Authors: Lesley Jones
Fuck.
She thinks this happened yesterday, no wonder she’s trying to fucking kill me.
I shake my head. “It happened last year, Kitten. It didn’t happen yesterday. It was when I was coming back from Sydney last time, not this time.”
She frowns and looks totally confused. “What?”
“When we left Sydney before Christmas. We spent the night in the hotel together. I was horny as fuck, then your psycho family showed up, everything went to shit and you fucked off in a taxi and left me.” She looks frail as she stands in front of me. My sweatshirt hanging from her skinny frame. I’d told her to eat properly while I was away, but I can see she hasn’t. Her face is tearstained. Her hair is sticking out at all angles and she looks just beautiful. She takes a few deep breaths and looks up at the ceiling.
“I got to the airport,” I continue explaining as I rake my hand through my hair and lick the corner of my lip. It’s bleeding again. “It was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it and I should’ve told you sooner, but I didn’t. I was horny and pissed off. She offered. I fucked her mouth till I came and then I walked away. I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t touch. I didn’t even ask her name.”
“Lynsey Hayward,” she says, her voice husky from all the crying and screaming. Once again, my cock twitches beneath the towel which has miraculously remained around my hips.
“Whatever.” I shrug and shake my head. Who gives a fuck what her name is? “And now, six months later, it’s all come back to bite me on the arse and cause all this trouble, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” I take a step towards her, but she takes a step back and that pisses me off.
“Come here.” I know she won’t. She doesn’t do fuck all I tell her. She shakes her head.
“Kitten, I love the fuck out of you. I’ve not seen you for ten days. Now stop being so angry and come the fuck here.” She shakes her head again, but at least she’s looking at me now.
With her hands on her hips, she gives that defiant Kitten look, the one I love and hate all at the same time. A wave of emotions rush through me. I want to hold her, love her and stroke her gently, but at the same time I want to put her over my knee and smack her arse till it’s raw, then fuck her into next week.
“You want me, you come here.” I’m in front of her in two strides. I pull my hoodie up and over her head and pull her naked body into mine and breathe her in.
“I’ve missed you so much. I was so fucking scared, Kitten. I had no idea about any of this until I got off the plane, and when no one could get you on the phone, or knew where you were… fuck. I’ve never felt panic like it.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot I put my phone on silent. I had a shower and was going to phone Mum or Jim or someone to let them know where I was, but I must’ve fallen asleep. Please don’t be angry with me,” she says into my chest. I close my eyes.
“Angry? I’m not angry, Kitten. I wanna fuck the living daylights out of ya, not beat ya. I wanna kiss and lick every square inch of ya. I wanna worship ya inside and out so you understand how sorry I am and exactly what you mean to me.”
She kisses the corner of my mouth where it’s cut. “I split your lip.”
I shake my head. “No, Benny split my lip. You just opened it up again.”
“How the fuck did Benny split your lip?” I look down at her. It’s pointless telling her not to swear so I don’t even bother.
“He smacked me in the mouth.”
“Why?”
I shrug and let out a long breath. “Coz apparently I’m a selfish prick.”
She smiles. “Good for Benny.”
“Oh, cheers.”
“You’re welcome.”
We stare at each other silently for a while, until I can’t wait any more. “I need to be inside you.”
She nods her head. “I need you to be inside me.”
I walk her backwards towards the bed, and as the backs of her knees hit the mattress, I lower her down, then swing her legs around. I drop the towel from my hips and climb onto the bed and position myself over her.
“I had such big plans for tonight, Kitten, but now I’m just gonna fuck ya. No ifs, no buts, no foreplay, just fuck.” I look down at her. “Don’t ever doubt me again.” She closes her eyes for a few seconds.
“I should’ve waited till I had all the facts. I’m sorry. You’d think I would’ve learnt by now.” She lets out a deep sigh.
“Shush, let’s fuck. We’ll talk after.” She smiles at me and my heart bounces about all over the fucking show inside my chest.
“Yeah, let’s fuck,” she says. I’m hard and desperate as I slide inside her. She feels wet and warm. She feels like Kitten. She feels like home.
Georgia
I lay wrapped in Cam’s big strong arms in the middle of our big bed at the Wharf apartment. My head rests on his shoulder as I reach up and touch the four ugly claw marks on his left cheek. The marks I left. Marks caused by me and my temper. By me reacting before I’d gotten all the facts.
When I showered earlier, I was thinking I was going to sit down and talk to him about these allegations calmly, because in my head, I’m someone who can do that. In reality, however, this wave of anger just washes over me and it’s like I have no control. I just want to break something… Or someone. I study the red marks down to where they disappear into his beard. The beard he grew for me.
