‘No joke, Aleš, but I do actually feel quite horny…’

*

It had gone midnight, but Ronnie couldn’t sleep, the solid wall of warmth alongside so rare that a part of her wanted to savour every moment, to wear its comfort through the night. The paradoxical part always found it disquieting to share her bed, this invasion of heat and shape and noise.

Blair’s breathing was deep and hoarse, like a tide on shingle, but he didn’t snore. Rare in a man over fifty she’d found, as was his body: lean, strong and demanding, even in sleep where he took up much of the mattress, an arm thrown out across her, leg bent, knee against her thighs. Her own body, folded neatly around his sharp edges, felt soporific as it always did after sex, still restfully aroused, affection amplified so that she wanted to bottle it, this essence of loving and being loved physically and in mind.

To miss somebody’s presence as much as she had his meant making love was never a ritual of lust and habit; it was a reunion they couldn’t take for granted, that might end in a moment. It never mattered when or where they found each other so long as they could revisit their shared, private space. On the competition circuit, the lines had blurred but remained distinct, two seasoned gypsies who never unpacked.

Now Blair was in her home. He was staying the night. The sudden shift to a new foothold both frightened and excited her.

Ronnie’s childhood memories were tucked in every corner of this house, her marriage had played out here, the loss of both her parents. Her daughter and grandson were sleeping in a cottage across the courtyard, Blair’s car parked amongst the family ones.

She could hear an owl shrieking outside, then a fox bark. Another noise, less familiar, the faint bang like a door – a horse perhaps? Unaccustomed to being awake at this hour, Ronnie drank in its nocturnal strangeness, the rise and fall of Blair’s chest and her own in simpatico. Just one night together to savour.

He stirred, head lifting to study the luminous hands of his watch before it turned to her, eyes gleaming in the near darkness. He’d always napped like a cat.

Drawing her closer, he grumbled that she’d put on pyjamas. His fingers slid beneath the top, their tips tracing up her ribcage.

‘I was cold.’

‘I can keep you warm…’ He followed his fingers with his lips, the familiar low growl of his voice a never-ending aphrodisiac. ‘You want to go again?’

‘We’re not teenagers,’ she laughed, not sure that she did, her state of contentment now deeply bedded in.

‘In horse years we are,’ he reminded her, head reappearing opposite hers, smile wide. ‘I can still ride round Badminton twice in a day.’

‘I can’t…’ She smiled through the darkness because her body was telling her otherwise, alert and back into action, desire’s drawstring tightening inside her. It had been left too long without him and demanded more.