by Alam, Donna
‘That’s Sam, my nurse,’ she says, patting my hand again. ‘He’s nice to look at, but I can’t think why he’d want a job wiping my bum.’
‘Because you’re the coolest older person this side of Keith Richards, June,’ Sam says with a kindly smile.
‘And you’re better looking,’ adds her granddaughter, Nat. ‘Where’s the food being served? I’m Hank Marvin.’ Rhyming slang. She means starving; why people can’t just stick to English is perplexing.
‘Is Hank Marvin here?’ asks a perked-up June. ‘I used to love his records. You know the ones, hen! He was in that group.’ She makes a motion with her hand as though she can grab the words in the air as they pass. ‘The . . . the dementors!’
‘That’s Harry Potter, June. Your man Hank was in The Shadows.’
‘Was he?’ she asks, turning her head to look both left and right. ‘What’s he doing hiding, then?’
‘Let’s take you for another spin around the gardens, hey?’ This from Sam again. Poor June. She looks a little perplexed.
‘Aye,’ she agrees. ‘That sounds lovely.’
As Sam pushes her away, they pass Ivy, Dylan, and the star of the show, baby Alastair.
‘I seen his boaby,’ June tells her nurse, making a mildly obscene gesture with her arm as they pass. ‘It’s like a baby elephant’s trunk—holding an apple at the end!’
As I straighten, Jon reaches for my hand. Again.
‘Leave me alone,’ I hiss loud enough for him to hear, though quiet enough not to cause a scene.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d be pleased to see me. You haven’t even told your parents yet. That has to count for something.’
‘Never get on the wrong side of parents,’ Ivy says breezily as she passes. ‘A mother always knows.’
My mother doesn’t know because we haven’t had that conversation. Yet. In fact, we haven’t spoken for a couple of weeks. It’s an easy pattern to fall into when we live in different time zones. The news of Jon’s cheating needed more words committed to explanation than can be carried in a text.
‘If you’ll excuse us.’ My words are more demand. I match the tone with a swift gesture of me head that says, Move, now! Then, turning on my heel, I walk smack into Kit.
‘We really should stop meeting like this,’ he says, a sad half smile curled on his handsome face.
‘No, agreed. Where we really should meet is on the steps of the Den surrounded by secret paparatizzi.’
His expression falters, and he looks confused. Or is good at feigning so.
‘Well, I was’nae gonna say anything,’ says Nat, folding her arms across her ample chest. ‘But I saw the headlines, too.’
Bemused, Kit’s gaze slides to Natasha as I realise my hands are still on his pecs. I try to move them when he curls his fingers around them lightning quick.
‘What am I missing?’ he asks Natasha. ‘Apart from the bawheid, that is.’
‘Just my mad granny pullin’ everyone’s leg, pretending she’s pure mental. She’s not, by the way. As for the fud’—she hooks her thumb in the direction of Jon—‘he’s just nut juice.’
Ivy starts to laugh, and I see Fin and Rory making their way over to our small crowd.
‘My car broke down, and my phone wouldn’t work over on the island.’ His expression is as dark as his delivery. ‘Just tell me, did you change your mind while I’ve been gone? Is it him?’
‘What, him? God, no!’ I try to pull away once more as Nat begins to regale Fin with the highlights of yesterday’s headlines. A tabloid sting. A politician. Your future brother-in-law is kinky, type of thing.
‘You were there, weren’t you?’ My words are quiet as Kit tries to pull me off to the side.
‘I haven’t been to the club this week. Woman, what’s wrong with you? Yes, so I’m a member of a sex club,’ he addresses our nosy bunch. ‘And I don’t particularly care anymore who knows.’
‘Unicorn for the win!’ calls Natasha, fist-pumping the air.
His dark eyes trained on me once again, Kit takes my breath away.
‘I’ve told you the truth from the beginning. I haven’t hidden who I am. And why the fuck would I go to the Den when I’m in love with you?’
Cue a collective sharp intake of breath. Cue murmurs and whispers and Rory’s what-the-fuck exclamations. Cue Fin’s placating tones and Nat’s excitedly repeated assertions that Kit is the mythical sexual unicorn.
