‘And why wouldn’t I— Oh.’
His eyebrows arched. ‘Today you kicked me in the bollocks like you meant it.’
‘I didn’t know that was you! Why didn’t you shout out or something, instead of Bruce Willis-ing it?’
‘Couldn’t be sure it was you in there. It could have been one of the guys, could have been anyone. Why weren’t you shouting?’
‘I did. No one came.’ A ridiculous moment of weakness caused a few tears to attempt a mustering in the corners of my eyes.
‘I was out, hunting through the woods and I couldn’t find you and I … and then there was all this smoke, I heard the coughing and reckoned someone was in trouble. What were you trying to do, by the way? You looked like you were trying to kipper yourself.’
‘It was a smoke bomb,’ I wished my voice had been steadier. A sentence like that ought to have carried more conviction.
‘A bomb.’ His mouth twitched.
‘Why is that funny?’
‘Oh, it’s not.’ He reached out as though to touch my hair, but let his hand drop. ‘You are a very remarkable woman, Holly Grey. And I want you to trust me. No, it’s more than that.’ His hand went to his own hair and raked through it with a kind of displaced frustration. ‘I need you to trust me.’
‘Why? Why is it so important?’
He stood up again now and began pacing around the kitchen, hands thrust into his pockets like he wanted to stop himself touching anything. ‘You and I. It’s … When you came to Leeds and you were there and I realised … everything is getting deeper than I’m used to. I’m not great at handling this kind of thing.’
‘You can say that again.’
A momentary look. ‘Yeah, coming from Ms Emotional Fluency. Look, Holl, I saw that guy grab you and I was terrified. I mean really, flat-out shitting myself. That means something to me, the fact that I was so scared for you, it showed me that I – well, goes without saying, Cerys, obviously, and probably the twins too but nothing like it was with Merion. Do you see?’
‘Obscure is your first language, isn’t it?’
He stopped and turned around slowly. His earring was tangled in his hair and for some reason I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. ‘Something is happening, something big, something that feels like elastic stretching between us, snagging us, not letting us go. Something I’m bad at.’ Kai put both hands flat on the table and leaned towards me. ‘And I don’t like being bad at things.’
‘Yesterday I saw you talking to the Ginger Man outside, in the woods. I thought you were part of whatever it is that they’ve got going on.’ It came out way too fast, like I was ashamed of having thought it. Maybe I was, a little. ‘I thought, maybe, you’d set me up.’
He snapped back away from me like I’d hit him. ‘Jesus. God. You seriously thought I’d … Woah.’ He went back to the pacing, up and down the flagstoned floor like he was on rails. ‘This is hard to get my head round.’
‘I don’t think it any more.’ My voice was a bit feeble. ‘When you kicked in that door … I mean, after I knew it was you, I realised you couldn’t have.’
‘Not just couldn’t, Holly.’ Kai spun on his heel at the furthest extent of his travel and headed back. ‘Wouldn’t. Jeez, woman, I know I’m a journalist but I do have some scruples. Is that why you wouldn’t stay last night? Because you thought I couldn’t be trusted?’
‘No. I don’t know.’ But I did know. Knew that, all along, Kai had been my ally. That I’d used my trumped-up suspicion of his meeting to try to keep him at arm’s length, because I was afraid of letting myself get close.
‘I’ve been trying to work my way in, yes, trying to get them to trust me. I need … I want to blow their whole operation open, so I’ve been trying to get on the inside.’ He closed his eyes and rocked his weight from side to side. ‘The job has come first with me for so long. I should have told you, I should have explained, but I don’t know how to do it. I want you’—he held up one hand, palm up—‘and then there’s work.’ He held up the other hand. ‘And I don’t know how to run it all together. I’ve never had to. You’re the first.’ He took one step closer. ‘You’re the first, Holly,’ he whispered.
‘You,’ I started, but my mouth had gone dry. I licked my lips and saw his eyes follow my tongue. ‘So you’re investigating those guys?’
