In the main sitting-room, a man was standing with his back to her, looking at something on the desk. She knew instantly that it wasn’t either of the boys: firstly, because his back was much too wide and muscular. Both Jean-Marc and David were delicately built, slim and elegant. This man had the shoulders of a bruiser by comparison. And secondly, he was wearing a grey suit, which neither of them would ever, ever have done.
Suddenly she had a very bad feeling indeed. She was actually about to turn and flee when he spun round. He must have had the hearing of a cat to pick up the almost-inaudible sound of her feet on the thick carpeting.
Lola’s entire body froze. She literally could not move a muscle. The way he was looking at her was so frightening she was paralysed to the spot. She was the rabbit once more, staring at the snake.
‘You!’ Niels van der Veer’s silver eyes narrowed in fury and contempt. ‘Little Miss Spoilt Princess! What the hell are you doing here? I told you never to come near my brother again!’
And he started towards her menacingly, his shoulders bunching under the expensive suit.
Chapter 15
Lawrence was sulking. Evie had never seen him in this mood before, and she didn’t much like it. Lawrence was always so balanced, so calm; even when they were having sex he maintained a Zen-like state of poise and equilibrium. But as soon as Evie had announced that she was moving – not miles away, not to Bay Ridge or Hoboken or somewhere an hour and a half away on the subway or PATH train, but just one floor down – his self-control had slipped, and he had become, by his own high standards, quite impossible.
‘I thought you’d be pleased!’ Evie protested, for the tenth time that day. ‘You and Autumn were fighting all the time because I was staying here! Now I’m just on the next floor down, I’ve got my own room, you can come visit me whenever you want – I thought this was perfect!’
Lawrence shrugged and mumbled something under his breath. His full lips were pushed out into what, on anyone else, Evie would have called a pout, and his shoulders were hunched in what, on anyone else, he himself would have called terrible posture.
‘I just don’t understand why you’ve done this, ’ he said finally, pacing the length of the kitchen. He’d been working on some stretches when Evie came in to tell him her news, and he was wearing a singlet and an old pair of running shorts. Even now, annoyed as Evie was by his attitude, she couldn’t help watching the flex of the long muscles in his thighs, the round firm bulge of his buttocks in the tight shorts, and feel herself getting more than a little turned on.
‘I thought it was a great idea, ’ she repeated impatiently. ‘I mean, it’s the best solution. You know, it isn’t so cool for me to have Autumn always sneering at me because of Benny and my fur coats and everything—’
‘Oh, Autumn’s coming round, ’ Lawrence said. ‘Don’t you think? I think she’s warming to you.’
He stopped in his tracks and fixed Evie with a pleading grey gaze.
‘No, Lawrence, I don’t think, ’ Evie said firmly. ‘She hates my guts.’
Because she’s in love with you, she added beneath her breath. She wouldn’t say that out loud, though, because she was much too wise for that. Evie had a lot of experience with men, and one thing she knew was that if you told them a woman was in love with them, it made them more interested in her. And Evie didn’t want Lawrence getting interested in Autumn. There was no mileage for Evie in living out some sort of bohemian love triangle.
Lawrence had kept Evie satisfied sexually for longer than any man before him, and she had no intention, if she could help it, of letting that go; it had been nearly eight months now, and she still got hot looking at him the way he was now, his bare shoulders with those gorgeous caps of muscle, the slight dent in the centre showing how defined they were. She loved to run her tongue along that dent, taste the delicate salt of his sweat, lick down to his armpit, which always smelt and tasted delicious.
She shifted on her chair, wanting to stop talking and start making out.
‘Look, come here, ’ she coaxed him. ‘Let’s not fight. There’s so many more fun things we could be doing.’
And she gave him that look from beneath her eyelashes, ducking her chin down and looking up at him with her big brown eyes, the look that never failed to get a rise out of him.
She saw it immediately, his cock beginning to stir in his shorts, and her lips curled into a little smile of triumph.
