The Tied Man (38 page)

‘Don’t.  Now go, wash.  And don’t forget to clean your teeth – your breath smells worse than a pub carpet.’

I saluted, and turned to go.

‘Oh, and one last thing -’

‘Yeah?’  I braced myself for some dire warning or other.

‘That’s not the full quote.  If you must know, it’s ‘Eat, drink and
be merry
, for tomorrow we die.’’ Henry grasped my hand.  ‘So go, be merry, dear boy.  God knows, you deserve it this once.’

‘You decent yet?’ Finn called from behind the door.

I emerged from the bathroom, clad in my new winter pyjamas and thick white Albermarle bathrobe, with a towel wrapped around my newly-washed hair.

Finn was already waiting for me. He sat on the edge of my bed with Bran at his feet. ‘Better?’ he asked.

‘Nearly, but it would help if I could stop shaking.’  I rubbed at my hair with the towel.  ‘I’m still bloody freezing  – but I suppose that’s what you get for driving with all your windows down for six hours.  And a couple of gallons of adrenaline and speed still swilling around my system isn’t helping much.’

‘I’d probably be a wee bit jittery if I’d just pulled your stunt.’  Finn patted the bed next to where he sat.  ‘C’mon, take a seat.  Henry’s sent a present that might help take the edge off.’  He picked up a bottle of very decent red from my bedside table.

I joined him. ‘Nice.  Last supper?’

‘Don’t.  Don’t think about it, don’t talk about it.’  He poured two generous glasses with a steady hand.  ‘Just drink and sleep and we’ll deal with the rest when it happens.  Let’s just keep tonight for ourselves, huh?’  He gave an exasperated sigh.  ‘That came out wrong.  Not that we... I mean...’

I took the nearest glass and smiled.  ‘It’s okay.  I know what you mean.’ That Finn was prepared to do this much was something to be treasured.  ‘Cheers.’  I touched my glass against his.

‘
Sláinte
.  Sorry I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion, by the way.  Didn’t fancy turning up in any of my work uniform, y’know?’

I knew, but it didn’t help my resolve in the slightest.  Finn was wearing his bashed-up blue and white pyjama bottoms teamed with the t-shirt I had just bought him, and he too had just washed his hair.  He looked completely adorable, from the ruffled, damp fringe that almost hid his muddied jade eyes to his delicate bare feet, and  I had an almost overwhelming urge to cover his entire body with kisses.  I took half a glass of wine in one mouthful.  It was sublime.

‘Steady, girl!’ Finn laughed.  ‘That’s a two-hundred quid gobful you’ve just swigged there.’

‘Worth every penny,’ I assured him, and held out my glass for a refill.  He obliged then topped up his own glass, and I wanted to plant another kiss squarely on the sticking plaster that hid his most recent damage. 

He pulled the duvet back for me.  ‘Right, come on – get under here.  Let the warmth begin to build up.’

‘Um,’ I said, hesitant again.

‘
Um
?’ Finn asked, concerned.  ‘Is there a problem?  I can go...’

‘Hell, no!’

‘Then what, sweetheart?  You can tell me.’

‘Honestly?’  My heart began hammering like a teenager’s on a first date.

‘Yeah, ‘honestly’, daft arse.’

A gathering of butterflies danced in my stomach, and I couldn’t quite look at him.  ‘The only thing I want is to lie there and be held by you again.’

Finn didn’t say anything.  He just leaned over and wrapped his arms around my trembling body.  ‘Like this?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, like this.’  I finally let myself relax into the embrace of the man I’d just driven three hundred miles to be with.

‘So.  Ready to lie down now?’ 

I eased my way under the duvet, shivering again at the temporary chill of new sheets.  Finn settled down beside me and I lay with my back to him, almost foetal.  His arms stayed entwined around me, and his fingers knit loosely together around my waist so that I was pulled close to the man I had wanted from the very moment I met him.  With a contented sigh that he thought I couldn’t hear he buried his face in my hair, and I told myself that he was merely finding comfort in the contact.  I told myself that, but knew I was lying.   I was wetter than I had ever been.

