by Vivian Wood
“Rafe, Burnout, Jack, and Ollie, to you,” Rafael says, grinning as he shakes Kit’s hand.
“It’s a pleasure,” she says, giving me a curious glance.
Finally, I get to be the mysterious one for once.
“Kitty here is grounded, so I’m babysitting her,” I tell the guys.
Kit snorts.
“Right,” she says, shaking her head.
“No one believes a word this guy says,” Ollie assures her.
I can’t miss the up-and-down glance she gives Ollie. He’s the dictionary definition of tall, dark, and handsome — if you can look past all the grease on his face and clothes.
It seems like Kit doesn’t mind a dirty guy, because she grins at Ollie’s jest like it’s the best thing anyone’s ever said. She’s not even trying to flirt, that’s just how Kit is.
“Any of the cars ready?” I ask Jack, the short ginger guy who works as our head mechanic. He shakes his head.
“Nah, we haven’t gassed them up yet. After your board meeting, yeah?”
“Alright. Can you all keep Lady Katherine occupied for a bit?” I ask.
Ollie’s eyes start to sparkle, and I hold up a hand.
“She’s already in enough trouble as it is, don’t make it worse, mate.”
Ollie laughs and shrugs, giving Kit a wink. She blushes, and I grit my teeth.
Why did I decide to bring her here again? This is what I get for being nice.
“Kit, for fuck’s sake. Go sit on the benches and stay out of their way,” I command.
The look she gives me is pure rebellion.
“I’m good,” she says with a smirk. She turns to Ollie. “Hey, will you show me one of the cars?”
I open my mouth to berate her, but Jack hits me in the chest with a pair of work gloves.
“Go to your meeting. She’ll be fine,” he says. “I’ll keep Ollie in check.”
“Go on, boss man,” Rafe cracks. “Keep the doors open and the lights on, yeah?”
I shake my head and leave her there, trotting over to the admin building. It’s a matter of minutes before I’m sitting in a huge conference room, feeling the heavy gazes of every single investor on the track’s board.
And they are not happy with me, not one bit.
Eliza Purcell stands up, straightening her crisp black pants suit. Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, her blue eyes lined in dark kohl. She’s almost forty, but damn if she doesn’t look a decade younger.
She looks around at the other thirty people in the room, then zeroes in on me. I try not to squirm. She’s always been one of the most aggressive board members, but ever since we slept together a few times, she’s on my case every minute of the day.
Possibly because I tired of her and then just stopped calling her. Well, probably.
“Alasdair,” she says, giving me a long look. Like she’s a schoolteacher about to scold me in front of the class.
“Eliza,” I say, sliding my hands into my pockets so I don’t cross my arms and look defensive.
She blinks at me and then sighs.
“I thought we were crystal clear about our expectations here,” she says, shaking her head. “You sat in that very chair and swore up and down that if we made you the face of this project, you would be nothing but perfectly respectful.”
I cock my head.
“Yes,” is all I give her.
She starts walking, pacing the boardroom like she’s about to deliver one of the cross-examinations she’s become so famous for. Part lawyer, part vicious bulldog; that’s Eliza.
“And yet, you made quite the splash in the papers this week,” she says, circling the room like she’s stalking her prey.
Her arrogant pushiness would almost be sexy, if I weren’t the intended target this time.
“For saving someone, yes,” I point out.
Eliza pauses and narrows those eyes at me, tapping her lips with a crimson-tipped nail.
“I don’t think we made any exceptions, Alasdair. You came to us, asked us to trust you, invest with you.” When I open my mouth, she holds up her hand to stop me. “Don’t interrupt. You said you wanted to build a track, bring in revenue, and donate half the proceeds. You started all of this, begged, borrowed, and stole to get it off the ground. Yet here you are, defying the biggest of the very few rules we set down for you.”
Now she picks up the tabloid from the conference table, tossing it down before me like a gauntlet.
