I’m all tidied up. All the rough edges have gone. Once the swelling and bruising fade, I might even be good-looking. Have the kind of face a woman might like.
A question popped straight into his mind.
Aniela. Will I have the kind of face Aniela might like? Taken aback, Jon swung away from the mirror, striding out and into the second bedroom, which he was using as his gym; his hand weights, his chin-up bar, and the mat he used for meditation were neatly arranged inside. Bending his legs, he sank smoothly into a cross-legged pose without needing to use his hands at all, and slid one leg over the other into the full lotus position. He stared ahead at the blank white wall, picturing a small black dot in his mind, then imagining it shrinking to nothing, disappearing into the white background, taking his conscious mind with it, his thoughts of Aniela, his memories of kissing her yesterday, how good she’d felt in his arms—
Shit. This isn’t working.
Aniela had come by that morning, prompt to the minute, as she always was: he’d barely been able to meet her eyes, too embarrassed by the events of yesterday, his epic failure to kiss her properly without screwing up. And she’d been embarrassed for him; that had been clear by the way she barely glanced at his scalp for thirty seconds before muttering that it looked fine, grabbing her bag, and shooting out the door again. He’d prepared an apology, an attempt to smooth things over, but at the sight of her all words had fled, and he’d hardly been able to mumble hello and goodbye.
He pounded one fist into the palm of the other. Regular exercise and meditation techniques usually succeeded in banishing any unnecessary thoughts from his mind; yesterday he’d been in such shock after the kiss, so embarrassed by his own awkward failure – that moment when he accidentally ground his teeth against hers – that he’d thrown himself straight into a workout so rigorous that it had left him thoroughly exhausted, his brain temporarily wiped clean of sexual tension. But his dreams had been not only restless, he had woken that morning to find, to his mortification, that they had been even more eventful than he realised; there had been a wet patch on his pyjama bottoms which had leaked through onto the sheet.
I need a woman, he thought, setting his jaw. I’ve got to get laid soon – hell, I’d call one in here right now if it weren’t for having my face this messed-up. Even the priciest prostitute would run away at the thought of having to fuck a man in this state.
Besides, the fewer people who see me the better.
Jon had never had a real relationship with a woman; sure, he’d had some teenage fumbling with girls, but after he joined the Army, and was whisked promptly away for black squad training, all his sexual experiences had been bought and paid for. Not only had he never missed what he had never had – his parents’ marriage was so hellish it didn’t exactly make him want to recreate it – paying women for sex had positively been encouraged by the Unit. The last thing they’d wanted was their killers forming attachments that might make them sloppy and distracted, or less available for shooting off on assignments at a moment’s notice and staying away for weeks, even months on end.
So prostitutes had always seemed the safest way to go: a clean transaction where no one was emotionally involved. The Unit had the necessary contacts, madams who’d send over pleasant, friendly girls, regularly tested, voluntary sex workers, no poor junkies or trafficking victims. The entire process was as clean and straightforward as it could possibly have been, and since it was all that Jon had ever known, he’d never wanted anything beyond it.
But those girls were all too skinny, he thought now. A man wants something he can take hold of, a woman with real curves. Someone to cuddle, to keep you warm at night. The type Jon liked, the woman his eyes were drawn to, was strong, sturdy, fair-haired, blue-eyed; the kind of girl he’d grown up with, broad-shouldered and full-figured. You didn’t see women like that on billboards, selling clothes, and he’d never really understood why; the skinny girls in the ads he saw were pretty enough, but looked more like boys.
Well, Aniela most definitely didn’t look like a boy. For a dizzying, tempting second, he imagined offering her money for sex; he could afford to give her as much as she asked for, way more than she made on a nurse’s salary. The mere thought of having sex with Aniela was enough to get him hard; his cock was already stiff with excitement, pushing eagerly against the white cotton of his boxer briefs, its head clearly outlined even through the grey marl sweatpants.
Go away, he said to it. You came already last night, I had to wash the damn sheet. You’re like a horny teenager, getting a boner every time you even think about a girl. Have some self-control.
