Damage (12 page)

Poor Tommy: would he ever get past this emotional clumsiness of his?

She wondered again what time it was. Too late to gather her things and head home? Did she even want to?

She turned her head. Blunt was lying there, head almost totally obscured where the deep pillow had fluffed up around him. If she strained she could hear the soft sigh of his breath.

She eased herself out of bed, then found her way through to the lobby of this private wing, and then out into the passageway that led back to the main part of the Hall. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she spotted items of discarded clothing. Her shirt and t-shirt, her bra; her shoes and his together; his shirt, her jeans. She gathered them up and retraced her steps. She fumbled through her pockets until she found her phone, and then dumped the clothes in a heap and retreated to the bathroom.

It was past one in the morning.

Dad would have long since gone to bed. He had never been a worrier when the girls were out: ‘Worry wins you nothing,’ he’d always said. Sitting up until she was home came into the ‘wins you nothing’ category, too.

She sat there and skimmed a couple of messages from Ruby, asking how things were and did she want a chat later? That ‘later’ was long past by this late hour. The final message was: “I guess not. Be safe Sis and be as good as you can manage!! ;)”

Back out in the lobby, she eyed the pile of clothes. Should she just go? She remembered that encounter with one of Blunt’s women. He clearly wasn’t averse to having women stay over, although he’d been quite keen to get rid of that particular one when he remembered she was still there.

She looked up and he was standing in the doorway, his body a pale shape in the darkness, his features blurred; he looked as if he’d been daubed in crude brushstrokes like an Impressionist painting, a dream image.

“I thought you’d gone,” he said. “I didn’t...”

Didn’t want her to stay? To go? Didn’t know? Didn’t
care?

She thought then of how he had said he didn’t do all this: didn’t get involved, didn’t know the rules or what might be expected of him.

She felt exactly the same.

She’d never really done this. It felt different to anything that had gone before. So much more grown up.

“I don’t know how all this goes either,” she said. “I don’t know the rules, the expectations. It’s all new to me, Nicholas.”

Nicholas
. It felt odd to use his first name, even as they stood here like this, even after the intimacies they’d shared.

She slotted into his embrace, her head resting on his shoulder, her face against his neck. His body was lean, hard, the skin cold. His arms coiled around her like a vine.

She felt a heart beating but couldn’t tell if it was hers or his.

She felt him stirring against her, a straightforward physical response to the press of their bodies, the touch of skin against skin. Sensed that transition from a sweet, tender moment that had probably only lasted a second or two into something so much more basic.

She drew herself against him harder, her breasts squashed against the hard ridges of his ribcage, the movements of their breathing emphasizing how tightly they held each other. Her legs were against his, their thighs pressing. The muscles of his body felt so hard.

She tilted her pelvis, pushing herself at him. He was as hard as it was possible to be against the confines of their pressing bodies, now. The length of his shaft still pointed downwards, pressing hard against her, a solid pressure against her softness. She pushed again, with a slight roll of the hips.

He reached down, hooked one arm behind her thighs and lifted her from the ground.

Cradling her in his arms, he carried her back through to the bedroom, just as he had done earlier that evening. When he reached the door he turned sideways, careful not to bump her against the frame.

As he moved, she was aware of how he favored one side and that made her think of the accident, of his late wife, Sarah.

He lowered her to the bed and then held himself over her, so close. “You mesmerize me,” he said. “You’ve got in my head, under my skin.”

He had a way of saying things like that. Of making the most beautiful words sound almost like an accusation.

“Would you be happier if I was just another one of your tarts?” she said. “Would you be happier if none of this mattered?”

He shook his head. “It’s not about happiness,” he said. He hesitated, then went on: “I used to be numb to the world, but now... There’s something about you that breaks through all that. It’s...”

She waited for him to go on, but it was as if he’d lost track of his words mid-sentence, or as if he was scared. She reached up to put a hand on his cheek once again.