“I like your beard.” He looks down and gives me a small smile, and despite the epic fuck session we’ve just spent the last couple of hours having, he still looks a little pissed off.
“I grew it for you.” Now I feel even worse. “I know how much you hate it when it’s stubbly, so I thought if I didn’t shave the whole time I was away, it should be past that stage by the time I got home.” I’m about to say thanks for thinking of me when he continues, “Good job I grew it really. Lessened the blow of your right hook and saved my cheek from being clawed through down to the bone by your nails.” I tilt my head back slightly so I can look at him.
“If you didn’t stick your dick in random women’s mouths, none of this would’ve happened.”
He shakes his head at me. “If you hadn’t have jumped into a taxi and performed your usual running away trick instead of staying and listening to what I had to say in Sydney, then I would’ve been sticking my dick in your mouth and not some random woman’s.”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to argue. I’m exhausted. The last thing I want to do is argue with the man I love. The man I’ve missed so much.
“Why’d you go running to him?”
“What?” I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t run to anyone.
“You got Benny to drop you off at
his
old place. Why’d you go there?” I reach up and touch his face.
“It was the only place I could think of where I could be alone. I didn’t stay though.” I brush my thumb over his split and swollen lip. “As soon as I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, I knew it was wrong. I… It felt disrespectful to both of you. I shouldn’t have gone there. I’m sorry.” He strokes the back of my arm with his fingertips.
“It hurt. When I heard that’s where you’d gone, it hurt.”
I’m an emotional mess tonight and my voice trembles as I try to explain. “I didn’t go there to be closer to him. I don’t have to go there for that. I went there because it was the only place where I thought I might stand a chance of being left alone. Like I said, the press were waiting at our house and I thought they would be waiting here, too.” I shrug slightly. “I always carry the security swipes and keys for the loft on me, so I just thought I would go there, calm down and give myself time to think, but as soon as I stepped inside the front door, I knew it was wrong.” I feel his chest move as he seems to take in a deep breath.
“Benny’s right,” he says and kisses the top of my head.
“About what?” I ask and look back up at him.
“I am a prick. He’s dead. I’m alive, but I still get jealous.” It hurts my heart to hear those words, for more than one reason.
“You don’t need to be jealous, Cam.” He rubs his hand over his beard and shrugs.
“But I am.” I sit up in the middle of the bed and lean across to turn on the lamp, the one on the side that Cam sleeps, not the one I tried to use as a weapon earlier.
Cam sits up and leans his back against the headboard. We have been lying on the bare mattress with no pillows, just the duvet over us.
“Why are you jealous? I love you. You must know that.” His tongue flicks out and over the split in his lip, and despite the sex we’ve just had, my insides are clenching again right now as I watch his tongue in action. “Cam, do you understand? Do you realise what you mean to me?”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds. “But he meant more.”
Blood rushes through my ears making a whooshing sound, and my heart rate accelerates. All caused by the frustration I feel at the inadequacy of my explanation. I’ve spent hours going over this in my own head and I still don’t have an answer, other than I have spent most of my life being in love with two men.
“His name’s Sean, Cam. Please don’t keep saying ‘him’. If you died, would you like me to refer to you like that?”
He shrugs. “Now you’re defending him.”
I raise my eyebrows as I look at him. “Now you’re being childish.”
He nods. “Yeah, I probably am, but I’m also being honest, and that’s just how I feel.” I don’t know how to answer. “You love him,” he states.
“Of course I love him. I’ll always love him, but that doesn’t take away from what I feel for you. If you died, would you want me to just stop loving you?” He raises his eyebrows.
“That’s twice you’ve mentioned me dying in the past five minutes, Kitten.”
Anger starts to bubble in my chest. “I’m just trying to explain how it is. I’ve never lied to you about my feelings for Sean, never, not even when we first met. Where’s all this coming from?”
He rakes his hand through his hair, shrugs, then sighs, “I don’t know, Kitten. Like I said, I’m a prick.”
I straddle his lap and wrap my arms around his neck. “Well, I love you, regardless.” He pulls his knees up and I lean back on them.
“Yeah, but as you clearly demonstrated earlier, you are a complete and utter raving lunatic. What the fuck were you trying to do to the sheets?” God, did I really do all of that? I cover my burning cheeks with the palms of my hands. “You’ve got some serious issues, Kitten. You do realise that, don’t you?” I nod my head.
“I’m so sorry for attacking you. That was wrong. I just… I’m a passionate person. What can I say?” I talk through my hands, which are still covering my face.
