by Kait Jagger
But he did not return to her, and after a moment she heard a pinging sound. She turned her head to see him standing next to the bedside table, removing a stud from his dress shirt front, placing it in a dish on the table. Undressing methodically. She crawled to the opposite side of the bed and sat at its edge, removing her stockings. And still he did not come to her. She heard another ping and she stood, fully naked now – surely, surely he would come to her. He glanced in her direction, looked her up and down… and turned away, removing his watch and placing it too, in the dish.
Luna knew shame then. Gut-wrenching shame. That he had mastered her so easily and stood there now, showing her how little it meant to him. Teaching her a lesson. She walked to the door and retrieved her backpack, then entered the bathroom, switching on the light and sitting on the toilet.
As often seemed to happen when Stefan had given her an earth-shattering orgasm, Luna found her bladder suddenly shy. She focused on weeing, thinking watery thoughts and squeezing her eyes shut, resting her hands on her knees.
He had shamed her.
Nothing good will come of you staying here, I can promise you that.
Thank God, at last the wee began to flow and Luna reached down to her backpack, unzipping it and hurriedly removing her jeans and long-sleeved shirt. She pulled her Doc Martens out and dropped them with a clatter on the tiled floor. Where was her bra? Fuck it, where was her bra? Her hands were shaking now. She was going to put on her bra, her shirt and jeans and her Doc Martens and she was going to walk the hell out of there.
Finishing on the toilet, she flushed and stood, washing her hands quickly in the sink. Suddenly she was powerfully thirsty. There was no glass on the vanity cabinet, so she bent down, angling her head under the tap, gulping noisily.
She felt him then, placing both hands on her hips, thighs positioning themselves against hers. She turned off the tap and lifted her head, feeling his cock, hard and heavy, rubbing against the cleft of her butt. Placing a hand on either side of the marble sink top, she looked in the mirror to see him standing behind her, completely naked, stomach muscles rippling. Meeting his eyes in the reflection, she silently transmitted her arctic fury to him.
‘Hello, Hallviken,’ Stefan crowed, grasping his cock and guiding it into her. For the briefest second, as the head of his penis entered her, his mask slipped. He drew a breath. Pushed himself further into her, eyelids slipping shut in silent reverence. But then he remembered himself, opened his eyes and commenced to fuck her – fuck her hard – watching her in the mirror as she stood on tiptoe, the better to accommodate his angle of entry. Her eyes never leaving his, burning into him like dry ice.
‘Minus twenty-two degrees,’ he panted. ‘So cold and yet…’ His hand snaked across her chest, clamping onto her shoulder and Luna placed both hands on the mirror, bracing herself. The fingers of his other hand grasped her hip, holding her in place as he repeatedly thrust his hips against her over the basin.
Luna waited, waited for his brow to crease, for his stomach muscles to tighten and his hips to lose their rhythm, jutting into her once, twice, and ahhh, there it was, his cry of completion, his come, pouring into her, dripping down her legs.
What did she think would happen then? That he would collapse against her and tell her he loved her? Or spin her around and take her into his arms, begging her to take him back?
He did neither of these things. Instead, he pulled out of her and reached for a hand towel, wiping off her legs. He surveyed her clothes, scattered across the floor, and gave her a hard look in the mirror. Placing his hand on her upper arm, he dug his fingers into her flesh.
‘Stay. There,’ he commanded, giving her a quick, ruthless shake. In answer, Luna turned her back on him, rifling through his shaving kit and brushing her teeth as he waited for his erection to subside and had a wee. When he was finished, she handed him his toothbrush and squatted to her backpack, finally locating her bra. She was rooting around for her knickers as he spat out in the sink and turned to look down at her.
‘So you insist,’ he said, hooking his arms under her armpits and forcing her to her feet. ‘You insist on provoking me. Do you honestly think I’m letting you walk out of here at 3.30 in the morning to try your hand at flagging a taxi to Deersley?’ He jabbed his knee into the back of hers, taking her completely by surprise. Her legs buckled underneath her and he scooped her up and carried her back to the bed.
