Skin of the Night: Book One of The Night series

by Claire D. Bennett

  Tyler asked me, “Have you considered going into politics?”

  I snorted. “No, thanks. I imagine I’d have to sacrifice my values on several occasions if I hoped to get anywhere.”

  “The caustic tone.” He smiled. “Honest question: did you vote leave or remain?”

  “Brexit? Remain, absolutely, for an abundance of reasons.”

  “Me too.”

  “Let’s not go into that,” Olivia complained. “I’m done with politics. It’s so boring.”

  I couldn’t have disagreed more. “Right.”

  “I heard you received an offer to extend your placement at Day & Night this summer,” Mary-Anne said to me then.

  If the mention hadn’t immediately reminded me of William, I would have grinned, but instead, a shy smile was all I could offer. “I did.”

  “That’s something we ought to raise our glasses to,” she said and lifted hers.

  “Aaron’s placement at Dentons deserves the same,” I insisted.

  “To Aaron and Cara, then,” Mary-Anne said with a nod.

  “Meanwhile, my marks didn’t make the cut,” Olivia mumbled, amused.

  “Hey,” I said after a sip. “Your effort will be recognised soon enough. Don’t let this bring you down.”

  “I won’t,” she assured me. “I’m honestly overjoyed on your behalf. Knowing how much you and Aaron work, you deserve it. I wish I could say the same, but I’m much lazier than you. Now I’m paying the price.”

  Mary-Anne reached over to squeeze her hand. “That’s the spirit, pet. In the end, perseverance is always rewarded.”

  “Mary-Anne, you are ever fantastic,” she replied fondly.

  I said, “On that note, I say we raise our glasses to Mary-Anne.”

  § § §

  After dinner, I helped Mary-Anne clean the dishes in the kitchen and was thankful for some quietness. The others remained in the living room and watched TV. My brain was exhausted after today’s exam, and socialising was something I usually found taxing, so I didn’t say much, but that was something I’d always adored about Mary-Anne: just like Aaron, she was extremely comfortable to be around. I never felt the need to say something to break the silence because, around her, I always felt welcome to be entirely myself.

  “Aaron told me the exam was tough,” she murmured after a while.

  “It was.”

  “And the next one is on Thursday next week?”

  “Yes. I’ll start revising for it tomorrow. I’ve required a day off.”

  “Understandable.” She reached over to stroke my arm. “I’m very grateful for you, Cara. Aaron’s always been a bit of a loner, but I can tell he’s thrilled with his life at UCL, and I suspect I have you to thank for it.”

  I chuckled. “Hardly. Between the two of us, he’s the more likeable person. I’ve been told I tend to intimidate people. Aaron earns the favour of everyone – especially Cassie.”

  “Cassie?”

  I glanced at her. “He hasn’t mentioned her?”

  Mary-Anne looked amused. “No.”

  “Well, she’s a girl in our class, and she’s got a soft spot for Aaron. He won’t agree if you ask him, though.”

  She laughed. “That’s Aaron for you. He’s always been clueless about girls.”

  “Clearly.” I laughed as well.

  I heard my phone ring in my pocket then, so after drying my hands, I fished it out and saw that Jason was calling.

  “Hiya,” I answered.

  “Hi, love. How did it go?”

  “Okay, I think, but it’s hard to say. I might have missed the target. Who knows?”

  “I’m sure you nailed it. Anyway, just thought I’d say that I’m heading to Will’s, so I doubt I’ll be home when you get back. We’re playing a game of chess, and it tends to last a couple of hours.”

  “I see. Sounds like fun. Thanks for letting me know. Tell him I said hi, I suppose.”

  “Will do. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  As soon as I rang off, I saw that I had a couple of notifications, but one in particular earned my immediate attention because it contained another message from William.

  ‘Congratulations on completing the first of your exams! I’m checking in to make sure you’re still alive’

  Sensing Mary-Anne’s eyes on me, I looked up to meet them.