“Why does it have to feel so bad to feel this good?” he said finally.

She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he must feel, or what he had gone through since the crash.

He lowered himself towards her, the movement almost imperceptible at first.

His kiss was gentle, soft against her lips. She felt incredibly sensitized to his touch – his lips, the scrape of stubble, the gossamer touch of breath across her cheek, her neck.

As his mouth moved downwards, it was hard to tell if those lips were actually brushing across her or if it was only the movement of air, her skin was so sensitive and the touch – if there was any touch at all – so delicate.

Reaching her cleavage, he rolled his head sideways, the lips making more positive contact with the smooth skin, dragging up to the peak of one nipple, squeezing so that little stabs of pleasure darted through her body.

She arched her back, gave a soft sigh, and he pulled away. That gossamer touch again, down over her ribs, over the soft flatness of her belly.

She felt a pulse deep in her abdomen, an involuntary twitch as his tongue found her navel, flicked over, around, inside.

She wanted to reach down, tangle her fingers in his short hair, steer him.

Instead, she arched her back further, pressing herself against his face. She pressed her arms up, bent at the elbow, fists gripping her pillow tightly.

Still that tongue flicked and darted. His chin came to rest at the top of her mound, where that narrow strip of hair began. When she pushed against him, it pulled at the soft flesh there, tantalizing, teasing.

She felt a hand steal up the inside of her leg and then abruptly his fist was against her, pressing against softness, rocking and twisting so that his hard knuckles formed multiple points of pressure against her.

Her breath caught in her throat. Such a novel thing, the way he created so many sensations with fist, mouth and chin.

His mouth moved down, his head turned sideways so that his lips were either side of that strip of hair, massaging the waxed-smooth softness of her mound.

She felt a parting, then, a point pressure slipping between her labia, penetrating her. As his finger slid inside, his knuckles came to press against her again, and now his thumb lay along the slit of her sex, its meaty pad against her own hard nub, sliding wetly against her clit.

She was groaning now, unable to restrain the animal sounds emerging from deep inside.

He started to pump his arm, drawing away and then sliding that finger back inside her, those knuckles against her, and that thumb sliding along her groove and across her clit. And all the time his face was against her, firm lips working soft flesh, tongue sliding through hair.

Her head was spinning, swirling with the intensity of sensation.

She did reach down now, slide her fingers into his hair, hold and steer him against her.

The only sensations were her heavy breathing, the tangle of his hair against her fingers, and those sliding, grinding sensations he was creating with mouth and hand.

Her belly was tight, relentlessly growing tighter deep within.

She was going to explode. Blow apart entirely.

He drove his hand against her, finger deep inside as if reaching for that tightness, and now his mouth had moved almost imperceptibly lower and the tip of his tongue found where his thumb had been. Firm but yielding, a steady, wet flicking as he held his finger deep inside her and his knuckles against her, an incredible sense of pressure against her sex.

Flicking. Building.

She pulled him hard against her, gave another half-strangled groan and then her whole body bucked against him, thrusting upwards.

The tightness in her belly transformed into a fluttering of muscles around his finger and against his mouth and tongue as he held himself there, pressing, taking the first squeeze of her climax and drawing it out longer, longer, until finally the intensity started to ebb away and her body slumped and all she could do was breathe and wait for her pounding heart to calm and her head to stop spinning.

§

Saturday morning was changeover day at Bank Cottages, but Holly didn’t have to be there until ten.

She woke with sun streaming in through the gaps between the curtains, the bed beside her empty.

She’d never done this. Twenty years old and this was the first time she’d spent the night with a man. She and Tommy had been too young, and their parents too strict about house rules: no stopping over, always keep the bedroom door open. They’d found their ways to be intimate, of course, but never for a full night. She’d had a couple of boyfriends since, but nothing serious.

Life had taken over. Responsibilities.

So now... Lying in a strange bed, in a strange house, wondering what she should do, what the rules might be. As she’d said last night, she didn’t know how all this was supposed to go. It was such new territory.

