*

Bridge had woken three times already this year, the first at seven o’clock her time, midnight in Los Angeles, Bernie sharing the New Year with her sister on phone screens, one surrounded by beautiful party animals, the other with bloodshot eyes and bed hair. Dozing afterwards, podium dancing with a hunk on a Hollywood sign O, she’d been hooked out of the dream by a message from Carly, a welcoming glow of new friendship. Get-together agreed, she’d drifted off to rejoin the hunk and ride together through the plains. A call from Poland had jerked her awake again, companion galloping off as, gravel-voiced, Aleš complained about his headache before a poor signal cut them off. Waiting for him to call back, Bridge had slipped off to sleep again and into a dream of such erotic splendour that when she awoke an hour later, it felt as though she’d been pleasured all night, wide smile buried in her pillow. She rolled over, body shivering with fuzzy pleasure, reluctant to give up the sensation from the lips that had been on hers and between her legs.

Bridge stretched out in bed, still heavy-headed with a hangover she wore with pride, star-fishing luxuriously as she looked at the time on the bedside clock. Past nine already. She could bring breakfast upstairs, listen to rubbish pop, indulge in a bath. But first she’d close her eyes for another ten minutes. She missed her children and Aleš like vital organs, but there was no denying the lie-ins were bliss. And she had to replay those lips…

One eye opened again, the other scrunched closed. Hang on. If lips had been simultaneously on her mouth and erogenous zone, that meant more than one set. Had she been dreaming of group sex? Go, Missus! You might be a married mother of two, but your subconscious can rock some fantasy action.

It was coming back to her now. She’d been on a bench press in a gym, hunk-man approaching to help her lift a heavy weight. She remembered the shape of him, that V from narrow hips to wide shoulders, Lycra shorts full of priapic bulge. Not like her Aleš in football strip with his bearded bulk and buzz cut. Her fantasy figure was clean-shaven, thick-haired, oak-broad and sinewy. He’d started undressing her, telling her she was beautiful. That had been particularly lovely. Aleš had to be coaxed into it these days, sometimes not taking the hint. This man had run his hands up her legs, her miraculously smooth and lean thighs, to bury his fingers in her welcoming wetness, his eyes not leaving hers.

Wolf eyes. All Turners had wolf-pale eyes.

‘Oh feck.’ She remembered his face and felt a flash of mortified shame. Ash Turner. She’d been dreaming about Ash Turner straight after inviting his wife and children to visit. She sat up quickly, pulling on her dressing gown and shoving her feet in her slippers. She didn’t even want to think about who the other lips had belonged to.