by Alam, Donna
‘Rory, you are bad. I was going to say powder room.’ And I dunno about bad, but maybe mental is catching. ‘Let’s do it again,’ she purrs. ‘All of it. Every dirty little thing. I want you to break me, baby. I want your big cock in my—’ I look down at my crotch and shake my head. Not a thing; in fact, he seems to be retreating inwards. ‘I want you to rub your cum all over—’ Dirty talk? More like the musings of a lunatic.
‘A trip down memory lane?’ I ask, cutting her off. A lane full of Rory road kill . My words are light, amused almost. But I’m not amused. Not anymore. What I am is sick and tired of this bullshit, but I know losing my temper will get me nowhere fast. And playing her games? That’ll just get me screwed, and not in a fun way. Looks like my dirty laundry’s about to get aired within the company, because fuck hanging on and hoping Kit can smooth things over. It looks like we’ll be going down the legal route.
‘I’ll be back in town in a day or two.’
‘Baby, that’s all I want. To see you again. And trust me, you’ll be so happy to hear my news.’
‘You think?’
‘I know, wo-wee . You just leave the thinking to me. Analysis isn’t your strong suit.’
Just fucking charming.
Jesus wept . Grabbing my phone from the desk, I take another swig from my beer, grimacing at the sour taste.
I’m coming home, I type out. As soon as I’ve seen this last property. I’m done. Get Anna to book me a flight from Aberdeen.
What’s up, comes Kit’s immediate reply. He’s probably still in the office, the workaholic bastard. What’s the rush? Scotland had a sizable female population last time I was there.
I’m done with women.
Leave the poor sheep alone. It’s against the laws of nature and land.
Ha. Looks like I caught Kit on a good day. I thought his sense of humour had gone on holiday. Got any pointers for becoming gay?
Desire the same sex? He replies, but I’m not feeling that. Stop calling your favourite brother an arse bandit?
I burst into a guffaw. Favourite and only. Nearly swallowed my beer bottle, fuckwit.
Deep throating beer bottles? It’s a little desperate.
Funny. And too much, comedian. Am coming home because it’s too hard to hire a hitman from the Outer Hebrides.
Beth, I take it?
Bastarding Beth, I answer, though I won’t tell him about plan forty-seven, whatever it might entail. Not, at least, until I find out myself.
I thought you were going to leave her to me.
Not gonna work. I need to sort this one myself.
If you’re sure, but the flight will be from Edinburgh. I need you to check the house out. Check on the new hire. Maybe look at the gardens?
He’s taking the piss. I close my eyes, leaning my phone against the bridge of my nose. Being in the house stirs up bad memories. Sure, I’m currently wiping them away with this reconstruction. Room by room, no thanks to Beth. But by the time I’m through, that place will bear no resemblance to our father’s ancestral home. I’ll have wiped every trace of him and his family away.
But the gardens? I can’t bear to look. I can see my mother in every frozen rose.
Please, he asks. Just look. She’d be so happy.
I’ll look, but no plans. It stays as is. I couldn’t bear to change it; our mother loved that garden, though it was never really hers. She delighted in it during our holidays and would be saddened to know he never intended it to be ours, either. We’ll get a landscape company in.
I know a man, he replies.
I’ve heard that about you.
Funny. But thank you. For looking. Fuck me. He must be on his period. I’ll get Anna to book a flight. We’ll talk about Beth when you get back.
There’s nothing to say. See you Monday.
Twenty-One
Rory
‘Which part of this don’t you understand, Rory? There’s no room at the inn—no vacancies at any of the local bed and breakfast establishments and no space at the village’s sole hotel.’
Friday afternoon and having failed to book ahead, it seems I’m now just plain fucked. In ordinary circumstances I’d be relieved there are no rooms at the non-existent choices Anna’s just reeled off, but right now I’m bone tired; I just need to find somewhere to bed down for the night and I’d even consider a B&B. The nearest decent hotel is miles away and I really can’t be arsed with the trek. All I’ve done this week is drive. I feel like my arse has been glued to the seat of Kit’s monster pick-up truck for bloody months. I can’t wait to get back to my Vanquish.
