by Mandy Baggot
* * *
Ellen’s fingers on his face were setting him alight. Was it just the fact it was forbidden? He didn’t think so. He had never wanted forbidden. He just seemed to want her. Her touch, so real, just simple, honest perfection. He closed his eyes as she ran her fingers slowly down his neck, pausing at the rimmed collar of his t-shirt. He wanted to kiss her right now. He wanted to take her in his arms and put his mouth to hers. He wanted to forget what he ought to do and find solace with her. Time could stand still. He could forget home and everything that had happened there and be with this beautiful woman. A beautiful woman who was seeing him as he was.
Yan opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get the words out Ellen was pressing her lips to his in an open-mouthed kiss that rocked him. Almost as soon as they had touched she was drawing away, her cheeks red, her eyes bright, but a look of concern furrowing her brow. Did she have regrets? Was it not what she wanted?
He inched forward, reaching for her hand and slowly lowering his face back towards hers. Would she pull away? Should he do this? Their lips came together again and the second it happened everything else fell from his mind.
20
His lips left hers and he took a whole stride backwards and away.
‘I am sorry.’
Ellen didn’t know what to say. Why was he apologising? Had she done something wrong?
He stepped further back.
‘Ah!’ A yelp left his lips.
She looked to the floor and his foot. He’d stepped onto the smashed glass.
‘Don’t move. I’ll get something.’ She stepped sideways, squinting at the marble floor and trying to pick out any shards that could be waiting to embed themselves in her feet.
‘No. I am OK,’ he insisted, warily shifting back to the chair.
‘Don’t be stupid. You’re bleeding all over the floor and you might have some glass in there.’
She was heading for the kitchen area and the sink, although she wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she got there. Water was all she could think of and something to wipe the cut.
‘You should go,’ he called.
She stiffened at his words. One kiss and now he wanted her to leave. She sighed and concentrated on running the water into the bowl. Until he’d pulled away she thought, well, she’d thought he was feeling what she was feeling. Now he wanted her to go, even with the threat of half a tumbler of glass stuck in his skin.
‘I am OK,’ he said again.
She turned the tap off with force and swung around to face him. ‘I get it. I’ll go. Just as soon as I’ve checked out your foot.’
She hadn’t really meant those words to come out so harshly but there they were, spinning through the air between them. She kept her eyes steady, watching him, one leg crossed over the other, his hand holding the injured foot as it continued to bleed.
* * *
She didn’t understand and how could she? He’d kissed her, taken her mouth with his and broken every rule of his job and every self-imposed one too. The second their lips met he should have pulled away. But he hadn’t. He’d kissed her again, deeper and fuller and she had reacted. Reacted with a passion to match his.
‘Tsk!’ He let the sound out in reaction to his thoughts without meaning to. Raising his head he saw her shoulders sag. This was for the best.
‘I cannot ...’ he started. He needed to say something to end it, to let her know this would not happen again, for his own protection and to make sure she didn’t tell.
She was walking towards him now, the bowl from the sink in her hands together with some paper towels, ignoring his words. This wasn’t good. She was intent on playing nurse and he knew if she touched him he would crumble. He took a stronger grip on his foot to make it clear he wasn’t going to give it up to her.
Ellen knelt down on the hard floor and looked up at him. ‘Give me your foot.’
Just the thought of her hands on his skin sent shivers through him. He held on and kept his expression hard.
‘I can do this,’ he stated.
‘Why are you being like this?’
He could feel the frustration and annoyance in her tone and for a second he relaxed. This wasn’t him. He wasn’t someone who would treat a woman badly. That was Sergei’s well-practiced role.
He watched her sink back onto her haunches. ‘If you regret kissing me that’s fine. I’m a grown-up.’ She let out a sigh and the guilt coiled inside him.
‘Ellen ...’ he began.
