Chapter 5 #3
Oh, hell no! I never want to be alone with this woman ever again, except, perhaps within a closet dark enough that it’s impossible to see inside. That way when I slip my dick into her and bang her until we’re both exhausted, I can put it all down to a case of mistaken identity.
“I think it’s safer if we stay in plain sight.”
She gives a diverting little nod that tips her chin towards her décolletage.
She’s not particularly well endowed in that department.
Her physique is definitely sporty, but I still imagine her with her dress front peeled down to reveal her breasts and painting her skin with the semen leaking from the tip of my cock.
There is something definitely not right with me tonight, and the diversion of blood away from my brain due to my hyper aroused state is definitely not helping in regards to thinking logically about this.
Women don’t turn me on.
They can be beautiful, funny, intelligent… I have some fantastic female friends, but the buzz…the spark isn’t there. I know myself. I know who I am.
“Are you sure about that?”
For several seconds I blink at her like a bewildered bit of wildlife destined to become roadkill.
How the hell is she seeing into my head like that?
Of course, she isn’t. She’s responding to the last thing I said, and maybe she has a point.
Not just because Rosie and Adam are heading our way judging by the way Kira’s attention has strayed over my shoulder, but there’s someone else glaring right at me whom I’d rather not have to exchange any sort of pleasantries with.
I reckon Adam’s seen her too, as he’s not attempted to cut in on Kira yet.
“Sir. Mr. Drake. We’re almost ready for you. If you could follow me.”
The appearance of the usher couldn’t be timelier. Except, he marches us right past Lydia Truss’s table.
She doesn’t say a thing to me, but the young woman next to her mutters something wretchedly offensive beneath her breath, then jerks her chair backwards placing herself between Kira and me.
“Mallory, no!” Lydia bleats.
“Oh for fuck’s sakes, Mum. Why can’t I tell him what a prick he is? It’s what we’re here for, because you were hoping to give him a piece of your mind. I’m not dumb. I know this isn’t really about understanding and helping Dad. You think he’s a bastard for putting you through all of this.”
Lydia shakes her head. “I’ve said everything I needed to already.” She refuses to look me in the eye.
Mallory has no such qualms. She squares up to me, though her chin is barely level with my chest. “You fucked everything up for us. It was perfect till you came along. And you don’t even care.
It was a bit of fun for you, nothing more.
Well, you screwed our whole family up, arsehole.
So while you’re up there giving your speech, and everyone is applauding you like you’re some sort of messiah, you can just chew on the fact that some of us know exactly how big a git you are. ”
Kira calmly walks around Mallory’s chair and inserts herself between us. “Let’s go, Dylan.”
“Arsehole! You corrupt everything you touch. Ever consider that you’re the one responsible for all the fucked-up shit you claim you endured?”
Every day for far too long, but the evil others do is not my responsibility, and nor is the awkward patch her family is going through.
But she doesn’t want to hear how Hugo—her father—was the instigator.
How Adam was drunk and horny, and I played along.
It was Whit who turned on the charm, and opened his wallet in order to convince me and Adam that a fucking threesome was the best possible way to spend our last night in Tahiti.
Seriously, I’d have been just as happy checking out the local talent, but that man was desperate for some cock.
Adam was wired on lord knows what by daybreak, and still merrily obliging when Lydia walked in and smashed a fruit bowl over her husband’s back.
Whit swatted her away and carried on humping.
I’d lay money on Whit having wanted to get caught. I’ve heard they’re now divorced.
I can’t say for definite. I’ve not seen or heard from Whit since. Adam and I checked out of the resort about an hour after Lydia barged in and we went straight to the airport.
The usher’s demeanour has lost much of its previous obsequiousness by the time we reach the doors to the back stage area. He’s trying to figure out if I’m really the monster Miss Whit claims, or if yet again I’m having shade cast my way because I refuse to hide the truth of who I am.
“I’m not meant to go through,” he says. “You need Maureen. She’ll look after you and get you kitted out.
” He swipes us through the doors, and almost—only he bites his tongue—tells Kira she’s not allowed back there.
The lady in question links her arms with mine and somehow wins that challenge without a word being exchanged.
The air is cooler backstage. I think I see Kira shiver, but maybe it’s a trick of the light.
She’s not the sort to let a little cold bother her.
There are a couple of charity reps talking inside a room we pass.
The door is wedged open with a chair, but mostly it’s waiting staff trekking back and forth.
Maureen greets us without us needing to make any attempt to track her down.
She’s an older lady with bags of sass and pink streaks in her white hair.
She runs through the order of events: short video about some of the kids who have benefited from the charity’s work in Manchester, then my address, followed by the symbolic presentation of the cheque.
I’m briefly introduced to the guy presenting the money and we shake hands.
Then I’m left in what I imagine is usually a dressing room to wait with only Kira and a bottle of sparkling mineral water for company.
“How long until you go on?”
I glance down at my watch. “Probably another twenty minutes.”
“Seems a bit unnecessary to drag you back here so soon.”
“Most people don’t comply until you’ve threatened to deprive them of liquid refreshment for the rest of the night, and/or peeled them away from a riveting conversation or six.”
“So you’re a saint.”
I flick a speck of lint off my lapel. “That’s me.”
She tuts and flicks her gaze up to the ceiling. “I don’t think you’ve had a single saintly thought ever. I mean tonight’s not even really about the charity. Most of the people here don’t give a fig. They’re here because everyone else is here and they’re desperate to be seen in the right places.”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of my profession, do you?”
“I know making movies isn’t all fun and games, but most of what I’ve seen of your profession since I took this job with All Stars, is that you’re all piss poor examples of humanity.
If you’re not snorting, popping, or injecting, you’re indiscriminately shagging whatever hurls itself in your direction.
What was that girl—Mallory—whose table we passed so pissed at you for? What did you do to her?”
“I’ve never laid eyes on her before tonight. The woman with her directed an ad for Feinstein the touch of moisture, the frisson of energy zapping down through my torso, the way our bodies resist parting, clinging on to one another until the surface tension breaks.
I wipe my mouth, but she’s still there.
My heart’s in my throat as I walk away from her, and I’m deaf to the praise Maureen is so keen to heap upon me—something about how the charity is so thrilled to have me as a patron.
Only, when my mind finally kicks back into gear, and I run over the speech I’ve prepared—advocating proudly being who we are, whoever we are—I feel like the biggest fucking fraud ever, because my past seems to have tumbled by the wayside.
All those experiences are nothing to what I want to experience with Kira Carter-Wells.
I think I might actually have to fuck her, just to get her out from under my skin.