Trust Me (Beggar's Choice #2) (36 page)

Once I’ve packed I sit for a
while on the window seat in my bedroom watching the wind blow the seagulls
about over a broiling sea. It’s wild out there and something in it calls to me.
I need to be outside, to feel free from all of this, and I know that I
seriously need to leave my pity party for one. Feeling sorry for myself has
never done me any good and it won’t do it now. There are plenty of people out
there with problems far worse than mine. My grandma had always told me that
what cannot be cured must be endured, and there’s comfort in this stony little
homily.

Suddenly, remembering seeing some
three quarter leggings and a sports bra in my luggage, I get up. I’ll go
running. The doctors have given me the all clear and I’ll take it very steady.
I don’t think that I have my running shoes but I don’t need them anyway if I’m
running on sand. Overcome with this impulse and feeling almost suffocated I
tear my clothes off and put my gear on. Then I drag my cases downstairs,
favouring my good arm as I do it. I put them in the mud room out of the way,
and then make my way out onto the patio where the weather has got progressively
wilder.

I spend a few minutes stretching,
enjoying the warmth in my muscles and the smell of the salty air, and then I
pad down the stone steps and out onto the beach, enjoying the space that a
private beach offers.

I strike up a slow pace taking it
steady, knowing that I can’t push myself too hard. In truth it is hard, because
running on a beach takes stamina, and I haven’t run since before the accident.
It takes me a while to get into it, but steadily I fall into the trance that
running gives me and before I know it I’m at the end of the beach nearing the
rocks, enjoying the fierceness of the wind in my face and the feel of the
spray.

I jog on the spot for a second
watching the waves crash onto the rocks sending white spray high into the air,
wild and elemental. Then I turn to make it back. I’m halfway down the beach
when I hear the distant rumble of thunder and the rain which has been
threatening all day starts to come down in buckets. I increase my speed but I’m
not really bothered by it because after all I’m already wet so what’s a bit
more water?

It’s then that I hear someone
roar my name over the noise of the surf, and turning I squint my eyes to see a
figure running headlong over the sand towards me. For a second I’m frightened
but then the rain eases and I see that it’s Sid. I relax briefly but then as he
gets closer I see that he’s in an absolute rage.

He’s still dressed in the jeans
and green polo shirt that he went to the hospital in, but he hasn’t even
stopped to take his shoes off, and his trainers are caked with wet sand. His
hair is a wild mess and looks as if he’s shoved his hands through it furiously,
and he has a frantic, angry look on his face.

He doesn’t even wait to get close
before he starts shouting. “Where the fuck have you been Nell? I’ve been
looking fucking everywhere for you.”

“I’ve just been out here,” I say
mystified.

“Then where are your fucking
clothes? I got back and you were nowhere to be found. Your clothes and bags
were gone. I’ve been driving all over the fucking town looking for you.”

“They’re in the mudroom,” I say
faintly. “I put them there out of the way.”

“Why, so you could finally send
me round the fucking bend? Is that it Nell? Is that how you’re getting your
kicks now, pushing men into nervous breakdowns?”

“How fucking dare you.” I’m
screaming now because the last thread of my temper has snapped. “Everything’s
always my fucking fault isn’t it? Maybe you should use your eyes and see things
and you wouldn’t get so mixed up.”

“Oh, I see things,” he shouts. “I
see things very fucking clearly now. Is it Cameron, is that it? Are you waiting
to go back to him?”

“What the fuck are you talking
about?” I scream, grabbing handfuls of my hair in disbelief. This is like going
through the fucking looking glass.

“That text in the car. You were
smiling and laughing.”

“That was just Bram.”

“Oh, you’re fucking him now are
you?”

I can’t believe this. He’s the
wildest that I’ve ever seen him, almost unhinged, pacing backwards and
forwards, his face red. “You paranoid twat. I am not seeing Bram, who is your
brother in all but name need I remind you, and I’m not seeing Cameron. I don’t
have to open my legs just because a man’s a celebrity.”

“Why? It worked for me?” he says
cruelly and I gasp, so hurt that I almost keel over.

“Fuck you,” I say clearly. “Fuck
you Sid, this is done.” I turn to go past him and he catches my arm.

