by Jones,Lesley
I assumed he was referring to Savage Garden. It was their song, “I knew I loved you” that we were currently swaying to.
“I did know,” I replied.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward or nervous earlier. With what I said. About your skin I mean.”
I smiled and shook my head. “You didn’t, it’s fine.”
“That dimple you have is so fucking cute—” He pressed his lips together as if to physically stop himself from talking, but the moment he opened them again, he was swearing softly. “Shit, fuck. I’m sorry. Sorry. I’ll just shut up dance.”
I laughed. “Please don’t, you’re amazingly good for my ego.” It was his turn to smile. He had straight white teeth and his light blue eyes stood out against his tanned skin. He obviously spent a lot of time outdoors, the sun leaving his skin with a soft glow and crinkles around his eyes when he smiled, which he seemed to do often. I felt hot, too hot, and wondered if he could feel the heat of my body as I was pressed against his.
“Yeah? You’re good with me telling you that shit?” The smile must’ve fallen from my face because his disappeared too.
“What you’re telling me is shit?”
“No! Oh no, no, no. What I’m telling you is so not shit. There is so much more I would like to tell you, none of which is shit . . .”
“Go on then.”
His smile was back, and it almost knocked the air from my lungs when it combined with his sparkling blue eyed stare.
“Yeah? You sure you wanna hear more of my shit?”
“Absolutely.”
He let go of my hand, slid both of his up over my hips, waist, and ribs before lifting my bare arms and placing them around the back of his neck. He rested both of his hands on the top of my arse cheeks and pulled me into him. I looked down, already knowing the view that would greet me. With my arms raised and my chest pushed against his, my boobs were spilling over the top of my corset.
“Fuck, you have the most fantastic rack . . . tits, boobs, I mean boobs. Shit, please don’t ever tell your brother I said that.”
We both laughed before falling into a comfortable silence as we danced to Alicia Keys’s “If I Ain’t Got You”.
My head rested against his chest, and as I listened to the slow steady rhythm of his heart beat, mine slowed in sync with his. My thoughts were random and drifting deliciously around in my head, my feet felt like they were floating on air, and I could not wipe the smile from my face. I felt happy, peaceful. I’d maybe even push it as far as serene. The sensation of his arms around me, his breath in my ear, combined with the music and the vodka in my system, all added to the moment. Our moment.
The song ended, and I felt unsure of what to do. Were three dances with the same man too many?
“You mind taking your hands of my sister’s arse and letting me cut in there please, mate.”
It wasn’t a request from my brother. It was an order.
“I’ll get us another drink. Come find me,” Liam whispered into my ear whilst squeezing me a little tighter before letting me go.
“Seriously, dude?” I looked up at my brother as he addressed Liam with his eyebrows raised.
“Fuck you, bro, it was just a dance.” My heart landed with a splatter somewhere in my belly.
Just a dance? Did he not feel that?
Liam winked at me over my brother’s shoulder, gave me his crinkle-eyed smile, and gestured towards the bar with his chin.
My heart regrouped and swam happily and effortlessly up through my insides like a mermaid, a beautiful smiley, sparkly tailed mermaid, taking up its rightful place in my chest, before picking up its happy euphoric rhythm.
He felt it.
“Yeah, make sure it stays that way too. Just a dance, next time without your hands on her arse.” Liam shook his head at my brother’s words while walking away.
Luke wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile” was playing. It was too fast to slow dance to but that wasn’t a problem for Luke and I we had the moves covered.
Despite the fact that I had never had any formal dance training, I had always loved to dance. Sasha shares my love, but before she was around, when I was younger, it was always Luke that I made practice with me. Since he was the perfectly obliging big brother that he was, he never said no.
He twirled me around and away from him before pulling me back in.
“I’m sorry,” he said into my ear. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I’m drunk. It’s no excuse, but it’s all I’ve got right now.” He paused and looked down at me. “I’m sorry, Sunshine. I fucked up. It started as a business meeting, and we ended up in bed. It was nothing more than closure, I promise.”
I looked up into my brother’s handsome face as he spoke. Melanie Thompson was about the only thing we ever argued about. Well that and his overprotectiveness.
“You’re an idiot.”
“I know. That’s exactly why I snapped at you earlier. I’m pissed off with myself, not with you.”
He kissed the top of my head again. “Thanks for this, for tonight. I can’t believe you and Will managed to keep it a secret from me.”
“It wasn’t hard.” I shrugged. “You’ve been so busy setting things up for the new business that you weren’t paying much attention to anything else going on around you.”
The song ended, I took my brother’s hand, and steered him off the dance floor. I loved him, but now that his apology had been delivered and accepted, I wanted to go find Liam.
“Just watch yourself with her Luke. I’ve no clue what business dealings you have going on with her, but just watch yourself, yeah? Mel was a liar and a cheat as a girlfriend so be under no illusions that she’d behave any differently in any other aspects of her life.”
“You giving me relationship advice, Sarah Sunshine?”
“For what it’s worth, yes I am.”
“Well, thanks for that but I’ve got this covered. Do me a favour though, yeah?”
