Chapter One
“Malham? Do we have to? I was just hoping we might…”
“You’ll love it, you know you will. You always say you don’t want a ride out, then you have a good time. Go get changed.”
“Ed, I was in the middle of weeding. I’ve been meaning to get my hands on this all week.”
“Don’t be silly, you can’t waste a beautiful Sunday afternoon pottering in your flower beds. Get your leathers on, we’ll be setting off in twenty minutes.”
Concluding that the matter is settled it would seem, Ed transfers his attention back to the monster of a machine he tends so lovingly. I swear he lavishes more devotion on that thing than he ever does on me. Six months into a marriage, and already I play second fiddle to a Yamaha MT-09.
You could be forgiven for thinking I’m a bike buff. I’m not, it’s just that the specifications for Ed’s pride and joy have been drilled into me for months. He bought the thing just six weeks before our wedding, blowing nearly seven thousand pounds we badly needed for such fripperies asfurniture, a washing machine, and a fridge freezer. We have all those now, but they’re second hand. I was at first incredulous, then livid that he could do such a thing, spend all that money without even consulting me. He dismissed my concerns, I doubt he even heard what I said. He just assured me that I’d love the bike as much as he did, as much as he loves me.
The L word always does the trick. He may be a self-centred petrol head a lot of the time, but I do genuinely believe Ed loves me in his way. He’s sweet, gentle, very attentive in bed. That counts for a lot. Doesn’t it?
I know I love him. I adore my husband or I wouldn’t put up with his obsession for fast bikes and hot women. He assures me he just likes to look, no harm in that, surely? Why would he ever be interested in anyone else when he has me? Even so, I find it unnerving when we’re out and he flirts with any attractive female he claps eyes on. Barmaids, waitresses, his friends’ girlfriends. My friends, workmates. If they have a pussy and a pulse, to Ed they’re fair game. Even the driving instructor who lives next door doesn’t escape his notice.
Some of them respond. Actually, most do, he gets a lot of encouragement. Well, he would, he’s drop-dead gorgeous. I know I’m the envy of many of the girls he flirts with—he may be full of ridiculous chat-up lines, but it’s still me he goes home with.
I tell myself that as I peel off my gardening gloves and shove them, my trowel, and hand fork back in the cupboard under our sink. I’d been eyeing that scruffy-looking border for a fortnight, just itching to get my hands on it and do some grievous bodily harm to the crop of dandelions and clover sprouting there. I never get a chance during the week because I work full time. Not that long out of college, armed with a degree in graphic design, I’m loitering with intent at the bottom rung of the career ladder, but glad to be in work. I’m a junior designer forEm See Squared, a prestigious design and marketing firm with a head office in the centre of Leeds. I can’t even rely on getting every weekend off—if a client wants something by Monday, that’s just how it goes—so I’ve no idea how long those dandelions will continue to invade my lupins and astilbes. They could be a foot high by the time I next get my hands on them. Ed works from home as a self-employed motorcycle courier, so he’s around a bit more than I am. He could sort out my dandelion problem if he felt so moved, but he prefers to spend his time up to his elbows in bike oil.
Resigned to the inevitable, I slink off upstairs and change my gardening cut-offs and oversize T shirt for snug leather trousers and a slinky top in a deep shade of scarlet. I’ll need my leather jacket too—despite the seventy-degree sunshine of mid-June, it’s always bloody cold on a bike. Especially at eighty miles an hour on the winding country roads of north Yorkshire.
Ed’s a good motorcyclist; he can handle speed. It’s me who hates it. The excitement, the exhilaration—all is lost on me. I plead with him to slow down, just to take it easy and enjoy the views, but he laughs and tells me yet again how much I love it really. It seems I’m to spend yet another warm Sunday afternoon bundled up in black leather, hurtling through the countryside, startling sheep and disturbing the rustic peace of the rambling fraternity.
Let joy be unconfined.
* * *
“Isn’t that that mate of yours? The one from next door?” Ed gestures across the car park in the direction of a trendy-looking coffee shop. They have tables set up outside, and look to be doing a roaring trade in fruitycocktails, ice creams, and fancy sandwiches.
I scan the tables and spot the one he’s picked out. Sure enough, that does look like Caroline, though what she’s doing sipping a cappuccino, alone, in a crowded street café in Hawes is beyond me.
“Yes. It looks like her.”
“She’s on her own. Let’s go over and say hello.”
And the rest.Ed fancies Caroline like mad; his eyes come out on stalks every time he spots her hanging out washing or getting into her car. Just because she shares his interest in bikes—up to a point, no one is as bike-obsessed as Ed—he’s convinced she fancies him back. There are times I wonder where he gets his delusions from. To the best of my knowledge she’s never said or done anything to create that impression, yet he clings to the belief that he would only have to give her the nod and she’d be over the back fence quicker than a ferret.
“I don’t think…”
“Come on, she’ll be glad of the company.” Before I can protest again, Ed has seized my hand and is tugging me across the car park. He marches the pair of us around the village square, past several market stalls and tourist tat shops to tower over Caroline as she replaces her cup on the saucer.
“We thought it was you. Faith spotted you and wanted to pop over for a chat. Can we join you?” Ed has pulled out the empty chair at Caroline’s table and is settling into it even before she has a chance to answer. It’s left to me to check with the occupants of the adjoining table whether they have a spare seat, and to pull one across for me to sit on. By the time I’m installed at the tiny table, Ed is treating Caroline to his thousand-watt smile, gearing up for a session of heavy flirting and suggestive innuendo.
He’s wasting his time. I know it, and Caroline gives every indication of knowing it too. Caroline’s glance flicks in the direction of the café entrance, and the reason Ed iswasting his strenuous efforts at seduction comes into view. I’m not sure of his name, but I’ve seen Caroline’s boyfriend around the place quite often. I don’t think he lives with her, but he spends a lot of time next door. And he is, quite simply, magnificent.
Ed is good-looking, but Caroline’s guy is beyond beautiful. Tall, almost black collar-length hair, eyes the colour of dark chocolate. He looks powerful but without that pumped-up appearance that comes of too many hours spent in the gym. This man is lean, strong, hard. He terrifies me.
That’s not an issue though, because he has eyes for no one but Caroline. He has not the remotest passing interest in the mousy little graphic artist who lives next door with her arrogant fool of a husband. I’m glad of this. It’s not just that I’m happily married, which is of course reason enough not to go lusting after the neighbours. I also know that his tastes and mine would not be compatible. He likes to play rough; I’ve seen the marks on Caroline’s legs, her bum on occasions when she’s been sunbathing in her back garden. I’ve sometimes heard sounds coming from next door, squeals, screaming once or twice. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what goes on.
The first time I heard Caroline screaming I was concerned; I considered calling the police but Ed just laughed off my worries. Even so, I made a point of watching out for my neighbour the following morning and spoke to her across the fence. I told her what I’d heard and asked her straight out if she was okay. She assured me she was, grinned, and asked me if I’d be happier if she suggested that her dom use a gag in future.
I’m no prude, at least I like to hope not. Consenting adults and all that. What Caroline and her sexy hunk get up to is no concern of mine. Nor of Ed’s, despite hisenthusiastic efforts to engage Caroline in conversation now. He’s oblivious to the presence looming behind him. Neither Caroline nor I see fit to draw his attention to it.
“So, what brings you all the way out here? You’re far too sexy to be left sitting in a café on your own. Some sleazeball might try it on.”
Oh. My. God.Caroline has the good sense not to answer. Or perhaps she’s just enjoying the spectacle. For my part, I’m mortified.
