Tainted Touch Read online

  Aidan chuckles to himself. “I was just offering to introduce her to the nice people at Merchant Deity.”

  “You bloody won’t,” Art mutters.

  “What’s wrong with them?” asks Mills.

  “Get your pen out.” Art arranges plates and napkins, his gaze low. “You could write an essay.”

  There’s a dark undertow to this conversation; it tugs both men at the edges.

  “I jest.” Aidan stretches a long arm around to give Mills a squeeze. “You’re a bit young for the Marquis. Also, Artemis is just jealous because I’m being flown out to the Seychelles for their wedding.”

  Art puts a plate in my lap and sinks down beside me. “Now that, I’ll admit to. But I mean it–you keep your enlightened friends away from Millie.”

  “Cait,” she whines. “They’re talking over me like I’m five.”

  “They’re being boys. Finish your drink and leave them to it.”

  “And eat,” Art adds, gesturing to the burritos, “before I finish them all myself.”

  I reach for one, cradling the hot wrap in my palms so it doesn’t burst all over me. Then I glance at Aidan. “I think you should lighten the mood a bit and tell us about these photos.”

  He bats long lashes, feigning innocence. “What photos?”

  Mills’ eyes slide slowly up and to the left, where topless, masqued Aidan stares down at her.

  “Oh.” He chews his lip thoughtfully. “Those. They’d be from my other job.”

  He’ll probably tell you later, Art had said. But it’s not my place.

  “You’re a model…?” I guess.

  Aidan offers a vague smile. “Sometimes.”

  Tension clusters between his body and Art’s, and I find myself hoping Art will reach out, massage the air and touch it away.

  “No,” Mills says, finally. Her voice drops. “I don’t think you are.”

  I shove my tongue up into an incisor. “Easy there, Sherlock.”

  “No, no. It’s okay.” Aidan holds up his hands in surrender, and then points back toward the photo where he appears to be rope-tied to another guy. “Really, it is. I’m not shy about it…in case you hadn’t noticed. It’s just a job.”

  Mills gives this cool, understanding nod. “Can I interview you for my school website? Full anonymity, obviously, but it would be awesome evidence for our upcoming debate about–”

  “Only if I can refer to myself as Notorious A-I-D.”

  “Interview him about what?” I ask, blinking between the two of them. “What is it?”

  “Cait. Why do you think he’s got a fridge full of truffles and Champagne?”

  “I dunno–employee discount?”

  The others snigger at this one.

  “They’re gifts,” he explains eventually. “From my regular clients.”

  I turn to Art. “I still don’t get it.”

  “Aid works for an escort agency,” he says under his breath.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  There’s no judgement in Art’s words, no malice toward the profession. He speaks quietly in case he’s embarrassed me–his pupils shrink in sympathy.

  Aidan leans over Mills to give my knee a squeeze. “I’m a very happy whore, honest. And I work in theatre, for fuck’s sake–a boy’s got to keep himself in Creme de la Mer and Levi’s and…well…under a roof…somehow.”

  He says all this as if I’ve asked him about the weather.

  “Creme de la Mer?” I manage to croak.

  “Totally worth the price tag. You think I look this hot for free?”

  “I do,” Art chuckles.

  “Hush, pretty boy. Where was I? Oh yeah–I’ve got a few jars in the bathroom. Knock yourself out and thank me later.” Aidan screws his handsome face up. “Well didn’t that come out wrong?”

  The room falls quiet as we eat. Night casts cactus shadows over the pale walls; sauce drips from my fingers, oil and watery red. I want to know why Art’s brought me to meet his escort brother before he’s even kissed me–is this some sort of deal-breaker? Does he want to see if I object before he makes his intentions clear? He and Aidan have a typical brotherly relationship, as far as I can see. It reminds me of Rich and Drew. But there’s a protective current somewhere, a stubbornness. They’re in something together that nobody else can touch.

  “Well.” Aidan sets down an empty plate, topping it with a well-stained napkin. “That’s my protein injection done for the day.”

  Mills’ eyes light up, despite the tear-smudged makeup. “I want a protein injection.”

