‘Cock, tongue, fingers,’ he chanted in her ear. ‘Tam, Jon, Judy.’
Kara clutched at his shoulder, nearly doubled over with want and arousal. Mike’s words made her head spin, but the combination of his filthy whispered speech and the insistent way his hand worked at her kept her nailed in place. If he’d let go of her, she would have fallen.
‘Whose cock are you going to chase tonight, Kara?’ He doubled his fingers inside her, filled her with searching flesh. ‘Tam’s? Are you in love with him?’
As he questioned her, Mike pushed his thumb hard against her clit. It was like he’d flicked a switch – the orgasm sprang up out of nowhere and shook upwards through her body. It felt like she was breaking apart as she came into his hand, there in the dimly lit bathroom on the tiled floor. Her mouth stretched open against his shirt and she sucked at it, knew she was leaving a damp stain but couldn’t stop herself.
Afterwards, Mike withdrew his hand from her and washed in the basin.
‘You’d better get back in there,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a lot still to do.’
Her legs were weak and she was flushed and sweaty, but Kara knew Mike had won this battle. She nodded mutely and retreated to the studio, put on her headphones and faced the booth so that she wouldn’t have to look at Tam.
The blush on her cheeks faded, but when she looked up through the glass she saw Mike and the damp spot blooming on his shirt like a badge. A victory medal, she thought. Reminding her he’d won.
For the rest of the session, Tam played his parts note perfect and tight, never missing a beat and never saying a word in between tracks. Kara listened for something in her headphones, some clue as to how he was feeling, but heard only static. She sang with her eyes shut, concentrating on the tunes and not thinking about the meaning behind the words at all.
14
IT WAS AFTER midnight when they wrapped up. Kara’s throat was hoarse and she felt ready to drop. She crammed a chocolate bar in her mouth to perk up her blood sugar and collapsed onto a chair in reception, staring out through the glass wall. Outside the park across the street was dark, only the lit-up towers of the old churches on top of the hill showing up beyond the trees. Mike, Jon, Tam – everyone else was still in the studio, listening to the playback of the songs they’d worked on.
Part of Kara knew she should go back to the flat and try to talk to Ruby, explain how the photos had been a set-up. But she was dog-tired and so wrung out she couldn’t face the thought of an angry flatmate and an empty bed. At least there was no sign of Lina in the office. She’s done what she needed to do, Kara thought bitterly.
Tam walked out of the live room and across reception, wearing his parka buttoned right up to the neck.
‘You’re heading home,’ Kara said. For a moment, she imagined walking back along the night streets with him, dropping onto his bare mattress and the two of them curling up together to sleep. Maybe she could, she thought. Maybe one night didn’t have to mean anything.
‘Yes,’ Tam said, pulling earphones out of his pocket and slipping them on.
‘Maybe I could come …’ Kara’s voice trailed away. She hated how she sounded – small and uncertain. Needy. This was not the way she and Tam worked. They snapped at each other, cracked stupid jokes. They were never this polite. Kara pressed her lips together. She’d crossed a line, played the game wrong and she knew it. Tam had a hard look on his face.
‘I’ve got company,’ he said shortly.
Kara felt as though he’d slammed a door in her face. The chocolate in her mouth tasted far too sweet, sickly and cloying. Tam was turning his phone on and checking for messages. Kara saw a flicker of pleasure pass over his face as he read the display, noticed his mouth curl, just for a moment.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Who is it? she wanted to scream. Tam slipped his phone back in his pocket and pulled his hood on as he turned for the door. Kara wanted to leap up and grab him, stop him from going back to his flat to meet whoever was waiting for him. For a moment, she imagined herself throwing a full-blown hysterical tantrum there in the cool, well-designed lobby. She curled her toes inside her shoes instead, forced herself to sit rigid and still on the chair as he left.
Behind them, she heard voices as the others left the studio and pulled the doors shut. Mike was talking to Jon, loudly, something about chords and keyboard technique.
Kara watched silently as Tam pulled the door open and let in a blast of cold air. He slipped out into the night, not looking back, and the voices behind her moved closer in a wave of distracting noise. Kara turned to meet them.
