Floored

by Paton, Ainslie

  “Yeah, good. It’ll be easier for you to do me some damage with a longer blade.”

  “What?”

  “I’m joking.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll be in the bathroom.”

  He left her standing in the doorway. He was using humour to manipulate her. “Hey. You’re not bleeding. I don’t have to be here.”

  He poked his head around the bathroom doorway and she got a look at half his chest cascading to lean, naked hipbone and a flaring thigh muscle. She was ready for an argument.

  He said, “No Driver, you don’t. I can manage,” and his voice was all moderate and neutral and placating. Bastard.

  Now he was making her feel like a louse. She turned her back on him, stifling an expression of annoyance, but it didn’t stop him laughing again. It echoed off the tiles in the bathroom and followed her to the car. She grabbed her own bag and took it into her room. She sat on the bed for a few minutes to collect herself. It’d been another long day, so unlike her usual routine, which didn’t require her to argue with her clients, or to have feelings for them. She went back to the car and took out the first-aid kit, locked up and walked up the corridor to the reception. She’d see if they had scissors. She’d take them back to him and he could sort himself out. She was going to change into her running gear and pound her own frustrations out on the pavement.

  She had to wait while some other travellers, a family with three frazzled kids, checked in. But it was worth it. They had adult-sized scissors and bonus hair clippers she could borrow. She’d leave them for Sean with the first-aid kit and make herself scarce. He could always walk or call a taxi if he wanted to go into town later, and the motel had a restaurant, he wasn’t going to starve. She’d catch him later, when he was fully dressed, about the arrangements for the drive to Mildura.

  She hadn’t closed the door to his room and neither had he. He was standing just inside, a different pair of body hugging trackpants on—these ones a dark grey—and that’s all. His hair was wet and slicked back and he was clean-shaven. He looked ten years younger. All the planes and angles of his face now revealed. He was rubbing his hand across his jaw as though he wasn’t sure it belonged to him. The graze on his check was healed to a shrinking scab now and without all the hair his eyes looked even brighter. That beard had hidden his features so well, camouflaged the sharpness of his cheekbones and the strength of his face.

  He was beautiful; and she’d stepped into his room, and she was staring at him—again.

  He turned. “That bad, huh?”

  “No… I…you. Ah.” Reduced to a stumbling idiot, she closed her eyes. Now he was someone else entirely and she was Fetch, unsure and inarticulate. “You look so different.”

  He grunted. “Haven’t been clean-shaven for a long time. I’d forgotten what I looked like. Is that a hair clipper?”

  She nodded, still thick-tongued.

  “Cool. Would you mind doing my arm first? Keep it free of cuttings.”

  “I was…” she hesitated. She didn’t want to go for a run anymore. She wanted to touch his face, press her fingers against his cheekbones and along the full curve of his bottom lip.

  He was waiting for her to finish her sentence. When she didn’t, he stepped forward and took the scissors out of her hand. “Think I’ll relieve you of those in case you get any funny ideas.” He put them on the TV stand and took her empty hand in his, drawing her further into the room.

  As soon as his fingers wrapped around hers, both their eyes went to the point of contact as though it was electrified in significance. Like at the rest stop. She was close enough to smell his soapy freshness now; to feel the warmth coming off his body.

  “Am I freaking you out, Driver, Cait?” He spoke low and throaty.

  Oh God he was. He was making her feel light-headed, liquid limbed, weak and stupid. She pulled her hand out of his grasp. “No. Let’s fix your arm.”

  “Right.” He grabbed a wooden chair and pulled it to the space between the TV stand and the bed.

  She dumped the first-aid kit on the bed with the clippers and started to prepare the bandage. She had her back to him and hoped he wasn’t watching her fumbling. She needed a few minutes to get her head straightened out. She needed that run something bad now to burn off the sudden onset of misplaced sexual tension.

  “So, movie and dinner; or dinner and movie?”

  He was incorrigible. “Neither for me.” She walked around him and he held his arm out, looking up at her. She kept her eyes firmly on her own hands and what she was doing.

