Chapter 38
Mark looks up, not quite believing his eyes.
‘Rain in July?’
I’m frozen to the spot, watching big splodges of rain turning his hair black and making his white shirt translucent. The warm rain splatters on my arms, bouncing on my head and rolling down my face.
Lightning flashes, followed by an ear-splitting thunderclap, and it jerks us into action.
‘The shed,’ he yells, pulling me towards it. ‘We can’t stay out in an electrical storm.’
I resist. ‘My phone!’
I rush towards where I’ve left it in the grass, but I can’t see it anywhere.
I’m feeling around under the sunbed when Mark appears and crouches by my side. He’s taken off his shirt and is holding it over our heads.
‘Got it,’ I yell.
A bolt of lightning flashes, immediately followed by a rumble of thunder.
‘It’s close,’ he shouts, centimetres from my face but still barely audible above the driving rain. ‘The shed. Come on.’
We pelt across the lawn. He swings the old door open and pushes me inside.
I try to catch my breath and wait for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The rain hammers on the wooden roof, and a few drops land inside where the ceiling isn’t watertight, but there aren’t any gaping holes, so we should be safe from lightning.
He stays near the door, but I shuffle a few metres further in so I’ve got space to shake the excess water from my hair.
We don’t have storms like this in London. This feels biblical.
Neither of us speaks for a few moments, the rap of rain now joined by the torrents of water sloshing along the ancient gutters.
He wrings out his shirt, then hangs it on the doorknob. My sarong is stuck uncomfortably to my legs, but I’m not going to take it off. His chest is glistening wet, a detail that looms very large.
Another crack of thunder makes me jump.
‘Pen was outside,’ I say, anxiety stabbing my gut.
Mark shakes his head. ‘She’ll have gone into the house.’
‘But what if she was asleep?’
‘No one could sleep through this.’
‘But …’ I’m about to make a feeble argument about what a heavy sleeper she is, but I know it won’t wash with him.
‘Send her a text,’ he says. ‘If it will put your mind to rest.’
I punch out a hasty message and wait.
A few seconds later, I see the tell-tale three dots, and she replies that she’s fine.
‘You do that a lot,’ says Mark.
‘What, text?’
‘Worry about people.’
‘I like to know the people I care about are safe.’
‘It’s more than that.’
I shift uncomfortably, the wet hem of my sarong dragging along the ground. ‘It’s funny that we were both so worried about getting wet even though we’re wearing swimming costumes that are, you know, designed to get wet.’
‘It’s not your responsibility to keep everyone safe.’
I’m frustrated that he didn’t take my hint to change the subject, so when I speak, I sound meaner than I feel. ‘I look after people. That’s what I’m good at. Why do you make it sound like a bad thing?’
‘Who looks after you, Nella?’
‘I don’t need looking after.’
He shakes his head. ‘You’re the one person on the planet that can get by completely by herself?’
‘I didn’t say that, but I’m a trained thera—’
He lets out a hollow laugh. ‘Do not say your training stops you from falling into the same psychological traps as the rest of us.’
‘I fall into fewer.’
He looks at me incredulously. ‘That’s like saying doctors don’t get ill as often as other people because they know so much about disease. Jesus Christ, I thought you were smarter than that.’
I try to protest, but he holds up his hand. ‘You cannot diagnose yourself. That is the number one fucking rule for doctors like me and doctors like you.’
‘Fuck off, Mark.’
The venom in my voice startles us both.
He walks towards me. ‘You’re angry because you know I’m right.’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong.’
‘Tell me to fuck off again.’
He’s two steps from being right in my face, but I stand my ground.
‘Fuck off, Mark.’
‘No.’ His voice is low.
‘Fuck off,’ I say again, but this time my voice falters.
‘If you want me to leave, say it like you mean it.’
He leans forward until his lips brush my temple.
‘I think you want me right here.’
Seconds feel like hours as I hold my breath and, after what feels like an eternity, he presses a chaste kiss under my ear.
The contact makes me shiver, but I don’t step back.
‘You want me here,’ he says, kissing lower on my neck.
‘And here.’
He kisses me on the collarbone.
His hand snakes up to the back of my head, and he threads his fingers through my hair, forcing me to tip my head back.
His eyes are dark with need.
My breathing shallows.
I thought I knew what it was like to be wanted by Mark. But the man in front of me is ten times more potent than the teenage version. The air between us has weight like his desire is a physical thing, a current I can’t swim against, a current I don’t want to swim against.
He releases my hair, and when I look down, his other fist is gripping my sarong. If I step back now, the whole thing will come off in his hand. The thought makes my blood race, makes it brim to the surface, pushing against my skin.
He tugs and the sarong unravels, falling to my feet in a pool of wet gossamer.
‘You don’t like my sarong?’
‘I like it on the floor.’
