by L.H. Cosway
Alistair must notice my worried expression, because he puts his hand on my arm and says, “Twins can be weird sometimes. Best leave it to the two of them to sort whatever it is out between themselves.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “I’m going to the bar to get an orange juice. Do you want anything?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
I get up and walk across the room to the bar. I end up asking for a white wine instead of an orange juice. Not ideal, but I need it.
On my way back, I find myself passing by Kara and that blonde girl from the beach. Michelle, I think.
I give them both a small smile and say, “Hi,” before continuing on my way.
A hand reaches out to stop me. It’s Kara. “Have you seen Robert?” she asks while simultaneously examining my dress. Perhaps it has a stain.
“He and Sasha are out in the lobby,” I tell her, making an effort to move on.
“Oh. Will you tell him I wanted a word?” There’s a hint of desperation behind the calm façade she’s putting up. I wonder what that’s about. Maybe I was right and she really does still have feelings for him.
“Sure.”
“Thanks,” she says, and takes a sip from her drink.
“I’ll see you later, then. You both look very pretty tonight.” I nod to Michelle and then back to Kara before walking away. They seem surprised by my compliment.
“Thanks again,” Kara calls after me, her voice slightly clipped now.
When I get back, Alistair has already finished his slice of cake and is sitting at another table, laughing with a group of young men and women. I nurse my wine and wait for Sasha and Robert to return. I’ve almost fallen asleep by the time Sasha comes back into the ballroom half an hour later.
My eyes travel over to her when she sits down. She’s actually smiling – kind of.
“Well, what happened?” I ask her.
“We talked. Robert explained a lot of stuff and, well, I’ve decided to give you both my blessing.”
I crinkle up my nose and look at her cynically. “We’re not getting married, Sash.”
“Oh, shush, you know what I mean.” She grabs a new glass of champagne from a server who passes by.
“Where’s Robert?”
“I’m right here,” his voice answers softly from behind as he scoops me up into his arms and squeezes me tight. He’s positively beaming, wearing the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.
“Let me go, you crazy person,” I say, laughing slightly. “Why are you so happy?” This isn’t exactly what I was expecting. To be honest, I thought they’d end up having the biggest fight ever and ruining their dad’s party.
His fingers travel over my cheeks as he bites down on his lower lip. His eyes are alight with mischief, like he knows a secret.
Finally, he drops his arms and lets me sit back down in my seat. He’s still grinning like a lunatic.
“Say something, will you? You’re freaking me out.”
A chuckle spurts from his lips as he asks, “What?”
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing. I just think you’re wonderful.”
“Hmm, why don’t I believe you?”
“You should believe me, because it’s true.”
I shake my head and look to Sasha for a minute to see if she’ll shed any light on the matter. She gets slightly tense. “He’s just happy that we discussed things and now everything’s out in the open.”
“All right,” I say suspiciously, turning back to Robert. “I bumped into Kara. She said she wants a word with you.”
His smile dies as he rubs his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, well, she can go on wanting.”
“I told you she still had feelings for you. She probably wants to ask you about getting back together.”
Sasha raises an eyebrow at this.
“Like I said, she can go on wanting.” He reaches forward and takes my hand into his, pulling his chair right up to mine so our thighs brush against each other. “Didn’t you hear a word I said earlier?” he asks. “It’s you I want, Lana. It always has been.”
He kisses me softly on the cheek as I pull away self-consciously. When I glance in Sasha’s direction, she looks completely out of her comfort zone. I guess me and Robert being a thing is going to take some getting used to for her. What am I saying? It’s going to take some getting used to for me, too.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I say, rising swiftly from my seat to escape the awkwardness that Robert seems to be oblivious to.
“I’ll go with you,” he says, rising as well, but I push him back down.
“No, I’ll only be a minute. You stay and have a drink.”
