by Alexis Hall
“Like what sort of man you wish to become.”
“I’m not sure I even figured that out.”
“Yes. You have.”
He leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose. The playful gesture was a strange contrast to the sincerity of the words but I treasured both. Believed in both. Mustered a slightly wavery grin. “Well, I must be doing something right since you like me. But, when it comes to everything else, I don’t have a clue.”
“You told me you were interested in journalism.”
“I am. Except all I’ve done so far is write a few articles.”
“Have you been able to place them?”
A couple of emails had come in during my Kinlochbervie heartbreak exile, except I hadn’t really been in any state to appreciate them. “Yes. I mean, mainly online and stuff.”
“That’s wonderful.” Oh God, he sounded all proud of me. “And seems to directly contradict your assertion that you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I just feel like I’m fucking up another amazing opportunity. You take care of everything and what do I have to show for myself? A satirical review of expensive mineral water brands.”
“It’s a perfectly reasonable start.”
“But I had weeks. I could have learned Mandarin or written the Great American Novel.”
“Do you want to learn Mandarin or write the Great American novel.”
“Um, not exactly.”
That made him laugh, his breath ruffling my hair. And I guess I was being a bit silly.
“I wrote something I thought might work for Milieu,” I admitted. “But I haven’t submitted it yet.”
“Milieu?”
“Caspiaaaaan.” I thunked my forehead against him. “It’s a high-society lifestyle magazine. You’re regularly in it.”
“I pay very little attention to what other people say about me. Besides, I have lawyers who manage these things on my behalf.”
I pouted, wounded for Milieu. “It’s not a gossip rag. We’re not talking Twelve Shocking Things About Caspian Hart (You Won’t Believe Number 7) type material.”
“I see.” Except clearly he didn’t.
“Milieu’s like…this quintessentially British thing, y’know? It’s been around since seventeen-o-something. And somehow manages to be glamorous and ridiculous at the same time. I find that combination incredibly charming.”
His hand slid between us, his fingers tugging lightly at one of my nipple rings. “I definitely see the appeal.”
“I’m not glamorous.” I paused. “Wait. Are you saying I’m ridiculous?”
“I’m saying I find your combination of qualities unique and intriguing. And you don’t have to explain what you like to me. It’s enough that you like it.”
“Milieu’s probably the closest you can get nowadays to being in an Evelyn Waugh novel. Only without all the war, Catholicism, alcoholism, mental collapse, and dead children. And, anyway, I grew up reading it. I’d absolutely love to be part of it.”
“Then why haven’t you sent in your article?”
“Well…” I squirmed.
He poked me. Caspian Hart actually poked me.
Which I would have found hilarious if I hadn’t been in the middle of a major moop attack. “What if they say no?”
“Then you’ll find something else.”
“I thought you were only supposed to have one dream.”
“That’s a sinister lie perpetrated by Hollywood. You can have as many dreams as you dare imagine.”
I pulled a dubious face. “That just sounds like a long list of things to mess up.”
“To truly want something is to make yourself vulnerable.” He gave me one of his most uncertain smiles—the ones I half believed were only for me. “None know that better than I.”
He kind of had a point. “I still can’t quite believe you came all the way to Kinlochbervie.”
“I have crossed continents, risked millions, and ruined lives in pursuit of my business aims. Why do you believe I would do any less for you?”
I couldn’t help wondering how the whole situation would have played out if it had been reversed. Probably I’d have hidden under the nearest duvet, emerging only to scavenge for food in ruined supermarkets after the fall of civilization, and Caspian and I would never have seen each other again.
Urgh. I sucked. “I…I’ll try to do the same,” I said. “I mean, if you ever need me to come for you.”
He laughed, not in exactly in a nasty way, only I hadn’t made a joke. I guess it had sounded like one given he was, well, him and I was, well, me. And I couldn’t quite imagine in what topsy-turvy looking glass world he would need me to play rescuer. Getting into stupid scrapes was my gift, not his.
Reaching for my hand, he tucked it into his. “Send your article to Milieu.”
“Okay. Okay. Fine. But when they say no, and I’m crushed and my life is over, I’m blaming you.”
“Firstly, they might not say no. Secondly, if they do, you’ll find something else.”
“What something else?”
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever quickens your magnificent heart will eventually bring you success.”
“You really believe that?”
He gave me a look so full of warmth and pride that, right then, I could have turned tides. Pulled the stars from the sky. “I do.”
“Does, um, multinational banking and financial services make you feel that way?”
“It doesn’t have to. I’m not you, Arden.”
He sounded sort of quelling and sad. And both were walls, in their way. I gave his cold fingers a little squeeze. “It doesn’t mean you have any less right to happiness than I do.”
“You make me happy.”
I couldn’t tell if that was romantic or a lot of responsibility. Maybe both. “Then you better make damn sure we spend more time together in London. No more abandoning me in One Hyde Park.”
“Of course not. I shall endeavor to make myself available to you.”
“I like the sound of that.” I wriggled into a sitting position and tucked my knees up—although considering everything that had happened on this plane, modesty was pretty irrelevant right now. “When?”
