Читать книгу The McCabe Girls Complete Collection: Cat, Fen, Pip, Home Truths - Freya North - Страница 24

Ben York awoke with an erection, as frequently he did, however this morning he knew it was not a physiological vagary of his reverie that caused it, but a lucid awareness of Cat’s existence down the road now replacing the image of her which had inhabited his dreamtime. He fingered his cock, gave himself a few soothing tugs and grinned, closing his eyes.

She’s quite something.

What are you going to do with her?

Something along the lines of what I did last night – but without the sand.

You have a sizeable grin on your face.

And a proportionately equivalent hard-on too.

You’re feeling pleased with yourself then?

Pleased? Yes. Happy.

You like her?

I’ve never met anyone quite like her.

You like her?

Yes, I think I do. I like the way that she’s a little naïve but feisty. She was so adorable all in a dither about Luca’s unintended innuendo a few Stages ago. And when she was mad at me with the Monique misunderstanding – all gorgeous fury and indignation in a see-through dress. Yet last night she blew my mind as much as she blew my cock. For one who’s so easy to wind up, she’s very sure of herself sexually. It’s surprising. I like that.

You like her.

I do.

Isn’t that something of a first for you? Recently, you’ve slept with women because you’ve liked what’s on offer more than you’ve considered whether you’ve liked their persons.

Touché. But true. I’ve had sex with women because I can. With Cat, I wanted to. I want to.

It was eight in the morning. Ben rose, showered, shaved, packed and then stood by the window of his hotel, its nondescript features providing an opportunity for his mind to wander approximately a kilometre away. He envisaged Cat sleeping soundly, her body supine, soft and at rest beneath the linen on the old iron bed in Auberge Claudette. He wanted to spy on her like that as much as he desired to be in the full throes of fucking her right now.

Is she awake yet?

‘I wonder if Ms McCabe would care to join me for breakfast.’

Fabian Ducasse awoke very much the accomplished pro cyclist with his mind settled, focused and full of his maillot jaune. Fabian also awoke very much the healthy virile man, his cock stiff and proud. He thought of his girlfriend. Fleetingly. He zapped through the television in search of porn but found only cartoons, quiz shows and the Tour de France. He began to masturbate but his right hand was not enough of a turn on, not even when coated with the hotel’s complimentary body lotion. And then he remembered one of the clerks at the desk. Fuck, remember her name. Shit, what was it. Ah! He remembered. He picked up the phone.

‘This is Fabian Ducasse,’ he barked with some irritation to the male voice which had answered. ‘Is Francine on duty?’

‘Oui, Monsieur Ducasse,’ the man informed him.

‘Give her to me then,’ Ducasse commanded.

‘Bonjour?’

‘Francine,’ Fabian drawled, ‘yesterday, you said if I needed anything, to speak to you.’

‘Bien sûr – what can I do for you?’

‘I need something in my room,’ Fabian explained. ‘You will come.’

‘Directly,’ said Francine, turning from her colleague to hide her flush and the surreptitious unbuttoning of her shirt by one notch.

Fabian assessed the room and looked at his watch. He would not be wanting her on the bed. Not least because, after he had done what he intended to do with her, he would sleep for another hour or so. He did not want her on the bed because he desired no intimacy. He had no need, no wish, for a woman to be curled up and languid under white cotton, not leaving. Fundamentally, he did not want her on the bed because it would add time and necessitate seduction; his time and his seduction skills were precious commodities Fabian was not about to waste.

There was a discreet knock at the door. Fabian padded across the room and let Francine in. He was a sight to behold; naked and with an erection so arrogantly defiant that it needed neither introduction nor justification. She was pretty with a lovely figure but Fabian hardly clocked the facts. All he knew was that she had previously offered her services which, he deduced, meant warm, welcoming pussy. That was enough. That was what he wanted. That was all he wanted. And if he knew women, or at least those who made overtures to him midway through a Stage Race, she would be pleased to be fucked by Fabian. So, everyone was going to be happy. Let’s get on with it, tout de suite.

