Читать книгу Fast And Loose - Justine Elyot - Страница 6

‘Ella, what the hell’s up with you today? If I’d wanted a zombie I’d have hired one.’

Dean, the chief sub, had reason to bark at me.

My copy was littered with typos and I’d put the wrong name in an article about a pensioner’s massive premium bonds win. The truth was, I hadn’t slept at all the night before, spending the darkest hours trawling Mia’s blog for clues about the identity of J and the whereabouts of The Academy or her flat. But I hadn’t turned up anything I didn’t already know. Her flat was in the city somewhere; The Academy was a short distance outside it; J was an older man in ‘a distinguished profession’ that remained nameless.

Contrite as I was to have made such an uncharacteristic slew of errors, I couldn’t help resenting Dean’s timing. His reprimand coincided with the departure of the journalists from an editorial meeting, and they filtered out into the open-plan office, looking curiously at us. The last to saunter into my line of sight was Tom Crowley. I ducked my head, but the damage was done. I’d seen his glorious gorgeousness in tight jeans and a biker jacket, and now I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything else.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered to Dean. ‘Didn’t get much sleep last night.’

‘So it’s true.’

The voice was Crowley’s. The vibrations of my skin told me that he was standing very near, near enough to smell the leather, and the divine aftershave he wore. Fuck. My head was swimming.

Don’t look at him. Don’t answer him.

I knew I was blushing and I hated the heat that suffused my cheeks, my forehead, my neck, my bloody chest – where would it stop?

‘You are a vampire,’ he finished.

God, I hated him. But at least he’d said it only to me, lowering his voice so that nobody else would hear it. He could easily have played it for the cheap office laugh. So he was vile, but not super-vile.

‘That’s right,’ I said tightly, tapping at my keyboard and keeping my eyes glued to the screen. ‘I shrivel up at the sight of fake tan.’

He laughed, and I swallowed as his hand materialised on my desk. What lovely long fingers they were, splayed out elegantly next to my Slytherin mug. Where those fingers had been…

‘Well, that’s what I wanted to hear,’ he said, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking up at the hint of something promising in his tone.

Electric-blue eyes caught me in their beam. It was appropriate that they reminded me of one of those fluorescent fly-zappers in fast-food restaurants. I was the fly in this scenario.

‘Did you?’

He reached into his inside jacket pocket, drew out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.

When I unfolded it, I found it was a flyer for the opening night of a new bar.

‘The Crypt,’ I said, deciphering the gothic font.

‘Yeah. I’ve been invited to the grand opening. Thought it might be up your street. Up your graveyard path,’ he corrected himself with a flash of dazzling teeth.

You’re asking me on a date? I stopped myself saying the words. I didn’t want to give him an opening to tell me it was just that nobody else wanted to go.

‘So you want me to go to this thing with you?’ I said instead. Once again I’d missed my opportunity to showcase an effervescent, cynical wit. When I thought of all the amazing repartees I’d perfected over the last few weeks, for use in just such a situation, I wanted to weep. Wasted hours.

‘Well, why not? Could be fun. Don’t you think? I might need you to do my eyeliner for me though.’

Mm, Tom Crowley in eyeliner.

At this point, I should have given him one of two responses. (A) The aforementioned effervescent, cynical wit, deployed in the delivery of a devastating putdown. Or (B) A ‘who the hell do you think you are?’ rant.

So which did I choose? I chose (C).

‘OK then. What time?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down! Eight thirty? Outside the bar. It’s in Pitman Street, used to be Silvio’s nightclub.’

‘I know where it is,’ I said.

‘Of course you do. You’re a sub. You’re omniscient. See you there, then. And don’t forget the eyeliner.’

I watched his tight backside slink out of sight, leaving me free to spend the rest of the day deconstructing his ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down’ comment.

As the marketplace chapel clock struck eight thirty, I still hadn’t decided what he meant by it. Did he mean that I was just a reliable type of person in general? Did he mean that he was staking a lot on my consent to his request? Or did he just mean that I was easy? A sure thing?

I’d accepted the last explanation, and it was giving me a nasty weight in my chest that provided a more than adequate counter-balance to any excitement I might have been feeling.

