Bad Guys

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I bite into his bicep as we make love, his shoulders next, then his nipple, his throat, collarbone. In between we kiss like frantic idiots one minute, tender lovers the next – shocked, excited, drowning. Everything. He uses his hands to reciprocate what I’m doing with my mouth, sliding his fingers over my thighs, around my backside and up my back, over my breasts, around my shoulders, around my neck, through my hair, down to my belly and finally, to my clit, which he pinches just a little. He watches me as I come, clutching at his fat cock inside me, my walls gripping and tugging on him, slewing his length.

  He pulls out of me and straddles my body, moving over me until his knees are either side of my shoulders. I open my mouth as he masturbates over me, covering my mouth and cheeks in his cum, then placing the tip of his cock on my tongue for me to lick the last bits straight into my mouth. I kiss his hips and his balls before he moves off me, and while he’s holding me in his arms afterwards, I push the bits of cum on my cheeks into my mouth, until I’m all clean.

  “Have you ever been this happy?” he says, holding his arms around me, his chin resting on my shoulder.

  “No. And yet I know I’ll be equally as unhappy in a couple of days’ time.”

  “Saskia, I haven’t been with anyone else, I promise.”

  “I know, neither have I,” I murmur, running my fingers through the hairs of his forearms.

  “It won’t be long now, princess. It was made all the easier with her saying I could have the house.”

  “Lulling you into a false sense of security.”

  Everything goes quiet for a while, then he says, “We have to think about how Chloe is going to take this.”

  “I know, and there’s something else.”

  “Oh god, what?” he groans.

  I lean my head back against him, looking up into his eyes. “I’ve been offered permanent employment in New York. On a huge salary. I’d be a fool not to accept.”

  “That’s amazing,” he whispers, but at the same time, he’s not smiling and doesn’t seem happy. “You should take it.”

  “I’m not going without you. I will keep telling them no until you say yes.”

  He buries his face in my neck and I roll over onto my back again, holding him to my body, my fingers knitted in his hair. He curls into me, begging me not to keep asking. I don’t know why this is an issue for him.

  “People will know, Saskia. If I move to New York at the same time as you.”

  “Fuck what people think, Adam. This is our chance to be free of all that crap. Come with me.”

  “I don’t know,” he says, honestly, “I don’t know. I’ve never been there. Would I like it? I’d miss everyone. I’d miss Theo and Lily. I’d miss my parents. I’d miss this country. It’s huge. And we’ve just started out. It’s really big, Sass.”

  I hold in a breath for too long and it ends up burning me inside. I have to breathe differently for the next few minutes to get myself right again. Adam interprets this as me being upset and looks at me with concern, trying to comfort me.

  I don’t want to be comforted, though. I want to be with him.

  “Listen,” he soothes, “Theo has been saying that his flat in Soho is going mostly vacant at the moment but his rental agreement isn’t up for another six months. He asked me if I want it for a bit, just a change of scenery and all that. He even said he’d give me a discount because it’s better than it going empty but he doesn’t want some stranger living there while all his books and things are still there.”

  “Okay.” This sounds more promising.

  “If, once the divorce is through, I move down to London and I’m in the same city as you, we can see one another much more often and do this properly. I don’t want to rush into anything.”

  I chew my lip. It’s been a long time coming… my new start in New York.

  Is he promising me more than a great job? What if things don’t go well for me and Adam and I end up resenting him for stopping me going?

  “I can put them off for six months but no longer than that, Adam. This is too big to pass up. You have no idea how hard I’ve worked for this—”

  “I do,” he says, “oh, I think I do.”

