The New Rakes (6 page)

‘I can assure you I’m capable of being totally professional,’ Kara said, trying to forget the fact she was half undressed and still smelling of Mike. It didn’t help when he threw back his head and laughed.

‘Dear Kara,’ he said. ‘I’m under no illusions of what you’re capable of. I don’t need a prissy little businesswoman to sell records.’ He reached out to run his hand over her flank and patted her ass. Like someone buying a racehorse, Kara thought bitterly.

‘I just need you to be up there on stage, pouting and jiggling and oozing sex like the proper little slut you are. I don’t want to
tame
you, Kara. I want to corrupt you.’

When Kara was angry her eyes turned cold and dark. She imagined right now they must be as black as obsidian. She walked towards the door with her spine very straight. She didn’t bother to fix her hair or straighten her clothes – Mike could go fuck himself if he thought she was interested in making a record with him.

‘Kara,’ he called. There was the old warning note in his voice, the one he used to use when she talked back to him in lessons. The only answer Kara could muster was the bang of the door.

Kara’s hand held on to the stair rail so tight her knuckles had turned white. She stood on the landing and did her deep-breathing exercise, waiting for her heart to slow to a trot. What a bastard of a day, she thought. It seemed she’d spent it getting wound up and missing her chances – ending up with insults and arguments instead of the orgasm she so desperately wanted. She had half a mind to put her hand in her knickers and bring herself off there and then in the elegant stairwell.

No, she thought. Later. Right now she needed to get home and get in the shower, wash off Mike’s sweat and that charged masculine rosemary smell of his that was clinging to her skin. As she went down the stairs she resisted the urge to kick the freshly painted white walls.

Behind the desk at reception, though, a different problem appeared. Kara’s heart sank as she saw Lina sitting in the chair, swinging back and forth thoughtfully as she looked at a computer screen. Kara stuck her chin in the air and kept her eyes on the door as she crossed the hall, but she knew the other woman was watching her. She could just imagine the look on her face.

‘Leaving so soon? It didn’t go well, then.’ Lina had one of
those
deep-honey voices that sounded like years of late nights and smoky clubs.

‘What would you care,’ Kara said, not breaking her stride.

‘Not so much, darling. Mike’s little kicks never last that long.’

Kara stopped in her tracks. She turned on her heel and noticed with some satisfaction that a flicker of doubt crossed Lina’s face, the smallest tremor twitching at her eyelid.

Kara leaned over and splayed her hands across the drift of papers that covered the desk. Lina was polished, sure, and sophisticated. But Kara wasn’t in the mood to be intimidated.

‘Do you have a problem with me?’ she asked. ‘Or are you always this much of a bitch?’

Lina gave her a brittle smile. ‘Of course not. Actually, I just feel a little sorry for you.’

‘How’s that?’

‘That you have to resort to fucking your way into a record deal.’ Lina spoke airily, flicking her fingers towards the door.

‘Get a grip,’ said Kara, spitting the words through her teeth.

‘Here’s a tip, dear.’ Lina leaned in close. ‘Next time, don’t give away the goods until you’ve got the contract signed and sealed.’

Kara spun round and ran for the door. If she didn’t leave right now, she’d be tempted to slap the woman – and any pride she might have managed to salvage would be in shreds. She could just picture herself, cat-fighting on the floor of Mike’s oh-so-elegant studio. That would be a perfect way to round off her day. As she barrelled through the door and marched to the park gates across the street, Kara dug her fingernails hard into her palms and swore repeatedly under her breath.

In the office, Lina smiled as she picked up the phone. ‘Mike,’ she said. ‘I take it I should rip this up.’ She held the contract for the Rakes’ first album pinched in her fingertips.

5

KARA TURNED ON
the shower and waited for the heat to run through. She wanted the water scalding. As she stepped under the stream, she closed her eyes and tried to clear her head. Her thoughts were spinning in circles and she bounced from humiliated to confused to horny. Tam, Mike, Lina. Everybody seemed to want something different from her and Kara wasn’t sure who she could trust. Something Mike had said to her repeated over and over like a stuck record:
‘I want to corrupt you.’

Although his words disturbed her a little, she had to admit they also got her hot. And even if everything between them was strictly business, there was no doubt Mike could make her career skyrocket.