Cam peels them away and looks at me. “These babies of ours…” Heat instantly spreads from my heart to every fibre, every atom and molecule I’m made up from as he says those words. “They’re gonna be one crazy bunch of little fuckers if they take after us.” He kisses me gently on the mouth as a tear plops from my lashes onto my cheek.
“But we’ll love the fuck outa them, regardless,” I say to him quietly.
He shakes his head slightly. “Yes, we will,” he says.
“So much,” I add, “so fucking much.” I’m adding the F word just to get a reaction.
“Kitten, when the babies arrive, I hope you’ll rein in that mouth of yours and I’m gonna tell Ash that she needs to watch her mouth while she’s carrying them too.”
I laugh. “Yeah, good luck with that.” We look at each other again. I know that we’re probably both thinking the same thing, but he won’t say it in case he upsets me.
“What if it doesn’t work? What if we end up with no babies?” He wraps his arms around me tighter.
“Then we’ll just grow old, loving the fuck out of each other,” he says into my hair.
“You’re already old,” I tell him.
He has me flat on my back, in the middle of the bed in an instant. He looks up at me with my nipple in his mouth and bites down on it just a little too hard.
“Ow,” I protest. He releases it and kisses through my cleavage, up my throat to my mouth and looks me in the eye.
“This has been one totally fucked-up day.”
I nod and shrug. “We live a bit of a crazy, fucked-up life, but as long as I have you in it, I can deal.” He kisses my nose. “Go and pick the killer ninja pillows up from the floor, turn off the one lamp we still have working, and let’s get some sleep. I’m exhausted.” I smile and do as he says.
Curling into him once we’re settled in our bed, Cam’s snoring within seconds, the jet lag getting the better of him. I kiss his belly and close my eyes, drifting off to sleep while thinking about what a random night that was and how we both seem to have admitted to our biggest fears. I’m scared that one day he’ll leave me because of how I treated him in the past. He’s jealous of Sean and we’re both worried about the pregnancy tests happening on Monday.
I hate early mornings. I need at least two coffees inside me before I can be civil, hold any kind of conversation or retain any information.
I’ve only had time for one coffee so far this morning so Cam knows better than to try and say too much to me, plus he knows how nervous I am.
We shower and get ready, moving around each other and sharing the same space the way that only a couple who have been together a while can. Every now and then, Cam kisses or touches me as he passes me by, all without saying a word. Every touch, every brush of his lips, ignites, calms and reassures me, all at once.
As I stand and put my mascara on, I think about how far we’ve come in such a short time. How lucky I am to have been given this second chance. Nothing about us is conventional. Cameron is the man that I adulterously fucked, but refused to leave my now dead husband for. Cam has just had a baby with another woman, and the pair of us will find out today if we’ve managed to create a pregnancy to start our own family using IVF and my two best friends as surrogates. Added to this mix, we seem to have the eyes of the world on us, waiting, begging almost, for us to fuck up so they make a story out of it.
We’ve spent the entire weekend hidden away at the Docklands apartment. The Sunday papers did their worst with the story of Cam and his airport blow job. Ben had bought all the papers carrying the story and had brought them up to us yesterday. The woman involved had had her five minutes of fame and had probably made herself a few quid, but I was pretty sure now that people had realised this was old news and was something that had happened before Cam and I were together, people would just lose interest.
She was quite attractive, in a harsh kind of way, pale skin, black hair. Cam had said all he could remember was she looked like Morticia Adams and her red lipstick had been smeared all over her face when he left her on her knees in the toilet. Regardless, I’d had to have a look at her myself. I’m not sure if it’s morbid curiosity or just part of being a female; we tend to like torturing ourselves over this kind of thing. Or was that just me?
The papers had run with the story now as I was in the news because of Sean’s charity event. They had no idea Cam was actually just leaving Sydney as this story broke and the implications of the timing.
I had spoken to my family over the weekend and assured them I was okay and told my brothers that they needed to stay out of it. The whole thing took place before Cam and I were together; therefore, it didn’t involve them. I knew they’d all have something to say about it, regardless.
I make my way downstairs and make Cam and I another coffee using our travel mugs. We need to get going to Jimmie’s house. Today is the day of the ‘piss on the stick’ party, as Lennon had so eloquently put it. The kids are being dropped at school and playgroup, and then we are all meeting at Jim and Lennon’s house so we can all hear the news together. Ash and Jimmie injected themselves with drugs so their periods and most fertile times were synchronised and they could have the embryos implanted at the same time, and today we will find out if either of them are pregnant.