  “That’s a lovely smile you’re wearing,” she commented astutely. “Could it be due to a lucky man?”

  I feared my blush exposed me, but nevertheless, I shook my head. “No, just a friend – and a funny one at that, hence the smile.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she uttered, evidently not convinced, but instead of probing me, she merely gave me a knowing smile. I wondered for a moment if she would have reacted the same had she known about my arrangement with her son.

  Turning my focus back to my phone, I replied with a meme of a man in seemingly impenetrable armour of the medieval sort, with the caption ‘Me: fully prepared for exams’. But in the image straight below, an arrow struck through the slim gap in his helmet, with the text ‘question number one’ written across its shaft.

  After that, I tucked my phone back into my pocket and promised myself I wouldn’t look at it again before I left.

  § § §

  Since Olivia and I had planned to sleep over at mine, we headed home together shortly before midnight, and by the time we parted ways with Aaron and Tyler, I had grown impatient with wanting to check if I had received any new messages. As soon as we stepped onto the central line Tube that would take us from Wanstead to Notting Hill Gate, I fished my phone out of my pocket and was delighted to see that William had replied.

  ‘Haha I’m sure you nailed it’

  ‘Ever the pessimist’

  Smiling to myself, I liked his last message but decided not to reply until we stepped off the train, because Olivia wanted to talk about Colin. She’d heard he had started seeing Alison now, who was the girl he’d cheated on her with. Naturally, she was rather irate about it, and she had only found out yesterday, so she was worried the news had affected her performance in her exam today. Listening to her was a solid reminder of exactly why I would do best to avoid William. To find myself in her shoes – my attention divided between a man and my ambitions – was a far cry from tempting.

  “You need to put that arsehole out of your mind, Livy,” I said. “He’s not worth your attention. I know it’s easier said than done, but if he’s really seeing Alison now, you should consider that another reason never to give him a single thought again. He really doesn’t deserve even a scrap of your time.”

  “It just feels so unfair,” she complained, upset.

  “The world isn’t fair.”

  “Your realism is hardly what I need right now.”

  “I’m sorry.” I pouted. “I wish there were something I could say to make you feel better, but I seriously don’t know what. I completely agree that you don’t deserve this, but it is what it is. You’ve spent three years of your life with a man who didn’t deserve it, but that can happen to the best of us. You ought to do yourself a favour and learn from it as you move on.”

  “Yeah, it’s just difficult to accept.”

  “I get it. I’d probably feel the same way.”

  “Ugh.” She tossed her head back. “I can’t wait for exams to be over so I can start dating again. The lack of male attention isn’t helping me forget about him.”

  “I’ll gladly be your wing-woman again. That’s if you would dare to entrust me with that task after it failed last time.”

  She laughed. “You’ll be too busy working anyway.”

  “Not on the weekends – I hope.”

  “We’ll see. Either way, I’d love that. Speaking of, how’s that going? Have you met William since?”

  “Not since he helped
me assemble my wardrobe and since dinner with his parents, but I’ve already told you about that.”

  “He’s not made any other advances?”

  While I could tell her that he had started messaging me on Instagram, I hesitated, because I worried it would make everything real to me. If I told her, he would inevitably become a recurring subject, and I didn’t want that. I was struggling enough as it was with putting him out of my mind, so I couldn’t see what good it would do. The constant reminder would only worsen the headache he was giving me.

  “No.”

  “Hm. Well, I’m glad he’s respecting your boundaries. I do pity him, though. And I still think you made a mistake.”

  “Whatever.”

  As we walked along the pavement towards my flat, Olivia was busy messaging one of her other friends, presumably about Colin, so I took the opportunity to reply to William.

  ‘I wasn’t all that frustrated tbh ;)’

  ‘Should work out fine (I hope). Anyway, how’s your Friday?’

