Daydreamer
Chapter 18

Felix

Lucy was running out of the house as I pulled up outside her flat in Putney, and her eyes were smiling. I couldn’t see her mouth due to her huge scarf. She wore a bobble hat pulled down low over her ears with her hair poofing out from under it and that long puffa coat that made her look like she was walking around in a sleeping bag. And yes, her Uggs were on her feet.

“I told you to wait, and I’d come to your door,” I said as she skipped to me. A one-woman homing missile, only stopping when she collided with me, her gloved hands landing on my chest and her excited face smiling up at me. Her nose was pink under her freckles, her eyes bright, and I felt my chest squeeze with the unexpected force of my feelings. She was just that adorable. It was almost scary. My arms closed around her, and I pulled down her scarf to get to her mouth for a brief, hard kiss.

“I missed you,” she breathed when I pulled back slightly, and I started chuckling.

“You only saw me six hours ago,” I teased, and she gave me a grumpy look.

“Didn’t you miss me? Not at all?”

“Nope,” I said, slinging my arm around her and leading her over to the car. “I had work to do. I didn’t think about you for a second,” I lied.

She harumphed as I opened the door for her and crowded her into the passenger seat. I’d decided to take the car myself tonight, determined to stay sober and keep at least some of my self-control around Lucy. I smiled when I got into the driver’s seat and glanced at her. Her arms were crossed across her chest, and she was still frowning. After cranking the heat right up on the console, I leaned over Lucy and grabbed her seatbelt to pull it across her body, clicking it into place but not moving back; instead, my hand slid up her jaw, turning her face to mine and I kissed the corner of her mouth softly.

“Do you want to hear that I couldn’t get anything done today? That I’ve probably fucked up a multi-million-pound deal because all I could think about were these freckles.” I kissed her nose then my voice dropped lower as I started kissing down her neck. “That I couldn’t get the taste of you out of my mouth, couldn’t get those breathy little sounds you make when you come out of my head? That my hands have been itchy all day to feel your soft skin? That I’ve been hard as nails wanting to bend you over my desk and fuck you till you scream.”

“Er… w–well, yes,” she stuttered out as I gave her small earlobe a light graze with my teeth, and she shuddered in her seat. It took all my self-control, but I pulled back and gave her thigh a couple of pats and a brief squeeze through her coat. There was a short pause before she cleared her throat.

“For the record, I’m pro dirty talk,” she said, and I chuckled. “I might have to work up to it myself, but I give you leave to continue along the same dirty talk lines.” A short pause again, then, “And I’m very pro the desk thing. Just so you know.”

I groaned, rock hard again. When I spoke, my voice was just a little strangled. “Right. Feedback received and noted. Now that we’ve established that, let’s go.”

“Well, we don’t have to go now, do we?” Lucy said, glancing up at the house she’d just come out of and then back at me. Her cheeks were pink, and she was biting her lip. “I mean, we could…”

“Lucy,” I said in a firm tone. “I’m taking you on a bloody date. Stop trying to take advantage of me.” I smirked as she sucked in a furious breath.

“I am not taking advantage, Felix Moretti!”

“I can’t blame you really,” I said in a resigned tone. “Not when you’re confronted with all this.” I swept my hand up and down my body to emphasise my point before checking the mirrors to pull away from the curb. Lucy giggled.

“You always were an arrogant sod,” she muttered as we drove down the leafy street.

I gave her a quick smirk. “You love it. Listen, FB. We’ll have plenty of time for horizontal fun. There’s a ton of other stuff we haven’t tried.”

“There is?” She sounded excited now, and I held back another groan, resisting the urge to perform a dangerous U-turn and take her back to her place. I swallowed and gripped the steering wheel harder.

“Lucy, we are going out on a proper date.” It was a promise to myself as much as to her.

“Alright,” she said in that same grumpy tone, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms again.

“How have you managed to afford this flat anyway, Luce?”

“Er… well I got a really good deal.” She cleared her throat, seeming nervous, which I didn’t quite understand. “So, what’s the plan?” Her voice was high-pitched now, but I allowed the abrupt change of subject.

“The food at the pub’s pretty good. None of those tiny little canapés or the fizzy wine you hate so much.” I gave her a side-eye, and she rolled her eyes. “So I thought we’d get there early and eat. The others won’t arrive till nine-ish. Vics never eats out really anyway.”

“Oh right. How did it get so awkward with Ollie? You two were always good mates. You could cut the tension in that meeting with a knife.”

I sighed. “No, I’m still mates with Ollie, but he’s been pissed off since I made Vicky a partner. He’s weirdly protective of her. Vicky’s… well, she’s unique.”