‘No, Evie!’ he said crossly, turning away. ‘This is important! I’m not going to let you distract me. I thought we were – I thought we had – I thought you liked us living together.’
‘I don’t even see that much of you, Lawrence, ’ Evie pointed out. ‘You’re up at the crack of dawn, doing your yoga, and then you’re out training and taking classes all day—’
‘Which makes it more important that we’re sharing a room, because at least we sleep together!’ He turned to face her again, his light brown hair falling over his face, and impatiently he tilted his head back, pulling his hair into a ponytail, twisting it into its elastic band. ‘I wake up and you’re there, lying next to me, sleeping so soundly . . . I creep out of the room in the mornings so as not to wake you up . . .’
‘Isn’t that a big nuisance?’ Evie asked, not understanding his point.
‘No! I like it! God, you’re just not getting this – it’s like talking to a wall!’
He paced back again, to the table where she was sitting, and pulled up a chair to face her, twisting it so he was straddling the seat, his arms propped on its back.
‘I want us to be a couple, Evie, ’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve really enjoyed having you here.’ He gazed at her, his handsome features very serious, his high cheekbones elegantly carved. ‘I believe in sexual freedom, you know that. I don’t think anyone should ever tie any other human being’s sexuality down, or try to control it. But I want us to be a couple. I think I realised that the first day you were here, when I came in and found you curled up in my bed.’
‘Oh, Lawrence . . .’
Evie’s face knotted up with embarrassment. She thought she was so clever with men, did she? Thought she knew them inside out, how to manoeuvre them, get them to do exactly what she wanted? Well, she sure as hell hadn’t seen this one coming.
And now she was fucked.
Because if she agreed to what Lawrence wanted, it would weaken her. Maybe fatally. If she were living with Lawrence, coming home to him every night, how could she still be focused as hard as she needed to be on looking for the rich man who would take her away from this crappy place and install her back in another Tribeca penthouse?
Evie faced the truth about herself. She hadn’t taken the room downstairs because she couldn’t stand Autumn, and the tension in the loft, any more. She’d taken it because she needed to be free. Not softened up by Lawrence’s sweetness, the way he mumbled her name in his sleep when she crawled into bed beside him, and pulled her close, spooning her, his breath warm on the back of her neck.
Her feelings for him would ruin her dreams. She’d end up living here with him in even worse squalor than she’d grown up in.
‘I can’t, ’ she said simply. ‘I’m sorry, Lawrence.’
Lawrence nodded slowly.
‘You just can’t settle down with a poor yoga teacher, ’ he said softly.
She couldn’t answer him. But his clear grey eyes looked directly into hers and read the truth there.
‘Then you’re right, ’ he said, swinging one leg easily over the chair seat, standing up, pushing it away from him. ‘You should move out.’
Evie jumped up.
‘I still want us to—’ she started. ‘This doesn’t need to change anything—’
But Lawrence dodged her as she came towards him, shaking his head.
‘Yes, it does, ’ he said sadly. ‘I’m sorry, Evie. I thought I was OK with this. I thought I could handle it. But I guess I can’t handle it after all, and I have to be honest with myself and you.’
He
reached his arms up behind his head, cracking out his shoulders in a long stretch. The sight of his biceps flexing and swelling with the movement, jutting forwards, the light brown hair in his pale armpits, slightly damp and salty, made Evie’s thighs twitch together with desire.
‘Lawrence—’ she tried again.
But he shook his head, almost angrily, and plunged away from her, towards the door.
‘I’ll go out for an hour, ’ he said over his shoulder. ‘That should give you time to move your stuff downstairs.’ He darted a quick look at her. ‘I’ll see you around, Evie.’
And then he was gone. She heard him taking the stairs two at a time.
It was the right thing to do. Evie was absolutely sure of it.
It was just shitty that seeing him go made her feel like bursting into tears. Totally shitty.
