Rowan

by Tilly Delane

  I stare at the face of the asshole I’ve been waiting for on the CCTV screen. He’s a good-looking bastard. Kind of chiseled, I guess, although the scruffy beard softens the angles. He’s got big, dark eyes, an interesting arch in his thick black eyebrows and short, equally dark, unruly hair.

  “Hello, I’m Rowan O’Brien,” a voice like rolling thunder in the distance filters through the intercom.

  That settles the name question, I think, while trying hard to ignore the goose bumps erupting all over my body.

  What a voice.

  “Good of you to join us, Mr. O’Brien,” I answer snippily as I press the buzzer on the entrance gate. “Follow the main path to the reception of the therapy center in the old church, please.”

  I watch him disappear from view and my heart starts pounding, knowing he’s entered the complex and is on the approach.

  What the fuck is that all about?

  Rowan

  Some bodiless female voice with an American accent tells me to follow the main path. It’s a good thing I’ve spent the past two weeks in the company of Grace, which has desensitised me somewhat to the Yankee drawl. Not that Grace is too bad. She’s from Washington, D.C. and speaks almost like a normal person. But before being put through the Grace cycle, I would probably have turned on my heels if an American had greeted me here. I love American music and I’d really like to see some of their scenery one day. But that whole fake ‘have a nice day’ crap and, worse, the non-fake ‘we’re better than thou’ attitude really gets on my tits. Post spending time around Grace though, I step through the gate without a second thought.

  It falls shut behind me with a soft click, and I can’t help but to turn back and check that the large metal ‘press to exit’ plate actually works. I push it down and try opening the gate from the inside.

  Yup, they weren’t lying. You can leave any time.

  I turn to follow the directions the woman on the intercom gave, running a hand through my sweaty hair. I’m suddenly intensely aware that I’m soaked through and probably stink to high heavens. I’ve always been great at giving bad first impressions and it looks like today I’m seriously on form. Oh well, whatever. They’re getting paid a ransom to put up with my shit, so let’s start how we mean to carry on.

  Three quarters up the path, I spot a water fountain and I stop to drink. I drop my stuff and don’t bother filling my bottle first or cupping my hands. I drink straight from the spout. I take gulp after gulp after gulp until I finally feel like my thirst is quenched.

  “When you’ve finished fellating that spigot, follow me, please, Mr. O’Brien,” a clipped female voice says from a few feet away.

  It’s that bloody Yank again.

  “I don’t know how you give blow jobs, lady, but your mouth is supposed to touch the object you’re fellating,” I respond even before I’ve straightened up and looked at her. “Which mine wasn’t,” I add once I’ve reached my full height.

  Then I see her.

  And when I say see, I don’t mean her black locks piled into a haphazard ponytail, her olive complexion or the black nurses tunic over skin-tight jeans showing off a pair of good pins that end in DMs. I don’t even mean her wide set indigo blue eyes that sit in total contrast to the rest of her colouring.

  I mean her.

  What lies behind those eyes.

  There is a sense of recognition I’ve never had before.

  Those eyes have seen shit. Too much. Too early. Those eyes can hold you in your deepest, darkest hours because they’ve been through it. They’ve been you.

  Me.

  They’ve been me.

  What the fuck?

  The adrenaline of fear spreads through my body like wildfire as my heart starts pumping, pushing blood through my veins at twice the normal speed and suddenly everything comes into hyper sharp focus. But still, all I really see is her.

  We’re in an invisible ring, staring at each other, each unwilling to back down, each choosing fight over flight. My fear morphs into competitiveness and I feel a small smirk curling up the right side of my mouth.

  Bring it on, woman.

  Raven

  I came out to meet the guy because he took longer than is normal. I thought he might have gotten lost. Though that’s pretty hard when going in a straight line down what was once the only road in the village. But it’s a rehab clinic. Folk are kinda lost by definition when they get here. So I came to see what was taking him so long and found him going down on the water fountain.

