The Polly Principle by Davina Stone

Chapter 21

“It’s my birthday in two weeks,” Carts said as he bounded into the kitchen, pulling off his tie and throwing it on the bench top. Solo was cooking himself a quick omelette before heading off for the last of the Wednesday night PTSD groups.

“I’ve decided to have a party, on the Saturday night.” Carts’ grin was that of a man who had experienced a Eureka moment on the way home from work.

“Is that a warning to make myself scarce?” Solo asked, tipping the omelette onto a plate. Carts’ face took on an expression of hurt. “No, mate, it’s an invite.”

Solo smothered a smile. “Dinner party?”

“Nah, cooking’s not my thing. Drinks, nibbles.” Carts’ features took on a slight flush. “Just, um, thought it’s time to give my social life a bit of a kick-start.”

He put his case down by the door and shucked his long arms out of his jacket. “You’re seeing Polly tonight, aren’t you, at that group thing you run?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Can you ask her?”

Solo stiffened. They’d been back in odd work mode since the weekend. Frankly, it was getting to him. “We’re not dating, you know.” Then he kicked himself for even saying it.

Carts’ brown eyes widened in surprise. “Never said you were.”

Solo sat down and shovelled omelette into his mouth. “Sure, I’ll tell her,” he said, and quickly changed the subject.

As he left the kitchen a short while later, Carts said airily, “Back to the party issue. It’s just I’ve asked Judith and er, you know, don’t want to look too keen, so if you and Poll are there too, as my friends, no wires crossed, get my meaning.”

“Right, got it,” Solo said, and zoomed out the door like all the bats of hell were in hot pursuit.

When he arrived at the community centre half an hour later, most of the participants were there and Polly was arranging Tim Tams on a plate in the kitchen. She gave him her “we are only professionals working together do not forget that” smile.

He flashed his teeth back at her. This was their last group together. Ben would be back next week, and since they’d called a truce, it was like they both had to work extra-hard at being colleagues to be sure that nobody would guess they were anything but. The result was this awkward spiky energy between them.

He sighed.

“Tim Tams again?”

She shrugged. “You can’t go wrong with Tim Tams, can you?”

“Any no-shows?”

“No, I think since you came on the scene full attendance has been pretty much a given. You’re popular, Dr J.”

“Thanks. By the way, before I forget”—he cast a furtive glance into the room but the participants were laughing and talking among themselves—“Carts is planning a party Saturday week. For his birthday. He’s invited you, and me. Not as a couple or anything. And Judith, of course. Guest of honour, I think.”

Polly rolled her eyes. “God, he does not let up, that guy.”

“Are you playing romance police?” It was hard to keep his irritation from surfacing.

Polly crushed the Tim Tam wrapper, opened the pedal bin with her foot and shoved it in. “It’s just that I’ll have to pick up the pieces when it goes pear-shaped.”

He swallowed the irritation bubble. “They’re grown-ups, I’m sure they’ll work it out. Here, do you want me to take some cups out?”

“Sure.”

He put the cups and teabags on the tray and took the plate from her, carefully avoiding their fingers touching. They hadn’t touched since Sunday morning when she’d tapped his arm before he rode off on his motorbike.

He ached for her.

With a sudden surge of courage, he moved along the bench until their bodies nearly touched and she seemed to move into him a little. Their elbows nudged, and a little bit of electric magic travelled up his arm, into his scalp. Her perfume made his head spin, like a man deprived of oxygen.

“So, will you come?”

“Mmmm?”

“To Carts’ party?”

“I guess to keep Jude from being gobbled up alive—” He sensed her smiling next to him.

“I’d like it if you did.”

“Does Carts suspect anything? You know, after I rescued him from the stair incident?”

It stung that she still seemed worried. “Nope. He still thinks he dreamed you.”

Now she gave a low, soft laugh. “Okay then, I’ll come.”

Suddenly he was ridiculously chuffed, like he’d achieved something way more than a party invite acceptance. As they exited the kitchen a few heads turned and, as if she remembered she wasn’t supposed to be walking quite so close, Polly veered towards the table at the front of the room with her usually chirpy, “How’s everyone’s week been?”, leaving Solo to arrange the tea stuff on the trestle table.

He sensed a figure sidle up next to him. “Put the Tim Tams away, doc.”