  “It’s different there,” I tell him, smiling, “people don’t hate me for being so forthright, they expect it, celebrate it. It’s where I can be myself, be bold, be a successful woman in this cut-throat business. I could even go part-time eventually, that’s how good it would be. And trust me, you would absolutely love it. You’d find so many people like you. Bloggers and gamers, entrepreneurs, writers… you name it. We could spend weekends upstate in a B&B, strolling around small towns. Take a flight to Canada every Christmas, lock ourselves in a cabin and eat for three days straight. It’s another world, Adam. You would adore it. And who’s to say your parents wouldn’t love to visit? And Theo? He’ll be on Broadway one day and they will need a place to stay, hopefully with us. The company’s main office will still be in London and we’ll get back all the time. I’m going to sell my flat and make a killing but we could keep a house here, or a little place, something… it doesn’t matter. If you want, I’ll even build a little cottage in the garden for your mum and dad, Adam. I’d never, ever want you to miss out on the things and the people you love, but if you could only come and see what I see.”

  He can’t stop himself grinning and pushes his nose to mine. “I believe you, I really do, but I’m just being cautious. You know why, too.”

  I lay my head on his chest and sigh. “I know.”

  “Like I said, I’m going to be putting the house up for sale and once the divorce is through, I do want us to be more involved. But we still have to consider that Chloe isn’t going to take this well.”

  “I know that. It’ll hurt her.”

  “I should visit her, see where she’s at,” he says.

  “I don’t know, she might… she may… try to…”

  “It won’t happen,” he says, “I’m in love with you. I swear, it won’t happen.”

  I swallow hard. “Promise me?”

  “I just said. Didn’t I?”

  I bite my lip. “You’re really in love with me?”

  He curls into me. “Pathetically, yes. Really, I’m a soppy old mess.”

  I kiss him gently. “Me too.”

  We lie down together, looking up at the four-poster’s gathered curtains up above.

  “This is beautiful, Adam. This place. It’s really wonderful.”

  The room has this four-poster but also a chaise longue, all-over wainscoting, carved ceiling panels, beautiful furnishings and gorgeous, ornate lead windows.

  “Won’t get this in New York,” he mumbles.

  I laugh and squeeze his body against mine. “Maybe not, my big hunk of love, but it would certainly have me there. I make everything look good.”

  “Yes, you fucking do,” he admits, “you really fucking do.”

  I giggle and hold him close, wondering if I might persuade him… eventually.

  “I have some wonderful memories staying here,” he says, “walking around the villages, biking up and down hills. Whenever we’d come back from France, we’d make a stop here for the night to break up the journey.”

  “And you didn’t bring her here?”

  “Never,” he said. “I never got given any choice. We always did things her way.”

  “That’s sad. She never gave you chance to show her your world.”

  “She ate at my parents’ once and after that decided she’d cook for them at ours.”

  “Oh.”

  “Having my freedom back, it’s a lot to get used to, and also something I missed very much.”

  “Adam—”

  He leans over me and curls his fingers into my hair. “I know you’re not the same. I just want you to understand, I’m working on getting my old self back because that’ll mean I can be stronger for you.”

  “I love you, no matter what,” I tell him.

  “I know.”

  “You will know.
Now, come on. It’s been at least twenty minutes since nookie.”

  He can’t hide his smiles and asks, “How about some bum sex?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The bathroom is just as gorgeous, wood-panelled in here too. I run the taps on the large, rectangular freestanding bathtub and pull some towels out, warming them on the heated rail. I leave the curtains open so the stars outside can be viewed. We’re having a bit of bath time before ordering room service.

  “Come on, then,” I shout through, the bubbles sprouting out of nowhere suddenly.

  Adam stands in the doorway with his arms folded and I spot him over my shoulder, staring at my ass as I bend over, swirling the bubbles around.

  “Haven’t you already done enough, you beast.”

  He wriggles his eyebrows. “I’m not sure, actually.”

  “Get in the tub, you.”

  He dunks himself beneath the warm water and groans, lying back. “Heaven.”

  “Shift forward then and I’ll scrub your back.”

  He does as he’s told and I climb in behind him, the bath full, taps off.

  “Is my back particularly dirty?”

  “I thought all men loved to have their back scrubbed? We used to do my dad’s when we were little. One of us would get the loofah, the other the scrubbing brush.”

  Adam laughs his head off. “What a slave driver.”

  “Maybe it’s a Russian thing, I don’t know. Reminding kids where they stand or something. For some reason, I seem to remember thinking it was the greatest fun. My dad is really big and hairy.”

