“I could… with my hands, but not…” She struggles to swallow and shakes her head slowly, staring at the corner of the table rather than meet my gaze. “Not anything else.”
She juts her chin, turning back to the bench where the array of foodstuffs seems to nonplus her momentarily. Then she busies herself finding pots and pans, cutlery and cooking utensils.
“Your mouth, too.”
Her movements pause, then start again in slow motion. “No. I can’t… There’s no way it would evenfit.”
I’d take it as a compliment if she wasn’t using it as a reason to deny my request. “Call that a negotiation?”
She bangs the pots onto the stove, one half full of water that slops over the edge. “I don’t have to negotiate.”
“Neither do I,” I shoot back. “I could just make you.”
Her teeth clench so hard a large bulge appears on the side of her jaw. “If you’re just going tomakeme do whatever you want, then we don’t need to have a conversation, do we? You can just do whatever the fuck you like.”
Crimson flashes along her cheekbones, vibrant as the blood my uncle smeared on my face the first time I shot a rabbit.
The creature’s eyes had been wide with terror when I ran over to it, back legs kicking even though it was lying on its side. They’d locked on mine when I stuck the knife into its neck to end its life. The smell had been warm, meaty, revolting.
I’d felt like crying but that would never have been forgiven. So, I forced a smile, and laughed, and when he handed me the cured skin two months later, I’d stroked the soft pelt that smelt of death and expressed my appreciation.
My chest hollows out more the longer my gaze rests on her.
So tiny. So in need of protection.
But she doesn’t have a white knight galloping in on horseback. What she has is me, and I always take payment for services. Even services she didn’t need until I showed up this morning and overturned her life.
Payment I didn’t even know I wanted until it became a nagging drumbeat in my head.
“You can lick, can’t you?”
Her shoulders slump and I reach over, snagging the hem of the oversized tee shirt she found upstairs. I reel in the excess fabric until she stands right beside my chair, still refusing to meet my eyes.
I put a hand on the back of her neck, curling my thumb up around her ear, stroking the soft skin tucked in behind there. Her hair’s still wet from the shower, hiding the grey, and she smells of cheap body wash, disguising the subtler fragrance underneath.
The scent that’s all her. The scent I suddenly can’t get enough of.
“On the radio, they said you’re a schoolteacher.” When she nods her head, I ask, “Do you want to order me about? Threaten me with the strap if I misbehave?”
Something smoulders in her eyes, heating her gaze, bringing another rush of colour to her cheeks. Then she blinks and it’s gone. Smothered. “I’m too old to play those sorts of games.”
“I like that you’re older.”
The words didn’t get vetted before they left my head but as I feel the shape of them in my mouth, I know they’re true.
I like the softness she wraps around her strength, the way she mutes her colour until it suddenly springs into life. I’m envious of the care she exhibits for her son, the devotion, the unconditional love.
Even if I can’t have that from her for myself, I want to be near it, be near her, like that can unlock the resentment I never had the same affection from my mother. The woman who left me as much as she did my father. Who left me in the care of a man she could no longer stand.
I bend her towards me, hardly having to move her far, despite her standing and me being seated. “No games then,” I agree. “You can lick and use your hands, and you’ll let me use my hands on you.”
The crimson spreads, turning her face fire-engine red, her lips visibly pulsing until she savagely bites down on her lower lip. “I’m not used to people touching me.”
I chuckle softly, closing my eyes in relief that she’s on board. Not eager, not leaping at the opportunity, but on board. “That’s okay. I’m not used to touching people.”
CHAPTEREIGHT
NADIA
