Chapter 23 Sexts and Stalkers
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sexts and Stalkers
IRINA
M_Jay: Are you having a nice night with Kat?
M_Jay: And the apartment is secure? Door is locked, no disturbances?
I smirked, glancing up to check that Kat hadn’t returned from her phone call with Sir Dom. The coast was clear. Curling my feet up under me and hissing when my icy toes made contact with my bare legs, my fingers flew over the touchpad.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: I’m safe, I promise. Sounds like you’re missing me already, Hubby, and it’s not even 10pm.
M_Jay: I started missing you the moment you walked down that gangplank.
A thrill exploded in my stomach, fluttering up through my chest. Don’t be stupid, Irina. He’s only saying it to maintain the married-people facade.
M_Jay: And don’t even get me started on Abernathy! The beast has been pining loudly and non-stop since you left! He’s already commandeered your pillow, and he hisses at me if I try to move him.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: Aww. Give the poor baby a kiss on the head from me! I’ll be home tomorrow, I promise. It’s Girls NIGHT, not nights.
M_Jay: Abernathy gets a kiss on the head from you … what do I get?
Squirming at the sudden flash of arousal that shot through me, I nibbled on my lip. Damn him, now he had me thinking all manner of naughty things. Not that I could act on them if I was home.
But … I wasn’t home. And we were using our DMs on Tickle to establish the kind of text banter a couple of newlyweds would engage in. So, it wouldn’t be completely inappropriate of me to get dirty and flirty on here with him, would it?
Before I could talk myself out of it, I shakily typed in a reply, sucking back a girlish giggle.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: You can have a kiss too
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: Anywhere you want
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: I have a suggestion of where I’d like to put my mouth …
It went from sent to read immediately, and then for a very long time there was nothing. I swallowed back my nerves. What if he thought this was crossing a line? What if his PG rule went as far as our DMs?
Setting my phone down, refusing to dwell over what he might be thinking, I got to my feet, heading into my bedroom and returning with a pair of socks.
I’d forgotten how cold this apartment got in the evenings once autumn hit!
I’d gotten so used to the comfortable luxury of the yacht over the last fortnight.
This place felt unfamiliar and unwelcoming.
And I’d have to sleep alone for the first time in two weeks! There was no Abernathy here. No warm, vibrating mass on the pillow beside me.
My phone buzzed, and I practically dove for it. Any chance of containing a giggle went out the window when I read his response.
M_Jay: I think about your mouth, and what it can do to me, more than I care to admit
M_Jay: I just admitted it, didn’t I?
It tickled me that he was playing along, even though I knew it was only to build our backlog of proof. The silly, fluttery part of me decided that, just for tonight, I could pretend this was real.
I took an inch and decided to run a mile with it.
Ru_Snack_XXXplores: Tell me exactly what you’d like me to be doing with my mouth if I was home with you right now?
My heart drummed a frantic beat as the little dots appeared. And stopped. And then appeared again. And kept moving for a long time. I could barely breathe with anticipation by the time his message appeared.
M_Jay: What I’d really like for your mouth to be doing is making that pleading little moan that gets me so worked up I can’t think straight, while I kiss my way down your body, part those pretty thighs of yours, wrap my tongue around your—
“Okay, I’m back!” Kat announced, plonking down on the couch beside me. I squeaked, fumbling my phone as I frantically tried to close Tickle. Instead, my phone popped out of my hands and arced across the coffee table, landing with a clatter on the floor at the other side.
“What was that all about?” Kat asked as I clambered awkwardly over the coffee table to collect my phone. “Who were you texting and giggling over, Irina Rusnac?” Her mouth formed an O, her eyes popping. “Are you seeing someone from Trickle?”
I rolled my eyes, heart buzzing. “It’s Tickle. And no, I’m not seeing anyone. I was just … responding to DMs. I get a lot of them, you know.”
Not as many as I had been to begin with. I’d noticed a decline in not just my DMs, but my views over the last couple of weeks. I’d been posting just as regularly, and my engagement was fantastic, but it was almost like the app was suppressing my content.
I’d been meaning to talk to Henry about it, but while I had no problem teasing him when I was heading into my room to film, something stopped me from outright asking him why my views had tanked.
“Do you reply to all of them personally?” she asked, tucking her legs up under her Oodie. “Isn’t that massively time consuming?”