I can’t help it; I cross my arms and scowl at her.
“Yes or no, Alasdair. Did you break the rules?”
I can see precisely why Eliza’s so fucking effective in court.
“Yes.”
“All right, then.” She gives me a smile that’s mostly bared teeth. “I think it would be very interesting to have a confidence vote. Who thinks you should remain our CEO, who thinks you’ve already lied, that you will only continue to hurt us.”
I want more than anything to tell the board that she’s making this personal, that this is a vendetta. But of course telling the board that I fucked her will only make me look worse.
And besides, she’s right. I did break one of the rules to which I wholeheartedly agreed.
“Let’s do it, then,” I say, keeping my voice cool and level.
Her brows arch in surprise, and she’s quick enough to backpedal.
“What do you think, everyone? Does Alasdair escape the axe this time?” she says to the group.
I sigh and look around. Several people are looking at me with annoyed expressions, but I think more of them seem annoyed with Eliza’s dramatics.
“Can we wrap this up?” I ask Eliza.
“Are we impeding your social life, Alasdair?” she snaps, then stops. She clears her throat and gives me another hard smile. “Heaven forbid we stop you from running out and doing this again.”
I stand.
“Does anyone have anything to add here?” I ask the room. “Any other issues with the way I’ve led this board? Or the fact that I’ve already nearly repaid your investments in full, though it’s been only a year?”
Silence.
“Anyone upset that we’ve raised nearly a million for low-income victims of pedestrian hit-and-runs? Anyone going to repossess that hundred thousand pounds to the children’s cancer ward at St. Victor’s?”
Everyone stares at me, but I can see the acceptance on their faces. I’ve won this round… for now.
“Right, then. Eliza, always a pleasure,” I say, making it clear as day that I feel the opposite. “Board members, thank you very much for your time.”
I stride out of the room, managing to keep my anger in check until I’m alone in the elevator. Only then do I release an angry growl and slam my fist against the metal wall, the simmering anger coming to a boil.
I jog back to the track. At first, my only desire is to get the fuck out of here, head home and drown my sorrows in some expensive Scotch.
But then I see the cars lined up, the sun glinting off of them in a way that seems infinitely promising. And of course there’s Kit, standing next to Ollie, laughing and putting her hand on his arm.
My rage boils over.
“Is this one ready?” I ask Jack.
“Yeah, but—” he tries.
I shake my head. Grabbing a helmet, I cram in down onto my head and jump into the car. Pulling out of the pit in a cloud of burning rubber, I grin as adrenaline begins to flood my veins.
This. I’ve missed this.
I take the car around three times, pedal to the metal, screaming around each turn. It’s the best I’ve felt in ages, maybe since before Asher.
And I know how I’m going to make it even better.
I pull the car in and jump out, tossing the helmet to Ollie.
“Come with me,” I tell Kit.
“Err—”
I don’t wait for her assent. I grab her by the wrist and tow her through the garage behind the pit, taking her out the back exit. It leads out into a wooded area
where we store big stacks of tires, and it’s secluded enough for my intentions.
“Rex, what are you doing?” Kit asks, flustered.
I back her up against the corrugated tin wall of the garage, step by step.
“I think you should tell me what Charles said the other night. What set you off?”
Yeah, I’m curious about it. But mostly I know she’s going to be defiant, and that will give me leeway to get in her face.
The idea of manhandling Kit is very, very appealing right now.
“I— none of your business!” she says, going a little breathless when I place my arms on either side of her body and cage her up against the wall.
“Really?” I ask, dropping my voice to a quiet husk. I move my lips close to her ear. “I think it might be. Tell me what I want to know, Kitten.”
“Don’t call me that!” she says, but I can hear the hitch in her breath when my lips brush her cheek. “I— I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You are such a poor liar, sweetheart,” I say. I let one of my hands drop from the wall, skimming my knuckles against the outside of her breast with the lightest of touches.