She turned and walked slowly down the corridor, to the room she’d shared with him, the room she was leaving. The first thing she saw as she pushed open the door was her pole, still in its moulded plastic carrying case, leaning against the wall, and for some reason the sight of it lifted her miserable spirits just a fraction. She picked it up, slung the strap over her shoulder, and carried it back through the apartment and downstairs.
Everyone was out in her new place. The trapezes were pulled back up to the ceiling, as they always were when not in use, cords slung round them and wrapped around figure-of-eight hooks on the wall, holding them out of the way. So there was plenty of room for Evie to take out her pole, open it up, and extend it till it touched the ceiling. She was relieved: these old industrial lofts had such high ceilings, she hadn’t been sure if the pole would be long enough.
She pulled out the little screwdriver she kept in the pole case, and heaved the pole into position at the centre of the room, screwing the base tight till she was sure it wouldn’t budge a fraction of an inch. A quarter of an hour later, she had forgotten everything but the reality of the pole between her ankles, digging in, as she climbed it yet again. At the top, close enough to reach up and touch the ceiling, she gripped it hard instead, making sure she had a good wrap, working it under one arm so it was tightly clamped into her armpit. She squeezed it in, getting secure. Then she took her legs off the pole and stretched them out, away from each other, into near-perfect splits. It was one of her signature moves, this ability to make and hold the splits in mid-air, and she was very proud of it.
For a moment, Evie was static, holding the pose, in perfect balance. Then she loosened her grip on the pole with hands and arm, just fractionally, but enough to start her moving, sliding down it, keeping her legs in the splits all the way down, till she landed on the floor, legs sliding along it, and let go of the pole, reaching back with both hands to grasp the foot of the leg stretched out behind her.
The sound of clapping came from the open door, and she twisted round in surprise.
Natalie and Jeremy were standing there, smiling at her. But the applause wasn’t coming from one of them. They fell to either side of the doorway as a woman walked through, a woman one definitely needed to make space for: she was of medium height, with bleached-blonde hair, milky-white skin that should never see the sun, and weighing a good two hundred pounds – every pound of which, as far as Evie could tell, looked to be in exactly the right place.
She was wearing a 1950s-style dress, a red-and-white print cinched in at the waist with a big patent-leather belt, and red shiny pumps. The dress must have been made for her, it wrapped so well around her opulent curves. Her make-up was 1950s too: heavy black eyeliner, flicking up at the outer corners to make cat’s-eyes, light powder to keep her pale skin matte, and bright red lipstick. Over her shoulders was draped a black cardigan, and the plumpness of her bare white arms, the roundness of her equally white calves, was so rich and satisfying that Evie suddenly felt skinny, scrawny even, by comparison with her.
‘Evie, this is Laura, ’ Natalie said. ‘She has the room next to yours—’
‘Honey, ’ Laura said in a little piping Minnie-Mouse voice, ‘you should totally work up a burlesque act with that!’
Chapter 16
Niels van der Veer was almost upon her before Lola managed to summon up any control over her muscles. She was remembering, all too vividly, their last encounter, when he had picked her up and carried her bodily from Jean-Marc’s hospital room.
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ she said, and to her great annoyance it came out as a breathy little gasp. ‘Look what you did to me last time, you bully!’
And she gripped the edge of her white silk dressing gown and jerked it angrily off her shoulder, down to just above her elbow, so that he could see her bare arm, revealed by the strappy negligee, and the clear mark of bruises on her skin. Four pale amethyst stripes, fading to green at the edges, the marks of his fingers where he had gripped her so tightly he had lifted her off her feet, just a few days ago.
‘There’s exactly the same ones on the other arm, ’ she said furiously, staring back at him, suddenly able to meet his bright silver stare without flinching, now that she was challenging him back. ‘Do you want to see them too? Or is this enough for you?’
And even then, she couldn’t read his expression. It changed, certainly. His craggy features froze; his strong jaw, the straight hard line of his mouth, looked even more sculptural than before. His shoulders were as wide as a wall; she couldn’t see beyond him, he towered over her. The sheer weight and mass of him was so imposing that it was hard for her to stand her ground, but she planted her bare feet and wouldn’t give an inch.