His eyes look back and forth between mine, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. A moment later he relents and allows me to pass. In the bathroom, I end up standing by the sink holding my hands under the cold tap, trying to clear my head and make sense of everything. It feels surreal to think that Sasha knows about us now. It feels surreal to think that I’m falling for my ex-bully.
Yes, falling for.
It’s almost impossible not to fall in love with Robert even when he’s acting like the devil incarnate, never mind when he’s being all tender and affectionate. A lesson for life: Beauty often causes people to overlook deeper flaws.
I need to find out what those two spoke about, because they were gone for quite a while and Robert’s acting…unusual.
“You’re going to catch your death if you keep your hands under there much longer,” says the bathroom attendant, noticing how I’m frozen in thought.
I give her a weak nod and abruptly turn off the tap, grabbing some paper towels to dry my hands. When I walk out of the ladies, Robert is leaning against the far wall, waiting for me. He reaches out and gathers me to his chest, breathing in deeply. He keeps staring at me, not saying anything, but looking like he just won the lottery.
“Stop being weird, Rob,” I tell him quietly.
“I’m not being weird. I’m just happy,” he says, leaning down to nuzzle my neck.
“Mmm,” I say with a sigh, closing my eyes for a moment and wishing we weren’t in the middle of a hotel full of people.
“Look at you, so pretty when you’re turned on,” he says huskily.
“I…” I falter as his hands massage my hips.
“Come on, everybody’s headed to Alistair’s now.”
At this he pulls me along with him and out to the front of the building, where there are several limos waiting. The first one pulls away from the entrance just as Robert opens the door to the second and ushers me inside.
“Just my luck,” he mutters when he notices Kara’s in this one, alongside Gary and Michelle. Sasha’s here, too, but I don’t recognise a single other face inside the packed vehicle. Well, except for the bald-headed Jimmy, who’s sitting up close to Sasha with his arm stretched a couple of inches behind her shoulders. She looks like she’s going to murder him if he tries laying a hand on her. It reminds me that I still need to somehow get her to come out to me, to everyone, really, because continuing with such a huge secret is no way to live, and I can’t let my best friend go on hurting herself like that.
There’s only one space left, so Robert settles me on his lap. He moves one hand up and down my back just as the driver starts up the engine. Next, he laces his fingers through mine, rubbing his thumb against the inside of my palm.
“Well, that didn’t take long,” I hear Kara announce amid the chatter, extra loud so there’s no chance of us not hearing her.
I jump a little, but Robert rubs his thumb in harder and whispers fervently, “Ignore her.”
A second later I hear mutterings, followed by cackling from her and Michelle. I’m about to turn around when Robert suddenly takes my face into his hands and plants his lips on me. He kisses me long and deep, his tongue thrusting in and out (in a manner way too sexual to suit my nerves). His hands travel to my neck, and they feel so warm and soothing.
Kara makes some other snipp
y comment, but I’m too lost in the kiss to hear her properly.
I pull away for a second to catch my breath, but Robert only draws me back in again. Before I know it, the limo has stopped, and Robert finally releases my mouth, his breathing heavy. My gaze travels immediately to Sasha, who seems to be fascinated by staring woodenly at the stitching on her dress. I can’t tell if this is because she’s trying to ignore Jimmy or if she’s trying to ignore me and Robert. I need to find a moment to talk all this through with her, because she seems a little weird about it despite having claimed to be fine.
I have no idea where we are when I step out onto the path on a residential street. Alistair’s house is three stories high and surrounded by brick walls. I momentarily think it must be his parents’ place, but then I remember Sasha telling me that he bought his own house last year. At the time I’d imagined a small little starter home, absolutely nothing like this. There must be money in the restaurant business. That, or he got himself a highly ambitious mortgage.
The music coming from inside can be heard pumping loudly even out here in the garden because the front doors are wide open. There’s a huge crowd inside; half of them probably weren’t even at Alan’s party in The Dorchester. Back there the age bracket had been much older, while here I can’t see anyone over thirty. Someone has affixed disco balls to the ceiling, and there are colourful lights flashing everywhere. It’s a touch disorienting. Spread around the expansive living room are makeshift stripper podiums – sans any strippers for the moment.