‘I don’t know exactly how old you are, but I’m thirty which means I’m definitely past all the teenage stuff.’ She looked up at him. ‘It was a just a kiss. One moment of holiday madness. I can go right back to not enjoying my holiday tomorrow.’
As she talked and he listened, he felt his feelings sway out of sync. This was good. She was letting him out of the situation, getting him off the hook, closing the door on it. But there was another part of him that didn’t want her to dismiss the kiss. He’d felt more in that kiss than he’d felt in any other kiss in his life. How could that be so?
‘So, we don’t have to talk about it or think about it or ever mention it again.’ Her voice sounded steady and determined. ‘I’ll just check out your foot and then I’ll go.’
She was making it so easy for him. She’d given him feelings tonight that at one time he thought he’d never experience again and he was treating her so poorly.
‘Ellen,’ he started again.
‘Listen, I can do a holiday kiss and move on.’ She gurned. ‘I might even try my luck with Spiros tomorrow.’
* * *
That wasn’t the right thing to say at all. She was such an idiot. She didn’t want to cheapen what they’d just shared. Because it had been special. And she didn’t want to repeat it with Spiros or anyone else on the holiday complex despite her insistence otherwise. It was one thing not to turn their kiss into something it wasn’t, but entirely another to say it hadn’t mattered a bit and she was up for snogging anyone she could get her lips on.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ Ellen stated quickly.
‘It is OK.’
He sounded completely pissed off now and she didn’t blame him. Well done, Ellen. Share a wonderful, passionate kiss with someone hot and pretend it was no better than locking lips with a random on New Year’s Eve. Even animators with experience in no-strings relationships had feelings, didn’t they? It wasn’t all pass the ouzo and drop your knickers, was it?
She grabbed his foot and, as she did, he removed his hand from around it. There was a large slice of skin open on the left side of his sole and a smaller cut at the very bottom. She narrowed her eyes, looking into the wounds as best as she was able in the dimly-lit room. She couldn’t see any glass shards but that was the nature of glass, transparent and hard to detect. She wet a paper towel and pressed it to his foot.
He didn’t flinch or make a sound so she looked up, checking his expression. The blue eyes met hers and a warm, fuzz of feeling fell like a light fluffy cloud around her.
‘I ... I can’t see any glass,’ she said, trying to break the spell.
‘Good.’ He shot his foot away from her so quickly her hands fell into the bowl and water sopped onto the floor.
‘I am sorry. I clear up.’ Yan stood up.
‘Don’t!’ Her voice came out on the very edge of angry. ‘It’s just some water.’ She got to her feet, pulling the top down over her thighs as she rose. ‘If you tell me you have a bandage or some plasters somewhere, I’ll go.’
He nodded his head but didn’t sit. He was looking at her as if he didn’t know what to do or say.
‘Right then.’ She picked her sandals up from the floor and slipped them onto her feet. ‘I will see you for water aerobics tomorrow.’
She marched to the door with all the nonchalance she could muster and placed fingers on the handle.
‘Ellen, I do not mean for you to go this way.’
His voice, velvet-coated, made her insides curl. She had had
that mouth on hers, experienced pleasure so intense … But she mustn’t get emotional. It was over before it had really begun.
‘Thank you for the drink and the loan of your shower.’ She couldn’t look at him. She mumbled to the floor. ‘Get a bandage on that foot.’
She pulled at the door handle and slipped out of the room with no turning back.
* * *
The breeze was chilling her bare legs as she hurried down the sloping path at the side of the buildings towards her and Lacey’s suite. She’d left her dress and underwear in Yan’s room, but there was no way she was going back. If she arrived back at his door minutes after leaving he’d think she was desperate and clingy, that she wanted to start some sort of relationship. And she didn’t. She liked him, yes, but she was on holiday and he worked there, saw different women every week, probably fell in lust a hundred times a season. And that was OK. It really was OK. And the kiss had been wonderful. She could hold onto that memory. She’d been desirable to someone who hadn’t wanted anything else from her. That was enough.
