Trust (16 page)

“It’s stupid, it’s crazy,” he said. “I hardly know you.”

All the time, he stood there, arms folded, holding himself rigid, restrained.

Every word a Herculean effort – I could tell that. He was speaking a language that was alien to him, dragging the words from deep within.

He never lets anyone get close.

“You let me believe the worst.” I never let anyone close, either. I fended them off.

“I was protecting you.”

Just then, a woman with two small children walked past, between us, looking apologetic.

When she’d passed out of earshot, I said, “I can look after myself.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. You’ve got fight. I couldn’t risk you wading in. You wouldn’t stand a chance against Putin’s mob. I’ve seen what they do to people.”

“So you drove me away.”

“Because–”

“I know.”

More people passed by then, three teenagers, an old man. This was one of the strangest conversations of my life.

He moved then. Broke the spell that had held us like that: standing, frozen, eyes locked on each other.

Three steps and he was standing toe to toe with me, hands hanging uncertainly at his sides. Standing so close that as he looked down I had to tip my head back to avoid a clash of heads.

So close I could feel his breath on my face; short breaths, nervous breaths.

So close my jacket brushed against his.

I pushed up, just a fraction, as his face came down.

Our lips touched, nervous, as if this was the first time.

Pressed.

I pushed harder, moved a hand to his side just as one of his hands came to my hip, stole round to the small of my back and pulled me hard against him, the first hint of urgency overcoming that odd nervousness.

God, I wanted him so badly then!

It was all I could do to turn my head away, his lips and stubble dragging across my cheek and jaw before he, too, drew back a little.

All I could do to put a hand on his chest, push gently, just enough that he knew to step back, an awkward space suddenly between us again.

I peered up at him. “Why?” I asked. “Why my parents?”

His expression changed. Serious now, as if a decision had been made.

He dipped his head briefly once again, pressed his lips against mine, then stepped back, reached for my hand, turned and led me into the house.

§

The place was understated, nothing too grand or ostentatious. A simple entrance lobby with stairs to one side; doors opening off into ground-floor rooms and passageways. There was clearly far more to this place than had been visible from the front, but it didn’t shout about it.

Dean led me through to a room at the back. Deep leather seats, a period fireplace, leather-bound books behind glass in a cabinet that might have been antique. An abstract oil on the wall, geometric blocks of color and delicate, filigree lines. All very tasteful, all very neutral and anonymous.

Finally releasing my hand, he indicated the sofa. I sat, and he sat in an armchair, forward on the edge of the seat, hands clasped.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You had the right to know, but...”

“The Russians. Putin.”

He nodded.

“What would you have done if I’d told you?” he asked.

I looked down at the polished wooden floor. I don’t know what I’d have done, but I wouldn’t have been able to leave it alone. I knew that, and so did Dean. I didn’t have to answer him.

He reached for me, took my hand between both of his.

He’d been prepared to give me up, to allow me to believe the worst of him, just to keep me safe from the Russians.

“Why?” I asked. “What did my parents ever do to the Russians?”

“They used to run with the Baileys,” said Dean. “That’s all it took.”

“But...”

A slight squeeze of my hand between his. “I know,” he went on. “They got out years ago. Set themselves up in the provinces. Opted for the quiet life. But they stayed in touch. And they had their business interests, the money from the old life. When Putin’s mob started looking to expand again your folks looked like just another part of the business. And they were a soft target. A
statement
target.”

I remembered then what he’d said about old-school hits being all about the statement – the shots to the face to prevent an open-casket funeral. “Taking out my parents... They were just making a
point?
”

He nodded, gave a grim smile.

“It was one of the first signs,” he said. “They were stepping up their game, attacking from the flanks. Nobody was going to be safe. They probably leaned on your folks first of all, tried to muscle them out. But your old man... he wouldn’t have stood for that. He was never one to back down.”

I shook my head, struggling to take it all in.

“My parents,” I said. “Were they still involved in... anything?”

