Free Kiss Me on This Cold December Night by Charlotte Phillips Page A

there was a disorientating jerk as he managed to stop himself falling out of bed at the last moment by slamming a hand and foot out onto the floor.
    Why the fuck was the bed so tiny?
    No sun streaming in through billowing muslin curtains across the glass door that led out to the verandah. Instead the room was shrouded in the semi-darkness of a dawn in winter, in London. It thudded into his sleep-fuzzed brain then in one big tumble and his eyes widened in shock.
    Grounded flight at Gatwick. Bonkers British weather. Lavington Hotel.
    Except when he stayed at the Lavington the room was always one of their best suites and the bed was always a king-size. He turned over as best he could on the foot-wide chunk of single bed that was available, and there she was. His stomach gave a crazy flip at the sight of her.
    She’d been curled up against his back like a child, hogging at least two-thirds of the narrow bed. The sheet was bunched up around her waist, revealing the long slender legs that made his pulse race just by looking at them. The soft swell of her breasts was visible above a twist of sheet that she clutched to her chest and her light brown hair fell softly against her cheek. No wonder the bridge between sleeping and waking had seemed blurred. She really was the stuff of dreams.
    Somewhere in the small hours they’d finally fallen asleep after screwing every ounce of energy out of each other. And for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, he felt alive. He reached out to stroke her cheek, just for some confirmation that she was actually real and not some figment of his imagination. Her skin was cool satin. She shifted slightly in her sleep and he moved off the bed as gently as he could so as not to wake her.
    His mind shifted back to the previous night. Her crazy rules.
Live in the moment, no regrets
.
    The impulsiveness of being with her was intoxicating, a soothing antidote to what had become his suffocating, stifling life. It felt like sweet freedom, and he wanted to savour every second of that, because he knew it couldn’t last.
    He moved away from the bed, and went into the tiny ensuite to check his phone. A voicemail message from his mother in Barbados (‘…
when are you arriving, Darling? Everyone’s been asking after you
…’) The age-old sense of responsibility tugged at him. Under normal circumstances that message would have brought a surge of exasperation at the unexpected delay, anger even that he was letting everyone down.
    He checked the weather app on the phone, all ready to see the tiny snow icon that had dominated the wretched thing the day before. He frowned. No sign of the blanket fog lifting but there was no more snow on the way for now, and that meant the airports would be back in action pretty soon, right?
    The information should have had him jumping for joy. So why the hell was he closing the app down with a sinking sensation of disappointment coursing through him?
    He moved back out of the bathroom and glanced across the room at her, shoving the disappointment aside. This was a fling. It couldn’t be more. She didn’t want it to be more, he couldn’t
give
more. They’d made the situation clear the previous day. They barely knew each other beyond the physical, hardly enough to base even the most short-term future on.
    He could cross the room right now, slide his hands under the sheet, pull her against him and pick up right where they’d left off. That would be all she expected, those were the parameters they’d agreed to.
    Instead, he found himself picking his way quietly around the room, collecting up his clothes and trying not to trip over her insane mass of belongings. She didn’t stir in the semi-darkness, and he didn’t expect her to since it was still too early for winter light to brighten the room, but he let the door snick shut quietly just in case.
    ****
    The cold silver of winter morning gave the room a muted light