Sick, apprehensive, nervous, anxious, none of these words actually come anywhere near to describing how I am feeling right now.
I lean against the kitchen island and sip on my coffee, waiting for Cam to come downstairs. His phone had rung as I was leaving the bedroom and as he mak
es his way down the stairs I am assuming from his tone that it’s Tamara and not work related.
She has driven me fucking insane the entire weekend. Her calls and texts were relentless. I think she really and truly believed this blow job story would split us up, and she was obviously feeling devastated it hadn’t.
Cam had gone to visit Harry, Saturday morning and had spent a couple of hours with him. Tamara had spent that time texting me, describing in quite explicit and graphic detail the various sexual positions Cam was fucking her in. I called Cam and read out the messages as they were coming through. He was, at that point, walking Harry in his pushchair around the grounds of the facility while Tamara had stayed in her room, complaining of a headache. She’d continued with her texts, telling me about the great love her and Cam shared and how he would soon be leaving me. She had no idea about the IVF and the surrogacy, and I wonder how she’s going to react when she hears the news.
On Sunday, when she wasn’t texting me, she was calling Cam. We had both ended up putting our phones on silent and ignoring her. Cam still had the vibrate function working on his phone just in case there were any work or Harry related problems, so when his phone began to vibrate while he had his head buried between my legs, his big wide tongue doing delicious things to my clit and two of his fingers curled inside me, expertly pressing against my G Spot, I couldn’t help myself from answering with a breathy, “Ahhh, God, Yessss,” when I saw that it was
her
calling.
“Cam?” she asked.
“No, ahhhh, yessss, nooo, sorry, nooo,” I replied.
“Who is this? I wish to speak to Cameron.”
“Tiger, oh, God, oh, God, yesss, right there, just like that. Sorry, Cam can’t come to the phone right now. He has his mouth full,” I left a pause of a few seconds, “full of my cunt. Cam’s mouth is full of the three C’s, Tamara, cunt, clit and cum, and just like him, they’re all mine. Now fuck off and leave us alone.” I ended the call and looked down at Cam looking up at me.
“What?” I asked. He wiped his wet whiskers with the back of his hand, then licked it. “Fuck,” I panted the word more than said it, and my hips involuntarily bucked forward. “You nearly made me come without even touching me.”
He winked, shrugged and said, “You wouldn’t be the first, Kitten.”
I smile, thinking about all of this as he walks down the stairs now, still holding the phone to his ear.
I pass him a coffee and he kisses me full on the mouth, flicking his tongue inside and grinding his hips into mine as he does.
“Fuck, Tiger, you hard again?” I ask, loud enough for the
bitch
to hear me.
“Always around you, Kitten, always.” We’d fucked in bed this morning. Then I’d sucked him dry in the shower, just an hour ago. The man’s a machine.
He steps away and takes a sip of his coffee. Then says into his phone, “Tamara, you’re getting on my last fucking nerve now. You’re seriously worrying about Georgia swearing around the baby when you’re the one who smoked heroin while he was inside you. Now please, fuck off and leave me alone. I’ll ring the doctor now and ask him to come and check Harry’s temperature.” He ends the call and puts his phone in his pocket, then just stands and stares at me for a few seconds.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He shrugs. “She reckons the baby’s running a temperature and the nurses don’t seem interested.” My belly sinks. I always knew we would end up with a situation like this one day, and here it is. “Do you want to head over there and check that everything’s okay?” He bites down on the inside of his bottom lip.
“I’ll ring, talk to whoever’s in charge and see what they say. You know what she’s like.”
I nod. “Yeah, a complete psycho bitch cunt.” He raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth to say something, but I point my finger at him. “Don’t even think about telling me not to swear. She makes me swear. If you want me to stop swearing, just don’t ever mention that woman again.” He looks at me, a little defeated, and I feel bad for making him think that I would actually make him choose.
He pulls his phone back out and heads off towards his office to make the call just as the intercom buzzes. I hear Benny’s voice, letting Cam know that he’s here, and Cam tells him to wait five minutes.
Ten minutes later, Cam comes into the kitchen and I know as soon as his eyes meet mine that he’s not coming with me. I try and hide the disappointment from my face and probably fail miserably.
“The doctor says he has a bit of a temperature. Nothing to worry about and he’ll call me if there’s any problems.” His shoulders are slumped and I know he feels torn. “We better go. Ben’s downstairs waiting.” I follow him out to the lift and we travel down to the car in silence and then I can’t hold it in any more.
