Читать книгу The Cutting Place - Jane Casey - Страница 10

To his great disappointment, he wasn’t dead – he just felt that way. A bird had woken him, singing frantically in the tall trees that screened the house from the road, throwing an alarm call into the still silence.

(And how did he know about the trees? It had been dark when they got there, piling out of the car onto the gravel drive, and he had been drunk already. Whose house? Whose idea to go there? Who had been with him in the car, jammed up against his legs, a high-heeled sandal digging into his instep when the girl moved carelessly? Who had stolen the champagne, handing him a bottle that he’d tipped down his front in the dark, on the motorway?)

Waking up properly was slow, a process of adjustments. He had a temperature, but no, he didn’t, it was the room that was hot. He felt dreadful. He was ill. No, hungover. The thumping headache, the nausea, the felted surface of his tongue, the burning dryness of his eyeballs: all of that was a hangover. There was someone lying beside him, but no, there wasn’t, it was a coverlet rucked up into a ridge that pressed against his thigh companionably. His watch had been stolen – no, he hadn’t worn a watch. He had dreamed such a strange, exciting dream, weird and utterly wrong—

Not a dream. He sat up. He remembered.

The bird was quiet now, stunned into silence by the heat of the day. The curtains were open, limp in the airless warmth. The sun struck into the room, across the floor. And here came fear, like an unwanted guest swaggering into the room to sit on the edge of the bed and chatter.

The small injuries that told him what he remembered was true. Here, a bruise. There, a bite mark.

white teeth in the dim light grinning as he hissed in pain and pleasure and reached out—

He couldn’t get away from the shards of memories that kept slicing into his brain.

Kissing, too aroused to be wary.

The taste, wine edged with tobacco and salt from the sweat that glazed them both.

Full lips, a probing tongue, a tattoo that covered one beautiful arm from shoulder to wrist, a flat stomach, long legs.

He had been clumsy, fumbling with a button. A laugh in his ear that he felt as much as heard, and then a whisper.

‘Come on. Let’s go somewhere else.’

Which meant that part had been in front of everyone. Anyone could have seen.

Stumbling into the bedroom, kissing already, his clothes coming off, until they were both naked.

We don’t have to

I want to

Say if you want to stop

Please

You’re hurting me

Oh God

The door had been open. He remembered that. He remembered someone standing, watching them for a while.

What had he done?