Heart of Glass (20 page)

Nick walked towards me, the
slow predatory prowl of a panther. I was almost dripping. “So…. you
and the boyfriend are on a break?”

He’d been listening after
all. “Um, yeah. He doesn’t like my language choices. He finds them
crass and unladylike or something.”

Nick moved closer. “That’s
odd. I’ve always found ‘fuck’ to be such an interesting and useful
word. Like…..you looked so ‘fucking’ sexy when you were dancing
before. I wanted to ‘fuck’ you right there on the dance floor.” His
directness was far more enticing than Dean’s gentlemanly
platitudes. It made me quiver.

“
It wasn’t the shoes that
upset him, then?’ he asked acknowledging my ruby coloured
feet.

“
Why the interest in my
shoes?”

“
I saw them the minute you
walked through the door. And I thought, any girl who has the guts
to wear shoes like that has got to be worth knowing.” He slid
towards me. “Seems I was right.”

I took a deep breath. “I’d
still like that drink.”

“
Come with me then,
Cara
,” he said directing
me through the labyrinth of chairs and tables in the outer bar and
turning the guiding lights off as we went.

“
Where are we
going?”

“
Do you like
champagne,
Cara,
Bella?” he questioned, as he led me towards a flight of
stairs in the foyer. Even if I didn’t I wasn’t going to tell him.
His voice was hypnotising me.

“
I love it, but where are
we going?”

“
We’re going up to my flat,
I live up there.” He pointed up the stairs. “Are you up for
it?”

I took another calming
breath. He’d have me wetting myself before I got undressed at this
rate. “I’m up for anything, as long as it’s nice.”

“
It’ll be the best you’ll
ever have.”

I looked at him intrigued
and he laughed. “I meant the champagne. Are you coming,
Cara

Bella?”

I couldn’t resist the tease
that sat on the tip of my tongue. “I don’t know, Nick, it depends
what you do to me.”

***

The shrill of the alarm
sounded inside my head, sending what was left of my brain bouncing
from side to side and increasing the dull ache that already existed
there. Lifting my head and pushing my left arm out from under the
covers, I groped on the bedside table for the clock and pressed the
‘off’ switch. I placed my hand over my eyes and moaned. Oh God, oh
God what had I done last night? I was never going to drink again,
my head felt like a bowling ball that had been sent down the alley
and into the gutter one too many times. Perhaps, if I lay
completely still the thumping would stop. Rigid, I stared at the
ceiling. Every centimetre of me ached in the most decadent way that
sent a delicious shiver coursing up my spine. Maybe I wouldn’t give
up drinking. Maybe I would just give up mixing my
drinks.

As I continued to stare at
the ceiling, an image of Nick, the Love God, filled my aching head.
The things that man could do…he was filthy, it was enough to make
one blush, even as a memory. Nick, the Love God, had shown me what
sex was all about. I grinned. I had never believed a man could be,
so, well, dirty. God. Rolling over, I shoved my face into the
pillow, willing the headache and the slight embarrassment at the
images in my head to go away. It didn’t. All it did was put the
whole evening on replay - over and over and over again like some
sort of porn flick set on fast forward with a soundtrack of Hard To
Handle in the background. Why, oh why did I drink so much? Was I
becoming my own worst nightmare?

Slowly, I slid my legs out
of the bed and onto the carpet, sitting carefully upright, so as
not to disturb the delicate balance of alcohol versus brain mass
inside my head. The red shoes lay discarded on the carpet and a
picture of Nick, with his perfect pecs and washboard abs, filling
them with champagne and feeding it to me, was as clear in my mind
as if I was still in his bed. I sniffed and screwed up my nose.
What was that smell that was oozing from me, and oh, OOOHh –
sticky…. My chest was covered in some vile substance that tasted
vaguely like….honey and champagne. I had been a human honey
sandwich.

Nick had promised me the
best champagne I’d ever had and there was no doubt in my mind that
was what I’d got. My torso, bared and naked, had been the
receptacle with a series of delicate licking and sucking maneuvers
as the fizzy finale. But where had the honey come from? I had let
him do that and now in the crucial moment of my fantasy-come-true,
I couldn’t remember the intimate details. All I remembered was that
when he had looked at me, with those eyes that drilled into me like
Ben’s, I couldn’t refuse.

Chapter 16

JEALOUS GUY

I’m just a jealous
guy

John Lennon

Dean and I were sitting
across the table from one another, at our little celebration dinner
as he was calling it. Our break was over and he was so happy that,
like a born again Christian, I had seen the error of my ways. I
wasn’t so sure.

“
Do you like honey?” I
asked, thinking that I might be able to coax him out of his
permanent press mould and lure him to something slightly more
risqué.

“
Why?”

“
Just
wondering.”

He frowned across the table.
“Have you been reading Penthouse Forum again? You know those
letters aren’t real. It’s very degrading to women.”

“
Oh for heaven’s sake, it
was only a question.” I wished I’d never asked.

Content that the
interrogation was complete; Dean leant across and squeezed my hand.
“I’ve missed you.”

“
Yeah, me too,” I said. In
a way it was true. I’d missed the security he provided and the
neurotic way he placed his shoes in the same spot near the door
when he came to visit. I’d missed the way he filled the gap in the
bed, the one that Ben was meant to have but never would. It was
comforting, in an obsessive-compulsive way, to have him
back.

I gazed into his eyes with
all the sincerity of a Hallmark card, thinking how perfect it would
be if he were the same Dean with Nick’s sexual aptitude and Ben’s
personality.

“
Are you listening to me?”
he asked, noting my inattention with a snort.

“
Of course,
sweetie.”

“
Do you want to go over to
the pub?”