  “Oh, god,” Adam exclaims, “I’ve never met your dad, what’s he like?”

  “Oh, well. Six foot five and a monster. How my mum survives him, I don’t know. She’s only five-four, bless her.”

  “Aww,” he says, as I use one of those scrunchy things to soap up his back. He’s not complaining. “So, there’s the older girls Helena and Heloise?”

  “Yeah, they’re the firstborns. Mum had them when she was seventeen, Dad was nineteen. They ran away from their parents, none of whom wanted them to get married.”

  “Why?” he asks, shocked.

  “I think something to do with my dad not being good enough for my mother. She was going to be a ballerina… for the Russian State Ballet of Siberia. Until she got pregnant, of course.”

  “Wow, what a story. And your mother never tried to…?”

  “Do ballet when she got here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No,” I murmur, “she’d never really wanted to be a dancer, though it was in her blood.”

  “And you never…?”

  “No, god no, no, never interested me. Neither did it interest my other siblings, aside from Sasha. She was already dancing before she died. I think that’s what stung my mother the most. She was the one kid who could’ve maybe got them back in favour in Russia.”

  “Well, that’s terrible,” he says, shaking his head.

  “I know.”

  I finish scrubbing him and rinse him down, encouraging him to lie back. I wrap my arms around him and my legs, too. He strokes his hands up and down my calves.

  “But you have such good legs,” he says.

  “It’s not for me,” I murmur. “Must be a rare gene, the ballet dancer one.”

  “Susan trained, you know?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  It should bother me that he wants to talk about her, but it doesn’t. I think it would bother me more if he hid how she’d impacted his life. This way is more honest.

  “Meningitis took away her potential,” he says, “don’t think she ever got over it. That and her mother’s tragic early demise meant that ultimately, her father spoiled her.”

  I suck in a deep breath. “Funny, really. You’d have thought my parents might spoil me, but they didn’t. Even after Sasha.”

  “They did right,” he breathes, “I’ve seen what spoiling someone can do.”

  “I miss my brothers,” I muse, “desperately. They’re the only ones not twins. Leo’s almost forty now. Couple of children, living in Australia. His wife is amazing, really. A lovely, beautiful woman. She’s a children’s doctor. And Stefan? He’s in Scotland. Keeping himself to himself. Mum and Dad still don’t know he’s gay. They’d treat him even worse than they’ve treated me if they found out.”

  “That’s really awful,” he says.

  “And don’t get me started on the belt. My mother was very handy with that thing. They had Sasha and me late on, but we used to see our older brothers and sisters get hit with that from a very early age. Especially Stefan. My mother said he was too simple. I think that’s why he went into the police. He could read people from a very early age, I think.”

  “That’s quite a clan you have. And what do your sisters do?”

  “Both teachers. They’re well into their forties now. Both are divorced. Both have two kids. They live in separate states but it’s like their lives mirror one another’s.”

  “And yet you and your twin seem to have been so different?”

  “We were,” I chuckle, “we were. Oh, she’d have definitely become a ballerina. She had the attitude and the energy for it, the discipline would have been a problem obviously, but my mother would have sorted that out… in her own unique way, of course.”

  “I envy it all,” he says, “I do.”

  “Yeah, but you had us growing up.”

  “I know, but…”

  “Trust me, Adam… the more siblings you have, the more chance you have of getting hurt. I love them all but they would drive me crazy if they were still in my life, especially my older sisters. They’d be telling me I dress too slutty or that I’m doing a job that doesn’t mean anything. They’d be telling me I ought to be married already and producing kids to fulfil the dynastic plan of putting plenty of Ivanovs in the world.”

  “Well, they’d be Hartley for a start,” he says, laughing, but within seconds his laughing stops… and he freezes, realising what he just said.

  “Didn’t think you wanted kids?” I murmur.

  “I didn’t.”

  I pause, take a deep breath. “Didn’t?”

  “Past tense, yeah.”

  “You do now?”