But none of this is important to us.
‘Y-you love me? How can you know?’
He inhales, looks worried, tightens his hands over mine, and if I’m not mistaken, breaks out in a cold sweat.
‘It’s like . . . like ice cream. Or . . . anal. You try it once, and you just know.’
‘What did I tell you!’ calls Nat, though I don’t turn around.
‘After all you’ve put me through, Bea?’ Jon’s words sound plaintive. ‘Bringing me here, making me think I had a chance?’
‘Jon.’ I sound surprised. ‘I’d forgotten you were here. And I didn’t want you here. I’d be happy never to set eyes on you again.’
‘You know what?’ His face contorts, embarrassed now. Good. I hope he feels completely emasculated. ‘I might have strayed,’ he continues, ‘but you? Fucking the likes of him makes you a whore.’
‘I’d rather be a known as a whore than your girlfriend.’
With a growl, Kit pulls away, but not before Natasha gets between the pair at the same moment the private security guards appear.
‘Nut juice. Pure nut juice,’ she says as Jon’s escorted through the hall.
‘You’re so abstract,’ says Ivy. ‘What’s nut juice got to do with anything?’
Not that Kit or I pay attention, each of us trying to convey answers without words.
‘It’s one thing that looks like another,’ Nat begins. ‘Take that scrotey wank-piece that’s just been dragged out. He looks like almond milk. You know, wholesome and good and stuff?’ Eyes turn bemusedly to Nat who stares back as though we’re all idiots for missing her obscure point. ‘It’s nut juice!’ she adds, exasperated. ‘You can’nae milk a nut! If almond milk was called what it really is, no one would buy the stuff! Looks like one thing, is actually something else!’
Our friends chuckle but not Kit. His expression is dark, his body seeming to continue to vibrate with violence and anger. He’s conflicted, I can tell. Torn between keeping me close—his hands now wrapped around my waist—and following Jon and the security guards.
‘He’s not worth it,’ I murmur as he lowers his lashes, seeking to conceal his confliction.
‘It’d make me feel better,’ he growls. ‘I couldn’t stand to see you next to him.’
‘Aye, but it wouldn’t do for you to be in the newspapers twice in one week.’ Rory sounds amused, but Kit doesn’t bite or even recognise his brother’s words, his stormy grey gaze unmoving from my face.
‘You—you weren’t in the club, were you?’ My words are hesitant, but I need to be sure. ‘Not after telling me you wanted to keep me.’
‘No.’ One word. Growled. ‘I haven’t even seen the stupid paper, but it whatever the photograph shows, I wasn’t at the Den that day.’
‘The article said the photographs were taken over a twenty-four-hour period.’ God, I want to believe him, but I don’t want to be that girl again. The stupid one.
‘I wasn’t there,’ he answers, his words fervent. ‘Ask any one of Dylan’s famous mates, and they’ll tell you the same—the press fucking twist things. I’ll take you to the club—I’ll prove it to you. But I need to know about him?’ He jerks his chin in the direction Jon was marched away.
‘He just . . . turned up. Delusional. Arrogant. Stupid? Take your pick.’
‘So hang on a minute,’ Rory challenges. As though preparing to fight, Kit’s chest tenses against my own. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re in love with Elizabeth?’ What began as a reaction of confusion, or maybe cynicism, ends with genuine, dare I
say not unhappy, surprise.
At Rory’s knowledge of my name, Kit’s head shoots up, and I begin to giggle. ‘I told you you wouldn’t be very impressed.’
‘How the hell do you get Bea from Elizabeth?’ he asks, confused.
‘Well, you take a child with a lisp who can’t pronounce things properly, and let her refer to herself as B-lizabef until she’s five.’
Our friends start to chatter, giggle, and exclaim, all drifting away until only the two of us are left.
‘So you love me?’
‘It would appear so.’
‘Like a cold you can’t get rid of?’ He snorts, his long fingers drifting up to hold my face.
‘I don’t need a cure. All I need from now on is regular doses of my honey.’