‘Is there nothing else?’ Why the hell did I let Kit talk me into this?
The line crackles before she says, ‘I can suggest a camping shop.’
‘Come on, Annie, help me out.’ I pull the phone away from my ear, checking the barely-there signal but don’t miss her theatrical sigh. She was once such an obliging girl. Once upon a time, before either of us knew she was to become a permanent hire. ‘You’re the one responsible for booking travel arrangements,’ I remind her. It’s part of her job, for crying out loud.
‘I’m Kit’s executive assistant, not yours . Mostly, I don’t know where you are and nor do I care. Not these days.’
Her last few words are barely muttered and I’m pleased she can’t see my unhappy grimace. Yeah, so I might’ve gone there. And in the literal sense. But she wasn’t so prickly at the time, at least, not in the flesh. No, she was more than warm. And definitely inviting; dark come to bed eyes that had been tempting me for weeks, and a rack that a man could suffocate in without one complaint.
It had begun in the office on her last Friday with the company, and ended on Sunday after a stellar weekend of hotel fucking . . . and a call from Kit to offer her a permanent gig. That Friday, as brazen as anything, she’d told me Kit had slipped her two hundred quid as a severance bonus before asking me if I’d like to slip her something else instead. We weren’t supposed to see each other again, never mind be based out of the same building. But guess who she blames?
‘Then you’ll have to travel further out.’ Anna’s voice breaks through the miasma of memories and, yes, regret. ‘Into one of the larger towns. There’s bound to be a motel or travel lodge somewhere. Perhaps a hostel?’ A whole twelve months now with the company and she still fails to hide the undertone of malicious delight.
‘Ah, Annie, you know how I like it when you use dirty words.’ She begins to splutter as I chuckle, striking while the iron’s hot. ‘Ring the agent from the cottage, would you, hen? Tell them I’ll double their fee.’
‘My name is Anna, Rory. I’d like you to remember that.’
‘Annie,’ I practically purr down the line. ‘So many great memories.’ I might be stretching it a bit, but she makes it pretty easy for me. ‘I’m not likely to forget anything about you, am I?’ Also not strictly true, because I rarely dwell; I’m a more in the moment guy. Fuck and fuck off is more my style. And I’ll not be going in for a repeat—I wouldn’t have gone there in the first place if I’d known I’d be seeing her face regularly. And when Kit found out—well, let’s just say he nags like an auld woman.
He didn’t care that it was her idea; that she came on to me. He wasn’t even impressed at how I’d covered off any potential sexual harassment case.
I hereby solemnly declare that, of my own volition, I am about to bend myself over Rory Tremaine’s desk, the note in Anna’s handwriting read. I am currently of sane mind but duly note that if he doesn’t fuck me soon I may not remain so. In short, he has my permission to roger me soundly. I write this un-coerced, semi-nude and as randy as all hell.
Post Scriptum, Rory has the most amazing bellend. It’s bloody huge!
He didn’t speak to me for three days after reading it, almost as though I’d dictated the thing.
I realise the line is quiet, so pull the phone away from my ear to check the signal again. Bloody countryside.
‘Y—your sweet-talking isn’t going to work,’ she splut
ters, her words rising in tone and volume with each word. ‘You see some people are loyal, though I’m sure it’s a strange and unusual concept to you, but some people can’t be bought off with a few vague promises—’ Her tirade halts abruptly. ‘Yes, well,’ she adds, her delivery turning brusque, her professional façade slipping back into place.
I can almost imagine her standing there in the office, straightening her blouse as she makes her point. Not a difficult thing to do given I’d seen her do that exact thing not so very long ago. My mind slips to the image of her palms smoothing the pale sheerness against her skin. Of how she’d tucked that blouse into her waistband before shimmying the dark material of her skirt downwards, stealing the sight of her bare pussy, then her toned and tanned thighs.
I shake my head to dislodge the memory. Office sex is great, but sex in your own office is not without its disadvantages.
