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‘I can give you what you want,’ Paige whispered, closing the gap slightly, their lips just touching. ‘But you need to ask.’
Please ask.
Paige was desperate and holding herself back was a delicious agony that she hadn’t anticipated. But it would be nothing compared to the agony of Melanie remaining silent. Her body was practically screaming, and Paige felt her fingertips tingle in response, wanting to stroke every single fluttering pulse point, to travel all over Melanie’s body. She wanted to follow her fingertips with her tongue. She wanted it all.
But Melanie still hadn’t said anything.
It shouldn’t have hurt; they barely knew each other. But the lack of response was crushing Paige’s chest and she felt slayed. Paige dropped her head, their foreheads touching slightly as she took in a deep breath and went to move away. But Melanie’s hand gripped her wrist, keeping it on her neck.
Paige pulled back a little so that she could look at Melanie’s eyes.
‘Kiss me,’ Melanie softly begged.
Their lips met and Paige was revived. Melanie’s lips were so soft under her own, and Paige’s eyes closed as she took in every hot sensation as Melanie pushed the kiss further with her tongue. Paige moved her other hand until she was holding onto Melanie’s face reverently. Melanie’s hands were on Paige’s forearms, holding her in place, both clinging on as the kiss deepened, as they slowly explored each other. Paige was barely even breathing. But she pulled back a little, and very quickly took off Melanie’s glasses, placing them on the table and bringing their lips together once more.
Paige cursed the fact they sat next to each other on the bench; she wanted them to be closer still. She was half tempted to drag Melanie onto her lap but for now at least she was content with each and every kiss hitting a little deeper, burrowing into her body a little further. Paige’s blood rushed to all the interesting parts and her thighs pressed close together.
Melanie let out an exhale like a soft groan, her nails now digging into Paige’s arms.
‘Afternoon, my loves.’
Paige immediately let go of Melanie and shot backwards further down the bench.
‘Gran!’ she said loudly and with a hell of a lot of frustration as she spun around to see Connie at the door, having clearly missed the sound of her travelling up the iron staircase outside.
‘I told you we needed a system in case of any interruptions. I told you I would put a sock on the door. Why didn’t you do that? Hello Melanie, love, you all right? Well, I can see I’ve ruined the mood, so I’ll just put the kettle on, hey?’
Paige stared in disbelief as Connie got to the kitchen and just carried on as if Paige’s whole world hadn’t just been cut apart and soldered back together again. Melanie had quickly put her glasses back on and moved further down the bench too. Her gran was right. The mood was ruined. For now.
Chapter Fifteen
Melanie
Melanie tried to concentrate as Louisa wrapped up their fortnightly staff meeting. Instead of customers their team were sat at the tables, their breakfast detritus not yet cleared away. These meetings took place early before Lulu opened for brunches at 10 a.m. and they alternated who led so Louisa only had to come in early once a month. Melanie was very glad it was Louisa running it today. They’d both been really clear coming into this business that as important as the customers and the reviews were, if they didn’t look after their staff they wouldn’t have the rest. And so their priorities were always to make sure staff knew they were valued. It was why Melanie and Louisa knew each of their staff members by name, knew what their home life was like. Not in great detail but enough to know that Trav would more likely need a shift change last minute as he had childcare needs. Or that Ari’s mum had early onset dementia and might be late in if her mum had had a bad “do”. They were all a team, which is why Melanie felt terrible at not being able to pay attention. She had her iPad in her hands, her business to-do list app open, but she was dipping in and out of focus. Every time she thought she was concentrating, her mind would replay the moment she’d shared a kiss with Paige yesterday.
‘Melanie, have you got anything further to add?’ Louisa asked, breaking into her thoughts.
‘Just keep up the good work everyone, we really appreciate you going the extra mile for our customers.’ Melanie hoped she hadn’t just repeated what Louisa had said.
‘Great, has anyone got any questions or concerns? Any feedback?’
‘Yeah, erm. I’m really sorry to mention it but some of us have noticed a couple of bad reviews . . .’ Melanie was impressed their staff were checking on reviews, and that they’d felt comfortable speaking up. Melanie had worked in many a hospitality setting where that wasn’t the case.
‘Thanks, Tempy,’ Louisa said. ‘Yes, we’ve seen those too. I don’t want anyone to worry. As far as Melanie and I are concerned we’re not convinced they’re genuine, or if they are, they’re very small in number compared to all the raving reviews we get the rest of the time. But thank you for looking. The success of Lulu is down to all of us.’ Louisa’s voice rang with confidence and the staff visibly relaxed in response. ‘And finally, not wanting to put you on the spot, Cleo, but you’re our first manager here, and our newest employee. How are you finding things?’
Cleo smiled briefly. ‘I feel like I’ve always been here.’
‘Great, I hope everyone is making you feel welcome. We’ll be passing rota responsibilities over to you soon. We’ll give it another week or so and then all queries will go to Cleo in the first instance. OK everyone, thanks for coming in those of you not working this morning, and thanks Rick for making the breakfast buffet.’
Everyone disappeared and Melanie realised there was at least two items on her iPad she’d completely forgotten to bring up.
‘Mel, let’s sit down. We have ten minutes before we open,’ Louisa said. ‘Tempy would you mind grabbing us some coffees please?’
Melanie followed Louisa, until they sat at the small table right at the back of the room. Melanie looked around, watching as everything was cleared away and reset ready to open the doors at ten a.m. There was a small smile on her face as she saw how smoothly everyone worked together.
The coffees appeared a moment later, and Louisa sat back, mug in hand, as she blew the top of it, giving Melanie a kind stare that simply said, ‘Spill’.
Melanie didn’t know where to start, her head was a mess. They hadn’t managed to get through any of the art project to-do list because Connie decided she wanted to get involved and had spent their remaining time relaying all her credentials and why she would be a useful commodity. Melanie was grateful for Paige’s help but between the time lost watching Alfie, the time spent with Connie, not to mention the time spent kissing, Melanie could have used that time to actually do some of the tasks, and the number of boxes not yet ticked off was stressing her out. Then there was the kiss.