‘Want a lift?’ Mike said coolly, and she found herself nodding before she’d even thought about what that might mean. Jon disappeared without saying goodbye, and Kara followed Mike to his car in silence.
She buckled herself into the passenger seat and felt the soft leather chill her back.
‘Where am I taking you?’ Kara could hear the smile in Mike’s voice. She hesitated. Where was she going? To face Ruby? To run after Tam?
‘My place, then,’ Mike said, slipping the car into first and pulling away. He drove fast over the icy roads and Kara felt the wheels slide uncertainly every time they turned a corner.
‘Are we going to be alone tonight?’ she asked eventually. In the glow from the dashboard lights, she saw Mike smile.
‘Yes. Judy has other plans.’
Kara nodded. She focused on the lit-up road in front of them, the brake lights of the car in front, and tried to keep her voice neutral.
‘Are you two in some kind of relationship?’ she asked.
‘Some kind,’ said Mike, ‘but probably not the kind you mean.’
Mike’s house was cold, the fireplace a mess of ash and cinders and the air still tinged with the smell of wood smoke. Kara shivered as she looked at the sofa.
‘I’m sleeping here?’ she asked, dropping her handbag on the floor. She was so tired she’d have slept in the car. Mike came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He kissed her neck, laying his dry lips on the tender skin at the base of her scalp.
‘You’re cold,’ she said, as he pushed her hair aside and trailed the tip of his tongue across her throat.
‘You did well today,’ he said, dragging her arms out of her coat. Kara shrugged to help him. ‘It can’t have been easy. I know you and Tam have a history.’ Mike thrust his ice-cold hands under her top and felt her breasts, making her nipples shrink instantly into hard points.
Kara sighed. ‘“History” being the operative word,’ she murmured, standing quite still as Mike worked at her, his touch gentle and persistent. This was how he got her, she realised. He always gave her the unexpected. What she wanted, before she even knew she wanted it.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, moving round to kiss her mouth. It was a long kiss, soft and deep, and Kara felt her limbs turn to water. ‘I’ve made sure he won’t be a problem any more.’
Mike’s touch was drugging her, making her slip into a warm haze of pleasure, but his words triggered a flicker of anxiety.
Kara frowned and pulled away. ‘What do you mean?’
Mike tapped on her collarbone with his fingers. For the first time ever, she noticed he was having trouble choosing his words. Brushing his hair back from his face, he sighed and moved towards the stereo.
‘Mike?’
He took his time choosing a track, waited for the chime of a solo piano to flow into the room before he turned to answer her. His arms were rigid, his hands stuffed into his pockets and Kara looked at him warily. It was the way people stood when they were delivering bad news.
‘When I said Judy had other plans tonight …’ he started, letting his words trail away. It took a moment to sink in. And then Kara remembered Tam’s face as he looked at his phone. A strange feeling buzzed over her, something like the lurch of seasickness.
‘Judy,’ she said. It almost hurt to say the name.
‘I thought it would be fitt
ing,’ Mike said, nodding. ‘Sort of poetic.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Kara asked, crossing her arms over her body and squeezing. ‘What’s this got to do with you?’
‘When I said Judy and I had a relationship – it’s complicated.’
‘Try me,’ Kara said.
Mike threw his keys on the coffee table and leaned on the back of the couch. ‘We met a couple of years ago. I didn’t want to take on a student.’ He looked straight at Kara. She was fixed where she stood, still hugging herself as though the room were freezing. ‘I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened between you and me,’ he said softly. His eyes glittered. ‘But Judy insisted. You wouldn’t think she could be so persuasive to look at her. Such a sweet-looking girl.’
He shook his head, and Kara waited, digging her fingernails into the soft skin above her elbows.
‘So I took her on, and we started lessons. Part of me thought I could make up for what had happened – what didn’t happen – when I was teaching you.’
‘But you just couldn’t help yourself,’ Kara said.
Mike smiled. ‘The situation was entirely different. Judy was a private student. And besides, she made it clear she was more than willing. The whole thing was almost too easy.’
‘You got bored,’ Kara said flatly.
