I nod slowly.
‘Good. He’s not the only man in the world. There are millions of good guys out there for you. You don’t need to pick a drug dealer.’ He pauses. ‘He’s a criminal, Layla. Don’t ever mistake him for anything else. You deserve better than him. Much better.’
‘Ok,’ I whisper.
He turns around and starts the car. We drive the rest of the way in complete silence.
‘Thanks for the ride, Jake. Bye, Lily,’ I say, opening the car door.
‘No problem. I’ll wait until you get in,’ Jake says.
‘You don’t have to, Jake. What can possibly happen to me in broad daylight?’
‘Layla,’ he sighs wearily.
‘OK, OK,’ I say and, slipping out of the car and shutting the door, I run up the steps to my front door. I love my family to death and all, but sometimes they are so overprotective I feel stifled. I close my front door and I hear Jake’s car drive away. My flat is quiet and still. So much so I jump when my phone rings. It’s Madison.
‘Hey, Maddy. How’s it going?’
‘Same old, same old,’ she says, sounding bored. ‘How was your party last night?’
I take a deep breath. ‘I kissed … someone.’
‘Wait one moment,’ she says and I hear her moving around, doing something. ‘Right. I’m back.’
‘What were you doing?’ I ask.
‘Getting a tub of ice cream out of the freezer. So … who, what, where, when? Spit it out,’ she demands bossily.
So I tell her.
‘No fucking way!’ she screams so loudly I have to hold the phone away from my ear.
I open the freezer and take out a carton of chocolate-chip ice cream and open it on the granite countertop.
‘Are you kidding me?’ she asks incredulously.
‘Nope,’ I say, getting a spoon out of a drawer and shutting it with my hip.
‘But you hate him!’
I sigh, plonking myself on a stool and stabbing my spoon into the ice cream. ‘I know.’
‘What do you mean you know? Is this like some sort of a hate fuck?’
‘I’m not sure I’m taking it any further than dinner.’
‘Liar,’ she accuses.
I slide the spoon into my mouth and let the ice cream melt on my tongue. Maddy is right. In my heart of hearts I know I’m not walking away.
‘So what are you going to wear tomorrow then?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Wear your red dress.’
‘No way. That’s a summer dress.’
‘You won’t be wearing it for long, anyway.’
‘Even if I do decide to go further, I’m not planning on sleeping with him tomorrow.’
‘Of course, you’re not. You’re just practically salivating through the phone and into my ear,’ she says with her mouth full.
I scoop more ice cream. ‘Want to bet I don’t sleep with him tomorrow?’
‘To be really frank, I’d sleep with him.’
The spoon halts mid-way. ‘What?’
‘Wouldn’t be the saddest day of my life.’
I lick the spoon. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, he has badditude and that intense, laser stare going on.’
I grin. Badditude and a laser stare. That’s one description for BJ.
‘I like the way he fills out his jeans from the back too,’ she adds.
I laugh outright.
‘Oh! And I suspect he’ll be very good in bed. He looks like he gets laid often.’
That observation shouldn’t have troubled me, but it does. Which is strange because after Jake’s warning I am of the mind that even if I do sleep with him it will only be the once or twice.
‘So come on, what are you going to wear?’
‘Something subtle. Maybe a white shirt and my dark green trousers.’
‘Isn’t that what you were planning to wear for your job interview?’
‘No, I was going to wear my black trousers to the interview. I just don’t want to give the impression that I’m a slut.’
She laughs. ‘You? A slut? Pleeeease. You’ve got ‘Don’t Touch’ written across your forehead.’
‘I do not.’
‘All right, I’m wrong. You’ve got Don’t Fucking Touch Or I’ll Call The Police blazing from your forehead.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Maddie.’ I sigh. ‘Actually, I’m a bit confused.’
‘About what?’ she demands.
‘I think I’m torn between excitement and panic,’ I reveal.
‘I get the excitement bit, but why the panic?’
‘Because I know it’s a bad idea.’
‘Why?’