“
That’d be fun, there’s a
band playing tonight.”

“
Is everything alright?”
His face was a picture of paternal concern that made me want to
puke. I should never have got back with him. I should’ve dumped him
and put us both out of our misery but I couldn’t. Besides, he said
I needed to think of others more. Wasn’t that what was
doing?

“
Everything’s fine. I’ll go
to the Ladies first. You go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

Dean nodded and wandered
over to pay the bill.

I escaped to the Ladies. Was
he a complete fool? If he wasn’t, he was bound to notice when he
and Nick came face to face. For the last month I’d been a woman
possessed, finding any opportunity to go the bar to see him. My
barren pantry was now overflowing with honey and other delights
that could be licked, sucked and slurped without using a spoon and
I’d walked past the city’s one and only sex shop at least a dozen
times.

I caught up with Dean
outside the door to the restaurant and grabbed hold of his hand. We
walked in silence for a minute and then he did something so out of
character, I was convinced he’d gone bonkers. He stopped right in
the middle of the road; pulled me into his arms, and kissed me so
hard I blinked in disbelief. Before I could ask, he came straight
out and said what was on his mind. “Are you sleeping with someone
else?”

“
No. Whatever would make
you think that?” Nick and I didn’t sleep. We fucked.

“
I just wondered…you know…
you spend a lot of time with the boys. I’ve seen the way Coops
looks at you.”

Well, wonders would never
cease. The calm and sedate Dean was jealous. That was the reason
for the massive pash.

“
Oh sweetie, Coops is my
friend, that dirty dancing thing we do is a game. You’ve nothing to
worry about there.”

Nick, however, was another
story.

I kissed his cheek and we
continued across the road. Poor Dean. He lived in some fantasyland
where he could make me into the perfect girl. He had no idea at
all.

***

The crowd was still
gathering when we arrived so it was easy to get a position at the
bar. My boys were already there, having come straight from work and
Uni and were drinking themselves into the zone where they began
espousing love and peace to each other for long periods. Eating was
not on the priority list until well after midnight. Dean pulled up
two stools next to them and offered me one. I glanced
surreptitiously up and down the length of the bar to see if Nick
was there. It had been a week or so, since I’d seen him but already
my heart was pumping fit to explode. Amazing, how I could find so
much pleasure in the sight of a man I’d never had a full
conversation with. Well, only in a horizontal position.

It wasn’t long before Nick
appeared to serve us, a brief smile of devilment crossing his face
when he saw me sitting at the bar, protected by my army of men. He
approached, his face showing no recognition of our evenings
together but the tone of his voice was low and lurid.

“
Aah, the beautiful Bella
Stone. Listened to any good soul music lately? I hear Otis does a
mean ‘Hard to Handle.’”

“
Hi, Nick.”

Nick thrust his hand across
the bar towards Dean, “Hi, I’m Nick Edwards, bar manager. You must
be Dean, the boyfriend.”

“
Pleased to meet
you.”

“
The usual,
Cara
?” Nick teased, with
a wink.

“
Yes, please.”

Nick sauntered away to fix
the drinks, his butt looking sexy in his jeans, his body
accentuated in his white t-shirt, and my jaw dropping and dribbling
in awe. He was cool but Dean was confused.

“
You know him?”

“
Of course I do. We drink
here all the time. We had drinks together the other week, didn’twe,
boys?”

“
We did, although some of
us drank considerably more than others,” chuckled Phil, as he began
to relate past events in all their post-drunken dramatic fullness.
His story sounded plausible enough though I was positive I hadn’t
done a belly dance alone on the dance floor….had I?

A bottle of chilled
champagne and two glasses appeared in front of us.

“
This isn’t what I
ordered.” Dean looked like a pensioner who’d just had his discount
card taken away.

I shrugged.

“
Nick sent it,” the barmaid
said. “He said he knows it’s your favourite, Bella, and he hopes
you enjoy it as much as you did last time.”

“
What the hell does that
mean?”

“
I was drinking it the
other week and I remarked how nice it was to Nick, that’s all.” I
tried to look ignorant but I don’t think he believed me.

“
You call him
Nick?”

“
Of course I do, what do
you expect me to call him? Mr. Edwards?”

A silence more deafening
than the Divinyls concert we’d been to a while before fell over the
group. Dean looked at me. He took a deep breath. He rearranged
himself on his stool. He assumed his usual face, which was far too
calm for my liking.

“
I think you’ve been having
too much fun without me. From now on, I want to be part of it.”
Then, he kissed my cheek and poured two glasses of
champagne.

I smiled weakly. Oh
Goody!

***

By the time midnight came,
we were plastered.

“
I never realised your
friends were so funny!” Dean said. It must have been a night for
revelations. I’d never realised he was a two glass screamer either.
It was rather amusing.

All night I’d been in search
of the perfect cocktail, ably assisted by Nick. I’d spent the
entire evening drinking concoctions called ‘B52’s’ and ‘Fluffy
Ducks’ and the massive amount of cream churning in my empty stomach
was making me feel woozy.

“
Back in a tick,” I said,
swaying as I stood up from my stool. My head was dizzy and the
close proximity to Nick, who kept winking and whispering across the
bar in Italian, was playing havoc with my befuddled brain. “Nature
calls…”

As I wobbled past the door
to the cool room, it creaked open and an arm reached out and
grabbed me by the elbow. I gasped.

“
You scared me,” I
whispered, somewhat crossly, to the shadows.

“
You told me you like
surprises.”

“
Not the sort where I age
ten years.”

Nick stepped out of the
darkness. I could see his hazel eyes glinting through the darkness.
“Did you enjoy your champagne,
Cara
?” he asked moving closer and
wrapping me up like a