  “I’d love kids with you,” he says.

  “You didn’t want them with her?”

  “I came around to it, I suppose but deep down, I always had this uneasy feeling…” He looks deep in thought, then adds, “Honestly, nope, I didn’t. I wasn’t allowed to have an opinion on it, but nope.”

  “But you did IVF?”

  “Yeah, and it still feels like a piece of me is out there in the world… you know… kind of like a horcrux stuck in a mirror, part of my soul trapped in a piece of glass or a strange ornament. It feels like I’ll never get that back. And I don’t know what it is now, but I could see myself having kids with you. And I never felt like this before.” He sits up in the bath and crosses his legs, facing me. I’m already nearly crying. “It’s like that one night, last June, my eyes were opened. Like I’d been stuck plodding about in the fog for so long, and then BAM, everything became clear and it just keeps getting clearer.”

  He wipes away my tears and smiles sadly.

  “I want kids as well,” I tell him. “I’d give up all of it, for you. Without question. I was waiting for you and I didn’t even know you were there, right under my nose.”

  “I know, I feel the same.”

  He pulls me onto his lap and I wrap my legs around him in the tub, my arms around his shoulders, our faces close… eyes locked.

  “You know, Lily and Theo stayed with me and Susan around the time his mother died and I walked in on Lil and T in the bath together. I did not know what to do with myself. I mean, we all know she has massive tits but they were beneath the bubbles… and it’s only now I realise why all of that made me feel so awkward and weird.”

  “Their intimacy,” I guess.
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br />   “Yeah,” he gushes, “yeah. They have that unbelievable intimacy. I saw it in the way they were bathing together. The looks they’d throw at one another. The little whispers. The way when she kissed him, he wasn’t that brutish angry prick anymore but someone softer, wiser, happier. It threw me and it’s taken me this long to recognise why.”

  I stroke his clean-shaven cheek, studying his beauty. He gets more handsome every year and he will keep getting more handsome. His eyes will always be stunning and his mouth, too. Not to mention his cheekbones, his soft brown hair and strong hips, wide shoulders and narrow waist. I’m delirious about him. Maybe I always have been.

  “You didn’t have any of that with Susan?” I ask, needing to know, though dreading his answer.

  “Don’t get me wrong, sometimes, I thought we did. But looking back, no. We never shared a bath and talked in the tub. She never talked about her childhood; the only times I discovered stuff like that about her, like her ballet, was if her dad let slip. And when she was having a bad period, she used to make me sleep in the other room. She kept her condition from me for so long. And I used to think, ‘Well, okay, I can play computer games tonight, then,’ and I’d do that without realising just how much we were growing apart, if we were ever together in the first place.”

  I take a moment to process what he’s saying, hoping these words are true and not just for my benefit… to reassure me. “So… do you think she would have ever confided in you… ever?”

  “No,” he says without thinking, “no. Never. Even when I found out about her endo, she never sat me down and talked me through it.”

  “Sounds a bit psychotic. Like she didn’t see herself as a person. I know I’ve not always been forthcoming, but there are people I’ve talked to. A select few, really.”

  “I’m one of them,” he says.

  “Yes.” I lean in and give him a quick kiss, then he turns around and lies back against me again.

  I play with his hair and stroke my hands up and down his chest, all the while he strokes my legs and rubs my toes.

  “With her, it was just sex and abuse,” he mumbles. “I realise that now. I was an easy target. A guy who seemingly had it all together. Someone whose emotions she could prey upon… because I had no previous experience of someone like her, someone plotting and scheming, manipulating and calculating. I’d be guilt-tripped into doing things, guilt-tripped into feeling things, when really all I felt was infatuation and lust. It was never real love. She was trying to force me into feelings things, into… I don’t know… laying myself at her feet… but I didn’t know her. I never knew her at all. Her mystique enthralled me, until it absolutely disgusted me. And the things she said to Lily… the way she lied to me… especially about the IVF… it ripped out a part of me I will never, ever get back. I hope to god you never know what that’s like, Saskia. I hope you don’t.”