Chapter 16

 

Collapsed against me with her tethered arms now around my neck, Paisley’s tears wet my skin. I know I didn’t hurt her—no more than she wanted me to. No more than she could stand, at least. But fuck me, I don’t remember it ever being this intense.

‘Sweetheart, are you okay?’ I gather her dark hair, pushing it across her shoulders. ‘Say something.’

She shakes her head, nuzzling closer when I really need to see her face. I’m officially beginning to panic when she kisses my jawline, then presses her lips against my pulse point.

‘I thought I’d lost you for a moment there.’

‘I thought I’d lost my mind.’ Her voice is a hoarse—kind of twenty-a-day hoarse—her body moving against my deep chuckle.

‘Come on. Give me your hands.’

‘I don’t want be cut loose,’ she half whines, though cooperative as I lift her hands from behind my head.

Truthfully, I don’t really feel like moving her. Bareback fucking is sublime. My dick has softened inside her and the results of our fucking is dripping from between her legs. Part of me wants to look—to lay her down against the comforter and spread her legs. Part of me. The dirty part who doesn’t get out much these days.

Her hands between us, I begin to wish I’d thought to bring scissors, but even I’m not that fucking clever. The fact that the tie was in my pocket was surprise enough.

‘It’s a nice tie,’ Paisley mumbles, attempting to use her shoulder to move her hair. I brush it from her face, running my fingers along the dark silky strands and her back. This woman. She’s . . . stunning.

‘Even with the racoon eyes I must be sporting.’

I huff out a laugh, surprised I’d spoken my thoughts. ‘Especially because of your panda eyes. Pandas are cute.’

‘I like the way you say cute.’

‘How do I say it?’ I ask, returning to the tightened knot. I’m going to look like a proper tool if I can’t get it loose.

‘Like it has a Q. And an extra syllable.’

‘You’re somethin’ else.’

‘Trouble, you said. About this tie. How attached to it are you?’

‘Attached? Not much. It was a Christmas gift from my PA.’

‘Silk? You must pay her well.’

‘I do pay him very well. Though he doesn’t know that I know he charged it to the company credit card.’

‘Wow!’ The word comes out in a giggle.

‘Aye, he’s a cheeky fucker. But that’s Aussies for you.’

‘How about we call reception and ask to borrow scissors?’ she says, right at the moment I lower my head and begin biting the knot to loosen it. ‘You’re good with your teeth,’ she says softly. Teeth tearing into the silk knot, I look up at her. ‘I really liked it.’

Something twists deep in the pit of my gut at the same moment the knot begins to slacken, thankfully, because I’m about to start probing the meaning behind those words. Does she like it because I do? Is she messing with me?

‘All done.’ My voice rumbles as I unravel it from her wrists. The silk has left marks. And fuck if they don’t look good.

‘You like that,’ she asserts. Running her fingers across her wrists, she flicks her gaze alternately between the marks and my guarded expression. ‘You like looking at your handiwork.’

No point in hiding it, I decide. Not when she doesn’t appear to be judging. Unlike someone I once knew.  Fuck it. I’m acting like a schoolgirl. What’s next? Sending her a note with a request to mark the truth?

You like being tied  Χ

You don’t                 Χ

‘Come on. Let’s go get cleaned up and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.’

‘Clean? I think we’ll need bleach and a scrub brush.’

‘That’s just charming.’ I chuckle, taking in her expression.

‘I’m serious! Do you know how many people have had sex on this comforter?’

‘Strangely enough, I don’t.’

‘That’s the point,’ she answers all animated now. ‘We’d need a black light and a forensic team to be able to tell! I’m serious,’ she says as I laugh, dragging her closer to my chest. ‘We’ll be lucky to get away without some kind of skeeve.’

‘Skeeve, you say?’ Using my lower body, I buck up into her, the momentum moving her off my lap.

‘Hey!’

‘There’s only one thing for it. A bath.’

 

‘How come you’re free the whole evening?’

The water sloshes up the side of the large bath as Paisley lifts her hand to move a few damp strands of her hair. Pressed skin to skin—her back to my front—we’re slick from the heat of the water. 

‘Sorcha has Brownies on Fridays, then she goes to her grandparents for the evening. I won’t see her until I pick her up from her ballet class.’

‘So not Agnes—her other grandparents.’

Though I don’t need to navigate these waters, I decide I will. ‘Agnes isn’t my mother. At least, not by blood. My own mother was a bit of a fuckup in the parenting department.’ As well as a whore. ‘Agnes was a local shopkeeper—she and her husband. Anyway, she kept me right. Kept me fed. Made sure I was safe.’ As safe as anyone can be when they live with a crack whore. ‘When things got really bad, she and Alf, her husband, took me in.’

