Текст книги "Wounded Beast"

Автор книги: Georgia Le Carre

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

SEVENTEEN

After they’ve eaten, I clean Tommy’s face and hands, pick him up, and, with Liliana following behind, carry him to the spare room. It’s a surprise to see it done up colorfully with two cots in it. They must stay with Shane often.

I put Tommy on his back on the table with the plastic mat spread on its surface.

Liliana wrinkles her nose. ‘Tommy stinks.’

‘You bet he does.’

There’s a pile of nappies, and I take one and unfold it, and place it on the table. I undo the straps on the sides of Tommy’s diaper and lift the front flap away from his tummy. The sight and stench of the kid’s shit just makes me want to gag. I mean, seriously gag. I actually start to retch. And I would have been sick too if I’d not very quickly re-closed the diaper and taped it back on.

‘That’s not how you change it,’ Liliana says.

‘I know that,’ I say, turning my head to the side and taking deep breaths of clean air. I pick up my phone and dial Ella’s number.

She answers on the third ring. ‘Hey, sexy,’ she breathes into the phone.

Not feeling sexy right now. ‘How do you feel about changing a very smelly diaper?’

‘Um … Is this a trick question?’

‘No.’

‘It sounds like one.’

‘Look, I need to change a diaper, and I can’t get past the gag reflex.’

She begins to chuckle. ‘I’ll be right over. Where are you?’

‘I’m at Shane’s apartment. I’ll text you the address.’

My phone rings again. It’s Lily. Oh fuck! ‘Hey, Lily,’ I say too brightly.

‘Hey, Dom. Shane called to tell us you’ve taken over. How’s it going?’ she asks casually, but I can hear the thread of panic in her voice.

‘Great.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ I insist confidently.

‘Er … Can I speak to my daughter, please?’

‘Sure,’ I say, and, looking at Liliana, put my finger on my lips to warn her not to say anything about the ice cream.

She nods conspiratorially. I smile at her approvingly and show her the thumbs-up signal.

She takes the phone, listens for a moment, then says, ‘Yeah, but Uncle Dom gave us ice cream. Tommy had some, but I didn’t have any.’

I stare at the little lying rat in shock. What a bare-faced liar! She drops me in the shit and saves her own skin. Even I wouldn’t have lied like that at her age. Hell, her belly is still stuffed full of undigested ice cream.

‘And, Mummy’—she looks up at me before continuing sanctimoniously—‘Tommy’s diaper is full of poop, but Uncle Dom doesn’t know how to change nappies. He called someone to come and help him.’ She listens for a bit more then she says, ‘Nope. Nope. OK, Mummy. I love you too, too much too.’ The little minx then hands the phone back to me. ‘Mummy wants to speak to you.’

I bet she fucking does. You little rat, you. I glare at her as I snatch the phone from her.

‘Hi, Lily.’

‘Is Ella coming round, Dom?’ Lily asks crisply.

Bloody hell. She’s sharp. ‘Yeah,’ I admit.

‘Oh! Good … er … when?’

‘Fifteen minutes tops.’

‘That’s fine, then. We’ll be back in an hour’s time. Is that OK?’

‘Yeah, that’s just fantastic.’

‘See you later. Oh, and, Dom … Don’t give my daughter any more ice cream,’ she says, and I can fucking hear the laughter in her voice.

‘Not a drop,’ I say, and kill the call.

‘Is my Mummy mad at you?’ Liliana asks innocently.

Un-fucking-believable. ‘What do you think, you little troublemaker, you?’ I ask as my phone goes again. I glance down. It’s Layla. I groan. Now what?

‘Hey, Layla.’

‘Dom, where’s my son right now?’

I turn around to where I saw him last, and to my horror he is nowhere to be seen. I feel a flash of panic. The flat is eerily silent.

‘Oh fuck,’ I curse.

Layla’s voice is deliberately calm. ‘He’ll be in the kitchen, Dom.’ I start running toward the kitchen. Layla is right. He is. He’s sitting by the bowl of cat food. And … Oh! Damn! He’s fucking scooping up handfuls and eating it.

‘I found him,’ I say, lifting him up with my other hand.

‘What’s he doing?’ Layla asks.