I consoled myself with the knowledge that I looked fucking amazing. I’d used a whole can of hairspray and most of the contents of the Barry M section in the local goth shop. Black velvet, fishnet, spiky heels, ultra-violet manicure and a spritz of Femme Fatale body spray. The body spray was fighting with the hairspray to see which of them could make me cough the most. On balance, the hairspray won.

I didn’t often get glammed up like this – mostly I was a Doc Martens and band T-shirt kind of girl – but the occasion seemed to demand it. It was not for Crowley’s benefit, oh, no. Not a bit of it.

I stopped for a sneaky peek into a shop window at the corner and reapplied my vamp-red lipstick. Would Tom meet me inside or outside? It was November and a spot of blustery wind threatened other, less rigid, hairstyles, but mine was tornado-proof.

I strutted down the street, channelling Siouxsie Sioux, unfortunately turning an ankle on one stiletto heel just before I reached the door.

‘Fuck!’ I gasped, handing my flyer to the doorman.

‘You all right?’ he said with some concern.

‘It’s OK…just a bit of a wrench…ta.’

I got my breath back and tried to put some weight on it. The pain nearly killed me. I flailed wildly, ending up clutching the doorman’s arm.

There was no way I was going to be able to style this out. I was going to have to limp into the bar.

‘What have you done to yourself now?’

There was laughter lurking in Tom Crowley’s voice as it crept up behind me.

‘Nothing,’ I said crossly, all the blood rushing to my cheeks. So much for my white face powder.

‘Done her ankle in, innit?’ said the doorman, ceremoniously handing me over to Crowley, who put an arm around my shoulder and held me upright.

How delightful this would have been under other circumstances – but all I could feel was hot and flustered and completely idiotic.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘You can lean on me.’

It took absolutely ages to get down the stairs that led into the basement bar, but Tom was suspiciously kind and sweet about it, helping me to a dark little booth and seating me gently on the black wrought-iron and blood-red velvet banquette.

‘Anaesthetic?’ he asked politely, patting his jacket.

For the first time, I saw what he was wearing and nearly swooned away. I could have blamed the pain for it, but dear God! He looked good enough to sink my fangs into.

He wore a long black Victorian-style frock coat and a ruffle-fronted white shirt over tightish black dress trousers with a satin stripe. Pointy-toed polished boots and a ruby-red collar stud completed the look, as the fashion pages might say.

‘Vodka,’ I said faintly. ‘Love your outfit.’

‘Thanks. Kind of Jack the Ripper meets Dracula, isn’t it? Anything in the vodka?’

Bromide, perhaps.

‘Oh…tonic, maybe,’ I said vaguely. My mouth was watering indecently.

‘Coming right up, milady,’ he said, with an elaborate little bow that made matters about ten times worse.

I put my foot up on the opposite banquette and took a look around. It was dark enough that passers-by could loom up at you like graveyard bats, but there were lights here and there among the fog-effect dry ice and I could see that I was not the only way overdressed person in the vault. Which was good.

Loud music – Nine Inch Nails, I think – was being played quietly, which didn’t really suit it, but the night was young. And it meant Tom and I would be able to have a conversation. Not that that was necessarily a plus point. My chest collapsed with nerves. What would we talk about?

Everything, anything, but that night we spent together.

In the six weeks since it had happened, I had been telling myself it wasn’t that good, but now, here, with the perfumed fog swirling around me and his frock-coated back leaning over the bar, I couldn’t spin myself that line any more.

It was that good. It was…

Think about something else.

‘Thanks,’ I said, as he put the drinks down on the table. My elevated foot meant that he had to sit beside me rather than opposite. I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye, which was a relief. On the other hand, his elbow and knee were in constant dangerous proximity.

‘No running from zombies for you tonight, then,’ he said, taking a sip from his bottle of lager.

‘I’ve never had trouble with zombies,’ I said. ‘It’s the incubi I have to watch out for.’

‘Incubi,’ he repeated with relish, apparently oblivious to the little dig at his expense. ‘I love you subeditors. So precise. So correct.’ He paused and flashed me a devilish grin. ‘Of course, you wait an hour for an incubus, and then three turn up at once.’

‘Ba-doom-tish,’ I said, lifting my hand to his for a weary hi-five.

‘You’re not classing me as an incubus, though, are you?’ he said.

Dread knotted in my stomach. He was going to talk about That Night.

‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘you definitely weren’t asleep.’

