Digging Deeper (28 page)

“Not sure I can wait that long. You did say that evil fog can slide under doors.”

They half-crawled up the stairs, their mouths together, hands all over each other. In the end, Flick pulled him into her room and closed the door. She moved to switch on a bedside lamp and when she stepped back, Beck stood behind her, his fingers reaching for the last button on her shirt. He pulled it off, threw it aside and plastered himself against her back, cupping her breasts. A deep groan bubbled from his throat.

“You are so sexy. This bra is wild.”

“How do I know you don’t just have a fetish for lacy bras?” Flick asked.

“Do you have any other kinds?”

“A few sheer ones.”

He smiled, kissed her neck and ran his fingers around the edges of her bra. “I can’t believe how much I want you.”

“And when did this symptom first manifest itself?”

“When I saw you trying to get away from that ram.” He kicked off his shoes and bent to remove Flick’s. “With your wild hair, you looked like you’d just fallen out of bed and I wished it had been my bed. You irritated the hell out of Celia so I knew I’d like you.”

“You didn’t show any obvious signs.”

She tackled the remaining buttons on his shirt.

“I repelled a rival, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and he was such an animal.”

Beck laughed as Flick pushed the shirt from his shoulders and ran her hands over his chest. His skin fluttered under her touch. Her fingers teased his nipples and she smiled when they hardened. He unfastened the zip on her pants and pulled them down to reveal a red lace thong.

“You really are trying to kill me, aren’t you? Lie down.”

Beck began at her feet and worked his way up her body. Inch by inch he kissed the exposed flesh, licking a wet path from her toes to her ankles, from her calves to her knees, from her thighs to her hips and as his tongue ran along the line of her panties, Flick whimpered. He kissed, licked and teased around the red bra, but when Beck finally reached her mouth, Flick rolled on top and pressed her lips against his.

“I’m torn between wanting this to last forever and ripping off the rest of your clothes,” she whispered.

Seconds later they were both naked.

“That was a more difficult decision that it might have appeared,” Beck said.

“I’m not complaining.”

“I need my wallet.”

“You don’t have to pay,” Flick quipped. “First time is free.”

Beck grabbed the only condom he had, uttering a silent prayer for there to be nothing wrong with it and tore open the packet with his teeth.

“This is the only condom I have and I’m not sure how long—”

“If you don’t hurry you’re going to be playing with yourself.”

“You think I’d let you get away with that?”

He lay beside her on the bed, moved his hand down her body, over her gently rounded belly and onto her damp folds.
Oh God, she’s so wet.

“Ooh, that’s good,” Flick gasped.

As he teased the little nub of her clit, her muscles clenched and the climax rolled through her. Beck was filled with a sense of pleasure that she’d come so quickly, that he’d made her happy.

“And to think I was worried about me being speedy,” he muttered in her ear. “Mmm, fighting talk.”

Flick ran her hands down his hips as Beck positioned himself between her legs and then slid straight inside her, pushing as deep as he could on the first thrust. She gasped and gripped him tighter. She kept her eyes open and watched him watching her, tension etched on his face. Flick wrapped her legs around his hips and as he shifted back and forth, she felt herself coming again, every part of her tightening before she was gripped in a series of electric contractions that pulsed through her whole body. Her climax dragged Beck’s from him. He stiffened, then breathed out her name as he fell into her arms.

Flick felt as though she’d slid into a deep, warm bath. She relaxed as Beck panted in her ear, then began to count. “One. Two. Three.”

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Working out how long it takes for you to get your breath back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to give you heart failure.”

He chuckled. “You are so bad.”

“I think you mean good.”

Beck waited a couple of seconds. “Good then.”

“We’re going to have to practice abstinence until Josh comes back and then you’re going to have to go and speak to him,” Flick whispered.

“Why?”

“He has something we both need.”

Beck leaned up on one elbow and furrowed his brows.

“A whole packet,” Flick said.

“Will he be long?”

“Don’t worry. I can make abstinence really good fun.”

Beck collapsed onto his back.