‘Nothing,’ I say, as I stuff him into the highchair.

‘What did you call for, Layla?’ I ask, while I try to hook pieces of cat biscuit out of Tommy’s mouth.

‘Just to tell you to put the cat bowl up where Tommy can’t reach it.’

‘Yeah. I’ll definitely do that.’

‘Call me if you’re unclear about anything, OK?’

‘Right, will do.’

‘Bye.’

I press the disconnect button and throw my phone on the table. Jesus, kids and their crap. How do people put up with this shit? I clean his mouth out while he tries his best to swallow the brown mush down. I wipe his hands.

‘Uncle Shane doesn’t allow Tommy in the kitchen because he likes eating the cat’s food,’ Little Miss Perfect says.

‘Yeah?’ I have a new respect for Shane. I had no idea kids were such a handful.

‘You have to watch him or he’ll drink out of the toilet, too,’ Liliana chirps, nodding her head sagely.

I turn to look at her. She’s enjoying this. Well, she’s not going to win. A fighter can’t be afraid of anything.

I pick up the cat bowl from the floor and put it on the counter. Then I lift Tommy up and stalk into the living room. The truth is, I feel quite distraught. I don’t know if cat food will make the kid sick. I put him on the floor. I want to Google the effects of eating cat food, and I realize my phone is still in the kitchen. I go to get it, and come back to find Liliana standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips.

‘Tommy is sucking the cat’s tail,’ she announces in what can only be described as a passive-aggressive tone.

‘What the hell?’ I turn to look at Tommy, and indeed he’s sucking on its tail. I run to him, pick him up, and try to shoo the cat away, but it hisses at me and refuses to move. I drop Tommy onto the sofa. There’s a toy train on the table and I give it to him. He takes it with a squeal of delight. How much longer before Ella gets here? I really can’t handle this for many more minutes. I run my hands through my hair.

‘I’m bored,’ Liliana says.

I rub my hands together with fake enthusiasm. ‘So, what shall we do until Aunty Ella comes, huh?’

Liliana shrugs. ‘Shall we play hide and seek?’

‘Nope. Let’s not do that. How about we watch some TV?’

‘OK,’ she says agreeably.

‘Lee Jaw,’ Tommy says.

‘What?’

‘Little Lucien,’ Liliana translates.

I switch on the TV, find the video, and press play. Both kids settle on the floor. The doorbell goes. Oh! Thank God. I rush to open the door and by God Ella is a sight for sore eyes.

‘Hey, sexy,’ I say looking her up and down. To my horror, I see Tommy shoot out of the front door past my legs. Honestly, I’m way too shocked to do anything, but Ella catches him by the scruff of his T-shirt.

She smiles at me. ‘When they run away from you, they’re not really running away. They just want to be caught.’

‘Oh, boy, am I glad to see you.’

I pull her in and close the door. ‘Listen, Ella. Tommy ate a bit of cat food before I could get to him.’

To my relief she grins. ‘It won’t hurt him. Most things won’t. Kids are made to be as tough as old boots. To ensure the survival of the human race and all that.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. My brother took a dead cockroach from the mouth of a cat and ate it. My mother never recovered, but he was perfectly fine.’

I sigh with relief. ‘Christ was tested in the desert by Satan. I’ve been tested by my nephew.’

EIGHTEEN

I walk into the kitchen and catch Dom on his hands and knees wiping a wet sponge on the floor in circles, an action that is only serving to smear melted ice cream all over the floor. I stand there looking at him, at his endearing helplessness, and falling in love all over again. I don’t know how grating an undomesticated male can eventually become, but right now, it’s like watching puppies fall asleep on the lip of their food bowls. Cute, cute, cute.

He looks up, sees me, and sudden panic flares in his eyes.

‘Where’s Tommy?’ he asks urgently.

‘Relax. He’s inside his playpen with a bottle of milk.’

I hear him exhale with relief.

‘And Little Miss Perfect?’

I bite back a smile. ‘Watching a cartoon.’

‘Is it normal for a three-year-old kid to talk like her?’

‘She is a bit precocious, but kids nowadays are more advanced than we were.’

‘Right,’ he mutters.

I smile at him.

‘Thank you,’ he says.

I start walking toward him. ‘Need some help?’

