Unsuitable

by Ainslie Paton

  He liked the idea he’d get to do it again.

  Fuck, he’d wanted to be with her. Not the fricking hide and seek thing they’d had going. Tic, tac, bloody toe, slipping around each other and the fact they both wanted more. Nearly killed him to hold off and not nail that last square that’d give him a straight line to her. But she’d looked too fragile and he knew she had doubts. Unnecessary scruples. The first mover advantage thing, the whole she was his boss thing. And Mia, she worried for Mia. But Mia was fine and Audrey was better, and last night had blown the top of his head off.

  She’d come into his room looking like a fantasy off the Victoria’s Secret catwalk, sophisticated and so sexy he didn’t know where to look, where to put his hands, until he got them on her. He’d never felt awkward like that before. Challenged. He’d clutched the quilt like he was scared of what was under it. He was afraid she’d see how hard his heart was beating and think he wasn’t up to it.

  It got easier once she took his hand, because she looked at him with such faith he knew he would make it good for her. And she shook free in his arms, gave him every emotion she had while he pinned them together. It was the best sex he’d had sober because he lost it too, forgot himself enough to simply feel good, because it was safe to, because their minds and hearts were in it too.

  It was a permission thing, he knew it. Deeper than consent, than mutual wanting. Bigger than timing and place. The curse of his size again, of preferring it slow and deep, intense and easy, nothing rough or forced. Nothing in the eyes of the woman he went with sparking fear or looking for something he didn’t want to give. Audrey gave him permission to be himself and they exercised the trust they’d built over Mia on the bed.

  There’d have been more exercise, Olympic proportions of it, if he’d known it was going to happen. One condom. Shit. And not in the best nick, slightly tacky to touch. If he’d been prepared he’d have picked a fresher one. Talk about unprepared. No, not unprepared so much as not setting things up to fail.

  Audrey said it was once and there was every possibility she’d want to rewind, go back to before she got sick and they’d started messing with each other’s heads. Though how that was going to work was as mysterious as whatever the hell Polly was up to—correction, who-ever the hell Polly was up to, and rebooting was as much of a no-go as stopping things now.

  They weren’t stopping. It wasn’t one night.

  This morning Audrey couldn’t even pretend she thought that was a solid idea. She watched him like she could see through his clothes; it made his skin prickle, it made him hard and he fucking loved it. She’d never looked at him like this before. Never so wickedly greedy. If the Mia juggernaut didn’t have to roll on schedule it wouldn’t only be eye-fucking they’d do over the breakfast counter.

  The look on her face. He could guess what she was thinking. She knew she’d got him in a state.

  “I thought I’d come to playgroup with you. Say hello to everyone.”

  She was dressed in yoga pants and a zippered jacket. He’d left her sleeping while he corralled Mia and made breakfast. “I thought I could go for a walk, start building my strength before I go back to work.” She licked her lips. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  What? Like he wanted to make her his main meal for the day?

  “Mum, when I brush my teeth blood comes out.”

  She didn’t break eye contact. “Does it, Marvellous?”

  Neither did he. “Brush gently, Mia.”

  Audrey’s cheeks pinked on the word gently. God, she looked gorgeous this morning with that flush of health, that hot shot of wanting sex in her eyes. Fuck playgroup. Maybe he could dump Mia on Carrie and Junna and sneak off with Audrey for an hour. Yeah, that wouldn’t look suspicious. Much. Not that he cared. He wanted to put it on a billboard, hire a skywriter, but she might want to be more circumspect.

  “About last night,” he started. Good to get it out and clear.

  “No monsters came last night,” said Mia.

  “I chased them all away,” he said, eyes on Audrey.

  “You certainly did,” she said. She brushed a finger over her lips. “No monsters left in this house.”

  Unless you counted the one they’d made last night, a monstrous new desire to get naked and eat each other up. He closed the dishwasher drawer. “Are we going to talk?”

  “I was talking,” said Mia. “Listen to me.”

  He closed the door and set the dishwasher running. “Audrey?”