Solo laughed. “Sounds like an order.”

He looked around to see Grant holding a cake box.

“Got something much better here,” Grant said with a grin.

Solo realised the other participants were crowding around. “Open it, doc.” Grant motioned with his head.

Feeling self-conscious, Solo took the box and flicked up the lid.

Chocolate cake met his gaze, covered in thick buttercream icing and the words “Solo, you rock doc” scrawled in confectioners’ icing.

A lump formed at the back of Solo’s throat and his eyes smarted. A grin threatened to hijack his face. He gazed around the assembled group of ten. Everyone was here tonight and that made his heart swell.

“Aww, thanks, guys,” he said, blushing. “I’m really touched.”

“We don’t want you to go, doc.”

“I don’t want to either, but endings, like beginning, are just part of life. You’ve been a great bunch; thanks for opening up and sharing your triumphs and struggles so honestly. I’ve felt honoured to share a little part of the journey to recovery with all of you these past four weeks. Keep up the great work and thanks, I’m—I’m – er—gobsmacked, to be honest.”

As his gaze swept the smiling faces, he caught Polly’s eyes glowing emerald, a smile curving her lips that spoke more than words, and he inhaled sharply. That look wasn’t indifference, it was warm and intense. Like being immersed in a bath full of rose petals.

Crazy.

He composed himself in case the whole PTSD group saw him shooting Polly the look of love in return and said, “The sooner we get started, the sooner we get to have a slice of this amazing cake. Guess it makes up for torturing your tastebuds with my cake that first night. And thanks again, you guys. If I may say so, I think you all rock.”

At the end of the group, as Grant came and shook hands with him, Solo looked into his eyes and saw how the haunted look had eased. There was a new vitality in the gaze that returned his.

“I want to thank you personally, doc. I got in to see my psychiatrist last week and he’s changed my meds. Already I reckon there’s not so many flashbacks.”

“That’s good to hear, Grant.”

“I reckon I can speak for all of us when I say we’ll miss you, Doc Solo.”

Something twanged inside Solo’s chest like someone had snapped a glow stick next to his heart. He put a hand up and pinched the bridge of his nose, shook his head to hide just how touched he was, just how much this meant. That in some small way it made up for the fuck-up with Drew. Even though he knewhe’d done everything right by saving his friend’s life that day, part of him couldn’t let go of wondering if he could have done it better, saved Drew the humiliation of being carted off in an ambulance with flashing cameras in his face.

But these past four weeks, with this bunch of brave people, he felt like he might just have put some of that to rights.

After everyone had left, Polly and Solo stacked the chairs and cleaned up the tiny kitchenette. They locked up the centre and strolled towards their respective vehicles.

Arriving at Polly’s car first, they stopped and faced each other. Polly slung her bag on the bonnet and Solo leaned a lazy elbow on the side of her car, which kind of stopped her from opening it. A ploy, admittedly, but he didn’t want her to go home and he sensed she didn’t either.

“Fancy a drink and a de-brief?” He hitched an eyebrow, and she laughed.

“That is exactly the eyebrow waggle you gave me the first time we met.”

“Not surprising, you were muttering to yourself like a crazy old woman.”

“I’d just monumentally humiliated myself.”

“I never did find out why you called yourself an idiot. What had you done, thrown your drink over someone? Hurled insults at the bride?”

She grinned sheepishly. “No, just said something embarrassing out loud without realising it.”

“Fancy telling me what?”

“No.”

Now it was his turn to grin. “So, then you went on to insult a poor defenceless guy who’d just arrived from over east.”

“Defenceless my butt, you were fully in control of the situation and you knew it.”

He liked that she was complimenting him in this way. In his head he rarely felt like that super-cool biker guy she’d taken him for. He cared too much about people to ever be Mr Macho. And he was okay with that—except when he seriously had to impress a beautiful woman.

“Seems like it worked,” he said.

She shook her head, still smirking, and he watched the light of the streetlamp on her hair almost turning it into baby serpents. It made him think of the one on her thigh. Medusa. “Could it work again tonight, maybe?” He resisted the urge to touch a curl, wind it round his finger.

Her eyes met his, dark as a forest and sultry, and he wondered where they were in the game—was it her turn to back off next? Make him advance? Playing emotional chess.

