the way glass called to him as an artist because he’d believed her dreams for them were better than his.

      Then СКАЧАТЬ