Love Letters by Katie Fforde Page B

her breasts and kiss her chest. Now his hand moved over her body, featherlight caresses, tantalising in their tenderness. He had just discovered that the backs of her knees were particularly sensitive when he said, ‘Excuse me. I’ll be back in a minute.’
    She sighed ecstatically and passed out.
    She awoke to find him snoring beside her. She felt terrible: thirsty and a head that felt as if it was about to split. Panic filled her. What had she done? How on earth had she ended up naked in bed with a naked man? She flew out of bed and hunted for her clothes. She was dizzy and couldn’t tell if she was still drunk or if the dizziness was part of the hangover.
    She found her knickers and socks in separate parts of the corner of the room. Waves of panic came over as she tried to navigate her limbs into them. What had she done?
    Terrified Dermot would wake up she tried to assemble what she could remember of the night before as she pulled on her trousers and top. Dermot’s event was clear in her mind. Then she remembered dragging Monica to the pub and some of what had gone on there was clear, but how in merry hell had she ended up in Dermot Flynn’s bedroom, naked, with him in the bed next to her?
    Terrible flashbacks came to her as she pulled on her coat – some dim recollection of him saying he’d come to the festival if she went to bed with him. Had she really said yes? Surely not! However much she admired and fancied him, surely she wouldn’t have agreed to sleep with him? Would she? It would make her little better than a prostitute! She didn’t dare look at the sleeping form in the bed. If she couldn’t see him perhaps he didn’t really exist: it was all a figment of her over-active imagination. But she knew he was very real. Oh, why had she drunk so much? Her mother was right about the demon drink. This thought brought a fleeting smile to her lips until the reality of the situation came flooding back. She had to remember what happened last night.
    She did remember fancying him. She remembered him taking her clothes off, and her liking it very much. As she did up her trousers she wondered if she’d ever feel the same about that particular pair again.
    She looked at her watch but it was too dark to see the time. She’d have to get back to the bed and breakfast and hope she could wake Monica to let her in. Thank goodness it was a bungalow and their bedroom window was round the back. If she was attacked and dragged into the bushes by a passing rapist on her way there, she had only herself to blame.
    The Patron Saint of Stupid Women guided her back down the road and along the lane to where the bed and breakfast was. Laura had a terrible sense of direction and knew it was only the intervention of this divine being that got her there. By now her head was clearing a little; she studied the outside of the building and worked out where their room was. She tiptoed round and knocked on the window.
    Fortunately Monica was a light sleeper. A tousled head appeared behind the curtains. ‘Laura! What the hell are you doing here?’
    ‘Oh, just let me in, Monica, please!’
    ‘OK. Go to the front door and I’ll see what I can do.
    ‘You’re bloody lucky they don’t go in for burglar alarms round here,’ whispered Monica a few minutes later.
    ‘I feel like a burglar. Worse.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘I don’t know. Nothing. I don’t think. Can we talk about it in the morning?’
    ‘Fair enough. Get into my bed, it’s warm and you’re shivering like a jelly. I demand a blow-by-blow account in the morning though.’
    Laura just wanted to get into bed and search for oblivion but Monica was firm. ‘Here,’ she said, holding a glass. ‘It’s got something in it to restore your salts. You’ll feel less awful in the morning if you drink it.’
    Laura drank it but as more and more memory came back to her in Technicolor detail she felt that it wasn’t going to be a hangover that made her feel as if death was an