  “You have to eat.”

  “I can eat here. I’m going for a run when we’ve finished, and then to bed. We should discuss the plan for tomorrow now.”

  “You know the plan for tomorrow.”

  She stroked a thumb down the last strip of plaster. “I know my version of it. We drive to Mildura and keep driving.”

  He dropped his head and he went quiet. He sucked at silence. Or rather, the silence he chose not to fill sucked. It was a yawing chasm of unfulfilled expectation with no toeholds of hope. When he wasn’t in a mood he was a talker, so maybe this stillness meant he’d switched off again.

  “What’s wrong, Fetch?” She sucked in a breath, “Sorry, I keep forgetting. For a while you were just my bikie.”

  He looked up again with a half smile. “Your bikie?”

  “Yeah, as opposed to other bikies who were trying to kill you. I’ve only just gotten used to you as Fetch and now you have another name.”

  He stood up and pushed his hands through his hair. “That’s exactly what’s wrong.”

  “Geez, you could give me some time to get it right.” She stuffed the roll of gauze back in the first-aid kit, but couldn’t get the lid closed; it caught on something and wouldn’t shut.

  “It’s not about you getting it right. Ah—I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, but you’re a responsible adult, and you seem committed to the original plan even though you know it’s not necessary now.”

  She abandoned the kit to watch him. “I do and I am.”

  “I’m insane and you already know that too.” He threw both hands up. “So all right then.”

  Well did he think she was going to do a happy dance? She folded her arms and glared at him. “I need the rules back.”

  He glared. “No you don’t. It worked perfectly well this afternoon without them.”

  She’d never wanted to hit someone before. She wanted to now. “I especially need the one where you don’t tell me what I want.”

  He inclined his head, a mass of clean, damp, shiny hair fell over his shoulder. “I can try.”

  “After I shave your stupid head, I’m not coming inside your room again.”

  “My stupid head?” One eyebrow and half his lip quirked. “I guess since I hardly know my own name, I’ll have to give you that one.”

  Oh, he looked so pleased with himself. “Good.”

  He held up a finger. “But do we have to shave me? I’ve had it with looking extreme.”

  “I used to do my dad’s hair sometimes when I was a kid, but if you want a salon style I am not your girl.”

  He grinned, big, wide and open, white teeth and bright, bright eyes. It was getting hard to stay mad with him.

  “I can’t live with it another minute. I don’t care. Do your worst. Take it all off.”

  She studied him. It was going to make a mess. But the clipper had a number four blade so she wouldn’t cut too close. She wondered what his hairline was like, how thick his hair would be, how silky to touch. She stepped up to him and took a curling strand in her fingers. “How did you wear it before?”

  “I dunno. Short.” She gave the strand a tug and he laughed.

  “I mean, with a part or…” She brushed it back over his shoulder and sighed. “I have no idea what I mean. I don’t know anything about men’s haircuts. I haven’t held a pair of clippers since I was twelve. You could do this yourself or wait till tomorrow and get it done properly somewhere.
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  She went to turn away and he grabbed for her hand. “Let’s nuke it. How bad can it be?”

  She didn’t pull away, let him hold her hand, but it cost in stutters. “Without the beard you look, um, ah, fine.” She recovered. “Almost respectable. You could leave it, tie it back.”

  He let her go and tugged at his locks again. “It’s Fetch’s hair. It needs to go.”

  He looked so serious. “All right. I’ll do my best.”

  “Good girl.”

  She closed her eyes. “If you could try not to be quite so patronising.”

  He laughed. “That must’ve been the old me, Fetch wouldn’t know what that meant.”

  “My luck to fall in with a bikie with multiple personalities.”

  “I wouldn’t call it luck.” He went to the bed and moved the first-aid kit to the bedside table covered in the rings from wet glasses. He pulled back the bedspread.

  “Whoa. What are you doing?” She was ready to bolt for the door. How had they gone from nuke my hair to going into bed? Was there some special code she didn’t know, some secret handshake she’d performed and wasn’t aware of?