Beck had intended to leave early in the morning to get the minivan back to Isobel but Flick proved too tempting. Twice. He lay looking at the ceiling, willing his heartbeat to return to normal.

“Looks like you need to paint in here as well,” Beck said. “If you promise to wear black lace underwear I’ll help.”

“How about a green thong and tassels?”

Beck moaned. “Not fair.”

“No, that’s what I want you to wear,” Flick teased.

Beck rolled over and brought his face up close to hers. “I thought you liked me naked?”

“Only on Thursdays and it’s Friday. Today you disgust me.”

“That’s not what you said a few moments ago. I think it was ‘don’t stop, don’t stop’.”

“I have a terrible short-term memory. Who are you, again?”

“Would you like to go for a picnic on Saturday? I’ll pick you up about eleven. I’ll bring the sandwiches. No more peanut butter and Marmite.”

“But I only eat peanut butter and Marmite.”

“Not smoked salmon?”

“I could force it down if it made you happy. If there’s lemon and black pepper,” she added.

Beck leaned over and kissed her. “You don’t have to do much to make me happy.”

She ran her hands over his back and pulled him closer. “Stay.”

“Flick, I have to go. Isobel needs the van.”

“The perv-mobile.”

“Oh God, I’m never going to be able to drive it without thinking of last night.”

“Good,” Flick said and kicked him out of bed.

———

Beck drove back to Ilkley feeling like a teenager except he wouldn’t just have had fantastic sex with a beautiful woman. He’d never been that lucky. But he felt lighter inside, everything looked brighter, more attractive, more worthwhile. Flick made him happy. She was challenging and funny and brilliant in bed and he wished he could see her this evening but he didn’t think Giles would be pleased if he missed his stag night.

He’d a real pang when he’d looked at the books stacked up in Flick’s room. Beck thought you could learn more about a person by spending ten minutes looking at their books than you could from two hours chatting. Flick liked the same sort of books as him—thrillers, twisted psychological stories with serial killers and predatory stalkers. The big difference being his books were neatly shelved by author in alphabetical order, while hers were in no order at all. A book on fossils sat next to the latest Kellerman, a history of American slavery next to an old Patricia Cornwell. Several books were upside down. It worried Beck. He was a typology expert—tidy and organized were his middle names.

———

Willow drove Beck and Giles into Leeds and dropped them at Revolution.

“Please don’t let him do anything stupid,” she said to Beck. “No trains to Glasgow. No tattoos saying ‘I love Rachel’. No handcuffing him naked to railings.”

“Spoilsport.” Giles kissed her.

“Well, all right, he can do the naked bit,” Willow said. “And he can have the tattoo but only if it’s on his penis.”

Both men shuddered.

“I’ll look after him.” Beck was supposed to be in charge of the stag night and had a feeling looking after Giles would not be easy with friends desperate to drown him in alcohol while subjecting him to an evening of debauchery.

Beck would have been happy with a pub crawl, but he knew the others had different ideas. Mike, one of Giles’ friends, had sent the group an email with the suggestion they went to a theatre production of
The Vagina Monologues
. The next day he sent another email cancelling that because he’d found out it wasn’t the equivalent production to
Puppetry of the Penis
and no one did anything interesting with a ping-pong ball. Baxter, another of the group, had suggested hiring a prostitute and telling her Giles was into S&M. After that Beck had started to take his role as stag night coordinator more seriously.

Pete, James, Baxter and Mike worked with Giles in Leeds. Three other friends, Sebastian, Jake and Tim, all lawyers, had come up from London. They were already in Revolution and had started drinking. A line of shots on a wooden board awaited Giles.

“If you don’t guess the flavor you have to take off an item of clothing,” Jake said.

Giles grinned and downed the first shot of vodka. “Cream egg.” Then the next. “Jalepeño.”

“Take it easy, Giles, or you’ll be ending the night sooner than we’d planned,” Beck said.

“White chocolate.”

“Bloody hell. You’re good at this. Have you done it before?” Pete asked.

“Pear drop.” Giles gagged on the next one. “That was horrible. It tasted like cough medicine.”

Tim and Sebastian roared with laughter.

“It was cough medicine,” Jake said.

