East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2)

by Rachel Dunning

  Right. Then it hit me. Why I'd been reacting like this. No, over-reacting. Dorian Brant had eyes like Conall Williams: Different color, same effect.

  And that was bad. That was very bad. Because, in their presence, I'd been Jell-O. And the last time that kind of eyes had hypnotized me, I fell. And I fell fuckin hard, down the cliff and into the rocks, washed out into the ocean and still not returned... Until these new eyes had caught me. Not blue, green. Green as unripe tomatoes, deep as the Grand Canyon, alive as my skin under Conall's touch.

  Fuck. This wasn't bad. This was a potential catastrophe of titanic proportions...

  -5-

  I gathered my wits and, with whatever respectable amount of pride one can muster when one is covered in Guinness, I pulled my shirt straight (it was very wet), hitched up my pants (soaking) and opened the door to the main pub area, hoping to dart a beeline straight to the women's bathroom. Only, when I opened the door, you guessed it, I didn't walk straight into him, but almost.

  He was leaning back on a railing (holy mother this dude was tall!), legs crossed (oh so smooth) and grinning, arms folded over his friggin huge chest. Not ripped, huge. Very huge. "Rub against my cheek while you're screwing me" huge.

  And that grin, that endless, toothy grin... I knew, right then, right there, that I was going to come to hate that grin, almost as much as I hated his emerald-beautiful eyes. Hated the grin. Hated it so much. I despised that grin so utterly that the damn thing, as I stood there, made me smile, and then laugh, and then feel like a little girl in the hands of this strong, clearly older, and exceedingly confident man.

  Just like I'd been with Conall.

  I was so screwed...

  CHAPTER TWO

  -1-

  Deep Baritone Dorian Brant chuckled along with me, staring at my beer-sodden pub uniform, dimples forming on his over-confident face. Damn!

  "I think I should..." I pointed behind me, then ahead of me. "I think I should go, um, get changed..."

  "Or not," he said, and he stared at me with no change of expression. "I mean, you definitely need to get out of those clothes. Definitely. That, you certainly have to do." He raked my body with his eyes, slowly, from the top of my head to my toes, his eyes lingering just a second by my legs. Why there specifically? It felt like I was being eaten, and Vampire Dorian was licking his lips of me now.

  A wave of "something" coursed through me and I was suddenly very weak, and very uncomfortable. My smile disappeared, his remained — just barely visible.

  I ran, not literally, but I was outta there, to the bathroom. I splashed my face with water, looked at the drops remaining above my eyebrows and on my golden skin (at least England hadn't totally ruined my Mediterranean look, yet.)

  "What the fuck are you doing, Leora?" I said to myself. "Not again. Not again. So, he's cute, fine — " A customer came out of a cubicle (red-bordering-on-pink hair, excessive eye-shadow, milky skin) and smiled at me. She pulled out some lipstick from her baby-sized purse, put it on, pursed then smacked her lips. I stared at my hands on the countertop.

  "Guy troubles?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  "You'll manage." As she walked out, she ran her fingers across my right shoulder, over my back, to the other shoulder, slowly, sending shivers down my spine. Was that just a pat-on-the-shoulder-move, or a seductive caress?

  The bathroom fluorescents showed up two or three blackheads on my brow. I splashed my face again, took a deep breath, and then wondered what the hell I was doing in this bathroom without a change of clothes!

  Dani slammed through the door, out of breath, eyes wide open, her mouth agape.

  "Him!?" she said, pointing in a direction where Dorian would be right now, if there hadn't been any walls between us.

  I nodded.

  "Fuck, luff! Forget this Conall prick. This guy is a fucking dream!"

  I could sense the lust dripping from her lips as she said it.

  "You can have him," I said, now leaning back against the countertop, shaking my fingers dry.

  "Fuck. That. Shit!" She ran out. A moment later she was back with a change of clothes for me. "Here." She threw them at me and they shocked me awake as they hit my chest, a stray sleeve slapping my lower lip.

  "This isn't mine," I said to her.

  "I know, the shirt is tighter. It's time you show off your cups a little, love." A li'le...