‘Wow.’ She tries to turn, but I’m not ready to let her see my face, so I tighten the band of my arms across her chest, then bury my nose in her hair. How the fuck does she smell like the summer anyway? ‘Agnes and Alf must be very special people.’

‘They are—were. Alf died before I finished university. When Sorcha was born, Agnes said she’d come to London to help.’ I inhale deeply. ‘She never went back.’

‘But she’s like a grandmother to Sorcha. You can absolutely see that in the photographs you showed me on your phone.’

Strange that she would see that, yet at the poncy school I pay for Sorcha to go to, the other parents treat her like the hired help. I mean, I do pay her, but mainly to ease at least a little of my guilt. But Agnes doesn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thinks, least of all a bunch of stuck-up snobs. And so long as she’s got a few pound notes in her wee purse—which she assures me she always has—and her “party money” put aside in her bank account—that’s money she’s put away for her funeral, the morbid bugger—she says she’s just fine.

‘So that must mean Sorcha is with her other grandparents.’

‘You could be the new Sherlock Holmes.’

At least my ex’s parents want to maintain contact. We have a prickly relationship, and we don’t often see eye to eye. Although we do have a consensus when it comes to their daughter: we’ve all washed our hands of her. I think a lot of the issues between us stem from their pain. How could they have raised a daughter who was willing to abandon her own child? But I’m sure they also blame me for offering her money in the first place. In my defence, I was hurting—I never in a million years thought she would accept my offer. Friday sleepovers are a relatively new thing. For all of us.

‘I’d look good in one of those funny hats—you know—like Sherlock Holmes?’

‘A deerstalker?’ She nods. ‘You’d look good in a sack.’

‘And you are a sweet-talking man.’

‘With a gorgeous wet girl in his hands.’

‘If wrinkled and prune-y does it for you.’

‘You do it for me,’ I reply, tightening my hands. But fuck if that wasn’t a little too much—too much truth. Too heartfelt.

‘That was an awfully big sigh.’

‘Aye?’ Loosening my hold, I wipe a hand down my damp face. ‘It’s just, I suppose you think you’ve grown—moved on. Think that the universe has no more lessons to give. No more surprises around the corner. Then it throws you curves like this.’ Like magnets, my hands move to the heaviness of her teardrop-shaped tits, and despite my suddenly dour mood, my cock flickers back to life.

‘I want to be straight with you.’ I tip my head against the edge of the bath, speaking my truth into the damp air. ‘I know we’ve only met twice, but I haven’t felt like this about anyone in a long time.’ She makes to move again, inhaling as though to speak. ‘But I can’t be with you. Not like you deserve a man to be.’

‘That last bit? I think that’s my line,’ she says, sort of laughing. ‘You know, I think I get to decide what’s best for me. Did you forget I just got out of a relationship? We were together three long years. I’m not looking for that right now.’

‘Two years? You must’ve been about twenty when you met him.’

‘Again with the sweet-talking! I was twenty-six,’ she says. ‘And I’m plenty old enough to decide what’s right for me.’

‘Aye, but—’

‘But nothing. I like you. And I want to be with you, but not in the way that you’re thinking. Not in the way you’re afraid of.’

‘Who says I’m afraid?’ The thought of another relationship is fucking terrifying; not that I need to say it out loud.

‘Come on, Keir. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.’ Her hand snakes between us, her fingers giving my cock a swift tug. ‘I like you, you like me, and together, we’re a dynamite fuck.’

I grunt, pushing up into her hand. Dragging my hands down her body, I push them to the inside of her thighs. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘That’s not what you said earlier.’ Her voice is a soft tease as, from behind, I slide my hands between her thighs. She moans so beautifully, the sound echoing off the tiled walls. There’s such sweet agony in her tone as I press my fingers against the purpling marks of my teeth.

‘Do they hurt?’ My voice is hoarse, and the need to hear her answer consuming as I hook my legs around hers to pull them farther apart.

Her damp hair tickles my chest as she nods. ‘Like the best kind of hurt.’

‘Think you’d like me to tie you up again?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Her arms come up out of the water, looping around the back of my head. Thrusting her tits out, she raises her pussy to my touch. Everything drops away as she begins to pant gently as my finger applies pressure to her clit.

I block everything else out—my fear and feelings and how my base reactions are so wrapped up in this woman I feel like I’m bleeding out. In the heat of the moment and the steam of the room, I somehow convince myself that I can make this work without either of us getting hurt.