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He hasn’t even touched his scotch.
That’s the first thing Annie registers as she steps into the kitchen and takes him in—all rumpled shirtsleeves and loosened tie, the top button of his shirt undone, perched at the table like some well-mannered problem in need of solving. The crystal tumbler rests untouched at his elbow, amber liquid catching the light, its peaty, smoky sweetness lingering faintly in the warm air. No ice, of course. Peter never takes ice. Says it dulls the flavour—though Annie rather suspects it’s just his way of clinging to some vestige of propriety, even when no one’s watching.
Beside the glass sits the quiet wreckage of his evening’s work—an open pack of Hobnobs and a half-eaten tub of Kelly’s Cornish Honeycomb Crunch, its plastic lid abandoned on the worktop by the fridge, the spoon lodged upright in the melting ice cream, like some forlorn little flag of domestic surrender. The farmhouse table is buried in a sprawl of paperwork—stacks of buff folders, maps and lease agreements, tangled with boundary surveys, all scattered in that particular brand of organised chaos that says he’s been at it for hours.
His meticulous notes—neat, methodical—jostle for space on the legal pad before him, competing with a smear of ice cream and the occasional biscuit crumb, as though diligent solicitoring and comfort eating have struck a perfectly civil truce.
The kitchen window is opened wide to the warm July evening, and beyond it, the garden lies half in shadow, half awash in the last burnished light of a Norfolk sunset. His prized roses bloom along the back garden wall, their scent wafting lazily through the open window, mingling with the delicate perfume of cut grass and the enticing smell of someone barbecuing a few gardens over. Somewhere beyond the hedge, a robin warbles the last line of its evening recital, answered by another hidden in the dense canopy of the ancient oak that stands sentinel at the centre of the garden.
The whole house feels suspended in that golden pause between day and night—too warm to rush, too peaceful to resist.
Too perfect, really, to still be hunched over tenancy agreements when the world outside is putting on its finest summer evening performance.
“Still at it?” Annie asks as she steps closer, her bare feet padding soundlessly across the warm, timeworn floorboards.
She’s dressed in a simple white cami that clings just so to her petite frame, one slender strap slipping down her freckled shoulder in quiet rebellion. Her faded grey joggers sit low on her hips—casual, but in that deliberate sort of way—and her coppery curls are loosely piled atop her head, a few wayward ringlets escaping to brush her cheeks and collarbone. She looks less like she’s ready to wind down for the evening, and more like she’s planning to undo him—one teasing thread at a time.
The overhead light—an ageing sixties fixture that flickers now and then in quiet protest—casts a mellow glow across the cluttered table, glinting off the polished steel of his wristwatch and catching on the silver now threading more generously through his dark, unruly hair. It hadn’t been quite so prominent when they first met, but in her eyes, it only makes him look more quietly distinguished.
And perhaps just a little bit more hers.
He glances up as she approaches, startled for the briefest of seconds before his expression softens—first with recognition, then with a sheepish kind of fondness. He straightens, a quiet reflex more to do with affection than formality. The chair gives a low creak as he shifts his solid frame, watching her with that open, slightly smitten expression he never quite manages to hide—even after all this time.
“Oh,” he says, as if surprised to be caught out. “Just, um, just trying to wrap this up.” He gestures vaguely towards the papers spread before him. “It’s the, um, Harrington farm tenancy revision. It appears the old boundary survey has vanished from the estate office files and I thought—”
“You thought you’d spend your whole Sunday evening getting it sorted,” Annie says, far too cheerfully for it to be anything but mockery. “How very noble of you.”
She leans in to reach across the table, and the soft brush of her breasts against his forearm is either entirely accidental—or deliciously not. She plucks the spoon from the tub—as if it had always been hers to begin with—and takes a slow, deliberate mouthful. Her eyes never leave his as she lets the cold sweetness melt languidly on her tongue, before adding, with the barest flicker of a smile, “While Beatrice has Sophie and Henry—and they’re not due back for a few more hours.”
“Right,” he says, and has the decency to look mildly abashed. “Well. The, um, the Harringtons are meeting with the land agent on Monday afternoon and if the boundaries aren’t properly documented before then—”
“The world will end,” Annie supplies helpfully, speaking around a second mouthful of ice cream—rich, crunchy, with an alarming quantity of honeycomb. “In flames and legal paperwork. Dogs and cats living together. Uncontrolled gnashing of teeth.”