But she’d ruined that chance. Blown up at him and run away. She’d managed to screw up her golden opportunity so badly it made her wince. Furious, she scrubbed at her thighs with her body brush, wishing she could scour away the day, her temper, her mistakes and, most of all, the raging horniness that got her into situations like this.

Damn, she thought as the tingle spread over her body. Vigorous exfoliation wasn’t helping. The more worked up she got, the more she wanted to fuck someone, and the more horny she got the more she thought of Mike. His dry smile irritated her, but it made that pulse boom between her legs. It was dangerous, what he did to her. Kara didn’t want to be that hooked on anyone. She needed to stay away from him.

Luckily they were unlikely to bump into each other – though the music scene in Glasgow was small, they moved in different circles. Very different circles. Not much chance of running into Mike in the spit-and-sawdust joints that Kara was used to. He spent his time sipping overpriced drinks with the glitterati.

Kara remembered the feel of his tongue on her nipple and felt a pang of arousal, the slightest trace of regret as she poured lavender shower gel into the palm of her hand. She soaped herself slowly, noticing a couple of bruises as she did so. Noticing, too, that her nipples had puckered at the thought of Mike licking her. She thought about giving herself a quick orgasm to burn off the horniness, but her clit stung at the thought.

‘You need to learn to control yourself,’ she muttered, yanking the shower firmly off and stepping onto the cold tiles of the bathroom floor. She rubbed the steam off the mirror above the sink and stared at herself. Her reflection was wired; cheeks pink and eyes tired but with a curious spark to them, like she’d drunk too much coffee. She combed the tangles out of her wet hair with one hand and steered her thoughts towards work.

Kara paid her rent by doing a few shifts in a pub every week. Her shift started at seven – five hours in a West End bar serving hair of the dog to red-eyed punters, with the music on low and nobody speaking too loud. Sunday was an easy ride. At least for one night, she’d be saved from dealing with all the people she’d pissed off. She might even get time to work things out in her head, write a song – something about sex and tangled desire.

Yes, she thought, that could work. Something dark, something angry. The one thing that might keep her sane was getting down some lyrics and making music out of the whole
sorry
mess. As she reached for her eyeliner, Kara was already writing the first lines in her head.

Cobalt was one of the new wave of Glasgow bars, with large glass windows, black leather sofas and potted palms. So hip it hurt. Which meant Kara didn’t have to be overly worried about pleasing the clientele. She could scowl, sulk and generally take the mickey, so long as she looked good and knew how to mix a Screwdriver.

As she’d expected, the place was dead when she arrived – half-a-dozen guys in crumpled shirts nursing pints of lager, and a group of dressed-down city types by the big fake marble fireplace trying their hardest to look like people out of a magazine style supplement. Besides making a few Bloody Marys, it was looking like an easy run till midnight. Kara nodded at Bernie, the carefully laid-back bar manager. He grinned at her and rolled his eyes, which were bloodshot as usual.

‘Good night last night?’ Kara asked, knowing that Bernie very likely hadn’t been to sleep yet.

She listened to his jumbled account of an illegal party under the railway arches, nodding every so often to show she was listening. In fact, her attention was fixed on the song taking shape in her imagination.

She’d had the first line going round in her head for an hour, with the melody repeating in a loop. If she got it down on paper quick enough, she might end up with something more to show for the evening than smoky hair and sore feet. When Bernie wandered off to chat to one of his clubbing cronies at the end of the bar, Kara pulled an order book out of the drawer under the till. ‘CORRUPTED’, she wrote along the top of the sheet.

‘
I don’t want you tame
.’ Kara bit her lip. ‘
Slide guitar?
’ she added, and closed her eyes to replay the melody in her head.

* * *

Kara was bent over the bar working on her song an hour later, tapping out a rhythm on the wood with the end of a biro. Her hair fell over her face so that potential customers were conveniently invisible, and so she didn’t see the deliveryman come in.

Although she’d been pretty oblivious, the sudden wave of scent pulled her out of her reverie. Kara looked up to see a bouquet about as big as the man carrying it advancing towards the bar; white lilies dusted with rusty pollen and those ludicrous spiky orange flowers called paradise-somethings. They were showy as hell, but pretty impressive, she had to admit. Orchids trailed from the bottom of the bouquet. Kara grinned. One of the yuppies on the sofa by the fireplace must be making some kind of grand statement.