Lucy laughed. “Yes, I’d noticed that.”

“Do you remember her from when we were kids? She was about the same age as you but she wasn’t around very much. Only occasionally in the summer holidays.”

“She came to the cottage a couple of times but she never spoke to me. I thought it was because she was snobbish but Mum said she was a bit… different.”

“Vicky didn’t speak for years when she was a child. Selective mutism. Things weren’t easy for her. Staying with the Hardings in the holidays must have been… difficult with her being her dad’s love child.”

There was a pause before Lucy spoke again.

“Felix, is Vicky autistic?”

“I mean, I think so,” I admitted. “But it’s not something the Hardings ever discuss and she’s never brought it up. To be honest I’m not sure it’s ever been handled the right way. She was bullied very badly at school. That’s one of the reasons Ollie’s so protective of her I think.”

“So why is there friction about her working with you?”

“Ollie’s an arrogant sod. He thinks Vics would be better off working for the Buckingham Estate, but she had other plans. And okay, there were some teething problems to start with. Vicky is very… truthful and… direct. It can put people’s backs up. But since she hired Lottie to be her personal assistant that hasn’t been a problem anymore. Lottie is sort of like her own personal empath – helps Vics read the room, stops her going off on one or insulting people. It works well. Only problem is that Ollie hates Lottie.”

“What? How could anyone hate Lottie?”

I chuckled. “That’s a long story. Not sure we’ve got time for me to spill all the tea on that one.”

“So you think Ollie’s using York to spite you? Because you stole his sister and you’re employing his enemy?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Jesus, Luce. You’ve still got a flare for the drama. Much as I hate to admit it, I think Vicky’s probably right – York manages the relevant investments for the Hyde Park project and he does have legitimate concerns. He was just a bit of prick about them.”

I parallel parked outside the restaurant and when I was in the space, with my arm around the back of Lucy’s seat to look out the back window, she reached up to kiss me.

“That is so sexy,” she breathed against my mouth, and I started laughing.

“What? Parking is sexy?”

“Yes!” she said, her hands going into my hair to pull me down for another kiss. “It’s all that manly sling-the-arm-over-the-passenger-seat-to-look-out-the-back-spin-the-wheel-one-handed sexiness.”

I growled into her mouth and wished I’d agreed to just come into her house instead of going out. Lucy was so open, so honest about her feelings for me and the strength of her attraction. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and I found myself wanting to take her and hide her from the rest of the world, from people that I knew would crush all that trusting honesty.

“You’re easy to please,” I said before kissing her again, one of my hands cupping the back of her neck under her scarf and the other going around her side to pull her to me. I could barely feel Lucy under the bulk of her coat. “How many layers do you have on exactly?” I asked as I pulled back. We couldn’t stay necking like teenagers in the car all evening.

“Eleventy billion,” she said with a smile as I pushed open my car door.

“Stay,” I told her as I levered out of the car and then slammed the door before going round to her side to pull her door open for her.

“Yikes, this is a proper date,” she said as I helped her out of the car. I tucked her into my side once we were on the pavement and led her over to the restaurant. “It’d better not be fancy. You promised I could wear my Uggs.”

As we moved to the pub in front of us I felt her body relax against mine. The King’s Head certainly could not be described as fancy.

She smiled at me as we sat down at the table I’d reserved next to the fire, and then the unwrapping began. First the coat, then the sleeveless puffa underneath, the scarf, the hat, the gloves until she was left in a denim skirt with thick tights which were the same blue as her very fluffy, high-necked jumper.

“Aren’t your legs cold?”

She shook her head and smiled. “Fleece-lined,” she said, lifting her jumper and peeling down the top of her tights to show me the fluffy lining within. It shouldn’t have been sexy. I’d always considered myself much more of a tiny underwear and stockings kind of man, but Lucy’s thermals were weirdly a massive turn-on. I took a seat at the table before I embarrassed myself in public. Despite all the layers, when I looked at Lucy’s hands on the table I could see a couple of her fingers were white. So, I moved from opposite her to sit by her side and took both her hands in mine to warm them.

“I need to get you heated gloves,” I muttered as I tried to get as much warmth into her fingers as possible. Lucy was looking down at our joined hands. When she looked back up at me, she had that dreamy, blissful expression on her face again, like she couldn’t really believe she was here with me, like she was the lucky one. I felt an arrow of guilt at that. There was the niggling worry that her long-term crush on me was clouding her judgement. That I was taking advantage of her. But I pushed it aside, not willing to let anything stand between us.