Enticement Read online

  Ross gawped at her. “Fucking hell, Evie! How bloody insensitive was that?” He ran after Kit.

  “Wait!” Ross ran into the street. He caught up with Kit just as his lover was wrenching open the car door. “Wait! Where are you going?”

  Kit clasped the top of the driver’s side door, his knuckles every bit as white as his face. “I can’t do this. I was a fool to come back and even think it would work. I can’t make it right for them, Ross. They’ll never forgive me.”

  “Kit, most of them already have.”

  “I should have walked her home. It’s my fault.”

  Exasperated, Ross shoved Kit hard up against the metal chassis, oblivious of the neighbours and their twitching curtains. “Don’t say that. It’s no more your fault than mine.”

  Kit struggled in Ross’s embrace a moment, his arms awkwardly pinned in the small of his back, while his stomach lay flush to the driver’s side window. Ross leaned in closer, holding him tight and refusing to let go. Kit had run out on him before. Destroyed what they had and flown to Japan, leaving him behind to deal with the mess, and to question everything he knew. He wasn’t letting it happen again.

  Slowly, Kit stopped struggling. “She’ll never trust me now.”

  “I doubt she trusts either of us at the moment. We should have told her what happened, instead of letting her hear all the crap on the rumour mill first. Me especially. I should have mentioned it before you came to stay, when it wasn’t such a contentious issue. She’d have listened, and we wouldn’t be saddled with this shit.”

  Darkness continued to creep across Kit’s face so that worry lines creased his brows and formed crow’s feet around the corners of his mouth and eyes. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets so that he stood with his shoulders hunched, a far cry from his more familiar confident posture.

  “I should have walked her home.”

  “We all made choices that day, Kit. We have to live with them, because we sure as hell can’t turn back time.”

  Kit made a noise deep in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a sob. Ross had never seen him cry. He’d seen him paled and shocked, angry even. Devastated, when the police knocked on the door with the news that Sammie was missing, but he’d never seen Kit cry over what had happened. That in itself was a mark against him in some eyes. Plenty of others had bawled over her disappearance. Folks like Tony, who’d elevated her onto a pedestal when she was neither martyr nor an angel, just a black and white image on a missing poster. Ross pulled Kit close again and felt the other man’s fists tighten upon his clothing.

  “Where did she go, Ross? What the hell happened to screw everything up so badly?”

  Ross shook his head. “I wish to god I knew, but we went over everything with the police. People go missing all the time. Some of them just wake up one morning and walk away, leave everything: families, kids, job, mortgage. They just can’t handle it any more so they wipe the slate clean and start over. It’s not so different to what you did, jetting off to Japan with no warning.”

  “It is different. It’s very different. What if she came back and saw us, Ross?”

  Ross had wondered that himself. He’d gone over and over it in the early days after her disappearance, when Kit had left him too. Sammie probably had returned and seen them there making out. Maybe that had been the last straw. Kit had been the only thing keeping her in the village. She hated the place, screamed for someplace with more of a heartbeat. Simply walking away was probably easier than fighting it out with the family and certainly easier than challenging him and Kit. Sammie had always been the mistress of the snap decision. “Come back inside,” he pleaded.

  Kit shook his head. “You go and make your peace with Evie. You don’t need me standing over you making things more awkward.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Kit shrugged, but the action was composed. “I might go up to the ruins, or I might just go home to bed.”

  “Your bed is here with us.”

  “Not tonight it isn’t.”

  “Well, I’m going to come and find you in the morning.”

  Kit squeezed Ross’s shoulder. Then surprisingly, he leaned forward and kissed him hard. “You do that.”

  He pulled away, and Ross stood in the dark until the tail lights of Kit’s car faded into the distance.

  Evie sat on the sofa cuddling Mimmy until Ross came back in. As much as she hated his lack of trust in her, she found some of her anger had faded. Truthfully, while Molly’s words had momentarily given her cause for reasonable doubt, she deep down she simply didn’t believe Kit was a killer. She needed to hear Ross’s version of events though to feel absolutely certain.

  “Kit?” she asked, curiously relieved to find her boyfriend was alone.

  He shook his head.

  “Do I get to know what happened?”

  “He wanted some space.”

  “Ross, that’s not what I meant.” She followed him into the kitchen and watched him as he stood before the washing machine and stripped off. Beneath the bright spotlights, she could see that his clothing was speckled with blood and dung from the farmyard he’d been called out to earlier.

  Ross stuffed the clothing into the drum and set it washing.

  “Was the calf all right?”

  “Eh? Yeah. Touch and go for a while because she got her leg stuck coming out, but it worked out okay.”

  Although she initially hung back, seeing Ross standing in his pants and socks made her want to hold him. He looked sexy in a vaguely ridiculous way. That and seeing Kit run and Ross follow him had shaken her. For a moment, she’d wondered if either of them would come back.

  She offered him the juice carton as a peace offering, which he accepted and swallowed in thirsty gulps.

  “I didn’t tell you because it’s not something I like thinking about, and it’s awkward around Kit. You’ve seen how he reacts. I wasn’t deliberately trying to keep you in the dark. I just didn’t want to bring it up and spoil everything when we were all getting along so well.”