‘Wasn’t I?’ I said guardedly. ‘Oh. My mistake.’

Damn. He moved an inch away from me and nursed his pint with a faint, sickly smile.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Fair enough.’

Gah, now I felt like a bitch. It wasn’t on. He was the one who hadn’t called. Though…come to think of it…neither had I. A change of subject was definitely in order.

‘So, how are you going to review this place?’ I asked with an unconvincing display of casual interest.

He brightened a little.

‘I thought you could help me out,’ he said. ‘It can be a joint effort. I mean, this is probably much more your scene than mine, so my personal opinion might not be all that relevant.’

‘What is your personal opinion?’

He shrugged. ‘Bit dark. Can’t see anyone’s face. How do I know who to chat up?’

‘Right,’ I said, feeling that I’d asked for that one.

‘I mean, half the blokes are prettier than the girls. Speaking of which – eyeliner!’

He produced a stick of kohl from his inner pocket and presented it to me, point uppermost.

‘You really want me to do this?’ I asked, taking it from him.

‘Why not? I felt a bit naked up there at the bar. I need something to make my eyes flash villainously.’

‘They already do,’ I said, looking right into his heart of darkness. ‘OK. Hold still then.’

I started at the inner corner and began to draw a sweeping line across his eyelid, but his lashes flickered so madly that I had to keep giving up, laughing at his obvious panic.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But God, that feels unnatural. I keep thinking you’re going to poke me in the eye.’

‘I won’t if you just keep still.’

‘Hold my face, then.’

The invitation sounded absurdly intimate. I held his chin and lower face in one hand, giving him no chance to jerk it back and away from my pencil, and started again. He was in my power, leaning down to me, his eyes half-closed and twitching. His skin was a little bit velvety, a soft growth of new stubble in my palm. He smelled of alluring spice. If I moved just an inch nearer, our lips would brush.

The memory of how they had done so before broke into my body, stealing inside with my breath. It wrapped my lungs, then my heart, then it flowered in my belly, its bloom descending between my legs. I lived and breathed desire for him. My hand faltered and the black line went beyond his eyelid, smudging the side of his eye.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

My sigh mixed with his. Lager and vodka and a trace of something sweeter. It felt luxuriously daring, to be so close to him, knowing the danger.

I wetted my thumb and rubbed at the smudge.

He caught my wrist, so quickly I almost screamed. He was wearing black leather gloves and his fingers felt cold and slick on my skin.

‘Did you just share a bodily fluid with me?’ he whispered.

I opened my mouth but the words had packed up and gone home.

‘Want to share some more?’

His mouth was getting closer, a lush-lipped omen of doom coming right for me.

What was I going to do? I knew you wouldn’t let me down. The words popped into my head at the critical moment, giving me the impetus I needed to escape from his glorious, wicked clutches.

‘Tom, can you work out a person’s physical location from their IP address?’

He halted in mid-smooch-approach and jerked his head backwards.

‘What?’

‘I mean…I’ve heard you’re good at a bit of cyber espionage. You worked out who that whistleblowing blogger was at the council, didn’t you? Would you be able to do something like that?’

‘Jesus, Ella,’ he said, looking almost fearful in his incomprehension. ‘Do you think this is really the moment?’

‘Sorry, but it’s been on my mind,’ I said. The implications of telling Tom about this had thrown themselves into the forefront of my mind, and they were messy. In fact, I didn’t want to think about them at all. But I’d said it now.

The kiss would probably have been the easier option, after all.

He shook his head and rubbed one eyelinered eye, making it look as if he’d been punched in the face.

‘What’s been on your mind? Are you being cyber-stalked? Ella? Is somebody hassling you?’

‘No. Actually. Forget I mentioned it. I don’t think you’d be able to help anyway. Oh, is that The Cure? Fancy a dance…oh.’ My foot on the table reminded me. ‘No. Scratch that too.’

Tom failed to erase the memory of my words from his expression and reset to his normal drinking-and-flirting-in-bar setting.

Instead, his stare lingered on and on and on until I wanted to hide under the table.

‘You look like I’ve given you a black eye,’ I said. ‘There’ll be rumours.’

‘Well, you have, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Ella, talk to me. What’s this about? I have to admit, I was surprised when you accepted my invitation. You obviously want my help with something, though I was hoping it was just your desire for my body.’

