The New Rakes (7 page)

He took the paper reluctantly and glared at Kara’s scribbled notes. ‘I’m sure I could,’ he said, ‘but is it worth it?’

Kara pressed her lips together. She’d had a long day, her head was fizzing, and she wanted to lose herself in the song. She knew it was the only way she’d be able to unwind. Take what was bugging her and twist it into music, make it new.

‘Jon,’ she said quietly, fixing her gaze on him, ‘please?’

He sighed. ‘You singing?’

‘Yep.’

‘Key?’

‘B flat.’

Jon walked over to the keyboard that was set up under the window and played a few chords. Tam swung his guitar onto his lap and followed the tune, while Kara listened, waiting for the right moment. She could make this good, she knew she could.

They played into the small hours, forgetting their arguments for the time being. Kara took all her anger and horniness and poured it into the song, letting the sound carry her elsewhere. It was only after Jon and Ruby had left, when she put on her coat and got ready to leave that she noticed the rust-orange pollen spilt all over her sleeve. She caught the scent of lilies and remembered the flowers, still sitting on the end of the bar, filling the place with their sweet heavy scent.

Tam noticed her frown and took her arm.

‘What’s that?’

‘Just a stain,’ Kara said, brushing at the pollen.

‘Want to stay over?’ he asked, catching her hand.

Kara raised her eyes to his. ‘You said no tricks.’

Tam gripped her wrist. ‘No tricks.’ He smiled. ‘Thought you might want a little comfort, that’s all.’

His thumb stroked the inside of her wrist. Kara fought the urge to pull away. She liked fucking Tam, but when he touched her like this, so gently, it made her jittery. She could feel him watching her too, with a look that was more compassion than lust. She couldn’t stand his sympathy. She preferred Tam when he was dark and smouldering, gripping her because he wanted her not because he thought she needed comfort.

‘It doesn’t matter, you know,’ Tam said.

‘What doesn’t matter?’

‘That Mike Greene blew you off.’

‘He didn’t blow me off,’ she snapped. ‘I told him to stuff his contract.’

Tam shrugged. ‘Whatever. I’m just glad you’re not –’ He broke off.

‘Not what?’

A chasm opened up suddenly, yawning with possibilities that Kara didn’t want to look at. Tam’s hand circled her wrist as tightly as handcuffs and she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She pulled away, bumped her way towards the door. ‘I need to get home,’ she said. It was freezing outside, but she wanted to feel the cold air on her face. All the dangerous emotions were struggling inside her, making her feel like she was walking a tightrope over a deep drop, pushing forwards because she was too scared to look either side of her.

‘Kara,’ Tam said as she reached the door. ‘Stay a while. Please.’

The fight went out of her when he used the word ‘please’. It fell into her heart like cool water, and she found herself staring at him. He stood in the doorway in a T-shirt with the ragged hem, with his hair all mussed up and hanging into his eyes so that his fringe twitched when he blinked. Even with
his
broad shoulders and sulky mouth, his well-hidden sweet side was showing.

Kara looked at the mattress on his living-room floor. The ticking was bare, and it was covered with a zipped-out sleeping bag. Sheets of song notes and magazines were strewn over the blue nylon. Tam didn’t give much thought to anything besides music and fucking – in that order.

‘Perhaps I just want more, Tam,’ Kara said quietly.

‘More what?’ He approached her, moving carefully in his bare feet. His jeans were hanging off his hip bones and she could see the pale white line of the scar on his lip, drawing her eyes to his full luscious mouth. When he reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, Kara was startled. His hand was shaking. What could he possibly be afraid of? They’d fucked, fought, made up and forgotten about it a dozen times. Why would this time be different?

But as he stroked the nape of her neck, working at her muscles with his fingertips, Kara felt a little flip in her stomach. Tam’s eyes were wide and dark and she couldn’t escape their depth. This wasn’t the prelude to a seduction, she realised. His jaw was working and his breath was ragged, as though he was working up the confidence to speak. When it came, his voice sounded forced and unnatural.

‘He’s no good for you, Kara. You can’t trust a man like that.’

She pulled back and opened her mouth to answer, but Tam raised his voice and kept going: ‘I know you like to think you know how to play him, but he’ll chew you up and spit you out. It’s not worth it, honey.’

