Damage (3 page)

“He seems very angry with the world,” she said softly.

“Oh yes,” said Ruby. “That’s what Sandy said, too. He drinks, she says. And he has these wild parties where he chases anything in a skirt. Just uses women and then chucks them away. Doesn’t want anything to do with them afterwards. He may have been a lovely bloke once, but not any more. You should watch him, sis’, if you’re working up there at the Hall. He’s not the kind of man you’d want to be messing with.”

Holly looked down at her plate. She’d eaten barely half of her dinner.

Later, as they said their goodbyes in the back yard, Ruby hugged her sister hard, and then, still holding onto her, said, “I meant it, sis’. I saw that look in your eye. Your Tommy Lefevre look. This guy may be some mysterious, rich playboy type, but I’ve not heard a good thing about him.”

Holly shrugged. Did Ruby really think she would be interested in a man just because he was a rich playboy? That was much more a Ruby thing.

“Don’t worry,” she said now. “He’s a rude, sexist pig and that combination really doesn’t work for me. You take care now, you hear?”

§

Karen called the next morning.

“Hey Holly. How was it up at the Hall yesterday? All okay?”

“You might have warned me he’s such a rude pig,” said Holly.

“Yes,  but then you wouldn’t have gone and you’d have blamed me for putting you off the chance to earn a little money, wouldn’t you? So, anyway, he’s asked for you again. Wants you to do a couple of hours Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Think you can fit that in?”

Holly’s first thought was that she would have to juggle the hours to fit around college and working at The Bull. Her second was a rush of memories: of Blunt’s brusque manner, and the way he had referred to that girl as just one of his ‘tarts’; of the way he always responded with an anger he only sometimes managed to suppress; of the touch of his finger on her chin, the look in his eyes, the response she had felt to that touch.

“I...”

“That’s a ‘yes’?”

“It’s an ‘I don’t know’.”

“You don’t have to like the people you clean up for.”

That familiar phrase, like a mantra. You don’t, it’s true, but it helps you get through.

§

Tuesday night she dreamed of him, and that only served to confuse matters even more.

It wasn’t him at first, Blunt. In the dream. It was Tommy Lefevre, as he had been around the time they split up: his hair, bleached by the summer sun, was just a bit longer than he wore it now, long enough to take on a bit of curl; his features still had a touch of puppy fat, and the stubble on his jaw still had that tendency to grow thin and soft rather than a real man’s stubble.

He was laughing.

They were down by the bridge that crossed the brook. There was a way down there, through the nettles, and local kids used to go there to smoke and make out and drink Diamond White from cans.

But now... now it was just the two of them and he was laughing, and his whole face lit up when he did that.

She didn’t want him to laugh though. She was serious. Deadly serious.

She took a handful of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss, using her lips and tongue to still that laughter.

She’d lost her virginity to Tommy Lefevre right on this spot, this little clearing by the bridge hidden from view to anyone who wasn’t already halfway down through the nettles. Hard and urgent, standing on trembling legs, her back against the stonework of the bridge, his knees bent so that he could drive upwards and into her. It had been over quickly and afterwards things had been awkward, both of them aware that things were now subtly different between them.

But now, in the dream... now she was the one in control, kissing him long and deep, feeling his whole body relax into the kiss, everything settling, slumping, apart from that one bit that was pressing hard against her.

Tommy, Tommy,
Tommy
.

She woke, briefly, that kind of waking where you never quite fully emerge from sleep, where you heave and turn. Where you’re just conscious enough to realize how hot you are, how you have both hands pressed down there, between your legs, your knees drawn up, your thighs clamping those hands in place as you squeeze and press...

...and then you slip back into sleep, fall back into that dream.

She was on her knees, pulling at his jeans, freeing the buttons and then pulling them down past his hips until they stopped around his thighs.

His shorts were black, the fabric tenting around his hardness.

He was big, far bigger than she remembered.

