Trouble By Numbers Series

by Alam, Donna

  ‘I thought you weren’t dating anyone.’ This from Simone, using what I assume is her barrister’s voice over the noise of the rain. She then demands her husband to call the police.

  And all the while, Bea hasn’t uttered a word. She looks shocked, as well as fucking shocking. Red-rimmed eyes, a little gaunt, and her wild hair now wet and bedraggled, rain running down her light coat in rivulets. But so beautiful still.

  ‘No. No police,’ I growl as Greg reaches for his phone. ‘There’s no fucking need.’

  ‘No need?’ Simone repeats. ‘She almost punched me!’

  ‘I’m almost certain she was aiming for me,’ I reply sardonically. Bea’s brow furrows briefly, so maybe she wasn’t after walloping me, after all. She didn’t call my name as she approached me, just sort of growled.

  ‘I’ll take care of this.’ Take care of her or deliver Rory to her for his beating, if that’s what this turns out to be. The way she’s still trembling, I sincerely hope not. I just need to get to the bottom of this first. At least, it doesn’t appear to be about me. ‘I’ll be in contact, right?’

  ‘There’s nothing to take care of,’ Bea says suddenly. ‘I-I made a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake?’ Simone replies imperiously. ‘Try attempted assault.’

  Bea straightens her spine, possibly realising the consequences of her actions. ‘A case of mistaken identity,’ she responds defensively. ‘And I didn’t strike anyone.’

  So it is Rory she’d intended to punch? What has the fucker done wrong now? Unless . . . of course. She thought she saw Rory kissing someone other than Fin.

  And more to the point, she can know nothing about the club.

  ‘The intent was there,’ Greg begins as Bea cuts him off with an incredulous look in my direction.

  ‘What are you laughing about?’

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ I protest even though I find myself chuckling. Relief, probably. I clear my throat. ‘I said I’d take care of this, and I will.’ I turn from Bea, though I don’t let go of her arm. I’m not sure I could catch her if she ran, not after last night, the glow of which is cooling rapidly. Especially as Si’s current expression could sour milk.

  After a beat, Simone appears to change tack, offering me her cheek. There’s a lingering hint of pussy on her face which causes a wisp of memory to rise from last night.

  Her, naked and kneeling on one side of the bed, me standing on the other side, a girl stretched out between us. Simone’s face buried deep in her pussy, the shape of my cock visible through the thin membranes of the girl’s throat.

  ‘Take care, darling,’ she purrs. ‘Don’t forget to call about next weekend.’

  I nod but don’t answer before Greg offers a similar goodbye as his wife, without the kiss. To anyone looking in, the interaction seems purely platonic. To anyone leaning in, they certainly wouldn’t smell pussy on his face.

  Maybe just the salt of my cum.

  The sound of Simone’s heels against the wet pavement fades as the pair makes their way back to . . . wherever it is they go Saturday mornings. Hotel? Home? Our relationship doesn’t extend to those details, but all the while, Bea and I are mute. Though I’m almost sure I can see the questions feeding through her gaze. I’m not currently asking, and while she’s not offering . . . she will.

  ‘Are you going to let go of my arm?’ she asks softly.

  ‘That depends. Are you going to run away?’

  ‘I’m wasn’t planning on it,’ she says, her cheeks turning pink.

  ‘That’s not very convincing.’

  ‘You’d stop me?’ Her tone drips with scorn and rebellion. I let my small smile answer while trying not to reveal what the thought of her running does to me because I do like a little fight in a girl. It makes the chase so much more fun.

  Especially after I thought of pursuing her last week.

  Pursing her lips, Bea glances over her shoulder to a grotty looking café. ‘My breakfast is getting cold.’

  Chapter Twelve

  BEA

  ‘That looks . . . ’

  Seated across from me on the other side of the tiny Formica table, I’d thought Kit might draw some funny looks in the shabby café, but not so, it seems. Either the man behind the counter is used to dashing men in dinner suits sipping coffee while camped on his rickety wooden chairs, or he really doesn’t care.

  Don’t ask, don’t tell what goes on behind closed doors. Especially those right across the street.

  ‘You’re not really going to eat that, are you?’