‘Besides, I tried the agent earlier this afternoon but they’re not inclined to kick out the family who’ve rented the place two days into their stay—strange that.’
‘But it’s my house.’ Okay, it belongs to the company now. ‘How is it possible that I can’t stay in my own property for the night?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something to do with contracts and legalities. Maybe you should have made the call to the agent yourself. You seem to think you can talk a girl into anything.’
‘As I recall, it was entirely the other way around.’
As usual, she refuses to acknowledge her part. ‘And now it’s late. I’m not even supposed to be here in the office and . . . and I have a date, so go f—find someone else to sleep with.’ And with that, the line goes definitively dead.
‘Bastarding arsehole fuck!’
I bring my fist down on the steering wheel with a thump, chucking the offending phone into the passenger seat. At least I’d managed to take a screenshot of the causeway crossing times earlier before the signal went to hell, especially as I’m supposed to be seeing the site manager today. And the gardens, maybe. Frustrated, I run both hands through my hair at the same moment my phone chimes with a text from Anna.
I’m told the cottages adjoining the main house are habitable, former servant quarters, I believe.
I’d forgotten about those. God knows what state they’re in, but it looks like that’s where I’ll be bedding down for the night. Better than some crummy motel or travel lodge, and better than driving the length of the country overnight.
That there is a lack of local accommodation has to be good for business, I suppose. Not that Tremaine House will be offering stays for anything other than an elite clientele. One thing’s for sure, the sooner the helipad is installed the better it’ll be for everyone concerned.
The tide looks fairly low as I pull the truck onto the greying road, and my phone is still in hand as it chimes with another text from the same comedienne.
Enjoy slumming it.
I consider texting back, offering to send her a picture of me slumming it while stroking it , just to piss her off, but accelerate instead.
It takes only a few minutes to cross and getting to the house, probably another ten on top of that through very circuitous country lanes. Out of all of the properties I’ve seen, the ones we’ve bought or are in the process of acquiring, this one’s my favourite, though maybe it shouldn’t be. Especially as it should’ve been mine already. It’s a Georgian villa built with symmetry and proportion in mind. And, as was the fashion almost two hundred years ago, constructed with sandstone extracted from a nearby quarry. A moss covered fountain sits in the centre of a circular driveway and you can almost imagine the horse drawn carriages being pulled to a stop there. A dozen or so steps lead up to a portico and a massive pair of Scottish oak doors, their patina darkened by the years.
My footsteps are light on the well-worn steps, the old hinges creaking as I push open the door. The place looks . . . different. Tidier, for sure, but not quite habitable. It’s no longer the genteelly tired residence my mother brought me to every summer since I’d turned twelve, and not yet the striking escape it will become. Work had begun on the reception area and the residents bar had also begun to take shape, at least until Beth had her wee tantrum. It’s less chaotic looking today, and even half finished, it doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to see how it’ll eventually all come together. Of how the rooms will be filled by parties booked for weekends of hedonism and champagne, in the house perched above a sandy beach the likes of which you won’t see anywhere else. Sure, it’s not a tropical beach where the sun is always shining and the drinks are dressed in fruit and thatched parasols. It’s a beach where, dependent on the weather, the ocean is anything from a deep blue to a stormy grey, where you can watch the storm clouds rolling in like the hounds of hell before chasing your way through the dunes to avoid the thunderous downpour.
I’m not a man known for poetry, but there’s something about this place that is both tranquillity and mayhem all in one day.
That I can smell the ocean makes me almost think I can see it, so I follow my nose along the hallway, through the out-dated kitchens to the back courtyard. From here, I can see the beach in the distance, a lone figure standing on the sandy shoreline. A woman. There shouldn’t be anyone on the beach—it’s private property, and inaccessible from anywhere but the house—but that’s not what pulls me closer. No, that would be the pull of a fantastic pair of legs. You’ve got to love leggings, well, in some circumstances—these circumstances —covering the loveliest bum I’ve seen in days. The wind coming off the North Sea can be brutal during the summer, let alone this time of year, yet she’s dressed in nothing more than a t-shirt. I notice this as she pulls back her arm as though to throw something into the ocean, her arm dropping by her side almost as quick.