How dare he be so angry with her? she thought furiously. As if she had had anything to do with Jean-Marc’s problems and his overdose – anything, of course, beyond being the fiancée with whom an imminent marriage had sent Jean-Marc into drug overdrive? And she had ended up just as damaged as Jean-Marc, despite the fact that she was completely innocent of anything but not being able to spot that her fiancé was gay. Even Jean-Marc himself had only just realised he was gay, so you could scarcely blame Lola for that . . .
Niels van der Veer reached towards Lola, and she flinched back, unable to stop herself. But his grip, when it closed around her elbow, was gentle, though irresistibly firm. His hand was as big as she remembered, and looking down at it, as it held her in place, she noticed the sprinkling of gold hairs on his knuckles. Their presence was so masculine that it made her shiver.
And then he lowered his head.
She stood there in absolute shock as he pulled her closer, and that strong, imposing head bent over her arm, and Niels van der Veer’s mouth, warm and moist, kissed the bruises he had made on her skin.
Her eyes closed. She thought she ought to push him away, because she was still furious with him, and he shouldn’t just think that by kissing her bruises he could somehow redeem himself, and after all, he hadn’t actually apologised: but the touch of his warm mouth had put her into some kind of trance, and as he kissed up her arm, and sank his lips into her neck, biting at the skin gently, gently, but just enough to let her feel his teeth against her flesh, she actually thought she was going to faint, and she realised that her arms had raised and she was clinging on to him so she didn’t fall over.
That was when it really began to spiral out of their control. Because when Lola grabbed onto his forearms, just to keep her steady, her fingers closed around such solid muscle that she couldn’t help moaning in appreciation. His tailor, she observed with the one small sane part of her mind she had left, must be very good indeed, because Niels’s biceps really were very well-developed, and it would take a great deal of skill not to make his upper body look ridiculously huge in a suit. And then she couldn’t help thinking about what the rest of his upper body must look like, and the one small sane part of her mind went up in flames, like the rest of her, and she realised she was moaning still, and tilting back her head, so he would kiss her on the mouth.
And he did.
Fireworks went off inside her head. Chrysanthemums and rockets and spinning Catherine w
heels, great explosions of colour and light. Niels’s mouth was hard and insistent; his teeth sank into her lips, his tongue invaded her mouth. His hands gripped her tightly, moving her exactly where he wanted. She sensed that by opening her mouth to him, letting him in, she had given him consent to everything he wanted. Somehow she knew that he wouldn’t ask from now on, he would just take, forceful as a battering ram. It would be up to her to say no, to push him away, and how could she do that, when she was longing for him to touch her everywhere, all over her body, every single part of her, from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head . . .
He was consuming her. He kissed her as if he wanted to eat her up, as if she were a banquet and he had been hungry for so long he couldn’t remember what it was like to be satiated. She tried to kiss him back, so he didn’t have it all his own way, to nip at his lips with little bites and kisses, and when she did, it made him grind her against him even harder, so she felt the length of his body all the way down hers, the swell of his pectorals, his flat stomach, his cock pressing into her stomach, his muscled thighs, and she moaned again, despite herself, into his mouth.
That moan seemed to trigger something in him, because the next thing she knew his hands slid down her to grasp her bottom, cupping her, pulling her into him, lifting her so she was suddenly not supporting her own weight: her hands were twined in his dirty-blond hair, which was just long enough for her to twist it a little round her fingers. His hands were so powerful on her, moving her where he wanted as if she were a doll, and she wanted to make him feel her power just a little in return: she pulled at his hair, making him gasp, and he dragged his head back just enough so she couldn’t get a grip any longer, and looked down at her with such a scorching stare that she literally felt as if she were melting. Her core was liquefying, so hot and insistent she had less and less control over it, flowing out, reaching for him—
Divas Page 18