He backed her up against the closed door, unbuttoned her blouse and feasted his eyes on her impressive cleavage. He wasn’t going to waste time unhooking and unfastening, he just yanked the bra cups down so that her breasts were squeezed out and on display. He reached up her short skirt and ripped down her panties. She wasn’t very tall so it was good that she was wearing high heels; they could stay on. The skirt would have to go, though, as it prevented her spreading her legs wide enough. But the clasp and the zip – too complicated. With a desirous growl, Fabian ruched the skirt up until it was bunched around her waist like a deflated life ring. He took a step back and regarded what was on offer. Great tits. High heels. Shaved pussy. Best of all, utterly silent. Yeah!

Fabian placed the palms of his hands on each of her inner thighs and spread her legs easily. He took his hands to her breasts and moulded and fingered and grabbed at them, fixating on her nipples between his finger and thumb. Then he grasped her buttocks, bent his knees and bucked up hard, entering her with what he assumed was pleasurable force. Certainly, her gasp would have him believe that. He fucked her hard and came in about ten thrusts. No doubt she came too, oui? He grinned triumphant, proud at the glazed response he’d caused in her. He righted her skirt, buttoned her blouse albeit wrongly, handed her the panties and kissed her on both cheeks. It was the first and only time his lips had touched any part of her.

‘Merci,’ he murmured, ‘merci bien.’

‘Bonne chance,’ she said, leaving his room.

He did not watch her walk down the corridor trying to restore order to her blouse and her mind despite the trickle of semen dribbling down her leg. The power Fabian experienced fucking the clerk had flooded him with strength he could utilize on his ride that day. But the desired result which he had attained fucking her was nothing compared to the power that saturated him when he put the maillot jaune on his back.

‘How do you feel, Didier?’ Luca asked, sensing that LeDucq was awake and staring at the ceiling.

‘Better,’ Didier answered.

‘Completely?’ Luca probed.

‘No,’ Didier confided, ‘but I haven’t been sick for two days and my arse is – how do you say?’

‘Bricks instead of mortar?’ Luca ventured.

‘I like that,’ Didier laughed.

‘Zucca make bricks and mortar,’ Luca mused.

‘And I shit on all of them,’ Didier bantered.

‘I need to have a wank,’ Luca said, rising from the bed and disappearing courteously into the bathroom.

As Ben walked through the streets to Cat, he placed a hand against his stomach. He felt a little queer but diagnosis of the symptoms eluded him. He decided that hunger and lack of sleep were to blame, that breakfast with Cat and then perhaps a spell in her bed, or in her bed under her spell, might be curative measures to take. It was only when his stomach turned over, shot down to the soles of his feet and then rocketed up to the base of his throat when the auberge came into sight, that Ben deduced from what it was that he was suffering.

Butterflies. Fucking butterflies. When did I last have these? I’ve gone soft.

He was so disconcerted by the affliction that he very nearly bypassed the auberge. But not quite. Soon enough, he was knocking at Cat’s door with tiger moths rampaging around his abdomen. Then Josh appeared down the hallway.

‘Morning, Ben,’ he said affably.

‘Hey, Josh,’ said Ben.

‘Are you looking for Cat?’ Josh asked.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Ben, ‘actually, yes.’

‘I think Rachel said something about she and Cat having breakfast together on account of today’s afternoon départ,’ Josh informed Ben. ‘We had a great night last night – how come you didn’t show?’

‘Oh,’ Ben said breezily, ‘I had medical matters to attend to – bodies, rest and motion – you know the kind of thing.’

‘All in a day’s work,’ said Josh, nodding ingenuously. He regarded Ben. ‘Why do you want Cat?’

Because she’s gorgeous and sexy and I haven’t wanted anyone so much for bloody years.

‘She left her dictaphone in my room,’ Ben said.

‘What was it doing in your room?’ Josh asked, now just a little intrigued.

‘It was picking up the glinting gems which trickled like a golden waterfall from the ruby lips of one Luca Love Me Jones,’ Ben said wryly.