  He bundled the spread in his arms and dumped it in a tub chair. He was laughing. “Keep your shirt on.” He went back to the bed and started pulling the blanket back. “It’ll make a mess. I’m going to pull the sheet off and we can try and contain the damage. Shake it outside. Unless you want to stand in the bath with me.”

  She so did not.

  He laughed again. “Check your face. No, I didn’t think so.”

  He had the sheet off now and spread it on the floor, put the chair in the middle of it and sat on it backwards. “Do your worse, Driver.”

  She walked a wide berth around him. He was infuriating. She’d actually thought spending ten days with him was a good idea. She’d fought him on it, for God’s sake.

  He swivelled to watch her. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “I’m making you nervous!” Her voice was way too loud and her face was hot.

  “Really nervous.”

  “You’re a great hulking bikie cop and I’m making you nervous?”

  “You’re the one with the scissors.”

  She looked down. She was holding the dressmaker’s scissors tight in one hand by the handles, the blades pointing out. She flicked her eyes back to him in shock. He had both hands up, a laugh ready. “I’m unarmed. It’ll be kind of humiliating if I survive a hit, only to be taken out by a girl limo driver with a pair of shears.”

  “It was a hit.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Dramatic licence. They wanted to take me out, not put me down.”

  “There’s a distinction?”

  “Yes, if it was the later, I wouldn’t be here giving you a second chance at it.”

  “I’m not going to stab you.”

  “I didn’t really think so.”

  She stepped up to him. “You’re a pain in the neck, turn around.” She’d intended to sound annoyed, but it came out more amused. She put her hand on the back of his head and gave him a playful shove.

  He laughed, settled in the chair and she went to work. She ran her fingers through his hair from the top of his forehead to the base of his skull, feeling the weight of his mane, teasing tangles, knots and kinks out, and trying to work out which way to cut it. His hair was so silky, so black it was almost blue, it was a shame to cut it all off. Underneath it all, his skull was hard and warm and perfectly curved into the palm of her hand.

  He groaned and rocked back towards her. “That’s good.”

  She shoved him again. “Behave.” She wasn’t doing that again. He liked it too much, but so did she.

  She used his hair tie to make a ponytail, close to the nape of his neck. Cutting straight across above the band would get rid of most of the length. He dropped his chin down to give her access. His ponytail was thick, but the scissors were well kept and sharp.

  The tail came away in her hand and he turned to look at it with a grunt. “So long, Fetch.”

  Now she’d started, she felt less nervous. She worked left to right, picking up strands of hair and cutting them a couple of finger widths to his scalp. He sat still with his eyes closed. When she’d finished he had a thick halo of unruly curls. He looked almost boyish, angelic. He shook his head, scrubbed his fingers through it, then slapped a hand over his shoulder to scratch. He was covered in tiny pieces of hair.

  “I forgot to put a towel around you, sorry.”

  “I’ll put up with the itch to have it all gone.”

  An itch wouldn’t kill him. But it might kill her. Touching him, having him sit there passively waiting on her next move was putting a ginger sting in all her senses. Thank God he was facing forward and couldn’t see her standing at his back. She was sure her face showed every conflicting emotion she felt. She wanted so badly to touch him, to feel his skin under her palms, to let her fingers find the rigid muscles across his shoulders and back. That was raging lust pure and simple. Sudden lust after betrayal and long absence of real affection. Biting lust because he was physically worthy of it and she was incapable of being as self-contained as she needed to be.

  She should go now and leave him with the clippers and the clean up.

  He rolled his head on his neck. “Feels so light.” His voice had a gentle hesitancy about it, as though he wasn’t sure about this new lightness.

  She moved her fingertips gently over the shoulder where a rose bloomed and metal chain trailed, where his hair would’ve brushed. He rolled his head to the other side as if to give her greater access. She flattened her palm and brushed it from the centre of his back out across his shoulder scattering clippings of loose hair. His skin was warm and firm and satin to touch. She did it again, her hand lower on his back. He rocked forward and curled over, bracing to her. She put both hands on him and moved them about to chase the tiny hairs away, to satisfy the itch in her gut that made her eyelids heavy and her insides prick with longing.

