Chapter Five #2
“Why would you do that?” Alaric Liddell is one of the world’s top photographers. He had an exhibition at the Tate St Ives not so long ago that I visited repeatedly during its four-month run.
“Why wouldn’t I?” He beckons me with a curled finger. “Come here, Little Mermaid.” I kneel. Reid crunches into a sitting position, which leaves me straddled across his lap, him in his joggers and me in his boxer briefs. The combined heat of our bodies is tangible. “Hi,” he says, eyes twinkling.
I bite my lip. “Hey.”
He tilts his head. Blinks in a way that can only be described as flirtatious.
Fuck! Is he going to kiss me?
He nudges my nose with his nose.
He is.
Another nudge. I feel the whisper of his breath, then it’s happening.
Reid Rushmore is pressing my lips apart so that he can slide his tongue inside.
And boy does he know what he’s doing. Turns out my imagination got him all wrong.
He’s not the unskilled but enthusiastic amateur I supposed.
No, he’s a tease, a tormentor. He holds me in a grip that’s equal parts deferential and possessive.
His worship makes me groan. It heats me up, steals my breath away, then makes me come begging for more.
I follow him backwards so that I’m sprawled over his half naked body, our hips perfectly aligned.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.” I mutter when we part for breath.
“Why’s that?” His hands settle solid upon my hips, and he rocks me back and forth against him.
“I don’t generally get off with guys I’ve known five minutes.”
Harrison liked to call me names. Easy, sluttish…
Worse… That’s if he wasn’t chastising me for being the opposite—frigid, repressed.
He just didn’t like the fact that I didn’t like him.
His ego couldn’t handle it. I don’t put any weight on his opinion, but still, those labels echo in my head as Reid’s touch intensifies.
“It’s been well over half a day since we met,” he says.
“Practically a lifetime,” I deadpan. “Does it count if I was comatose for most of it?”
“Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t. If we’re attracted to one another, and we’re grown adults of sound mind, then what’s the issue?”
I don’t have one. He’s right. There shouldn’t be one. I should bask in my good fortune at discovering Reid Rushmore, a guy admired by millions is into me.
“Can’t think of one, huh?” Reid purrs against my skin.
He starts on my neck, kissing, and then sucking hard enough that I’m sure he’s leaving marks.
I can’t quite bring myself to stop him. The body’s willing, and my mind is only putting up a feeble show of resistance.
Is this what I want to do? It is, right?
Only, what happens once we’re done? Do I then get ushered on my merry way?
Reid wriggles his way down my body. I barely realise he’s doing it, until I realise his erection is no longer branding me as his tongue skims over my breasts, and paints circles around my nipples.
“I really want to taste you, Ariel.” He kisses me midway down my abs and hooks a finger under the waistband of the briefs.
“It’s Iris, and Reid…” My hands seek his shoulders, and he looks up at me with his pretty hazel eyes. That’s almost enough to convince me to let him carry on. I would really like to feel his mouth on my pussy, but I take a breath and say, “Stop,” instead.
He cocks his head, but doesn’t resist when I shift, so that I’m no longer astride him.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod, snatch up the forgotten jeans, and pull them on. “This is all just… It’s a lot. I need to…” I make a lowering motion with both hands. He watches me while I bite my lip. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I just…”
“Your stepbrother fucked you up.”
“Yes—no. It’s a bit of that, but not really.”
“So, what is it then?”
I cross my arms across my chest, uncertain myself. Maybe just the sheer fact that I feel so vulnerable in my borrowed clothes and motley of bruises. “We only just met, Reid, and colour me wary after everything that happened last night.”
His pupils grow wide. “Did that fucker assault you? I thought the bruises were from the sea.”
I shrug. “I didn’t stick around long enough to give Harrison a chance to lay a finger on me. I took a dive instead.” At the time it seemed the better option.
“Shit, I’m sorry. That fucking arsehole. If I meet him, I’m going to wring his neck.”
His fury makes me smile.
“Thank you for stopping when I asked.”
He nudges my arm, then pulls me into a hug.
“No, I’m sorry for not being considerate, and taking advantage when you’re all vulnerable.”
“You didn’t.”
“Did.”
“And you stopped when I asked.”
He frowns. “Only an absolute arsehole would do otherwise, and I hope I’m not that.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not.”
Okay. We both breathe sighs of relief.
“How about a walk?” he asks. “Might help us both cool off, and I could show you the island. We could go see if any of your stuff washed up.”
Given he’s still perky in a very particular place, that sounds like a good idea.
Not that I think finding my missing bag will help.
The book is going to be unreadable, and my phone bricked.
I point to my feet. “Bit lacking in the shoe department.” I’m feeling battered enough without risking a foot injury by striding about outdoors bare foot.
