by S. R. Jones
“I need to call some people,” he says, still sleep slurred.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I want my friends to get together and work on your stalker this weekend, if they are finished with the job they were on. Luka, his Missus is friends with a shrink, a woman called Mags, I want her to be involved, too. She might have some insight on this weirdo. And my guys are amazing. If there’s a way to use all the information we have, and the forensics that my friend in intel is going through, we have a chance to find him and end this. You can have your life back.”
I should feel elated, but instead, I think what life? It’s not much of a life. I don’t have many friends left. They fell away after I moved and began to cut contact and not visit. My family love me, but they’re busy with their own lives. I have no man. No kids. Not even a damn pet. Maybe I can start there? Get a dog. The thought brightens my mood.
“I could get a dog,” I say it out loud. Testing the idea out. Liking it.
“God, Kate.” He pulls me into him and kisses the back of my head as he squeezes me for a moment.
What did I say?
“You never had breakfast, or even a coffee. Do you want something to eat?” he asks, tone brighter.
I nod, but start to move out of his arms. “I’ll make it. You rest a while. I disturbed you last night.”
As I get out of the bed, I look at the ties still draped around the wooden bedposts and my cheeks heat. God, did I do that? Tie him up and have my wicked way with him. Reece follows my gaze and he grins, unrepentant.
“You’re a bad girl, cupcake. And I like it.” He laughs.
“Hey, you’re the one who directed this whole thing.”
He frowns at my words. “I hope I didn’t ruin it for you. I wanted to let you have the control and ended up taking it myself.”
“It was perfect.” I won’t lie. It was. Best sex I’ve ever had.
“Yeah.” He nods his head. “You blew my mind, Kate.”
He uses my name and looks directly at me as he says it. Lets me see he means it and his words warm me. Maybe it wasn’t simply another notch on his bedpost. Perhaps, it meant something a bit more for him, too. Not love or anything like that, but maybe more of a connection, something hotter than your average drunken shag.
I pull on my long skirt, and then my strappy top, and head downstairs. Entering the kitchen, I rummage around in the fridge and pull out bacon, eggs, tomatoes, and sausages. A can of beans from the cupboard join them. All the ingredients for a full English. With bacon on the grill, sausages in the oven, and eggs ready to go into the frying pan once the bacon and sausages are nearly ready, I heat the beans and pop some thick, white bread into the toaster. Not too healthy, but I fancy it this morning. Hangover food.
When it’s ready, I set out two plates and cutlery and call Reece down. I pour us both some orange juice.
When I dish up, Reece gives me a smile. “This looks great.”
As we sit and eat in silence, Reece takes out his phone and flicks to a reading app. We are acting as if we’re comfortable together, but there’s this simmering tension between us. I’m aching to touch him, to simply reach out and trail my finger down his muscular forearm. I can’t though, we aren’t a couple. We aren’t anything, not really. He’s my protector. Maybe I’m losing it and having a form of reverse Stockholm Syndrome, falling for my saviour. Then I wonder if such a thing exists, and decide I need to look it up. Every now and again, I can see him look at me, out of the corner of my eye. God, this is torture. I need to break the moment.
“What are you reading?” I ask him.
“About the Terror and the Erebus,” he says.
I blink at him. “No way. Me too!” The lust laden air between us is suddenly sharpened by something else. A strange awareness that we like the same things. Like one another.
He cocks his head at me, chewing a piece of bacon. “Seriously?”
I grab my bag from the stool next to me, and take out my iPad. Opening my kindle, I turn to the book I’m reading about the ill-fated voyage to find the Northwest passage and show him, grinning at the weird coincidence.
“I’ll be damned. It’s a riveting story, but there’s not many women find it interesting.” Reece dips some toast into his egg, the bright yellow yokes perfect, if I say so myself.
“I love anything to do with expeditions of discovery. I can’t stop myself thinking what it must be like to be one of the men who sets out on a journey of discovery like that, not knowing if you’ll come back. Then how it must have been for them when it went wrong.”
“Yep, it’s what gets me.” He nods. “I want to write a fictional story based on something along the lines of what these early adventurers went through.” Again, he gets that faint hint of color to his cheeks when he speaks. “I’ve never told anyone that.”
“You should write it. You should. Your background is perfect, and if you research the history and the facts about the period you’re aiming for, it would be a fantastic subject.”
“Ah, I’m not sure I’ve got the grammar skills to pull it off.”
“No, don’t say that.” I lean forward, because this is my passion, my thing. I give a lot of money to both reading and writing charities. “You will learn as you go along, and you read, right? If you read a lot, you’re halfway there. You hire editors to polish the grammar side of things. I can always look at your first couple of chapters if you ever do get something down. I’ll be brutally honest, promise.”
“You’d do that?” He seems aghast, which surprises me.
“Yeah, of course. Why not?”
“You’re such a big name in the writing world. Your books are international bestsellers. I don’t know if I’d dare let you read my stuff.”
“Write it, and I’ll read it. And as for daring, it’s always scary at first. Hell, I still get an upset stomach for a week before a book comes out, dreading the reviews, and the reception it will get in case this time I write the one everyone will hate.”