I shrugged. “I have all the time in the world at the moment. It’s not like I’m studying, and rehearsing for the musical of a lifetime, and banging my hot professor in his classroom.”
Kat sighed, and a pang of guilt wracked me. She wasn’t just doing those things. She was navigating her life with a parent who had an illness that would eventually kill him.
“Sorry, Kat. That was a shitty thing to say,” I mumbled. “I know life’s not all roses for you, either.”
“I wish you’d just talk to me, Ri,” she pleaded, reaching out and taking my hand.
“I’m not stupid—I know you’ve got some stuff going on with your family back home, and you’re trying to avoid it.
And I know you think that I can’t help with that but …
” She rested her head on my shoulder. “You’re my best friend, and sometimes a problem shared is a problem halved. ”
My throat clamped closed, robbing me of breath. There was zero chance that my Romanian problem would be lessened in any way by talking to Kat about it.
She took my silence as stubbornness and sighed, pulling away. I snatched her back to me, crushing her in a tight hug.
“I love you, Kat. You know that, right?” I rasped.
“I know you do, you crazy bitch!” She squeezed me back just as tightly. “And you know I love you back just as hard, even when you’re being mysterious and elusive.”
My phone pinged—not a notification from Tickle, but a text message. Reluctantly I extricated myself from Kat’s arms.
Stefan: Dad just got off the phone and he’s in a foul mood. He’s frozen your bank account. If I’d known earlier, I would have warned you to go withdraw some cash. Are you going to be ok??
“Who is it?” Kat asked. Maybe this was the truth that I could give her, without telling her the real horror …
“It’s my cousin. My uncle’s not happy about the … delay in my return home. I’ve just been cut off.” I tapped out a reply.
Ri: I’ll be fine. I have some funds saved from my swim coach job. It’s enough to get me through until semester finishes.
Stefan: And when is that again? Have you booked a flight home yet?
I left him on read.
“What have you told them?” she asked.
I shrugged. “That I failed a class and the professor got me an extension on my visa so I could take it again this semester.”
Kat’s forehead creased. “Is that even a thing?”
“Who the fuck knows? It’s been enough to keep them off my back so far.” But they were losing their patience, and I wasn’t legally protected here in Australia yet.
“What happens when the semester is over, and you still don’t go home? Ri, you’re going to need a better story than that.”
Fixing my eyes just above her head, I muttered, “Hopefully by the end of the semester I’ll be safe from them.”
“But how?” Kat insisted. “What are you up to? Where have you been all year? You hardly ever come home, you’re so reticent whenever I ask where you’ve been. You’re not caught up in something criminal, are you?”
I gaped at her. “Fuck no!” As I said it, I realised it wasn’t exactly true. What Henry and I were doing could be called breaking the law. But that wasn’t the sort of crime Kat was referring to. “I’m just … working on a more permanent solution.”
“You’re not going to give me even a scrap more information on this, are you?” Kat muttered.
“It’s better for you not to know,” I managed, feeling like the worst sort of friend. “Not yet anyway.”
Kat watched me, a worried frown on her beautiful face. “Alright,” she said eventually. “I won’t push. Now, do you happen to know French at all?”
I pulled back from her quirking an eyebrow. “Because …?”
She blushed. “Because Dom’s French, and he said something to me on the phone just before, and I’m desperate to know what it was! He refused to tell me, but I’m pretty sure the word ‘delicious’ was in there somewhere, and—”
I cackled, relief at the change of subject flooding me. “He likes the taste of you! I can guarantee that’s what Dirty Dom was talking about!”
“You’re probably right,” she admitted, her fingers tracing gently back and forth on her lower lip, a distant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Ooh! You really like him!” I gasped, gripping her knee. “And not just for orgasms!”
Kat shrugged, as if she could trick me into thinking she was nonchalant about all of this. “No, it’s not like that. He’s just … is it weird that I feel like I can confide in him?”
A pang jolted my chest. “Of course it’s not. The kind of sex you two are having, that requires trust, from both of you. And it breaks down emotional barriers too.”
Kat nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “I do like him. But it can’t ever be more than what it is now …”
“Says who?” I demanded, reaching for my vodka glass, only to remember I’d drained it earlier watching her text her new man. “Relationships have developed out of far more bizarre starts than sex, you know.”
“Hmm,” she mumbled. “Anyway, I’m absolutely exhausted, and I have a full day of classes tomorrow.” She stood, tucking her hands into the pocket of her Oodie. “I better get some sleep.”