  ‘Spending it with this knob’

  He sent a photo of Jason. I chuckled at first, but my amusement subsided when it occurred to me that he was currently hanging out with my very best friend who had no idea at all that we were chatting under his nose. What had my life come to? All this secrecy wasn’t something I was used to. I’d always been one to favour transparency in my friendships, but now I had lied to Olivia and continued to withhold information from both her and Jason, not to mention Aaron.

  ‘Yes, he told me you’re playing chess. Who’s winning?’

  ‘I am, of course. Always’

  ‘But he’d never admit that’

  ‘So I can expect to find him licking his wounds tmrw?’

  ‘Probably’

  ‘Have you played chess?’

  ‘Only once or twice with my dad. Not my forte’

  ‘I could teach you’

  ‘Imagine his surprise when you suddenly defeat him’

  ‘Haha that’d be something’

  ‘Sold then?’

  ‘Enjoy your evening, Will. Glad you’re having fun. Don’t destroy your brother completely tho. I like him’

  Left on read. Again.

  12

  LIVERPOOL’S IN THE LEAD

  Since I never initiated, William hadn’t sent me much since Friday last week. I supposed he had too much integrity, and I supposed the same integrity was also to blame for his continued pattern of always leaving me on read.

  He’d sent me a message on Wednesday to wish me luck with my next exam the following Thursday, but I had grown so irritated with his existence by then that I had left him on read without even replying despite the kind gesture. It wasn’t really because I was angry with him, but rather because I was angry with how I responded to his attention, or lack thereof. The constant waiting around, the frequent check-ins and the ensuing disappointment in ninety-nine out of a hundred instances was driving me mad. The dopamine rush upon arbitrarily discovering a message no longer compensated for the distress.

  The last few days, I’d been thinking about him more than Company Law, and while I was angry about it, it was also truly starting to frighten me. I didn’t feel half as prepared for this exam as I had felt for my last one, and I blamed him. Well, I blamed his existence, not his actions. It wasn’t his fault that he was the first man ever to have caught my eye this way. It wasn’t his fault that he made my heart behave in strange ways while my body ached for his caress. It was neither of our faults. But it was his fault that he kept contacting me, and for that, I was angry.

  During a moment of reflection, it had dawned on me that what I was going through now must be similar to what Olivia had gone through on the daily over the past three years, and I had pitied her profusely then. Her relationship with Colin had been a volatile one, so now I was able to empathise with at least a portion of her distress. I also knew she’d had it far worse than I currently did, so I was frankly impressed she had managed to perform decently at university at all, especially when the man had also cheated on her and broke her heart while he was at it.

  I’d made a note to myself to treat Olivia with more patience in the future wherever Colin was involved. The poor thing must really have gone through hell, and now I knew from first-hand experience that putting a man out of your mind was indeed easier said than done. And William was kind. Colin was the spawn of the Devil. Poor Olivia, indeed.

  Either way, I knew ignoring William’s messages was the only sensible course of action at this point, so by Wednesday night, I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t check my social media till next week. Should my attention be required imminently within that timeframe, I could always be reached by more conservative means, like ringing or sending text messages.

  § § §

  To celebrate that we had completed our exam in Company Law the next day, Aaron and I headed back to mine to enjoy each other without clothes involved. Since I knew Jason finished work at five o’clock this week, we had hurried home to take advantage of our few moments of privacy. The instant we stepped through the front door, Aaron pinned me to the wall beside the shoe cabinet and removed my clothes with urgency. By the time we approached my bedroom, I’d managed to remove only his shirt, and the garments lay scattered across the floor.

  When he grabbed below my bum, I knew he was about to lift me to carry me to bed, but it wasn’t what I wanted, so after shutting the door behind me, I dropped to my knees, my attention fixed on undoing his trousers. While gathering my long hair in his hands, he cast me a cheeky and lopsided smile.

  “So eager, Cara.”