  He gets to his feet, arms stretched above his head in some sort of yogic contortion. “Patience, Milleficent. I’m only one man.”

  “Since when am I named after a Disney villain?” she grumps.

  “It’s the eyeliner. Also, you’re an evil mastermind. You’re aware of this, yes?”

  She scowls at him. “Rearrange this well-known phrase or sentence: no.”

  He smiles hard, flashing white teeth until he squints. “I love this one! Come on, devil bitch. I’m going to teach you to dance.” He slaps a hand on the jukebox and it springs to life, coloured lights spinning through the shadows to bathe Art in stained glass. “You too, Cait…I have no name for you yet, out of respect to Artemis. But rest assured that it will come.”

  “Uh…great?”

  “I’ll start with something basic. How do you feel about floor work?”

  Turns out, I’m better than Mills at said floor work. This is partly because body combat has taught me co-ordination, and partly because unlike her, I’m not pissed; alas, after two minutes, the bruised muscles of my back begin to sting and I realise that alcohol has only numbed my injury until now. I stumble back to the sofa where Art rubs the ache away through the cobweb lace back of my jumpsuit, his fingers lithe and steady. No words are exchanged, and none are needed–his hands do all the talking. Some dodgy Eurobeat comes on; Aidan starts chucking Mills around like the pro he is, holding her up so she can follow his lead. They end up doing a bastardised Harlem Shake, cocktails in hand, and then Aidan asks Mills if she’s still in her lighthouse and the tears spurt forth all over again. He curls her against his big chest and rocks, his palm stroking her hair. In contrast with the cheesy music, it’s the oddest thing.

  For the first time, I see us from the outside–and what I see is two sisters, both lost in London and found by touch, basking in fear and joy and misery because some boys deemed us worthy of kindness. The joy is because we are deserving, finally; the misery pervades because it took this long. Fear coils that it will end soon, that it is transient, that this is all happiness can be.

  I don’t know where my father is. But I hope he suffers.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Midnight paints Aidan’s bedroom a deep, inky shade of blue. We’ve left the boys to take turns in the bathroom, and Millie is already beneath the comforter, dark hair splayed across a white pillow. Her breath comes in hitches.

  “Mills?” I whisper, padding over to the bed.

  “Cait.” Her usual deadpan voice is a tearstained squeak. It makes my stomach lurch.

  Silence pulls tight as I slip on pyjamas–a camisole and shorts in cool black satin–and climb into bed beside her.

  “You smell like that Creme de la Mer stuff,” she says softly.

  “So do you.” A light floral scent hangs around us, soaking into the bed linen. “Why didn’t you tell me you were struggling at school?”

  “I’m–I’m not struggling.”

  “Chick. It doesn’t look like it.”

  She takes slow, deep breaths, her chest heaving up and down. “It’s just kind of hit me that I’m the only one who’s responsible for how I end up, after school. I’m the only one who can pass the exams, the only one who can get a place at the uni where…I’ll be on my own.” The last words go up three octaves, cracking a little more with every beat of ascent.

  “Hey. Uni is the best thing that ever happened to me, okay?” I turn to face her. “And you–
you’re going to be fabulous. Think of all the cool, clever people you’ll meet. People just like you.”

  “People with a lot more money than me,” she says meekly.

  I shrug. “Maybe. Hey, I have to work and stuff. But so do loads of other people I know.”

  “You’re not allowed to work at Cambridge. They forbid it, it interferes with your studies–”

  “Which is shit. But you’ll work your arse off in the holidays, right?”

  “I keep reading about how expensive it is to qualify,” she murmurs. “And it ends up just being, like, what’s the point? What if I don’t even get a job at the end of it and I’m just up to my eyeballs in loans?”

  “That’s the risk you take, Mills. You just have to make sure your odds are bloody excellent by doing the work, getting the grades. And you’re more than capable of that.”

  “Might make me special at some school in Guildford,” she mutters, “but it won’t when I get to Cambridge.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I don’t know a lot of things, which is half the fucking problem.” She tosses over with a thick thump of pillow flesh. “I just…I can’t talk about it.”

