Inconsolable

by Ainslie Paton

  He watched her wrap herself in the cashmere robe and retrieve her work bag from the stairs. She left a message for the brown-eyed Gabriella, another for Adro. She lied to both of them, telling them she felt unwell and would take a few days’ sick leave. Then she turned the phone off and threw it aside.

  “Are you tired?” he said.

  She’d been distressed and wrung out when she came downstairs from his office with the truth in her grasp, and yet she’d come into his arms and she’d wanted him. He didn’t understand how that was possible, but there was time to question it later, when the disease of her had stopped raging through his body like no sensation ever had.

  Her hands were at the tie of the robe. “I think I died and went to heaven.”

  So maybe that was it. It wasn’t his blood brain barrier, it was all of him and all of her and they’d mucked with some dimensional reality that allowed them to be this way with no repercussions.

  “I just lied my face off and I don’t feel bad about it.” She laughed. “God is going to get me.”

  Maybe there was a God. Foley could almost make him believe there was a divine plan, a cosmic arrangement that allowed for her to exist to make up for all the wrong he’d done.

  “He’ll have to come through me first.”

  “We need to talk.” She tied a bow. She’d need a double knot; she’d need a steel cage to keep his hands off her.

  Or she’d need one word, one syllable, and he’d honour that too.

  He’d talk, but there were things he wanted more. Her scent, her voice, her skin, her limbs shifting from soft to rigid to replete as he held them.

  “Drum, when you look at me like that, I know talking isn’t what’s on your mind.”

  He laughed. “We’ve tried words. We know each other well enough through words. I want to know you through your skin.”

  A hand went to her hip. “What we just did, that was—”

  “Small talk.” He flipped the covers back. “Come here and I’ll tell you what I want to talk about.”

  She took two steps towards the bed. “We need to really talk.”

  “We need to sleep and shower and at least one of us has a job they’re meant to be at.”

  She undid the bow. “See your point.”

  He saw shoulder, bra strap, silk-covered breast as she shrugged the robe off. Ribs, waist, that flush of colour tattooed on her side, the puzzle piece that was shaped like an F, then hips, a stud in her belly button, lean, muscular legs. She put her hand behind her back and unhooked her bra and he saw another piercing, a simple ring through her nipple and that did a whole lot of unexplained, unexpected things to his blood flow again; thinned it out, made it hum, race, put his mouth in gear without a filter again.

  “If I’d have known you had that. Fuck, I want you.”

  “If you’d have ever bothered to check me out properly you might’ve worked it out. You were so busy being cautious you nearly missed the fun.”

  He wasn’t missing it anymore.

  She went to her knees on the end of the bed and crawled towards him. The shape she made, the sass and dirty gorgeous sway of her breasts and hips, made his head spin, made a sound come out of him that was unconstrained and dangerous. How had he kept his hands off her so long? How had he managed to keep himself aloof from her?

  She slipped under the cover and into his waiting arms, both of them groaning at the body contact. He put his lips to her ear and curled his tongue on the roof of his mouth and trilled, sending that vibration through her, making her moan and undulate to press against him.

  He rolled them so she lay over him and they started an in-depth conversation based on kisses and licks, on sliding hands and rolling hips, on his fingers skimming the indentation of her spine, the delightful dimples above her arse, and his teeth hooking that hoop in her nipple, the one in her belly.

  “Luscious, beautiful, you are so fucking sexy.”

  She laughed at him, at the strange savagery in him that made his compliment sound like a curse. Then their hands debated: grips and pinches, strokes and tugs. Their tongues argued: press and twist and thrust. Their lips were in voiceless discussion as to where this was going next: further, higher, harder, softer; strike and retreat, tease and withdraw.

  If he’d had more tolerance to chat, he’d have let her make a song of him, but he was impatient and near feral with his want to have her again, abandoning any civility to the sheer driving need to be seated as deeply inside her as her body would allow, as her mouth would accept, as her mind would absorb. He wanted all three, fanatically, nothing less would do.