Josh laughed and then held out his hand. ‘Do you want me to give it to her?’

No. That’s my privilege – I’ll be giving it to her. And I’ll be returning the dictaphone too.

‘You’re all right, Josh,’ Ben said. ‘I feel I should deliver it to her myself – it’s safe in my hands, you might steal her scoops!’

Josh shrugged. ‘Ben?’ he called after the doctor who was about to descend the stairs. Ben turned and regarded him. Josh wavered and then waved the air dismissively. ‘Nothing,’ he said, returning to his room. Josh was going to say something, and he knew what it was he was going to say but the fact that he was unsure quite why he wanted to say it ultimately prevented its disclosure.

Josh always thinks before he speaks. Alex, however, does not. When Ben passed him on the stairs on his way out, Alex also asked his purpose in the auberge.

‘I’m after Cat,’ Ben explained.

‘Who isn’t!’ Alex exclaimed with an excited growl.

Cat McCabe had awoken early and sat up in bed gazing at her surroundings, already missing the room she’d have to check out of later. She committed the wallpaper design to memory, soaking up the beauty of the light filtering through from the bathroom like a waft of fine muslin. She felt so at home here and suddenly she thought of her family. She called Fen but there was no reply. She tried Pip but finding only her sister’s voice on the answering machine, albeit claiming to be Martha the Clown, she decided not to leave a message. Finally, she dialled Django.

‘Who’s there good God?’

Django only ever answered the phone like that when he was elbow-deep in some culinary venture. Forlornly, Cat cancelled the call. Less than a minute later, her phone rang.

‘No recipe,’ Django boomed, ‘no matter how intricate the instruction – regardless of milk curdling, sauce clogging or egg whites misbehaving – no recipe takes precedence over any of my nieces.’

‘Hullo, Django,’ Cat said.

‘What’s up, pretty girl?’ Django asked, slipping a wooden spoon, sticky with something resembling wallpaper paste, into the back pocket of his jeans.

Cat smiled small.

How can he tell?

‘I did something last night,’ she explained, with no shame, no embarrassment, but quietly.

‘With whom?’ Django asked, taking the spoon from his pocket and seeing whether it would stick to the glass pane in the kitchen door. It did.

‘With the doctor,’ Cat confided.

‘How lovely,’ Django enthused, because his other two nieces had provided enough details for him to deduce that the doctor was a very good idea indeed.

‘I know,’ Cat said, her voice faltering beyond her control, ‘I know.’

‘Why the tears?’ Django asked while all around him the sauce separated, egg whites collapsed and bananas went brown.

‘Because it means He’s gone,’ Cat said, ‘I’ve made Him go.’

‘Don’t capitalize that scoundrel,’ Django all but barked before softening his tone. ‘I know, darling. But you’ve let go because you could. Well done you.’

‘Haven’t I gone and scuppered any future chance?’ Cat asked, knowing the answer full well.

‘Catriona,’ Django said gravely, ‘that man deserved neither your future nor your sparkle. That he dared to try and strip you of the one means most certainly that he was never entitled to the other.’ Cat nodded. Django could sense it. ‘It’s good,’ Django continued, ‘believe me. Those who love you are so excited for your life – great things come to those who deserve them. Dr Who is one of them. Good for you.’

‘Think so?’ marvelled Cat on the verge of amazement.

‘Know so,’ Django declared.

Half an hour later, Cat all but skipped to the Zucca MV team hotel, forsaking forays into foyers in search of riders, for swift circumnavigation of the grounds to locate the Zucca team bus and soigneur. She found Rachel sitting on its steps, face up and eyes closed into the morning sun.

‘Rachel,’ Cat greeted.

Rachel opened her eyes and blinked, continuing to squint at Cat even when she could see her clearly. ‘Hey,’ Rachel said, ‘you look very chirpy.’

Cat smiled. ‘You wouldn’t have a spare pair of Oakley sunnies I could borrow?’

Rachel disappeared into the bus and came out with a pair of sunglasses. ‘They’re Vasily’s spares – I gift them to you for an hour!’

