Good Enough to Trust (Good Enough, Book 2 - Going Back)

by Stoneley, Zara

  It was good. Oven fresh bread from the small bakery in the village with a smell that made you hungry, and a crisp flaky crust and squishiness that made you want to bite into it, cheese that I could have sworn still smelled of grass, a jar of chutney with a local label and a bag of salad that must have done some air miles. I held up the bag of mixed leaves and he shrugged, and then winked at me.

  “Just thought you were probably used to rabbit food.” Sweet again, or sickly judging from the way Ollie had raised an eyebrow. Which made me a bit cross, so I went over and dropped a kiss on Will’s cheek and the way he squeezed my bum could have been his way of reclaiming lost ground, or just because he liked my bum.

  The food was good, like fresh honest uncomplicated food always is. I just broke the bread into chunks and chucked everything on to a big wooden bread board that was resident on the kitchen counter and we sat, or should that be sprawled, on the floor in front of the stove and picked at the food with our fingers and the heat of the room warmed the red wine up nicely. And it heated me up more than nicely until I had to strip off the mother-friendly jumper and toss it onto the chair behind me. Which left a T-shirt that proclaimed loudly that I was ‘one hot chick’. Okay, I admit, it was probably nearly as bad as wearing knickers with ‘spank me’ on the back, or ‘unwrap me’ on the front. But I hadn’t known that I’d end the day in front of a hot stove with two men, had I?

  Will eyed up the yellow chick that was set perky on my chest and grinned. “Is that hot as in, you know, hot and sweaty or as in phwoar?”

  Ollie’s thigh-tingling chuckle wrapped around me as I giggled a bit self consciously.

  “Well, what do you think?” A couple of glasses of wine had done a good job of squashing my honourable intentions.

  “A bit of both I’d say.” The chuckle had turned to throaty murmur right by my ear, warm breath making me hotter. The cottage wasn’t that big, the living room even smaller, so three people sprawled meant we were all near enough to touch. Ollie had one elbow propped on the chair that I was leaning against, and Will’s muscled thigh was so close to mine I could feel the heat from it.

  I reached back to pile my hair up on top of my head, and let some air circulate round my neck, and Ollie caught my wrists above my head.

  “Messy bugger.” I jumped when he reached out and caught the tomato juice that had dribbled onto my chin with one elegant finger. The finger lingered over my lips and it was just an automatic reaction to lick it clean, slowly, as I matched his dark stare which seemed to hold almost a challenge.

  “Very messy.” I really jumped, and it would have been higher if Ollie hadn’t leaned forward to run his tongue along the path that had been smeared with tomato juice just as the cool wine hit the warmth of my bare stomach. A distant kind of shock registered in my brain that Will had actually done that, dripped wine on my bare midriff, and that the warm dampness of his mouth was now on my skin. But it was a hazy distant kind of thought, because Ollie was circling my tongue with his in a way that was playing havoc with my senses.

  Will sucked at the soft skin at my waist and I groaned into Ollie’s mouth, which he took as a sign that this was good. His grip never eased on my wrists, but his free hand reached down, under the top that had risen as I’d raised my arms, the top that had risen further when Will had decided my stomach needed his attentions, right under until he had my hard nipple between his finger and thumb. He pinched and rolled making me squirm.

  “Still not a fan of lacy bras then?” I’d long since had the habit of discarding bras when I was on holiday, and I’d decided that as I wasn’t at home, and I wasn’t at work, I must be on holiday.

  Ollie’s mouth came back down on mine just as Will’s firm hand cupped between my legs. And God, those magic fingers had a pressure so firm that it was hard to believe I had jeans on. He rubbed the length of my slit with a steady stroke that deepened each time he reached my swollen clit. Then his mouth moved up from the dip of my waist to my other breast, the heat of his breath dusting my skin before his tongue circled my aching nipple, and I came. Just like that. A tiny shudder of release that Ollie must have felt in my kiss because he squeezed my other nipple as he sucked my tongue and I couldn’t work out who was doing what any more. I only knew it was good, and I didn’t want them to stop.