Her hands hooked into the waistband of his shorts and started easing them down.

Now exposed, she took that large member in her mouth. Pressing her lips hard together around the shaft, she pushed against him, feeling him fill her, feeling him hit the back of her throat, and still she hadn’t taken him all in.

When she looked up and made eye contact, it wasn’t with those boyish blue eyes of Tommy: the eyes were cool and gray, the face older, smooth and yet somehow craggy, angled.

That eye contact!

She swallowed, and the swollen head of his manhood briefly entered the tightness of her throat and those eyes rolled heavenwards.

She swallowed again, deliberately taking him into her throat and then feeling him slide out.

She should be gagging. She knew she should, but somehow...

She swallowed again, and kept swallowing and at last he entered her completely, her chin pressed hard against his balls, her forehead against his belly, her lips clamped tightly around the base of his shaft.

His hands at the back of her head held her there, and suddenly his shaft was pulsing, throbbing, and there was an eruption in her throat, a gushing sensation, and she sucked and swallowed for all she was worth...

...and then she was awake again, her hands pressing hard, a wetness between her thighs, and her whole body was heaving with muscular spasms as orgasm took her. Wave after wave of tightening passed through her belly, as she twisted from side to side and fought hard not to cry out loud.

Finally, her breath still ragged, her body slumped, and she pulled her wet hands away. She’d never dreamed like that before, never woken in the heat of orgasm, soaking wet with her own juices...

It was a long time before she settled again.

On Wednesday afternoon, Holly changed after college and went straight to the Hall. Blunt had only moved to the village in the summer but those hot few weeks seemed so long ago now the big beech trees that lined the drive up to the Hall were turning to shades of copper and gold and the air was taking on that early morning autumnal chill.

As Holly walked, she reminded herself that this man was damaged, blinded by emotional scars. He had once been a decent human being, and the Nicholas Blunt she saw now was the result of what he had endured since that tragic accident.

And when she couldn’t quite let that excuse his manner she reminded herself, again, that you don’t have to like the people you clean up after.

She tried not to think about the dream.

When she reached the Hall she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Knock at that grand front door, or go round the back and in through the kitchen? Should she just check the door and, if it was unlocked, let herself in, or should she announce herself somehow? He saved her from her dilemma by opening the front door as she approached.

She stopped before him and he nodded in greeting. “I think we might have got off on the wrong footing the other day,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself. I haven’t really been myself for some time now.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “No worries. Shall I just go up and get started?”

She kept her tone bright and fought hard to suppress memories of the night before, the dream.

She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you. I’ll be out here if you need anything.”

§

Some time later, she glanced out of the window and saw him, throwing a stick for Alfie.

She’d been at the Hall for over an hour now, and this was the first she’d seen of him since he’d let her in. It was as if he’d sensed that she felt uncomfortable in his presence and had opted to give her some space. Or perhaps he felt embarrassed for his behavior the first time she’d been here.

He came to her later, in the kitchen.

“Is everything... well, do you have everything you need?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, it’s all fine, thanks. I’m nearly done now. Do you need me to do anything before I go? Cuppa?”

He stood in the doorway, leaning against the door-frame while they waited for the kettle to boil. Should she make herself a cup of tea, too, she wondered? He could easily be the kind of employer who would take exception.

She put two cups out regardless, and he didn’t respond.

“I don’t know why,” he said, “but I feel that I need to explain myself. Justify myself.”

“You don’t have to justify anything to me,” she said. That face... right now he looked disturbed, a bit confused, as if he really didn’t know why he was having this conversation with the hired help. But she knew that face when it was aroused, she knew how he rolled his eyes as orgasm took him, how his jaw dropped and he groaned...

The dream him, at least, she reminded herself. She hated how her brain did this sometimes, taunting her, like some kind of self-destruct mechanism in her head, plotting out ways to make things difficult for her.

She poured the tea.