“Pardon?”
“When are you going to make yourself available to me? I want names, I want places, I want dates.”
His hand went to his mouth, I think covering a smile. “When I said to pursue what inspired you, I didn’t mean my schedule.”
“It’s not your schedule I’m after. It’s you.”
“Oh.” He looked oddly abashed. “Arden.”
“What? You can’t give me life advice and then go weird when I follow it.”
“No I…I simply wasn’t expecting you to apply it immediately. And to me.”
I shrugged bit self-consciously. “Well, you quicken my heart. And also other bits of—mmfff.”
His kiss cut me off, unexpected in its clumsy, close-lipped sweetness.
“When do you want to see me?” he asked.
“How about, say, right now? Today?”
“I’d love to but”—a shadow deepened his eyes to gray—“it’s not possible. I have to work.”
Of course he did. Caspian’s life was nothing but work. I’d known that from the beginning. And while I was capable of immense feats of whininess, there was no way I was setting myself up in opposition to his job. Because if TV had taught me anything, that was how you got murdered: see Damages, see Luther, see Scandal. “Tomorrow?”
“It’s a deal. Now come on.” He nudged his nose gently against mine. “There’s just about time to shower.”
If it was an attempt to distract me, it totally worked. “There’s a shower?”
He nodded and led me off to the bathroom.
Where there really was a shower.
A shower.
On a private jet.
It wasn’t big enough for two, unfortunately, but the water pressure was way better than plenty of showers I’d taken in buildings
on the ground.
I stood under the spray, wincing as the droplets stung my poor arse, but my muscles appreciated the attention. My knees were still wobbly, though, and my head felt light and stuffy at the same time, like my brain had been entirely replaced with candyfloss.
Happy, shiny candyfloss.
Oh wow.
Was this really my life?
And did Caspian really say all that stuff to me?
And if being fucked on a plane got me into the mile-high club, did being fucked on a plane with its own shower make me a platinum member?
I wasn’t sure how much water there was, so once I’d got over a fit of the giggles at the sheer impossibility of everything that had happened to me lately, I got out, toweled myself off carefully, and dressed. I didn’t remember Caspian bringing me my clothes but I was so well fucked and so well cared for I probably wouldn’t have remembered if a barbershop quartet had parachuted in and performed Bohemian Rhapsody. Mainly, I was relieved I didn’t have to wander his plane with my junk hanging out.
No sign of Caspian back in the cabin.
Just the indentations we had left on the sofa and what was clearly a splash of my dried come on the floor.
I stared at it in horror. Before rushing back to the bathroom to get warm water and a cloth.
I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing urgently, when Caspian strolled in, pulling a jumper—fresh but otherwise identical to the one he’d been wearing before—over his head.
It reminded me abruptly that, while I’d been about as naked as it was possible to be, he’d been fully clothed as usual. I’d found it hot at the time but now, watching his abs vanish behind a curtain of whisper-soft cashmere, I felt a little cheated. They were quite some abs and I wanted to make an ordinance survey of their valleys. With my tongue.
Caspian, however, was staring at me like I’d gone mad. “What on earth are you doing now?”
“Um. There’s…” I pointed.
“Leave it, Arden. Someone will see to it.”
“Omigod no.”
He looked a little startled at my vehemence.
“I’m working class,” I explained, rubbing away at the carpet. “Middle class if you push it. And I absolutely refuse to contribute to a universe where it’s someone’s job to clean up my come.”
He sighed—though I told myself there was more affection in it than exasperation—and walked out.
That threw me a little. Maybe I’d already got too used to the petting and the smiling and the oh my Arden and your magnificent heart type sweet talk. But I guess he had…calls to make? Or maybe watching me de-ejaculate his plane was so unsexy he’d felt obliged to remove himself from my vicinity.
Thankfully, he came back a moment or two later and crouched down beside me. He’d brought a bottle of Vanish.
“Uh, what are you doing?” I asked, as he plucked the cloth out of my hand.
He sprayed and mopped and very soon all trace of my…of me was gone. Leaving the plush carpet as uniformly ecru as it had been before I spoodged all over it. He glanced up and gave me one of his apparently-becoming-somewhat-less-rare smiles. “If there is to be a universe in which the job of cleaning up your come exists, it might as well be mine.”
I laughed and leaned in, hoping for a kiss. “Y’know, you can be weirdly romantic sometimes.”
He stiffened (in the whole body, rather than exciting, way) and pulled back, flushing. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Caspian, it wasn’t an insult.”
“No, I know. But”—he got to his feet, which put an end to our tender moment over a come stain—“I can’t let you pretend that I’m—”
“Oh what? Pretend that you’re kind and funny and sweet? That you look like a god and fuck like the devil?” I rolled onto the floor and lay there on my stomach in the fashion of a kid about to throw a tantrum. I wasn’t actually, but the urge to full-body face-palm was strong right then. “Can’t you for once just let me enjoy being with you? And trust me to handle the emotional fallout when it comes?”
He nodded, though he still looked slightly freaked out. “I’m sorry. You’re right. But you have the most peculiar sense of romance.”
