Anything but Vanilla (25 page)

‘We don’t need you out here. Stay on the shore and keep dry.’

Tears prickled the corners of her eyes. She shook her head and peered glumly at him, wishing he’d put his arms around her and give her a hug. Zach would have known to do so, but he was still on the phone. She hadn’t realised what a fright their swim last night had given her, or how tense looking over their battleground would make her feel.

‘All right.’ Ric planted his spade in the sand between them and leaned on the hilt. ‘What’s going on? Did Robin just say something to you?’

The woman was watching the pair of them with all the zeal of a psychotic mediaeval sorceress. If she’d been standing at the top of the cliff instead of the bottom, Kara would have seriously feared for her life. Fuck! How had Ric’s wife died? It wouldn’t surprise her to learn at this point that Robin had pushed her off a ridge. Instead of pursuing that line of thought – he’d warned her off that subject once – she asked, ‘What is it between you and her? Is she really as bat-shit crazy as she sounds?’

Ric raised both brows. Kara couldn’t figure out whether he was surprised by the question or astounded that someone finally agreed with his opinion. ‘I’ve told you how things are. I’m not interested in her. Do you want to tell me what she just said to you?’

Kara swallowed slowly. ‘I’ve been given the “if you can’t share, keep your hands off my property” speech.’

‘Share?’ he queried. His brows dropped, and a frown crumpled his forehead and the corners of his eyes instead. ‘Share what, precisely? There’s nothing between me and her. Never has been. What’s she on about?’

‘She wants me to share the details of our sex life,’ Kara explained.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ He slammed a fist down on the handle of the spade, driving it deeper into the sand. When he looked at Kara, whatever other line of invective he’d intended to utter died on his lips. His eyes slowly narrowed. ‘And have you done that?’

Fuck!
She’d screwed up. She knew it even as she opened her mouth to make the confession.
God, I’m so sorry, Zach. I really hoped I could make this work for you.
‘Once. She caught me off guard the first time we met.’

‘Jesus, Kara! I thought I could trust you. Have you told her all about Zach and me too?’

‘No, of course not.’

He didn’t seem to hear her. He hefted his spade and went back to his digging with renewed zeal.

Kara watched him go with her mouth hanging open. She’d always known that incident in the bathroom with Robin would come back to bite her on the arse and it just had. She didn’t even have an excuse. She’d known at the time it was stupid but had allowed her libido to get the better of her. Drat! And just when the plan she had for getting him and Zach together had looked so promising.

Kara looked back at Robin with a snarl. No way was she going to allow that bitch to ruin it. It’d be difficult if Ric wasn’t prepared to trust her, but she wasn’t giving up. Having them both and then waking with them in her bed this morning had been an adventure worthy of endless repeats. She fully intended to make it happen again. Maybe if she explained to Zach what had happened he’d be able to get Ric to listen, except he had more important things to worry about, like his van and his livelihood.

She couldn’t bring herself to go and apologise to Ric either. No way was she putting so much as a toe in the water ever again. Instead, she strolled further along the beach, following the line of shingle past the cut that led to the bowl of ferns at the back of the Bunker, and on to another old ammunition shelter. She didn’t look back to see if Robin was gloating. An image of her triumphant mug had already lasered itself into Kara’s brain.

Outside the decrepit ammunition store, Kara found a perch on a boulder. Damn it, she didn’t want to be here looking out over all this water, but nor did she want to go home and allow the new wound in her relationship with Ric to fester. Surely he knew what Robin was like. She can’t have been the first idiot to fall for her tricks.

Kara drummed her feet. The causeway was hidden from this position; only a broad stretch of the English Channel lay before her. A few seagulls squawked from up on the cliff face. An old rowboat lay nestled amongst the grass to the side of the store. It was chained to a stout wooden post, as though it still belonged to someone and hadn’t simply been abandoned, though flecks of paint were missing from the planks and only one of the oars sat within its belly.

If she’d known about it last night, she could have rowed out to Zach instead of wading. Would it have made any difference to the outcome?

To her surprise, Ric appeared within a few minutes of her idling by the boat. He stormed right up to her, no hint of an apology on his face. Instead he growled, ‘Don’t you tell her anything. You don’t mention me to her, understand?’