  ‘What?’ I realise he’s still talking about my breakfast. The congealed eggs and improbably coloured baked beans. Beans the colour of mandarins.

  ‘No. Probably not.’ I line up my silverware, refusing to look at his pristine self. Do men like him always come off best? He isn’t even wet. Meanwhile, my jacket is causing puddles from where it hangs on the back of my chair. ‘It’s probably cold.’

  ‘It’s probably a heart attack on the plate. And you a doctor.’ He tsks, a disparaging click of tongue and teeth.

  ‘Haters hate. Though you do look more like a chia seed, granola, and kale smoothie sort of man yourself.’ The soft sound of his rumbling laughter draws my head up to his smouldering gaze.

  ‘It’s a pity breakfast isn’t what we came here to discuss.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware there was to be a discussion,’ I demur, looking away again.

  ‘Then why else are we here?’

  ‘Well, I’m here because I was frogmarched here from across the street.’

  ‘And you don’t care for the company?’ he almost taunts.

  ‘I don’t care to be manhandled,’ I retort, sitting straighter in my chair.

  ‘Maybe you just haven’t been handled by the right man.’

  ‘Oh, for the love of God, wipe the smile from your face. So you’re a good lay. Well done, you!’

  ‘Thank you. Not that you’d know. How’s that boyfriend of yours?’ His taunting smile boils the blood in my veins, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of my ire.

  ‘Still dumped,’ I respond coolly. Do I imagine his smug satisfaction? Why would he care?

  ‘You know, for someone who might well now be sitting in the local police station’s custody suite, you don’t appear very grateful.’

  ‘Oh, I am. Eternally,’ I deadpan.

  ‘I’m sure they’d have been very interested in the contents of that bag.’ His gaze flicks to my large tote, the same one I’d been forced to take to dinner—the one I’d abandoned when I’d stormed across the street to accost him. ‘You’re sure you’re not smuggling small children out of the hospital in there?’

  ‘Are you just nosy or do you have a purse fetish?’

  ‘Come on,’ he says, ignoring my ridiculous question. ‘Exactly who were you planning to punch this morning?’ He leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his broad chest and cocking one taunting brow. ‘And more to the point, why.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to punch anyone.’ I was probably going to slap his face. A surgeon’s hands are her tools, and busted knuckles are less than ideal.

  ‘I don’t think that’d wash in a court of law.’

  I sigh as if bored, though more realistically what I am feeling is annoyed. Annoyed at myself and at his smug bloody face.

  ‘Look, I’ve had a trying week.’

  ‘I could’ve helped with that.’

  ‘How? Telepathically,’ I snipe.

  ‘You could’ve gotten my number. I believe I’ve proved the methods of my stress relief.’

  ‘I’m not interested,’ I snap, embarrassed and feeling all sorts of uncomfortable.

  ‘Okay.’ Kit sits forward, rubbing his index finger down his nose. ‘Noted. But it doesn’t explain why you almost punched me.’

  ‘Because my boyfriend of eight years, the man I followed from the other side of the world, happened to roll on his phone last week and dial mine. Unfortunately, he happened to be fucking someone else at the time!’
>
  My final words seem to echo through the café, the place suddenly so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the noise of frying eggs seems to come back as though through a vacuum.

  ‘So there you have it. My momentary loss of sanity.’ I can’t look at him, choosing to look out the window to the rain-streaked street instead.

  ‘And you thought I was Rory.’

  ‘Yes. My judgment was clearly off, both picking the wrong brother and thinking he’d do such a thing to Fin. You are, however, lucky I didn’t go for your dick.’

  He smiles, sort of wryly. ‘I had hoped, at least for a moment, you were coming for just that. Until I got a look at your expression. It was murderous.’ His eyes were wide open and clear—a feigned innocence.

  ‘You do that on purpose.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘That rolling thing with your r’s.’ For some reason, my index finger makes a circular motion, his eyes flicking down to watch. And just like that, I’m back in that dark hallway with his long fingers between my legs.

  ‘Maybe it’s just my tongue.’