“Um, that’s not—”
He stops mid-protest, catching her expression, and exhales a beleaguered little huff. “You’re mocking me.”
“I’m observing you,” she corrects breezily, running her tongue slowly along the bowl of the spoon before setting it down with a soft clink. She drifts behind his chair, fingers light against his shoulders as she passes. “There’s a difference. One involves considerably more affection.”
He tilts his head back to follow her movement, brow furrowing in that adorably suspicious way of his—part baffled, part utterly besotted. “What, um—what exactly are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she says innocently—though her tone, and the glint in her eye, suggest anything but. “Nothing at all—”
Her fingertips trace the slope of his shoulders, light as a whisper at first, like she’s merely passing by. But she lingers.
There’s a subtle pause, one heartbeat longer than necessary—enough to make him still beneath her, attentive now, waiting. And then her touch shifts—steadier, more certain—as she steps in closer behind his chair, her thumbs beginning to press with firmer, more purposeful intent.
“Mmm… that feels nice.”
Beneath her hands, the tension he’s been carrying for hours begins to ebb. His shoulders loosen, the tight set of his jaw softening as she works slow, careful circles just beneath the collar of his shirt.
Wordlessly, he pops open another button, just one, as if to offer her better access—an unspoken invitation, quietly given.
His eyes flutter shut, a soft exhale escaping him—equal parts surrender and quiet pleasure.
“You’re very tense, you know,” she murmurs, leaning in just enough that her breath brushes the shell of his ear—warm and not the least bit accidental. “All this righteous solicitoring can’t possibly be good for your spine.”
He swallows. Audibly.
“I—um… I hadn’t really noticed.”
“You never do.” Her thumbs continue to work in slow, coaxing circles at the nape of his neck. “But that’s alright. I notice for you.”
“That’s, um… very kind of you,” he manages, his focus drifting further as her thumbs sweep higher into the sensitive line just beneath his hair. His eyes remain closed, but his brow knits—the expression of someone grasping at the frayed edges of a thought that’s rapidly dissolving.
“It’s just that—um—this is a rather delicate matter,” he says, rallying valiantly. “The tenants want to, um, renegotiate the—um—water… clause. Rights. Water rights clause. And if we don’t have the original—”
He falters, breath catching as her thumbs press into a spot that seems to short-circuit something vital.
“—um, the original… thing. Map. No—survey. The original survey… to confirm where the, um…”
A pause. A soft groan.
“…where the stream crosses… something.”
She dips her head and presses a lingering kiss just below his ear, right where his pulse flutters beneath her lips. Then, with the slow, deliberate mischief of a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing, her tongue flicks lightly across the spot.
“A-Annie—” he stutters, breath hitching, a visible shiver rippling through him. His shoulders twitch beneath her hands.
“Yes?” she says sweetly, her lips finding the same tender patch of skin again—slower now, more deliberate—lingering just long enough to set his nerves alight. She sucks gently, coaxing another low, involuntary groan from deep in his throat. Her teeth follow, grazing the skin with the barest, teasing pressure—possessive, promising—before she lets him go with a soft, satisfied hum that curls around him like smoke.
“I, um, I really—” His voice catches as her fingers slide up into his hair, curling at the nape, nails scratching lightly across his scalp in slow, unhurried circles. His eyes flutter closed again, and his next breath comes out in a low, audible sigh. “I really ought to finish this before—”
“Before what?” she whispers, her lips teasing the shell of his ear again, all wide-eyed innocence over something thoroughly wicked. “Before the Harringtons spontaneously combust? Before Norfolk descends into agricultural anarchy?”
“Before I, um…” He swallows hard, visibly trying to marshal his thoughts into some semblance of order. “Before I lose my place.”
But he’s already leaning into her, the documents spread out before him fading to irrelevance.
“Your place,” Annie repeats softly, circling round to face him now, “is right here. With me. Not buried in century-old property disputes on a perfectly lovely Sunday evening…”
She steps between his legs, and he shifts without thinking, parting his knees obligingly, like a man who knows exactly when he’s being outmanoeuvred—and doesn’t entirely mind.
Her arms slip around his neck, drawing him in with that quiet, unerring confidence he’s never been able to resist. She leans closer, close enough that he can feel her breath against his cheek, her scent—warm, familiar, unmistakably her—curling around his senses like a spell he’s utterly content to stay lost in.