  “You don’t have to pour your heart out to me.” Not if she’ll shred it through gritted teeth. “But you can call me just to rant. You can call me just to cry, if you need to. God knows, I do it to you often enough.”

  “I’m not like you, Cait. I can’t just crack open.”

  I hug myself beneath the cover. “But you did. And you were dancing.”

  “Yeah…that’s a new one. Not sure I like it, either.”

  “You can’t talk to your friends, even?”

  She snorts. “Like they’d get it. They’re too busy raiding imaginary towns on World of freaking Warcraft.”

  “You do play a lot of Sims.”

  “I log off!” she protests, though amusement curls the edge of her tone. “I may enjoy a Simfest, but I don’t lose sleep over it. I’d never get any work done if I played like them.”

  “Okay, okay. I promise to never again judge you by the standards of a dude called Loki,” I concede.

  “He’s alright, you know.”

  “Oh?” I poke her through the duvet. “Like, as alright as Aidan…?”

  She chuckles. “Oh God, no. Neither of them. I mean–Aidan’s nice to flirt with, isn’t he? And Loki’s just…he’s my friend, Cait. Neither of them are like that.” Behind those words, regret beats like an artery.

  “Somebody will be, though. One day.”

  “Huh. We’ll see.” She shifts about, adjusts her deer-print pyjama vest. “I need to go to sleep before I vomit.”

  “Jeez, Mills.” I wince. “That doesn’t sound safe.”

  She yawns. “Oh, it’s fine. I do it all the time now. Hey…you remember those picnics we used to have with grandma?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Was just…remembering them. The ones at the cathedral. And the ones at the beach.” Her voice takes on this soft, far-away quality. “I don’t think I’ve felt that peaceful for a long time.”

  “I’m sorry, Mills,” I whisper.

  “Oh, don’t start. Mom’s bad enough. Night, Mrs Lyons.”

  “Oi.” Even in the dark, I blush. “Do not tempt fate like that. It’s probably listening!”

  “Mmm. Creepy.” Another yawn, and her breath evens out to near-sleep.

  I toss myself back over and try to join her, but no luck. I’m still buzzing from Art’s impromptu little massage.

  “You mind if I put the lamp on?” I ask.

  No response.

  I flick on the dome-shaped light, and dig The Waves out of my bag. If anything will put me to sleep, surely it’s Grace having another one of her “let’s list adjectives for water,” episodes on the beach. The waves roll toward me. Opaque, majestic. Smoke roiling beneath glass. They are liquid, but I am the frozen one.

  Nope. Not working. Worse still, a headache prods at my temples. Stupid cocktails. I listen for sounds in the living area, wondering if it’d be rude to get up for a glass of water, but the flat is silent save the faint wail of a siren outside.

  Feels strange, my bare feet on Aidan’s unfamiliar wooden floors. A chill caresses me, my nipples tightening against the fabric of my camisole as I peer through the door. One sofa is slathered in Aidan, his long legs dangling off the arm rest; he snores lightly in a black sleeping bag. The other is empty–Art must still be in the bathroom.

  I pad through, light on my toes, and begin opening cupboards in search of a glass. I’d forgotten how awkward it can be in a strange place, let alone in the pitch black. It takes more effort to close these bloody doors quietly than it did to get out here in the first place. Worse, when I do find a clean glass, the tap spews like a hissing cat, fat balls of water clattering over the sink at fifty decibels.

  A few cold swallows pass down my throat before I hear the footsteps. They gain on me, heavy and masculine, and stutter to a halt right behind. I lower the glass in front, he lowers his hands either side of me, and they all land on the kitchen unit at the same time.

  “Cait,” Art murmurs, inches from my ear. He’s topless–I feel the naked heat of him on my bare shoulder. It makes the fine hairs on my forearms stand on end.

  I long to turn, but I’m as frozen as Grace on the beach.

  His voice is low. “Couldn’t sleep, huh?”

  “Headache.”

  “Poor baby.” One strong hand cups my left hip. “Turn around and let me see.”