“I’m not really like that,” he went on. “Not really like
this
.”

“It’s fine.”

“That girl. The
girls
. I’ve had a bit of a rough time of it. I just–”

“I know,” she said. “I know what a rough time you’ve had. Google tells you all kinds of things.” Or, at least, a sister who used Google could.

“You checked me out on
Google
?” He stood, pushing his chair away with his legs so that it almost toppled. That flash of anger again, the kneejerk response.

“I... I’m sorry. It’s just... A girl on her own. I like to feel that I know a bit about the places I work.”

“So do you know enough about me now that you’ve raked over all the tabloid stories? Did Google tell you how every day I hate that I live and Sarah didn’t? Did it tell you that all the drink and drugs and tarts in the world can’t wipe out the memories or the guilt?”

She felt trapped, standing with her back to the sink and him like this, standing before her, gesticulating aggressively with one hand as he ranted at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Now she remembered what he’d said about his last cleaner.
I fired the bitch for being too damned nosy, okay?

She met his look, held it, and watched as he visibly calmed himself, taking a deep breath and holding it for a long time before letting it go again.

“She was driving,” he said. “She’d been drinking. She shouldn’t have been driving. I shouldn’t have let her, the daft bitch. It was all my fault.”

Those gray eyes were glazed behind a wall of tears now, ready to spill.

Holly didn’t know what to say or do. “You can’t keep shutting people out,” she said finally. “That’s not going to do you any good.”

“Who says I want to do me any good? Who says I deserve that?”

All the barriers he put up around himself. Shutting himself away here at the Hall. The parties full of strangers, giving the illusion that he still had a life. The girls, used and then chucked away, as Ruby had put it. So much anger.

“You shouldn’t punish yourself.”

He turned away, took a step, paused in the doorway and turned sharply back.

“And what gives
you
the right to tell me how to live my life? Eh? You’re just a cleaner.”

“I’m sorry.”

She turned away from him, to the sink, and started scrubbing it clean again, even though she had cleaned it already today. She felt embarrassed and angry with herself, but also angry with him.

“I live my life how I want.”

He was much nearer, his voice close behind her. She thought he’d walked out, but...

She twisted and his face loomed, something new in his expression, and then his mouth was on hers, his hands to either side of her face, guiding her, fixing her in place. His lips were hard, his tongue strong, pushing between her lips, finding hers and pressing against it.

She tried to pull away, and then she stopped resisting, and their bodies pressed hard against each other and she felt that heat in her belly, that heat she’d felt last night when she had dreamed.

“I... I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away sharply. His hands fell to his sides and he stepped back, away from her.

“I...”

Her cheeks were hot, her breathing short, rapid, her heart pounding.

She didn’t know what was happening, why he was doing this, why she was reacting the way she had. He was older than her, a user of women, a man with so much emotional baggage...

And yet... she’d never felt a physical reaction the way she had just now. There had been nothing like that with Tommy. She’d never known that raw, ragged ache in the pit of her belly, never felt that rush of emotional and physical response like a whirlwind inside her.

Nicholas Blunt was in the doorway now, still backing away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I shouldn’t have... I won’t...”

And then he was gone and she was alone in the kitchen and it felt as if she were still in that dream and that none of this had been real.

§

“It’s like he’s angry with everything, raging against the world.”

Holly lay curled up in bed, phone pressed to her jaw. The girly chats with Ruby were a relatively new development.

“Or just angry at the women in it?” said Ruby. “Angry at his wife for dying on him, and so he’s taking it out on all the women he meets... all the ‘bitches’ and ‘tarts’. I know his kind well enough.”

How was it that Holly’s kid sister had so much more experience of the world?

Holly hadn’t mentioned the kiss.

She hadn’t mentioned the way she responded to his presence, or even to the thought of him. She didn’t know what to say about that, or how to describe it. It was a stupid thing, like a schoolgirl crush on a teacher.