The Taming of the Bastard (7 page)

“Yeah,” Kirby
agreed. “You must be like totally special. Sam
never
bring
girls to the club.”

“He’s too busy
flirting with the girls who are already here.”

“And he, like,
takes the piss so much I don’t know when he’s being serious
anymore. I think it’s his way of showing he loves us or
something.”

Okay. It seemed
pointless explaining that I was only here as a favour to Sam, that
I wasn’t interested in him. Not really. Except when he looked at me
and his eyes did that thing.

Oh, I don’t
know.

“But he’s such
a darling when he wants to be,” Sasha added. “He has a very kind
heart and he’s very protective of us girls. He might tease and be
an arse at times but I truly believe it’s because he thinks he’s
being funny. I don’t know that he realises he’s hurting people’s
feelings. He always looks after us and if something were to happen,
Sam would be the first one there to make it right.”

“Totally. He,
like, opened a door for me the other week,” Kirby said.

I tried not to
laugh. I mean, Kirby seemed serious.

“And he saved
me from that sleazeball who was putting the hard word on me at
Onyx Bar
. Simmo was a waste of space on that particular
occasion but Sam saved me.”

“He’s a man of
mystery. Nobody like really ‘knows him’,” added Kirby, doing finger
quotes in the air. “He never mentions his family or where he came
from. He just, totally, appeared one day. POOF!” She paused, her
head tilting in thought. “Do you think he’s, like, endangered from
his parents?”

I gaped at
Kirby. What was she on about?

Sasha smiled
and gave Kirby’s forearm a squeeze. “It’s ‘estranged’ Kirbs. And I
don’t think he’s estranged. He mentioned a sister once. She lives
in Sydney.”

But Melanie
snorted. “Maybe Sam just doesn’t want all and fucking sundry
knowing his private business? Honestly, you two are such
busybodies.”

“No, we’re not.
We’re just concerned.”

“How many
people have you gossiped about in the last hour?...”

Deathly
silence.

This was gold.
Straight from the horse’s mouth. Sam was a supposed man-whore.
Hmm
. But he was also a diamond in the rough, a lone wolf who
revealed nothing to nobody. At least that was the impression they
were giving me. Maybe there was more to Sam than he showed to the
world. From what they were saying he was a big softie. He simply
didn’t like to show it.

At last Sam
appeared, his dark hair damp from the shower. It stood in
irresistible spikes and, as he pushed a hand through it, a sigh
almost escaped my lips. Almost…but not quite. It was lucky I was
only doing this as a favour, I decided. Otherwise, I’d be
hyperventilating worse than Alex.

He walked up to
the group, positioning himself at my side. Eyebrows raised. Lips
bent in knowing smirks.

“Hi,” he said,
rubbing his sneaker against the back of his jeans where I’d spilt
my wine for the third time while pretending I wasn’t looking at his
chest. I think, after weeks of seeing me in action at work he was
becoming quite blasé about my clumsy ways. I don’t know if he’d
recognised that he was the cause of most of them.

Timidly, I gave
him a hint of a smile. “Hi, yourself.”

A second guy
popped out from behind Sam’s back, proffering a hand. His smile was
wide and friendly, quite a contrast to the size of his head, which
appeared very small in comparison the size of his enormous
neck.

Briefly, I
wondered how a man could get shirts to fit a neck so large but then
Sam spoke. “This is Rambo. Ram, this is Millie, my friend from
work.”

“Nice to meet
you, Millie.”

“Rambo’s my
boyfriend,” Kirby cooed, taking up a possessive position in the
crook of his arm.

“Yes, I think
we know that, Pumpkin,” he replied and kissed the tip of her nose.
She giggled and proceeded to adjust his collar and hair, lost in
her own little world of romance.

Dismissing the
antics of the pair, Sam swivelled. His large eyes, framed by coal
black lashes, seemed even greener than before and they twinkled
disarmingly. “Sorry I took so long, I always seem to be the last
out of the showers.”

I nodded. It
was the best I could manage. Visions of a naked Sam scrubbing
himself with a loofah were assaulting my mind and I was locked in a
futile battle to keep them under wraps.

Sam’s hand
grazed my mine, catching my attention. Surges of sexual energy
pulsed through the tiny hairs and into my body. Talks of favours
dimmed in my memory. “Did you see the whole game?”

“
Mmm
.”