  They were both undoing my jeans, two hands pulling them down so that I could feel the dampness trickle down my thigh, and I knew I was panting which I think was a way of begging without saying the words. The heat of two hands burned a path between my legs, and I moaned as a long finger I knew had to be Ollie’s slid into my cunt, sighed as more fingers rubbed hard against my throbbing clit.

  I’d never really seen what the appeal of having two men was until last night, when I’d had two inside me. But this was totally different. Last night had been about bodies, about lust, about need. Last night had been one moment in time, one thing that might not have worked a second time. But this wasn’t just about bodies, when I looked into Ollie’s eyes there was more, some kind of connection and need that went beyond the purely physical and it wound me up, and made every nerve in my body stand to attention.

  It hit me now how much I’d missed that, a sledgehammer of realisation as my whole body was touched and fondled, all out of synch but all so perfect, the hand on my nub different to the thrusting in my pussy, the sucking of my tongue a different rhythm to the wet pull on my nipple. It was hell and it was heaven as my body started to tremble with need, and I closed my eyes and stopped fighting the grip on my wrists, let myself go with the flow as they played with my body and mind, and when I came it wasn’t a tense build up and release like it normally was, it was a rolling feeling, a wave that built deep inside me, a feeling inside the emptiness of my stomach that spread out and met the tingling in my cunt until I rocked and moaned, and a mouth replaced the fingers and a tongue tickled the final tremor from me.

  It was bit embarrassing opening my eyes, but I had to sooner or later. So I did, to see the grinning face of Will looking from between my thighs. He levered himself up on one elbow and traced a finger down the inside of my thigh, which made me shudder.

  Ollie softened his grip on my wrists, let his hand drift down until it rested in the nape of my neck and he stroked a lazy finger under my hairline until every soft downy hair seemed to frizz to attention. He dropped a kiss on the tip of my nose and for a second stared at me like he’d never seen me before.

  It had just got past the stage of simple embarrassment and turned into tongue twisting confusion when my mobile beeped, and I leaped away from both of them like I’d been bitten on the bum, and nearly fell over because I’d forgotten my jeans were round my ankles.

  “Need a hand?” Will grinned even wider and Ollie chuckled.

  “I think you’ve both done enough lending a hand thanks.” I struggled to heave my jeans up, wriggling my hips and they both watched. Maybe not a good idea. I tried to do it without the wiggle. Will rubbed a hand over the outline of his swollen cock, which I had no trouble in spotting when he didn’t have an erection, with one it was unmistakeable. I tried not to stare, and concentrate on getting my jeans over an ass that suddenly didn’t seem to fit in them anymore. So much for stretch denim. And the slap on my backside from Ollie didn’t help at all.

  ***

  I knew it was trouble and I didn’t need to be psychic. A text from Holly. ‘Dane says he needs to talk to you.’ Followed by a call. Immediately. Before I’d even finished zipping my jeans up.

  “Dane.”

  “What the hell are you doing in Cornwall, Soph?”

  “I’m on holiday.” I walked through to the kitchen on still shaky legs, partly so that he couldn’t hear the voices at my end— partly so they couldn’t hear his. “Hi to you too. And I’m fine, thanks for asking.” He made an angry harrumph type of noise which made the sigh inside me break out. I was doing my best, I really was, and it wasn’t my fault that Ollie had turned up. Was this how they all felt when I was busy telling them how to
sort out their lives? “Holl told you I was here, didn’t she?”

  “People do that, they tell each other stuff. So?”

  “So, what? I like Cornwall.”

  “Come on Sophie, I thought this was about you working out your problems, not digging up old dirt.”

  “I don’t think he’d like to be called old dirt.”

  Dane didn’t appear to see the funny side of that. I sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and traced a circle in the breadcrumbs.

  “I had to come here, Dane, you know I did. What happened to him?” There was a silence, Dane was good at silences. “Dane I need to know what happened, why didn’t you tell me, you knew, didn’t you?” I could see those snaking scars so clearly, etched against the sun-tinged brown of his skin and a shiver ran down my spine.