“They were legit,” said Dean. “Straight up. They really had got out from all this. They were just unlucky.”

Unlucky.

I withdrew my hand, hugged myself.

“You can never escape, can you?” I couldn’t remember who’d said that. Maybe Dean, maybe the police officer, Reuben. There was no getting out of this life. For the Baileys, for my parents... maybe for any of us, given how easily I’d been sucked into the thick of it all.

I looked at him. Scared, defiant, angry.

Remembered what he’d said to me out on the street.

Because I think I love you. It’s stupid, it’s crazy. I hardly know you.

He was studying me closely. Trying to read me.

“I think...” I said, pausing to suck in a deep breath. “I think I need you to hold me now.”

§

He held me.

He slid forward out of that armchair, onto his knees before me, spread his arms so that I simply had to move forward myself, slide off the edge of the sofa. Kneeling on the hard floor, our thighs pressing, my breasts squashed against his chest, his arms around me. That strength I’d been craving. That sense of being enfolded.

I pressed my face against his shoulder, turned away so that he breathed hot into the back of my head, his lips against my scalp, pressing, kissing – a strangely intimate thing, as he moved down to the sensitive skin at the top of my neck.

My arms had come to rest around his waist, but now, growing confident, I let one hand slip down to cup his tight ass. The muscles were hard, tight; the bulge in my hand, the dip in the middle where my thumb lay.

He pressed against me, holding me tight, and I felt his manhood growing hard between us.

I gave a slight roll of the hips and he gasped.

I moved my head, turning towards him, meeting his kiss. More hunger now, more passion. More urgent, almost brutal, need.

He put a hand to my chin, thumb along one jaw, fingers along the other and across my neck. Holding and steering. Gripping so tight it hurt. Kissing me hard and deep.

He slipped a hand inside my jacket, pulled and pushed at it until it slid back across my shoulders and I pulled it free.

Pulled roughly at my borrowed black t-shirt. Hands on the bare skin of my waist, my back, moving up and taking the shirt with them, sliding it up over my head, my up-raised arms.

His face came down to press between my breasts and I stayed like that, spine arched backwards, arms raised, lifting my breasts against him.

Still rough, he unclipped my bra, pushed it up, clear, and found a nipple with his hungry mouth. Sucked it in deep and hard, sending stabs of intense sensation running through me. Flicked the tip with his tongue, cupping that breast with one hand while the other moved down to grip my ass tight, squeezing and kneading.

So many sensations! The scrape of stubble on the soft skin of my breast, the sharpness of his teeth on the nipple, the rapid butterfly flicker of his tongue; the way he worked my ass, the pull of my clothes; that sudden feeling of release as I grew wet for him; a tightness forming in my belly.

Taking so much of his weight against me as I kneeled was starting to hurt, a burning sensation in my thighs. I leaned back against the sofa, managed to uncoil one leg, then the other, and now when he bore down on me one thigh pressed between mine.

He moved his head up, kissed me roughly again.

There was no art to this, no finesse. None of the sensitivity of the night before. This was a force of nature thing, a dam bursting.

He pulled at my jeans, opening them, dragging them halfway down my thighs and then pausing to pull at my trainers.

The floor was hard against my bare flesh, my back hurting from the awkward angle.

I moved to lie flat on the floorboards and he tugged my jeans clear, instantly reaching for his own waistband and freeing the buttons, the zipper. Hooking thumbs inside to pull his clothes down around his own thighs.

His manhood sprang clear, long and hard, the exposed head shining a fierce, wet purple.

He dropped to his knees between my legs, and I felt that hard shaft slam down on my belly, the base against my soft, wet mound.

It was all so fast!

Only moments before, we’d been sitting facing each other, not even touching, and now he was on me, drawing himself back, that swollen purple head sliding through the wet folds of my sex until it found the opening.

He pushed.

A single, sharp thrust, and he was inside me, half of his length.

Another, and I was fully impaled on him, clinging to him, my body swamped with the sensations of being so full.

