Bound to You (23 page)

‘So . . . where do you want to go?’ Sebastian asked me. ‘I’ll admit I don’t have an insider’s knowledge of Soho.’

That surprised me, given what Violet had led me to believe about what Sebastian got up to in his spare time. But then he wasn’t originally from London, was he? In fact, where was he from? I didn’t even know.

‘Well, I know a reasonably OK pub a few minutes from here. It’s a bit of a media haunt so as long as you don’t mind that. The John Snow it’s called. It’ll be busy but then isn’t everywhere at this time on a Friday evening.’

‘The British love to booze!’ he laughed.

We began walking. He kept his hands pressed firmly in his pockets.

‘Where are you from then?’ I asked him. ‘If not Britain?’

‘Oh,’ he replied vaguely. ‘Everywhere and nowhere. I was born in South Africa. But I grew up in Montreal.’

That explained the distinct lack of South African in his accent, and the hint of melodious transatlantic.

‘Since then I’ve been a resident of a dozen or so other nations, none of which has loved me enough to give me a second passport.’

That was an odd way of putting it. ‘Well, was there somewhere else in particular you wished would?’

‘Oh, I’m not fussy,’ he replied. ‘But I like Britain the best. I relate to the grey, the genial cynicism of the people. It matches my character. And my wardrobe!’ He laughed.

Sebastian had such a warm, open way of expressing himself, it made every statement of mild pessimism seem like a declaration of joy.

‘What about you? Any second passports?’

‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘My mother lives in Australia and I suppose I could apply for citizenship there if I wanted to, eventually. And I nearly ended up a Greek national. But that’s another story.’

I gave a tight-lipped smiled, then scolded myself. What the hell was I bringing up Christos for? I paid little attention to generally sexist dating rules but even I knew that you should never talk about exes on a first date.

When we reached the pub it was indeed fit to bursting, but so was every other drinking hole along the same stretch of Friday night Soho. Sebastian let me enter first, then was practically slammed into the back of me as another group of Friday revellers followed up behind us. Sebastian looked at me and raised his eyebrows. ‘I apologise on behalf of my inebriated countrymen,’ I said. We both laughed.

There were no seats so we shuffled ourselves into a nook of the bar and Sebastian went to buy us drinks. I unbuttoned my coat but left it on. The number of people crushed up around us made it too difficult to remove. And my hat? What would my hair look like underneath? Maybe I could leave it on after all.

‘Beautiful hat,’ Sebastian offered. I blushed. Could he read my thoughts or something? He’d noticed the hat, that was good. I wondered if he thought I looked a Russian Mistress.

‘May I stroke it?’ He held his hand up in front of me and ran his cool gaze over my face, awaiting my consent.

I laughed. ‘Of course! Here!’ I took it off and put it on the bar, forgetting about my hair in my bid to please him.

‘Mmm, it’s like a calico cat,’ he sighed. ‘Secret rulers of the universe, cats. I do miss having one to snuzzle.’

‘Snuzzle?’ I ventured, laughing. Was that even a word?

‘Oh you know – it’s a compound of nuzzling and snuggling. Do you like cats?’

‘Yes, I do. I like neologisms, too!’

He laughed. Under the bar lighting, I could see that the light stubble concealed deep dimples. I’d not noticed them before. But perhaps he’d not smiled in a way to reveal them.

‘Sometimes I wonder why I became a painter when I love words so much. Probably easier to make a living out of writing.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure!’ I laughed, through gritted teeth.

‘That’s your real job, right? Writing?’

‘My only job now. I’ve given up domming.’

He gave a single nod and held my gaze for longer this time. I didn’t resist it.

For the next hour or so we talked about my creative ambitions, and his, computer-generated poetry, the astounding variety of Greek swear words (it turned out he’d had a Greek ex, too), my obsession with sausage dogs and whether the kink practice known as ‘forced bi’, by which an otherwise straight man is ‘forced’ to give another man head, should be renamed ‘encouraged bi’ for the sake of political correctness. There wasn’t anything Sebastian offered up that didn’t inspire me to instinctive agreement, contemplation or conspiratorial laughter. Who knew we’d have so much in common?

After about an hour or so, I heard a male voice mutter, ‘No wonder it’s called a bar with idiots like this blocking the way. Can’t even get the bloody drinks in!’