‘It’s drugs, Holly. Okay, yeah, so maybe I used to drink too much, used alcohol to block stuff out and make life a bit easier, but not drugs. Never drugs. I know what they do to you, I’ve seen … And these guys … they’re running a nice little operation, preying on people in the towns around here; the desperate, the poor, people with no hope. They’re shipping the drugs in and then cutting them down so far that they make a huge profit and … I can’t stand back and let it happen. They don’t know I’m a journalist, they see the image and they reckon … they think I’m a big time dealer. I’ve told them I can cut them in on some deals in the city, stuff that will make big money rather than selling to the underbelly of North Yorkshire, and they’re all over it.’ Kai cleared his throat and looked away from my mouth. ‘I tried to warn you off, Holly. Didn’t want you getting mixed up in any of this shit.’
‘I could go to the police and tell them that one of these blokes threatened me with a gun and locked me in a shed.’
‘But there were no witnesses.’ Kai looked a lot happier to be talking solid facts rather than wading about knee-deep in emotions. ‘Your word against his. And they’ve got friends, people who would warn you off ever pressing charges with more than a threat of violence. His name’s Andy, incidentally. Ex-military.’
‘Why would anyone believe him over me?’
Kai stared at his hands. ‘They’ve got stuff on you. Pictures of you and your friends doing “magic”. They’ve probably Photoshopped the Devil in by now too, all prepared to use it against you. Proof that you’ve been up to no good in the woods, that you might want to get them locked up to keep the woods to yourselves.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yep.’
‘Why do you do it, Kai? Why not stick to reporting on celebrities and digging the dirt on facelift clinics and stuff like that?’
Kai straightened up suddenly and I had to tilt my head back to keep watching his face. ‘The way I grew up, Holly, I saw a lot of good people go to waste. Losing their chances and their hopes and eventually losing themselves … and I fucking hate it. Don’t blame them, for some people there’s nothing else, no real life, nothing to look forward to, why not take something that makes it all easier, let it all go over your head? But it’s the bastards that get behind it, the ones that make all the money, those are the ones I want to bring down, anyone who’s caused that kind of misery, the ones that make their millions on the back of others with no future. The ones that make sure it stays that way, the ones that top up the sales pool every so often with some free samples or cut price deals; the bastards that laugh and take the money … Does any of that make sense? I’m sorry, I tend to get a bit soapboxy when I talk about work.’
‘No. You’re … I think it’s great.’
‘Really?’ Kai leaned back, propping his body against his arms. I tried not to look at the muscles working under the skin, or the way his tight T-shirt gave definition to his chest. ‘Most women find it a bit freaky that I hang around with people on the edge of the law.’ Thoughtfully he reached his arms above his head in a long stretch, curving slightly backwards until his hair brushed his shoulder blades. It made him look like an erotic statue and then the thought struck me that he was posing for my benefit. I dragged my eyes away, protesting madly, and stared at the surface of my tea instead. It wasn’t nearly so interesting, but it kept my blood pressure within European-legal limits.
‘So you’re trying to catch this lot in the act?’ I said, to the table.
‘Yeah. But I wanted them to stop hassling you, which is why I tried to talk to Michael. To persuade them to leave you alone.’ He came back over to where I had to look at him. ‘I didn’t thin
k I was giving them ammunition. I was a jerk.’
‘A journalist.’
‘Not quite synonymous, but I see where you’re going with it.’
‘No, I mean, you were doing your job. Doing what you thought was right.’
He put both hands on my shoulders and his thumbs caressed my neck. ‘Thanks for the justification, Holl, but it wasn’t right. I should have told you what was going on.’ I let the subtle movement of his fingers relax me a fraction. ‘I haven’t learned to balance it, work and—’ His fingers stilled. ‘Like I said, you’re the first.’ There was a sudden slowing of the world, even the dust hanging in the air between us stopped moving. My heart seemed to beat half-time. ‘Holly. I think there’s something going on here. Something I don’t think I’ve ever been in the right place for before. I see you and how you are with Nick and something inside me just kind of … vibrates.’ He put one hand out. It was shaking. ‘I’m falling, Holly.’ Through treacle-thick air he swam towards me.