As she rushed up the flight of steps to the room she realised she had no key. Running off in pursuit of a missing boy had been far more important than handbag, phone or keys. Just as she noticed a crack of light at the bottom of the door there was the sound of conversation from inside. Her heart faltered. Lacey was entertaining. And there was only one person she’d invite back to the room. Balling her hands into fists she hammered on the wood.
21
‘Lacey! Let me in! Let me in right now!’
Ellen’s hands were just beginning to hurt from the pummelling when the door opened.
‘Hi! Hi! Hi! Miss Ellie!’
Dasha greeted her, all six foot four of him in high sequinned platforms and a red mini-dress she was sure was Lacey’s. Her mouth hung open and she didn’t know what to say. She’d been expecting Sergei. She’d thought she was going to walk in on naked writhing and have to disconnect them somehow. Being greeted by a cross-dresser in one of her sister’s outfits was so much better. She managed a smile.
‘Hi. I forgot my key. I left my bag at the table and ...’ Ellen began.
Lacey appeared at the door, bright pink lipstick covering her lips and her hair in multiple bunches, like elastic worms, coiled around her platinum strands.
‘Oh my days! Look at the state of you! What’s that jumper you’re wearing?’
At Lacey’s reminder of her lack of clothes she shivered. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Ooo I am sorry! Come in! Come in!’ Dasha opened the door wider and put a strong hand on her shoulder, pulling her into the room.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Lacey narrowed her eyes. ‘And where are your clothes?’
‘I got cold after getting in the pool and had to ...’ she started. She didn’t know where to sit. There were dozens of outfits laid out on both beds and hangers of clothes dangling from every available vantage point, including both chairs.
‘Getting in pool? Are you crazy, lady? Pool is unheated. To swim at night time is very too cold,’ Dasha announced, his eyes wide.
‘You went swimming?’ Lacey exclaimed. ‘In your clothes?!’
They didn’t know about Zachary and the rescue. She thought news would have travelled quickly around the hotel but it seemed these two had been swamping everything out with fashion if the room was anything to go by. She perched herself on the arm of one of the chairs next to a green sequinned dress she knew wasn’t Lacey’s.
‘The missing boy, Zachary ...’ She paused, remembering his pale skin, his lifeless form as she dragged him through the water. ‘He was in the adults’ only pool. I pulled him out.’
‘Fucking hell! Is he dead?!’ Lacey exclaimed, wide-eyed.
Ellen shook her head. ‘No, he’s fine. Yan did mouth-to-mouth and brought him round.’
‘Yan save life of boy? This is amazing!’ Dasha exclaimed.
‘I had no idea! Everyone left the entertainment area so we went to Bo’s Bar. I waited but you didn’t turn up so we came back. Are you all right?’
Ellen nodded although she felt anything but all right. She was still cold, bitter to the bones and tingling a little from her encounter with Yan. She tightened her lips as she looked back at her sister. She wasn’t going to tell Lacey anything about the kiss. She and Yan had both needed a bit of human contact after a traumatic event that had shocked them. It was a natural reaction to seek solace and consolation and neither of them had anyone else to turn to. They’d been within easy reach of each other, the inevitable had happened, that was all. Another shiver ran over her.
‘I get hot drinks?’ Dasha offered.
‘I could do with something stronger. You’ve got a bruise the size of Wiltshire on your thigh,’ Lacey remarked, pointing.
Ellen looked at her leg. There was a dark mark on her skin. She presumed she’d got it from the pool when she was struggling to get Zachary out. She couldn’t feel it. But then she could barely feel anything.
‘I go to bar for drinks,’ Dasha decided, heading for the door.
‘The bar will be closed now it’s ...’ Ellen started.
‘Bar is never closed if you know right people,’ Dasha replied, batting his eyelids. ‘I will be quick. I will find handbag.’
Lacey’s dress whisked through the doorway on his broad frame and he closed the door behind him. Ellen let out a breath and her shoulders sagged.