I turned around to see a bald older man, oversized and lairy, scowling in my direction. Without warning, the domme in me snapped to attention.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but it’s very busy in here tonight and there’s nowhere else to stand. In fact, as I don’t know that there is a law against standing in a bar, I really don’t know what your problem is!’

His female friend hit back at me. ‘He hasn’t got a problem, love, or at least he didn’t have until you were stood there.’

Oh God, I wasn’t in the mood for a public showdown. I glanced at Sebastian. He was staring hard into his whisky glass. What? You mean you aren’t going to defend me?

I turned around, swallowed my scorn and smiled pacifically. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know we were obstructing you.’

The couple were swallowed up by the swell of the crowd, and I was left feeling the tiniest bit disappointed. Perhaps Sebastian hadn’t wanted to intervene because he thought I was the kind of girl that did not take kindly to being rescued. He wouldn’t have been wrong – usually. But, well, anyway, I needed to change the subject.

I glanced at him. He was staring at me admiringly, and grinning. When I met his gaze again he merely shrugged. ‘You were doing perfectly well by yourself there. Far be it from me to interfere with a domme when she’s in full flow. But I can fight and protect when I want.’ He winked at me, gave me a sexy, sideways smile.

I caught my breath and had to look away for a second. I’d never met a man that could wink without it looking sleazy. Was that . . . was he trying to seduce me? No. That was just his way. Besides, there was something about his manner that was both too considerate and too nonchalant. Suddenly I felt defiant. Well, fine. If he thought I was that easy.

‘So you’re a fighter, eh? What kind of fighter?’

‘Fencing, mainly. And then I do a bit of boxing.’

So that explained the divine body, that compelling combination of indomitable strength and unequivocal grace.

‘Do you enjoy it?’

‘Yes. But really I exercise because I’m vain.’ He shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly.

I laughed in surprise. It was so refreshing to hear a man confess that. Women conceded it to one another all the time.

‘What about you?’

‘Oh, the gym – I’ve just started working out with a personal trainer. And yoga. I know yoga is better for my soul.’

‘Well, of course. I can’t get through the day without meditating. And if I don’t meditate . . .’ He trailed off.

Suddenly my mind blazed with an image of Sebastian seated in cross-legged position, wearing some kind of loose-fitting trousers and no shirt . . .

‘Have you been to India?’ he asked me, interrupting my reverie.

‘Not yet. I’m trying. I want to go work in a Mumbai brothel.’

Sebastian frowned. ‘Really? Wouldn’t you earn more over here?’

‘Oh, ha ha! No, I don’t sell penetrative sex! I mean, I want to do aid work out there. You know there are these girls born into prostitution? There’s this ancient tradition of
devadasi
, basically a religious sanctification of prostitution, and it can be used to justify what is effectively growing up in sexual slavery. You can go and volunteer and teach the girls English or other skills that will help them break out of the brothel if they choose. I mean, I was a sex worker with choices. Not every sex worker is in the same position.’

‘That sounds wonderful.’ Sebastian smiled at me. ‘I hear they’re crying out for domme-angels. Northern British accents preferable.’

I flushed. He meant me, right?

‘God, I must sound so bloody earnest!’ I started laughing at myself.

‘Well, if you’d said you were going to re-educate them about the sins of the flesh then maybe I’d agree. But you sound quite sin-friendly.’

I laughed again ‘Ha! You could put it like that!’

‘And I love a good sinner. “We’re all sinners!”’ Sebastian affected a preacherly quaver and held up his hands to the light playfully.

I remembered that the night we met he’d told me his ex was a domme. This man got it, then. He didn’t judge me for anything I’d done.

‘Would you like another drink?’ he asked me. ‘Same again?’

‘Yes, please.’

Another glass of wine. My second and final drink, I told myself. He set it down in front of me. Already, I felt unusually light-headed.

I looked at Sebastian. This was so easy. It was so easy to be in his company.

‘So why did you leave Montreal?’

‘I wasn’t happy there. A lot of things happened that took me a long time to come to terms with, even after I’d left, if you know what I mean.’

I did, and yet I didn’t. He could have been talking about anything. My mind raced. Drugs, crime, seducing the wives of French-Canadian diplomats and leaving them broken-hearted?