‘Oh fuck, I’m so sorry – that’s not meant to...
Jesus
...’  Suddenly Finn pushed away, and I was scared that he was about to run.  He gave an embarrassed laugh against my ear.  ‘Three fucking years, and it’s never happened.  Didn’t think it could, any more.’

It was then that I felt his hard-on against the small of my back.  I turned to look at him and his expression was one of complete mortification and bemusement at his nascent desire.  I felt my nipples harden instinctively in response; I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so aroused.  This was when I would usually make my move: instant gratification, with my partner’s satisfaction a distant secondary goal.

This time, it was so different that I found myself unsure what to do next – it felt more like my first time than my first time ever had.  And therein lay my answer, because I suddenly realised that it was a first time for Finn as well, and I knew exactly what I wanted from this stolen encounter.

In answer to his panic I brought my right hand up to cradle his face, finally letting my fingers play freely over those cheekbones and stubborn jaw.  Each move seemed to take a lifetime: more than anything, I needed him to know that this was all done with his consent; that at any moment he could say ‘no’ or move away and everything would still be okay.  But he stayed, his eyes never leaving my face.

I let two fingers linger on his wind-coarsened lips.  ‘
Shh
,’ I whispered, and smiled in wonder that I had something so beautiful within my reach.  ‘Let me... please?’

The smile was returned, hesitant at first, then blooming into a beautiful, unfettered grin.

In reply, he kissed me.  At first, a quick, chaste kiss to my lips to check that this was allowed, and a million miles away from the manufactured passion I had witnessed over the past months.  I moved my face closer to his, inviting a second.  Reassured, Finn kissed me again – properly this time, so that toothpaste and wine and tobacco mingled in my mouth, and the tip of his tongue tentatively explored my lips and the points of my teeth.  His moan of desire was muffled by our embrace as I began to move my left hand down his chest, spreading my fingers to take in the warmth of skin and soft down of his hair. 

My journey took me to the dip of his stomach and the new, raised scar of Royce’s attack, and I stopped for a moment to give him time to accept and allow what I was about to do.  Subconsciously he pushed his hips towards me and, permission given, I unbuttoned his pyjama pants and eased them over the sharply defined corners of his pelvis.  I managed to resist touching his cock for now, instead stroking around his hips and around to the hollow of his back to allow me to pull him even closer.  He kissed me again, longer and harder than before and the delicate skin of my inner thighs turned to silk.

We finally broke away and I rested my cheek against his shoulder so that my face nuzzled into his neck, and I could breathe in Finn’s unique, subtle scent.  When I was confident that I had all his trust, I finally took his erect cock in my right hand.  With my left, I entwined my fingers through the damp hair at the nape of his neck and our faces were now so close that we were sharing the same breath.

I increased the pressure in my grip, just enough to elicit another groan of sheer pleasure, and brushed my thumb over the tip to massage a bead of pre-cum around the shaft.  I had only just begun to move my hand along the length in a steady, insistent rhythm when Finn’s eyes widened in surprise; he gave a series of stuttering little gasps and came.  I felt his back arch as muscle and tendon contracted, and his semen flowed over my fingers.

‘Oh God,’ he whispered, and buried his head into my chest. ‘Oh God oh God oh
God
... that... I mean, oh my fuckin’ God...’  He re-emerged to look me directly in the eye.  ‘That was amazing... just so bloody quick, I’m sorry...’

‘Shh,’ I soothed once more,  caressing his beautiful face, his neck, his chest, and never wanting the contact to end.

‘I’m meant to... I mean, do you...?’

I shook my head.  ‘No.  Just enjoy this.’

N
othing seemed real.  Nothing of what had happened, what we had dared to do – what my body had just proved itself capable of doing – and I didn’t even want to start thinking about any of it, as if analysis might prove that the whole wonderful thing was nothing more than a belated hallucination.