But his right hand was already sliding down, stroking the head of his hard cock through the sweatpants; it jerked impatiently, too rigid to be teased, demanding a firm hand wrapped around it then and there. He spat on his hand, standing up, dragging down and kicking off his sweatpants; his cock had half-found the slit in his boxers already, was nudging itself through, pink and swollen and insistent; stepping over the puddle of his discarded sweats, he took a couple of long strides across the room, his cock bobbing in the air, thick and full. He made it wait till he reached the bathroom, determined to exercise at least a modicum of authority, but when his hand finally closed around his shaft, it was pointless to deny that his cock was now completely in charge.
His eyes closed, and he heard himself groan loudly, hopelessly, as if it were someone else’s hand twisting around his dick, pulling and sliding, fast, slow, then, almost immediately, faster and faster. He couldn’t wait, he couldn’t do anything but let go completely; frantically, he spat on his other hand and gripped the base of the shaft, cupping his balls, feeling his eyeballs roll right back into his skull with sheer pleasure. His dick was swelling even more, pumping and jerking against his palm, and he couldn’t fight it any longer. He slumped forwards against the sink, feeling as if his entire body were concentrated in his dick and balls, all the energy flowing like an arrow between his legs, building up, building up to an explosion, his physical need so insistent that the pressure was painful, desperate, driving...
And it was Aniela’s face he saw as the arrow raced towards the target: Aniela’s wide-set eyes, her soft lips, her naked body, her arms around him, her mouth on his as he slid his cock inside her and heard her moan with pleasure against his lips and – Jesus God, I’ve never come so hard in my entire fucking life!
The hot come shot out of him like a geyser, the delicate skin of his head so sensitive now that the sperm felt scalding, burning, a spray of pent-up desire that spattered with fury against the bowl of the sink, a cloudy, translucent white stream.
Jon’s body felt limp, completely drained, like an empty tube. Both of his hands were covered with his own semen. Genesis, 38:9, he thought crazily, the image popping into his mind of a Sunday-school teacher lecturing a bunch of small kids about the sin of Onan; he spilled his seed on the ground, the teacher had thundered, whacking the desk with her fist to make the point. Which was a sin! God hates waste! God killed Onan ’cause he was wasteful, you hear me, children? Don’t you go wasting what God gave you, ’cause the Bible tells us it ain’t right!
He reached out to turn on the tap, wash his hands, as exhausted as if he’d done a twenty-K run with a fifty-pound backpack strapped to his shoulders.
Be nice not to waste it any more, he found himself thinking. Be nice to come inside a warm woman’s body, then maybe curl up and go to sleep spooning her. Never did that before. Bet it feels real good. Nice and cosy.
Prostitutes charged a hell of a lot of money to stay the night, and though Jon could afford it, it had always seemed way too much to pay a woman just so’s she’d sleep next to you. What would it be like to sleep next to Aniela? Would she even want to? If I made a move on her again, what would she do?
If I offered her money, one thing’s for sure – she’d want to haul off and slap my face. Only she couldn’t slap me, on account of how I’m all bruised up. That’d probably drive her crazy.
He found h
imself smiling at the picture, of Aniela outraged at his offering her money to sleep with him, though he couldn’t really have said why; he supposed he liked the idea of ruffling her feathers. He imagined her putting her hands on her hips, lecturing him, her expression stern, and for some reason he found himself smiling even more.
Drying himself with the hand towel, Jon tucked his satisfied cock back into his boxers, and padded back into his bedroom, throwing himself down on the mattress. It was insanely comfortable, yielding but still firm, the closest thing to bed perfection he’d ever slept on, with its moulded mattress topper and feather-and-down pillows. Like that Heavenly Bed they have at the Westin hotels, he thought, his eyes closing. Maybe I’ll get one of those for the ranch. You can buy it all online – the mattress with that nice soft pillow-top, all the pillows and duvet and blankets. Real cosy.