‘Well to start with, Jake has threatened me off in no uncertain terms. Absolutely don’t go there stuff. Forbidden in capital letters. Huge family feud stuff. Jake actually called him a drug dealer and criminal. And he didn’t say it just for effect. He really believes BJ is a massive gangster.’
‘Ooook. You said to start with. What are the other reasons?’
‘I sometimes get the uneasy feeling that I am standing at the edge of a cliff and about to jump in when I’m with BJ. There’s this feeling of doing something deliciously destructive, but there is also the prospect of oblivion forever.’
‘Man, only you can make a simple fuck sound so dramatic.’
FIFTEEN
Layla
If a girl will walk stark-naked by the light of the full moon round a field or a house, and cast behind her at every step a handful of salt, she will get the lover whom she desires.
Old Gypsy Magic
The moment Ria called to ask if I wanted to go to dinner with her at Pigeon’s Pie I knew. I was always going to say yes. So I did. Ria and I agreed to meet at a wine bar in Waterloo first for one drink and then take a taxi to Pigeon’s Pie.
I arrive first. Nervously I order a glass of white wine and find us a table. Ria is dressed in a skin-tight leopard print crop top and leather trousers. She looks sexy and carefree. Suddenly I wish I had taken Maddy’s advice, and not dressed so stuffily. We drink a glass of wine and chat about the people we know, then Ria looks at her wristwatch.
‘We should go. We don’t want to be late for dinner,’ she says with a smile.
‘No, we don’t want to be late,’ I agree nervously.
The taxi drops us across the road from Pigeon’s Pie. From outside it looks like an old fashioned pub; a place with fruit machines, patterned carpets, dark wood furniture, and horrible pub food.
‘You okay?’ Ria asks.
‘Totally,’ I reply and follow her through the double doors. Inside it is exactly as I had envisioned. Only it is surprisingly full of elegantly dressed, well-heeled people.
‘Come on,’ Ria says and leads me to a back room. She opens the door to a wood paneled room, and—oh my God!—It’s like I have been transported into an old gangster movie. This is the proverbial backroom where shady deals get struck. It even has another door, presumably a quick, back way escape door. BJ is sitting at a wooden table and there is a half-drunk pint of Guinness in front of him.
BJ
Forswear it sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till tonight.
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Oh Layla. Look at you. Dressed as if you’re going to a job interview at a bank. A pink and white striped shirt, a tailored, almost masculine black jacket, and the unsexiest article of clothing I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across: a below the knee, wrap around skirt in gunmetal grey.
Still, it’s shocking how relieved I am to see her. Some part of my brain can’t believe she came. Of her own free will. I rise to my feet.
‘Hey BJ,’ Ria calls out with a big, friendly smile.
‘Hey Wild Cat,’ I reply easily.
She pouts prettily and lifts her face up to kiss me on the cheek. While her lips are stuck to my face, I shift my gaze to Layla. Her teeth are sunk into her bottom lip. Fuck! What a great mouth. And there’s another inch i
n my pants. Ria dislodges herself with a wet sound.
‘Layla.’ My eyes take a lazy trip down her body. Jesus! I am crazy-lusting after her.
Color creeps up her cheeks, but her voice is cool. ‘BJ.’
‘Have a seat,’ I invite. ‘What do you girls want to drink?’
A waitress has already entered the room and is hovering nervously in the background.
‘Champagne,’ Ria says, perching delicately at the end of the chair opposite me.
I raise an eyebrow at Layla. ‘The same?’
She shrugs. ‘OK,’ she agrees and slips into the chair next to Ria.
‘Bring us a Bollinger,’ I tell the waitress.
She nods and scurries away as if I bite. I sit down and lean back, curling my hand loosely around my pint glass.
‘Do you still have Bertie?’ Ria asks.
‘Of course. She’s a dead woman if she leaves me.’
Layla’s eyes open wide.
Ria laughs. ‘Yeah right. You’re dead if she leaves you, you mean.’
