19. An Unlocked Kink
Leonie
Issy stood outside, straight-faced, mascara smudged only slightly around her hungover eyes. She peered in on her tiptoes. Thankfully, the pillows on the floor were on the other side of the bed, out of her view.
“Is he in here?” she asked, a hand on her hip.
I rolled my eyes and huffed out of the room, shutting the door behind me.
“Why were you on the phone with Jared?” she asked, folding her arms and pressing her ear to the wooden door.
“There’s no one in there, Is. He just called me last night and we had a chat.”
“You were giggling in there like a love-sick fool just now,” she said, gaze and tone sceptical.
“He’s a dipshit, but he did once have charm,” I said, going into the fridge in the hopes she would follow me further towards the kitchen area. And not into my room.
“And are you falling for it?” she asked, on the other side of the fridge when I closed it. I almost jumped.
I pulled out two glasses and filled them with orange juice from the carton. “Obviously not. I’m just trying to leave things on a… on a civil note.”
Her eyes were still narrowed.
I used my own to pointedly look her up and down. Her hair was a mess, matted at the back. Thoroughly fucked hair. I’d be lucky if I wasn’t the same.
“You need to get changed before Dom gets back,” I said.
She groaned, took one of the glasses and downed it, breathless when she resurfaced. “Where is Shithead?”
“He took a call outside,” I said slowly, trying to think of his excuse. “He didn’t want me to hear.”
“Work?” she asked and flopped onto the sofa. “God, I feel sick. I can’t hack this lifestyle anymore.”
“Uh, Mia, I think.” Why couldn’t I have just said yes?
She immediately sat up as I typed to Dom.
LEONIE: Going to get her to her room. Shut the front door. Pretend you just got in.
“Mia?” she cried. “He picked up a call from Mia?”
“About Ghost,” I said quickly as the feline ran his tail across the chair leg. “Yeah, something to do with Ghost.”
LEONIE: You’ve been on the phone with Mia out there. Ghost.
ANSWER: Fucking hell. Stop running that mouth or I’ll ram my cock in it.
I turned away from Issy, trying to hold my urge to smile and instead drink my juice.
“Come on then,” I said, thinking about poor Dom in my wardrobe, his cock hard at how I would swallow him down. Had he ever touched himself to the thought of me? Would he now? “Tell me everything about my barman.”
She pursed her lips in guilt. “Yeah, sorry about that. Dom pissed me off and I just saw red.”
“I got that by his apology,” I said.
“Do you know what?” she asked, pulling off her strappy heels. “I can count on one hand the times he’s apologised to me. Back when he forced sand in my eye at school, when he accidentally slapped me because of that frog last year—”
“He’s still scared of frogs?” I interrupted.
She laughed. “Oh yeah, big man with the guns and the crime, yet put a frog in his path and he’s gone.”
Interesting.
“Last year?” I asked and pulled her up to her feet.
Issy groaned and rubbed at her eyes, mascara coating her fists. “At my parent’s anniversary party, that you didn’t come to,” she said with a loaded look. “Which you will be making right this year.”
Only Jared ever knew about the pregnancy.
“I’ll be there,” I said with a nod. “And at your birthday. And at the gala.”
I followed her to her room.
“There are so many events there this year,” she said. “We may as well stay. Home away from home and all.”
Despite moving out of their house at eighteen, they hadn’t touched my bedroom. Dom and Issy’s parents saved me. Even when they shipped me to rehab two years later. The psychiatrists there told them I would always need a ‘safe place’ to return to and, therefore, frequently mentioned that their home was mine. I had been exactly what Dom said I was, a shell of my former self. A shrivelled, emotional wreck.
“Yeah, it might be quite nice to get away for a bit,” I said, lost in my thoughts.
It had been months since I had gone down to Darley. Issy’s mum came to visit us often and we’d gone out for brunch for her birthday. Issy and I video-called her at least twice a week, with Ivan joining in every now and then, but with Firdman’s upcoming release… I didn’t want to talk to Ivan in person. He’d make the same offer as Dom.
“The beach always makes everything better,” she said with a sigh. “God, that orange juice might not have been enough.”
“Why don’t you shower?” I asked as my phone dinged.
She gave a few loud, contemplative hmms, each getting more and more critical of the idea.
I glanced down.
ANSWER: You have too many clothes. I’m going to peel every single outfit off you soon enough. But, please, for the love of God, let me out.
LEONIE: *Frog emoji*
ANSWER: Please stop talking about me. Or tell her to stop spilling my deepest, darkest secrets.
When I looked up, Issy was sitting at the edge of her bed, legs crossed, head perched on her palm. Her brows were high as she jerked her chin at the phone. Her hmm turned lethal, disgusted. “That Jared?”
“No,” I snapped.
“You are worth far more,” she said and tapped my shoulder as she stood. I locked my screen and she took in a deep, frustrated breath. “Do what you’ve got to do. But please break his heart in the end.”
When I didn’t respond, she grabbed her towel and walked out. I watched her go to the bathroom and waited for the shower to squeak on.
Dom was in the wardrobe, grinning with his torch on. He held some red lace in his hands. “Now this,” he said, lifting it to show me, “I want to peel off sooner rather than later.”
“Behave,” I scorned as he pulled me to him for a quick, bursting kiss. I pulled back quickly. “That’s not behaving!”
“It’s exciting,” he said, hand grabbing my ass through my night dress.
I only shook my head, trying to shake off the smile. “If Issy found out, it would ruin our friendship. It would ruin my relationship with your parents. It’s a no-no.”
“Think I’ve unlocked a new kink,” he said into my ear, brushing back my hair. “Fucking someone I shouldn’t fuck.”
“I think you mean forbidden lover,” I laughed and then shoved him in the direction of the door.
Thankfully, he’d put on some shorts while in there. “Ooh, I like that,” he crooned. “You do realise we’re going to have to fuck in a wardrobe now?”
“No!” I said, laughing and trying to push this man’s ridiculously broad body out of my room when I clocked his shoes at the side of my bed. “Oh, wait, shoes!”
“Shoes?”
“You’ve been outside on the phone,” I reminded him, throwing one at him that he caught to his chest.
“Oh yes,” he said, coming back to me, “you’ve been running that mouth of yours.” He gave me a peck. “A mouth I’m obsessed with.”
And, as if he didn’t just say that, he took the other shoe from my frozen hands and left me.