Marbella Truth

by Shel Stone

  “Yes, fine, anything.”

  “There’s Pimms if you want some.”

  “That’s fine,” he said and then accepted a glass of the amber liquid with chunks of fruit in it.

  People were arriving, but Inns refused to admit he was nervous about seeing her. There was nothing to be nervous about. Still, he watched the door. Aggie was milling around in some floaty light blue dress with ruffles. They hadn’t really spoken since he’d arrived other than greeting and inquiring how the other was.

  And then Esme arrived. He didn’t recognise her on first glance. She was thinner than she’d been. It wasn’t attractive. Her clothes seemed held up by her shoulders and nothing else.

  Esme and Aggie hugged, and then he saw that Esme was there with a guy, some ridiculous gym monkey by the look of it. His clothes were stupidly tight and he had more product in his hair than the girls. Honestly, he was disappointed if that was the kind of guy Esme directed herself towards.

  Aggie could have mentioned that she was attached. Or perhaps she was embarrassed about her friend’s taste in men.

  “Inns,” Esme said calmly, having spotted him.

  He felt put on the spot for a moment. “Esme, good to see you. You look... well.” It was a lie, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. She looked like a cancer patient, or a junkie, but her clothes were obviously designer quality.

  “How are you? This is Ricky,” she said, moving her clutch to sit between her twiggy arm and waist.

  “Hey,” the guy said, holding up his hand in that crass clasp that guys of lower standing tended to do with their mates. No, they weren’t mates and Inns certainly wasn’t going to pretend.

  “Inns,” he said and ignored the guy’s gesture. “Wonderful that you could join us tonight.” He spoke more to Esme, completely ignoring the guy. “There are waiters that can provide you with any drinks you should like. Please make use of them.” His tone sounded cold even to himself.

  “Thank you. Good to see you. You look the same.” Esme seemed to look around for someone and he wondered if she was seeking his girlfriend, and again he cursed Annabel for leaving him high and dry on an occasion like this, particularly when his ex turned up with a steroid jacked buffoon.

  “Yes, I suppose,” he said and the conversation tired. “Please enjoy the evening.”

  “Thank you,” Esme said, smiling tightly and walking past, with her monkey in tow.

  Aggie gave him that tight-mouthed look of disapproval, but then she always disapproved, so nothing new there.

  Chapter 10

  Esme hadn’t felt this uncomfortable at Aggie’s house since... probably ever. And she certainly didn’t want to see Inns looking like this. Her skin was bad, her hair was dull. Not that she cared. At least his girlfriend wasn’t there. Why had she agreed to come? Because Aggie had just about bullied her.

  It was a relief not to walk in alone. Ricky was a good sport about it, which she appreciated. It wasn’t every guy who understood that you didn’t want to be utterly vulnerable with your ex.

  It was so strange seeing Inns again. At the same time, they were both strangers and not. She knew things about him that no one else here knew. And it was absolutely not a good idea to sit here and think through the things she knew about him that no one else did.

  He was still utterly prickly. Sweet underneath, a good lover, but completely incapable of faring in the world in general.

  Biting her finger, she looked away. That was how she’d felt about Darius as well, except Darius had destroyed her. Inns hadn’t, and she was trying to understand the difference. Obviously, it had hurt when Inns had left and decided to pursue his life back home, rather than be with her, but she’d also understood that his life back home meant everything to him.

  It was fair to say they had little in common, and she didn’t understand his attitudes and vantage point, in many ways, but she did understand how much he wanted what he wanted. It just hadn’t been here, and he’d never said otherwise.

  “How are you?” Cassandra said. “Aggie said you’d launched a new product. I will have to try it. I did adore the moisturiser you made. It smells lovely.”

  “I’ll send a sample to you. I’d love to hear your opinion on it.”

  At least Aggie wasn’t talking about how shat on she’d been by Darius Azmer, or Cassandra had the reserve not to delve into it.