  ‘It’s definitely something,’ I reply, feeling a little short of breath. Sliding the loose tendrils of hair behind my ears, my gaze slides to the window again. ‘Is that a hotel? The place you were coming out of?’

  ‘The building?’ The hesitant nature of his answer draws my attention to him again, but he looks back at me with a challenge in his eyes.

  ‘Yeah, you were coming out of it, I thought.’

  ‘Dr Honey Bea,’ he drawls then he smiles wolfishly. ‘That building is something you really don’t want to know about.’

  Resisting the urge to fold my arms and snort, I match his smile wattage. ‘Not my monkeys, not my circus, I suppose?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Only, you seem to be unfamiliar with how this goes. I asked, ergo, I want to know. Polite convention and all that.’

  He nods once slowly as though considering my words. ‘Once you know, there’s no going back. Monkeys roaming free and the circus? Over as you know it.’

  ‘So dramatic. I never liked the circus, anyway.’

  ‘There’s no unknowing. Consider this a warning because there’s nothing polite about that place.’

  ‘Oh, stop with the cloak and dagger stuff. It’s not as if you’re going to tell me it’s a sex club or anything!’ Again, the café seems to fall quiet, ears nearby straining to hear.

  Kit begins to laugh, rich and deep and clear.

  ‘I didn’t tell you behind that unassuming door there’s an elite club for persons of particular sexual tastes. Because if I had, I’d have had to swear you to secrecy first.’

  ‘What?’ My eyes slid to the exterior of the building. The white painted sash windows, the topiaries standing sentry, the brass letterbox. ‘No. You’re pulling my leg.’ The place looks far too ordinary. Expensive, but not kinky by any stretch of the imagination.

  He shrugs and folds his arms. ‘I didn’t tell you anything. I could get blackballed for doing that. And then where would I take my . . . quirks?’ He looks far too at ease to be telling me he has . . . quirks. Oh, come off it. The man has deliciously kinky written all over him.

  ‘I have a hard time believing you’d have issues getting anyone to accommodate your p-peccadillos.’ Good save because I was totally thinking penis. Big, thick penis. He inclines his head—a motion of insincere thanks. ‘Sometimes just anyone won’t do.’

  ‘Well, I’m not suggesting you’d need to—’ The emphasis he places on one snags. I know he’s not trying to tell me I’m his one true love or anything, but there was a certain emphasis that makes me think. ‘Anyone?’ I repeat the word using his exact intonation. ‘You mean you like to sleep with both’—like I don’t already know this—‘at the same time?’ He nods, smiling like the cat that ate the cream. The cat that ate all the cream and drank the milk. ‘The couple on the steps?’ She did seem very possessive, come to think of it. Where have I heard this before? Didn’t Fin say something about seeing Kit with a couple at lunch?

  ‘Acquaintances,’ he answers void of intonation though his eyes positively gleam.

  Meanwhile, my own eyes are wide, and if I’m not mistaken, my mouth resembles that of a fish.

  ‘Acquaintances?’

  ‘Acquaintances I fuck.’

  ‘You’re not serious.’ I sound scandalized. For the record, I’m also more than a little turned on.

  ‘I am serious. As serious as I am about wanting to taste you. You remember that?’

  In the absence of words, I nod. And cross my legs. He looks disreputable sitting there in his dinner jacket in this grubby café, the dark scruff of his stubble covering his jaw and his freshly fucked hair. He looks more fuckable and more alluring than a Saturday morning should see. How can I find it sexy that he’s come from another’s bed? Several others’ beds, maybe? Obviously, I don’t understand the dynamics of such things.

  ‘I think you’ll taste delicious,’ he murmurs, tilting his head.

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’ I push my fingers over my ears as though moving my hair. Clear my throat. Sit straighter in the chair.

  ‘I have a theory that you’ll taste like honey.’

  ‘And that’s impossible.’ My voice is weak and a little breathy, and my heart beats erratically, though this time, I fight the urge to fidget and squirm.

  ‘Have you ever had a one-night stand?’

  ‘Is this an interview?’

  ‘Ever gone down on a woman?’ Face burning, I shake my head. ‘Then you wouldn’t know, Dr Honey Bea.’

  ‘H-how is that my name these days?’