She looked down at her feet and he realised her toe in her pretty pumps had advanced and was touching his foot. He’d never realised before what a turn-on a foot nudge could be. Heat rushed up his leg, swirled into his groin.

God, he wanted to fuck Polly tonight. Go deep inside her, lose himself, forget there was a world outside of him and her, wrap her up in his arms afterwards and hold her close until morning.

“Why don’t we go back to my place?” she said. “I’ve got lemons and gin and probably a bottle of tonic. Unless you need to eat first?”

“I’ve eaten enough chocolate cake to sink a ship and I made myself an omelette earlier.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know—it’s kind of cute, or a bit sad—you in Carts’ kitchen making an itsy-bitsy omelette for one.”

“I’ll have you know I make very good omelettes. And if you’re worried I need company, I could always make a two-person omelette for breakfast.”

“Now that’s a thought…” Her lips parted to show a tantalising glimpse of tongue. He wanted to kiss her. Take her against the car bonnet. Do all manner of things that were illegal in public. Libido brain bypassing all those logical synapses, knocking them out like skittles in a bowling alley.

“You know how to get to my place from here, don’t you?” she asked.

He gulped hard, because his throat was dry as sandpaper, nodded, touched her fingers lightly and felt hers coil around his for the briefest second. If she’d wrapped her hand around his cock it couldn’t have made every cell in his body jump higher. Pure elation hit like a drug.

“Sure do. See you in ten.” And with that, Solo turned and strode off towards his bike, his groin pummelling his brain into a delightful hot mess of anticipation.

* * *

When Polly got homeshe whizzed into her bedroom, threw the pile of clothes on the bed into a cupboard and slammed the door. Turned on the bedside lamps. Smoothed the bed covers—though why, when they were about to ruck them all up again, was anybody’s guess.

Her body was a thrumming, throbbing, delightful group of cells all bumping against each other with excitement.

In all honesty, since the weekend, she’d been kicking herself for not sneaking into Gran’s bed and wrapping her arms and legs around Solo like a sex octopus. On Sunday she had stayed all day with Dad and Mim after Solo had left early. She’d let Dad show her round the farm, made lunch with Mim, and when she’d got home it was late. Solo had left her a text asking how it went and saying he’d enjoyed it, and she’d messaged back saying all fine. Frankly, her feelings were confusing the hell out of her. The lust she could handle, but not the like that was threatening to tip way too far into something else. Something more intimate and too beautiful.

She ran into the bathroom, rubbed toothpaste round her teeth, fluffed out her curls and bit her lips to bring colour to them, and when she heard the familiar deep roar of his motorbike, her heart rapped against her ribs.

She undid two buttons of her blouse. It would make access just that bit easier.

Then he was at the door and she gave him the kind of awkward polite welcome she’d give a vacuum cleaner salesman. She’d never felt so coy around a guy.

“So, about that drink.” She obviously wasn’t going to drag him straight into the bedroom. That would be kind of crass, even for her.

He strode into the kitchen and laid his helmet down on the table. “Yeah, about that drink.”

She grabbed ice out of the freezer, trying not to notice just how nice his crotch looked in his tight jeans, and the way his thighs ran into his calves and into his bike boots. He took off his jacket and his biceps flexed invitingly. She turned to the glasses with an internal whimper, and threw together ice, gin and mixer haphazardly.

“Cheers.” She tried to look nonchalant, hips against the kitchen bench, and they both took a few sips. Lowering the glass, her eyes locked with his as he stood by the table. His Adam’s apple bobbed as if swallowing was an effort, the silver of his eyes deepening to storm-grey.

In two strides he was at her side. Gently he prised the glass from her fingers and put it on the bench. Next, he took her hands and slowly, deliberately, tucked them one at a time around his waist. As if hypnotised, she moved into his embrace.

The hard pouch in his jeans pressed into her belly. The fact that he was already so turned on by her made her suddenly wild.

With a moan Polly climbed his body like a kitten scaling a tree.

Solo grabbed her butt, anchoring her close as they kissed like crazy things. And, ah, how she’d forgotten in a week how badly she needed his kisses. They were like the elixir of life itself, she decided, as his tongue forged into her mouth.

Teasing him a little, she ran her tongue along the seam of his lips until he growled and bit then licked her lower lip.