“What’s that?” I asked him with a smile.
“Stay the fuck away from Liam Delaney. He’s too old and too complicated for you.”
“Don’t even go there, not after what you’ve just told me. I’m a big girl, I can look after myself.” I kissed his cheek and turned towards where I knew Liam was waiting for me. “And put some fucking clothes on. That top . . . it’s not even a top, it’s fucking underwear.”
I flipped him my middle finger, and feeling like a total bad arse because of it, I kept walking.
***
“Thank you,” I said with a smile when Liam handed me my drink.
“You’re welcome. You looked good out there, you and your brother. I didn’t realise Luke could dance. He’s kept that quiet.”
“He had no choice when we were growing up. I loved to dance, and if I needed a partner, he was it. Will sometimes too. He’s not bad either.”
“He likes you.”
“My brother? I should hope so, he practically raised me.” What a strange comment. The smile left his face as he shook his head.
“Will. Will likes you. I’ve been watching him, his eyes have been on you most of the night, especially while we were dancing. He’s actually watching us right now.”
I felt my cheeks burn, his observation making me feel uncomfortable.
“Will’s just being protective. He’s known me since I was three or four, he’s like a big brother.”
He nodded his head but didn’t look convinced. I looked around the room, not sure what else to say, and spotted Sasha with my brother. He had his arm thrown around her shoulder, and they were listening to something his friend Callum was telling them. Will was just to the side of them, leaning against the bar with his eyes on me. I swallowed but tried not to let the surprise I felt show on my face. Why the fuck was Will watching me?
He raised his glass and smiled, and I returned the gesture, feeling a little too warm and slightly uncomfortable.
“So, Sara
h Carter, when you gonna let me take you out?” Liam asked from beside me.
My eyes met his. I was no longer just a little warm, I was burning up, about to ignite and combust in fact.
“I don’t recall you asking to take me out, Liam Delaney.”
“Well then let me rectify that. I’d really like to take you out for dinner or just for a drink if that’s what you’d prefer, and I’d really like it to be soon.”
“How soon?”
“Tomorrow night soon.”
It didn’t matter how soon. I was all over that shit. If he’d had asked me to go right at that very moment to the all night burger and kebab van on the roundabout by the motorway exit, I would’ve said yes. I would’ve said yes to just about anything he asked. I was drunk and so fucking high on him and the fact that he was paying me attention and wanted to spend time with me that I could almost touch the sky. Almost, but not quite.
The main problem with being so high was that it hurt so much more when you fell. It was even more painful to be dropped.
Excruciating in fact.
“Get up and make me a coffee pleeeeeeaaaaaase,” Sasha begged from somewhere beside me.
“Why are you in my bed again, please enlighten me?”
“No clue, I think we made tea and toast and then we were talking and must’ve just fallen asleep in here.”
“Ahh yeah. I vaguely remember. See this is the reason I don’t drink. I bet we had a really great night last night, but I remember very little after my brother blew out his cake.”
“Candles.”
“What?” I wanted to open my eyes and give Sasha my best what-the-fuck-are–you-talking-about look, but my head hurt too much.
“He blew out his candles, not his cake. You said ‘cake’.”
“Again, another reason I don’t drink, it makes me stupid.”
“Meeehhh, don’t think that can be blamed entirely on alcohol.”
I bent my knee and kicked backwards like a donkey until the flat of my foot made contact with my friend’s arse.
“Oofff! What the fuck was that for? Keep on, and I won’t remind you that you need to get up soon and start getting ready for your big date tonight.”
My eyes flew open. I sat up and the room swayed. I closed my eyes and laid back down, all the while my stomach churned.
“Holy shit. Liam Delaney. How did I forget about him?”
“My point exactly when it comes to you blaming alcohol on your stupidity.”
“Do you wanna walk across the landing and go back to your own cold bed?”
“Do you want wardrobe advice and your hair curled later.”
Yes, indeed I did. I remained silent and hoped that the bed, the room, and our house, would all stop moving.
“Exactly.”
Neither of us spoke for a few minutes.
“Fuck my head hurts,” Sasha finally whispered.
“Hm hm,” was all I had.
“Fuck, you’ve got a date with a smoking hot Aussie tonight.”
My insides and my toes all curled at once. I did, I really did have a date with a smoking hot Aussie tonight.
“Will you shut up? I already feel sick.”
“Noted.”
“I really need coffee. What time is it?”
“No clue. Not sure what was in my gin, or those tequila shots, or that champagne last night, but I think it’s made me blind this morning.”
“I think it was bleach, it made my tongue feel funny. Bleach would do that—” I paused and tilted my head. “This morning? It’s still morning then?”
“Seriously, that’s all you got from that? You think we may have potentially drank bleach and will need a Labrador and a white stick for the rest of our lives, which doesn’t even begin to explain how you know that bleach makes your tongue swell. When was the last time you drank it?”
“Why are my brother and Will standing at the end of my bed naked?”
I opened one eye and watched as Sasha sat upright, her own eyes open as wide as could be.
“You bitch.”
“Yep, and now you’re upright and we’ve ascertained that you have 20/20 vision, you might as well go make the coffee.”