“This isn’t done,” he says in a
harried mutter. “It’ll never be done. You’re not leaving me,” and then he’s
kissing me our faces wet with rain, and it’s like all the passion between us
explodes like a champagne bottle that’s been shaken. We’re frantic in our haste
as he bears me down into the sand and comes down on top of me, taking my mouth
and licking into it with guttural moans. I writhe against him feeling the heat
of his erection through my thin leggings and he grabs my arse lifting it up
into him so that I can wrap my legs around him and he can rock into my pussy
with heavy, hard lunges.

The fly buttons on his jeans are
hard against my clit, almost hurting, but it seems part of this rainswept
wildness between us. I don’t think that I have ever been so turned on in my
life and so in the moment, and I know he feels the same without him having to
tell me. It’s written all over his face, in his eyes burning with a feral
light, his cheekbones drawn tight and his fixed, unseeing expression.

We kiss frantically, our tongues
almost duelling in our mouths, and his hands are rough and unguarded, ripping
my bra up so that my breasts bounce free, and covering one with his lips,
sucking hard until I let out a choked scream. It isn’t pretty or slow or any of
the things that I’ve thought it would be over the last few weeks. Instead it’s
animalistic and wild.

He reaches down and with jerky
movements pushes my leggings down my thighs just enough to bare my pussy and
open my legs. Pushing two fingers into me to measure my readiness he groans.
“You’re fucking dripping down my hand.” Then we both tear frantically at the
opening of his jeans. He raises himself enough for his dick to spring free,
then his narrow hips fall between my partially open thighs and he forces
himself inside me with one long, hard shove of his cock. We both pause for a
second.

“Are you okay?” he pants,
momentarily suspended over me.

“Yes, yes, don’t stop.” I dig my
nails into his backside and pull, and he throws his head back gasping
frantically for breath. The last thread of his control breaks then and he fucks
me hard with long, distinct thrusts, twisting his hips on the last inch so that
he hits a spot inside me which makes my eyes roll backwards. The rain pours
down on us and in the background the sea crashes, but it’s like we’re in the
eye of the storm and all I can see and all I can feel is him.

My legs are constricted by my
leggings and as I can’t open them as wide as normal he has to work hard to get
into me. It’s possibly this that makes the feelings so intense, but before I
know it I’m out of control, scratching down his back as an almost agonising
pleasure rips through me, and I throw my head back letting out a scream.

“Fucking hell,” he shouts, his
hips pistoning wildly and then his body arches as he pours himself into me, his
face a contorted grimace of pleasure, before collapsing onto me like he’s been
poleaxed.

 For a second we lie there
gulping in air and occasionally letting out soft groans as his cock flexes and
twitches inside me. Then all of a sudden he stiffens and pulls himself out of
me abruptly. He sits up hitching his jeans up awkwardly, and bends over running
his hands repeatedly through his hair. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters over and
over. Finally he turns to me examining my face with a frantic concern. “Are you
alright?” Trepidation is written all over his face and I freeze for a second
because he’s obviously regretting this. Like a flash I remember the pictures of
him and Leah, and then that girl in Copenhagen, and I feel sick to my stomach.
I scramble up, pulling up my leggings and rearranging my bra.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I say stiltedly.
“No harm done.”

“What?” he replies in evident
disbelief. “How can you say that? I just took you like a sailor on shore
leave.”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter,”
I repeat woodenly. “It doesn’t have to affect anything with Leah.”

“Leah?”

“Yes your girlfriend in all but
name. The one that you always run back to. You remember her Sid?”

He gets to his feet fastening his
jeans, and I blush at the sight of his bare cock which is still wet from me and
half hard. “Yes I remember her. It’s just that now I’m concerned that I might
have some form of amnesia, because she hasn’t been my
girlfriend
for a
long while Nell,” he says with evident sarcasm and I break.

“That’s not what those photos
said Sid.”

“What fucking photos? Do you mean
those from People?” I pull a face at him and he groans. “Is that what this is
about?” and then he grabs my hands suddenly pulling me back round to face him,
his face stern. “You listen to me now Nell, and listen to me good. That was
just me meeting her to find out how she was getting on and to recommend some sponsors
to her. She wanted me to do it but I refused because it wouldn’t have been
right considering how I feel about you. I’m not seeing Leah. I’m not seeing
anyone. I haven’t looked at another woman since I met you.”