‘My daughter lived there. But then her mother took her away to Italy. Once she’d left I couldn’t stay.’ Sebastian’s face seemed to solidify, agony seething beneath the surface.

‘How old is your daughter?’ I asked him.

‘Seventeen.’

Seventeen. Seventeen?

‘And I’m thirty-six,’ he offered up candidly, trying to empty out the shock.

‘Oh!’ I said, as simply as possible. What else could you say?

He smiled at me. I thought I could sense a hint of relief at my response.

‘Were you with her mother for a long time?’

‘A couple of years.’

‘What’s your daughter’s name?’

‘Juliet. I named her.’

‘Lovely name. Who after? Not the doomed Shakespearean heroine?’

‘No, no! There are many reasons. It resonated.’

‘Were you there when she was born?’ For God’s sake, Nichi. I shouldn’t have asked that. This was such a personal conversation to be having with someone you barely knew.

‘Of course,’ Sebastian said, and smiled as though I’d just asked him if his heart ever beat.

He seemed willing to talk but the mood was threatening to darken. I didn’t need to know this stuff now. What I did need to know was some more about the kind of kink stuff he was into.

Sebastian shrugged off his coat and laid it across the bar, then pulled the black lambswool scarf from around his neck. He was dressed in similar jeans tucked into boots again, and a thick charcoal sweater with a stylish row of buttons that came undone along one strapping shoulder. Concealed, his body was even more delicious. I needed an excuse to touch him. Or perhaps not. Well, he’d touched my hat, hadn’t he?

‘Mmm, that’s cosy!’ I squeezed the soft woollen fabric that shrouded his bicep. He tensed at my touch and fixed his eyes on mine as a rush of heat raced up from the pit of my stomach, flooded over my chest, wove round my throat and enflamed my cheeks. He saw it. I knew that he saw it. And I knew, too, that I was no longer imagining our connection.

But what now? On any other date the moment when it was clear we were burning for one another would have been the point when I asked them if they wanted to come back to mine. But this time I didn’t want that. Or rather, I didn’t want only that. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this compelled, this captivated, this excited by someone.

‘So what made you give up the domming?’ he asked me. He leaned on the bar. Turned to face me. ‘Realised you weren’t naturally dominant after all?’

Oh God. He was going right in for it.

‘I was never naturally dominant,’ I explained calmly, although my heart raced like a looped electronic drum. Thank God I could still invoke my domme’s composure when necessary. Although, Sebastian staring at me like that, with a hint of a cruel smile about his alluring lips, was testing every atom severely.

‘I’m a switch.’ I pronounced. I’d never actually said it before. And what’s more, was it even true? Did I have a single dominant thought towards Sebastian?

‘Switching is best,’ Sebastian nodded. ‘Like I said that night at Violet’s’ – that night at Violet’s? So he remembered it too? – ‘where’s the fun if there’s no fight?’

‘Although . . .’ Uh oh. Here comes the caveat. ‘Sometimes I meet someone and I can’t do anything else but pull their hair and fuck them senseless.’ He smiled at me and finished his whisky. Another shrug. ‘But generally I like a bit more rough play first.’

My hair. Oh God, to have this man pull at my hair, force my head up to him in a wanton kiss.

‘Would you like another one?’ he asked.

‘Um, well, what time is it?’

Sebastian gestured to the bar clock. ‘10.45.’

‘10.45?’ How the hell had so much time elapsed without me feeling hungry, cold, or tired on a freezing Friday night? Without feeling much of anything apart from utter captivation with this man. And deep, dark lust for him.

I paused for a moment then shook my head. ‘I’d better not.’ Good girl. ‘I should get home. Yoga in the morning.’ That was the crappest excuse ever but I did have to get home. If I didn’t I was going to drag this man into the bathroom with me, first date or no.

‘Let me walk you to the tube, then.’

I picked up my bag and rearranged my hat, much to Sebastian’s pleasure. Outside the street lights dimmed as if they were blushing. Sebastian pulled up the collar on his coat and then very deliberately offered me his arm, with gentlemanly charm. I took it. We walked along the icy cobbles back up towards Oxford Circus. Since there was no way I was going to make a fool of myself at this stage in the game, I took particular care, inching myself down the steps into the underground. Sebastian stood protectively behind me.

Before the ticket barriers, we braced ourselves for the goodbye. Or at least, I did.