  He hums, the sound low and compelling. ‘Because you’ll taste like honey. I know it, and I want it. I want to place my tongue between your legs until your honeyed cum covers my face. I want to crawl up your body, paying attention to every inch of your sun-kissed skin until I reach your face. Then I’ll kiss you, and then you’ll know I was right about how you taste.’

  ‘But I can’t do that,’ I whisper, my eyes sliding from his.

  ‘You can’t do what?’ he purrs.

  ‘Have sex with—’ I lean across the table as though those around will hear. ‘Have sex with multiple people. At the same time.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to,’ he says, smiling. ‘I just said I want to fuck you. Have you all to myself. Especially not over there, though I would. You can choose. A hotel, a wall, a bed, bent over a spanking desk in a sex club . . . ’

  ‘But there was a man out there on the steps earlier.’ I can imagine Kit participating in threesomes. Can and will imagine probably, placing myself in a starring role. But could I be the meat in that sandwich? I don’t think my imagination would even stretch that far.

  ‘Greg,’ he asserts with a slight incline of his head. ‘Simone’s husband. What about him?’

  ‘He lets her . . . ?’ How to put this?

  ‘Fuck other men?’

  Yes, that. A pure surge of need floods my body; his expression, the cadence of his voice, and the things he says—and the accompanying images— make it hard not to wriggle and squirm in my seat.

  ‘He likes to watch, mostly. Sometimes he joins in. When I let him.’

  ‘With you?’ Between my legs begins to throb, prickling waves of need pulsing through me.

  This man is a wolf.

  No, he’s the devil in a Saville Row suit.

  I’d never survive him.

  ‘You know what they say, Dr Honey Bea. It’s never gay in a three way.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  KIT

  The following Friday night, I have my usual room booked at the Den. I don’t linger in any of the common areas, though I do order a drink after checking in with my phone—one of the club’s rules to protect identities—then I head straight to the room.

  I’m there before Simone and Greg, and that pisses me off for no other reason than I’m in a bastard of a mood. I’d altered the booking yesterday, changing it to
a different room. Change is as good as a rest, or so they say. Only, I’m not sure a change of scenery will do the trick.

  I hang up my suit jacket and take a seat in the room decorated like a high-end hotel—pale walls and cherry wood furniture concealing all kinds of kinky kit. It’s a little Danish in décor, though more Eames than Ikea, with various shades of white. It reminds me of a dentist’s waiting room, and I begin to wish I’d left the booking as it was.

  When the pair arrives, Greg almost trips over himself as he notes the large, padded leather bench in the centre of the room, fixed with restraints at various points. I ordinarily get a kick out of seeing his trepidation. He likes restraints . . . on himself. While he watches me fuck his wife, loathing himself while he does so.

  I’ve never asked him why. I’m not a psychologist or even interested. If it works for them and their marriage, I’m usually, though not always, in . . . somewhere.

  ‘What’s with the change of rooms?’ Simone doesn’t appear to notice any difference in the atmosphere as she places a bottle of water down on a console table. ‘Don’t tell me they double booked?’

  She looks good tonight, as always, though this Friday isn’t an event like last week. No feather masks or evening wear, no kinky shows to admire on the main floors. No watching her suck another’s dick while I’m buried balls deep. No sexual free-for-all.

  Simone pulled her dark hair into a ponytail, and her dark, tight jeans look new. Nude coloured heels and a champagne camisole complete the look. She looks like a yummy mummy ready for a night of cocktails with the girls. As for Greg—dressed in a pale grey shirt and dark pants—he looks a little scared. Which works for him. He likes a little fear and humiliation.

  ‘Kit? Did you hear me?’

  I take a mouthful of my drink—Hendricks and tonic—and turn my attention to her.

  ‘I heard. I just don’t care to answer.’ The look on her face is priceless and sends a surge to my dick.

  ‘You’re in a strange mood.’ She makes as though to move to the chaise, but I have other plans.

  ‘Stop. Just where you are. And strip.’

  ‘What?’ Her cheeks are suddenly painted pink, her chest rising and falling with halting breaths. It’s been a while since we played like this, and I can tell the prospect excites her.