‘Nearly,’ Mike agreed. ‘Until I saw Judy flirting with a barman one night. I suggested she fuck him and the idea went down well.’ He looked into the ashes of the fireplace, lost in thought. ‘I find Judy is like salt.’
‘Like salt?’
‘You can’t eat it on its own, but added to other ingredients, it livens up a meal.’
‘So now you loan her out.’
‘God, no! You make me sound like her pimp. I enjoy instructing her and she enjoys receiving my instructions.’
‘And Tam is one of those … instructions.’ Kara realised she suddenly couldn’t feel the temperature any more. She could see every detail of the room very clearly; hear the recorded piano notes falling into the air one by one, faster and faster, and behind that the ticking clock shaving seconds off the hour. But she couldn’t feel her heart.
‘Just as you were the night before,’ Mike was saying. ‘Judy’s very generous. Very giving. She likes to bring pleasure and she likes to be instructed.’ He stretched out on the couch, inviting Kara to sit beside him with a wave of his hand. ‘She’ll be taking good care of Tam. And that leaves us free, my dear, to enjoy each other without distractions.’
Kara had to admit it was tidy. Flawless. She could sink onto the couch next to Mike and lose herself in his games, forget about Tam and the band and the heaving, tangled complications of the day. Nothing could be simpler.
But instead of sitting, she was pacing, rubbing her arms and walking from one side of the room to the other. The plan would be perfect, she admitted, if it wasn’t for the fact that she felt like crying.
‘Could I have a drink?’ she asked, suddenly feeling the need for a mouthful of whisky, something that would burn her throat and warm her inside.
‘It’s not a drink that you need,’ Mike said quietly.
Kara turned to him and saw how at ease he was, how certain he looked. Not a fibre of his gold, tanned body twitched, and his grey-blue eyes held hers as steady as granite. She knew how his body felt against her, how solid and unyielding he was, how firmly his arms held her as he wanted her. To be trapped underneath him, letting him manipulate her and fuck her to his own distinct rhythm seemed just the solace she needed.
At that moment, when everything around her was dark and uncertain and the night was full of lies and betrayal, Mike was a constant.
Right now, he was her only constant.
The next day, when Tam turned up at the studio with his arm round Judy, Kara managed not to scream. She went straight to the sanctuary of the live room, took her place at the microphone and held on tightly. All morning she kept her eyes focused on the wall in front of her and tried not to think. Mike watched everything from his position in the control booth, saying very little and only occasionally breaking in to ask them to repeat part of a song, adjust the levels or do another take.
They’d run through the eight tracks they were recording half-a-dozen times or more when Mike called a halt.
‘We need a change of scene,’ his voice instructed through the headphones. ‘Something’s not working. Everybody, break for an hour.’
Over a lunch that she didn’t eat and a bottle of wine that she downed too fast, Kara listened to Mike as he tore apart the band’s performance.
‘I’m not hearing anything good,’ he said grimly, staring down at his half-eaten plate of salad.
‘We’re missing Ruby,’ she reminded him, trying not to let the guilt surface in her mind as she thought of her flatmate. ‘Things’ll pick up when she’s here.’
‘Will they?’ Mike said. ‘I sincerely hope so.’
That afternoon, to Kara’s disgust, Lina appeared in the control room and sat with Mike. She watched the band, sometimes leaning in to Mike to murmur in his ear. Kara didn’t like her expression – serious and shrewd – and she didn’t like the way Mike seemed to be listening to her almost as much as he was listening to the music.
It bothered the others too – Jon kept messing up his part and Tam seemed to be lagging behind, tripping over himself and missing all his cues.
After they’d butchered ‘Plastic Hallway’ for the fourth time, Kara tore off the headphones. ‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked Tam and Jon, who were grimly bent over their instruments. Jon looked haggard, she thought. ‘And where is Ruby?’ she asked.
Jon closed his eyes as if saying a silent prayer.
‘It doesn’t matter how upset she is, she needs to be here,’ Kara went on. ‘We only get one shot at this.’
‘Wait, don’t tell me – we need to be professional about it?’ Tam asked, looking at her through narrowed eyes. ‘That’s what you were going to say, is it?’
