‘Just right,’ he said, putting out an arm and reeling her into his chest.
Was it all right to kiss without Rob? Was that cheating?
Lucy dismissed the anxieties and let Richard’s firm mouth close over hers, kissing away everything but her senses and her pleasure receptors.
‘You know, Lucy,’ he whispered, breaking off for a moment, his hand rubbing the small of her back rhythmically and comfortingly, ‘it doesn’t matter if Rob and I don’t get on. It won’t be your fault. We both know what we’ve got in you. I don’t think either of us will forget that.’
‘It’ll be OK,’ she said, for courage, the words acting as talismans.
‘It’ll be OK,’ he repeated after her. ‘Come on. Get your wellies on and get into the car.’
They ran through the rain to the Rover, belted themselves in and headed into the lane. The journey was rough but exciting; the bumpy road jolted Lucy this way and that. Richard made her sit on her bare bottom on the soft leather of the front seat, and the thrill of the journey mixed together with a potent erotic sensation so that, by the time they arrived at the station, she was sticky of thigh and her heart was bumping fast. All the way home, she would be sitting between Rob and Richard, in this tiny dress and no knickers. All the way home.
Richard pulled into the station car park and put on the handbrake.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Go get him.’
Lucy stared.
‘Me?’
‘He doesn’t know me.’
‘I bet he’d recognise you.’
Richard shook his head.
‘He’s your friend. You go and wait for him.’
‘But—’
‘No buts.’
Lucy huffed and sighed and spent a long time trying to make her dress longer, to no avail.
Richard eventually leant over her to open the door and she slid, very carefully and very slowly, along the seat and swung her legs to the side.
How ridiculous she would look, in her flirty little party dress and big green rubber boots. Everyone would stare. Everyone would whisper. And that was without the underwear problem.
She didn’t have to go far, at least. Just a couple of yards up the pavement, under a shelter, and into the ticket office, which was, thankfully, empty. She might have been observed by a couple of taxi drivers waiting in the rank, but that was all.
It was cold on the platform and her thighs felt the worst of it. Her nipples ached and she knew they were visible through the slinky jersey material of the dress. She looked at the digital display board closest to her. Rob’s train was expected in ten minutes.
She didn’t dare look down the platform to see who else was waiting, for fear of catching somebody’s eye. It was fairly obvious, though, that a sprawling group of young people were standing not far away from her, on their way home from a b
ig night out at one of the town’s two pubs.
She listened to their dirty jokes and friendly insults, glad that they were too preoccupied with each other to notice her. She sank back against the wall and rested her bottom on a ledge in the brickwork, staring down at the rails.
When she looked up, there was a man on the opposite platform, watching her. She looked away immediately, but she heard his footsteps, heading for the footbridge.
She got up, intent on going back to the car until the train was actually in the station, but her way was barred by a pair of girls from the nearby group.
They looked her up and down with undisguised contempt.
‘Funny way of dressing for the weather, don’t you think, Bron?’
They could hardly talk, thought Lucy nervously, with their tiny miniskirts and thick white legs, cut off at the calf by fake Ugg boots.