“Really?”
“God, yes. It’s scary putting yourself out there. I doubt it’s as scary as walking into a war zone though.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re bearing your soul when you write. Revealing things about yourself all the time.”
I take a sip of my orange juice and think about that. “Not sure I totally agree with you there. You bear your soul in one way, as any artist does, and yes, of course, in your body of work you’ll reveal things about yourself. About your thought process, but also, you write made up people. I had a hero in one of my books who loved to have nameless, faceless sex with an endless supply of women. People thought I was a male writer then, before I got doxed, and the amount of people who assumed that my pen name was a total man-whore was hilarious. There were all these guys on twitter talking about what a stud David Tyler must be. When I am, or was, a celibate female. I write characters who do, say, and like things I never would all the time.”
He’s listening to me intently and there’s a light in his eyes I’ve not seen before as if he never gets to talk like this. “Of course, I get that,” he says. “I don’t mean in that sense, but in the deeper sense you alluded to. You can write a character with totally different political views to yourself, or a hobby you’d never do, but a writer’s words, like an artist’s paint strokes, they reveal things. Look at how an artist changes as he progresses in his or her life.” He shrugs then. “I don’t know….I think we reveal more of ourselves than we know when we do anything creative.”
I think I’ve fallen a little in love.
This man. This big, scary, gorgeous man, is also sensitive. Willing to give control over. And he’s a bit of an intellectual. A deep thinker certainly. Holy hell, I remember my first thoughts upon seeing him, the way I immediately pigeon holed him, and realize I’d never have guessed of the still waters running deep beneath his cheery, hot-sex-God façade.
Wanting to know more about him suddenly, I ask. “Who was your last serious relationship with?”
I give a little raise of one shoulder. “I spilled all about my tragic, lonely spinsterhood,” I tell him. “Quid pro quo.”
He shifts in his seat and looks out the window, before turning back to me. “It was years ago. I haven’t been in a relationship for over ten years. Nothing serious beyond a week or two of fun, or if it lasts longer than that, then it’s a fuck buddy deal.”
And all my silly little dreams of us becoming an item fade away. Thank God, because I could make a fool of myself over this man, and something tells me I won’t be the first, or the last.
“Don’t you want anything serious?” I ask him.
He moves, getting out of his chair and starting to clear our plates. I think he’s not going to answer me as silence fills the space between us, but then he does, back to me, as he bends to start loading the dishwasher.
“Yeah. I do want a relationship, but I either fuck it up or end up with the wrong woman to start with.” He sighs. “I have a pattern and keep ending up falling into bed with the wrong women. Air hostesses who are too busy jetting off round the world to settle down. Models focused on their career. Actresses who want to make it big. I suppose a lot of the women I’ve met have made me a bit jaded.” He stops loading and turns to look at me. “They like sex with me enough but didn’t want anything more because I wasn’t wealthy or connected. I’ll be honest. It’s made me a bit bitter in some ways. I try not to be that way, but when I keep seeing women use me for sex but then hook up with some flabby guy in his late fifties, it’s hard not to think a lot of women aren’t in it for the money and power.”
I hate that he sees women that way, but I’m not naïve enough to think such women don’t exist, and maybe he’s come across more of his fair share. Maybe that’s because of the type of woman he goes for? Although I don’t want to start matching women’s looks to their dating habits…because way to be a bitch.
“You know men do that sort of thing, too,” I tell him, my inner feminist refusing to stay quiet. “There are whole parts of the world where young men have sex with older women they call their girlfriends for gifts and money. And lots of older female celebrities these days have hot, young things on their arms. Maybe you should become someone’s toyboy.”
I’m joking but as soon as the words are out, I want to shove them back in.
A horrible silence fills the room, not the companionable one from before but something loaded with embarrassment. Shit. I don’t want him to think I used him as some sex toy. And I don’t want to highlight our age difference or the fact I’m way down the rung from him when it comes to the looks department.
He seems pissed and I worry I’ve offended him. Moving slowly, but deliberately, he comes to the table and leans his fisted hands on it, his forearms bunching with muscle. “Are you talking about what happened between us?” There’s a danger to his tone, to this moment.
“No.” It’s a lie though. I had been, without even realizing it before the words were out.
“Good, because that’s not what this was. It’s not what you are. Fuck me, Kate. You’re only a few years older than me and you’re hot. You keep acting as if you’re some horrible, hideous old crone I’ve thrown a pity fuck at.”
His words hit me hard, stinging my cheeks as surely as if he’d slapped me. “Did you?” I ask, forcing the awful words out, because what if he did? Oh, God, what if he did? I would hate that. “Did you throw me a pity fuck?”
“Fuck no! I don’t do that. I’m not a whore, and more importantly, you are not the sort of woman a man would pity fuck.”
“Okay.” I hold my hands up because it’s getting heated. “I know I’m not some hideous old crone.” I laugh a little. “But I’m older than you, probably by a fair bit, and I’m attractive enough, but I know for a fact I’m not in your league.”
He shakes his head, frustration etched on his features. “You’re forty-two, correct?”
I nod.