‘Can you do it or can’t you?’ I said, seeing that he wasn’t going to let things drop. ‘The IP thing, I mean.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not unless I can convincingly pretend to be a police officer, which I’d rather not, to be honest. The council whistleblower was different. He had a particular style that I was able to identify just from familiarity.’

‘OK. Well. Thanks, anyway. It was worth asking.’

Would that be enough for him?

‘Oh, come on, El. Don’t leave it there. Why was it worth asking?’

‘I can’t tell you. Not without several more of those vodkas inside me, anyway.’

‘Oh, well, if that’s the key…’ He stood up, took my empty vodka glass and headed back to the bar.

Oh, God. Why had I even brought it up? Surely there had to be other ways to deflect the Crowley lips? Why had none of these suggested themselves to me at the crucial moment?

If I told him about Mia Culpa, then he would know that I read her blog, and if he knew that I read her blog, then he would know…argh! It couldn’t be done. Not if I didn’t want an eternity of Fifty Shades jokes in the office.

On the other hand, Crowley loved a good story, and this had the potential to be just that. If only I could take out the potentially embarrassing nature of the material…no. It couldn’t be done. I’d have to fob him off.

‘Come on then, Coxy,’ he said, handing me my second vodka. ‘Get it down you. I can’t have you holding out on me.’

‘Is this a double?’ I said, squinting at the clear, slightly effervescent liquid.

‘Might be. Who do you want to track down? An ex-lover? A potential future one? A long-lost family member? I’m intrigued – and you can’t intrigue Tom Crowley and expect him to leave it there. Sorry, but my professional pride won’t stand it.’

‘Professional pride,’ I snorted. ‘Professional sticky beak.’

‘Same thing. C’mon. Who’ve you been in a Twitter storm with? Who’s been viewing your Facebook profile?’

‘Shut up,’ I moaned. ‘Talk about something else. Who’s up for the deputy editor job? Have you heard anything?’

‘Nice try, but if you want me to shut up, you’ll have to shut me up.’

I took a deep breath, downed the vodka in one and turned back to him.

‘Ask me one more time and I’ll –’

‘I won’t stop badgering you all night. And you can’t even run away from me. So just give it up, girlfriend.’

I gave it up. I took his face in both my hands and fastened my lips on his, as assertively as I knew how. I was answered by a growl low in his throat and the secure tightening of his arm around me, one hand on the back of my neck.

I’d forgotten how brilliantly he could kiss. He did it with one hundred per cent commitment, like a drowning man clinging to you for your life-giving snog. Everything in me that was tight slackened, everything that was defensive collapsed. Why would I fight something so sublime? It was like running into battle against an army of cream cakes and kittens. Embrace it, for God’s sake. It won’t hurt you.

Ah, what a deceptive voice that was.

But it entirely shouted down the other voice, the one that nagged faintly from its crushed position about how he wasn’t to be trusted and he would let me down and break my heart and so on and so forth.

Shut up, nagging voice. I don’t care about that. Let me have this moment.

I let my head slide against the back of the banquette, opening my mouth to let his tongue inside. I pushed my cheek against his, revelling in the slightly fuzzy warmth of his skin. I was drinking him in, and pouring myself back in return.

His hand – the one that wasn’t holding me in position by the neck – started fidgeting with my fussy fishnetty bits. He moved skilled fingers inside my velvet and lace bra top and, although it only covered more fishnet, he found the outline of my breast and traced it through the diamond pattern. My nipple protruded, stiff and enlarged, straining against the mesh. It would be patterned too if it didn’t subside soon. Crowley’s thumb found it and rubbed it. The gentlest pressure was shocking enough and waves of overstimulation coursed through me. I clamped my thighs together, feeling a steam heat between them.

Tom Crowley was playing with my nipples, here in a public bar, and I had absolutely no problem with it. Good manners and decorum were for other girls. I was just a horny slut, and he knew it.

The increasing fever of our embrace was causing my legs to squirm and twist, which hurt my ankle.

I whimpered into his mouth, hoping he would recognise pain rather than pleasure, but it only seemed to drive him wilder, so I had to put my hands against his chest and push him away forcibly.

‘Wha–?’ he said, and I wanted to kiss him again immediately, in his rumpled, lustful confusion.

‘My ankle. I’m getting all twisted up and it hurts.’