  “Mum, I was talking. Mum. Mum. Listen to me.”

  Audrey laughed. “We’re all going to playgroup.” She looked at Mia. “You’ll see all your friends and I can talk to Reece.”

  He leaned against the counter and folded his arms. That was as much of an answer as he was going to get for now. He didn’t feel a hint of annoyance about it. He felt awesome. He drove. Mia sang and made it impossible to talk. Audrey was a hit surprise guest at the beach.

  Carrie hugged her hard. “Christ on a cracker, Aud. We were so worried about you.”

  “How much weight did you drop?” said Junna. Reece heard more admiration than concern in her voice. Jesus.

  “You look well though,” said Maria.

  “I’m much, much better. I’m back at work soon,” Audrey said, then faced a dozen or more questions, rapid fire artillery. He kept half an ear on it and watched the kids until Carrie’s hand on his arm.

  “You did good.”

  He should get Mia to blow her nose, but hey, sleeves could be washed. He cut a glance at Carrie. “What do you mean?”

  “You took care of both of them.”

  He nodded. He’d keep doing it too as long as Audrey would let him.

  In front of them a bunch of little kids acted like drunks falling down in the sand. Behind them there was laughter.

  Carrie leaned into him. “I’ve missed my chance with you haven’t I?”

  “Ah.” What to say?

  “I can see it on you. The way you look at her. The way she looks at you.”

  “I’m not sure she—”

  “Wants anyone to know. She’s a fool. I’d want you to wear a sign. Property of Carrie. I’d have it tattooed on your chest, make you go shirtless so everyone would know I owned you.”

  He laughed and it sounded shifty. Carrie made him nervous. So goddamn confident. Polly would like her. Except odds on Polly was liking someone else right now.

  She squeezed his arm. “Oh don’t worry, they can’t hear us.”

  “I don’t have a problem if they can.”

  She yelled. “Hey, Toby. Don’t hit. Hailey. Eugenia, no biting.”

  He stepped forward to sort out the altercation. Maria called Carrie and he heard her rejoin the women behind him, sitting on the cement steps that lead down to the sand. He got Mia to blow her nose. He unstuck Tody’s zipper from his underpants and stopped him whining about sand in his hair. He could hear the women plenty good enough. Did they want him to? He had to think so, they were cackling loud enough.

  “He’s like our mascot, Audrey.”

  “No one messes with us when Reece is around.”

  “Best thing you ever did was hire him, Aud.”

  “I’d hire him as my house husband but I think my real husband might object.”

  “I bet he could make doing a load of dirty laundry look sexy.”

  “I think if I saw Reece unstack a dishwasher I might spontaneously orgasm.” That was Carrie. He turned and glared at her, she grinned back. “You can stack my dishwasher any day, big boy.”

  He opened his arms, free-shot wide. Why not, they were taking them. “I’m right here and I’m not deaf.”

  “We know, sexy. We’re funning on you,” said Junna.

  “You’re totally...” sand squeaked under his foot as he ground it, searching for the word.

  “Objectifying you,” said Carrie.

  They laughed. Audrey looked down at her feet.

  “My old boss never let a day go by without commenting on my appearance.
He thought it was being nice. It was creepy,” said Maria. “Didn’t matter that I asked him to not to.”

  “Every time I see my dentist he wants to know if I date. He knows I’m married. Every time,” said Janine. “I need to change dentists, but it’s a hassle. “And what about you, Audrey? All those guys at your work, patronising you.”

  Audrey looked up at him. “No, it’s not that—”

  “You got passed over, right.”

  “Yeah, that—” She got interrupted again. They all talked on top of each other. Audrey mouthed the word ‘sorry’.

  “We’re just getting some of our own back, Reece.”

  “You can take it.”

  “It’s just a bit of fun.”

  Yeah, he could take it. He was built like an army tank and he was a nanny. He didn’t have to like it though. He walked forward and held his hand out to Audrey.

  “Audrey needs to walk. Get her fitness back. If you guys watch Mia, I’ll go with her and bring back coffee.”