‘Thanks,’ said Cat, greatly honoured, putting the glasses on and seeing from her reflection in Rachel’s that she looked quite good in them.

‘So?’ Rachel probed, suddenly realizing how relieved she was for the excuse not to talk herself.

Cat tipped her head to one side. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? The more you’re surrounded by men, the more you crave and value female company.’

Rachel frowned and cast her eyes down, suddenly realizing she’d love the excuse to talk, to confide her antics for constructive analysis.

‘Are you OK?’ Cat asked, suddenly sensing Rachel’s introspection. Rachel wiped her hands on her jeans and said she was fine and would Cat like to help mix the dextrose powder into the bidons? They performed their duty in affable silence until monotony made Cat’s mind meander.

‘Hey Rachel,’ she said, alighting on a fine topic, ‘pick up where you left off yesterday. You were talking about Vasily.’

Rachel was silent for a second too long.

‘Vasily?’ she replied in a way simply not noncommittal enough.

‘In the bar,’ Cat said in what she hoped was a tempting way, ‘in the loos?’

‘Vasily,’ Rachel declared, ‘nothing to say. Yesterday was the Time Trial. He wasn’t himself.’ Cat said nothing because Rachel needed to say nothing more. Cat knew that intonation, those kinds of sentences. She turned to Rachel, screwing on the lid of a drink bottle and giving it a good shake. ‘Tell me,’ she suggested, Rachel’s lack of eye contact confirming Cat’s hunch.

‘It’s nothing,’ Rachel said, fiddling with things that needed no attention, ‘it was nothing.’

‘What was nothing?’ asked Ben, suddenly at the foot of the bus.

‘Ben!’ Cat exclaimed with joy without checking.

‘Hullo, Ben,’ said Rachel, the briefest glance at Cat’s illuminated face telling her all she needed to know without recourse to the glint in Cat’s eyes which the Oakleys were hiding from view anyway.

‘Cat,’ said Ben quite formally, ‘here’s your dictaphone.’

‘Thanks!’ Cat said effusively.

‘Do you women want breakfast?’ Ben asked.

‘We’ve had,’ said Rachel, speaking for both, though Cat would have been quite content with a second sitting. Cat looked at Rachel. Slowly, she removed the loaned sunglasses and handed them to the soigneur. The girls conversed expertly by glances.

You’ve slept with Ben Bloody York, haven’t you!

I know! What do you think?

Go for it.

‘Wait up, Ben,’ Cat called after him but only once she’d been granted Rachel’s nod. Ben stopped a few yards off, the morning sunlight catching his features so aesthetically that Cat had to catch her breath.

‘Tell me,’ Rachel said connivingly, ‘why does he have your dictaphone?’

‘I must have left it in his bedroom,’ Cat said.

‘Oh,’ said Rachel, nodding sagely, ‘couldn’t he just have used his finger then, like a normal bloke?’

It took a while for Rachel’s jest to filter through Cat. When it did, she roared with laughter, nudged her friend, all but leapt from the bus and approached Ben most jauntily. As they walked away, Cat turned. Rachel was standing in the doorway of the bus, cleaning the Oakley sunglasses she had lent Cat, on the rim of her T-shirt.

Shit! Cat faltered, looking over her shoulder at the bus, Vasily! What were you going to say, Rachel?

It can wait, Cat – don’t worry about it – it can wait. It was nothing.

When Cat and Ben had disappeared from sight and the bidons were all done, Rachel cleaned the Oakleys once more.

‘Vasily, Vasily,’ she said under her breath, ‘what am I meant to think, let alone do?’

A little later, Rachel did something she had never done. She went to her rider. Two of the team had come to her room for a leg rub, another had come for fresh socks but she hadn’t seen Vasily. Vasily probably didn’t need clothing or massage or to be disturbed, but still Rachel went to his room.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hullo, Rachel,’ he replied.

‘Can I come in?’ Rachel asked.

‘Please,’ he said, holding the door and welcoming her. She was deflated that he left it ajar.