  I mean, seriously, the way he hulked over it, half his face under the stream, his tongue lapping at the water, was obscene, feral. So my smart mouth decided to make a comment. A wholly unprofessional comment, and now I’m standing here mesmerized like Mowgli meeting Kaa.

  ‘Cause he’s staring me down like a pro.

  I can’t look away from his eyes. They are huge, a deep, warm brown, and they tell me stories too close for comfort. This is a guy who gets it. Life. The ugliness. The bits where other people play three monkeys. He sees them.

  He sees me.

  And I see him.

  A shiver runs through me, dries out my mouth and throat and drives me to the edge of nausea.

  But I won’t budge.

  I learned early and the hard way that they only get nastier if you turn and run. Better to stay and stand your ground, step into their space. No matter how much fucking bigger they are.

  So I do.

  I take a couple more steps toward him and watch as the smirk he was wearing transforms into a big smile that slowly spreads across his face, until it reaches his eyes and parts his lips, baring his teeth. It occurs to me then that he is extremely good looking, especially for a Brit. No offense to my current host nation but it doesn’t exactly produce a whole lotta good looking people with decent orthodontic work. It’s actually quite refreshing how few of the natives I’ve encountered have had their teeth straightened or bleached, which makes the near perfect set of naturally pearly whites his smile reveals so much more appealing.

  “Good afternoon,” I introduce myself before I fall deeper into the observation that Rowan O’Brien is not just gigantic in stature but also gigantically hot. “I’m Ravenna,” I add, pointing at my ID tag before I offer my hand for him to shake. “But most people call me Raven. I’m your host.”

  His smile condenses again until it’s just a faint play around his lips as he steps forward to take my hand in his.

  “Rowan,” he says, just as our palms collide in front of us and then adds something else that I don’t hear through the rush in my ears.

  Because as soon as my skin meets his, I know that we are in deep, deep trouble.

  And I mean we.

  I can see in the dilation of his pupils that the physical reaction goes both ways.

  And if I had any doubts left, they are extinguished when he suddenly loosens his grip and runs his fingers lightly over the inside of my wrist, mid-shake. It’s a deeply intimate gesture that sends a bolt of arousal all the way to my core.

  He watches me as he does it, grins and lets go. Then he turns to grab his stuff off the ground, shoulders his backpack and looks expectantly at me. As if nothing had happened.

  “Where to?” he asks, and I can’t even find enough saliva in my mouth to answer him.

  I just turn and gesture for him to follow me.

  Rowan

  I’m rock hard.

  There are no two ways about it. Our palms touched and boom, all the blood went south. I haven’t had an instant erection like this since I was a teenager. Admittedly, it doesn’t take a whole lot to get me going, but it normally takes at least something. And by that I mean a little more than just a handshake.

  But apparently not with this one.

  My dick is kept only half in check by the confines of my faded black cargo trousers. Never have I been so glad to be wearing the three-quarter length, light army jacket that I’m wearing today. Buttoned up despite the heat, so it doesn’t get tangled in the backpack straps whe
n hiking, it hides a multitude of thoughts of sin.

  Thoughts I’m trying desperately not to carry on thinking as I follow her up the path to one of the grey stone houses on the left. I count twelve of them, eight on the left, four on the right. The remaining green space, on the edge of which I found the water fountain, lies in front of the old church. There are low level signs everywhere, pointing out the obvious, such as the therapy centre, and providing arrows towards the not so obvious, like the pool and gym.

  “Oh yeah,” I say to the back of Raven’s head. “I remember I read there was a newly built pool, gym and sauna. Are they open?”

  She glances at me over her shoulder, frowning. I think she might frown quite a lot. She has the early stages of two permanent frown lines forming between her eyebrows but on her even those look fucking sexy as hell. They give her face character, hint that she can take charge if need be.

  I like that. I like my women strong and dirty. I like the idea of taking somebody so in control and making them lose it. For fuck’s sake, I need to get a grip here. This is not a shagging holiday on the Costa del fuck that I’ve never even been to. This is therapy.