“You fucker.”
“Love you.”
“Fuck off, I’m gonna spit in your cup.”
“Whatever. Just make sure you add a sugar and stir it, I need the energy.”
I laughed as I listened to Sasha stomp out of my bedroom and down the stairs. Rolling on to my side, I curled into the foetal position and wrapped my arms around my knees as I tried to recall everything from the previous night.
After Liam had asked to take me out, and he’d given me his number. I’d explained how over protective Luke was, and Liam, thankfully, said he didn’t want to cause issues within their working relationship. We both agreed to keep it quiet. It was only a date after all.
Saturday the eleventh of October two thousand and six.
Just a date.
Our first date.
I lay flat on my back and stared up at the ceiling of my motel room. The clock on the bedside chest of drawers had just told me it was three forty in the afternoon. I told Sarah I’d pick her up at seven thirty tonight.
What the fuck had I been thinking? Luke was gonna kill me.
I let out a long breath before reaching for my phone. It had buzzed with a couple of text messages earlier, waking me from a deep, dream-filled sleep.
Both messages were from Luke.
Luke: U wanna move out of that motel and into my place today? Give me a shout and I’ll come and pick u up.
Luke: Hey, fuck face, u can’t still b sleeping surely? Ring me when u wake up.
If I rang him, he would want me to move into his place today. Then he would ask where I was going tonight.
If I didn’t ring him, he would just keep messaging or start ringing me, or worse still, he might turn up.
Me: I’m exhausted. I’m gonna stay in bed 2day and catch up on some sleep. I’ll call u 2morro. I’ve hired a car so I won’t need picking up. Thanks for the offer tho, bro.
Luke: Ok. Sleep tight, u pussy.
Well that was easy. Now I just had to think about where I was gonna take Sarah for our date. Our secret date that her brother couldn’t know about.
Ever.
What the fuck was I thinking? Yeah, I’d come full circle and was now back to that.
Never, in all my life had I been affected by a woman like I was last night. I’d desperately wanted her to come back here with me, and I even went as far as to whisper into her ear, “I want you, come home with me?”
Her chest, neck, and cheeks had flushed a perfect pink as her eyes darted around the room to make sure no one had heard me before she shook her head.
I’d watched her throat move as she swallowed and was grateful for the darkness surrounding us that hid my hard-on.
She was the opposite of every woman I had ever taken out or slept with; she was young, too young for me anyways, and yet I’d found her engaging and interesting to talk to and a lot more mature than a lot of women my own age. She was short and curvy, not long and lean like my usual types. Her clothes were sexy as fuck in a retro kind of way, and it was obvious she wasn’t all designer label straight off the catwalk. Despite all that, I was more desperate to have her beneath me than I’d ever been for any one of my “usual” types, even my soon-to-be ex-wife.
“Fuck,” I groaned aloud to no one but myself. Olivia. What a fucking mess.
I’d not seen her since the evening I’d caught her fucking another man in our Sydney apartment, but then the night before I left for England, she turned up at my office. She begged, she cried, she told me how sorry she was. She wanted us to try again, she wanted me to stay in Australia. I fucked her over my desk. I fucked her again while she was bent over the arm of the leather sofa in my office. I’d held her while she fell asleep on that same sofa, and then I gathered her clothes and dumped them in a bin on the street outside my office when I left. I went
home, packed the last of my personal items in my cases, and headed to the airport. She’d called and screamed expletives, leaving me more than one voice mail. She’d then continuously texted me abusive messages, but I was numb to her, and nothing she said or did could touch me. I simply didn’t care. We never should have married in the first place. We weren’t in love, not that kind of love any way. I’d known Olivia since she was born. She was the daughter of my dad’s best friend. We were always expected to end up together and because I was always trying to please my dad, I went along with it.
We went to the same school and mixed in the same crowd. I’d spent most of my life thinking of her more as a sister than anything but then hormones happened, Olivia was willing and I was more than able.
At sixteen, I took Olivia’s virginity and gave her mine, but having her on tap at such a young age turned me into an arsehole. I earned myself a reputation and gladly lived up to it, sleeping with other girls behind Olivia’s back.
Olivia chose to turn a blind eye to it all. For her, being with me meant she was allowed a little more freedom. What we had was convenient, and convenience was basically all that our relationship had ever been based on.
I let out a long breath as I thought back to those times. I was young and stupid, a fucking idiot. I promised those girls the world, but once they gave it up, I walked away. I still liked to fuck without commitment these days, the difference was, I was honest from the start. Sex, no strings attached sex. That was what they would get from me. That and nothing else. I had a few regulars, but most were just hook ups. That was why I was so blown away by my reaction to little Ms Carter. I actually couldn’t remember the last time I took a woman out on a date. I met women while I was out, and I invited women to attend work related functions with me, but I really couldn’t remember the last time I had specifically gone out on an actual date.
My phone vibrated on the bed next to me, and I flipped it open.
Unknown: Hey, my address is 76 Victoria Street. It’s about a 5-minute drive from where ur stayin’. We still on for 7.30?