‘Nah, I think I’ve nearly got it all,’ he says, looking down at the mess.

I go over to the cupboard under the sink, and, opening it, find some cloths and a bottle of floor cleaner. I find a bowl and fill it from the hot water tap. I squirt a little cleaner into the bowl and walk over to him. I take the sponge out of his hand and replace it with a wet cloth. I toss the sponge across the room into the sink and squat beside him. I wink and begin to clean the floor. He copies my actions exactly.

‘So you got the diaper on, huh?’ he asks casually.

‘Yeah.’ I dip the cloth into the bowl of warm water and rinse it.

‘Any problems?’

‘Nope.’

‘Hmmm … Good.’

There is silence for a few minutes.

‘What do you think they feed that kid?’ he asks.

I hide my amusement as I wring milky water out of the cloth. ‘I don’t know. Maybe dead cats.’

‘I never imagined a baby could stink like that,’ he says in an awed voice. He actually shudders.

I push the bowl over to him. ‘I’ll have to be sure not to fart in bed, then.’

He stops swirling the cloth in the water. ‘Let’s make a deal. Any time you eat a dead cat for dinner, and you think you’re gonna fart in bed, just let me know, and I’ll put a sick bowl by my side,’ he says very seriously.

I laugh so hard at the thought of him puking his guts into a bowl that I fall over backwards. He sits on his heels looking down at me. ‘Have I ever told you, Ella Savage, you are one delicious woman?’

‘Is it because I’m covered in ice cream?’ I giggle.

He bends down and kisses my nose. ‘Even before that. Well before that,’ he growls.

We’re interrupted by an incoherent scream of rage coming from the living room. Dom freezes.

‘Go on,’ I say. ‘I’ll finish up here and join you.’

‘No, you go. I’ll finish up here and join you.’

I try not to chuckle. ‘Are you afraid of them, Dominic Eden?’

‘Terrified,’ he says.

I kiss his nose and go into the living room. Tommy is upset because Liliana has changed the channel.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘No more TV. How about we read a book?’

Both are happy with that, so I take Tommy out of the playpen, and together we choose a book and cuddle up on the sofa to read it. By the time Dom comes in, both kids are leaning on either side of me and we are more than halfway through the book.

He stops at the entrance and watches for a minute before he comes in and sits down with us. After reading the book, we play with the kids.

It’s a game where Dom has to say, ‘Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a half-gypsy girl and the blood of a full-gypsy boy.’

Total panic ensues, with Dom taking on the persona of a zombie-like creature and chasing the kids, and them dodging his flailing arms while they squeal, scream, and laugh hysterically. As soon as their parents arrive, Liliana dashes to the door and lunges at her father.

‘Tommy broke a bowl, Daddy,’ Liliana says, as soon as she is high up in her father’s arms.

‘I smell ice cream,’ her father says with a straight face.

She covers her mouth. ‘Tommy ate ice cream.’

‘And you didn’t?’

She shakes her head vigorously.

Jake looks at me. ‘My daughter is such a liar.’

‘You can say that again,’ Dom mutters.

‘Why does my son smell of cat food, Uncle Dom?’ Layla asks.

Dom coughs.

‘Because Uncle Dom let Tommy eat cat food,’ Liliana says.

‘How much?’ Layla wonders.

‘Maybe one mouthful,’ Dom admits sheepishly.

Layla grins. ‘Actually, I think you coped brilliantly. Much better than I thought. What are you doing next Sunday?’

Dom actually takes a backward step, and everybody laughs. Even BJ joins in at the terror on Dom’s face.

After they’ve gone, Dom closes the door and turns to me. ‘Do you want to have sex in my brother’s flat?’

‘No, I don’t. But you can take me to dinner and then have sex with me at my place. You won’t believe what I’m wearing underneath these boring old clothes.’

His eyes brighten. ‘What are you wearing?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘Let’s go,’ he says, and bundles me quickly out of the apartment.

NINETEEN

‘I’ll go feed the parking meter,’ I offer, opening my bag and getting my coin purse out.

‘No, stay in the car. I’ll do it,’ Dom says.

I shake my head. ‘Dom, it’s just there across the road. I’ll do it,’ I insist, and, opening the passenger door, get out.