‘Can I do anything for you?’ she asked.

‘It’s a short Stage,’ Vasily shrugged. ‘I am fine, please do not worry.’ Rachel was standing with her back to the window, Vasily was leaning leisurely against the wall, the bed was between them. Rachel noticed that Vasily had, for some reason, made it.

‘OK,’ said Rachel, hovering, wondering if he’d forgotten, remembered or merely dismissed the day before. ‘About yesterday,’ she started.

Vasily raised a hand. ‘Please,’ he said kindly, ‘do not worry.’

Rachel regarded her feet.

I’m not worried. I just want to know if there might be more from whence it came.

‘Don’t worry,’ she echoed, her fixed smile contradicting the darting of her eyes.

‘Oh,’ said Vasily dismissively, ‘I won’t. I forgot it already.’ He wondered why Rachel had suddenly cast her gaze away. ‘Rachel,’ he said softly, advancing towards her, ‘it was not meant to be. If I am OK with it, I expect you – my soigneur – to be so too.’

Rachel looked up at him, he was close and lovely and she wanted to touch his lips with her fingertips. She nodded, not able to wrest a forlorn edge from her gesture.

‘You look sad,’ Vasily said.

‘I’m fine,’ Rachel said a little too loudly.

‘It won’t last,’ he continued.

‘You’re right,’ Rachel confirmed.

‘It won’t last, I will have it again,’ Vasily continued, his apparent contradiction distracting Rachel momentarily from the fact that he was fingering the buttons on her denim shirt.

‘I don’t think so,’ Rachel said, quite crossly.

Who does he think I am? Some fucking groupie willing to dispense sex when he so demands?

‘Rachel!’ Vasily remonstrated.

‘What?’ Rachel objected.

‘I say it won’t last, I will have it again,’ Vasily said, ‘and you tell me no, that I won’t?’

‘You bloody won’t,’ said Rachel.

‘I don’t need bloody shit like this,’ said Vasily.

‘And nor,’ Rachel declared, ‘do I.’

She brushed past him and made to go. Vasily caught her arm. ‘You think it’s not possible?’ he implored. Rachel looked at him coldly, her jaw locked with indignation and hurt. She snatched her arm away and stomped towards the door. ‘It won’t last,’ Vasily declared. ‘I will have it again.’

‘Fuck off, Jawlensky,’ Rachel hissed.

‘Yesterday meant nothing. You will see,’ Vasily proclaimed to her back, ‘I will take the maillot jaune in the mountains.’

Rachel stopped stock still, closed her eyes and grimaced.

You stupid, idiot girl. He’s a fucking cyclist. He was talking about a piece of bloody yellow lycra all along. Not you. Not kissing you.

Rachel turned.

And now he looks hurt and confused. And why wouldn’t he be? His faithful soigneur has just doubted his pedal prowess.

Rachel went back to her rider and laid the palm of her hand gently at his cheek. ‘Oh shit,’ she whispered, ‘I didn’t realize. I thought you. I meant about.’

Vasily tipped his head to one side and regarded her. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘you speak better for Vasily so he can understand.’

‘Understand this,’ said Rachel, standing on tiptoes and planting a small, apologetic but emphatic kiss on his mouth. Suddenly he was kissing her back, his tongue leaping around her mouth on a mission of its own.

‘Rachel,’ he murmured, wonderfully gravelly. He took her hand and placed it against his groin. She could feel him, rock hard. Rachel took his hand and placed it over her breast. Then she guided it under her shirt to her bare flesh, her nipple enticingly at the centre of his palm.

‘What do you want?’ she whispered, dabbing her tongue tip on the dimple in his chin. He encircled her with his arms, pressed his groin against her and moved his body gently.

‘I want to stay out of trouble,’ Vasily murmured into the top of her head. ‘I need to ride near the front today but not too hard. Tomorrow, the Pyrenees. Tomorrow, I am at war with Ducasse.’