His palm sweeps over the curve of my buttocks, and he pulls me against him. Then his mouth finds mine, and this time, there’s nothing chaste in his kiss.
It’s hot and hungry, and tells me exactly what he wants to do with me. It promises spread legs and an arched back, strong hands and a pounding rhythm.
Yes, yes, yes, is all I can think as he takes my hips and drives me backwards until the rough timber wall is scratching my back.
His eyes are almost black, and his breathing is heavy.
‘You don’t know what you do to me.’ He nips my lower lip, and I gasp. ‘All I can think about is making you come.’
I kiss him harder, pull him tight against me, feeling his erection pulse at my belly. I want to climb onto him so he can put it exactly where I need it. My reaction is so strong, so shocking, it wakes me up.
Pulling back, I shake my head, my breathing unsteady. ‘We can’t …’
He freezes, his chest rising and falling. ‘You want me to stop?’
‘No. But we can’t … not without a condom.’
‘How about I use my hand? And my mouth?’
I nod, the heaviness between my legs making words impossible.
He cups my cheek. ‘God, you’re beautiful.’
He turns me to face the wall, and presses his body against my back. My skin sings from the touch of his.
‘You shiver when I stand behind you,’ he whispers. ‘I noticed at Alexandra Palace.’ He sweeps my hair to one side, then kisses the back of my neck. ‘Is that how you like it? From behind? That’s how I imagine it. You don’t know how much it turns me on.’
He’s right, I’m trembling. I’ve never had this reaction before, never felt so weak with want, just because someone is standing behind me. It’s scary the effect he has on me, how little he has to do for me to react so strongly.
He reaches round to caress my nipple through my bikini.
It instantly hardens, and when he slips his fingers under the fabric, I gasp.
He rubs the sensitive bud between his fingers, and I feel his erection twitching against my lower back.
I shift my weight backwards, to give him some friction, and he moans.
I do it again, and he responds by yanking the knot of my bikini top, making it fall and exposing my breasts.
‘Jesus. Fuck,’ he grinds out.
I drop my head back on his shoulder. He braces one arm against the wall in front of us, and his other hand creeps down until it’s at the juncture of my thighs. He grazes me through my bikini bottoms, and his touch makes me arch my back, pushing my buttocks against his groin.
God, I want him so much.
Then he slips his fingers inside while his thumb works my clit with a pressure I can never achieve on my own. I’m so fucking close, I want to scream.
‘Like that,’ I tell him, my words a mantra. ‘Like that, like that, oh God, like that.’
I rock back against his erection then forward against his hand. He lets out a string of curses in time to my bucking.
His head is resting against the side of mine, his teeth at the sensitive skin where my neck meets my shoulder. He’s going to leave a mark, but I don’t care. I only care about what his right hand is doing.
I close my eyes, on the edge of shattering.
But then he stops.
‘Fuck.’
‘What?’ I ask, barely aware of my surroundings.
A moment later, I hear footsteps on the path. He bends down to grab my sarong as my shaking hands struggle to re-tie my bikini.
I can hear Theo talking Greek, but there’s someone else with him, a woman whose voice I don’t recognise.
‘I forgot she was coming,’ he whispers, his eyes flashing in irritation.
‘Who?’
‘My aunt.’
He puts his fingers to his lips so I keep quiet, and he goes to meet them.
‘Thia Kiki!’ He greets her like he’s been looking forward to seeing her all day.
I stay hidden between the half-open door and wall. Surely they’ll take one look at him and know something’s up. Literally. His swimming shorts don’t leave a lot to the imagination.
Mark launches into a story about looking for a cat that had snuck into the shed and suggests Theo take his aunt back to the house while he double-checks it’s not trapped and then locks up.
I hold my breath, waiting for them to reply. What if they offer to help him look? Or if Theo twigs there are two half-drunk Coke bottles on the lawn so Mark isn’t alone?
After a few moments, they agree to head back to the house and to wait for him there.
Mark re-enters the shed with a cocky grin on his face.
‘Oh, fuck off that you found that hilarious,’ I hiss. ‘You think they believed that cat story?’
‘I told them I was taking care of a pussy. Where’s the lie?’
I’m in no mood for jokes. My pulse is still racing, and all that languid arousal has set like concrete in my veins.
‘Imagine if she’d walked in while we were …?’
I can’t finish the sentence.
We both fall silent.
‘What’s she doing here?’ I ask, annoyed he doesn’t seem as freaked out as I am.
‘I was supposed to go and see her in Limassol today but after last night, she suggested she come here instead. I’m sorry, I forgot.
It’s been a long day.’ He picks up his soggy shirt.
‘I’m going to go back to the house. Give it ten minutes then join us.
If you go via the patio to your room, they won’t see you’ve come from the garden. ’
‘Why do I need to join you?’
‘She wants to meet you.’
‘What on earth for?’
He huffs out a breath, his grin long gone. ‘She was Leo’s godmother.’