  “And who is this handsome young man?” Cassandra asked. For a moment, Esme had no idea what she was walking about.

  “Oh, Ricky. This is Ricky. A friend.”

  Cassandra shook hands with him and she could see her taking Ricky in the way women did. It seemed Aggie’s mother wasn’t immune to his in-your-face charms. He was a handsome guy. Way too buff for her liking. Way to manicured. There was literally no hair on his body. This guy would spend more time in front of the mirror than she did. Granted, she utterly bypassed mirrors at the moment.

  And she was thoroughly sick of being in pieces about all this now. She just wanted to get back to the person she’d been, but she just couldn’t get there. It was almost as if she’d been changed irrevocably, and not in a good way. Now she jumped at shadows. She was scared of everything, of people judging her, or putting herself out there. Obviously, it wasn’t good.

  Her eyes sought Inns, who was talking with a group of older men. There was something comforting about seeing him, but also devastating. Inns had hurt her, but he hadn’t wanted to hurt her, which was what made him different from Darius.

  And now he was with the kind of girl he wanted to be with—someone with pedigree, the right education and manners, the right crowd. To a lot of people, Esme was the right crowd, but there was always someone to reject you, wasn’t there? Why couldn’t the world just be a happy place?

  “You alright?” Ricky asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s sweet of you to ask”. And he had this silkiness in his voice what was just appealing. And who didn’t like a guy who asked a girl if they were alright?

  “Don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to keep up.”

  “As the club Lothario.”

  “I’m not exactly sure what that means, but something like that.”

  Ricky absolutely had a reputation as a player, sleeping with every girl in town. And he’d cheated on Megan probably a hundred times. In a sense, she had no idea why she was here with him. For some reason Aggie was friends with him.

  Ricky drew the attention of one of the waiters, and Esme smiled, trying really hard not to notice Inns every five seconds. Something about him had always been forbidden, and it threatened to draw her now as it had drawn her then. Part of it was knowing that she could seduce him, and maybe she still could, but she was not going to go there, and she should absolutely not be thinking about it. Inns would probably never forgive her. He certainly wasn’t a Ricky, who would explore ‘things’ whenever his girlfriend’s back was turned.

  He’d already had a couple of drinks before they’d left, and he wasn’t slowing down. The last thing she felt was wise, she just couldn’t handle any more embarrassment at the moment.

  His drink arrived and he took a substantial swig. An image of her trying to drag a drunk club darling around entered her mind and she wondered if she could imagine a worse hell. Inns would have that disapproving look. It hadn’t gone unnoticed the bile that rose in him when he clapped eyes on Ricky.

  “Maybe we should go,” she said quietly.

  “You want to go?” Ricky asked.

  “This party is pretty dry. I’m sure you have better places to be. I’m really grateful you came with me. It was really decent of you.”

  “You can use me anytime you want to confront an ex.”

  Darius entered her mind. No, Ricky wouldn’t be enough to face down Darius. She would be an utter mess, Ricky or not.

  “Alright, let’s go,” he said.

  “Thank you for not being difficult.”

  She felt Inns’ eyes on her as she rose and walked over to Cassandra to e
xplain she had a headache. She felt them again when she walked out with Ricky. But there was no reason she should feel self-conscious. Inns had left her, so he shouldn’t have an opinion about her and who she was with. Obviously, he assumed Ricky was more to her than a crutch for an uncomfortable confrontation.

  “I love this car,” he said as he got into the passenger seat of her Audi. It had been Felix’s car, but she’d started using it and it had remained hers since. A little on the masculine side, but she liked it.

  “Where do you want to go?” she asked.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it. You can take me anywhere. I’ll manage.”

  Esme started the car and drove. “So what’s brought you back to Marbella?”

  “I don’t know. I just felt this was the right place to be. It’s a step back in my career, if I’m honest, but it felt like the right thing to do.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? Because I’m not sure I do.”