They did not sleep. As soon as they were under the covers Luna reached for the body she’d been parted from for two long months, drawing her fingertips over his shoulders and chest, tracing the muscles there. She lifted her hands to his hair, exploring its new length, and ran her fingernails up and down his nape. She placed her hand on his hip, felt his cock move as she buried her nose against his neck and pressed her lips to the pulse in his throat.
All of this he tolerated, not reciprocating, but when she lifted her mouth from his neck, kissing his jaw, his cheek, moving toward his mouth, he drew back. And when she crouched above him, fingertips skimming his cheeks, and lowered her face to his, he placed his hand on her chest. And pushed her away.
Luna sat down next to him, breath catching in her throat, fingers clenching. He… would not give her his mouth. Like she was some kind of whore, not fit to kiss him. She felt her rage, her all-consuming rage return, flooding through her veins.
Throwing the covers off, she rose on all fours and crawled atop him. She straddled his chest, presented him with her ass and dropped onto her torso, sliding downward to where he was waiting for her, hard and ready. Like the whore he thought she was, Luna ran her tongue lasciviously along his length, unsheathing her teeth and nibbling it. Stroking the nails of one hand over his balls, she grasped the base of his shaft with her other and took its head into her mouth.
In response, Stefan growled and lifted her, rolling her onto her side. Nestling his head between her thighs, he nudged his face into her apex and latched onto her, his tongue flickering against her clitoris.
It became a contest, after that, the two of them curled into each other, sucking each other off. Sounds of wetness; noises of pleasure, Stefan as far down her throat as Luna could take him, his nose and mouth working inexorably against her. Their movements on each other began to synch, her mouth sucking him while his drew her in, teeth grazing against her, and for a moment Luna almost lost track of who was who, where her gratification stopped and his began.
Stefan moaned against her, the vibration of his voice against her fully erect clitoris causing her to undulate in need. No, she thought, her entire vulva aching and striving, she couldn’t let him win. Not again. Reaching her hand across his bottom, she ran her fingernail along his perineum – rewarded with a shiver of surprise from him. Then she closed her mouth on his penis, and slowly pushed her finger inside him.
Stefan’s own hands began to move to her backside, one slapping her hard, the other moving toward the cleft of her butt. But it was all too late. She heard his helpless groans against her, felt his balls tighten, and tasted his come, filling her mouth. Seconds later, she loosened her mouth on his cock, gasping breathlessly as his teeth closed around her clitoris and her own orgasm consumed her.
They remained locked together for some time after, bodies pulsing and twitching against each other. Every nerve in Luna’s body seemed to be alive with pleasure as Stefan continued to gently lick her and she nuzzled his diminishing hardness.
Eventually she rolled onto her back, her head next to his thigh, calves resting on the pillow next to his head. She felt his hand on her hair. And closed her eyes, drifting.
Her head was still pressed against Stefan’s leg when she woke sometime later. How long had she slept? Not long, she thought, but the night was stretching thin and still her mouth hungered for his. She sat up and resettled herself on the pillow next to him. She watched his beautiful profile; listened to his breathing, slow and even. And for many minutes Luna wavered, fearful of yet more rejection.
Slowly, carefully, she
inched over to him till she was sharing his pillow. Inclining her face into his neck, again she pressed her lips to the pulse at his throat, felt it beating under her mouth. Again she kissed his jaw, his cheek. Her lips hovered next to his and she inhaled his breath. And softly, softly, so as not to wake him, she kissed him. And again. And again.
His lips parted and, growing reckless, she slid her tongue into his mouth. At long last his mouth woke beneath hers, his tongue joining hers, his lips returning her pressure. Kissing her back. Reaching for her head and angling his against it, widening his mouth till that was all there was, his mouth and her mouth, melded together.
Luna tasted saline at the back of her throat. And he tasted it too, the sweetness of her tears flooding his mouth. He made a noise, a desperate, angry noise, and pushed her away from him, throwing her onto her back and climbing on top of her.
‘Tell me you love me!’ he cried, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. When she didn’t reply, he shook her again, till her head snapped on her neck. ‘Tell me you still love me!’
