42. Present Day – January
42
PRESENT DAY – JANUARY
SCOTT
I t had only been a matter of hours since I’d seen her last, but looking at me with her big blue eyes over the bar, a loose fitting shirt teasing me with reminders over what was underneath, was my undoing. The moment she asked Enzo to watch her spot, excusing herself to go to the ladies room with a cheeky wink to me, I slapped my bar towel down and stalked after her.
She turns with a grin. I knew she didn’t actually need the bathroom. I bundle Josie into the stock cupboard, thrusting her up against a wall of crisp boxes.
It’s a frenzy, her sucking my lip into her mouth and drawing a leg around me to crush me closer to her.
‘Fuck, Angel.’
A groan comes from the back of the room. ‘Shit. Let me out first if you’re gonna do that.’
We startle apart and Jamie gives us an exasperated frown as he clinks some wine bottles, lifting them as if to explain why he was in here.
‘Jamie, I?—’
‘We—’
He shakes his head, keeping his focus firmly on the door as he moves past. ‘About time.’ Then under his breath he pretends to cough, ‘Get a room.’
‘We did get a room,’ Josie calls back, and then laughs as she pulls me back into her with both hands.
I perch her on a low stack of boxes so she’s the perfect height, and unbutton the cotton shirt that’s been mocking me for the last hour as she fiddles with my belt. After a couple of buttons, a plain, soft, jersey sports bra peeks out swaddling her tits. But when I skim my fingers over the fabric and down her ribs, she flinches, drawing my attention to her face.
Is she uncomfortable? Embarrassed? I don’t care if she’s in lacy lingerie or a bin bag; to me, she’s always stunning.
‘Are you okay? Do you want me to stop?’
‘No.’ She grapples with my flies again, but I catch her hand.
‘Josie?’
‘I’m fine … just go steady.’
‘But—’
‘Please don’t stop.’ Her eyes are wide. She clearly wants me, but something’s not right.
‘I won’t.’ After weeks of denying her, there’s nothing I won’t do for her. ‘I’m just … worried.’
She deftly unfastens the rest of her shirt, and pulls the left side away, revealing a kind of cling film across reddened skin.
I sink to my knees to get a better look. Peeking out from under her bralette is the wing of a bird.
‘You got another tattoo?’ I carefully raise the hem to reveal a streak of flying bird silhouettes, taking flight along the line of her ribs, the skin flushed around them.
‘I got it done a few hours ago, or I’d have been here sooner.’ She runs her fingers through my hair, sending a tingle through my scalp.
‘It’s beautiful.’ She’s beautiful.
‘Well, I like it.’ She bites her lip. ‘I’d been planning it for a little while. It kind of reminds me of Marcus. He was so free …’ She gives a self-deprecating laugh. ‘Or maybe I’m manifesting?’
My throat grows thick with unsaid words. It’s undeniably perfect: her, the tattoo, everything. Perfect.
Gently, I press my mouth just below the pattern, not wanting to hurt her if it’s sore and murmur, ‘I’ve been thinking of getting one.’
‘You should.’
Sitting back on my heels, I slowly track my gaze up her body, until I reach her eyes — hooded, smouldering.
‘Need to find the right image,’ I manage to say, trying to concentrate.
The sparks of an idea are fizzing on the peripheries of my mind, but then she takes a deep breath and I catch sight of her chest expanding under her tiny top. Blood diverts from my brain, making a U-turn south.
Lust burns through my veins. I don’t want to get carried away and hurt her, but I need to feel close to her. Josie licks her lips. Her nipples have pinched, jutting through the jersey fabric. I think she needs that, too.
From my knees, I reach up, stroking the backs of my fingers down, tracing her curves. Her minty breath falls heavily on to me.
‘Pretty sure you’re not supposed to do any vigorous activity after getting a tattoo.’ I raise my eyebrow.
‘I’m. Fine .’ She rolls her eyes.
‘Oh, no.’ I stand and tower over her, shaking my head. Feigning a serious look, I say, ‘You need to let me take care of you.’
Can’t have her all worked up and unsatisfied. Not on my watch.
‘Stand up,’ I say softly, stroking down her arm to avoid the plastic dressing and tugging at her hand.
‘Seriously, I’m okay. You don’t need to?—’
‘Stand. Up.’ My bartender-who-doesn’t-take-any-shit tone brokers no arguments and, finally, she does as I say.
Grasping the flesh of her hips, I spin her one eighty around, my fingers splaying on the soft skin of her belly as I stop her momentum. Now she can’t get her hands on me — can’t distract me anymore.
I move up close behind and unbuckle her jeans, sliding them down just enough to let my hand inside.
My fingers coast over her slick, wet centre, and she gasps as I nibble on her lobe.
‘Mmm,’ I rumble right into her ear.
Her shivered response triggers a cascade of electricity across my skin, too.
Dragging my teeth down her neck, I tease and nip where it meets her shoulders, the bit I know makes her crazy, and then give a strong suck as I sink two fingers inside her.
My other hand holds her against my hard-on as her knees buckle.
‘So fucking wet for me, aren’t you?’
She whimpers in response, suddenly devoid of arguments, and I slowly pump my fingers inside her, feeling her tighten around me.