  She should really wait till they’d finished. She should really keep her hands to herself. She clamped down on her back teeth to stop any sound escaping. He pressed back into her hands and ground out a thanks. It was a cheap thrill and she felt slightly ashamed. She turned to the clippers, plugging them into the socket where the TV was.

  “It’ll be close, but not a skinhead cut.” She was relieved her tongue worked and her voice sounded normal.

  He tucked his head down, ready. She braced a hand on his shoulder and put the blade to the back of his neck, pushing it against the fall of his curls, raining more hair down on him. Again and again she pushed the clippers against his scalp, revealing the shape of his head, the curl of his ears, the strength of his neck muscles.

  He sat still, arms looped across the top of the chair. He let her control his head, moving it this way and that to get the best angle. She became so engrossed in the rhythm of it, in the sense of accomplishment; she was surprised to find herself standing in front of him cupping his face.

  He did this to her. Made her forget herself.

  He opened his eyes. “Done?”

  His eyes, his words, his clean, soapy scent connected with every long ignored pleasure centre nerve in her body. She brushed a hand over his forehead and nodded, not wanting to attempt speech.

  He was out of the chair and in the bathroom before she had a chance to process the effect he was having on her.

  “Not bad, Driver.” His voice echoed clear, but he sounded uncertain.

  Did it matter that he knew her name and only used it sometimes? “You can get it tidied up somewhere tomorrow.”

  He was back in the room. “Nope, it’ll do fine.” He was looking at her with a raised brow. “Won’t it?”

  What did he want—reassurance of how attractive he was? “That’s up to you.”

  He puffed out air dramatically. “Help a guy out. What would my mum think?”

  “Your mum?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t seen Mum except on Skype for two years. She hate
d that look, understandably. I hated that look. What would she think now?”

  God, he was genuinely uncertain about his new look. “What did she think about the tattoos?”

  He ran a hand down his chest, brushing hair snippets away. She probably should put her hands in her pockets so she couldn’t volunteer to do it for him. “Made sure she didn’t see them. It’s the one part of Fetch I have to live with for a while yet. Fortunately not forever.”

  “It’ll be some job to get them removed.”

  “They’re not permanent, so it’s not as bad as it could be. Poor old Fetch was always getting threatened with more ink. If they’d have gotten to me, with the forever kind of ink, it would’ve been much harder to get rid of.” He looked down, brushing both hands down his torso. “Right now I could probably scratch them off myself.”

  She had one last hot, dirty excuse to touch him. She walked around him, and brushed her palms over his back. Standing this close, his height and weight advantage over her was so much more apparent. She cleared her throat, loose hair and libidinous thoughts choking her.

  “With a shirt on, what mother wouldn’t love you?”

  “You’ve not met mine, but thank you.”

  “I was reminding you of the rules.” She was castigating herself.

  He turned to face her. If he’d understood what she was thinking, he’d have known standing so close was criminal negligence.

  He quirked his head to the side. “I’m pretty sure there’s no mother rule. What’s the shirt rule? I missed that one.”

  It was the one she hadn’t voiced. Hadn’t thought she’d need a ‘stay fully dressed at all times’ rule. And the one he’d broken most spectacularly. She had to get out of here. “What time do you want to leave in the morning?”

  He ran a hand over his head, grinning at the feel of it. “No movie?”

  She sighed so he’d hear it.

  “Okay, okay, okay.” He shook himself all over like a wet dog. “I need another shower. Eight?”

  “Fine. See you at the car in the morning.”

  She left him standing in a carpet of hair, looking more dangerous to her clean-cut and temporarily tattooed than he did as an outlaw. He was someone she didn’t know, who professed not to know himself, who she desired with an intensity that made her want to run till her legs turned to jelly and her brain short-circuited.