  “Sure,” she answers my question with that typically American undertone of ‘why wouldn’t they be’.

  She clearly hasn’t stayed in England long enough to know that facilities are not exactly guaranteed to work here. Then again, I need to remind myself that this is a private clinic, not some health service funded backroom in a community centre.

  We reach the first house in line, in front of the church, and Raven, she is definitely a Raven and not a Ravenna, opens the unlocked front door to usher me in.

  “Welcome to your home for the next four weeks,” she says as I pass her by and step into a dingy hallway.

  It’s always the same with these thatched roof country cottages ─ look pretty on the outside, are dark and gloomy even on a glorious day like today on the inside.

  It takes my eyes a moment to adjust. By the time they do, Raven has disappeared into a room that lies beyond the staircase with a brief instruction to take my shoes off and put them on a rack by the door. I hear a tap run while I do as I’m told, and just as I put my walking boots in the designated space, she reappears, drinking water from a tall glass in big gulps. She looks at me while she brings one leg up to rest on her other thigh and starts blindly undoing the lace on that boot, all the while still taking sips of her water. Once she’s put the foot back on the ground and has toed off her boot, she puts the glass down on a side table and repeats the process on the other side.

  A dancer in DMs.

  I fucking love it and my dick still does, too. He loves it so much, I can only half take in what Raven is saying once she starts giving me the house rules speech.

  “So, the shoe rack is a hard and fast rule. You can walk around the downstairs with boots on but not up the stairs, please. We have cleaners, but if everyone walks around in their shoes, the carpet doesn’t stay clean for five seconds. I like a clean house.”

  The way she emphasises that last bit is odd. There is a story behind it. But not an OCD one.

  I suddenly get a flash of the child version of the beautiful woman in front of me, barefoot in a nightie that’s two sizes too small, her hair grimy. A black-haired, blue-eyed ghost child living in squalor.

  I shake it off. My mum always used to say that my vivid imagination would either make me a lot of money one day or end me in trouble. It hasn’t. Yet.

  “There is a hook there for your jacket, too,” she cuts through my musings, but I shake my head.

  “It’s okay. I’ll keep it on for now,” I say then give her a smirk. “And don’t sweat, I’m fully house-trained. I even pee sitting down.”

  She doesn’t bat an eyelid. Hard crowd.

  “So how does this work?” I ask, making a sweeping gesture to encompass the house at large.

  She frowns.

  Like I thought, she frowns a lot.

  “Did you not read the brochure?”

  I scratch the back of my head with a sheepish grin.

  “I skimmed over it,” I admit and watch her take a deep breath, no doubt in prep for another speech, but I cut her short. “Look, I might as well tell you now ‘cause I can already tell it’s gonna get on your tits, but I’m the one who will ask you all the questions you already answered in a speech, or in your email, or your brochure, or your sign post, or whatever, as and when I need to know the answers. I ain’t terribly good at retaining information until I actually need it. One too many blows to the head.”

  I wait for a scowl but actually what I get is her first proper smile.

  She’s a fucking stunner.

  “Well, in that case I guess it does not matter that you’re missing the tour and the induction in the hall. Come on,” she says, turning to put a foot on the bottom step. “Let me show you your room and tell you what you’re here for.”

  There is a gently ribbing edge to it and it makes me itch to hear her in full on taking the piss out of someone mode. I bet she’s hilarious in an edgy, push-all-your-buttons way. But she turns professional again as we walk up and she explains the concept of The Village to me.

  “The houses on this side of the road all have four rooms for clients and one staff head of house, your host. In your case, me. All heads of house are qualified nurses–“

  “Why?” I interrupt her.