  “Well, I love the taste of you, so yes,” I lustfully replied as I jerked his trousers down. After helping him out of them, I reached up to trail my fingertips along the band of his grey boxers. His erection strained against the material, and it made me smile. Cupping it in my hand, I gave it a gentle squeeze. All the while, I gazed up at him through my long lashes.

  “Fucking hell, you’re so damn hot,” he stated with a chuckle and brought one of his hands beneath my chin. Using his thumb, he traced the line of my jaw while wonder vibrated in his dark eyes.

  A lascivious smile crept across my lips while I hooked my fingers into his boxers and lowered them to liberate his erection. It pointed horizontally, straight to my waiting mouth. Wasting no time, I grabbed around the base and pushed my tongue past my lips to lick around the crest of him. As I focused my point of impact on the back of his head, I looked up at him and saw his chest expand with his deep inhalation.

  “Mm,” I hummed and slowly wrapped my lips around the tip before I took him deep into my mouth.

  Bobbing my head, I heard him groan above me. His hands fisted in my hair, tugging it until tears formed in my eyes. My jaw started aching after a while, but I had no sympathy for it. Determined to send him over the edge, I persisted despite the discomfort.

  “Ah, Cara,” he warned. “Stop.”

  Disobeying, I continued obstinately. While my mouth drew in on him, my hand synchronised with my labour, pumping him. Meanwhile, my tongue swirled around his length within my mouth, just the way I knew he liked it.

  “Shit,” he cursed and, using his hold of my hair, tugged me harshly away from him. “I don’t want to come yet,” he growled under his breath and ministered me towards my bed. With a smouldering look in his eyes, he glared at me.

  “Still upset about the other day?” I teased, referring to Monday. I’d performed fellatio on him then and had made him come in record time.

  When my legs bumped into the frame of my bed, he leaned towards me to force me to recline onto the mattress. As I gazed up, I saw him admire the body he’d undressed.

  “A bit,” he said. “Won’t let that happen again anytime soon,” he stated as he climbed over my figure to hover above. “Honestly, love,” he said while his eyes wandered across my curves, “it’s ridicul
ous how gorgeous you are.” He trailed his right hand up my flat stomach. “Three years of this, and yet I could never grow bored.”

  “Right back at you.” I smiled coquettishly and circled his neck with my arms. Bringing his face to mine, I leaned up to engulf his lips.

  Kissing Aaron had never felt wrong, but it had never felt quite right either – merely familiar. By now, I knew the motion of his lips like the back of my hand.

  It had been weeks since I’d experienced a kiss as entirely right for the first time, how consuming and intense it could be. Only one set of lips had managed to set my system on fire like that, but they weren’t present.

  Surprising me, Aaron pulled away from my mouth sooner than I’d expected. Instead, he traced lustful kisses down the slope of my neck until he located my pulse, a spot on my body that he knew was susceptible. Once there, he gently sucked and nibbled on it.

  My eyes closed from the pleasure and, subconsciously, my limbs locked around him to welcome the intimacy. After a good minute, he started trailing soft kisses down the valley between my breasts, and then further down to reach the tops of my thighs.

  While biting on my lower lip, I smiled as I gauged his intention. Aaron always made a point of returning the favour. We hardly ever had sex without him demanding to go down on me, and I relished it. His skill in that department was his ace in bed. Without fail, his mouth always triggered my climax.

  His tongue lapped over my folds, warm and wet. Groaning, my head jerked backwards as I welcomed heaven. Only vaguely did I notice his arms locking around my thighs – he knew me well. In the throes of passion, I tended to shudder away when the pleasure bordered on unbearable, so, in time, he’d learnt to take pre-emptive measures.

  “Ah, Aaron,” I moaned and ran my palms across his dense hair. He was so damn good at this.

  The tension coiled inside my abdomen, spreading out all the way to my fingertips and toes until his expert flicks sent me over the edge. “Ah!” I cried out, my back ascending from the mattress. Responding to impulse, I squeezed my breasts while I savoured the delicious aftermath of my orgasm, a smile ever-present on my face.