  “And now? Will you tell me now?”

  A dark shadow drifted across the blue of Ross’s eyes, but he nodded. “Make some drinks. We’ll go sit down and talk.”

  It was a simple enough story, once they were settled on the sofa nursing steaming mugs of Yorkshire tea. Three of them—Kit, Ross, and Sammie—out by the ruins enjoying a sunny afternoon. “Sammie left to go back to the village to meet Molly. I think they were going out somewhere. Instead of walking back with her, Kit decided to stay out there with me. It was broad daylight and a five minute walk; there didn’t seem any need to escort her. Unfortunately, she never arrived home. The first we knew of it was when the police hammered on Flora’s door demanding to see Kit. Molly had reported her missing.” He turned to her, and cupped his hands around the outside of hers. “Kit was devastated. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive himself for not walking her home.”

  “And you’re absolutely sure he didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance?” Though it felt insensitive to ask, she needed to be clear on that point.

  “I’m positive, Evie. One hundred percent.”

  “What about indirectly?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Like she was pregnant or something.”

  Ross shook his head. “I don’t think so. She was real careful about that stuff, and she’d have told Kit. And he wouldn’t have stayed with me if that’d been the case, and I was with him the whole time from the moment she left until the police arrived.”

  Evie cocked her head, considering that hereto unknown bit of information and what it meant. “Then technically you were both the last to see her.”

  He nodded.

  “And when you say you were with him, what, you were just hanging out?”

  He started to nod, then stopped and nervously wetted his lips. “Do you remember I said there’d only been one time between me and Kit before he came back from Japan? Well, that was it, Evie.”

 
“You were shagging when she went missing?”

  “Things came to a head that afternoon. We’d been pussyfooting around each other for ages, both too afraid to make an actual move. It was okay while we were doing the threesomes thing, but then Kit starting seeing Sammie and it started getting awkward. I think he thought it’d be different, that she’d jump at the chance of a three way relationship, but it was never actually going to happen.” His eyes glazed a little, as if he were seeing flashbacks of the past. “I lost count of the number of times I watched the two of them make out, but it never progressed to me joining in. She liked teasing me, and she was a rampant exhibitionist, but that’s as far as it went. For all her talk, when it came down to it, her tastes were spectacularly vanilla.”

  His hand fell upon Evie’s leg, his fingers curling. Evie squeezed his hand between her thighs, reassured, but still curious. “Why didn’t you both just admit to what you were doing?”

  “Because it wasn’t like it is now. It wasn’t comfortable between us. It was awkward and new. And it felt wrong. That and admitting it to the police was bad enough. I’m not sure the rest of the village knowing would have helped. There were a few vocal villagers like Molly and Tony who actually accused him of murdering her, but most of them were just disgusted at him for letting her walk home alone. Telling them he’d done it so that he could indulge in gay sex with his best mate would only have further damaged their opinion. And now, I don’t think anything short of actually finding her will make things right.”

  “I assume people have tried to find her?”

  “Don’t start digging, Evie. I know you like puzzles, but this one is best left.”

  She saw his point. Absolutely. But that didn’t stop her scanning through all the missing persons sites on the internet the following morning. Of course, all she turned up were more tales of woe, but they gave her a better perspective on what Kit surely felt. She kept trying to imagine what it would be like if Ross simply never came home one night, but the ache that started in her chest at the very notion of it stopped her exploring the idea.

  “Were you crazy?” she asked the absent Sammie. “Why the hell would you walk out on Kit and Ross?” She couldn’t envisage one good enough reason for ever doing so. They were far too bloody scrumptious.

  At lunchtime, she armed herself with green tea and another tub of ice cream, and went in search of Kit.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I know you’re in there.” Evie stood on the doorstep of Rose Cottage, peering through the letterbox at a marginally improved view of the hallway since her last visit, although there were still cables hanging out of the walls. There were no builders on the roof today.

  Abandoning the notion of politeness, she went round the back of the house and climbed through the sash window into the kitchen. Kit sat hunched on a window ledge in the rear bedroom. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Sorry.” She waved a thermos of freshly brewed tea and the ice cream tub at him.

  His jaw remained set, lips tightly pursed. Then the tiniest flicker of a smile quirked the edge of his mouth. He took a slug of tea. “Spoon?”

  Evie pulled a teaspoon out of her purse, polished it on her sleeve and handed it over. “Did you sleep here?” She threw a glance at the horrid iron-framed bed that sat in the centre of the room. It looked as if it’d done time on the set of a Hammer horror film or three.

  Kit dug the spoon into the ice cream, turning it upside down in his mouth to lick it clean. “Can’t say I did much sleeping. The ceiling’s got a ton of cracks in it.”

  “The bed at home is too big without you. I’ve got used to snuggling and Ross won’t unless you force him to. He thinks I can see into his head or something, if we’re touching.”

  “Can you?”

  “No more than you can see into mine.”

  “How’d you know I can’t?”