Alistair suddenly appears in the wide double doorway between the living room and the kitchen, brandishing a pint glass of beer. He looks completely drunk; his long brown hair (usually tied back in a ponytail) is loose around his shoulders. He raises the glass to us and begins chanting a song:
When the glass is full, drink up, drink up!
This may be the last time we see this cup
If God wanted us sober he’d knock the glass over
So while it is full we drink up!
“Hey Al, mate, I think you might have had one too many,” says Robert, eyeing him speculatively.
Alistair slurs something at Robert, shaking his head.
“What’s that song from?” I ask. “I’ve never heard it before.”
Alistair wobbles on his feet, his face scrunched up as he thinks on it. “Heard some guy with a beard and an accordion singing it at a random gig I went to last year. It stuck in my head.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding, as he brushes by me, shouting at his girlfriend Sandra and calling her a wench.
“It looks like my boss is a sloppy drunk,” I comment.
Laughing, Robert pulls me into the kitchen, where there’s a selection of drinks spread across the long countertop. He pours me a plain orange juice, for which I’m grateful, and then grabs a tumbler glass for his scotch. This is the first time he’s stopped touching me since we left the hotel, and finally I feel like I can breathe. His attention can be so consuming that sometimes it feels like I’m underwater when his hands are on me.
I stare about at all the nameless faces, managing to spot the back of Sasha’s head as she walks through the wide kitchen entryway, going back out to the living room. I might be mistaken, but it kind of feels like she’s avoiding me.
“Where are you?” Robert asks, handing me my drink.
“Huh?”
“You look a million miles away,” he explains, moving his body in close but not touching me.
“Well, this day has been very disconcerting,” I say, taking a sip of the sweet, tangy liquid. A small wave of nausea overcomes me. It’s not that the orange juice tastes bad; I think I’ve just eaten a lot and experienced a bit too much excitement today. My body can’t absorb any more.
“We don’t have to stay here, you know. I could take you home in a cab.”
I wave him off. “No, no, I’ll be all right. I want to stay another while.”
At this moment a new song comes on in the living room, and people start cheering. Robert takes my hand and leads me in to see what’s going on. For a moment I can’t see past the people standing in front of me, but when I go up on my tippy toes, I spot the strippers entering through the other door. It looks like some sort of burlesque troop; male and female dancers are decked out in frilly undergarments with brightly coloured hair, tattoos, and piercings.
I glance at Robert beside me out of the corner of my eye. He’s taking a sip of his scotch and surveying the room with an amused look on his face. He doesn’t appear overly excited at the prospect of seeing the strippers perform, more vaguely entertained.
Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Tainted Love” is playing, and the strippers are getting up onto their podiums in, uh, creative ways. One girl with fire-engine red hair grabs a hold of the pole and swings her legs up and around it, baring her rear end to one half of the room. Kind of a cool move.
I spot Alistair standing to the front of the room just before he lets rip an ear-splitting wolf whistle. His girlfriend Sandra shakes her head at him with a grin. I think she knows he’s just trying to play the part of the wild and crazy host.
This might sound ridiculous, but I’m actually too nervous to bring myself to look directly at the male strippers. Don’t get me wrong, I want to, but I’m just afraid that Robert will catch me looking and tease me about it. For a split second I allow my eyes to take in the ripped stomach of one guy with bleach-blond hair before I focus my eyes somewhere in the middle of the room.
Robert moves behind me now, folding his arms around my waist and allowing the back of my head to rest against his collarbone. One hand spreads out over my thigh as he brings his mouth down to my ear so I can hear him over the music.
“I wish your skirts weren’t so long,” he says, his voice low.
I swallow hard.