My legs were raised, curled around his thighs, ankles locked as if to hold him there. My arms were around his ribcage, hanging on – inside the jacket he still wore.

He held himself deep inside me for a second, another, then slowly drew back until he was almost fully withdrawn before thrusting again, just one push this time to bury himself deep, his body slamming against me, making me cry out.

My head against the floorboards hurt. I might have banged it, I couldn’t tell. Or it may simply have been the way I arched my spine, grinding my skull back against the ground.

He drew back and thrust again.

Again.

With each thrust I felt that tension in my belly tightening, twisting, but I knew that just then my responses were nothing to him. He was totally lost in the moment, in the sensations, in the
need
.

He was using me. Enjoying me.
Taking
me.

Last night... I’d never known anything like last night.

But now.

This.

I’d never been had like this.

Never felt so used, and never until now understood just how much of a turn-on that could be.

Something like this, it could never last for long.

I sensed the change in him, the lengthening of those thrusts, the harder impacts as he slammed against me, deep inside me. Sensed the rapidity of his breathing intensifying.

Another thrust, and he threw his head back like some kind of animal.

Another and he cried out.

Another and all of a sudden he held himself there, deep inside me, and I could feel the intense throbbing of his member inside me, filling me. Pulsing.

He ground against me and I pressed up, gave that little roll of the hips again and saw his eyes widening, almost as if in surprise, and then that sudden upwelling inside me, the wet heat of his orgasm filling me in a big surge, a thrust, and then another wave of orgasm took him.

Another, and he slumped against me, and I knew he was done, it was over.

Except it wasn’t.

For a few seconds he lay there, starting to grow soft inside me.

Then he raised himself onto his elbows, lifted his head, met my look. Raised his eyebrows slightly and... pressed.

All the sensations were different now, as his spent erection ebbed inside me. Slick and wet where our bodies joined, the grind of his pubic bone against me was newly intense. Every slight movement sent pulses of sensation racing through my body, and now everything was about
me
.

He seemed aware of every response, able to anticipate how a push, a twist, a roll from side to side, would affect me.

I bit my lower lip, hard. Pushed up against him. Felt a pulse deep within – him or me, I couldn’t tell, the boundary between us had become unclear.

Felt a tightening.

Something building.

I drew my knees up, my legs locked around him, trapping him against me.

Felt the muscles in my belly contracting, my pussy tightening, and then I was bucking up against him, groaning and gasping, clinging on as if my orgasm might somehow tear us apart.

Holding on, my breathing ragged, then stalling.

A whole-body thing, almost frightening in its intensity.

Finally... finally, I remembered to breathe again, made myself ease my grip on him, slumped back against those hard floorboards.

Gently, Dean disentangled himself from me, kneeled, reached for me to help me sit. Eased me onto the sofa, where I settled into his embrace, his arms coiled around me, strong and secure, and for a short time nothing else mattered in the world as he held me.

§

Some time later, I tipped my head up and looked at him.

“So...” I said. “What are we going to do? About the Russians. You’re planning something, I can tell.”

He opened his mouth, but then closed it again without speaking.

He was doing that thing again, trying to read me. Trying to work out how much he could get away without telling me.

I was getting to know him well.

“I can’t say,” he eventually said.

“That the best you can manage? I know you’re planning something.”

“There’s too much at stake. Jesus, girl, I’m trying to
protect
you!”

“I don’t need protection.”

He shook his head. “No. Sorry, but no. There’s too much going on. Too many things that could go wrong.”

“Then trust me, Dean. Tell me what you’re planning. Trust me with the truth.”

The first Dean knew she hadn’t gone was the message from Lee.

Your birds come to see me. Doesn’t let up does she? If u don’t want her can I has??

What was she playing at, going to see Lee at the clinic?

He’d been right not to trust her with the truth, to let her think it was the Baileys who were responsible for all her grief. If she’d known to blame the Russians it’d be Putin she was visiting now, not Lee, and that didn’t bear thinking about.