She sucks in a breath.
“No,” she whispers.
“Let’s practice your lying skills, then,” I say, brushing my lips over her ear, enjoying her shiver. “Say, ‘I don’t want you to fuck me, Rex’. Can you do that?”
“I— I don’t!” she says, biting her lower lip.
“You don’t what, darling? Tell me.”
She looks up at me, eyes stormy.
“I don’t want you,” she says.
“Come on, Kitty. You can do better than that.”
“I don’t want you to fuck me, Rex,” she hisses.
Now I’ve got her nice and angry. Good, time to tease her in a different way.
I lower my hand to her bare thigh, trail my fingertips up and up. She squirms, which I fucking love. I hook her garter with a fingertip, then snap it.
“Have I told you that I love these?” I whisper in to her ear. “I find these garters very promising, sweetheart.”
“I’m not your—” she starts, then loses her train of thought.
Mostly because I’m running my fingertips over her hip, lightly tugging at her skimpy panties. I kiss the corner of her mouth and her lips part; she’s eating this up, every bit of it.
“Are you trying to say you aren’t wet for me right now, Kitten?” I challenge.
“I’m not,” she says, her voice gone to gravel.
“You’re not tight and hot and aching for me?” I ask, exploring the front of her panties, sweeping a lone fingertip down, down…
“Mmmm,” she whimpers.
“Are you sure, sweetheart? You aren’t picturing me, thinking how good it would feel if I kissed those lovely breasts, wishing I would stop teasing and just touch you… here?”
I use my knuckle to rub a gentle circle against her panties, right over her clit. Her hands are on my shoulders, her nails biting into my skin through my shirt.
“N-no,” she says, shaking her head a little bit.
I almost want to laugh at her sex-dazed expression.
“‘I don’t think you’re getting any better at this,” I whisper against her lips.
She makes a soft sound, exhaling against my lips. I wait a beat. I want her, I want her so fucking badly, but I also want her to ask for it.
When Kit presses up on her toes, sealing her lips against mine, I can’t help the deep growl that escapes my throat.
Fuck, yes. This is exactly what I wanted, this moment of perfect hunger between us. Lady Katherine, giving into me because she can’t fucking resist all that I have to offer.
The second she gives me what I want, I give her something in return. I push the damp, skimpy triangle of fabric aside and find her hot and slick, so ready for my touch.
“Fuck, Kitten. You’re so wet for me,” I say. I explore her with gentle strokes, loving the soft, hungry gasps that pour from her throat. “You like this, don’t you sweetheart? You want more?”
I take her hmmmm of desire as a yes and find her core with a single thick finger, plunging it deep.
“Oh!” Kit cries. “Oh, oh!”
Damn, she’s still so tight.
She’s perfect, hot and welcoming, just like I remember. My cock aches as I slide a second finger inside her, rocking my palm against her clit.
Already she’s clenching hard around my fingers, like her body’s fucking desperate for my touch. Desperate to come.
“Shhh, they’ll hear you,” I warn her when she starts to get a little loud. “Save the vocals for the bedroom, sweetheart.”
She looks so helpless, at that. I kiss her hard, claiming her mouth with my tongue, and she opens for me like an oyster giving up its pearl.
Damn, I wish we were anywhere else right now. I may be a rake, but I can’t fuck a girl like Kit up against a wall, outside, with people twenty feet away.
When I break the kiss, breathing hard, I can tell from the way her innermost muscles flutter that she’s about to shatter.
“I wish we were alone so I could taste you, Kitten,” I rasp into her ear, nipping her earlobe. “Then I’d turn you over and fuck you, long and proper, till you came over and over. Maybe I’d even fuck that tight virgin ass… I think you’d let me, hmmm? Would you let me do that, sweetheart, fuck your pussy and your ass?”
Kit comes with the loudest cry, shaking so hard that I have to wrap my free arm around her waist to keep her upright. Her head falls against my chest for a moment, her chest rising and falling fast as she struggles for breath.