Ria turns to Layla. ‘Bertie was a housecleaner in Florida and came here to visit her niece who was going out with BJ. The niece invited BJ to their home, Bertie cooked him a meal, and the rest is history. She’s amazing. She takes American comfort food and fuses it with European, Mexican, and Asian recipes. You won’t believe how good they come out. Hard to imagine, but all those posh people out there, they could go to the best restaurants in London, instead they come here for Bertie the housecleaner’s food.’
‘Wow.’
She turns to me. ‘But you prefer the plain comfort food though, don’t ya?’
‘Give me a plate of fried chicken and I’m a happy man,’ I say lightly.
Ria laughs. ‘I love coming here.’
The champagne arrives, gets poured, and the girls take their polite little sips.
There is the sound of birds tweeting. It has Ria reaching into her purse for her phone. She looks at the screen, frowns, and says, ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’
‘Of course,’ Layla says.
I gaze at her expressionlessly.
‘Oh no,’ she exclaims dramatically. ‘Noooo. Really? Do you want me to come over?’
I turn my attention to Layla. She is staring at Ria worriedly.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll take a cab. I’ll be with you in 20 minutes at the most. No, no, of course not. No, they won’t mind.’
She ends the call and looks at me then Layla. ‘I’m so sorry, but a friend of mine has just gotten some bad news. I’ve got to go and be with her. I hope you guys don’t mind.’
I shake my head.
Layla says nothing. Just stares at Ria.
Ria turns to me. ‘You will give Layla a ride back home, won’t you?’
‘Sure, I’ll give Layla a ride,’ I say.
SIX
LAYLA
One corner of his mouth crooks up. I love his mouth. The way he says ride is slow and sexy. I bet he can give me a ride. Silently, I watch Ria glug her champagne down as fast as is humanly possible. Her eyes drift longingly to the bottle, but she stands and comes towards me. I allow her to hurriedly air peck both my cheeks and watch while she does the same to BJ. Then she is gone.
And I meet his eyes. ‘There’s no emergency is there?’
Utterly unperturbed he grins. ‘Of course not.’
I stand up.
He looks up at me. His eyes are no longer lazy, and tame. They are unblinking and burning with a fire-like intensity. ‘You’re all grown up now, Layla. You don’t really need a chaperone, do you?’
‘No, but I don’t appreciate being manipulated.’
‘Would you have come on your own?’
I pause. ‘I guess not.’
‘Do you want me to call Ria back?’ he asks gently.
My shoulders sag. Of course I don’t. I know what I’m here for. My anger is totally irrational, a result of nervous energy.
‘Sit down,’ he says softly. ‘I promise it’ll be the best fried chicken you’ll ever eat.’
I take a deep breath and reoccupy the chair I’d vacated. He smiles.
There is something about this man …. Even when he was 15 and I had convinced myself that I thoroughly disliked him, he was still that tough insouciant who stared at me. Now that he’s all grown up and forbidden to me, his magnetism whispers and beckons irresistibly. I want him. I want him more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life. I want him so much it’s an ache somewhere deep inside me.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asks casually, the tone totally at odds with what I see in his eyes.
The reptilian brain lurking inside my head is not in the mood for pillow talk or cuddles or food. It wants what it wants. And what it wants is a fuck. A mindless fuck of epic proportions.
I shake my head and stare at his sexy mouth hungrily.
He lifts his eyebrows. ‘You’re radiating sex right now.’
My breath comes faster. ‘Oh yeah?’
His nostrils flare. ‘Yeah. You’re giving me a raging hard-on.’
God that was delivered deep and sexy. Strange, my family made me believe I was made of sugar and spice and everything nice, and I have turned out to be made of an inner itching that makes me lewd and lusting.
I stand up and walk over to the door to turn the lock.
He stands up. ‘Come and show me how wet you are.’
I walk towards him. When I am about three feet away, I leap up on him, loop my arms around his neck, and curl my legs around his hips, making sure to rub my damp panties against the hard bulge in his jeans.
His large hands curl around my thighs. ‘Now you’re talking, Princess.’