‘So you’re a heroine again. Just like you were with Dennis Jones,’ Lacey remarked, throwing herself down on the bed and scattering a gold polka dot trouser suit.
‘No, I just got myself in the right place at the right time, that’s all. It was Yan. He did all the hard work.’ She gazed into the mid-distance. ‘He brought him back from near death.’
‘And what time was this?’
‘I don’t know. Just after Zachary’s mum was out of her mind searching every square inch of the entertainment area. Half eleven?’ Ellen guessed.
‘And it’s almost half past one,’ Lacey stated, looking at her watch.
Lacey had turned into one half of Scott & Bailey. Within seconds her sister’s suspicious looks and unbelieving stance were going to have all the details of her exchange with Yan falling from her lips if she didn’t think fast.
‘Where are your clothes?’
She didn’t have an innocent explanation. ‘One of the maids took them to dry and gave me this.’ She hoped that was plausible.
‘Urgh! A Greek roll-neck! I can’t even look.’
Ellen picked up a tiny neon blue bandeau top from the table and held it up between thumb and forefinger. ‘And what d’you call this?’
‘Fashion. Me and Dasha have had a little frock therapy,’ Lacey admitted.
Ellen caught the blush on her sister’s cheeks and it was her turn to look suspicious.
‘You know, I half expected to find Sergei in here with you. Dasha and dresses were a welcome alternative,’ she remarked.
She saw the redness rise on Lacey’s cheeks and she knew. Sergei may not have been in the room when she’d returned but something had happened between them.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘What? What d’you mean, what happened?’ Lacey got off the bed and started to pace around the room picking up outfits and laying them across her arm like she was Julien Macdonald at a fashion show.
‘Lacey, you’re the world’s worst liar.’
Lacey let out an annoyed grunt and threw the dresses to the floor. ‘Why do you always have to freaking do that?!’ She slumped back down onto the bed.
Ellen kept silent. She’d opened the door and now it was up to Lacey to let the truth out. She silently prayed it was no more than flirtation but in all honesty she suspected bodily contact.
Lacey flicked her legs back and forth off the bed like a child on a swing. ‘Sergei and I…we kissed.’
Ellen’s stomach plummeted. This was bad. This was her fault. She should have been there keeping an eye on her. But if she had, if she hadn’t run fo
r Zachary, something far worse would have happened. And Lacey was twenty three, she had to keep reminding herself of that. She should fight the instinct to baby her.
‘One minute we were fighting over a cocktail umbrella and the next ...’ Lacey let out a long, high-pitched sigh that Ellen tried to interpret. She wasn’t getting regret.
‘The next I was looking into his brown eyes and ...’
‘Lacey.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t romanticise it.’ Ellen blew out a breath and attempted to push any thoughts of Yan to the back of her mind. ‘You kissed him. You didn’t sleep with him. We can move on from this.’
Lacey dropped her eyes to the floor. Oh God this was bad. It looked very much like it had already been romanticised and created into a Hallmark movie. Lacey was practically sepia and blurry around the edges with romance.
‘It felt nice,’ her sister whispered.
Ellen closed her eyes as visions of Yan’s face lowering onto hers battered their way into her head. Her sister had kissed another man and all she could do was wallow in the delicious feelings she’d been wrapped up in not more than half an hour ago. This was serious.
Ellen opened her eyes back up and looked across at her sister. She didn’t look twenty-three, she looked about sixteen and completely lost. There was only one thing she could do.
Ellen moved across the room and sat down next to her sister, enveloping her in consoling arms, coddling her blonde head against her shoulder. Lacey started to cry but she had nothing to give her this time. No words of wisdom, no tellings-off, no instructions on how to sort it all out. Her advice had mainly been based on common sense, not experience and right now she was floundering in every respect.
‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ Lacey blubbed. ‘But I wanted to. So I did.’
Ellen ran her fingers through her sister’s hair and let the tears fall.