  He rolled them again and she opened her legs to encase his hips. He primed them both with a slow deliciously wet slide against her, it made her buck and bite his lip; the sharpest of retorts, the soothing lap of her tongue, then the cajole of lips on his throat, on his shoulder, her hands digging into his arse, flattering, sweet-talking, making demands as they pulled him forward to meet the flex of her pelvis.

  If there was any argument it was the push and swell, the squeeze and pump of him moving inside her, of Foley accepting and easing, swallowing and compressing. His spine was a taut rope of tension from the base of his neck to the depth of his groin, and sensation shook though him, scattering his senses, backchat and interference short-circuiting his reactions and making him into a mindless piston.

  He lost coherence, lost lucidity, he was crazed motion, bright hot sparks and rippling heat, and she was gone into the white space with him, back arched, head thrown back, given, trusting and sobbing her satisfaction.

  They kissed each other down from the trembling heights, with a language of murmurs and whispers, shaky breaths and sighs. Foley claimed his hips with her thigh, his shoulder as her pillow. He played with the hoop and her nipple. She traced sleepy circles in the sweat of his abs.

  “We’re good at that.” There was tremulous wonder in her voice.

  He captured her hand. She’d made him a beast, he’d made her a demon, and heaven was what happened when they mated. It was some kind of sacred cleansing ritual and he would never have enough of it. He kissed his agreement into her, because he had no voice and his head was floating in a free zone that was whole and innocent.

  He slept and woke when Foley moved, mumbling in her sleep, turning on her side, her back to him. His arm was stiff from where she’d laid. He rolled too, to snuggle in behind her, chasing the comfort of the bed and contact with her.

  He caught a flash of that tattoo on her hip. Deep sea blue on sand on sky blue and a flare of red. Tropical colours caught in an obvious puzzle piece shape that was also an obvious initial. It flashed him back to the day of the storm, when he’d driven her to rage, to fight for him, and the wind stole her red scarf, and filled him with a need to protect her before he was fully aware how much that would mean to him.

  He slept again, but it’d been a long time since he’d had a proper bed and could sleep naked, warm and safe. A longer time since he’d slept so close to someone. He couldn’t stay asleep. He went downstairs and showered, then came back to bed to listen to Foley’s steady breathing and watch the room shed its shadows.

  She woke like a sleepy cat, a yawn, a slow blink, an enormous stretch, then she smiled, lazy and content, butting her head on his shoulder, her hand to his face.

  “Morning. You smell good.” Her head lifted, eyes snapping wide. “No fair, you showered.”

  He lowered his arm around her, brought her head back to his shoulder. “I can handle you whichever way you come.”

  She grunted. “You proved that last night.”

  He kissed the top of her head.

  She snuggled closer, her face against his neck. “I can hear you thinking.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He wanted to feel that moment when she contracted tight around him, when she shuddered through her release. “What am I thinking?”

  She was still, quiet, as though she really was listening to his thoughts, then the shake of laughter. “I’m only a little bit sore.”<
br />
  “What?” He tugged her hair so she’d lift her face, still laughing.

  “Don’t even try to pretend you aren’t thinking of getting me all dirty again.”

  That was his calligraphied invitation. He bent his face to her, warmth flooding his chest, but she pulled away from a kiss.

  “I want a bathroom break and some words from you first.”

  He wanted her right where she was. He grabbed her arse, dug his fingers in and held her, and her eyes flared.

  “No way. You didn’t just—”

  “Grope you?” You could call it that.

  “Smirk.” She pushed away and sat upright, dragging the sheet with her to shield her body. That sheet was a waste of time; he knew what was under it now. “You smirked at me.”

  “I did?” He couldn’t school his thoughts around her anymore. Was she angry? He was desperate not to have ruined this.

  “You have no idea what a sucker I am for a smirk.”