Cat’s job was not just easy to do that day, it was a true pleasure. On a glorious sunny afternoon refreshingly punctuated by a gentle breeze, the race headed out from Sauternes and through lines of the famous lime-green vines striping the land like corduroy. The route headed due south, down through Gascony to the Beam region and its capital, Pau; gateway to the Pyrenees, harbinger of the first mountain trials of the Tour de France but also a lovely old university town crowned with a picture-perfect fourteenth-century château. Cat was excited to be there; not even a nondescript modern motorlodge could dampen her delight.

It was an easy Stage to report and she whacked out 500 words effortlessly. It was easy to work diligently when a certain euphoria tided you along, when the person responsible for that euphoria was willing you to finish your work because he was waiting for you. The route had been raced fast with an exciting photo-finish between three riders, a paragraph-worthy mass pile-up near Brocas-les-Forges, no change in the general classification nor the jersey wearers and no abandonments. Tomorrow, out of the original 189 starters, 180 would be heading towards their nemeses at altitude.

‘Finito!’ Cat exclaimed.

‘Are you on a mission or something?’ Alex probed.

‘Yup, Rachel and I are having a drink before dinner,’ Cat said, her eyes glinting, ‘so I’d better shoot. I’ll see you later, boys.’

Josh watched Cat all but skip out of the salle de pressé. He thought her to be ridiculously excited over a pre-dinner drink with a girl she’d had breakfast with that morning.

‘Rachel and Cat,’ Alex guffawed, nudging a bemused Josh for good measure, ‘kinky!’

‘You’re a prat, Fletcher,’ said Josh. ‘I’m going out for some air.’

And there was Rachel. And there was Ben.

‘Hey, Josh,’ Rachel called.

Josh approached them. ‘Cat’s just left,’ he said to Rachel, knowing instantly why Rachel looked momentarily puzzled. ‘You’re meeting for a drink?’ he said, as if reminding her kindly though he analysed her response. He glanced at Ben as if to say, my! aren’t girls dippy.

‘Oh yes,’ Rachel said, tapping her temples, ‘I’m losing my mind.’ She returned Ben’s shot glance in what she hoped was a legibly conspiratorial way.

‘I think she’s gone to phone her boyfriend first,’ Josh heard himself say before he allowed himself to check his words and consider his point. He was looking steadily at Rachel but he could feel Ben regard him abruptly. ‘Didn’t Cat say something about him coming out for some of the mountain Stages?’ Josh continued to Rachel.

‘Um,’ Rachel faltered as if pondering Josh’s query rather than wracking her brains for any clue that Cat had given her of a boyfriend back home.

‘Anyway,’ Josh said lightly, ‘that’s where she’s gone – her daily indulgence of long-distance sweet nothings.’

‘That’s nice,’ Rachel said distractedly.

‘I’d better shoot,’ said Ben, turning and walking away.

‘Me too,’ said Rachel, doing the same.

‘Yes,’ said Josh, ‘and me.’ He returned slowly to the salle de pressé hating himself but not kicking himself. What had he just done? Was he trying to protect Cat? From Ben? For her boyfriend back home? She so sparkled in the doctor’s company. Was he trying to keep Cat chaste? And if so, for whom? The boyfriend? Or himself?

Cat was waiting for Ben in her room. He was later than she had anticipated and she was so highly charged with desire that when he knocked, she flung open the door and greeted him with a torrent of kisses. She didn’t want him to use his mouth for an explanation, she didn’t need an apology. Kissing was all she required to come from his lips.

Ben, who was thoroughly disconcerted by what he’d just learned from Josh, had intended to ask Cat for some information and honesty. But her mouth was so sweet and kissing her was so tantalizing and her hands were running all over his body and his cock was responding in fine style. So, Ben allowed Cat to lead and she took to her role with relish, stripping herself first and then Ben. She went on top and held her position there. She felt fantastic to Ben and, as he came, his hands on her firm buttocks, his tongue deep in her mouth, his body thrust high into hers, their eyes locked together, he thought how he never wanted to let her go. As he left, he considered how she wasn’t even available for the taking.