  You can’t see a migraine, but who the hell cares? The same strong hand steers me around, and I brush right across his torso as I turn. His bare, chiselled torso. Then I’m staring up into a pair of attentive amber eyes, clasping the counter to ground myself while he squeezes me further into a cage of his arms and chest. His mouth falls to brush my forehead, tapers along my cheekbone…and in a split second, he has fists full of black satin and lips full of mine.

  Every last cell of my spine shivers. Echoes pour down to simmer in the plains of my inner thighs. A warm tongue skims mine, tart with toothpaste and firm in its exploration; his teeth nip at my bottom lip. Hello, God…I think I just learned what foreplay is.

  When he pulls away, I sigh like I’ve never tasted air before.

  “I wanted to wait, to do that at the cathedral,” he whispers, “but you go and wear these cute little pyjama things and spoil all my plans.”

  I splay experimental fingers across his abs, feeling my way to his waistband and hooking into the belt loops. “I like that you had plans.”

  Art laughs under his breath. “Sometimes you see somebody, and you just know. And you want it to be perfect.”

  Those words, they taunt me. I’ve never felt like I had that kind of power and if I did, never thought for a second I’d actually know what to do with it.

  “It wasn’t imperfect.” Before I lose the nerve, I kiss a wet path across his collarbone, ushering a beautiful hmm from his throat.

  “God.” He takes a step forward, shoving me hard against the counter as his mouth finds mine again in the dark.

  My hands ascend to cup the nape of his neck, to stroke the soft skin there. He groans on my tongue and the sound reverberates along my jaw. For the first time, our hips meet in blissful contractions of skin on satin, the hard bulk of him firm on my thigh. This is what it’ll be like when he fucks me–this, but more touch, more skin. Everything. Complete and utter overload–

  Get a hold of yourself, Caitlyn. Christ.

  “Should probably stop for now,” Art says into my neck. “‘Cause…”

  Behind us, Aidan lets off a well-timed snore and rolls over with a plasticky rustle of sleeping bag.

  I give a reluctant nod. “Should probably sleep, too.”

  “We need to head off early-ish. Aid needs to be at the theatre…we have to work…”

  “Mmm.” My eyes find his in the dark–I want to remember this in the morning in case it’s all a cocktail-induced hallucination. Want to
memorise the proximity of this strong, warm body against mine. “So…goodnight?”

  “Night, Cait.” He chews his bottom lip, smiles vaguely, and then dips down to kiss me one last time. His index finger comes up, tapping along my jaw until I open wider for his tongue. With him, it becomes this intimate, penetrative act, and–gah, must stop thinking about sex.

  We’re going to bed. Alone. Not having sex–even though it feels like in another place or time, we’d just fall into it. We’d be the river thrumming up to burst its banks in a storm, building and building until it swells over the steep drop of a ravine and crashes into a wall of white mist at the bottom. My body grows aggressive at the idea of him leaving, of losing the crash that surely approaches; the pulse at my wrists snakes to bite me.

  But finally, he steps away, and I let him go.

  “See you in the morning.” His voice is a whisper stuffed with bemusement. And hope.

  “Night,” I say again.

  I float to the bedroom, not daring to look back. I don’t trust myself not to run to him. When I pull open the door, Art lets out an audible breath–it hisses through his teeth, catches on his tongue. I’m not the only one who feels our separation so acutely.

  Tucked up beside a sleeping Mills, my blood rages on in its chemical storm, culminating in a deep ache between my thighs. This is what I get for being so cautious of touch–so cautious that I could barely touch myself. My poor, starved body has gone into withdrawal. It craves what it cannot have.

  Until tomorrow. And then who knows what he’ll give me?

  Please, let him not fade away.

  ***

  The world is shaking.

  Wait, no–the bed is shaking.

  I do not recognise this bed. Or this room. It smells…weird. Like flowers, but also like boys.

  What the hell?

  “Rise and shine, bedhead,” Aidan chirps, bouncing away beside me. He looks awfully awake for–erm.

  “What time is it?” I manage.

  “Eight o’clock. Artemis went to Costa with Milleficent.” He falls back on Mills’ side of the bed, his red hair splattering across the pillow. “She did try to wake you, apparently, but didn’t have much luck. And to be fair, I’ve been doing my best cocker spaniel impression here for about two minutes.”