  But she must’ve had plenty of ideas what would happen if she pushed him down flat and sat across his hips. He gave her that lecherous half smile again and she groaned.

  “You used to do that when you didn’t think I was looking.” She licked her lips. “I was always looking.”

  He laughed. He’d played it so straight with her and she was the cheat. “What does a smirk get me?”

  “The smirk is like a hot button, an emergency exit. It gets you one very sexually twitchy me. Guaranteed prime rib, ready to heat and devour.”

  He reached for her but she scrambled away with the sheet. “No, no, no. I can’t possibly be that easy.”

  “I won’t hold it against you.”

  “That’s exactly what you’ll do, against,” she shivered, “inside. See where a simple smirk can have me.”

  “I’m not getting its power. You’re halfway across the bed.”

  “You’re not the only one who practices self-denial.”

  They both moved. He sat and Foley backed further away, getting to her feet. She pushed hair out of her eyes. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…”

  She thought she’d pushed too far. “I’m not angry. I just don’t want you so far away.” He was denying himself nothing today. Anything she wanted she’d get from him.

  She sighed. She was tousled and smelled of sex and warm bed and she thought she’d blown it. “We do have to talk.”

  He patted the bed. “So come back here and we’ll talk and then I’ll smirk some more and test your guarantee out.”

  He got another sigh, but this one was framed by a gentle smile. “Give me five minutes.” She let the sheet go and didn’t bother with the robe. He groaned aloud as he watched her head for the bathroom; that same easy, athletic sexiness she had clothed was magnified a thousand times naked.

  He lay back and slung his arm over his eyes, all the better to hold onto that image, that seductive part pout, part grin she threw him over her bare shoulder.

  She took more than five minutes and he heard the shower run, but she came back with memory lapse. She came back a jungle cat, nothing sleepy, all predator. She stalked him. She staked him out. She smelled of soap and toothpaste and her skin was clammy, damp, like juice on a peach. And she was full of instructions but none of them too hard to follow, none of them questions. All that made him purr, low in his throat, as she took him in hand, as she drove any notion of an expression that wasn’t sheer awe out of his repertoire.

  She pulled at his hair, not gentle. “I know what you look like with a proper haircut.” She stroked a hand across his chest, nails raking. “I know what you look like in clothes that fit, in a suit that was made for you. Fucking hell, you’re incredible. I don’t need any of that, the clothes, the cars, the yachts. But I need this.”

  He finally got her mouth, got her undivided attention and she worked on short-circuiting him all over again, but nothing could be better than going there with her. He hauled her up his body and they fit together again; no barriers, no fear, only muscle-wracking goodness, nerve endings shocked to blinding point and the ultimate spin-out, locked together mouth on mouth, breathe to breathe.

  She gave him approximately the length of time it takes to swipe a screen on a hand held device to recover and she talked.

  “How real are the death threats?” She sprawled across his chest, a hand playing in his hair. That had to have been something that worried her. He should’ve dealt with that earlier.

  “Not serious. You don’t need to worry.”

  “How can I not worry? Getting a death threat is not a normal thing. Though Roger got one once, under the windscreen of his car. A resident unhappy with a decision to change traffic flow near his house.”

  “What happened?”

  “The resident blamed his teenage son for authoring it. We’ll never know the truth, but Roger never felt genuinely threatened, but he did change where he parked his car.” She gave his chest a flick. “Quit deflecting.”

  “Not serious. They were investigated.”

  “Still, they must have made you feel unsafe.”

  Not unsafe—unclean, unworthy.

  “Hey.” She poked him. Not a girly poke, a knuckle between his ribs. He flinched and caught her hand.

  “You’re not talking. You’re giving me the bare minimum. I’m trying to understand why you won’t sleep in your own bed.”

  He brought her hand to his lips and sucked on her knuckles. Another deflection, but what he had to say wouldn’t make her comfortable, might send her screaming from his arms. She pulled away and flopped down beside him.