I cross the road, put enough coins into the machine for two hours of parking time, and get a receipt. When I look up, I see that he has got out of the car and has his forearms resting on the roof as he stands looking at me. A breeze blows at his hair and he smoothes it down. He is so gorgeous I still get butterflies in my tummy just looking at him.

I grin at him and step onto the road. There’s a loud blare from someone’s horn, and I wake up from my little dream world where only Dom and I exist. I turn my head and see a white van coming, so I quickly step back onto the pavement.

The van passes, and Dom comes back into my sight, no longer casually resting his forearms on the roof of his car, but standing with his hands at his sides and staring at me in disbelief. His face is white and his mouth is hanging open.

‘What?’ I mouth, shaking my head.

A car goes past. The road becomes empty and I run across it.

‘What?’ I ask again.

He shakes his head slowly, blankly. ‘Nothing.’

‘You’re as white as a sheet.’

He looks at me strangely. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought that car was going to hit you.’

I laugh. It’s not really a proper laugh. I’m disturbed by the sudden change in him. His expression and demeanor are so bizarre and out of character. We were laughing two minutes ago. ‘Well, it didn’t,’ I say.

‘I know. I saw that,’ he says robotically.

‘Dom, it wasn’t even a near miss. I had plenty of time.’

‘I know,’ he says again.

I take his hand, and I’m shocked to find it trembling.

‘What’s the matter, Dom?’ I ask urgently.

‘Nothing. Let’s go to dinner.’

I give him the parking receipt and he displays it on the dashboard and locks the car. Then we walk to the restaurant and sit opposite each other. I look at him and he looks away.

‘Dom, what the hell is going on?’

He turns to me. ‘Leave it alone. Please.’

Because I can see that he is so extremely affected, I drop it quietly.

The waitress comes and he orders a triple whiskey. My eyebrows rise involuntarily, but I say nothing. When the drinks come, he downs his in one go and calls for another.

We order our food. It comes and we eat. All the while, we talk in a wooden manner. He tells me Lily is pregnant. She just found out today. Shane has started dating a magician called Tanya. Jake is sending their mother on holiday to Spain. And I tell him my mother has invited us to dinner on Saturday. He nods. He smiles. But his face is a mask.

Dessert menus are flourished. He wants nothing. So I follow his lead. He refuses coffee. And then I know he doesn’t want to spend any more time with me.

He’s pushing me away.

And it hurts like mad. Why? What have I done? How can he just shut me out for no reason like this? I start to feel angry, but I’m unable to express my anger. Some part of me knows that whatever it is, it’s serious. It’s eating him up. The bill gets paid.

‘Come, I’ll take you home,’ he says, getting to his feet.

I nod and pick up my purse. Yes, he definitely wants to get rid of me. We walk to the car in silence. We drive in silence. Outside my apartment, I turn toward him.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I say quietly.

‘Yeah, OK.’

He bends and kisses me lightly on the cheek. ‘Goodnight.’

He’s dismissing me as if I’m some woman he doesn’t give a shit about. I feel utterly abandoned. I peer into his closed face. ‘Have I done something wrong, Dom?’

He shakes his head. ‘No, it’s not you.’ And then he grips the steering wheel. ‘It’s not you,’ he says again. As if in those three words lies the solution to what is eating him.

‘Goodnight,’ I say.

‘Goodnight, Ella,’ he says softly.

I get out of the car, sad and confused. He waits until I get into the door of my apartment building before he drives off. I lean against the wall of the foyer and listen to his car blast off into the night before I slowly climb the stairs up to my flat. I let myself in. There is a lamp burning in the living room. I walk to the sofa and sink heavily into it. It feels as if my whole world has just collapsed.

I’m in love with a man I cannot understand. A man who is closed off to me. The only time he’s real with me is when we’re in bed, but tonight, for no reason that I can see, he has rejected even that from me.

I know we have something.

It feels so real, but is it enough?

I go into my bedroom and sit in front of my dressing table. My face looks dazed and lost and I feel like crying, but I don’t. I tell myself that I am strong. I can be strong for him and for me.

One day he will tell me what’s wrong.