  “And that would have helped? The state you were in?”

  Chapter Five

  “But, Dane.”

  “He’s had enough shit to deal with Sophie, leave him be. Anyway it’s up to him what he tells you.”

  “I didn’t come here to bother him, I didn’t know he’d still be here, did I? I mean you didn’t share that bit of info, did you?”

  “Why should I? You made it clear enough that he wasn’t allowed within a million miles of you.”

  “He didn’t have the shit.” It was me who had to leave, me who had to go back and bury my parents, while he just carried on playing gypsy boy.

  “There was other stuff.” He gave an exasperated man-sigh, and I could imagine his fingers tightening around the phone.

  “Like what? If there was other stuff—” Okay I could even hear the sarcasm myself, but who was Dane to lecture me? “—why didn’t I know?”

  “You had enough problems so he kept it to himself, then when he tried to explain you threatened him with the police.” He sounded almost tired, and like he was talking to a spoiled kid.

  “Bollocks.” But it wasn’t entirely bollocks. When he’d finally decided to come after me it had all been too late, I couldn’t deal with it. I’d just about managed to pull myself together and the last thing I’d needed was a man who’d just proved that he didn’t really care, that I couldn’t trust to be there for me. Yeah, I’d told him if he came to see me I’d report him for harassment. But nothing could have been as big a problem as mine.

  “You’re not the only one who suffered you know.” I hate that when someone guesses what you’re thinking, and Dane and Ollie both had degrees in it.

  “For someone with an IQ in the clouds you can be fucking stupid at times.” He paused for breath. “Don’t go near him Soph, tell me you won’t go near him.”

  Oops. Well I hadn’t, it wasn’t my fault, was it?

  I could almost hear the penny drop. “You can be a selfish cow at times.”

  “What happened to him Dane? Is this about those scars?”

  “Leave him alone Sophie, he’s fine running his own life.”

  “But, Dane I need to--”

  But Dane had gone.

  I shoved the mobile phone back in my jeans pocket and hoped to hell that Ollie and Will hadn’t heard as much of the conversation as I was sure they had. The small sitting room told its own story. Ollie had gone. Will shrugged when I looked pointedly at the chair he’d been leaning against, and the half-emptied glass of wine.

  “He said it was time he went.”

  “Did you both hear all that?”

  He gave an apologetic grimace. “Sort of.”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  “Come here.” He patted the seat beside him and I crashed down onto it, slumping against him. He gave a little snort and shifted a bit. “You’ve got bony elbows. Here, have another drink. You want to talk about it, or not?”

  Not, definitely not. I took a mouthful of red wine instead. It was a bit rough at the edges. But nice, and Will was nice, warm against my side. No scars, no questions, uncomplicated. He dropped a kiss on my head as I snuggled closer and I lifted my face to look up at him.

  “Kiss me, please.” And he did, with that slightly refrained, careful air about him. He tasted of the red wine and he tasted of sea salt and the hills. “Will you stay?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” He held me a little bit tighter against his strong body. “We could move somewhere more comfy, these chairs were made for stick insects.”

  So we did, we moved up into the tiny bedroom and the creaky, lumpy bed and he just seemed to know that although my body was buzzing with need, now was not the time. He pulled me in tight, spooning, and his warm hand rested between my thighs.

  “I take it you’ve not just met Ollie.” His words were soft against my ear, not demanding, but I knew it wouldn’t be fair to ignore him.

  “No, we go way back.” I wriggled my way out of his grip so that I could roll over and face him. Touch that square craggy face. “I came here with him years ago.”

  “Ah, it was him. So you did come back to find him?” It wasn’t demanding, or derisive, like Dane, but it was still wrong. They were all wrong.

  “No, I was being honest with you before. I didn’t know he was still here. I came back to just, to do it on my own.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” A frown rolled its way across his face.

  “Nope.” Well, yep, maybe. But not in the way he meant. Troubled, not in trouble. “I just needed to come back again.”