Kara glared back at him wide-eyed with shock. ‘I won’t. I didn’t.’ Thinking back, she hadn’t really spilled anything. She hadn’t answered Robin’s questions. She’d just allowed her to make assumptions. It wasn’t as though she’d spun a full yarn. Really, she’d made a few affirmative and pleading grunts, that’s all. ‘I didn’t say anything about you and Zach. I didn’t even know about it at the time, and even if I had … Fuck, you should have warned me about her.’

‘And said what? Watch out for my stalker, she might torture you for information?’ He gestured wildly with his arms as he spoke, and finished by clenching the front of his long blond hair in his fist.

Kara stared at him bewildered. ‘Did you really come to just shout at me some more?’ she asked quietly. ‘Because I don’t need shouting at.’

‘I’m not shouting.’

‘Yes, you are.’ She shoved him hard in the ribs. ‘Back off.’

Ric didn’t back up. Instead, he took a pace forward and grabbed hold of her. He held her so tight that his fingertips bit into her arms.

‘What?’ she asked. ‘What?’

He shook his head, though his breathing still raced. ‘Just … just don’t.’ She wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but it didn’t seem to be here and now.

‘I won’t … I never meant to. I had no notion at the time that there were issues involved.’ She sought his hand, tried to unclench his fingers so that she could hold it.

‘Good.’ The emotion drained from his voice, though he refused to unclench his fists. ‘Don’t give her ammunition like that. She doesn’t need to know anything about me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Kara apologised. She pushed her face up against his chest. Ric remained unyielding, his spine locked straight. He didn’t return her embrace, nor did he push her away. The wool of his jumper tickled her cheek. Kara tilted her head to look up at him. ‘Have you thought … maybe you should get a restraining order … keep her off Liddell Island for a bit.’

‘I can’t.’ Finally, he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a squeeze.

‘But if she’s bugging you to this extent … She told me, that first day, that you’d sent her. She implied that she worked for you. You shouldn’t let her get away with that.’

Ric nodded, showing that he understood, but was unmoved. ‘Kara, it’s not that simple. There are layers to this you don’t understand.’

No, but she wanted to. She really did. Something told her that this all tied in with why Ric had so staunchly avoided developing emotional relationships. Her thoughts immediately returned to their earlier darkness and the possibility that Robin had somehow been involved in the death of Ric’s wife. It seemed unlikely, and, if it were the case, then why would Ric protect her? ‘Who is she? What is she to you, really?’

‘A prize nuisance, that’s all.’ He ran his tongue over his teeth, and then glanced down at the little rowing boat. ‘Just like someone else I know.’ In the space it took him to make the remark, his whole demeanour changed. Out went the anger; in came something less easily defined. ‘What’s more, I know just how to deal with a good nuisance.’ ‘Good’ presumably opposed to ‘bad’, like Robin. ‘Over you go.’ He patted the side of the boat.

‘What? No,’ Kara protested. He couldn’t make light of something so serious in this way, nor be allowed to divert his anger into sex play. Of course, Ric’s expression said he was going to do exactly that. Maybe he did it all the time. From what she knew of his relationship with Zach, it seemed more than likely. ‘Ric.’

‘Forfeit,’ he responded. Long strands of his blond hair danced around his face, and although his mouth remained hard a twinkle of amusement had returned to his eyes. ‘You still owe me, remember. We agreed anytime, anyplace, anywhere.’

‘Yes, but not like this.’ Not to avoid confiding. Not to sidestep an issue he clearly wasn’t comfortable with. And definitely not while Zach and a work crew were only a short way up the coast, not to mention the bitch responsible for this drama.

‘Yes, now. I want you head down, arse up, over the side of this boat.’

‘You’re not even turned on,’ she protested.

Finally a smile cracked his face. ‘Oh, I will be,’ he promised.

Hell, no wonder Zach got frustrated if this is what Ric did every time someone touched on a subject he didn’t want to discuss. She liked sex, but this felt damn weird. Instead of moving into position, she continued to shake her head.

‘Come on. Do it,’ Ric cajoled. He gave her an encouraging nudge in the right direction. ‘I guarantee, the minute your pants go down, my attention will be fully engaged. You know, if you don’t, I’ll have to punish you.’ He picked up the little wooden oar as he spoke. ‘I don’t like girls who go back on their word.’