“Cam, call Scott, ask him to come and get me. You go with Ben and make sure Harry’s doing okay.” Relief washes over his face for a split second, but then he frowns and says, “No, he’s fine. I want to be with you.” I shake my head, step towards him and wrap my arms around his neck.
“I’ll put you on speaker phone once the tests are done and you can come and find me later at Len’s office, once we know the results.” I kiss him gently on the mouth. “Now please, for me, go be with your son.” He sighs and looks around him in frustration.
“If we had both cars here, I would’ve shot over there earlier.”
“Just go, Cam. Honestly, I’ll be fine.”
He shakes his head. “No, you go with Ben. I’ll get Scott to bring the Mas and take me.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me into his chest. It’s a warm day and I’m wearing a little white summer dress and ballet flats and I feel small next to him. He kisses my neck and says quietly into my ear, “I wish it wasn’t like this, Kitten.” I pull back and look up at him.
“Me too, Tiger, but we’re tough. We’ll get through it.” He kisses me on the mouth, gently at first, but then we get our sexy on and his tongue is in my mouth, his hand starts sliding up my dress.
“Yeah, that’s enough, children. Paps, the general public, Benny and CCTV cameras around,” Benny calls out. I pull away from Cam.
“I need to go. Call me, or I’ll call you.” I kiss him one last time and he stands with his hands in his pockets, looking a little lost as we pull away.
I have a lump in my throat the size of China, so I say nothing as Benny chats about the footballers taking part in the charity match for Sean’s memorial. He must notice my lack of response and says, “I don’t know exactly what you’ve got goin’ on over at your brother’s gaff, George, but Cam obviously wanted to be with ya. He looked like he was really struggling back there.”
Benny knows about the IVF, but he obviously hasn’t realised that we find out the results today. “We find out if Ash or Jimmie are pregnant today,” I tell him. He keeps his eyes on the road and nods his head slowly, then his mouth drops open.
“Ah, the piss on a stick party, gotcha.” He remains silent for a few minutes. “That was a very unselfish thing you did back there then, George. The Georgia I met ten years ago wouldn’t have done that.”
I look across at him. “It was twelve years ago, Ben, and I was only twenty then.”
He nods. “Twenty and a spoilt, selfish princess.”
It’s my turn to nod. “Some might say I still am.” Ronan Keating’s “If Tomorrow Never Comes” starts playing on the radio, and I change the station. That song makes my chest feel tight. I’m pretty good most of the time, but I just can’t face that one this morning. The station I land on is playing ads so I switch it again and land on my husband’s voice, belting out “With You”. My arms suddenly feel like lead weights and I don’t seem to be able to move them and change the station. I know I have tears rolling down my cheeks, but I do nothing to stop them. I turn and look at Benny.
“D’ya think he’s trying to tell me something, Ben?”
He keeps staring straight ahead and says, matter-of-factly, “Only that he’s here with ya, George.”
I nod and let out a sob. “D’ya think he is, Ben?”
“Of course he is, George. He’ll be around whenever you need him to be.” I wipe my nose on the back of my hand in a way that would earn me a slap from Mum and just as Sean’s voice fades away, “Wherever you will go” by The Calling starts playing and Ben turns and winks at me.
“See, when I’m right, I’m right, George.”
* * *
Marley is sitting out the front of Jim and Lennon’s house when Benny drops me off after giving me a big cuddle and wishing me luck. I don’t need him to hang about, I’ll get a lift to Len’s office from one of my brothers.
I stand on the drive looking at my brother sitting on the bench beside the front door. It’s eight thirty in the morning and Marley’s sipping on what look
s like bourbon, he tilts the glass towards me.
“Little sister Georgia.” I walk over to the bench and sit down next to him.
“Big brother Marley, little early ain’t it?” His arm is resting along the back of the chair and he drapes it over my shoulder and kisses the top of my head.
“It’s bourbon o’clock somewhere in the world, G.” I turn and study his face. He’s very good looking, my brother Marley, all my brothers are handsome but in different ways. Bails has that typical East End villain look about him, especially now that he shaves his head. There’s something a little bit rough and dangerous looking about him. Lennon looks like he’s just stepped off a catwalk or the cover of a magazine, very smooth and loves a designer suit, even on his days off, and Marley, my big brother Marley, has that dark and brooding rock star look about him. His hair is short and spikey and he has tattoos all over his arms, neck and body. All very different, but with the same dark eyes, and all very handsome, but at the end of the day, they’re just my big brothers and my best friends.
“What’s up, Marls? Why ya drinking bourbon this early in the day? You all right?” He lets out a long sigh and I lean away from him so I can see his face.