Epilogue
Twelve Months Later
BEA
Summer in London can be hard to cope with. That is, an actual summer. Not the usual fare of wet and cool weather, but those days when the sun shines and all seems right in the world. All seems right unless you’re in the city. Something about a hot summer’s day in the city makes a person understand what it might be like to be suffocated. But for me? I’m not doing so badly. The hospital is mostly cool, and Kit has air conditioning in his home. I think it might be the only domestic building in England to have air con, but hey! That’s my boyfriend.
He’s actually more than my boyfriend because we live together these days. Once Rory had his nightmare of a kitchen refitted, Fin moved in. This left me looking for a roommate, a situation I wasn’t so keen on. But then Kit suggested I move in with him. Did I hesitate? Not a chance. Because he loves me . . . and I love him.
To distraction.
We have a good life. Lots of lazy weekend brunches and dinners with Rory and Fin. Rory reacted . . . surprisingly well to the fact that his brother wasn’t actually gay. I suppose it all comes back to the don’t ask/don’t tell dynamic the pair have. It goes without saying that no mention of Kit’s bisexual nature has been made since then. Fin, on the other land, likes to discuss it in detail. She likes to discuss it a lot. And I think Rory benefits from those days.
We get to see Ivy, Dylan and baby Al in Scotland often. Natasha usually visits then, too. Once, she even brought June and Sam.
On the days in between, we work hard, and we play harder. Play being the operative word, now that I’m a member of the Lion’s Den.
We’re not that couple—the ones who hang out there every weekend. Hanging out being the operative words. The Den isn’t a massive part in our lives; more like it’s the cherry on the top of the cake we’ve baked for ourselves.
We don’t need it but like the variety it offers us, and I’m often the one who suggests an evening there. A bit like I have tonight. Another masquerade party. Mine is an outrageously silver feathered number that Kit says belongs on a topless dancer at the carnival in Brazil, while his is much smaller, black, and with a hint of Zorro.
I do love a little mystery. And a little pomp and circumstance . . .
‘You’re like some wicked little mare, Isobel. You must learn to be obedient. Learn to be ridden and how to receive the crop, or how else how will I sell you at the fair?’
‘You enjoying the show, honey bee?’ Kit’s words rumble in my ear as his hands begin stroking my thighs under my flirty bandeau dress. It’s not as though anyone can see. Not yet, anyway. And I don’t need to ask him the same question. His hard cock pressing into my ass tells me all I need to know
I sigh my answer as his fingers tease my inner thighs as the girl, “Isobel”, begins to mewl her distress as her “owner” begins to strip her from the voluminous confines of her white nightdress. There’s something virginal about the garment, gossamer and virginal, and I find myself getting wet. It seems regency raunchiness might be my thing.
‘Can we go to our room?’ I turn my head, whispering my question into Kit’s hot neck. He smells delicious, as always, a mixture of man and spice and the whisky he’s sipping. God, I so want to be that drink as I watch him swallow it down.
Our relationship is good. Very good. And we’re happy. But there are times like this when I’d be content only to be devoured by him—consumed in my entirety.
These moments of obsession when I long to crawl under his skin.
‘It’s not time yet,’ he whispers, rubbing his stubbled jaw against the bared skin of my neck. He knows what the sensation does to me, reminding me of other things. I shiver as much from his knowledge as from the action itself. ‘That’s the point of anticipation, darlin’. It makes it so worth it in the end.’ And then, as though I don’t know what he’s doing, he slides his legs farther apart, forcing me to adjust the way I’m sitting.
He does so like it when I straddle his leg. When I’m helpless and desperate.
My heart begins to beat faster as I relax against his chest, his fingers transferring their caresses from the tops of my thighs to the soft insides.
‘Do you like her nightdress?’ Kit asks, edging his teeth against the shell of my ear. The sensations are so delicious they cause me to shiver.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘It’s called making polite conversation, darlin’.’
‘Polite conversation and an inappropriate brush of your fingers? Yes.’
‘There, darling,’ he purrs, ‘I like it when you make my fingers wet. I’ve half a mind to make you lick them clean them in front of these nice people.’
‘I don’t see any nice people,’ I whisper, snaking my hands around the back of his head. ‘Just nice fucks.’
‘Such a greedy honey bee.’
‘Says the bisexual,’ I respond, the words drawn out in a hiss.