The artificial gravity began to affect my limbs. Arms too heavy to lift, legs like molten weight and truth was forced out of me by the nearness of him. ‘I don’t know, Kai. I don’t know what this is, and I’m scared.’
‘Hey. Past master at terror.’ A finger moved like silk over my skin. ‘Or is it some unfinished business that’s really frightening you? Something to do with Nicholas?’
‘Nick is going, Kai. He’s talking about moving in with Cerys …’
The finger continued to stroke, barely touching me. ‘Yeah. My daughter talks to me, you know. Tells me what’s happening.’ The stroking stopped but the fingertip hesitated, trembling, against my neck. ‘And that’s worrying you, because of us? Because you’re losing your barrier against caring for someone else?’ His hand rose, cupped the back of my head.
‘I’m worried about everything.’
‘Then let it go, just for now. Because I think everything just became very, very different for both of us.’
‘But Cerys …’
‘… is carefully not listening. You wouldn’t want to waste her dedication, would you, Holly?’
This was something else. I could feel it in every molecule in the room, it was in the edge to his voice, that little catch of his words that made them sound as though everything was for me. When he held out his hand I found myself rising to take it, feeling his fingers close around mine and pull me into his warmth until his mouth connected with mine. Unspoken, another dimension, a deep connection, stretched between us, like wire.
I held onto his hand as he led me upstairs. From Cerys’s room I could hear the sound of a lullaby as she sang to the twins, probably louder than was commensurate with actually putting them to sleep.
‘It’s okay,’ Kai whispered, ‘I can’t even hear the twins cry from my room.’
I wasn’t sure if he was reassuring me that Cerys wouldn’t hear us, or that we wouldn’t have to listen to her singing. The Welsh facility with music appeared to have skipped that particular generation.
Once inside his bedroom door, I stopped. ‘Kai … I don’t know if I can do this.’
He turned around and looked at me, that deep, hard look he did sometimes that felt as though it reached right inside my head. ‘You’re scared. Of me?’
‘Of the situation.’
His fingers brushed my face. His thumb ring was cold. ‘Can you tell me?’
‘When you said your relationships were short and intense … well, I don’t do them at all.’ I tried to read his expression but it was hard, those yellow eyes reflected emotion back, they didn’t let it out. ‘Hence Aiden and the whole fuck-buddy thing. I’ve never really had a proper … anyone I could talk to.’
A steady breath. ‘Do you have many friends, Holly?’
I dropped my eyes and scanned the wooden floor for something to focus on. Anything to distract me from that looking-glass stare of his. ‘Of course! Meg and I have been friends since my family moved back to Malton. We were at school together and …’ I stopped. My eyes traced round and round a knot in a floorboard lost in a loop of memory, ‘and she’s known me a long time.’ Wow, that floorboard was just thrilling to look at. Round and round and round … ‘Can we not have this conversation now, Kai. Please.’ And I forced my eyes up to meet his darkening stare.
‘Then say it.’
‘Say …?’
‘Tell me this isn’t just some fly-by-night thing, that you don’t just want my body for an hour, a weekend. That I’m different. Because I want …’ He dropped his hands to my arms, sliding along to my wrists, my skin bunching under his touch. ‘I want it to be different.’
I watched his hands moving as though the touch of him was somehow separate to the sensations he was causing and my stomach lurched downwards as I tilted my head to see his face. ‘You are definitely different,’ I whispered. ‘And …’
‘And?’
‘And I want you.’
His hands moved from my arms to my shirt, unbuttoning so slowly and carefully that it was all I could do not to knock his hands away and do it myself. ‘Oh Holly,’ his words blew warm over my skin. ‘Holly.’ He dropped his mouth and kissed me with the same edge as he spoke, thoughts, feelings all on that knife blade that cut through these moments. Everything was sharper, the rush when he touched me, the head-whirling sensations of his mouth on mine, as though life had suddenly come into full focus.