‘You can’t hit me with that,’ Kara blurted, staring at the weathered paddle. If he did anything more than tap her with it, he’d batter her into next week.

Ric gave an explosive laugh, which drained the residual tension from his body. Suddenly he did look in the mood to be naughty. He gave the oar a test swing. ‘You know that saying things like that is just planting ideas. Better brace yourself.’

‘Seriously, no.’ She held out her arms to ward him off, but Ric easily pushed inside her reach and tipped her over the side of the little boat.

Kara squealed and kicked her legs in protest. Her hair hung down around her face, masking at least some of her indignation. Ric’s hands were cold as he wrenched down her knickers. He left them hanging around her knees.

He stepped back, and the breeze kissed the skin of her cheeks, chilling them, and then came the drum of the oar. ‘It’s the least you deserve, all things considered.’

‘Ow,’ she complained, although it didn’t actually hurt. He’d put no power into the swing, so the sharp impact merely felt wet and cold. It actually seemed like a punishment, unlike the heat she knew he could raise with his palm. Maybe Ric realised it too, for he cast the oar aside after giving her a second swift pat, and instead started teasing a single finger back and forth along the split of her sex. ‘I think you’d better tell me everything you told her, don’t you?’

‘Mmm-mmm, mmmm,’ grunted Kara from her upended position, which finally earned her a proper smack. ‘That’s the truth,’ she squeaked, once the sting in her cheeks started to dissipate. She wriggled her hips to try to ease the discomfort. If she wasn’t so precariously balanced, she might have tried rubbing her skin, except he’d probably have rapped her knuckles if she did. ‘I swear. She asked questions and I never gave a direct answer. I’m not sure I managed to utter more than a few syllables.’

Ric brought his palm down on her arse again, making a crack so loud it frightened the gulls perched all along the cliff face. The sound didn’t tally with the blow, which left her skin mildly heated and pleasantly tingly. ‘You fucked her?’ Astonishment caused his voice to creak. His palm rested against the curve of Kara’s cheek, warming the skin beneath, while the breeze continued to chill the rest of her skin.

‘Not sex,’ Kara insisted. She wasn’t having him envisioning her doing anything two-way or overly involved. ‘She rubbed me off while I was taking a bath. I was supposed to be describing what you and I had done, but mostly she talked and I didn’t do a whole lot besides moan.’

Ric twitched one finger over her flesh. ‘Fuck. I didn’t ever think she’d go that far. I didn’t think she’d ever had sex.’

‘I don’t think I was the first,’ Kara blurted, although in some ways she agreed with him. She didn’t think Robin had ever had penetrative sex with a man. A dildo, absolutely. She almost certainly got off regularly using a substitute dick while reliving other women’s experiences with Ric, or Alaric, as she so loved to call him.

‘Fuck.’ He began to laugh in a slightly unbalanced way. ‘Hellfire and fuck.’

Then he nudged his cock up against her labia. As promised he was at least partially hard. He rubbed himself in her wetness a moment, and then entered her, forcing her further into the boat, so that she was almost doing a handstand. ‘You know that’s twisted, Kara?’

‘Only as twisted as this is.’

He grabbed hold of her shoulder to pull her more forcefully back on to his dick. ‘Nah, it’d only be that if you weren’t turned on, and you are. You really are.’

She was certainly wet. The sounds of their loving confirmed that, and she wasn’t denying she was enjoying the thrust of his cock. There was even something to be said for the terror of discovery. It certainly lent a degree of urgency to the act. Any moment, Zach or one of the work crew could appear, and the shame would damn near kill her. If Robin appeared, things would be a whole lot worse.

Or would it? How would Zach react? He might get the wrong idea and take off again. ‘We shouldn’t do this here, without Zach.’

‘Do you want me to whistle for him?’

‘No.’

Ric steadied his motion into a slow, slow, quick, figure-of-eight roll of his hips. He certainly had a passion for doing things doggy-style. Perhaps it was just as well she intended to focus on maintaining two lovers, otherwise she’d have to instal lots of mirrors, just in order to get a glimpse of him. At least when all three of them were together, she’d be able to look at Zach.

Kara strained her neck, in order to satisfy her love of visuals. Ric looked fantastic in his oversized knitwear. His hair had completely escaped its binding now and danced against his shoulders as he filled her up.