Jon never slept during the day. He hadn’t planned to now; he didn’t even realise that he was dropping off, and he didn’t realise, either, that as he rolled over, already half-asleep, kicking his legs under the duvet for warmth, he had pulled down a pillow into his arms. And by the time he was breathing the slow, heavy inhales and exhales of deep sleep, every muscle in his body completely relaxed, his body was curled around the pillow, and he was spooning it in utter contentment.
Melody
It looked as if a Christmas shop had exploded inside the lobby of Limehouse Reach. The Harrods of Christmas shops – Harrods, so beloved by the rich Russians and Japanese and Arabs and Italians who came to London for the shopping, vulgar beyond belief with its Egyptian escalator, its gigantic, gold-painted Sphinxes and carvings depicting a journey down the Nile to the Valley of the Kings, and its larger-than-life-size bronze sculpture of Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed dancing like nymphs, Dodi’s shirt unbuttoned and hanging open, Diana wearing what looked like a clingy nightdress. They were holding up a huge albatross which, for some reason never quite explained, they were releasing into the sky.
Even with Grigor and Andy’s best efforts, the lobby couldn’t boast anything quite as jaw-droppingly tacky as a Diana and Dodi bronze statue. But the elegant restraint with which it had been designed had completely vanished, obscured by an avalanche of the biggest, shiniest Christmas decorations Grigor’s money could buy. Enormous, gilded, blown-glass ornaments hung from every light fixture. Swags of fairy lights were draped around the entire atrium, dangling down the glass walls in icicle formations, hanging in great swaths from both desks. The white orchids in black rectangular vases, which usually stood on the concierge and doorman’s desks, had been replaced by huge, blowsy red poinsettias. Andy had bought oversized clear glass vases and filled them with bright, faceted, red and green baubles, setting them next to the poinsettias, where they caught every reflection and bounced it back like disco balls reflecting thousands of flickering points of light.
The enormous tree was now so thickly hung with even more fairy lights that, as soon as she stepped out of the lift, Melody had to raise a hand to shade her eyes while looking at it. There were so many, they were so bright, that they obscured the ornamental figurines that Andy had suspended from the branches – china ballet shoes, toy soldiers, sugar plums; on the top of the tree was a huge Sugar Plum Fairy in arabesque, from the Nutcracker ballet, holding a wand whose tip twinkled brightly. The real presents for Grigor’s party were safely tucked away behind lock and key, but Andy had wrapped cardboard boxes in bright gold paper and twirls of ribbon and piled them around the base of the tree to look like oversized gifts. Night had fallen, it was past ten, and the dark sky above the glass roof of the atrium was a velvet-black background to the twinkling, glittering, flashing, multi-coloured fairy lights below.
Even the piped music playing in the public areas – normally a tasteful loop of calming selections from Debussy, Bach and Mozart, pruned of any crashing chords or over-enthusiastic high notes – was a Christmas medley. As Melody stared around the transformed, lit-up, shiny lobby in disbelief and wonder, she realised that she was humming along with ‘Let It Snow’.
‘Your cab’s waiting, Miss Brown,’ Derek, the doorman, said, using the pseudonym under which the Canary Clinic had booked Melody into Limehouse Reach. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘No, thank you,’ Melody said, darting as swiftly across the atrium as she could with her bandaged chest, her head ducked, a felt fedora pulled down to hide her blackened eyes, a soft wool snood wound across her chin and the lower part of her nose, to conceal the bruising and swelling. She couldn’t help but stop in her tracks, however, as she passed the fountain and carp pond, and took in the fact that the silvered mosaic tiles of the floor were also scattered heavily with decorative green and red glass stones. Andy had spared no detail to make the lobby as Christmassy as Grigor’s wildest dreams.
‘Andy checked about putting stuff in the pond,’ Derek said chattily as he walked around to hold the door for Melody; there were automatic sliding ones as well, but it was Limehouse Reach protocol that the 24/7 staff always held the door for guests and visitors. ‘They won’t bother the carp, Andy said. Look lovely, don’t they? Very festive.’
‘It’s all very – shiny,’ Melody managed as she pattered towards him on her soft-soled Uggs.