  He came up on his elbow to watch her face. “The first one was a shock. I had to involve the police. But it was grief, lashing out, the family looking for someone to take responsibility. The second one was motivated by the same thing. The next four, there’s no way to know. I had investigators look into each of them. In each case there was a sudden unexplained death.”

  “But unexplained means—” She stopped.

  He wasn’t smirking, wasn’t conscious of making any particular expression, but she was reading something from him.

  “Ordinary sane people, driven to the extreme, wanted me dead, Foley. Enough to put a threat in writing.” If she’d read them she’d know the threats were graphic, medieval. They wanted him beaten, tortured, shot, hung, poisoned, staked through the heart, beheaded. No one wished him an easy death. “No one thought they’d take action. Same as no one thought your mayor was in real danger.”

  She put her hand to his chest, close to his heart. “Why do you punish yourself so hard?”

  “This isn’t about changed traffic flow. This is life and death.”

  “But we don’t live in Old Testament times. This is not an eye for an eye stuff.”

  He took her hand and held it. That’s close to what it was for him. There was no way to make up for the fact he profited obscenely while people died.

  “Oh, Drum.” She sat and pushed him back to the pillows and leaned over him. “We have to make you feel better about this. We need to get you back to your life.”

  He looked into her eyes and had a moment of pure panic. She would never understand how he felt and he’d broken rules, stolen time, to be here like this with her and he didn’t regret it. How could he regret the honeyed slide of her skin on his, the slick of her mouth, but it was a heart-stopping indictment. He was not forgiven. He was not worthy. The death threats might not have been real, but his culpability was. He couldn’t think this through now. He was tired, so bone-softened and weary he could sleep again.

  He put his hand to the back of her head. “Stay with me while I sleep.”

  She kissed him with open skies and blue promises, with sweet young hope and spicy red longing and he could almost believe it was possible to be guilt-free.

  29: Stung to Numb

  Drum was gone when Foley woke and she missed him. With all his sealed sections prised open, with no more awkward secrets, he was more wondrous to her. And what he could do to her body, the way they sp
arked when they came together, that was a kind of neurotic necessity.

  And man oh man, that was a worry.

  But for now, in this little bubble of unreality they had, she was going to let it be. There’d be time enough to be practical.

  She called out and he didn’t answer, but this was a shockingly big house. There was a third storey she’d never been to. She had no idea what time it was but the sun was up. It had to be closer to lunchtime than breakfast, and her watch confirmed that.

  He wasn’t downstairs either. She went to the kitchen and checked the fridge. Nothing there they could eat other than a box of house brand cereal and a near empty carton of milk. He’d probably gone out for supplies again.

  She took another shower, taking her time, washing her hair, and when he still wasn’t back she sat at the top of the stairs in his gorgeous robe to wait for him. She turned on her phone and it flooded with messages. Gabriella parroting a greeting card, get well soon. Adro with a question about the Festival of the Wind program, which would wait. A polite reminder she’d missed a credit card payment. Gawd. Hugh, grumpy but sweet to demand she rest and drink plenty of fluids. Lastly Nat, three times: Call me. Call me. Bitch, call me.

  Still no sign of Drum. If he didn’t have any money, he was likely out there doing an odd job to earn enough to buy lunch. She looked at her feet, tucked under the drape of the robe. How was she supposed to go about convincing him to get professional help?

  She dialled Nat.

  “Where are you? You’re with him, aren’t you? Foley, shit, I’m worried about you. Did you sleep with him?”

  Nat’s agitation wasn’t catching. “I’m with him.” She felt the rightness of saying that.

  “And.”

  “I’m not talking about that.”

  Nat made a sound of exasperation. “Jesus, he must’ve been good.”

  Foley laughed. “Sod off. What do you want? I’m busy.”

  “Busy playing hooky. Busy playing hooker.”

  “Nat, you have outlived your usefulness. I’m pressing end.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. He’s not who you think he is? Have you seen the paper? Toby’s story. He’s—”