Blonde strands blow across her pink cheeks as she turns, her eyes as blue as the pair of Hunter wellies covering her feet and calves. Eyes that, I realise with a jolt, are familiar. Blue and glistening now, though the last time I’d stared into them they were glassy from another cause. I don’t bang the same woman twice, said no man ever—not without good cause. And let’s just say, in this case, I’d be up for more than seconds. Fuck, thirds .
Well, hello, American Rose.
‘You can’t . . . be . . . here.’ Her words are almost whipped away by the wind but not so much that I don’t grasp her bewilderment, because it’s also written in her expression.
My gut tightens pleasantly and things don’t seem quite so bleak. Misery loves company, so they say. You know who else loves company? My cock.
‘I think,’ I say stepping closer, ‘you’ll find that you’ve got that the wrong way around. And while you’re a sight for sore and sorry eyes . . .’ My gaze deliberately roams over her body as she folds her arms across her chest hiding cold-prominent nipples. ‘. . . I’m pretty sure it’s you who’s trespassing.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the one that shouldn’t be here—what are you doing here, anyway?’
Fiery. I can deal with that. Fire keeps you warm. Burns pretty good.
‘Don’t stress it, titch. I’ve got designs on more than your body today.’ I say this light-heartedly, though I can’t seem to make my gaze behave, because those legs? They’re fucking fantastic and I’d like to feel them wrapped around my head. ‘I’ve got a meeting at the house.’ I look pointedly at my watch, hoping to keep her eyes from dipping to my crotch. Doesn’t do to look too eager.
‘If you’ve a meeting up there,’ she says, gesturing towards the house, ‘I’d know about it.’
‘Aye?’ I feel the corner of my mouth twist. A temporary site manager Kit said; nothing about a fucking assistant.
‘Yes.’ She pulls herself taller, slipping something from between her fingers into the breast pocket of her t-shirt, and she shouldn’t have done it if she didn’t want my gaze to return there. Jesus, pay attention; eyes up top. ‘I’d know about it because—’
‘I’m looking for your boss,’ I say, forcing my ga
ze back to her face and cutting her off. The sooner I get this meeting over, the sooner we can start the business of getting reacquainted. Intimately. ‘Why don’t you take me to meet him and then maybe you and I can catch up. Over dinner, say?’
Her arms remain folded, and as her left eyebrow rises, I get a good look at her pissed off face. I cut her off as she opens her mouth to respond.
‘I’m looking for Fin.’
‘Ah.’ Her hands fall to her sides, one shoulder lifting slightly. ‘Then you’ve found her.’
Then is . . . Fin her surname? Would that make the new guy her so called ex-husband, or make her not divorced at all? Thoughts, lightning fast, slip through my head before I recall Kit saying he’d employed a guy by the name of Fin Hayes, not someone with the surname Fin. What kind of coincidence is this?
‘No, I’m looking for the site manager, Fin.’ Not the fit-girl-Fin.
Her neutral expression hardens; her mouth pursing and her brows drawing down. For some reason this makes me chuckle. She looks like an angry kitten.
‘That’s funny, huh? And I suppose that would be because I’m a woman? That I couldn’t possibly be managing a construction project on account of possessing a fully functioning vagina.’
My smile breaks into a bloody great grin as she makes the head of an arrow with both hands—an arrow pointing south to her pussy, no less. I just manage to stop myself from agreeing that her vagina is indeed fully functional, and that as a fully-fledged vagina enthusiast, I confirm her pussy is top shelf. That is, if pussies were available on shelves, which is something I don’t want to imagine right now. Chuckling now, partly at myself and my ridiculous thought pattern, I try to keep a straight face, conscious that our second encounter isn’t going so well.
‘I was thinking,’ I say, holding up my hand to ward off her ire. ‘Seriously, I was thinking more along the lines that you can’t be the person I’m looking for seeing as your name is Rose.’
And then I’m not laughing anymore as her expression changes, the random thoughts rolling around my brain dissolving as more sensible ones begin slotting into place.