Tomorrow was going to bring hell for me – I had known that the second Lilith told her tale – and I didn’t begrudge a moment of it.  Her tenure here was almost done and then it would be time for her to reclaim her life, and I would be back where I was before she had stepped into my world.  I couldn’t imagine
Blaine
doing anything to me that was going to feel worse than that.

I pushed the whole brewing shitstorm into the smallest box I could find, and concentrated instead on the woman whose spine was pressed against the contours of my chest.  I was overwhelmed with a good, clean tiredness, and I decided that for once I was going to let it take me.

My last coherent thought was that she smelled amazing.  Just soap and shampoo, and nothing like the over-preened hags who thought that a gallon or so of expensive perfume might mask the stench of what they were doing to me.  With my nose buried in Lilith’s hair, I broke the final taboo and slept.

It was still dark when the cry dragged me from sleep. Finn sat bolt upright next to me, and in the dying light of a near-empty oil lamp his forehead shone slick with sweat. 

‘Bad dream?’ I asked, with impressive understatement.  I hated to think what nightmares must have caused the sheer terror in his voice.

‘Something like. Wha’ time is it?’

I squinted at the bedside clock. ‘Four, just about.’

‘Fuck.  Wow.  I can’t remember the last time I slept this long. ’

‘Are you all right?’  I stroked his cheek.

‘Yeah yeah,’ he caught my fingers and kissed them.  ‘Same old shit, that’s all.  Sorry for waking you.’

I hugged him, still hungry for contact, and planted my own kiss on his chest.

He sighed.  ‘Look, I really don’t want to leave, but I’m going to have to go back to my room  – didn’t bring everything I needed, y’know?’

‘I know.’  I didn’t need telling: I could already feel the tension beginning to buzz in his sinews.

‘Sleep while you can, huh?  I promise, I’ll come back – then we can start thinking about how we’re going to play today, okay?’  He ran a hand from my jaw to my waist as though he was reading me in Braille, then pulled the duvet around me so that I was enveloped in its warmth.

‘‘Kay.’  My eyes were already beginning to close by the time he reached the door.

‘Alarm call for Ms Bresson.’ Coyle O’Halloran dragged me out of bed by my hair and threw me onto the floor.

I didn’t even have time to scream as he clamped one sweating hand over my mouth and grabbed my wrists with the other. 

He leered at me through the darkness.  ‘You any idea how long I’ve waited to do this, you stuck-up slut?’  His breath reeked of stale whiskey and sickness, and I recoiled.  ‘What, am I not up to your usual standard of fuck, eh?  Like a certain scrawny-arsed faggot?’  He hauled me to my feet, twisting me so that I had my back to him.  ‘Ach, don’t be worrying about that just yet – I’m under strict orders to deliver you in a half-decent condition.’

That hardly reassured me.  I tried to cry out, but even if Coyle’s hand had not still been across my mouth, an imminent asthma attack and sheer fear would have rendered me speechless.

‘What’s that, bitch?  If you’re calling out for our Finn-boy, you’re wasting precious breath – me and my boys have already seen to him, and it was the most fun I’ve had in years, let me tell you.’  He began to drag me towards the door.  Still sleep-dazed and subdued, any struggle had no effect.  ‘Don’t think you’d find him such a pretty boy now, mind you – my lads got just a wee bit slap-happy, if you get my drift.  Wanted to get one back for that messy business in the pub.’

Fatal minutes too late I found some fight.  I let Coyle take my weight and kicked back hard against his shins.  I made good contact and I heard him give a sharp, rewarding hiss of pain. 

‘Fuckin’
bitch
!’ he yelped, but my rebellion merely made him even angrier.  He brought his other hand away from my mouth and began to bundle me down the corridor.

I had no idea where we were going, or what was about to happen;  I only knew that wherever I was being taken it was highly unlikely to be pleasant, so as Coyle dragged me down the long corridor, I battled him every step of the way.  It wouldn’t do me any good – my self-defence training had never covered being hauled, still asleep from my bed by a coked-up , steroid-pumped bastard – but I could no more have surrendered than grown wings and flown.  The only outcome was that by the time we reached the kitchen, I was already exhausted.