‘For that, I’m not going to help you,’ he purrs wickedly. ‘Instead, I’m going to make you get yourself off.’ I love it when he uses that tone—the rasp in the reprimand that makes me weak in the knees and wet between my legs.
His hands move around to my hips, pushing my body upright. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he asks, tightening his fingers. ‘Go on, make yourself come.’
I whimper as I rock myself forward, my clit brushing the fabric of his pants, and in my mind, it was his tongue brushing me there. The fabric of his pants is like the tongue of a cat, rough and rasping, lapping at me again and again. The first tingle of orgasm is quick, staring in my belly, warming me inside and out. My mind is foggy, though I can hear Kit’s encouragements and feel a new set of hands. Tentative touches. Strokes of my arms. A finger trailed across my collarbone.
We don’t do this in public—fuck, I mean. We’re probably the least attention-seeking members of this club. But that’s not to say we don’t attract any attention. And that’s how we pick our third . . .
That someone is touching me means someone has been gifted Kit’s assent.
‘You look so beautiful, honey bee.’ Kit’s whisper accompanies his hands on my ass, rubbing and massaging—encouraging—until I find myself undulating against his leg and into his touch. ‘That’s it. That’s it, my darlin’,’ he says, his voice all appreciation and lust. ‘You look so incredible, fucking my leg.’
That’s it. That’s all it takes. That and the sudden cool touch of air making me realise Kit has lifted the hem of my dress. A little air, a little more friction, and I’m edging the point of no return. Kit licks my neck, urging me to watch, and I gasp, my eyes springing open . . . to look down on a man on his hands and knees, watching my pussy as I come.
Call out. Spread my legs wider. Knot my hands in the stranger’s blond head. Rock a little harder and come all over Kit’s leg.
‘Fuck, that was a thing of beauty,’ whispers the stranger in awe.
It’s quite a strange sensation, listening to your boyfriend carry on a conversation when you don’t have the power of your arms and legs. Sated and content, I slide my back against his front and listen as they talk.
I can tell from Kit’s voice that he’s interested. The guy is pretty cute, in a preppy way, and something tells me he’s h
iding a fit body under those clothes. I’d say he’s a little younger, too. The dark green Robin mask—as in the classic Batman and Robin—is a bit of a giveaway.
I raise my foot, placing it against the blond’s chest.
‘I like him,’ I murmur. ‘I think we should keep him for tonight.’
‘You do, do you, darlin’?’
‘Yeah,’ I say twisting my head to meet Kit’s warm lips. ‘I think you like him, too.’
‘Go upstairs to room 302,’ Kit purrs. ‘Get naked and kneel.’
The man’s smile is slow to grow, but he’s much quicker on his feet. Eager. I like that.
‘Absolutely, sir, and just so you know, I can deep throat like nobody’s business.’
‘Stop showing off,’ Kit growls, the reprimand turning molten and sliding across my skin.
‘You’re sure?’ Kit asks as the man walks away. It’s not hesitation; Kit always likes to make certain I’m down for this.
‘He’s cute,’ I say, turning on his knee to face him.
‘But do you wanna to fuck him?’ he asks, and even through his mask, I can appreciate his ridiculously sexy eyebrow raise.
Smitten. I’m so in love with him.
‘Eventually, but I think you should make him put your money maker where his mouth is first.’
His responding laugh warms my stomach in tiny tingles. ‘You want him to deep throat my brain?’
‘You know that’s my favourite part. I don’t share your cerebral capacity with anyone, silly. Come on,’ I add, standing and tugging on his hand. ‘This party isn’t going to get started by leaving him on his own.’
‘What have I told you about anticipation, honey bee?’ he says, shaking his head disparagingly.
‘I’ll see if I can remind you next time I’m loving your dick.’
As we walk the rather grand staircase with my hand in his, Dan Masters, the owner of the club, calls out as he passes.
‘I see you found yourself a new playmate, Tremaine.’ We’re not supposed to use names tonight, though it seems silly for regulars.
‘You’ve got it wrong, Masters,’ Kit replies. ‘I’m hers. All the way. I’m hers.’
He’s such a sweet talker, my man.