‘Honey? Since when was I your bloody
honey
?’ Kara couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice.

‘Don’t get like that. I just want to …’

‘Tam.’ Kara folded her arms and nodded at him. ‘I’ll see who
I
like, when I like, as often as I like. The last thing I need is advice from a wannabe muso whose career high is getting an email from Keith Richards.’ Kara turned and made for the door, not waiting to see how Tam would react.

She gave it a good slam behind her and ran down the steps into the still winter night. There was frost in the air and it stung her lips as she breathed in but she was glad for the sudden shock, the physical sensation that seemed to help clear her thoughts. She walked fast through the dark streets, her footsteps echoing in the early-morning silence. Twice that day she’d run away from a nasty situation. Now she was going home to an empty flat – by the end of the late-night session she and Ruby still hadn’t been on friendly terms. She was alone, pissed off and confused.

In fact, the only glimmer of pleasure she could think of as she tramped up the hill to her flat was that ludicrous, extravagant bunch of flowers and Mike’s handwritten message – short, but full of promise.

Just how would he ‘make it up’ to her? she wondered. She pictured Mike’s wry smile and the way his eyes flickered over her. Something about him conjured up images of grand and glittering horizons – sleek cars and endless glamorous parties. Kara let herself imagine a succession of five-star hotel rooms. Silk sheets, camera flashes, champagne and oysters and Mike’s cool hands sliding over her thighs.

By the time she’d reached home, the lit up dreams in Kara’s head were more vivid than the dark rooms of her flat. She dropped her coat on the sofa and saw the pollen on her sleeve again. For the first time in hours, she allowed herself a smile.

6

‘SO, WE HAVE
a deal?’ Mike held the bottle tilted over her glass.

Kara smiled. ‘Sure. Just as long as it’s clear.’

‘Crystal clear.’ Mike poured until the champagne frothed over the rim and spilled down the stem.

‘The contract has nothing to do with you and me. Whatever else we choose to do –’ Mike drew his finger through the condensation on the side of the glass ‘– is a private arrangement. And I can be as discreet as you need me to be.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ Kara said. She had painted her eyes smoky and now she gave Mike the full-beam effect from under sooty lashes. In the dim candlelight of the club, everything glowed with understated elegance. Kara felt as though the glamour had rubbed off on her somehow. From the moment he’d picked her up outside her flat, Mike had been treating her differently – no edge of mocking amusement in his eyes, no condescending tone in his voice. He was as sincere and humble as a Benedictine monk. Only Kara was pretty sure monks didn’t take every opportunity to stroke a girl’s hand or glance at her cleavage.

He’d brought her to his private club – marble floors, silent staff, mysterious doorways – and in the ‘quiet lounge’, presented her with a contract. Kara had barely skimmed it, but she caught sight of enough phrases like ‘video production’, ‘marketing’ and ‘airplay’ to make her mouth water. She tucked the envelope carefully into her leather satchel and smiled.

‘And now we’ve dealt with business,’ Mike said, giving the cuffs of his shirt a little tug, ‘we’re free to amuse ourselves.’

‘In any private way we please,’ Kara said.

‘Quite.’

At that moment, a waiter arrived and refilled their drinks, tilting his head at Mike in deference. Kara smirked. She didn’t doubt that if the man had had a forelock, he would have tugged it. Mike seemed to have that effect on people.

Mike rubbed his chin and gazed at Kara across the table. He’d shaved – whether for the sake of Windigo’s dress code or to try to impress her, she couldn’t tell. He wore a freshly pressed shirt with silver cufflinks and a silk-lined suit that fell in softly tailored lines from his shoulders. Kara felt her spine straighten as she looked at him. Mike was perfectly at ease being waited on. He wore his power lightly, as though the world naturally revolved around him. It gave him a cool magnetism that sent ripples through Kara, more used to the rough-and-ready attitudes of twenty-something boys. Mike was, without doubt, a whole hell of a lot more. And he was completely focused on her.

The silence between them stretched, even after the waiter had left – practically bowing as he backed away from their table. Kara felt the champagne haze wash over her, bubbles dancing through her bloodstream and making her pleasantly dizzy. There was a low-level buzz of anticipation in the air between them. This time though she had a better idea of what to expect. There would be no coy uncertainty; Kara knew an encounter with Mike would be highly charged and unsettling. And she knew that she liked it.