  “Because our substance abusers are often under prescribed medication to help them with their withdrawal or to address the underlying mental health issues that led them into addiction in the first place. And because Halosan’s clinics are always as remote as this. The company wants to make sure there is first class medical assistance if needed. I’m the senior nurse here, Christine who is head of house at number 12 is my deputy. The houses on the other side of the road do not have client rooms. Number five is the premises manager’s and his wife’s, Alan and Barbara Allsorts. You won’t see them a whole lot, other than Alan doubles up as our personal trainer and gym super. He’s ex-SAS, so don’t be surprised if he creeps up on you. Seven, nine and eleven are occupied by our counselors. Seven is the Denyers, they are a couple and facilitate the group sessions. They also head the program here. Not much to say about them. Nine is Dr. Lewin, she’s a CBT specialist in addiction counselling and eleven is Dr. Rothman, he’s person-centered. I’ll warn you now, those two do not get on. You’ve been allocated Lewin as your one-to-one therapist.”

  We’ve reached the landing. There are three rooms here.

  “All client rooms on this floor have en suites,” she says as she turns the corner to go up the next flight of stairs. “But because you didn’t come this morning for check in, you got unlucky and have the attic room next to me. Which means we have to share a bathroom. And I tell you now, it gets stuffy up there in this heat.”

  I stop for a second halfway up this flight of stairs and look down at the rooms on the first floor, trying to suppress the rush I get from the idea that the two of us are going to share a floor.

  “Who else is in the house?” I ask, and she stops to look where I’m looking and sighs.

  “If you’d checked in earlier, you’d have met them. Room 1 is Tristan, he’s only eighteen and he has an online gaming problem, so when I give you the Wi-Fi password, I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. He’s on a strict no electronics diet for the first couple of weeks. Room 2 is Simon, he’s an alcoholic. Room 3 is Charlie. He’s got a pretty serious coke habit and he’s been here before. You’ll meet them in a while. Come on.”

  She beckons me upwards, and I follow her to what is an attic conversion. She wasn’t joking. The air is so hot and thick up here, you could cut it with a knife. There are two bedrooms next to one another and a small toilet and shower bathroom. Everything above my head is slanted and I have to make sure I don’t knock my head. When we get to the door to my room, Raven puts a hand on the door handle, opens it and then turns to look at me, frowning.

  “Be careful you don’t knock yo
ur head.”

  She hesitates and shakes her head.

  “You know, this is dumb. I’ll ask Tristan to switch rooms with you. That way I can keep an eye on him, and you don’t have to hunch over all the time. How tall are you?”

  “Six three,” I answer and stop her in her tracks when her body language indicates she is going to drag me back downstairs and make me swap. “And no. I’m fine up here. If this Tristan kid is all settled in, I don’t want to mess with that.”

  What I really want to say is, ‘No, I like the idea of you sleeping next door to me while I jerk off to images of fucking you so hard you are screaming my name to kingdom come’.

  Because, let’s face it, that is exactly what is going to happen.

  She shrugs in response, but I see her lips quiver before she carries on talking. She finds the idea of me next door either just as arousing, or she’s a little scared. Either suits me. Both would be preferable.

  “If you’re sure, then settle in,” she says evenly, nodding at the functionally furnished, predominantly cream-coloured room and I step past her, dropping my backpack onto the bed. “I’ll meet you downstairs once you’ve unpacked,” she carries on. “The others should be back from the induction in about ten minutes and then y’all cook together.”

  “What?” I look at her aghast.

  “You cook. It’s part of the program. Doing normal everyday tasks together. We draw the line at cleaning, though. Like I said, we have cleaners. They’re trustworthy, but if you have any valuables, I’d use the safe in the closet. Anything else I can help you with, just ask.”

  She looks up into my eyes and I can see she knows it’s the wrong thing to say as soon as the words have passed her lips, and she sees my grin.

  I can’t help it.

  I step into her space and lean down to whisper in her ear.

  “Plenty.”

  I breathe against her earlobe and watch as the soft flesh behind it ripples with goose bumps.

  I straighten up to immediately back off and give her my biggest smile.