‘No, thank you. I think we’ve both had enough.’ Reaching up on tiptoes to put her arms around his neck, Macy kissed him on the mouth. It was so long since Eddie had had a woman – since he’d come home from prison Annabel had barely let him touch her – that his dick sprang up like a jack-in-the-box.
Macy grinned. ‘Wow. That was quick.’
‘I’ll try to slow it down,’ Eddie murmured, slipping a warm hand beneath the waistband of her trousers and caressing her perfect bottom.
‘Not on my account,’ said Macy, who’d already started to unbutton his shirt. ‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’
She wriggled out of her clothes in seconds. Eddie scooped her up into his arms in her underwear and laid her on the bed. She was so tiny, it was like lifting a doll.
‘Christ, you’re lovely.’ He bent down to kiss the tops of her breasts, rising like two freshly baked rolls beneath the pale grey lace of her bra. Moving downwards, he kissed the smooth, flat plain of her belly, then down again. Macy could feel the roughness of his stubble against her inner thighs and his warm breath between her legs. She reached down to take off her underwear but Eddie stopped her hand with his. ‘Not yet.’
The next few minutes felt like hours to Macy as he teased and caressed her till she wanted to scream with pleasure and frustration. At some point he must have taken his clothes off. Macy ran her hands over his back and shoulders and butt, pleasantly surprised by what great shape he was in for a man of his age. As for his dick, it was perfectly proportioned and solid as a rock, the kind of erection that would make a nineteen-year-old proud.
‘Do you still know what to do with that thing?’ Macy teased him. ‘I’m guessing it’s been a while.’
‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ said Eddie, ripping off her knickers at long last and launching into her like an Exocet missile. Macy had to grab on to the headboard to prevent herself from flying head-first through the wall.
They made love for hours. It was a long time since Macy had had such good sex. Her last boyfriend, Chris, had been a thoughtful and imaginative lover. But Eddie fucked like a starving man who’d just sat down at a banquet. It was intoxicating and empowering, and she devoured him back, happy to have found a partner with a libido to rival her own.
When they finally released each other and collapsed, sweating and exhausted, onto the bed, Macy reached down for her purse and pulled out a long plastic cylinder. For a moment Eddie panicked it was a phial full of drugs. But then she put it in her mouth and inhaled.
‘What on earth is that?’ asked Eddie, as the end of the tube flashed with a neon blue light.
‘It’s an e-cigarette,’ said Macy. ‘All the nicotine but no tar. The only thing hitting your lungs is water vapour. We call it “vaping”. Wanna try?’
‘No!’
‘It’s good.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Listen,’ Eddie began. ‘Tonight was amazing. Truly.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re a completely incredible woman. But I’m married. If we do end up working together …’
Macy held up a hand to stop him, simultaneously smiling and exhaling a cloud of steam, like an amused dragon.
‘You have nothing to worry about. I had a great time, but I don’t do commitment and I’m not interested in a rerun. We couldn’t top that anyway.’
‘No,’ Eddie grinned. ‘I don’t suppose we could.’
‘But discretion works both ways,’ Macy said seriously. ‘I don’t tell, you don’t tell, nobody gets hurt. That means no boasting in the locker room, no drunken confessions.’
‘Of course not,’ said Eddie.
‘You don’t want your wife to know. And I don’t want people to think I slept my way into this job. That’s not what this was about.’
‘Not in the least,’ Eddie assured her. ‘So does that mean you’ll come on board? You’ll do the show?’
‘That depends,’ said Macy. ‘I want equity. You’ll have to negotiate the package with Paul. But if the price is right … yeah. I’ll do it. I think the idea has promise. And, you know. I like you.’
‘I like you too,’ said Eddie truthfully.
Macy fell asleep almost instantly. She’s like a man in lots of ways, Eddie thought, although thankfully not in all.
Eddie lay awake for a long time staring at the ceiling, his mind racing. He waited to be hit by an onslaught of guilt, but it never came. The truth was he’d enjoyed tonight. More than that, in some primal, deep-rooted way, he’d needed it.
He would not be unfaithful again. What happened with Macy had been a one-off. It had happened far away, in another world, and his wife would never know about it.
Eddie loved Annabel. As soon as she started sleeping with him again, he would become a one-man woman, the loyal, loving husband she deserved. Tomorrow was another day.
By the time he woke up the next morning, Macy Johanssen had gone.
Still in bed, Eddie picked up the telephone and left a message for Laura Baxter.
‘I’ve found her,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’ve found our girl.’
Slipping out of Eddie’s bed at 5 a.m., Macy only took twenty minutes to get to her house off Laurel Canyon. In the dawn light, with no traffic on the roads, Los Angeles looked strangely peaceful, slumbering softly in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, beneath the gently swaying palms. Closing the electric wooden gates behind her, Macy walked into her kitchen, kicked off her shoes and exhaled, still buzzing from her night with Eddie.
Macy’s house was her sanctuary. Like her it was small but perfectly formed, a light-filled haven with white wooden walls, simple antique furniture and a crisp yet feminine feel. Mismatched jugs full of peonies and roses and sweet williams crowded every available surface, and vintage linens on the bed and table gave the place warmth. But the overwhelming impression was one of tidiness and calm. Everything in its place and a place for everything; Macy was a big believer in order and control, perhaps because her childhood had been complete chaos.
After her father walked out when Macy was three, her mother had turned to drink. Macy learned early on to fend for herself. Her formative years were spent shuttling between her mom’s house, during Karin Johanssen’s intermittent periods of sobriety, and a string of different foster homes across the LA area. For the most part Macy’s foster parents had been decent people. It wasn’t as if she’d been abused or anything. But there was no stability, no order. And so Macy had made her own, working like a demon at school, eventually getting a place at Yale and putting herself through college with a string of loans, grants and scholarships, all of which she’d researched and applied for herself.
The biggest blow of Macy’s life had come at the end of her first year in college, when her mom died suddenly of a heart attack aged forty-seven. Only four people came to the funeral in LA. Two from her mom’s AA group, one neighbour, and one from the funeral home in Encino where Karin Johanssen had been laid to rest.
After finishing her degree – if TV didn’t work out, at least she would have a first-class education to fall back on – Macy moved back to Los Angeles and begun pounding on doors. With her beauty, wit, charisma and brains she was a natural as a presenter, and agents were soon lining up to sign her. Macy chose Paul Meyer to represent her, because he was honest and didn’t pull his punches. She was still only twenty-three when Paul landed her a primetime, network gig, fronting the gameshow Grapevine for ABC. It was a huge break for a relative unknown. But as Paul had warned her at the time, one hit show did not necessarily guarantee a lasting career.
When Grapevine