‘Can’t leave you like this. Ready. Waiting for me.’ I keep my lips fastened to her neck as I talk low and dirty, loving how she squirms against me. ‘Wouldn’t want to leave this. Tight. Wet. Pretty . Pussy. All. Lonely.’ I punctuate each whispered word with a thrust of my hand.
The air is filled with her pants, her gasps.
‘Now, it’s up to you.’ I keep up my slow, relentless rhythm moving inside her, and watch her grip slowly puncture into the box she’s leaning on. ‘When I make you come, you can be as loud as you want.’ I run my nose up her neck, bringing my mouth back to her ear, murmuring, ‘I’d be quite happy for the whole fucking pub to know how good I make you feel. But if you want to be quiet, I’ll let you.’ I graze my teeth over the shell and end on a nip. ‘Just this once.’
She prizes my palm from where it’s splayed on her belly and guides it up past her tits, over her sports bra, up her neck to her hot mouth, sucking two of my fingers inside.
‘Mmpff,’ she moans.
Shit , how I don’t shoot my load, I have no idea.
She sucks to the same rhythm I’m setting inside her, and soon she’s drawing deeper, harder, moaning on my hand as her pussy clenches around the other.
When she stops trembling, her jaw slackens and I skim my fingers back down her neck to her chest; her heart is thundering beneath her skin.
Carefully, I withdraw my hand from her panties and zip her jeans back up. She pivots back around and leans back on the box stack, looking at me, a dazed smile on her face. ‘Oh. My. God,’ she whispers.
She’s glowing. Not one perfect hair out of place.
Methodically, I fasten the buttons on her shirt. ‘No one will ever know.’ I twitch her a mischievous grin.
‘Depends how loud you are.’ She reaches for my flies again but I lean into her, blocking any room to move.
‘Nope.’ Kissing her on the nose, I take both hands and pull her to her feet.
Now I know she’s sated, for the moment at least, I’m not letting this go any further. I absolutely do not want to risk hurting her, and, I still have to keep up the appearances of running the pub, even if Enzo is more than capable of doing everything that seems to crop up.
‘I love you,’ she says dreamily, wrapping her arms around me and snuggling into my shirt.
Fuck, yes.
Fireworks explode in my chest. ‘I love you too,’ I chuckle with absolute disbelief. ‘Even if you do choose the fucking stockroom in the middle of a shift to confess something I’ve been wrestling with for weeks.’
‘You could have said it first.’ Her voice is playful.
‘I was working out the right moment.’
‘We’d have been waiting forever,’ she deadpans. ‘Wait, you know how we should express our newly confessed love …’
‘Angel, did you just tell me you love me so I’d have sex with you in amongst the boxes of crisps?’
‘Well, not just because of that.’ She grazes her lip seductively, feigning nonchalance. ‘I mean … if it’s a happy outcome then great. Don’t let me stop you?—’
I spank her curvy ass, one smack, and fire gleams in her eyes. ‘You’re in recovery, remember.’ I grind out. ‘No heavy lifting.’
Opening up the storeroom, I tickle her waist as I usher her out and she bowls back into the pub, giggling some retort about me being big headed, literally. She goes round to her usual stool and takes up residence while I wash my hands ready to get back to work.
Jamie sidles up to us, on the pretence of shelving some clean glassware.
‘So, I take it I’ll be seeing you Sunday, then?’
I look up from stocking the paper straw dispenser by the till. ‘Sorry, dude, it’s gonna be dead in here on Sunday. I’ve already got Enzo down to work with me.’
‘No, I didn’t mean here.’ Jamie seems to be grinning back and forth between me and Josie.
My eyes flick to catch her rolling hers. ‘What am I missing.’
‘He means Sunday lunch. We have lunch every Sunday with our parents, and they aggressively imply we should bring boyfriends or girlfriends or whatever but we always let them down .’ She pumps her fingers to make speech marks.
‘Oh, well?—’
‘It’s okay. I would not put you through that.’
‘What if I was happy to be put through that .’ And I would be. Our conversation after I revealed my guilt to her has run on repeat through my head for the last couple of days. It’s going to take a while to fully process it, you can’t get over eight years of self-inflicted trauma in one night but, thinking about it, hearing Josie’s version, I’m working on getting there.
I’m done running from my feelings — well, I want to be. And I want to be done being scared of what they think of me. Be done feeling guilty for living. Living is the biggest way I can honour Marcus. Owning my shit and loving every moment I can.
‘I wouldn’t do it to you.’ Josie shakes her head, almost laughing. ‘I get it, you know, why you never came back after the funeral. My parents are … a lot. ’
‘No, that’s not it. I just … I thought you were all better off without me there.’
Jamie pulls a face and I realise how stupid I sound. And the whole truth would sound even more ridiculous: your dad scared me off.
A tender expression tugs at her mouth, and I know what she’s thinking: they weren’t better off without me but, perhaps if I hadn’t stayed away, we wouldn’t be together now.
As if the discussion is over, Josie pulls out her phone and taps at her screen. She briefly looks up and gives a half shrug. ‘And you have to work Sundays, anyway.’
The family meal seems like a big thing for her, and I’m not buying her easy dismissal. I want to be there for her, but my schedule makes it hard. I carry on sorting the bar stocks as I think. Perhaps I could go at the end of the month, when I’m closed for a week to renovate? Not voicing my thoughts, I know she’ll either play it down or ramp up the sass to deflect, making this harder than it needs to be. I don’t want to argue with her over this. I am going to be there for her.