One day I will make his demons go away. Until that day, I will be here waiting and loving him. I cleanse my face, get into my pajamas, and finish my toilette. Then I go back into the living room and listen to music.

I listen to Heart singing ‘Stairway to Heaven’. And the sadness of the song makes me tear up. The song ends, and my phone buzzes. A message from Dom. I am so desperate to open the message that I drop the phone. I pick it up and click on the text.

Are you still up?

My hands shake as I type in my one word reply: Yes. And click send. I cover my mouth and wait. The phone sounds again almost immediately.

Don’t go 2 bed. Coming round in 10 minutes.

I stare at it. And suddenly it’s as if I’ve been told I’ve won the lottery. I leap up from the sofa and run to the bedroom. I get out of my PJs and slip into a sexy nightie. It’s see-through with a plunging neckline and little pearl buttons. I light some scented beeswax candles. I slick on nude lip gloss. Standing in front of the mirror, I brush my hair and dab perfume onto my wrists.

Once I’m satisfied with my appearance, I go back to the living room and because I gave him a key to my flat last week I arrange myself in a sexy pose on the sofa. I hear his key in the door and hurriedly fluff my hair. The door opens. He stands for a moment in the doorway and sways slightly. Then he comes in and, closing the door, leans against it. I stare at him. He is dead drunk!

‘Hey there, tiger,’ he drawls.

‘Hey, you,’ I say cautiously.

He starts walking toward me, stumbles once, rights himself, and continues on his journey to me.

‘You drove here like this?’ I ask incredulously.

He nods.

‘God! Dom. You can barely stand. You could have killed yourself. Or someone else.’

‘I didn’t,’ he mutters, ‘kill anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

I stand. ‘I’ll make some coffee for you,’ I say, heading toward the kitchen. I love him, but I’m not going to condone drunk driving. As I pass him, his hand shoots out and he pulls me into his hard body.

‘I spent a lot of time and money to get into this state. I don’t want to sober up just yet, thanks,’ he says.

I look into his eyes. There’s no real focus in them. If I’m going to find out anything, now is the best time. ‘OK. Come sit with me and let’s talk.’

He shakes his head slowly. ‘I didn’t get this way to sit and talk with you.’

‘What do you want to do, Dom?’

‘What I always want to do when I’m around you, Ella.’

A chill comes into my body. Here. Cold, clear proof that I am nothing but a good fuck. I’m in love with the guy, and all he wants from me is sex.

‘Is that all you want from me?’

He frowns and peers at me. ‘Awww, Ella. We have this. Isn’t this good?’

I don’t answer him.

‘C’mon, babe. Don’t kick a man when he’s down.’

‘Are you down?’

He breathes out. ‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

‘What’s wrong? Tell me, please?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

I stare at him with frustration. ‘But I do.’

‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’

I look up at him, confused and intrigued. What on earth could it be that I wouldn’t want to know?

He frowns again. ‘I can’t talk about it yet,’ he says and slips his forefinger into my cleavage. He gazes into my eyes. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispers.

In the candlelight, his eyes glimmer. The air is snatched from my throat. I suck in a breath. Strains of music surround us. It’s so sweet and intoxicating, it should have been magic, but it’s not. An air of barely suppressed grief hangs around him. He sighs heavily, and a deep worry line etches itself between his eyebrows.

My heart feels heavy.

‘There are all kinds of memories hiding in the curves of your breasts,’ he murmurs. His eyes flutter shut and then snap open. He is maudlin. Vulnerable.

His other hand comes up and cups my breast. He rolls my nipple between his fingers and I feel the familiar itching between my legs start. His eyes darken as he thrusts his knee between my thighs. I push my sex against the hard muscles and feel his cock pressing against my hip, straining to get to my wet heat.

‘Oh, Ella,’ he groans, and, lifting me up, clumsily carries me to my bed.

He drops me on the bed, and, with haphazard urgency, removes his shoes and clothes. He lands on the bed heavily and immediately rolls onto his back.

‘Ride me. I want to watch your face when that hot little pussy of yours stretches wide for my cock,’ he growls.

I clamber over him and sit on his thighs.

He pops the two little pearl buttons on my nightie. My breasts spill out and he slides his hands over the flesh and massages them.

‘You really are so ripe and beautiful,’ he mutters to himself.