  Not a cackle. They were all looking at his fucking hand. Why did he do that? She wasn’t going to take it. Not in front of them.

  “He’s determined to get me fit again.” Audrey stood, her hands busy brushing imaginary sand from her thighs.

  “No hurry,” said Carrie. “Eugenia, stop that.”

  “We’ve got Mia,” said Junna. “No throwing sand.”

  He led off, going up the steps behind the women; he wanted out of their sight. He could hear Audrey behind him and then he felt her hand on the back of his hip.

  “Slow down.” He stopped. “Are you mad?” She put her hand in his. “Please tell me they’re not always like that.”

  He looked down at her, brows mashed down low in concern. He cupped her face and kissed the furrow on her forehead. “Nope. I’m not mad. I don’t know what that was about.”

  “I do.” She squeezed his hand. “Every one of them wants what’s in your pants.”

  He laughed. “It’s playgroup for fuck’s sake. There are kids.”

  “There’s you, looking like you do, so unexpected. They’re all bored. Maria can’t wait to go back to work. Janine hated working, but resents being at home, and you know Carrie’s story.”

  He shook his head. Rather not think about that. “You tried to say it wasn’t that bad, the objectification, at work.”

  “It’s not. It’s a male dominated workplace, but I like it. I love it. There’s discrimination, I’ve experienced it up close and, yes I deserved a promotion. Having Mia cost me that.” She frowned again. “But no one ogles me or seriously propositions me.”

  “What do you mean seriously propositions you?”

  She shrugged then tugged his hand and they started walking. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  He stopped, making her stop too. “Like what? I want to know.”

  She sighed. “There’s the whole you must be lonely vibe. Especially at conferences. When I was first starting out it was much rougher.” She tugged his hand again, and they walked on. “I worked in a smaller construction company. I managed customer relations.”

  She sighed and he saw memories chase across her face; grey clouds over blue skies.

  “But I was always the cute chick from reception. I was honey, or sweetheart, never Audrey. One character insisted on calling me Holly Golightly after Audrey Hepburn’s character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She was a kind of an American geisha girl, a virtual prostitute and he knew that. That was his whole shtick. Didn’t matter how often I asked him to quit it.”

  Reece stopped again, but he wasn’t aware of it until Audrey pulled on his hand.

  “They’d ask me about my boyfriends and whether I wore a bikini to the beach, would I play strip poker with them, if I wanted to sit on the office Santa’s knee and give him a kiss at Christmas. They knew they made me uncomfortable. That was part of the joke, like what the girls were doing to you. It’s a power play. Stinks, but it’s rare to find a woman who hasn’t experienced some form of it. You either fight it, and that’s tricky if you’re one person against, well, you saw how that goes, or you shut up and get on with it.”

  He let all that wash into him. He’d heard stories like it from Charlie. Probably not the worst of what happened to her, and Sky once got molested on a crowded train. She’d been furious with herself for letting the guy touch her and get away with it rather than cause a fuss. He’d wanted to rip train carriages apart for her, find the guy and pound him into the tracks.

  Charlie, Etta, Neeva, Gin, Flip, Sky, Audrey, Mia. All the women in his life had this to deal with because of a chromosomal difference, because men could be pigs.

  He’d had raised eyebrows and snickers, he’d been marginalised and lost out on jobs. He got how gender discrimination worked. But he’d had five minutes of being harassed by women he knew and liked, who were doing it as payback in fun. Audrey’d had to build a career in spite of it. Etta had already had a man take advantage of her. His own father was a loser dead-beat he’d never meet. It made his knuckles buzz, like they’d done before a fight and he knew he was going to hurt someone who’d stupidly bet on hurting him instead.

  “They didn’t mean it, with you. They were just stirring.”

  “I know.” He looked over Audrey’s head to the horizon, but there were no answers there either. “I was thinking about all my girls. Charlie, my sisters, you and Mia. I hate that’s the world you have to live in.”

  Audrey stepped in front of him, her arms went around his waist and she pressed her face to his chest. He hugged her in the middle of the walkway. Maybe for Etta, the twins, Flip and Mia it would be different. He’d do anything he could to make it so.