My mind is so stuck on his words
considering
how
I feel about you
that it takes a second for the final
sentence to break through and then my temper ignites. “Really? That’s not how I
remember things Sid. You do remember the last time that we saw each other on
tour don’t you? Because I do, although if we’re being pedantic I suppose you
weren’t really looking at that girl so much as swallowing her tongue whole.”

He groans and paces away, and for
a second I’m struck by how beautiful he is, silhouetted against the wild sea,
the wind blowing and the rain having eased off. Then he turns back looking the
most solemn that I’ve ever seen, yet curiously resolved as if he’s been
dreading something and is almost relieved now that it’s happening, and
immediately I brace.

“I have to tell you something
Nell and I want you to listen and please, please believe me because this is the
absolute truth that I’m telling you. I did not sleep with that girl.” I open my
mouth to protest and he shakes his head vehemently. “I did not fucking sleep
with her Nell, I swear on everything that I hold sacred. All I did was kiss
her. I hated every fucking second of it because she wasn’t you, she didn’t
taste like you and she didn’t feel anything like you do.”

“And how do I feel?” I scoff.

“Fucking perfect,” he says
simply, bringing me to a stop.

“Liar. So if I’m so perfect why
do that? Why be so fucking cruel Sid?”

He groans and comes to me,
grabbing my cheeks and raising my face to his. “I had to do it Nell, I swear.
Bill told me about Sam and I couldn’t bear the idea that you might have to go
through that again with me if I relapsed. You deserve so much more than some
ropy drug addict that could fall any day. I know that you’re too strong to be
another Leah, but there are many other ways to break you, and in my darkest
times I’ve done all of them. I am not a good bet for a brilliant, talented,
funny girl like you and I never will be.”

“So you decided to do
that
?”
I’m outraged despite having semi guessed that this was what it was all about.
“Why not just talk to me and tell me the truth?”

“Because you’re so loyal,” he
says simply. “You’re a good girl Nell, and you’d have fought to stick by me.”

I’m struck dumb for a second and
then. “Fuck you Sid,” I say quietly but he jerks like I’ve shouted it. “Fuck
you for making your own mind up about things.” He stands dumb in front of me
and it winds me up so much that I push him. He staggers back, more out of
surprise I think, because I haven’t got the strength to really move a man of
his size. “No wonder you see my loyalty and capacity for fighting as a failing.
It’s because it’s a quality that
you
really don’t possess.”

He jerks as if I’ve struck him.
“What?”

“If you had come to me and told
me this I would have stuck around, not because I’m stupid, but because I saw
something in you that made it worth it. Do you know what that was?” He shakes
his head. “I thought you were a fighter Sid. What you see as a life of
weakness, I’ve always seen as a life of strength, of daily battles that you
fight on your own without whining or crying. I saw you as strong and loyal Sid
and a fighter, but you’re not are you, because when it came down to it you
never fought for
us
did you? I guess in the end I just wasn’t worth it,
but you know what, Leah’s always around.
She’s
the person that you
always fight for, that you seem to always think is worth it”

He’s standing pale as a ghost, a
nerve going in his cheek and I stare at him for probably the last time, and
then I turn and walk away, and this time he doesn’t stop me.

When I get back to the house I’m
shivering with cold and probably from what’s just happened, so I root through
my bags and pull out a pair of jeans, a white vest and my loose, hooded, navy
jumper with some underwear, and then head to the shower. I stand in there for a
while letting the warm water beat down on me, washing what feels like half the
beach off me. Sex on the beach might make a good cocktail name but it’s hell on
a girl’s nooks and crevices.

When I’m out and have blown dried
my hair I dress and after consulting the internet I call for a cab to take me
to the airport. For a second I wonder about calling Cameron but I think that
would be a very bad idea, and besides which I don’t want to see anyone at the
moment. I just want to go home which makes tears come to my eyes because for
the life of me the only place that I’ve ever honestly been able to call home is
with Sid, and it’s been that way all over Europe, in hotel rooms, airport
lounges and tour buses. Wherever he was, felt safe and happy and warm, the way
that I always imagined a home should be.