But the guy stopped at the bar. ‘Kara?’

She raised her eyebrows, the smile dropping off her face.

‘I’ll put them here, love, shall I?’

Before Kara could say anything, the deliveryman had dropped the flowers on the end of the bar and hurried away again. Aware that Bernie was watching her with a bloody great smirk on his face, Kara approached and sniffed gingerly at the lilies. A small white envelope was tucked into the spray, but she hardly needed to open it to guess who’d make a gesture this ostentatious.

The message was handwritten – Mike’s elegant signature looping across the card under the few words he’d put: ‘Let me make it up. Call me.’

‘That’s some posy,’ Bernie said, sneaking up behind her and trying to read the card over her shoulder. ‘Whoever he is, he’s after something.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Gonna call him?’

‘Not sure.’ Kara chewed the end of her biro grimly.

Bernie laughed, flicked a dishtowel at Kara and shook his head. ‘Don’t tell me the wee diva is turning shy?’

He swaggered away before Kara could smack him. She watched his ass as he walked down the length of the bar, the way his jeans clung to it and the top of his boxers peeked out from the waistband. Under Bernie’s close-shaved hair, the indigo spikes of his tattoo curled over the nape of his neck. Yes, Kara thought, he was foxy enough. Surely if she needed someone to burn off her jittery frustration with she could tumble him, instead of getting into something complicated with Mike? A nice straightforward fuck, a boy-man with smooth olive skin and a smile full of white teeth. No strings. No angst.

She watched Bernie as he flicked through the sports pages of the newspaper. He scratched his neck and whistled ‘The Lady is a Tramp’ – tunelessly.

No strings. But no butterflies, no tension and no chemistry, either, Kara thought wryly. She slid the envelope into her back pocket and looked at the flowers again. For a moment she thought about binning them, but then she shrugged. They weren’t doing any harm sitting on the bar smelling gorgeous. And she had to admit, Mike knew how to make a statement.

By the time the clock hit twelve she was tired and jumpy. As the bar cleared out and she wiped down tables, turned chairs over and emptied ashtrays, she forced herself to stop thinking about Mike. The idea for the song had dissolved since the flowers turned up, like the scent of them had forced all her thoughts out of her head. She tried to remember how the hook had gone, sung it over quietly under her breath.

‘Kara.’

At the sound of her name, she dropped the glass ashtray she was holding. It hit the floor with a loud crack and she
swore
as she looked up. Tam stood by the door, his clothes crumpled and his hair looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. He gave her one of his dark grins, sweeping his sleepy eyes over her black shirt and wide-legged trousers.

‘Got to love a girl in uniform,’ he said, leaning against the door frame. ‘You finished?’ He was carrying a leather holdall in one hand, the battered bag that he usually dragged his guitar round in. ‘Thought you might like come back to mine for a jam.’

Kara searched his eyes, suspicious, but there was no trace of the bitterness she’d seen in them earlier that day.

‘No tricks,’ Tam said. ‘Ruby and Jon’ll be there too.’

Kara nodded. ‘OK,’ she said, slowly. ‘Good. There’s a few things we need to talk about anyway.’

‘You did what?’ Ruby shouted. ‘Kara, that was the best fucking chance we’ve ever had!’

‘Steady,’ Tam said. ‘Blue Star isn’t the only record company in the world.’

‘No, but it’s the only one who’s offered us a deal on a plate,’ Jon said. He paced across Tam’s living room, stepping over the tangle of cables that stretched across the carpet. ‘Could you not have kept a lid on your temper for a week or two, Kara?’

Kara sat slumped in a chair, chewing her thumbnail. ‘I wouldn’t work with that bitch if my life depended on it,’ she said. ‘Besides, I’m the one who put in the effort to get us the contract in the first place. I don’t see anybody else taking the initiative.’

‘Must have been a lot of hard work,’ Tam muttered.

Ruby sighed. ‘Maybe if you could go back and apologise –’

Kara cut her dead with a look. ‘I don’t do apologies,’ she said, flatly. ‘So let’s just drop it, OK? I’ve got a few lyrics I was working on.’ She pulled the crumpled order pad out of her pocket, tore
off
the top sheet and passed it to Jon. ‘Think you can work this into something?’ she said.