I arch my back to push my breasts into his hands.

‘Get naked,’ he orders.

I pull my nightie over my head and fling it to the floor.

He takes a deep, satisfied breath, curls his hands around my midriff, and pulls me down for a kiss. I spread myself flat over his hardness as his mouth claims mine. He smells of alcohol and something broken. I don’t know him, and he won’t allow me in. The thought is extraordinarily painful. A lone finger strokes the swollen lips of my vulva as the kiss goes on. It makes me melt into him until he digs his fingers into my hips. I pull away from his mouth and stare down at him.

‘Come, sit on my face,’ he invites.

I knee-walk along his body and turn to face his feet. Hovering over his face, I slither and snake my body like a belly dancer so he can see what a gooey puddle my pussy has become.

‘So eager, so wanton,’ he growls.

Cupping the globes of my bottom as I gyrate teasingly above him, he lifts his face and extends his tongue. It flicks my clit and I whimper with the velvet heat. He pulls me lower and lets his tongue worm its way through the damp undergrowth.

As soon as he tastes my syrup, he pulls me all the way down, and I helpfully spread my thighs as wide as I can. I reach down and let the tip of my tongue flick and tickle his cock. He shudders under me and glues my vulva to his face. I feel my juices flow out of me and drip into his mouth.

Down his throat they go.

Fisting the base of his shaft, I take the meaty pillar deeper into my mouth, curling my tongue around it. I bob up and down, my eyes shut. The rest of the world melts into nothing. There is only his mouth on my pussy and his cock in my mouth.

My orgasm comes suddenly, without warning. I push my palms into the mattress and climax hard with his cock buried deep in my throat, my nipples throbbing and tingling, and my whole body singing.

In all the rush and uproar, it occurs to me that I am hopelessly addicted to him. That I’ve been addicted from that first fix, when he threw me against a wall and shoved his cock into me without asking my permission.

A drop of slippery liquid touches the roof of my mouth. Ah! I start to suck really hard, as if I’m milking him. He comes in a thick, frothy spray, which I swallow willingly. Strange, how I adore my own sense of complete and utter submission to this man. I wriggle my hips.

‘Don’t you dare move,’ he warns.

I don’t. Very gently, I keep sucking the semi-hard flesh in my mouth. I work on it until it starts to stretch and grow and become rock hard. I take his cock out of my mouth, and, crawling down his body, poise my pussy over his erection.

‘I want to hear the animal noises you make,’ he says.

I hold onto the base of his shaft while he groans with pleasure as his erect cock slowly fills me up. Once all of him is inside me, I ride him with rhythmic, languid thrusts, and animal sounds fill the bedroom until we come, gripping each other so hard he leaves marks on my skin.

‘I don’t want to sleep the whole night,’ he whispers fiercely.

‘Why?’ I whisper back.

‘Just this one night I don’t want to close my eyes. All I want to do is make– Fuck all night.’

‘OK,’ I say, but we do fall asleep. Curled up against each other like two puppies in a basket. And we sleep soundly until the wee hours of the morning when a large hand crashes into my ribs and shocks me awake.

I sit up and see Dom thrashing his legs and moving his hands restlessly.

I switch on my bedside lamp and start shaking him and urgently calling his name. His eyes fly open. They are wild with horror. They fasten on me and widen with shock.

He rises off the pillows and grabs my upper arms, but I have the impression that I’ve become part of the nightmare that he’s still locked into. ‘I thought you were dead,’ he says in a strange voice.

‘I’m not,’ I say.

At the sound of my voice he suddenly lets go of my arms. He falls back on the pillows and covers his eyes with his forearm.

‘Oh! God!’ he howls. The sound comes from somewhere so deep and pained that I become frozen with fear.

A few seconds pass before I shuffle closer. ‘Tell me, please, Dom. Just tell me what’s wrong?’ I beg.

He puts his arm down and looks at me. ‘You’re a good person, Ella. But I just can’t do this anymore. It’s a lie. All of it is a lie.’

He vaults off the bed and begins to dress.

‘You’re going to leave now?’ I ask in disbelief.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and, without looking at me, walks out of my door.

I sit there stunned. I have no idea what the hell has just happened. Has he just fucking broken up with me?