I pull free from her, straightening her panties. After a second she looks up, her eyes darkening with anger.
“God damn it, Rex,” she says, pushing me back a step.
I give a surprised laugh.
“That’s your response to what I just did for you? Honestly, Kit. I’m offended.”
It’s not a lie. She’s definitely wounding my pride, that’s for sure.
“Look,” she says, running her hands over her dress and moving away from me. “That only happened because I’m in… you know, a dry spell.”
“Is it a dry spell if it lasts five years?” I ask, pretending to wonder aloud. “I’m pretty sure most people would just call that waiting for me.”
“I—” she starts to yell, then pauses, controlling herself. “Alasdair, I did not wait for you. Get that idea out of your head.”
She turns and starts to stalk off.
“Is that it?” I ask, bemused.
“Did you think we were going to fuck on a pile of tires?” she hisses over her shoulder.
“No…”
Maybe. I mean, I wouldn’t, but I don’t exactly mind the image of it in my mind.
“Can we leave, please? I can’t just hang around here all day, waiting on you…” she says, patting her hair.
“Yeah, letting me fuck you until you come on my fingers has certainly been terrible for you, I’m sure.”
“I’ll be in the car,” she snaps.
“They all heard you come,” I tell her, crossing my arms.
She blushes, but she keeps her head high.
“I don’t care, Alasdair!” she says, stalking off into the garage, heels clicking on the concrete floor.
Atta girl, I think. That’s the Kit I knew, back when.
The girl I fell for.
As I follow her, shaking my head at myself, I start to wonder just exactly what I’m trying to get out of this whole thing.
I might have just made a huge mistake, one I can’t take back…
8
Kit
Five and a half years earlier…
My hands are shaking as I pick up the white plastic tube. The tile floor of the bathroom is cold against my bare feet. I squeeze my fingers around the skinny piece of plastic, blocking the results from myself.
I can’t quite bring myself to look at it, not yet.
I put the lid down
on the toilet and sit down, then I pop up and check to make sure the door is locked.
For the fourth time. Rex has his own bathroom, his own wing actually. Even when he’s not sleeping at the palace, his parents’ ‘weekend house’ is freaking huge.
I like it here. A lot better than Auberge House, so weird and empty, especially now that my dad’s… no longer with us.
Right now, though, I’m beyond thankful for the privacy of Rex’s ensuite bathroom.
I sit on the edge of the claw foot tub and take a couple of slow, deep breaths.
“Just look at it,” I whisper to myself.
One, two, three…
I look.
I start to shake so violently that the test tube drops to the floor and breaks into two pieces.
I thought… I don’t know, maybe it was just stress. End of my final school term, my father dying…
Nope.
Pregnant.
I don’t cry. I’m too scared to cry. This is all happening at the worst possible time.
My dad’s dead, Mum’s out of her mind with grief and shame over what he did. I’m about to graduate upper forms, the big ceremony is just three days from now.
I feel sick. I taste bile in the back of my mouth.
My heart pounds, adrenaline flooding in.
How am I going to tell Rex? is the biggest question in my mind.
And then, we were so careful… we always used condoms… right?
I laugh out loud. I don’t even have the most basic answers about this, or about anything that’s going on in my life.
I hear a faint sound outside the bathroom. Rex, coming back from his quest into the wine cellar to find us a bottle of something to drink.
Like that, my moment of solitude is over. I have to talk to him, right now. That’s all there is to it.
I don’t have to make any decisions, not right now.
“Kitty?” I hear him call.
“Just a sec!”
I grab the broken pieces of plastic and wrap them in a piece of toilet tissue, then panic and hide the bundle in the bathroom trash.
I wash my hands and walk out. Rex is sprawled on his huge bed, drinking red wine straight out of the bottle.
“Want some?” he says, holding it out to me.
“No, no,” I say.