  “You have to take care of yourself first and foremost, don’t you?” she said, and it was a lesson she was trying to learn. “If you don’t, it’s just not sustainable, you know? No matter how good it is, if it’s not good for you, it just can’t last. The grain of truth in all my relationships.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe something about this place feels like home.”

  “It isn’t Aggie that’s drawn you here, is it?”

  “No, we’ve always just been friends.”

  It was dark and the lights of the town were like jewels along the coastline. The lights inside the car shone onto Ricky too, who looked strange in her car. He was so not the kind of guy she hung out with, but he was probably kinder than any guy she knew.

  They drove in silence for a while and then she reached the stop up on a hill that looked over the town itself. “Honestly, I’m not sure I could imagine living anywhere else,” she said, pulling over at the sight. “I think I would miss it too much. It’s just home.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s home, but it feels like somewhere I need to be. Maybe it’s the people. I’ve actually got to know people here. For a long time, that wasn’t important to me. I was so focused on making something of myself that everything I did was for that purpose, you know?” She didn’t really. “But it’s not enough. I never needed anyone. When I was with Megan, she was cool and everything, but she never understood me, and I was probably using her a bit, wanting to know where she would take me. But we never clicked on a deeper level. It didn’t seem to matter to her. Maybe I never gave it a proper chance either.”

  “Inns was a little like that. He liked being with me, but he never took the relationship seriously.”

  “Did you want him to?”

  “I don’t think I was thinking long term. I was just in the moment, you know,” she said with a wan smile.

  “Yeah, I know. Maybe we need these bad relationships to teach us what would actually suit us. You can have a superficial relationship with absolutely anyone, but when it comes to the real deal, the deep stuff, it needs to be with the right person.”

  Esme listened. She had no idea what the right person was. Maybe someone who didn’t make her guess her own sanity, had her on edge the entire time and manipulated her with their moods.

  Ricky really was sweet. She liked his honesty too. Maybe it wasn’t surprising why Aggie was friends with him. And in the darkness, his form drew her attention. He was just so solid.

  For the first time in a long time, she felt the spark of desire and the need to touch someone. Shifting closer, she kissed him, hoping like hell he wouldn’t shut her down. The kiss was slow and lingering. His skin was warm and smooth under her hands, his body so very firm.

  The kiss broke for a moment and she saw his eyes illuminated by the lights of the moon and the city below them. He didn’t say anything, but she could see he was trying to formulate what to say, so she kissed him again, more forcefully this time. It definitely wasn’t rejection. And he tasted so lovely.

  For a moment, it felt like all the badness was melting away, replaced by something exciting, something new. Sweet desire burned in her body, and for a long time, her body had been dead.

  Carefully, she shifted closer, navigating around the handbrake. Luckily, this was a spacious car. The kiss continued, feeling utterly natural. Her hand shifted down and she cupped him. A bulge that suggested he hadn’t been short-changed in that department. His breath hitched and she loved hearing it, loved feeling the tension rise in him. Breaking the kiss, she traced her lips down his neck. He smelled so good and he groaned as she continued to stroke him. She loved hearing his deepening breath, his hand stroking up her skirt.

  “Fuck,” he said and his voice reverberated through her body. She was dripping wet and she wanted him inside her, to feel him press into her.

  He was hard as steel under her ministrations, the material of his jeans straining around his cock. Popping the button of his jeans, she freed him, the silky length of him emerging.

  Shifting closer she pressed his cock to her slit, the material of her underwear in the way, but it felt so good. Heat exploded inside her, radiating out through every part of her body. She felt strong and wild, and she felt like she had what she needed.

  Shifting his hips forward, he put himself in a better position for her. The tip of his cock pressed into her entrance and it felt so good. Reaching down, she stretched her underwear to side. Anything else just wasn’t an option in the tight confines of the car. And then there were no barriers between them. The tip of his cock slipped inside her and the glorious feeling of her body yielding for him, the fullness and the sensation as she sank down on his cock.