“Awesome.” He
waited for me to add something but I couldn’t. His eyes had trapped
me in a world where words were as meaningful as legs on a fish. His
palm was burning a hole in my sleeve and somewhere in my chest I
could feel my innards self-combusting.

“Enjoy it?” he
probed, being nice, trying to engage me in conversation. He
couldn’t see it was making things worse. The gravelly quality of
his voice was like a drug to my ears. It seeped into my brain and
rendered me wasted. Incapable.

God. What was
happening to me?

“Um.... er,
yes,” I mumbled.

Sam frowned. He
seemed confused by the star-struck girl standing in front of him.
Usually, I gave him as good as he got, which I’m fairly positive
was one of the reasons he’d asked me out in the first place.
“Great. You right for a drink?’ he asked, and not waiting for a
reply, he dashed towards the bar.

Biting the
corner of my lip, I chastised myself for behaving like a teenager.
What was wrong with me? I’d been fine before he appeared, talking
and laughing with a bunch of girls I didn’t know, but now I was
acting like a fool and we both knew it. Sam had been trying to
spark up some sort of chatter. He was being so nice to me and I’d
been no help at all.

I looked over
to the bar where Sam stood in his usual two hands resting pose,
like he did when he talked to me at work. He was laughing at
something the guy behind the bar was saying, a full throaty chuckle
that filled the room, causing people to glance in his direction and
yearn for him to respond to them that way. What I needed was a
plan. One that didn’t involve spilling more wine, getting
uproariously drunk and falling all over him or jabbering until he
begged me to stop. The most sensible thing to do would be to act
normal. I would stare at his forehead and behave like he wasn’t the
hottest man alive, possibly throw in the odd smart remark or two,
just like I did at work.

Easy.

I wouldn’t look
any lower either because there wasn’t a shred of hope if I did
that. After all, I was only here for a favour. This wasn’t a real
date. There was no call for swooning of any degree.

As Sam returned
with fresh drinks, I fixed my gaze on a tiny scar above his right
eyebrow and launched my plan into action.

Step one.
Conversation.

“For the life
of me, I had no clue what was going on in the game and I think I
was standing on the wrong side of the ground for most of it, but it
was quite interesting. Why do you have to throw the ball
backwards?” I heaved a relief-filled sigh. My tongue had received
the message from my brain.

Silently, Sam
took in my words. Then his shoulders relaxed and his luscious mouth
spread into a sexy grin. I know I’d declared I wasn’t going to look
lower than his forehead but I couldn’t help it. He was enchanting
me. “You didn’t stand with the Panthers’ women, did you? They’ve
been known to use those umbrellas to break their lads out of
custody. They don’t respond well to females who aren’t wearing
black.”

“I figured
that. They looked at me like I was about to become a human kebab if
they could just find the marinade.”

“I think the
word marinade is probably a stretch in the vocabulary of your
average Panther girl.” He gestured to the other girls. “You’ve met
our delightful ladies though?”

“Kirby
introduced me.”

Kirby, who was
grasping Rambo’s bum like it was about to sprout wings and make a
bid for freedom, giggled again and did a little curtsey sending her
fluff flying up my nose.

Sam leant
toward my ear, “Naturally, she’d have to be first in. Kirby’s the
club gossip. Nice girl, though. Great tits.”

I spluttered.
And, of course, inexplicably drawn by some force greater than I
could control, my eyes fell to Kirby’s chest. It was like they were
suddenly two magnets and my eyes were ball bearings.

“Is Sam talking
about my boobs again?” she asked, giving him a pointed look. “Apart
from rugby, I swear my boobs are, like, his favourite topic of
conversation.”

“That’s because
they’re the most perfect specimen of fake breasts I’ve ever seen,
Kirbs. I’d like to know the name of the surgeon so I can ring him
and congratulate him.”

“How many times
do I have to tell you they are, like, totally natural.”

“Sure, Kirbs,”
he chuckled. I could tell he was getting a kick out of teasing
her.

But Kirby
wasn’t laughing. Her eyes had filled to overflowing. Her pretty
lashes batted the tears away and she waved her hands in front of
them to stop her mascara from running. “God damn you, Sam. My
breasts are not fake. I’ve always been, like, a big girl.”

Sasha put a
comforting arm around her friend. “Don’t be a prick, Sam. And don’t
tease her. She doesn’t like it.”

“Yes, she
does.”