“Reckon there’s a pair of flip-flops around, and we can go down to the beach.”
The beach is only a very short walk away. Reid takes me over to where he found me last night. “About here.” The tide is way out, revealing a vast stretch of orangey sand and forests of bladder wrack and sea spaghetti beyond a narrow band of pebbles. There’s no sign of my bag.
“Bet I gave you a fright.”
“Yeah.”
In the distance we see a man with two dogs.
“That’s Ric. Let me catch up with him.” He sprints off at a pace I can’t hope to match, especially not in my borrowed footwear.
Pretty soon, he vanishes from view. The sky turns grey not long after, and the wind picks up.
Chilled, I turn back to the row of houses.
There are five buildings in total. Two or three have probably always been houses, the others are clearly converted barns or boathouses, or something like that. I recall the note from earlier said that the one now on my right is the studio.
Steps lead up from the beach to the sea wall. When I emerge onto the paved plaza that connects the buildings, I find Wynter sitting with his back to the seawall.
What’s he doing here? I stroll over to him. “Hey.”
He slowly looks up my body. “Iris.”
“Wynter.”
“Something you need?”
“Not sure.” I sit beside him. “I’m sorry I caused a distraction. I didn’t mean to derail whatever you guys are working on. I’m looking forward to your second album.”
“Are you?” He groans, making it clear that wasn’t really a question. “Well, Iris, I’m not sure there’s going to be one. Leastways, not any time soon.”
I’m not sure what to say to that that won’t sound either trite or condescending. I’m sorry you feel that way, sounds both to my ears. “Maybe you just need a break.”
He scoffs. “Wouldn’t that be grand! Ain’t happening. I’m stuck here and the clock’s ticking. I’ve a handful of days to deliver a solution or we get ditched.”
“Your label would really follow through on that?”
“We’re costing them money. And we’re not getting younger while we do it.”
Unbelievable. “You’re what, twenty-four?”
“Twenty-six.”
“That’s hardly ancient.”
“We’re not fresh anymore. We’re not green kids who do as they’re told because they’re so star-struck and terrified of losing their one shot that they bend over backwards to please. We’ve seen how it works. We’re yesterday’s news. Washed up.”
It’s always said that the music business is ruthless, but hearing it first-hand makes it real. I hurt to my stomach for him… for all three of my rescuers.
“Reid says you’re blocked, but I saw your notebook. It looked pretty full of ideas.”
“Did it, indeed. Took a good look did you?”
I raise my hands. “No, I didn’t read it. It was obviously private. I just saw it. It was on the floor. I picked it up.”
He gives me a hard look with those livid green eyes, lips pursed. I lean back, anticipating a cobra-like strike, or at least a pithy remark, but I sustain neither wound.
“Most fans would have photographed it or stolen it outright.”
“But then they’d miss out on those ideas becoming something. Isn’t there anything good in there?”
I’m sure there must be. The bits I saw seemed deep and meaningful.
He angles his head back so that he’s gazing at the sky. “If you’d asked me four months back, I’d have said yes.”
“So, what changed?”
Wynter shakes his head and brings his fingers to his mouth, where the digits play along his plump lower lip. After a minute or so, it becomes obvious I’m not going to get an answer.
“I’m a photographer. When I get stifled, I soak up other media. I listen to music, read, go places, just try to fill the creative well.”
He nods, but it fast turns into a shake. “I’m not interested in listening to everyone else’s finished masterpieces.”
“So, a film. There must be something you want to watch that qualifies as pure escapism.”
“There is one thing I’ve been putting off.”
He names a recent blockbuster I wouldn’t have expected him to like, starring Felicity Caine, a former child star that I used to love watching in the Caine Chronicles as a teen.
Dad used to watch with me. We had a deal: he’d watch my choice, and I’d watch his.
We’d both pretend it was a chore and that we hated the other’s choice, but we never missed a single episode of either show. “Watch it.”
“It’s supposed to be my reward for finishing the album.”
“Sometimes you have to cut yourself a break and just eat the chocolate.”
He absorbs my advice with a frown.
Reid reappears. He towers over us, peering at us suspiciously. “Everything all right?” It’s a reasonable question, given how Wynter and I are frowning at one another.
“Fine,” I say.
Reid offers me a hand up. “I spoke to Ric, he said you can pop over tomorrow and see his setup, with the caveat that you subject yourself to his scrutiny. Apparently, everyone who enters his studio is fair game.
“Iris is a photographer,” he explains to Wynter.
“Yeah, she said.”
Not that I’m about to turn the offer down, but what will Alaric Liddell see when he analyses me through his viewfinder in my bruised and battered state? I’ll endure it, no matter. Anything for the opportunity of a one-on-one meeting with him.
Life has certainly become interesting since my arrival on Liddell Island.