  A smooth descent into lusciousness. Her muscles tightened around him and she rode him slowly, savouring every sensation.

  “Fuck,” he repeated, his hands urging her hips down on him again and again.

  With her hands on his shoulders, she rose and sank, savouring the feeling of his hard cock inside her, the sweet tension building along every part of her body. Right now she wasn’t questioning why guys treated her like they did, or what was so wrong with her that she let them. Now it felt like she was in control, and it felt fantastic.

  Her hips grinding to his, she took what she needed.

  Tension built painfully and her hands shook as she reached around his neck, drawing him into a kiss. Warmth seeped throughout her body, the urgent need for more building with each stroke. Before she was ready, her orgasm overtook her with a powerful rush that made her gasp, still needing him to move inside her. The rush released everything she’d held back for so long. Her body shook with it, pleasure surging through every part of her. Ragged breaths tore through her lungs.

  Chapter 11

  SOLRAYA SAT WATCHING TV while the girls were getting ready to go to work. A kind of malaise had descended on her, which it usually did when she was going through a major change. It was as though her soul wanted to stew on the change rather than run out and distract herself by any means possible. There was a certain mourning for the old that had to be done.

  Chrissy appeared. “You sure you don’t want to come to the club? It’d be fun. Jesus would probably appreciate you saying hello. It must have been a while since you’ve seen him.”

  “I absolutely will, but tonight, I think I need to keep it chilled, you know?” By the look of her, Chrissy didn’t know at all.

  “Okay, if you insist. Hannah’s going to be here soon. You guys could order a pizza, or something.”

  It was sweet, but also a little annoying that Chrissy was trying to manage her. It wasn’t necessary, she could manage herself being alone for a few hours.

  “Alright, I’ll see you later,” Chrissy said as Amber was coming down the stairs. “We’d better go.” It looked like there was something else she wanted to say, and Solraya was relieved when she didn’t. And then she felt crappy for wanting to be alone.

  The house was blessedly quiet for a while, but not long as Hannah arrived, the kiwi living in
the house that worked in some medical centre. “Hey,” the girl said as she came in and placed her bag on the dining table. “Staying in?”

  “Yeah,” Solraya said. “Just needed a bit of quiet time.”

  Whether the girl understood, or didn’t really care, Solraya appreciated that she didn’t press. “Sorted for dinner?”

  “Not yet. I kind of feel like steak, I have to admit.”

  “Well, we have a barbeque, but no steak. I can pop to the store and get some. I pretty much have to anyway, because we don’t really have anything. Wanna come?”

  “Alright,” Solraya said and got up. Going to the supermarket was mundane and chilled, and she did need some toiletries. They had to walk down the street a little to reach Hannah’s old Toyota. The supermarket was only five minutes away. Hannah seemed to know it well. “Want to get some wine?” the girl asked.

  “No, I’m kind of not drinking at the moment.”

  “You’re not pregnant, are you?” the girl said flippantly. Well, there was the thing. “Oh my God, you are. Wow. Congratulations.”

  “You’re pretty perceptive.”

  “I work in a medical centre. I ask that question a hundred times a day and there are certain looks you get in response, like the one you just gave.”

  “I haven’t really told anyone,” Solraya admitted. “Coming to terms with it, I guess.”

  “Wow,” Hannah repeated. “That is a big deal. I take it the father’s not in the picture.”

  “Nope,” Solraya said. It hadn’t really been a serious relationship, and she hadn’t told the guy, who’d left to take a job in the US. “We’re not really together.” Eventually she would get around to telling him, but it was just such an awkward conversation to have. Also she wanted to have her plans settled by the time she brought it up, so she wasn’t in a complete panic about it.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t want to raise a kid in Paris. At least not where I was living. And I think it was really time to go anyway, you know? I never intended to settle down and raise a family there.”