I pushed onto my elbow and attempted a sultry look. “I’ll take what I can get, Mr. Hart.”
He gazed down at me, the curve of his lips softened by another burgeoning smile. “Come and sit with me, Arden. We’re about to descend.”
I decamped. I wanted to be in his lap again with his arms around me, touch-needy idiot that I was, but I knew it wasn’t fair to push him. I’d promised him that degree of control in Kinlochbervie and he hadn’t exactly been measly with his attention. So I squidged up next to him on the sofa instead, and put my hand down between us in what I hoped was an accessible and appealing way.
For a little while we sat quietly.
Then I noticed his hand had somehow ended up right next to mine. And, weirdly, that was okay. Better than okay. It was sort of lovely.
“You bought me Pocky,” I reminded him.
“Hardly an act from which myths are spun.”
“That doesn’t matter.” I turned to face him, tucking a knee under me. “It’s not the size of the gesture that counts, it’s…”
“What you do with it?”
I laughed. Not so much at the joke but at the fact it came from Caspian. He was so…entrancing like this. Shyly playful behind his most severe facade. “What’s romantic to me isn’t the rote stuff like flowers or chocolate or serenading someone on a balcony at midnight—”
“I will not be serenading you ever.”
“Of course not.” I grinned. “I’m sure you’d outsource it to a serenading company.”
“The best regarded and most exclusive serenading company in the world.”
He’d derailed me by being funny, dammit. I made one last attempt to make my point. “I feel, um, romanced when you do things that show that…you know me. As well as care for me.”
“That simple, hmm?”
“What about when you rang me the night before your finals?”
“I was desperate to hear your voice again.”
“But you knew I’d be scared. And you reached out to me. That was romantic. Just like when you came to Oxford. And to Kinlochbervie.”
His eyebrow lifted into its most sardonic arch. “You seem to find a lot of romance in my behaving selfishly.”
“I don’t know if it was selfish or not. But I do know I needed you and you were there.”
“Did you also need Pocky?”
“Hell yes. Matcha chocolate cookie is nearly impossible to get over here.”
His expression turned thoughtful. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Feel free to look for yourself.”
“Not about the Pocky.” His hand slid fully over mine and claimed it. “About what makes you happy.”
“Generally a good plan in any…um—” Shit. I’d nearly dropped the R-word. The other R-word. “Generally a good plan. Hey, you know what else makes me happy?”
Least plausible cover-up ever. Way to go, Arden.
But he seemed willing to let me get away with it. “What?”
“When you…uh…” I was unexpectedly blushing, though I wasn’t sure it was because of what I was saying now or what I’d nearly said before. “…when you call me your slut—”
“Because you find it romantic?”
“Yes. Because it’s just for me.”
Caspian was silent for what felt like ages. “I think I was right the first time,” he murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“You do have a very strange sense of romance.”
Chapter 5
There was a car waiting for us at Heathrow—a proper billionaire car this time, with a driver—to take us to One Hyde Park. It felt odd coming back. I couldn’t have called it a homecoming because I was pretty sure that shining glass monster would never feel like home, but I was in a way more comfortable than I had been
the first time I’d stepped into its gold and marble maw.
Now it was a familiar gold and marble maw. Put it that way.
Unfortunately Caspian couldn’t stay. I hadn’t expected him to, but it didn’t stop the swell of disappointment from whichever organ generated the stuff. The balked duct.
He was, however, very nice about leaving. No vanishing abruptly into the night like the hero-villain from a gothic novel. There was only genuine reluctance, an apology, and a kiss on my nose before he left. Which was something he seemed to be making rather a habit of. Not that I was complaining. It was just unexpected.
Even—hah—romantic.
And my nose did have this very slight, almost questioning uptilt at the end, like maybe it was waiting for him.
Nasal care dispensed, he wished me a good night and promised to see me soon. I trailed him into the hallway trying not to look too desolate and puppyish, and probably failing hard.
He hesitated in the doorway. For a happy moment, I thought he might be about to change his mind, but all he said was, “You should have a word.”
“A word with who?”
“A word,” he repeated, looking everywhere but my face. “In case you need…in case you…in case you don’t like…”
“Oh, a safeword.”
He nodded, a touch of pink rising to his cheeks.
“Why?” Since I couldn’t catch his eye, I had to put all my blatant invitation into my voice. “Are you going to do terrible things to me while I beg you to stop?”
Pink was long gone. Now he was very red indeed. And looking so much like he was wishing the ground would swallow him whole that I felt a little bit bad. But then he nodded again. “Assuming, that is, you have no objections.”
“None whatsoever.” If only he would see my smile. “I absolutely and categorically welcome any depravity you care to practice on me.”
“Thank you. But I still think you should have a…a…”
He couldn’t even say it. “A safeword.”
Another nod.
I’d never seen him so uncertain. It made me want to pull him back into the apartment, wrap him up tight in my arms, and never let him go. But I knew he wouldn’t let me.
He cleared his throat. “Arden?”
Shit, I needed an actual word. But my mind had gone completely blank. “I can’t think of anything.”