Read In Bed With Lord Byron for Free Online

still going out.
    iv) Dinner
    I was three-quarters dressed for dinner when the doorbell rang.
    ‘Bugger!’ One stocking was fully on but the other was a tan pool on the floor. I had put on mascara but no lipstick and my toothbrush was sticking out of my foaming mouth.
    The doorbell rang again. Anthony didn’t anger easily, but waiting on doorsteps made him very peevish.
    ‘Hi.’ He kissed my cheek and waggled the end of my toothbrush. This was a minor disaster: a trickle of white foam ran down my chin and – ah! – was about to hit my little
black dress—
    I caught it in my palm just in time, glaring at him.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said meekly.
    Why is it, I wondered, that these tiny, harmless little things he does make me feel so cross?
    Anthony went off to say hello to Lyra. I retreated to the bathroom, where I rinsed my mouth and applied lipstick. I found myself yawning, still gritty from insomnia, and thought hazily:
Wish
I didn’t have to go out tonight. Wish I could just stay in and have an early night and a long bath and read Emily Brontë and nibble on some chocolates. Maybe we can escape early, but
then Anthony will want sex, won’t he? It’ll probably be gone midnight by the time I can slip between the sheets
. . .
    In the mirror I saw the door opening and Anthony snuck in. I busied myself with lipliner while he started fiddling about with the bottles on the shelf. Both his flat and mine had sets of his
’n’ hers bathroom paraphernalia. But while Anthony’s shelves were made of sparkling, pristine glass, his bottles lined up neatly on the left, my Body Shop concoctions on the
right, my bathroom shelf was complete chaos. Bottles oozed shampoo; lipstick-stained tissues trailed like kites through clouds of used cotton wool. Anthony, as usual, had started cleaning up.
Irritation prickled my stomach. We’d had numerous rows about tidiness; we’d both fought hard to preserve our habits, and after a lot of negotiation I had agreed to try to be good when I
stayed at his place. But this was
my
place, and I wanted it to be messy. Messy was my middle name; messy was
me
.
    I tried to stamp my irritation down. I didn’t want to row just before dinner and ruin the whole night.
    Then, as he wiped a sticky blue trail from a shampoo bottle, I noticed his hands were shaking slightly. I frowned and flicked him another sidelong glance, my antennae prickling. There was
definitely something a bit shifty about him, something on his mind that he was keeping secret.
    ‘So where are we going tonight?’
    ‘Oh, just The House.’
    The House was
the
new restaurant in town. All the celebs were being snapped there. The waiting list was meant to be something like five years and meals cost something like a million
pounds.
    ‘Wow,’ I said breathlessly. ‘I mean – that’s amazing. Thanks.’
    ‘That’s OK.’ He laughed thinly.
    Suddenly my previous irritation felt mean and petty. After all, he was only trying to help clean up. That was Anthony – always so considerate.
    ‘Are you all right, honey?’ I asked, touching his cheek.
    ‘Sure, why wouldn’t I be?’ He came up behind me and gently kissed the back of my neck. I waited for the icicle-down-the-spine shiver, but all I could feel was . . . actually, I
felt as though soggy ice cream was being trickled down my spine. I shuddered and closed my eyes, fiercely telling myself to find a better metaphor. I was bandying about hopeless images involving
snowballs and feathers when fortunately he moved on from my neck, turning me round and kissing me on the lips. His hand slid up my skirt.
    ‘I’ve only just got dressed,’ I whispered.
    ‘Well I’ll help you put it all back on again afterwards,’ he whispered back.
    We carried on kissing. I closed my eyes again. I knew that at this stage my hands should be sliding towards his trouser belt, but I kept them on his back. I was searching for a flicker in my
stomach, holding out my desire like kindling, desperately