Abigail

My monster carries me so tenderly. Securely, even over rough ground.

His shoulders are firm, his breath even. His grip is strong and steady, his body heat divine.

I’m aching. Exhausted. Sated beyond anything I’ve ever known.

My feet hang limp all the way back to his truck, my face buried into his neck for the warmth.

I can still taste him. My throat is raw with the memory of his intrusion. My pussy, too.

I can’t bear the thought of another bumpy ride in the footwell, but he opens the front passenger door and drops me onto the seat before I even protest. I can barely rest my feet on the floor they’re so sore.

I buckle myself in as he heads around to the driver’s side. I have no idea what to say as he turns the key in the ignition.

I wonder if he meant it – taking what he wants whenever he wants it. I wonder if this is a thing now.

As fucked up as I am right now, I want nothing more than this to be a thing.

He turns on the heater and reverses up the lane. He turns at the top and we speed away.

I take the opportunity to look at him again in the darkness as we go. His features are so strong. So brutally rugged.

He’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. Being close to him makes my skin prickle.

I wonder what he looks like under his clothes. I wonder if I’ll ever find out.

I can feel the giddiness now, building up under the adrenaline. I’m as high as a kite, a few stupid jokes away from laughing until tears roll.

And yet I feel so lonely.

I’ve never wanted someone’s touch so badly as I want his right now.

He drives and I watch.

He stares out of the window and I stare right at him.

I’m sad when signs for Hereford appear in the road. My heart is pained when I recognise the streets passing by. We’re back in the city centre so quickly, parking up in a loading bay just down the street from my front door.

I wonder if he was here earlier. I look up at my living room window and the open curtains. He could have been spying on me for hours.

I feel like such a wimp as I contemplate having to put my feet back on solid ground. They’re freezing and sore. Grazed to all living shit from the feel of it.

I grit my teeth as I swing the car door open, bracing myself for the impact for dropping down onto the tarmac. But he blocks my exit before I can move.

The closeness of him takes my breath as he reaches past me to flick on the interior light.

I flinch as I see the state of myself in the glow.

I’m filthy. Caked in mud and bits of hedgerow.

I’ve torn a toenail. I’ve scratches all over my ankles. The soles of my feet look like they’ve spent an hour on an industrial sander.

I’m still staring at them as he reaches into the glovebox. The packet of wipes rustles in his fingers as he pulls one free. He props his foot on the sill and lifts mine up over his knee. I stare dumb as he works the wipe over my skin.

I flinch as it stings, but he doesn’t stop.

“I didn’t expect you to run so fast,” he says. “I’d have let you wear shoes.”

I shrug. “Guess I surprised you.”

His eyes meet mine. “Guess you did.”

He’s surprising me too, but I don’t tell him that.

I watch him wipe my foot until the wipe is filthy and he pulls out another. I love the way his fingers can be so tender after being so rough.

I love the way the ink patterns look on his skin.

He switches my clean foot for my dirty one. I should point out that they’ll be filthy again before I reach my apartment, but I don’t want him to stop.

“You need to put these in a hot bath,” he tells me.

I smile as I tell him I only have a shower. A small one at that.

His eyes are dark on mine. “A bowl then.”

I nod.

I figure he’s just putting the wipes away when he reaches back to the glovebox.

My eyes widen when I recognise my shoes.

“You found them.”

“One of them was under a truck,” he says.

I don’t know why I’m smiling so hard to see them again, but I am.

I don’t know why I have the urge to brush my thumb across his jaw when he slips one onto my foot and buckles it up so gently.

Walking on these is going to be marginally better at best to walking barefoot, and that’s being optimistic. I don’t want to tell him that, though.

He fastens up the other and I thank him. His eyes burn me as I grab my handbag from under the seat.

“First floor, right?” he asks and I nod. He glances across to the building and points at my window. “Yours?”

“My living room.”

He looks from my feet to the communal entrance. “I’ll help you up the stairs.”

He holds out his arms to help me, but I don’t move a muscle. I’m frozen like a fool, floundering at the kindness of such a brutal stranger.

His dark eyes are dirty. Amused.

“Even a monster can be a gentleman,” he says.

I think of Stephen back home. His slick ways. His posh suits. His cocky smile.

And I guess it’s true enough that a monster really can be a gentleman.

After all, I already learned the hard way that a gentleman really can be a monster.

 

* * *

 

Phoenix

 

I feel like a prize asshole as I help Abigail up to her apartment.

Her feet were a wreck and they’re barely any better now. She’ll be sore on them for days.

The rest of her probably won’t feel all that great, either.

She’s elegant even in pain. There’s a finesse about the way she limps. A beauty in the grace of movement.

She ran like a nymph, her hair streaming like a siren.

She is a siren.

I’m still holding her as she digs her keys from her handbag and pushes the door open. I step inside without hesitation, closing the door behind us as she gets the light.

Her place is small, neat, organised.

Barren.

It surprises me.

“I haven’t long moved in,” she says, as though she’s embarrassed.

She’s been on the electoral roll for months and I know it. There’s a sadness in her eyes that doesn’t go unnoticed.

She lowers herself onto the sofa but I don’t join her. I’m not sure I should even be in here. Unsure I’m even welcome.

“You promised you’d delete your profile,” I remind her, and she smiles.

“I didn’t think I’d be so desperate for a repeat performance.”

“And how about now? Are you still so desperate to go again?”

Her eyes sparkle. “Maybe not right this second.”

It makes me smile. “A rain check, I think. See how you feel in a few days.”

She shakes her head. “No rain check necessary. I want to go again.”

My demons are fucking joyous.

And so am I.

“You’ll delete your profile like you promised,” I tell her, then hold out my hand. “Give me your phone.”

She looks up at me curiously, but hands it straight over from her bag.

She doesn’t have a lock code. Her backdrop is the factory default.

I suspect that hasn’t always been the case.

I log into my work GPS portal and download the logistics app to her handset. She stares up at me but doesn’t say a word. I set the app to update in real time, just as I do with the drivers’ PDAs. I’ll feed data straight through to my phone.

I clear the browser listing showing my company login. The app still stands.

I hold my own handset up. “Your phone will talk to mine,” I tell her. “I’ll know where you are in real time. Nowhere to hide. You have your phone, I’ll be able to find you.” I pause. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

She takes her phone back from me. “Anytime?” she asks. “So you’ll just what? Show up?”

“Written notice kind of ruins the chase, don’t you think?”

“And if I want to get hold of you?” She drops her gaze. “I guess you’ll be the one getting hold of me, right?”

“Maybe when you least expect it.”

Her breath is shallow. Her eyes soft.

I have to get out of here before I lose the power to walk away.

I slip my phone back in my pocket. “I’ll see myself out.”

“Wait,” she says, but I don’t. She doesn’t follow me, not in those heels. “I don’t even know your name.”

And that’s how it’s going to stay.

I take one last look around the place before I leave, taking in the layout – the window positions, the small kitchen table, the bathroom off to the right. I assign it all to memory in a heartbeat and then I make my move for the exit.

Then I see it, the bowl on the counter. Coins. A couple of charity badges.

And a spare key.

I turn it over in my hand.

Definitely for the front door.

I slip it into my pocket.

And then I get the hell out of there.