‘You’re not helping,’ she said, a shard of bitterness breaking into her voice.
‘Neither is having your sugar daddy breathing down my neck,’ muttered Tam, shoving his hand in his hair and clutching a handful of messy brown curls.
Kara’s gaze flew nervously to the control room, but Mike was lost in a conversation with Lina, nodding as she talked.
Jon hit a low C, playing one long forlorn note. ‘It’s not working, is it?’ he said, expressing in his awkward, gentle manner exactly what Kara was too scared to think.
‘So we make it work,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘These are our songs. We made them. We can fucking play them, whether we’re in the mood or not.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Jon said.
Kara glared at him. She rattled the beaded bracelet on her wrist. ‘If you don’t want to be here, Jon, you’d better let me know. Just in case, you know, we find ourselves in the middle of recording our debut album when you decide to duck out. Christ.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Mike’s voice cut across their argument. He was broadcasting on the loudspeakers and he didn’t sound happy. ‘Kara?’
Kara tilted her chin up and shook her head. No problem, she mouthed, ignoring the guys sitting next to her with their faces tripping them. Mike nodded slowly, as though he was considering something. His eyes were cold and, although Kara had grown almost used to the way he observed her, this time she felt the chill.
They played for another hour, with an atmosphere of stewing resentment thick in the air. Kara sang as hard as she could, but her voice wasn’t mixing with Tam’s guitar and the lyrics fell into the mix like lead weights. No matter how much she tried to give it zest and spark, the words were coming out false. When Lina left the suite and Mike called an early finish, Kara felt her shoulders slump with relief.
Mike drew her aside as the others left, pulling her into one of the tiny isolation booths at the side of the live room. ‘This is not going well,’ he said, leaning back against the wall.
Kara nodded. ‘Bad day,’ she said, cursing the band and herself in her head.
‘It’s more than that,’ Mike said, pulling a sheet of paper out of his pocket. ‘Lina took some notes.’
‘Well, great. Can’t wait to hear what spiteful crap she’s come up with.’
‘Kara, whatever your personal feelings towards Lina, she is one of the best producers I’ve worked with. She knows a good thing when she sees it.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes. Really. And she is not seeing it here today.’
Kara felt her blood shrivel in her veins. Throughout it all, all the mayhem and fuck-ups and fights and confusion, she’d been clinging to the music as the one thing she knew how to do.
‘What … What did she say?’ she asked, dreading Mike’s reply.
He read over the notes, frowning. ‘She said it’s critical that the band can perform under pressure. What makes an act sink or swim is not just the music. It’s how strong they are.’
‘And?’
‘And she says The New Rakes are falling apart at the first hurdle,’ Mike said quietly. ‘You’re all over the place. Losing it.’
Kara blew out a long breath. It hurt because it was true. Lina might be a bitch, she thought, but she’s right on the money this time.
‘So what do we do?’ she asked. ‘Do we get another day to fix this?’ The band was booked for three days of studio time. Maybe with one more day, they could pull something off. If Ruby would come round. If Tam would forgive her. If miracles happened.
‘I’ll be blunt. Lina’s for cutting our losses and stopping right now,’ Mike said. He put out a hand to touch Kara’s shoulder, stroked her as if to soothe her. It didn’t help much – she felt like the ground had been pulled out from under her. The shiny, glossy, beautiful dreams that had been blossoming in her head for the past year were crumbling. Her hands were shaking.
‘But,’ Mike said, kneading Kara’s arm insistently. ‘But I might be willing to back you.’
It was a small spark of hope, enough to make Kara inhale sharply and straighten her spine. ‘Another day?’ she asked, her mind already racing through all the ass-kissing and apologising and persuading she’d have to do to make it right. There wasn’t much of a chance, but there was a glimmer and that was all that she needed. ‘Let me talk to the guys,’ she was saying already, reaching up to take Mike’s hand. It felt almost like she was begging him, but for once she really didn’t care. ‘By tomorrow morning I’ll have it fixed, Mike. We’ll be golden.’ She flashed a smile at him, willing him to soften and agree.
The New Rakes Page 13