If she’d had any expectations at all, pretty low down on a list of likelihood was a sudden hammering of soft feet on the floor, a loud barking sound and then a big dog coming to stand with its front paws on the bed, its tail wagging madly and its head twisting from side to side, looking at her and then back out of the room.

Alfie.

She caught her breath, then reached out to scratch behind a silky ear as the big, soft beast pressed back against her hand.

She’d forgotten about Alfie. Blunt had always kept him out of the main part of the apartment when she was around.

“Hey,” she said, still scratching. She’d known red setters before, always insanely enthusiastic about anything, the temperament of a puppy in a big, energetic dog.

Alfie jerked away, then turned and darted over to greet Blunt as he came to stand in the doorway.

“Morning,” he said. He was wearing jeans and a baggy jumper. She couldn’t read the expression on his face: a shy smile, something slightly bemused about it, something a little cagey. “I left you for a lie-in, but now you’re awake do you fancy a walk?”

He wasn’t turning her out, at least.

“I... what time is it? I have to work this morning.”

“Eight. Alfie’s an early riser – this counts as a late start for him, I’m afraid. What time do you have to be at work?”

“Ten.”

“Plenty of time then.”

§

It was one of those perfect crisp autumn days.

The Deer Park looked like a painting. The sky was a thin blue, as if someone had painted it with a wash of watercolor. A light mist clung to the ground, the grass heavy with dew and laced with a fine tracery of glistening cobwebs. Isolated oak trees stood high and dark, their trunks ringed tightly by individual iron palisades, and high in the trees jackdaws made their insistent, metallic ‘check-check’ calls.

“Are there actual deer here?” She didn’t think there were – she’d certainly never seen any.

“No, haven’t been for years,” said Blunt, as they walked side by side. “I could get some. Maybe I should.”

They were the words of someone who simply
could
. A man who threw lavish parties every weekend and who had art that belonged in museums displayed around his home because he
could
.

Her shoes were soaked through already, and her jeans were wet up to the knee. She may have come prepared for the night, but not for a morning walk.

She glanced across at Blunt and either he had glanced across at her at just that point or he was studying her.

“You think Alfie would appreciate the deer?” she asked.

He laughed. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

She sucked in a deep breath, a shock of cold in her lungs.

“I can’t remember the last time I did this,” she said. “Just walked. I’ve always walked
somewhere
. Always had something to do.”

“You’re like your old man. Always doing for other people, never yourself.”

She glanced at him again. Was that his own observation, or a reference to something she’d said? He was looking across at Alfie, who was sniffing at a tussock of grass.

“Foxes,” he said, apparently at random. “Alfie always finds where the foxes have been marking territory.” He stooped for a stick, whistled for Alfie’s attention and then threw it in a high arc.

She thought again of the art at the Hall. “You like art?” she asked. “You collect? You have an impressive collection.”

He shrugged. That defensive first reaction to almost anything. Would she ever really break through those barriers?

Then he caught himself and gave that shy smile again. “I always had an interest,” he said. “But the Hall...” Another shrug. “When I bought the place I had it decorated and fitted out by an interior space consultant. Don’t laugh! That’s what it said on her website. ‘Interior space consultant’. She took some pieces I already had and then built her plans around them. What can I say? She sounded convincing at the time and, let’s be frank, I really didn’t give a shit.”

That pretty much confirmed her own assessment when she’d first seen the inside of the Hall. A place decorated and dressed by someone with taste to a minimal brief from someone who didn’t really care. That there was even an element of his own personality about it was a surprise.

“So which pieces are yours? Which pieces are
you?
”

“The ones I like to describe as romantic and moody. The ones Sarah used to call ‘weird shit’.” Every time he spoke his late wife’s name he winced.

“The Giacometti?” She’d spotted that one the previous evening, a bronze sculpture of two stick-like figures in a tangled embrace – either an original, or a particularly well-executed replica.