  Audrey lifted her face and he bent to kiss her, her mouth opening to him, the scent of her filling his head, and the fact she hadn’t taken his hand on the beach didn’t bother him as much anymore, she was kissing him here where anyone could see.

  He went from pissed off at the world to turned on at warp speed. He broke the kiss and took her hand. She needed light cardio, he needed heavy petting. Seclusion would kill two birds. He spun her around to face forward.

  “Where are we going?”

  He took her hand. “To get wet.”

  “Oh God, no Reece. I don’t have swimwear.”

  “Not that kind of wet.”

  She let him drag her up the coastal walkway. He went too fast, his stride too long and he couldn’t seem to slow it down. He had her out of breath at the top. She laughed between gulps of air, bent forward, hands to her knees. “You’re sacked as my personal trainer.”

  “I want you.”

  She straightened, the laughter still in her. “You’ve got me.”

  She looked confused and breathless and he was going to have to pace himself, but he’d been semi-hard since breakfast. “Do you trust me?”

  They were at the end of the pathway where people about-faced and went back the way they’d come. Below them was a flat bed of rock exposed at low tide. You couldn’t see all of it from the path. They’d only met one other couple walking, retracing their steps to the beach. No one was fishing. Middle of the work week they had the place to themselves.

  Her chin shot up defiantly. “You know I do.” She knew he was up to something.

  He put his hand in his back pocket. He had to push a vision of himself at fifteen out of his head. He pulled out a condom, bought that morning along with petrol, showed it to her in his palm. He wasn’t fifteen and fumbling anymore, but this was so new it had an edge to it that spiked his angst.

  She squealed, clapped her hands over her mouth. “Not here.”

  He reached for her, dragged her close. “Down there.”

  Her eyes went wide, flitting from where he’d pointed, to his face. “Reece, no.”

  He tilted her head up, widened his stance and kissed her as tenderly as he could. She was flat lipped, and then her on switch tripped. She opened her mouth and her body to him with a groan.

  “I want you too.”

  They ki
ssed on the path until the kiss wasn’t enough, then she let him lead her down the rock-cut steps to the tidal platform below. It was deserted, dry, baking in sunlight and reflected warmth. He picked a spot where he could see the steps, where she’d be sheltered behind an old cliff fall, where they were as safe from exposure as possible on a rock ledge ten metres to the sea.

  She held her next squeal but it was in her expression. “We can’t do this. Not here.” He shucked his shirt. “Oh God, Reece, that’s not fair.”

  He cocked his head, opened the stud on the top of his jeans. In summer they’d have had less clothing on. He considered their shoes, he should keep his on. He’d protect her feet. “Top off.”

  She shook her head. “Too cold.”

  He opened his arms. “I’ll keep you warm.”

  She stayed where she was, stared at him like she looked at Mia when she was out of bed for the umpteenth time at night. Then she broke and stepped into him, her hands going to his ribs.

  They kissed, and he got her jacket off, her top. He got her bra off too, mastering the hooks with a twist of his fingers, and by that time she was into this, stopped thinking about where they were and what he wanted them to do. He wanted her legs wrapped around him. He’d take her standing. She was more than into it when her nails hit his shoulders. He went to his knee and undid her shoes, slipped them off with her socks so she didn’t feel stupid in just socks, because she would.

  Her hands were in his hair. “This is crazy.”

  He smiled up at her. “We can stop.” It might topple him over, he’d need resuscitation, but he’d do it for her.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  He stayed on his knees to peel her yoga pants off. She shivered as he drew them down her legs, lips following hands, but she wasn’t cold. The sun bounced off the cliff wall beside them and sent out warmth he could feel on their skin. He left her underwear, he’d work around it, pressed his face to the triangle of black cotton, then groaned against her. She was wet already. Change of mind, they had to go, he plucked them off her hip with his teeth, hands up and down her legs. She didn’t protest.

  He pushed a finger inside her and she tightened her hold on his hair. “Don’t stop.”