  “And you don’t want to tell me?” I shrugged awkwardly .That trust thing again. I was good at voicing my opinions, good at outbursts and letting out emotion, bad at being able to figure out what I wanted, rubbish at pouring out my woes to strangers.

  “It isn’t that I—”

  He put a finger on my lips. “It doesn’t matter. Really.”

  So why keep asking, I wanted to say. But I didn’t because that would have been nasty, and I think he was doing it because he cared.

  My mobile buzzed angrily from my jeans pocket, jeans that were on a chair, just out of reach. “You want to?”

  “No. It can wait.” It could be Dane, still angry at me, it could be Holly wanting to find out what it was all about, it could be Ollie…Ollie, the man I used to trust with every inch of my soul.

  “You’re okay?” Will’s rough, stubby finger rubbed along my cheekbone and I just nodded. He was good. Too good for me, too straightforward, too honest. He pulled me in tighter against him, rested his chin on the top of my head and rubbed one hand with soft steady strokes over my body as though he was soothing one of his animals. And it worked.

  Chapter Six

  I read the text, and then read it again, because it couldn’t say what I’d thought it had.

  ‘I’m at Crackington, lunch? H x’

  Shit. I collapsed back onto the rumpled sheets, half glad that Will had left early to sort his farm out. Half glad, because half of me missed his slow steady smile, his, well I’d suppose you’d call it steadfastness. A good old fashioned word for a good old fashioned type of guy. Apart from the group sex bit of course, which he seemed to like more than most.

  I glared at my phone, which didn’t help. No, it had to be wrong she couldn’t be at Crackington Haven, a few miles up the road. I hit the dial button and she picked up almost before it could have rung out.

  “What do you mean, Holly?”

  “I’m at Crackington... er...Heaven...no...Haven I think it’s called, not a lot here is there?”

  “Holly.” One of us was confused and I was pretty sure it wasn’t meant to be me. “What the hell are you doing there, and how did you know?” Cornwall was a pretty big place and she’d managed to land a few miles away. Which was wrong.

  “Dane.” Of course, Dane would know where to find me.

  “Fuck Dane.”

  “Sophie.” The shocked tones shot straight down the line at me.

  “Why can’t he leave me alone and stop interfering? It’s not his life.”

  “He cares, we all care. He’s not interfering, he’s trying to help.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Just
like I always tried to interfere in their lives.

  “I tried to ring.” She sounded miffed now, slightly affronted. “I tried a few times last night, but you didn’t pick up. So, are you meeting me or not?”

  Ah, the calls which I’d ignored because it could have been Ollie, and I was avoiding him. Shit, why couldn’t I just man up and face the music? “Dane isn’t—?”

  “No, Dane isn’t here. I’m on my own.” She sighed, a little wistful sigh, because Holly didn’t do pushy, or difficult, and I was being both, with a dash of temperamental and self pity in the mix. And she definitely didn’t do temperamental and emotional.

  “Sorry, of course I’ll meet up for lunch. But it’s a bit early, it’s only—” I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t early. Somehow between Will getting up and leaving, and the phone buzzing, I’d lost a few hours. Bugger.

  “I know you’re here to get away and sort things out and I promise I won’t hang around, it’s just Dane—”

  I wanted to forget Dane. Dane who thought he knew all the answers and was probably right.

  “And Soph?” The worry trickled down the line. “Who’s Ollie?”

  “We’ll talk, I promise. Over lunch.” I didn’t need to tell her where to meet me, Crackington Haven only had one pub, and one café, and one car park. And right now one Holly.

  I’d overstated the facilities at the village— come winter time the café was shut and it just came down to the sum total of a pub and car park. They seemed a bit surprised to get visitors in the pub too, which was fair enough given what it had to offer was a view, which in the summer was quaint and in the winter gloomy, and a rocky beach that had morphed from idyllic and sheltered, into dangerous and smuggler territory.

  We didn’t have to make much of pleasantries, we were good friends so it was straight to the hug and then the nitty gritty. Well, after the food and drink had been sorted.

  “You look good.”