Katie In Love: full length erotic romance novel by Chloe Thurlow

said, and I laughed.
    'There is something incredibly sexy about a girl in a mask laughing.'
    'I shall write that down,' I told him.
    'You'll forget it.'
    'I don't forget anything.'
    I nearly fell off the chair as he leaned forward to pull the fisherman's sweater over his head. I dragged at his shirt, he took it off, and it was cosier when we laid back in the same position, my spine angled across his chest, the pad of his finger moving between my legs, softly, like you might stroke a sleeping kitten. He investigated my breasts through my bra, the faint swell of my tummy, my sticky-out hipbones.
    'Your BMI is in the first percentile.'
    'Does that mean I'm too thin?'
    'No, it means everyone else is too fat.'
    He eased me away from his chest and removed my bra, placing it on the table beside the chair, one cup tucked in the other. I adore being naked, and I adore being naked in the mask even more. I laid back and he continued stroking me, his right hand between my legs, his left inspecting my breasts. I wondered if he were feeling for lumps. I didn't ask. I wouldn't have wanted to know.
    'I love your breasts,' he said.
    'More than my feet?'
    I felt his chest vibrate and knew he was smiling. I liked being explored in this way, anonymous in the mask, submissive to his touch. His palm shuffled over my waist.
    'I love your hips.' He mused for a moment. 'They're like sails.'
    His tongue swept over my ear and his free hand brushed my scalp.
    'I love your hair, it's...autumnal.'
    'When all the leaves are falling and it starts to get cold?'
    'Noo,' he replied, stretching the word. 'It's like a rainbow, no, a kaleidoscope. It's not brown or russet.' He sounded like a doctor listing symptoms. 'There are flecks of bronze and gold, red and copper.'
    'It can't make up its mind,' I said.
    His right hand left the place where it belonged; he twisted me to one side like a wrestler and used both hands to pull the hair away from the back of my neck. He had discovered my tattoo and paused like he was looking at a Rothko in a gallery.
    'Do you like it?' I asked.
    'It's unique.'
    'Hardly.'
    'Why's it hidden?'
    'Why not?'
    He brushed my hair back, straightened my mask, and looked into my eyes.
    'Green,' he said.
    'Unlike my jacket.'
    He laughed as we got comfortable again. I knew he would be puzzling over the tattoo, the whys and why there, those questions people ask, and he already knew me well enough to know there was no point in asking. His right hand slipped over the contours of my body, his finger coming to rest back in the moist delta of curly pubes. His other hand stroked my hair, my chin, my shoulder, the length of my arm, a poem on his lips:
     
                                cranium, mandible, clavicle
                                scapula, sternum, ribs
                                humerus, radius, carpals
                                metacarpals and phalanges
     
    He lifted my hand and kissed my little finger.
    'Is it going to be better now?'
    'It'll take another two or three months.'
    I sighed. 'How boring,' I said, and he changed the subject.
    'How long have you been here, Katie, in this flat?'
    'Two or three months,' I answered; an echo.
    'It's really super,' he said, and I thought: what an old-fashioned word; I would have said marvellous or wonderful. 'Where were you before?' he then asked.
    'I thought you knew?'
    'I can guess, Kensington, I'd say, maybe Notting Hill?'
    'Down by the river, actually, in Chelsea. I had a little garret, you know, the poet thing.'
    'Why did you move?'
    'Interesting question...'
    'And?'
    'Hold on, I'm thinking.' I glanced down at his hand. 'This isn't the best time for thinking.'
    He had cupped my breast and, like a plumber, his right hand was fiddling with the leak between my legs. He kissed my cheek below the mask and I continued.
    'I needed a different landscape, you know, like Emily Brontë, she had the