  I shook my head. I couldn't fucking believe I was doing this again. And in that moment, crashing waves of questions and, perhaps, realizations, started slapping me.

  What was the purpose of seeing Conall, really? Was it really for closure? And why hadn't I visited his work, or gotten an address for him? Why hadn't I hunted the fucker down, slapped him once across the face and told him he was the most chicken of shits to walk the face of the earth, on both sides of the Atlantic!?

  The answer, sadly, was too clear for me to remain level-headed about it. Three months... Damn... What a waste of time. The answer...was that Conall was still mine, in my mind, as was Travis Maddox of Beautiful Disaster, and Dean Holder of Hopeless. They were all mine, still, and none of them ever left me.

  But Conall had left me. He'd left me good. And he hadn't even bothered to be a man about it and tell me.

  And in that moment, staring at the plain black uniform in my hands, in a stinking bathroom made even more smelly by the hops and malt covering my attire, I felt like I'd suddenly let something go. And in my mind, I heard a mirror crash. And I was through it.

  I hefted the clothes in my hands, sighed, and looked meaningfully at Dani. She stood there akimbo, her left Converse shoe tapping, her eyes burning the life back into me.

  "Well?" she urged.

  "Well, I think I better get changed before hottie over there decides to hit on you or something..."

  She pointed at a cubicle like an old matron shouting at a miscreant boy who just kicked mud on a little girl's shirt. I saluted her and said, "Yes, ma'am."

  "You bet I'm your ma'am. And, for your information, if Mr. Skyscraper out there asked me for a shag, I'd tell him he didn't stand a chance with me. Because it is now my goal to have him break you in, finally. This saving yourself for Mr. Wrong is all bullshit, Ms Caivano!"

  Her final statement ("...break you in...") made me hunt the cubicles. Thank God they were empty!

  But those cubicles also made me think, just one more time before I left that bathroom, of Conall. And of my statement to him just before he'd left New York:

  But I know one thing. No matter who I fall in love with, or who I spend the rest of my life with, or if you and I work out, or if you suddenly decide you like silicone blondes or...guys, even... No matter what, there's one thing I've decided I always want to have. And that is that you will be my first. No matter what happens. I want that.

  He never got to be that, not all the way. Actually, I still wanted that. If I was being completely honest with myself. I wanted Conall to be my first, all the way. There'd been a connection there, a bond, a link between us...

  A level of trust that I couldn't get out of my mind. It wasn't infatuation. I knew it wasn't. There'd been something deeper between us and, somehow, despite every sun, moon, and star of the heavens proving me wrong, I somehow still believed that Conall had not lied to me. That he hadn't just left me for no reason.

  I'd been giving him time, time that he clearly needed. That's why I was here.

  It made no sense, his disappearance, the reduced texts, fewer phone calls until, finally, only a few weeks prior, total silence.

  There was an explanation, and he needed time to give it to me. I knew this. On some level. Somewhere.

  And I was right. Only I didn't know it then... Not consciously.

  I didn't know it on the night I first spoke to Dorian.

  On the night I met Dorian, I thought — no, I had convinced myself, against my own good judgment — that Conall was a coward, a liar, craven.

  I should've stuck with what I believed in my heart. Things would have
all been so much simpler...

  -2-

  Guardian-Angel-Dani took my beer-covered clothes as I walked out the bathroom into the merry atmosphere so common of English pubs and that I'd come to count as my comforter each night. That, and the seagulls which woke me every morning (yes, even in winter), as well as the salt-licked air I breathed on every jog I took at about six A.M. — cold or not — kept me going. (OK, I confess, the jogs weren't every morning. Not even close... But the salty air had come to give me a sense of comfort.)

  A man bellowed in the back, laughing at some or other joke. The smell of beer on wooden tables was never fully gone and, even though I didn't drink the stuff (hated it, in fact), it was now a familiar smell that I looked forward to each day. A freckled red-head with a rounder-than-most ass leaned at a table, showing her cleavage to the middle-aged man who seemed to be more interested in the only-just-legal blonde with her elbows on the counter ahead of him.

