More from ‘Now You See Me’
Chapter Four: Wake up, my love
LYING ON his back, his eyes closed, as he drifted in that half world between sleep and wakefulness, Harry felt a warm breath against his ear.
‘Harry…Har-ree, are you awake?’ That familiar voice; soft but insistent, whispered in his ear.
‘Hmmm,’ he murmured and turning on his side, rolled into Annie’s arms. She held him to her and he breathed in the scent of her warm skin.
‘Wake up, darling,’ she said, her voice husky with desire, and carefully placed a kiss on each eyelid. ‘And, about time too,’ she chided, as his eyes blinked open and he took in her smiling face. ‘For a man who says he can’t sleep, you take a lot of waking up.’
‘Why, what’s the matter?’ he asked, trying to shake off the last vestiges of sleep.
‘Oh, Harry. You are slow on the uptake this morning.’
She cradled his face in her hands and pressed her lips hard against his. Something cold and metallic dangled against his cheek.
‘You slept in your earrings? You’ve never done that before,’ he said.
‘You’ve never bought me diamonds before. I love them so much, I’m never going to take them out,’ she replied and kissed him again. ‘And…I know it was my special birthday but I think you deserve a present too.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to…’
‘Shhhhh,’ she said, and pressed a finger to his lips. ‘You don’t know what it is yet.’
She took the finger away and slipping her hand beneath the duvet, reached between his legs. Harry closed his eyes and, with a low groan that came from deep within him, surrendered to her touch…
When he opened his eyes again, he was wide awake and alone in his darkened bedroom. Annie, such a physical presence a moment ago, seemingly so real that he could feel her touch, smell her perfume, had returned to whatever recess of his mind she still lived in.
Annie had come to him many times before in this way. Each time it was a different version of the girl he’d first met when he was just twelve and she was eleven; sometimes the younger, sometimes the older Annie. But just as on every previous occasion, he felt that same keen sense of loss and a reluctance to let her go. He supposed he was in denial, that awful piece of psycho babble that, along with closure, people trotted out at times like this. But Harry didn’t want closure. He had no wish to get over Annie and move on, to consign to the past the woman he’d loved for the best part of fifty years.
Harry glanced over at the bedside clock; the large, red numbers showed it was 3:30 am. It would be several hours before daylight brought some relief from the darkness of the night but the gloom he harboured within him would remain.
Extract from forthcoming novel, Now You See Me copyright Christopher Niblock 2015
Filed under: crime/fiction Tagged: book preview, creative writing, Crime Fiction, indie writing, new writing, police procedural, short extract