His hand moves to the left a little, grazing me in the spot he’d touched so passionately earlier today at the store, and I tremble.
“What do you think of the show?” he goes on huskily, the slight smell of scotch on his breath.
“It’s…impressive,” I manage, and he chuckles.
“How does it make you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Tell me.”
I hesitate for a long moment before answering, “Um, uncomfortable but interested all at once.”
“Interested, okay, let’s explore that. Why are you interested?”
A shiver runs through my body. “Because they’re attractive half-naked people?” I squeak.
“Is it just that, or are you curious for them to show more skin?”
“Robert, don’t,” I plead, my chest heaving.
“When you watch them, do you feel it here, Lana?” he asks, purring my name and pressing his hand between my thighs. The room is too packed with people for anyone to notice what he’s doing, but to be honest I don’t think they’d care either way. I saw one couple back in the kitchen halfway to oral sex when we’d been getting our drinks.
His fingers move, and I sigh quietly. “Yes,” I whisper, turning my face to bring my mouth closer to his.
He sucks in a breath and lets go of me suddenly, twisting me and practically dragging me from the room into the hallway and up the stairs.
“I don’t think we’re allowed up here,” I protest as we reach the landing.
“We’re allowed. Alistair won’t mind,” he says, opening the door to a bedroom. I catch a quick glimpse of naked limbs before he closes it again. “That one seems to be taken,” he continues, smirking.
We come across two more occupied rooms before we finally discover an empty one. Robert closes the door and locks it. Then he pulls me into him and places both my hands on his shoulders while he bends down to tenderly remove my heels. He tosses them into the corner, and it feels good to have them off my feet. I wriggle my toes.
“Cute,” he mutters, watching my feet.
I look away, glancing about the room.
He shrugs out of his suit jacket and lays it
on an armchair close to the bed. Then he strides toward me, his eyes dark with intent.
“What are we doing up here?”
“Taking a break,” he answers obscurely.
Just before he reaches me, I move out of the way and go to sit down on the end of the bed. His answering smile is all teeth, and it feels like I’m being hunted. He sits down next to me and traces his hand along the back of my dress, toying with the zipper.
“Hmm, let’s get you out of this troublesome thing,” he breathes, pulling it down halfway.
I immediately jump up and back away from him. My heart is going boom, boom, boom, filling my ears with its incessant beat. In my head I can hear my mother’s voice warning me of the dangers of being alone with a man. I’ve already broken two of the rules: Never let a man make your drink for you and Never go to an empty room alone with him. I’m sure Don’t allow him to lock the door would be another one.
“I wouldn’t mind getting that cab home now,” I suggest, making my way for the door without even going to put my shoes back on. A split second later he’s on me. I’m backed up flat against the door, and his body is flush with mine. He coaxes my lips open with his mouth, and I surrender immediately. It’s all I can do not to melt to the floor when he grabs my hand and shoves it under his black shirt. My fingers shake as they skate over his hard abs and smooth skin. He’s just so beautiful. Impossible to resist.
He breaks our kiss to loosen his tie and pull it off, then instructs me, “Unbutton my shirt, Lana.”
My fingers shake even more now, but I manage to get the job done, chewing on my lip all the while. When his shirt is open I look to him expectantly, not knowing what to do next. Fortunately he pulls it off quickly and then unzips my dress the rest of the way. The top half falls to my waist, and his eyes burn when he takes in the sight of me wearing the corset bra he bought.
He tilts his head to the side and brushes his knuckles over the tops of my breasts. “You might be receiving a whole lot more new underwear from me in the near future. It’s crazy how much I like you in this.”
I shudder and break out in goose pimples as he bends down to lower the whole dress from me. I step out of it, not bothering to resist, and quite honestly not wanting to. Wherever this is going, I want to experience it. I try to put a block on all the fears and apprehensions in my brain, to drown out my mother’s voice with the sound of Robert’s heavy breathing and just feel this.