“Bedroom?” she finally husked against his mouth.

“Or we could do it right here.” He’d turned so macho, and it was such a turn-on.

She rifled her hands through his hair, slithered down his body. “Why not.”

He gave a lascivious grin and, as if to torture her, slowed the pace, undoing the buttons of her shirt one at a time. They both gazed down at the creamy flesh begging to escape the confines of her bra. He pushed down the cups and she sighed as his fingers grazed over her nipples, before dark spiky hair was all she could see and all she could feel was his lips teasing her nipple into a hard little nub of delight. He gave the other the same lavish attention. Her back arched as he sucked, then, unable to bear it any longer, she pushed him off, ripped off her neat little work shirt, and then made light work of his.

Running her hands along the ridges and planes of his chest, she gasped, “I just want you inside me. Now.”

“What happened to foreplay?” he murmured, tiptoeing his lips down her neck, hungry fingers ruching up her skirt until she shoved a thigh between his and rode him like a rodeo queen. That worked. He groaned, his erection grinding into her belly.

“Like this—” She turned around, not caring that her skirt was still bunched around her waist, and wriggled her butt cheeks up at him as she splayed her hands on the benchtop. “I want you like this—”

“Oh fuck, you are magnificent.” Behind her she could hear the awe in his voice and she heard the zipper of his pants before he was back, pushing down her panties, his fingers stroking between her wet folds. She gasped as he found her clit.

“Oh yes… more…” Tight knuckles clasped the edge of the bench as he stroked her with expert precision.

Then two fingers dipped inside her and she bucked, heat building at her core, while his other hand anchored her hips.

“Oh, god—I—like, now!” She groped for her bag—luckily she’d thrown it on the benchtop nearby—and pulled out the condom pack. Twisting her head, she glanced up at him.

Desire filled out his lips, his nostrils flared, his eyes almost other-worldly. Her internal muscles clenched, knowing he was the most beautiful man to ever take her like this, rough and wild and untamed. Her hips spread wider and his strokes grew faster. It was almost unbearable, as the heat swirled and gained momentum, she was teetering so close to the edge.

She needed him inside her. “Stop torturing me.”

“I won’t be able to hold out for long.”

“You won’t have to.”

His hand moved away to grab the condoms on the bench and the loss of his touch made her bite her lip in frustration. She heard the rip of foil. The wait was unbearable. She angled her hips higher. When the head of his cock nudged her entrance, she let out a low moan.

Anchoring her hips with his hands, slowly at first, he thrust. With a happy groan she felt his hand resume its task, the pressure of his fingers just right, like somehow he just knew what she needed without words. Was this what being perfectly in tune with someone was all about? It had taken months to train Jake to get it right, but Solo took her to the edge so fast; a few magic strokes and it was like a tornado had taken over her body.

Polly’s knuckles tightened on the bench, his body following where her rhythm led. Everything dipped and dived and her vision behind her closed eyes went red, then purple. They were fucking like wild animals next to the kitchen sink and it was the most amazing thing in the world. There was no-one to see or hear them, and ooooohh fuck, yessss, just there—that last perfect thrust and she was flying, right up there in the stratosphere of super orgasms. The kind that blew your head right off your body and sent your pussy into a dance of cosmic joy.

With her internal muscles bunching around him, sucking him deep, that did it.

“You’re going to make me come so hard.” His gritty, harsh words set her on fire, made her wring every last drop of pleasure out of him, until finally Solo’s sweat-sheened body collapsed onto her.

Polly couldn’t move, limp as a rag, Solo’s belly against her butt cheeks, his chest heavy on her back, his lips feathering kisses on the back of her neck.

“Mmm, you smell delicious,” he murmured in her ear before he pulled out reluctantly and disposed of the condom.

Some time later, now fully undressed, they’d managed to make it to her bed and lay facing each other, their joined hands sandwiched between them just like they’d been on the dance floor swaying to Chris Isaac; only now, of course, they were horizontal, not vertical.

It was all she could do to not let stupid, crazy, dumb words spill out of her mouth.

Words that had one wicked four-letter word squeezed in the middle. A word that hadn’t been in her vocabulary since she was sixteen and naïve enough to believe it actually meant something

She bit down on it like a shark swallowing a school of unruly little fish.

And then he kissed her nose.