‘I still love you,’ she wept, as his lips came crushing back down on hers, and saliva, and tears and blood passed between them. His arms were around her now, her breasts full against his chest. She wrapped her legs around him and tilted her pelvis up toward his, begging, ‘Please, please…’ till he entered her, filling her even as his tongue filled her mouth.
He rode her till the darkness finally stretched so thin it broke, and grey dawn crept across the room. Till his silent, shuddering orgasm ebbed into an exhausted sleep; his head on her chest, nose pressed against her breast.
*
Fully dressed now, Luna phoned a taxi company and arranged for a pick-up at the front portico in ten minutes. She found an invitation to the day care centre opening Stefan was attending with Isabelle on the bedside table. Festivities started at 10am. Glancing over at Stefan, who remained dead to the world, she picked up his phone, entering his security code (the day and month he cut the ribbon on his first office in Stockholm). She set his alarm for, what, 9.15? Just enough time for a lightning shower and coffee with Isabelle before the drive into Deersley.
She sat down beside him on the bed for a final time and placed the phone beside his pillow. He was dreaming again, she could tell, his eyeballs tracking back and forth under his lids. A bad dream, she thought. His brows were knitting together and his fingers were twitching on the bedspread. He mumbled something in his sleep and twisted under the covers.
She placed her hand on his cheek and he immediately stilled. She stroked his dark blond hair away from his forehead and the flickering in his eyelids began to slow, then stopped. He sighed and turned in the bed, throwing his arm over her knee.
Luna had been foolish at the party the night before, to suppose for even a second that she and Stefan could be friends. They could not. She was still in love with him. And now that love had become something twisted, where all they seemed to be able to do was hurt each other.
She knew what he would think, that she was running again. But she couldn’t bear to wake him and risk the hurt starting all over again, or worse, discover that he’d had his fill of hurting her, and was finished with her now.
It was foggy when she exited the portico to find her taxi waiting for her. So foggy that she almost missed the sleeping form on a bench beside the drive. Asking the driver to pull over, she found Ashley Eccles, drenched in dew, his tuxedo, well… he wouldn’t be getting his deposit back on it, put it that way. Taking pity, she had the taxi driver make a detour to drop him off at the stables.
It seemed the least she could do for the poor boy, who was going to have one hell of a hangover.
*
‘But we’re all having brunch at my parents’,’ Jem was saying on the phone. She’d rung as Luna made her way through security at Heathrow. ‘Didn’t Nancy tell you?’ Yes, Luna thought, Nancy had told her, but she’d been clear from the start that she had to leave early the morning after the party.
‘I’m sorry, Jem,’ she said, picking her backpack up off the conveyor belt. The beginnings of a headache thrummed between her eyes. She was too tired for this.
‘My mum’s laid on all kinds of food, and Dad’s making Bloody Marys and everything,’ Jem was protesting, when all of a sudden there was a commotion on the other end of the line.
‘Give me the bloody phone,’ she could hear Kayla saying, followed by a clunk and some rattling. ‘Hey, babe,’ Kayla announced, ‘Jem’ll ring you back.’ And hung up.
Luna was in her seat on the plane by the time Jem phoned again, her tone abject. ‘Kay and Nancy have just been telling me what a complete and utter bitch I am.’
‘You’re not,’ Luna assured her. ‘You’ve just been stressed.’
‘No, I’ve been a party-zilla. Kayla says I can forget about her ever being a bridesmaid for me if this is what it’s going to be like.’
‘But it was worth it, right?’ Luna said, closing her eyes and pressing her fingers to her brow, dearly wishing she had some paracetamol. ‘That was quite a party.’
Jem was silent for a moment. Then, ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth about why you and Stefan broke up?’
‘Ah, Jem…’
‘You must think I’m the crappest, worst friend on earth.’
‘No, no. I just didn’t want you to think you had to… join Team Luna or anything, when Stefan’s been helping you and Rod so much.’
‘So instead I joined Team Stefan.’
‘No.’