He let out a few heavy breaths before making a response.

‘Shall we leave?’

I misunderstood him for a moment. He was pissed off that I’d complained and wanted to walk away?

‘Come on,’ he said, pushing away his half-drunk pint. ‘I’ve seen more than enough to scribble a paragraph. Let’s get out of here.’

He helped me out of the booth and then, unexpectedly and dizzyingly, swept me up into his arms. The continuing throb in my ankle dulled in comparison with the unmatched thrill of sailing through the dry ice in Crowley’s arms, cutting a swathe through the top-hatted and veiled clientele.

The doormen said goodnight to us at the top of the stairs, and he bore me onwards to the taxi rank while I clung on for dear life, dreading that, at any moment, his arms would give and I’d end up amongst the KFC cartons and trodden-in gum that constituted pavement furniture around here.

We made it on to the smooth back seat of a cab in the nick of time.

‘What’s your address, Foxy?’ he said, sliding in beside me.

‘Rutland Avenue. And what did you call me?’

‘It’s what they call you in the office,’ he said, without apology, having given the cabbie his instructions. ‘Foxy Coxy. Well, the polite ones do.’

‘And what,’ I said, after a pause to register this, ‘do the rude ones call me?’

He gave me a sympathetic smile and rubbed my knee. ‘Ah, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before,’ he said. ‘You’ve lived with that name all your life.’

‘Cocksucker,’ I said resignedly. ‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t,’ he said quickly.

‘Ironic,’ I replied. ‘Given that you’re the only one in a position to know whether or not it’s accurate.’

He smirked.

‘Mm hmm,’ he said smugly. His fingers made a light but devastating return to the back of my neck. ‘If it weren’t for your ankle,’ he whispered into my ear, ‘I’d have found the darkest corner of that bar and had you right there, against the wall.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Can’t resist you.’ He kissed the spot beneath my ear. Dire peril. I loved being kissed there.

‘You managed…pretty well…for six weeks,’ I gasped. The ear-kissing was ongoing and had spread to the delicate skin of my neck.

‘I’m a fool,’ he breathed. ‘I wanted to call you. But…’

‘But?’

‘Thought you’d say no.’

‘Well, what a shit journalist you are, then,’ I said, and he left off the kissing and sat up, blinking madly.

‘Ella!’ he protested.

‘That’s such blatant bull,’ I continued. ‘You’re trained to deal with people saying no to you. And you’re trained to carry on knocking at doors that get slammed in your face. If you’d wanted to see me again, you’d have called.’

He looked away at the spattering of raindrops on the dark window, then back at me.

‘I’m sorry, then,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be honest with you. I fucked you because I fancy you. Nothing complicated about it. And I still do. So…?’

I took a deep breath.

‘Well, same here, essentially,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I was the new girl and you were the old hand with a reputation I didn’t know about at the time. I was vulnerable and I needed a friend, and you made me feel like a twat. Well, not you, to be fair. Everybody else. All I got all week was “Oh, God, you let Crowley charm your pants off. Well, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.” Really lovely introduction to my new career, that was.’

Contrition was written all over his face, with its drooping mouth and its glistening eyes. I wanted to reach out and stroke his cheek and say, ‘There, there.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ he said, holding out a hand and taking one of mine, ‘I wanted to call you. But you seemed pretty anti. Well, once Tilda and Miles got their hooks into you.’

‘They only told me what you were like. Don’t blame them.’

‘What, you don’t think they might have their own agendas? Tilda’s my ex, and Miles fancies you.’

‘What?’ I hadn’t been party to either of these nuggets of information.

‘She won’t talk about it, and he won’t admit it, but come on. Isn’t it obvious?’

‘To you, maybe. But you’re a dirt-digger. You see sleaze in everything.’

‘I see what’s in front of my nose,’ he said. ‘And right now, my nose likes what it’s seeing.’

I laughed despite myself. Tom had just shifted my perceptions of all my office relationships, but he’d done it very charmingly and I was less dismayed than I might have been.

‘So all that…was a misunderstanding, then?’ I said, wanting to believe it.

‘Classic romcom,’ he said. ‘She thinks this, he thinks that, neither of them are right, it all works out in the end.’

‘And is this the end?’

‘This,’ he said, kissing my knuckles with a decorous flourish that went well with his Victorian-style outfit, ‘is the beginning.’