Free By CLARE LONDON by NOVELS Page A

was something scratching against the back of my thigh that was either a horny dog or an oversized toilet brush, and I wasn’t sure of the best escape route. Did we need some sort of security code to get out of here, or would I end up trapped with my postcoital aches and pains until someone came to restock the ladies’ toilets?
    But a crack of light suddenly speared across the floor, and I saw that Seve had opened the door back out to the club. The noise level increased from downstairs—I heard someone shriek with laughter and the swell of sing-along to a Kylie hit. I could see Seve’s silhouette against the hallway light; then he turned back to look at me. He’d run a hand through his hair and it stood up spikily, despite its short length. But his shirt was rebuttoned carefully, and the jeans looked like they’d been molded to his body at birth.
    I suspected I looked like I’d been dragged through the proverbial hedge and then back again, just for the hell of it. He was staring at me, so I guessed that must be it. Game over. I knew my cue when I heard it. Licking my lips, I said, “So. Um. I’ll be….”
    “Going?” I thought I heard a sharp edge to his voice.
    “Guess so.” What was I meant to do? Thank him for the hospitality? For the fuck? Some weird X-rated spin on “Thank you for having me”? I straightened up, determined to regain some kind of dignity. It was bloody difficult, is all I can say. My legs felt like jelly and my heart was only just settling back to a steady rhythm. I stared back at Seve, his body still half in darkness, preventing me from seeing everything his expression might tell. I stared at his strong profile, his perfectly controlled limbs. At the glimmer of saliva on his lips, the shape of the lush, plump lips that matched the mark of teeth on my shoulder….
    Yeah. Bloody difficult.
    It was a long—and itchy—walk home.

Chapter Eight
    THE following Saturday, the flat was turned into a kind of actors’ commune as a whole group of Louis’s drama friends came around to help him learn his lines. He’d landed a return scene in his TV soap—“unprecedented feedback for your interesting interpretation of a minor character,” his agent, Grace, had told him, though none of us had any clue as to how far her tongue was in her cheek at the time—and the excitement was racked up high.
    I knew most of Jack and Louis’s friends by now, but I couldn’t help feeling awkward when they came around en masse. Especially when I got elbowed out of the living room for the third time, squeezed between Harry—a very tall, booming-voiced Goth who quoted Shakespeare mixed in with swearing that would embarrass a navvy—and the Vs, a trio of petite girlfriends who were of completely different ethnicities but all wore the exact same pink tutu outfit over their matching skinny jeans. I never found out whether they actually all had names beginning with V or whether it just made it easier for everyone to remember them. When I tried to reach the kitchen but found Bob and Bryan—an inseparable pair, with Bob the most outrageous snoop and Bryan with the hugest appetite I’d ever known—arguing in the hallway about which bey-otch should have won what at the BAFTAs, I surrendered the battlefield to them all with a rueful smile and decided to hide out in my room.
    I paused at the foot of the stairs. Louis’s laughter rang out from the living room. Someone had taped the episode of the soap he’d been in, and I heard the series theme music start up on the TV. Looked like they were settling in for a fan review session.
    “Max.” Jack touched my shoulder, and I turned. He was flushed, clutching a chilled six-pack of beer and three family-sized bags of snacks to his chest, obviously on his way from the kitchen back into the fray. “Come on in with us.”
    In the background, the girls shrieked in a trio of octaves when Louis obviously came on screen. Someone laughed and belched and someone slapped them—at