‘I joined Team Stefan,’ Jem insisted, ‘and I was a piss-poor friend.’
‘You got that right,’ came Nancy’s voice in the background, and Luna could hear her and Kayla starting to cackle.
‘It doesn’t matter, Jem,’ Luna said. ‘Really it doesn’t.’
‘Do you not think…’ Jem hesitated. ‘I didn’t say anything because I thought it’d make you feel guilty, but he’s been so broken up, Luna. He doesn’t talk about it, but you can just tell. Is there no way you two could…?’
Luna felt a lump start to form in her throat. ‘The plane’s getting ready to take off, Jem. I have to go.’ She switched off her phone and turned to look out of the plane window into the mist on the runway. A tear ran down her cheek and she swiped it roughly away with her palm.
‘Are you alright, my dear?’ asked the little silver-haired lady in the seat next to her, offering her a tissue. And because her hair and voice, even the way she said ‘my dear’, reminded Luna so much of the Marchioness, she refused the tissue and turned away from her, ignoring the woman for the rest of the flight.
Chapter Seven
Luna was sitting with George on the settee in the Coupers’ living room, looking at a picture book of tractors, his current obsession.
‘This is a compact utility tractor,’ she read, pointing to a photo of a John Deere.
‘CUT!’ cried George, placing his tiny, chubby index finger and middle finger on either side of Luna’s wrist and pretending they were scissor blades.
The reason she’d come home early was that she’d promised Malcolm weeks ago that she would babysit on Saturday. It was his and Liv’s fourth wedding anniversary and he’d planned a surprise outing for the two of them. An outing that hadn’t gotten off to the best of starts when Luna appeared at their door late that afternoon.
‘But I don’t have any food ready for George,’ Liv protested, which Luna suspected was code for, I cannot have this irresponsible woman looking after my precious boy.
It had taken some serious wheedling from Malcolm, plus a tortuous forty-five-minute drilling for Luna wherein Liv produced no less than three pages of notes, for the two of them to finally get her out of the door.
Liv was not entirely unjustified in her misgivings, Luna had to admit. Proceeding to completely ignore the list, she and George headed out under darkening skies, George in his tiny green boiler suit and down jacket and Luna in her off-white wool jumper and corduroys, for the temperature on Shetland was a good ten degrees
colder than in Berkshire. Rain was forecast, but to Luna it felt cold enough to snow.
They had fed the pregnant ewes, whose diet Malcolm was supplementing, locked away the chickens for the night, and searched for trows, Shetland’s answer to fairies, getting extremely dirty in the process. And later, when George asked for some of his father’s oven chips, rather than the homemade vegetable loaf his mother had dug out of the freezer for him, Luna had acquiesced. Out of sheer badness.
And tiredness. For after her almost sleepless night, a three hour flight and an evening spent entertaining an energetic toddler, she was bone tired.
To cap off her thoroughly negligent foray into childcare, Luna sat down with George to watch a nature programme on telly and nodded off halfway through, waking to find him fast asleep on her chest. She quickly carried him up to his bed – no teeth brushing, the horror! – coming down the stairs just in time to greet Liv and Malcolm.
‘Nice time?’ she asked.
‘Very nice,’ said Liv, though Malcolm’s face told a different story.
She was almost breathless with fatigue by the time she climbed the cottage stairs to her bedroom a few minutes later. Despite the fact that she had immediately stoked up the Rayburn upon arriving home from the airport, the loft room was freezing cold. Stripping off her sweater, the itchiest in her collection, Luna tried to stop her teeth from chattering. A hot water bottle wouldn’t be enough tonight. She looked at the cast iron bath at the foot of her bed; maybe if she took the hottest bath she could tolerate, then jumped straight into bed?
Her body, her treacherous body that was still silently thanking her for the thorough shagging it got the night before, practically creaked and groaned as she lowered herself into the bath. How long of a dry spell was it in for now, she mused sadly, throwing her hair over the roll-top edge of the bath and sinking into the water. Now that she knew for sure that the only man she wanted in her bed was the one she couldn’t have.