“Wankers,” Giles said with a grin.

“Right, we’ve got another game to play,” Jake announced. “It’s a variation of the one Giles started at university.”

Beck wondered what was coming.

“Tonight between the eight of us, we have to find twenty-six girls for Giles to snog. Age doesn’t matter so long as they have boobs, and if we get desperate that might not matter either, but their names have to begin with the letters of the alphabet. Baxter, you keep a record. Make sure we don’t miss any.”

Beck saw the gleam in Giles’ eyes and hoped Willow never found out about this.

The evening turned into a drunken crawl from one bar to another as each of Giles’ friends competitively attempted to persuade every girl they saw to kiss the bridegroom-to-be. About half of those they asked, obliged. Baxter kept a list of their names on his mobile. Beck was impressed with the guys’ powers of persuasion. As well as telling the truth, that Giles was getting married, he was also apparently dying of an incurable but not too unpleasant disease, leaving for a year-long expedition to the arctic, joining the army, navy, air force, or one better, the priesthood or, according to Tim, having his cock amputated the next day. The only girl Beck asked, kissed him as well. Her name was Fiona. He knew which F he’d rather have kissed.

He’d booked a table at a Chinese restaurant, only trying to get them all walking in the same direction proved more of a challenge than Beck anticipated. They were like a litter of puppies with only slightly better bladder control. He sighed with relief when he had all nine of them sitting at the table. They were loud but not too loud and the food began to soak up some of the alcohol.

Giles was tucking into his sizzling pork when an elderly lady tapped him on the shoulder. Beck swallowed his grin.

“Are you Giles?” she asked.

She looked great. Grey hair in a bun, wrinkled as a sharpie, carrying a walking stick and wearing a navy button-to-the-neck dress.

“Yes,” Giles said.

“You’ve been looking for me.”

The whole restaurant watched now.

“No, I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Giles said.

“I’m Xandra. I’m your X.”

Beck wished he’d thought to bring a camera to capture the look of horror on Giles’ face. The laughter was so loud, the manager came to ask them to tone it down.

Giles had no choice but to kiss her.

As she tottered away, he turned to Beck and glared. “You wanker. She used her tongue.”

By eleven thirty they were outside again and Beck walked them around the corner to the club. He knew that they wouldn’t consider it a proper stag night if naked girls hadn’t featured at some point. Against his better judgment, he’d pre-arranged a front row table at the Polecats Club.

———

Flick slid headfirst through the ceiling, down the pole into a swirl of machine-generated smoke. At least it wasn’t cigarette smoke, she thought. Gerry grumbled about the ban but most of the girls who worked there were delighted. At the same time as Flick slid down, on either side of her on the raised platform, two others descended feet first. They all wore black French knickers with long furry tails. On their heads were matching furry ears and black eye masks with stiff whiskers. That was it. Their breasts were bare. A roar of approval came from the largely but not exclusively male audience as they began to dance. Flick’s second set of the night. She’d had to promise Gerry two extra routines in return for not going in the following night so she could spend it with Beck after their picnic.

The rock music pounded and Flick undulated to the beat. Multicolored lights flashed and spun, jets of color darting over the room and across the stage. She twisted her body around the pole, matching the actions of Becca and Katya on either side. Flick found it easier to dance with others. She felt less exposed. Not all eyes rested on her. That night, as she wrapped her arms around the metal and ran her tongue the length of the pole, she imagined she was dancing with Beck Flick spun to the right and switched poles with Becca, arching back until she almost touched the floor with her head. As she twisted back up the pole, she looked across to smile at everyone, well actually to smile at no one, and saw Beck sitting with Giles. Flick leaned back into Katya and slid to the ground before her brain registered what she’d seen. Beck. Not a figment of her imagination. He was there, sitting a few feet away. Flick wanted not to look at him, wanted to pretend to be somebody else. Was there anything she could do? Rush off the stage? Faint? Think, she told herself. Stop panicking.

But the only thought running through Flick’s head was that she had mere seconds of happiness left, that her life would never be this good, ever again. Even as she willed him not to look at her, he did.