“…when we could be doing considerably more interesting things.”
She lets the words linger, her breath mingling with his as her hand rises to gently brush back the tousled fringe from his brow.
Peter blinks. Once. Twice. His mouth opens—then shuts again.
He looks at her, slightly dazed, pupils blown wide. There’s a beat—an unmistakable pause—where he forgets entirely how to breathe.
“Right,” he manages eventually, his voice gone low and husky—rougher now, stripped of all polish and replaced by something entirely instinctive and unguarded. “More interesting things—”
“Considerably more,” she murmurs, the words dripping like warm honey.
And then she kisses him properly—slow, deep, and thoroughly unhurried. He tastes of scotch and honeycomb, and something else that’s all him; heat and hesitancy, longing barely restrained. Peter Kingdom, whose kisses always begin a little shy, as if asking permission with every breath—even now, even after all this time.
His hands find her hips without thinking, pulling her close with a need that’s making itself known in no uncertain terms—particularly south of his belt. His grip tightens against the soft cotton of her joggers as though she might vanish if he lets go, and he exhales shakily, pulse thudding in places that have absolutely no business involving the Harringtons or their boundary dispute.
When she draws back, just enough to look at him, his eyes are even darker, his lips kiss-swollen and slightly parted, his breathing uneven in the most telling way.
“Um, the Harringtons—” he begins.
“Will survive,” she says with quiet certainty. “They’ve been tenant farmers for six generations. I think they’ll manage a few hours without you personally brooding over their water rights and boundary lines.”
She straightens and holds out her hand.
“Come on.”
“Um, come where?”
But he’s already rising, already letting her tug him to his feet, the habitual objection more reflex than conviction.
“Upstairs,” she says simply. “It’s a beautiful evening, and you’ve been hunched over those papers for far too long. You need to unwind.”
“I need to—”
He falters as she turns, one coppery brow lifting in gentle challenge. Her fingers stay laced through his, warm and sure, her eyes bright with that familiar, affectionate brand of mischief.
“You need to what, exactly?”
He hesitates, plainly torn—the dutiful tug of unfinished paperwork versus the far more immediate reality before him; barefoot, coppery curls falling loose and wild, soft cami clinging provocatively in all the right places… and a look that promises nothing but trouble of the nicest kind.
Responsibility barely gets a look-in.
“Um. Right,” he says, a helpless little smile betraying him as his fingers fumble with his tie, loosening it all the way. “Upstairs seems… sensible.”
But before he can take a single step, Annie rises onto her toes and slips her arms around his neck, drawing him down into another kiss that’s far more heated than the first—slow and thorough, deep and languid, threaded with delicious promise. Her fingers tangle in the curls at his nape, and he exhales softly into her mouth, a sound caught between a sigh and a surrender, like she’s just unpicked the last thread of his resistance.
One hand finds the curve of her waist, the other braces against the doorframe as though he needs something to steady himself.
When they part a moment later, her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are dancing… and her smile is far too knowing.
“Now you’re getting it,” she purrs.
Peter lets out a shaky little breath, something between a laugh and a sigh of defeat. “I—um… yes. Well. I think I—” He trails off, blinking down at her as though the thought has quite slipped through his fingers. “That is to say… I’m—very much getting it.”
His ears have gone unmistakably pink. He runs a hand through his hair, mussing it further in a distracted attempt to regain some semblance of composure.
“I, um… I suppose I can finish the Harringtons tomorrow morning,” he adds faintly, as if making a concession to the universe rather than a decision of his own.
She doesn’t even dignify that with an answer—she just reaches for his hand, threading her fingers through his with easy certainty, then gives a small, purposeful tug. He goes, utterly compliant, as though following her is the only sensible thing left to do.
Behind them, the kitchen offers no protest; the scotch remains untouched, the ice cream continues quietly melting in its tub, and Peter’s meticulous margin notes lie forgotten—blissfully unaware that their author has abandoned them for the evening.
Outside, the robin carries on with its twilight song from the oak tree, and somewhere a few gardens over, a joyful peal of laughter drifts on the breeze.
As she leads him up the stairs, Annie gives his hand a little squeeze—just because she can, just because he’s hers.
The Harringtons, she thinks with quiet satisfaction, can damn well wait until Monday.