I lick my lower lip slowly.
He groans. ‘Holy shit, Layla.’
I lean closer to his ear, my breath hot. ‘What about the fried chicken?’
‘Fuck the fried chicken.’
I look up at him from under my lashes. ‘How about that ride then?’
‘Time you were in my bed, young lady,’ he growls and carries me with my wet pussy stuck to the fierce erection in his jeans. We go through a second door in the room that leads to a dim, narrow corridor lit only by an emergency light. I clasp my fingers tightly around his neck and feel like a tick hanging on to the neck of a huge beast.
His skin is warm and he smells wild, like the sea when it is stormy or the forest at night. And ale, I get a whiff of that too. I lay my cheek on his chest and hear his heart beating fast and loud under his clothes. The corridor leads to another emergency door that opens out to the cold night.
Snowflakes fall on his cheeks. I reach up and lick one. His skin feels hot. He leans imperceptibly closer. There is naked need in his eyes. I stare up at him and watch as his breath frosts before it reaches my face.
‘When I find something I want to keep, I never let go,’ he says quietly.
I smile.
He lifts my shirt and puts his fingertips on my belly.
I shudder. ‘Cold.’ But I don’t jerk away. I don’t want him to take his hand away.
He stops in front of a massive, souped up four-wheel drive. More lorry than car. He opens the passenger door and deposits me inside as if I weigh no more than a child. He closes the door, gets into the driver’s seat, turns on the noisy engine, and we hurtle through the cold streets of London.
‘Where are we going?’
He glances at me before returning his eyes to the road. ‘Do you really care?’
He’s right. I don’t. We don’t say a word after that. Sometimes I look sideways at him, but he has his head turned towards the traffic and his profile is stern, his jaw clenched tight. When he briefly looks at me his eyes are glittering and as cold as that of a serpent.
I wonder what he is thinking. I don’t ask. It feels like this is what we were meant to do. Always. The dislike was a temporary cover for this volcano of passion and lust.
When we reach his house, he turns to me. In the light of the street lamp, his eyebrows are a straight line under
which pools of blackness have gathered. The scar on his face seems alive. He is the most intimidating and magnetic man I have ever met.
‘Last chance to back out,’ he warns. In the strange shadows his entire body seems to be crouched, tense and waiting. The potty-mouthed bastard is gone. I’ve never seen him look so grim or so apprehensive. At that moment I know that this is one of those times when I hold all the cards. When my decision will change everything forever.
Both of us know this cannot and will never be just a one-night stand. There will be no going back from this. It will be messy. Other people will get involved. And the inevitable break-up will be heartbreaking. My family will be hurt. I blank out the implications even as Jake’s face swims into my consciousness. Make no mistake. He is a criminal. This is a guy who gets laid a lot. I close my eyes. It can be a secret. It can be our secret. No one else needs to know. When it burns out, only I will suffer.
‘No thanks,’ I whisper.
His body becomes slack with relief. He got the girl again. He nods. ‘Thank God,’ he says savagely triumphant. ‘My balls are aching like they’ve been sucker punched. I need to have my cock in your hot little cunt as soon as possible.’
He hauls open the door on my side, scoops me into his arms, and carries me off to his lair. I look up into his face. Who’d have thought?
Him and me.
SEVEN
LAYLA
He kicks the front door shut behind him. The house is semi-dark and his footsteps echo. He obviously doesn’t use this place much. There is a lamp lit in one of the rooms, its light spilling out into the hallway. He takes me up the stairs, opens a door, and lays me down on a very large bed. Silently, he moves to the fireplace and lights it. A gas fire throws up dancing flames and the sparse room becomes full of shadows.
He turns to me, an odd expression on his face, as if he is stunned to find me in his living space. There is almost an animal-like quality about him. Like a wolf that is crouched and tense, ready to spring on its prey. I drink him in, mesmerized by how large he is, how desperately I want him. He hesitates, as if his next move matters, then walks up to me and says, ‘Play with yourself until you are wet and hot.’
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