  I made my way to that counter, not looking around but, at the same time, yes looking around, from the corner of my eyes, for Dorian. And there he was, still sitting back against a low carpeted wall, long legs crossed, burly arm holding a pint of something or other (probably Amstel, everyone drank either Amstel or Guinness here), and with that constant grin.

  I don't know what came over me. I don't know where the confidence or even the desire to do it came from, but I went over to him and spoke to him. Surely he'd been flirting with me, hadn't he? And surely he'd tailed me here. At that moment — just then, a very precise instant — I lost all reservations, and I stood next to him. I "showed him my stuff" (as Dani would put it) and stood with my back extra straight. (Yeah, OK, that reads: my tits were out a little farther than usual...)

  The Jolly Roger cotton shirts with the logo of Fill 'er Up! on the back — accompanied by a winking blonde that looked like she came out of a sixties advert, holding an overflowing beer mug with far too many phallic connotations to be comfortable — were not the hottest things to wear around town, and did little to show what meager shape a girl might or might not have underneath them, but that never stopped the guys hitting on us. Heck, two beers and most dudes in here were hitting on everything from the geriatric club, here for cheap meal, to the teeny-boppers who'd snuck in without ID.

  Dorian Brant, however, made no effort to hide where his gaze was lingering... It was on my breasts, for far longer than needed to keep any sort of gentlemanly appearance to him. No, I knew then, as I'd known on the day he'd first seen me at the Starbucks (no, glared openly at me!), that Dorian was no gentleman. He was the worst possible thing for me.

  And I was glad for it. Better the snake that you can see...

  "I'm Leora," I said, sticking out my hand formally to shake his. (Give a girl a break, wouldya? I wasn't very good at this, and Dani knew it. And I knew it...)

  Dorian sipped his beer, let my hand hang there for a fraction longer than would be considered polite, put his beer down next to him (my hand was still waiting for his to meet it) and then, finally, shook it.

  "I know," he said. "I asked. Caivano, isn't it?" (He'd said it: i'n i'? No T's, no S's...)

  He knew my name? Who'd he asked?

  Torrents of memories of Conall hit me once more. I fought them back. Deep down I felt I was betraying him, lying to him. Get a hold of yourself, Leora! He's gone!

  My skin went warm at the thought that monster-sized Dorian Brant already knew my name, that he looked at me like he wanted to devour me. And at the thought that, I could see, I would fit entirely within his arms and that his size would completely engulf me.

  I swallowed, tried to act cool, tried to say something smooth. I failed. "Y — y — you know my name already?" I think I smiled there, maybe. I'd been aiming for a flirty Jessica Rabbit thing, what I got was something like Kristen Stewart in the first Twilight movie when Robert Pattinson sits next to her in class... Very awkward.

  "I know more than your name. I know you live three blocks away from where I'm staying — Lewinson Avenue, I believe? I know you take coffee breaks at the Starbucks at Tesco. I know you haunt hospice and charity stores in this town for the second-hand books and walk out, each time, with six or seven of them, only to do it again on, what is it again, Mondays? I know that you head on out to the shingle and bronze yourself as best you can on a Saturday when the sun shines (which is not very often in this godforsaken land.) Only, because it's winter, all you end up doing is rolling your sleeves up and hoping you don't freeze to death. And you read there as well. And, most important of all, I know you're single, and looking..."

  Stalker! My legs felt like they were suddenly made of rubber. My heart thumped. My skin went cool from the sudden sweat which had broken out on it. The AC vent directly above me tickled the side of my cheek. I lifted my hand, half in a daze, and scratched my chest aimlessly...

  Dorian, grinning, much like a ten-year-old kid prankster grins when sticking a fart-cushion under the ass of a girl he likes, in the middle of class, pointed at the bar counter. More specifically, he pointed at my manager, Troy: A pimply guy with ragged red hair who looked like he was drunk half the time, or wanting to be.

  "He told me," said Dorian. "He and I are friends. We went to school together." Dorian stared at me, waiting for the moment of clarity which still hadn't hit me. "In other words, I haven't been stalking you! But I did want to know a little more about you, so, while you were extracting yourself from the wet tee shirt competition — a pity, but fine — I asked Troy there a few questions. Troy will say anything for a few drinks... It turns out you and your friend Dani talk a lot during work hours. And you tell each other everything, and half the bar's overheard everything about you."

