Read Love Is a Four Letter Word for Free Online

gorgeous?’
    â€˜Only Southampton. Better give me a roll for the road though, eh?’
    â€˜Give you a roll anytime, Jim.’
    â€˜Now, now, lady present. Take no notice,’ he said, turning to Bella. He had on a white T-shirt underneath his soft cotton checked shirt, the way American men often wear them. She could see the tendons flex in his tanned neck. He pushed back his sleeve to the elbow, absently rubbing at the dark hairs on his forearm.
    â€˜All right?’ He nodded, smiling.
    Bella looked down, suddenly aware that her gaze had lingered on him too long. Her eyes dropped to his hands. The nails were cut close, the fingers full of easy strength.
    â€˜Fine, thanks.’
    â€˜You sure now? Need a ride or anything? You look a bit lost.’
    â€˜No. Really.’ Bella snapped him a poised but distant smile. ‘I have my car.’ She folded her arms in front of her, then felt silly to be so pointedly defensive. ‘Thank you.’
    â€˜No bother.’ He stepped back a pace, then smiled and raised his hand – Sorry. I’ll keep my distance – before turning again to the waitress at the till.
    The bacon was thick and salty, between chunky slices of hot buttered toast. Bella tore into her sandwich and slurped her tea in an I’m-all-right-Jack, independent sort of way. Lady, indeed.
    Standing at the counter waiting to pay, she saw that they had those solid slabs of bread pudding, the indigestible sort that her dad liked so much, a world away from the vanilla- and cinnamon-spiced faultless desserts her mother made. She ordered two slabs.
    â€˜I’ll just take for those then, love. Jim paid for your tea and sandwich.’ Bella looked at the woman blankly.
    â€˜Said he hated to see a damsel in distress. I think he took a fancy to you,’ she sighed. ‘Lucky you. I wouldn’t mind a ride with him myself.’ She laughed and Bella smiled, bawdy conspirators.
    For the rest of the journey, she found thoughts of her knight-in-checked-shirt returning insistently. She imagined saying yes, she did need a ride, then climbing high up into the lorry cab.
    He would stand below, watching as her skirt rode up, revealing the backs of her thighs as she clambered in. Sitting next to him in the lorry, high, high above the road, with the night close in around them, she’d turn to absorb his profile silhouetted against the star-pricked sky, breathe in the smell of male skin, fresh sweat, cotton.
    Here, in the warm bubble of the cab, the vibration of the engine thrumming through the soles of her feet, she feels safe. No need to talk, to spoil the heavy hum with the thin clatter of words. There is just him and her and the road ahead. The thickness of his body next to her seems like some rock or standing stone, solid and unyielding. She wants to feel his hands, his fingers warm on the back of her neck, the shock of his rough chin against her cheek. To be held in silence.
    Then, she reaches out and her fingers trace a path over the faded denim of his jeans, feeling the cloth stretched taut across his leg. He turns to face her, to see her eyes, her assent. Puts on his hazard lights, pulls over onto the hard shoulder.
    Now he leads her round to the back, stretching for her hand in the orange flick-flick of the lights. He lifts her up effortlessly into the back of the lorry, his hands firm and confident around her waist. She steps back and leans against a stack of boxes, waiting. His shape in the darkness moving towards her. A hand on her hair. His mouth. Hands. Hitching up her skirt. The smell of anticipation. A sharp intake of breath at his touch, warm against the cool skin of her thigh. His voice, murmuring low in her hair, her neck. His hands. His—
    A car flashed her, coming the other way. She was frozen in the glare for a moment, then realized and dipped her headlights. You sad spinster, you, she told herself, fantasizing about lorry drivers. What next? Dreams about