‘I want to know everything,’ Mike said at last. ‘What turns you on, what you dream of late at night, when you’re alone in your bed with your hand jammed between your legs. I want to know the pictures that you see in your head and exactly how you feel when you’re horny.’

His voice was low but clear and Kara automatically huddled closer, looking about warily to see who was sitting near them. It was as though she was sitting in the waltzers and someone had just spun the seats round – she felt the delicious spark and the nervous lurch, her surroundings blurred so that she had to focus on Mike and Mike alone, as though anything else would send her spinning off into space. Her mouth opened but she didn’t know what to say.

‘This isn’t going to be some swift and sordid affair, Kara. I’m not interested in knee-tremblers in the back of a car, even if it is hard to resist the urge. I said I wanted to fuck you thoroughly and I mean it. That means I want to know you. Your body and your fantasies through and through.’ He leaned forwards. ‘Am I shocking you?’

Kara bit her lip. ‘A little.’

‘Good. I like it that you’re shockable.’

‘And what about your tastes and fantasies and yada yada yada? What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I should have thought that was obvious.’ Mike took a cigarette from his breast pocket and twisted it between his fingers. He smiled. ‘I want to drive you mad with desire, of course. But first I want to find out which buttons to push.’

Kara laughed. ‘So what, I should write you a laundry list?’

Mike said nothing, twirling the cigarette between his knuckles.

‘Are you going to smoke that thing, or are you practising for the majorettes?’

‘I gave up.’

‘So why do you have one in your pocket?’

Mike gave her a thin smile. ‘Like I was trying to show you, Kara, anticipation is more than half the pleasure. If you knew that I’d booked a room here, for example, with the serious
intent
of taking you upstairs later and fucking you, you’d start to feel a little … heated.’

Kara swallowed. ‘And have you?’

‘Maybe. But tell me, if I had, what would you imagine?’

‘Uh, you ripping my skirt off and fucking me senseless?’

‘Bullshit.’ Mike shifted in his seat and frowned. ‘Would I be slow and deliberate? Would I be rough? Would I kiss you before I stripped you?’

‘There are people …’ Kara looked urgently over Mike’s shoulder, to where a table of businessmen sat idly chatting.

‘I’m not interested in them. Start here. Start half an hour from now.’

‘I’ll be half cut by then.’

‘You’re sitting in your seat.’

Kara inhaled. ‘OK. I’m sitting in my seat.’

‘Your breasts feel tight. Your nipples are hard. You know what we’re about to do.’

Kara swallowed. The thought of admitting her fantasies to Mike was like standing on the edge of a shark-infested sea, wondering whether they’d bite and how hard. She shut her eyes, took a deep breath and jumped. ‘I’m already wet.’

‘Where?’

‘In between my legs.’ Kara lowered her voice to a whisper. She leaned forwards now, put her arms on the table and shook her fringe over her eyes.

‘Don’t hide behind your hair. You’re wet between your legs.’

‘Yes.’

‘And then what?’

‘You, you take me by the hand and we go upstairs.’ Kara stared at her glass, at the bubbles that clung to the side before tugging free and lifting to the surface. ‘We go slowly.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s hard to walk. I’m so turned on I’m shaky. And you’re feeling me as we go up the stairs.’

‘I slip my hand under your skirt, check how wet you are,’ Mike added. ‘And then we get to the room.’

‘You push me up against the door. I’m trying to open the door, but I can’t find the key because you’re kissing my neck, biting me.’

‘Actually, no.’ Mike’s voice had lowered. In the dull light of the bar his cheekbones were shadowed and his eyes glinted. Waiters and club members moved around them in a low murmur of hushed sound, but Kara felt as though she was connected to Mike with an invisible rope, a line that stretched from her groin and her belly and down through her arms to reach out to him. When he talked, she watched his mouth and felt it on her skin, when he played with the cigarette, she felt him tangle his hands in her hair, tease shivers from her body. ‘I won’t touch you. Not until the door’s closed and you’re standing in the centre of the room, with your hands hanging by your side.’

Mike sat back in his chair, legs splayed. Kara let her gaze fall to his lap, where she could see a tightening of the fabric of his suit – loose as it was, there was a definite outline where his cock pressed against his thigh.