  “Because you haven’t jumped me yet.” The notion of Kit having psychic abilities made her more nervous than it ought. He might not be able to read her every thought, but Kit was damned good at interpreting her physical responses. Considering how little time they’d known one another, he had a remarkably good grasp of how to push her and when. As for his responsiveness between the sheets, well, she could almost believe there was a supernatural ability involved.

  “Maybe I just like stringing you along.” Kit loaded the spoon and held it out towards her. When she stretched forward to lap it up, he jerked the spoon away from her lips, and held it just a fraction out of reach. “Ross tell you all about it, did he? About how screwed up with guilt I am.”

  “He explained your side, yes. It seemed only fair after Molly had given me hers.” And planted all those doubts, she might have added.

  “I don’t actually want to talk about it. I’d rather talk about you, and whether you’re prepared to share a story with me yet.”

  Considering how much she’d learned about him now, she could hardly deny him a little of herself. Still, there was a part of her that wanted to flee the notion of exposing her innermost thoughts. She’d gone over and over the tale she’d constructed for him the previous day while eating her porridge, but it had seemed flat. Besides, it was a lie, and barely stirred her to mild interest. It would impress Kit even less. It’d probably set him yawning after a minute and a half. Instead, she’d have to share something deeply personal and hope he’d understand. Hell, she’d even come prepared with props.

  “Evie?” His fingers trembled, causing the laden spoon to shake.

  She closed her hand around his wrist and held him still as she devoured the ice cream. The cold raised tingles as it slid down her throat, an excitement that further sparked at the heat in his gaze as she wiped the smear of dessert from her lips. “Maybe.” She hedged her bets. “Or rather, I don’t have a story. My sex life was boring in the past. But you said a fantasy would be okay.”

  “I did.”

  They both stood so still for a moment that she could hear their breathing, two discordant whispers in the echoey room. Exposing herself like this just didn’t come easy. She’d follow someone’s lead, be expressive in the heat of the moment, but talking things over like this simply filled her with shame. She’d sound foolish…perverse…really darned perverse. He might laugh, or worse—be horrified.

  “Go on,” he prompted. “Or should we get comfortable first?” As he ogled the bed, a grin transformed his sullen visage back into that of the warm and loving man she’d let into her relationship. Molly’s accusations had never really broken her trust in him. They’d just planted seeds for doubt, which she’d stupidly allowed to grow.

  Eschewing the bed, she remained by the window. “It’s a bit sad…tacky, maybe.”

  “Let me be the judge. Just tell me.”

  Evie swallowed deeply. “It’s after dark, and I’m somewhere I shouldn’t be.”

  “What sort of somewhere?” It was like a magic switch. Suddenly, Kit was alive again. His dark eyes glowed with curiosity as he unfolded his legs from the window ledge and set his feet upon the floor.

  “An old building. I get caught. There’s this man.” She closed her eyes falling into the scene: an ill-lit corridor with a slippery, highly polished parquet floor. Dressers stood at regular intervals, housing silver cups and rows of gleaming trophies. “He’s older than me, and scary, but he’s beautiful too. Refined, and yet at the same time wild underneath. He’s furious when he finds me walking about and he grabs me by the wrist.” She locked her own fingers around her lower arm and squeezed so that the flesh ached. “He drags me to this other room. A classroom.”

  She paused, waiting for Kit to snort at the admission. School fantasies, especially finishing school were so passé. She’d been telling herself that for long enough. Unfortunately, attempting to deny its power only seemed to increase the taboo appeal of it, in much the same way that any sort of denying herself something made her lust after it.

  But this wasn’t just about being naughty. It was about wanting what was wrong a
nd exposing herself.

  “All the other girls are there,” she continued.

  “Dressed like you? What are they wearing?”

  “Uniform. White blouses and grey skirts with short knitted cardigans, and we’ve hats too. Boaters, with red and white ribbons.”

  Ashamed, she hid her face, but couldn’t resist peeping at him from between her fingers. Kit didn’t remark upon the outfit, but he looked at her as if he were making a mental assessment. Was it her imagination or did his gaze linger over her breasts? Evie didn’t even wear a skirt for work, but she’d chosen one today, slightly longer and straighter than the pleated one of her fantasy, but nevertheless reminiscent of it. The top she’d chosen buttoned down the front too. Kit’s attention lingered upon the top pearlescent button. Just a hint of the valley between her breasts showed above it.

  “I’m a virgin,” she blurted and coloured just like the real thing. “I don’t know what it’s like, but I think about him all the time. He’s the only male teacher.”

  “And you’ve made him angry. Does he punish you?” Kit’s voice was soft as a whisper.

  She nodded. “But not in the way I’d like.”

  “Meaning he won’t fuck you.”

  “No…yes.”

  Her conflicted response raised a low chuckle in his throat, but it didn’t feel like he was laughing at her, merely that he appreciated the duality of her answer.

  “He makes me expose myself. I have to stand on a chair in the middle of the class and lift my skirt.”

  Heat swept across her face. Evie ground her teeth into her lower lip, knowing that her skin was blazing. She screwed her eyes closed, not sure if she could actually bring herself to go on. This was too personal. She’d never contemplated sharing it with Ross, though the whole idea of it turned her on so much she was reduced to squirming on the spot, to provide some friction for her sensitized and achy clit.