“Oh and that’s
why she’s crying then, is it?” Melanie added, joining the
conversation.

“She cried
during the Queen’s Christmas message,” Sam said. “And when she
found out
Strictly Ballroom
was going to be made into a
musical.”

“What’s wrong
with that? I, like totally, adore that movie!”

Sam rolled his
eyes. “I was teasing Kirbs. I’m sorry.”

Kirby gave a
sniff and shoved her tissue up her sleeve. “Apology accepted.”

But Mel wasn’t
ready to let up. “Honestly, Sam. You have no idea about the things
you say and do. You just go around here telling it like it is and
people end up pissed off and hurt.”

“You don’t
think it’s important to tell the truth? I only say what everyone
else is too afraid to.”

“I think you
need to hone your social graces, that’s what I think.”

“And are you
going to teach me? If so, I shall wait with baited breath,” Sam
purred, his mouth twitching at the sides and his eyebrow cocked,
just enough to make him look even more devilish. And oh, so
loveable.

“Jesus, you’re
a bastard,” Melanie replied, smiling. “Get out of our sight.” And
she shooed him away with her hand.

Chuckling to
himself, Sam took my hand and led me to the other end of the room
away from the girls. “Ignore them. They make out that they’re upset
but they love it when I tease them. Besides they take the piss out
of me quite regularly and I have to take it on the chin.”

“From what I’ve
seen you deserve everything you get.”

Sam stopped
near the window and leant against the ledge, crossing his ankles.
He patted a space beside him and I sat too. It was weird being
close to him when not in a working situation. I could feel the
warmth radiating from his body. It felt nice.

“I hope you
didn’t listen to their rubbish. They think they know everything
about everybody in this club. God only knows what they’ve said
about me.” His face was serious.

“Of course I
didn’t. If I believed the stuff they told me, I’d have left before
you made an appearance. Besides, it’s not as if it matters is it? I
mean, I’m only here out of the goodness of my heart. I couldn’t
bear for you to be left to Donna.” He looked worried, so I
reassured him. “Look, I can make my own judgements, Sam. I trust my
instincts more than relying on the gossip of others.”

“That sounds
very sensible. You’re not like that all the time, are you?” He
gazed into my eyes in a way that made me feel far from sensible.
He’d shuffled so near I could smell the soap he’d used to wash the
mud of the game away. It was mingling with his musk and drifting up
my nose. It made my heart pound and my brain think all manner of
naughty things.

“Definitely
not. In fact there are moments when I’m classed as positively
outrageous.”

“I’ll look
forward to that.”

He would, I
thought. Sam was the kind of man who looked forward to a lot of
things, things I'd never been game enough to try though, frankly,
would have liked to.

“Oh and that
favour thing… let’s just forget about that, shall we? We both know
I wouldn’t touch Donna Atkins with a barge pole. That girl has
serious issues with fake tan.”

I tried not to
laugh and I knew I shouldn’t but it was true. Most of the time,
Donna looked like she’d been dunked in a vat of orange paint.

After a bit,
there was a general clinking of glasses and a craggy old man,
wearing black—and sporting a noteworthy beer gut—climbed onto a
bench in the middle of the room. The seat groaned under his weight
and threatened to snap its puny metal legs if he so much as moved.
He cleared his throat, by taking a chug of his ale, and began to
speak.

“
Ahh
,
erm, yeah, thanks to the Hornets for having us at their Club again.
They always put up a good show, erm, even though we were victorious
again. (Raucous cheering from crowd members wearing black.) I'd
like to call our captain, erm, Slugger, to say a few words about
the match. Then, we’ll have a speech from, erm, the Hornets’
spokesperson for the afternoon. Yeah.”

Slugger, the
man who’d carried the ball onto the field earlier in the afternoon,
took his place on the creaking chair. He pushed up his sleeves to
reveal some faded tribal-type tattoos. I straightened, determined
to listen and learn as he spoke, but I had not one clue as to what
he meant. Rugby was a confusing game for a novice like me. To make
matters worse, Sam’s body was dangerously close to mine on the
sill. It was making me feel queasy in a hyped-up, excited sort of
way like butterflies had invaded the pit of my stomach. His thigh
rest against mine and I was trying to ignore it but he had no
intention of letting me. I could feel his eyes welded to a spot on
my neck, eyeing it off. He was being very presumptuous for a man on
a first date.