“Well, I’m mid-thirties, not some shocking age difference. And you’re a lot more gorgeous than you give yourself credit for.” He reaches out and touches a lock of my hair, murmuring natural under his breath before carrying on. “I went to bed with a woman a few weeks ago, and the next morning she came into the room and I legit thought her roomie was coming to get in on the action or something. It was the same girl, but she’d taken her make-up off, the false lashes, hair extensions, leaving her with a nice brown bob. The night before, she’d had long hair that started out brown and ended blonde at the tips, which were past her rather large tits, which I learned were down to the padded gel bra laid by my face on the pillow.”
I start to smile as he talks, my lips turning up.
“She looked like a different person. It’s all cool, I didn’t care, but you’re…real. And not only how you look, but how you are. Just now, you talked to me as if I had a brain. Do you know how many people assume I’m stupid because I was in the forces, and double whammy, I look like this?”
I flush because there’s some real hurt behind his words, and I’d wanted to get rid of him because of how he looked, hadn’t I? Thought him too gorgeous or sexy to spend time with. Imagine some man thinking that about a woman? I cringe at myself. Ugh.
He pauses for breath, but he’s not done. “But because of how I look, and my ink, women, and even my fucking friends, make assumptions about me. I don’t even have an Instagram.” He shakes his head.
I’m not sure what this Instagram issue is, but it seems to have bugged him. Before I can ask, he carries on.
“You’re hot, Kate. You’re hot on the outside and don’t ever think you’re not, but you’re also hot because you’re interesting and you do interesting things. You go out hiking in the hills, write incredible crime stories, and read about long lost voyages. You’re…earthy, and I mean that in a good way.”
He’s finally finished, and I can tell this because he turns back to the sink and starts to rinse things again.
I ponder on what he’s said and decide I like him calling me earthy. I like it far too much.
Chapter Seven
Reece
We spend the day together, and it’s okay, but our, frankly incendiary sex, and then the heated morning conversation has made the easy companionship we’d been building up disappear. It’s a touch tense.
Adding to it, simmering away between us is an underlying sexual attraction. If I’d found her mildly attractive before, now that I’ve had a taste of her, I’m finding myself having to hold back from touching her all the time.
We worked together in bed far too well. Something about the chemistry between us made what I thought would be an enjoyable fuck, maybe simply something to scratch an itch developing between us, something more. It didn’t scratch any itch for me, instead it put a niggling burn underneath my skin…for her. For more of her.
I want to gain her trust, to have her under me and feeling safe. Why, I don’t know, but something within me wants to get under her skin and get her to let me in. Maybe because I like a challenge, and getting Kate to trust me is a huge fucking challenge, but I think it’s more. Something a bit deeper that I can’t name.
She’s a strange mix of closed off, yet open and honest. She might not let people in easily, but Kate doesn’t play games. She’s way braver than me when it comes to putting things out there. And the woman likes to read about adventurers for God’s sake. She goes hiking, likes climbing, has even done some of the high-altitude stuff. We have so much in common. I think if we’d met normally, not in this way, we might have hit it off enough to date, see where things went between us.
Instead we fell into bed together, for something I think both of us expected to be casual and a bit of fun, and turned out to be mind-blowing. I also think right now she’s avoiding me because she’s been upstairs for an hour or so.
A phone rings from somewhere in the house and I hear Kate’s footsteps, then her voice, low and sexy as she speaks with someone. A few minutes later she comes int
o the room, her hair up, loose in a ponytail, and she’s wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt. There’s a faint sheen of perspiration on her chest and upper arms. She looks fucking edible. I’m puzzled as to what she’s been doing because I didn’t hear her working out, jumping around or anything.
“Been working out?” I gesture at her with my chin.
“Pilates,” Kate answers.
I’ve never done Pilates, but I didn’t know you could work up a sweat at it.
“I’ve had a new present dropped off at the house I was staying at before.” She sits down heavily on the sofa and stares at her phone.
I’d called the owner of the twee cottage and asked them to let us know if anything turned up, and to tell any guests to be on alert. The last thing I’d wanted was someone getting hurt by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The owner had my number as well as Kate’s, and I wonder for a moment why he called her.
“He wanted to know where we were staying so he could forward it, but I told him to photograph it and text it to me.” She wriggles about on the couch, moving closer to me, and tucks her legs under her.
The pose is childlike, and it makes me want to put my arms around her and pull her into me. Keep her safe in the circle of my arms from what I am sure is going to be something unpleasant.
“I didn’t want to look…will you?” She turns those gorgeous eyes up at me.
“Of course.”
I take her phone, the screen already unlocked and see her text icon at the bottom of the page. I click on it and note a new message from an un-named number. Tapping it, I frown as the image comes up. It’s a card with what looks like one of those black and white woodcut pieces of art on the front. The picture is of a woman with her head in her hands, behind her is a shadow looming of a what looks like the shape of a man, but it is faded out around the edges to make it hard to say for sure. It’s spooky and threatening.
I flick to the next picture. There’s a handwritten note.
You little tease.
You keep running away and you think I won’t find you? I’ll find you, and when I do I’ll make you pay so bad for the hassle you are putting me through all the time. I mean, I like the chase, but there are limits.