  OK, I'm mortified... But at least he's not stalking me!

  I sighed, weakness from the sudden relief that this dude wasn't a mass-murderer hot on my tail filled me from my toes to my ears. And I chuckled, involuntarily. And I felt my cheeks go red.

  Goddamnit, not again.

  "So, Leora Caivano from Manhattan, New York, daughter of a rich mother, who's trying to make it on her own on the other side of the Atlantic" — Jeez, I really needed to tell people less about myself! Especially around my drunken manager at work! — "could I interest you in a drink? Maybe after work? Or even during? Troy there" — he pointed — "owes me a few favors. I'm sure he'd give you a few hours off."

  Grin grin grin. A confident "I'm so fucking cool and I know it and I also know I'm so goddamn hot that you probably wanna lick me all over, twice" grin. An "I-know-what-I'm-doing" grin.

  Fuck! I shouldn't be doing this... "Uh, sure, I mean, not during, but after, yeah, sure, why not?" I said.

  He'd done it. He'd gotten under my skin, just as That Other Guy I Liked had done. Was I really going down this road one more time?

  No, I wasn't. This was different. I didn't love this guy. I knew that. I knew that clearly.

  Dorian took a sip of his beer, ever smiling, a twinkle in his eye which said, only, I knew you'd say yes, but instead he said, "Good. Meet you outside at one. I know that's when your shift ends tonight."

  I paused for a moment (I was doing a lot of that tonight; too much was going on in so little time), then I turned around and left. Two or three steps away I said to him, "Dorian Yates, he was a bodybuilder. English. One of the greatest. Heard of him?"

  Dorian (this Dorian in front of me now, not Dorian Yates) frowned, and his grin disappeared. "Yates?" He looked really confused, his almost-empty beer paused inches from his lips. "No, never heard of him..."

  I didn't think he had. Conall would've known him. He knew stuff about bodybuilding.

  And I really, really had to fucking stop thinking about Conall!

  -3-

  Freckly Troy The Manager was in a good mood so I didn't have to pay for the glass I dropped earlier in that oh-so-dumbass move with Dorian. Then again, maybe Dorian had seen to that as well. "Old friends." "Went to school together..."

  Who was this guy?

  His accent was different
, very different. Not Oxford or Cambridge, but not like Dani's either. Part of me wanted to ask him that, and a larger part didn't. A larger part of me wanted to see him only for "something to do." I'd lost all faith in love. Heck, I'd never even told Conall I loved him (even though I did love him. Both then and now.)

  He hadn't told me either. But he'd told me something else, so much deeper, so much more profound —

  Enough!

  I fought the urge to pull my phone from my pocket and check if he'd texted me. I would've felt the vibration anyway. Hell, I would've heard the clang-smash-bang ringtone I'd set for texts from his number! I didn't want to miss any text from him the moment it came in.

  The phone hadn't chirped with a text from him in weeks...

  Later: After at least a hundred (or two hundred) draught beers served, two thousand breast-gawks from middle aged men, and thirty-two (that one I counted precisely) lines trying to pick me up, my shift came to an end. I counted my tips (seventeen pounds, not bad for a weeknight, the tight shirt must've helped) and I walked outside. The crisp March air burned my sweaty eyes. A whiff of tobacco blew across my nose. I turned right.

  There he was: One foot against the wall, a cigarette in one hand, blowing smoke upwards, chest bulging from behind his tee.

  "Leora," said Dorian, not looking at me but looking up only. He makes me feel so young, I thought. Vulnerable. Controlled. My mind drifted to You-Know-Who. I nipped the thought in the bud.

  "Let's walk," he said.

  He turned, and I was by his side. My head reached his shoulders — the top of my head! Waves rumbled a few blocks away. Cold, Atlantic waves. I'd wet my feet in them once and regretted it dearly. Dani had told me that the water was warmer in the summer. I didn't believe her.