She had picked up the Ugg habit in LA, reluctantly at first, but by the time of the Wonder Woman shoot, wearing them had been second nature. You saw photos of actresses on set, between takes, or popping out to run errands, and mocked their ubiquitous, ugly, squishy-soft footwear. But when you had spent the day running and jumping and kicking people in Wonder Woman’s tight gold boots, and evenings tripping out of Katsuya or Boa, smiling for the paparazzi, wearing the five-inch heels your stylist insisted upon, you practically cried tears of gratitude for the lovely soft welcoming sheepskin of the Uggs caressing your toes deliciously. Who cared if they didn’t give your feet or ankles any support? You were working out like a maniac, starving yourself to stay super-slim, living off skinny lattes and diet bars – you deserved some sort of comfort in your life...
The rest of her outfit was also perfectly off-duty, trendy young actress from head to toe. Soft grey leggings tucked into the black Uggs, layered T-shirts and a striped grey-and-black oversized angora sweater, topped by a trendy tweed cape. Even the hat and snood over the top looked dashing; if she’d been snapped by paps the photo would have made it easily into Grazia’s Style Hunter section.
Apart, of course, from her damaged face.
The cabbie jumped out as soon as he saw his passenger emerge from the building, coming round to open the door. This was much more courteous than most London black cab drivers nowadays, who neither opened doors, helped people in with their luggage, nor spoke to them beyond grunting in disdain when given the address; but not only were Limehouse Reach customers rich foreigners who tipped generously, the doormen were eagle-eyed and wouldn’t call a cab company again if they spotted its drivers behaving with any less than perfectly respectful demeanour.
‘Where to, miss?’ he asked, as Melody settled into the back seat, wrapping her cape around her.
She gave him the address, and he nodded, setting the cab in motion without another word. Again, this was very unusual, a black cab driver who knew how to get to his destination without complaining about the state of the roads, but Melody was in much too heightened a state of nerves and excitement to notice. All her attention, all her anticipation, was focused entirely on her destination. As the cab followed the curve of the road around Limehouse Reach, skirting the edge of the river, she saw a brightly lit boat gliding down the black sweep of the Thames. It was a dinner cruise, heading for the Thames Barrier, people on board laughing and toasting each other over their meals, celebrating Christmas Eve.
Melody stared at the boat with a mixture of wistfulness and envy. She knew that surely, aboard the pleasure cruiser, there must be some unhappy travellers: couples who had been fighting before they left the house, and were still simmering with resentment as they raised their champagne glasse
s with bright fake smiles; singles, staring at those couples and wishing that they were part of one too, not realising that the relationship they were envying was on its last legs; people frightened of getting old, to whom the end of the year meant a step closer to the grave; immigrants far from home, working on a dinner cruise on Christmas Eve, watching other people laugh and party while they themselves faced a Christmas Day in a bedsit, eating a ready meal, Skype-ing their loved ones hundreds of miles away.
Not everyone on that boat is happy. Not everyone is having a wonderful Christmas.
Melody repeated those words to herself as the boat slid away from view, the cab turning away from the river, heading towards Commercial Road. It was only very recently that Melody had learned this lesson, that not everything was as golden and enchanted as a fairy tale. Because, up until nine months ago, her life had been as blessed as if a fairy godmother had given her everything she could wish for. She was beautiful, gifted, with a sweet, cheerful nature, and she had been loved and wanted from the moment of her birth. One of the main reasons that her relationship with James had been so instantly wonderful, and had continued in such happiness, was that Melody had such a warm, close family.
She had learned to trust, to flourish, to give and receive love, and to expect it easily from others; she had the kind of happy, open nature that meant that she would be attracted to a man like her, one who came from the same caring, affectionate background as her own. Melody had never previously walked past a house in the evening with its lights on, cosy and golden, looked inside to see a group of people eating dinner or having a party, and yearned to be part of them. She had always known where she belonged, that she was loved. It was only when she had gone to LA, and found herself alone, surrounded by people who said they wanted the best for her but actually were only interested in how much money they could make by selling her image, that her bubble had been burst.
Bad Angels Page 15
