“Because I think we should be free to meet people who are better for us.”
“Oh. You’ve met someone. You’re fucking someone else.”
“Laura, I’ve been fucking other people all along. And so have you, I’m sure. But yes. I’ve met someone I’d like to…really try and…Fuck it, everything sounds like a cliché in these situations, doesn’t it? What if I say it isn’t you, it’s me. That’s not true, though. It is you. And me.” Rocky twisted his hands helplessly, obviously desperate to get away.
“Who is she?” she demanded, tossing her head. “What has she got that I haven’t?”
His eyes hardened and his lip curled. “I like her,” he said, seeming to enjoy the cruelty of it.
“Oh, a nice girl,” she parried, spoiling for the fight now. “Not really your type, is it? You’ll be bored rigid, and she’ll see through you. Does she know what you do for a living?”
“You don’t know what I do for a living,” he pointed out.
“I know you’re Cordwainer’s hired goon—and everyone knows Cordwainer’s as dodgy as hell.”
He failed to take the bait, tossing out a bitter laugh. “There’s so much I’d love to tell you, Laura. But I won’t. I’ll leave it for now—let you have your illusions a little while longer.”
“I’ll tell Dad about us.”
“Go ahead.” He shrugged, palms up, like a character in a gangster movie.
He had drawn the poison from her fangs; she had no other bargaining chips for the table. Unless…
“A kiss, then? Or a final…y’know…for the road?”
His eyes narrowed; he suspected a ruse of some kind. He knew her too well.
/> “Didn’t you understand me, Laura? I’ve met somebody. I don’t want to fuck anyone else anymore.”
“Oh, what a good boy you are,” she sniped. “Okay, you pass the fidelity test. You can polish up your Boy Scout monogamy badge.”
He grinned. “Thanks. Listen, I didn’t mean to be hard on you. There are things I like about you. You can make me laugh. You’re gorgeous. You’re one of the best fucks I’ve ever had. You’ll make someone very happy, especially if that someone also fits into Councillor Trewin’s business plans. It’s been…an experience. Memorable.”
“An affair to remember.”
“Yeah.”
“So a kiss goodbye is too much to ask, is it?” She stepped closer to him, running a finger down the V-neck of her blouse, slipping the top button undone. “After ten months…Some marriages don’t last that long. Come on, Rocky. I’m going to miss you.”
He baulked for a moment, then shook his head, as if shaking his conscience clear, and moved towards her.
“Goodbye, Laura,” he said softly, leaning down to facilitate the meeting of their lips. She slipped an arm around his neck, hooking him close, snatching a handful of his hair while their teeth bumped at the unexpected speed of their coupling. Into her mouth, a cough of surprise, an impulse to recoil, which she thwarted by crushing him harder against her. She used her other hand to grab and squeeze his leathered groin, seeking out the buttons, wanting them undone and him hard for her again, so that he knew she had won.
But he slapped her hand away, hard, but not hard enough to stop her wrenching his wrist down under her skirt and into the waistband of her knickers. He wanted to voice protest, but she began biting down on his lip again, just like that first kiss of theirs. He gave in to her and let her hold his hand inside, wiggling his fingers obediently against her clit. She lifted her feet off the floor and wrapped them around his legs so that she hung off him and he was forced to cradle her buttocks while he delved inside her sex. She circled her hips and slip-slid against his hand, pulling his hair, tasting his tongue and teeth, having no care at all who might stumble into this dark recess of the pier and find them at it like primitive monkeys.
She came on his hand, moaning into his mouth, but it was a disappointing orgasm, and the accompanying sense of victory dulled almost as soon as it passed through her consciousness. He dropped her down on the boards, extricated himself from her swampy knickers and sharp teeth and stepped back, looking down at her as if she were some kind of vermin.
“It’s over, Laura.”
“Just one more thing.” she whispered. She darted forward and slashed his cheek with her Poison Plum nails.
For a few seconds, his stunned inaction made her want to laugh. Then, as if in slo-mo, he put a hand to the bleeding lacerations beneath his right eye and exclaimed in disbelief, “You fucking bitch.”
“Wonder if she’ll like you so much now? Do you think she wants you for your personality, Rocky? Come on, then. Take your revenge. Give me what’s coming to me.”
She felt alight with life, her chest heaving, blood singing. She wanted him to crush her against the pier railings and have her in every way possible.
But he shook his head again and turned away.