Here, as promised, is an excerpt from my story Guard Mounting in the Uniform Behaviour anthology. Don’t forget, a proportion of profits made from sales goes to the Help the Heroes charity – so you can have fun and do good at the same time!

“He was a Queen’s Guard, one of those men you see stationed directly in front of Buckingham Palace in a tall bearskin hat and red tunic, sweltering through the summer until Her Majesty does him the favour of schlepping off to Balmoral for August, enabling him to abandon his sentry box.

He wasn’t wearing his uniform when we met, by way of a jogging accident, in St James Park. Helping me up off my bruised bottom with a strong outstretched arm, he apologised for not looking where he was going and offered to make reparation with coffee. I accepted the offer ““ I am always open to offers from tall, fit men, incidentally ““ and over two mugs of caffeinated goodness we fell to discussing our careers.

“You’re one of those guys outside the Palace who isn’t allowed to react to anything?” I exclaimed, enraptured. “No wonder you didn’t see me coming. Years of ignoring anything external to your main focus.”

He laughed. “That could be it, actually. I sometimes forget I have peripheral vision.”

He might do, but I certainly didn’t. My vision, both the line of sight and peripheral varieties, feasted on this wide, handsome slab of man, picturing him in the gold buttons and badges, only his lower face visible under the huge fluffy pompadour of a helmet.

“Have you ever cracked?” I asked him. “You know. People must constantly be trying to make you smile or laugh or shout at them. Have you ever given in to the temptation?”

“I’ve come pretty close a couple of times,” he admitted. “The jokes and funny faces are usually quite lame, but sometimes you get something completely random that catches you off guard. Like a guy who pulled a lizard out of his trouser pocket. And the first time a girl flashed her boobs at me, though that’s getting old now.”

“Girls flashing you outside the Palace! Whatever would the Queen say to that?”

“I know, shocking isn’t it?” He grinned. “I’ve learned to glaze over the minute a girl’s hand makes that telltale move to grab at her top. I get a lot of notes tucked into my belt too.”

“Notes?”

“Yeah. Phone numbers, promises to show me a good time, all that kind of thing.”

“Good grief, that’s shameless!” My lips curled into a smirk, eyeing him sideways. “Not that I can blame them.”

He mirrored my flirtatious body language, leaning over towards me, raising his eyebrows in seductive query. “Really?”

I held his eyes somehow, though I was starting to feel hot and cold all over, wondering if he could hear the noisy hammering of my heart.

“Who can resist a man in uniform?” I said lightly, trying to keep the salivation out of my voice.

“I don’t know. Can you?”

“I haven’t tried,” I told him, flicking my hair, blushing.

“Would you like to?”

“Well, I do hate to accept a theory without putting it to the test.”

“So, in the spirit of scientific enquiry then, shall we meet up at half past seven this evening in front of St James Park tube? Is that local for you?”

“Only for work. I live over the river. But it’s fine. I can get there for half seven. No problems.”

“That’s a date then.” He stood up, slinging his zip-up hoodie over his shoulder. “But for now, I’d better get back to the barracks before I’m late for parade. See you later. Oh, my name’s Greg, by the way.”

“Annie,” I replied, watching him jog off around the lake, legs and arms powering him forward so that my front row view of his tight backside was soon a distant blur.”

If you want to know what kind of effect Greg’s uniform has on Annie, you can get hold of a copy of the book here.