We fell onto the bed, reckless and hungry. I yanked at his T-shirt, trying not to lose his mouth while I dragged it off over his head and skimmed my fingers over his chest, glorying at that first sight of his naked skin. Under his clothes his body was lean as a racehorse, fuzzed with dark hair between his nipples and down across his stomach, and he clearly knew how to use every inch of it. His mouth knew how to tease, where to tease, turning up new erogenous zones with relentless expertise, his hands stripping my clothes from me with such subtle ease that I didn’t realise they’d gone until I felt his cool skin against my own. And his fingers – well. They could pinpoint with almost military accuracy those places guaranteed to make me shiver and gasp.
He was a slender powerhouse. Every inch of him – and there were quite a few – was under control, carefully paced and placed for maximum effect. And when he seemed to consider that he’d done all he could with my outlying regions, he moved to lie above me, hair brushing against my shoulders and eyes burning a hole through my soul.
‘Okay?’
He was looking into the liquid core of me, watching me float about as though my body was so many tectonic plates swirling over a molten heart.
‘Mmmm, Kai …’
His mouth came down. ‘Ssshh,’ he whispered when he raised his head again. ‘I’m just getting started.’
‘Wow.’
‘Oh yes,’ the grin was wicked. ‘In the words of the song, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.’
Slowly at first, achingly slowly, he moved into me, resting his weight on his arms, looking into my eyes, his pupils so huge that his eyes were nearly black and then they descended like twin shooting stars until his face was against mine and his hair traced the contours of my skin. ‘Still okay?’
I just groaned, feeling the weight, the hardness, the sheer intensity of him.
‘Good.’ And then he let rip. Over and over and he didn’t let up, didn’t stop for breath, pinning my arms above my head with one hand, reaching between our bodies with the other, a wave of motion and power and force until his eyes closed, his rhythm faltered and I was arching under him, reaching, stretching as the arch broke, fell, dropped through the maelstrom, plunged screaming into the quiet depths where he was waiting.
‘Oh,’ I was nearly speechless. ‘That was …’
He turned towards me. ‘That was the beginning,’ he said, ‘because I think I’m in love with you.’ His face was so solemn, so shadowed that it was almost frightening. ‘I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know how it’s going to go and it terrifies me, but all I can tell you is,’ he leaned forward and kissed my mouth
softly, ‘this feels nothing like what’s gone before.’
We lay in silence for a while. Outside the rain started up again and rinsed more snow from the woodland floor, hopefully concealing the fact that our footprints ran from the shed straight to Kai’s front door, while underneath the covers, Kai’s hand found mine. ‘You okay?’
‘Stunned, I think. All of this. None of it is what I wished for.’
Kai twisted himself up in the sheet to sit up. ‘And would you have? If you’d known, would you have wished for me?’ He folded those devastating long legs into a yoga pose under the covers.
I looked at the naked torso above me, and ran a finger down his ribs. ‘Maybe. But I didn’t know. I didn’t know that it could feel like this. I’ve always kept feelings out of it, never let things get complicated …’
A single raised eyebrow. ‘Complicated? Why should this be complicated? You’ve not got a large angry husband tucked away somewhere, have you?’ His hand left my arm and he was suddenly climbing out of the bed, pulling on his clothes, dragging his shirt on over his concave belly and muscled shoulders. ‘You’d better go and talk to Cerys. Any minute now she’s going to run out of alternate lyrics to “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star”.’
‘Are you all right?’ I watched him hook an earring back into place and comb his hair straight with his fingers.
‘Yeah, yeah. Great. Why?’
‘Because you look like you’re getting ready to run. It’s okay. I’m not going to hold you to some lifelong commitment just because we, well, because we’ve done this.’
The eyes came down to look at me properly now and their narrow goldenness took me aback again. ‘What if I want you to? I thought … I’ve had no practice at this, you know? I …’ He waved a hand at his chest, ‘… I feel it, but I don’t know what to do about it. I told you I want this, Holly.’ His expression was hot. ‘I want us.’
‘That’s partly what I meant when I said it was complicated. I think you need answers first.’ I struggled upright to watch him. He’d frozen in the middle of the room like a stag at bay, shirt half way to tucked in and the buttons of his jeans still undone.
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