Overstretched

Chapter 6

SIX

The weekend slipped by, Steve poring over the papers, growing more and more irritable over what he found, what he needed to put right. He busied himself in the garden, moved furniture, put together chests of drawers, everything, including preparing Bea’s new school uniform.

Monday morning and he left early. A buzz of excitement ran through the house. A new week, new beginnings.

Bea strolled into school confident and assured as if she had always been a pupil there. If only her sister were the same. Amy cried, clinging onto her mother, the teacher giving assurances all would be fine. “Just go, Mrs Brunt. Try not to worry.”

Samantha came out of the entrance to the playgroup, trying not to dwell too long on leaving Amy in a strange, new place. The city beckoned, the need to seek out the employment agency she had recently registered with. There were plenty of openings.

She resisted plunging straight back into the world of corporate finance. What she needed was a change, a new direction. For months she had deliberated over returning to college, retraining, even dusting off some of her old talents and resurrecting her love of design and taking up a course in computer graphics. Rob always urged her to pursue her dreams.

Rob.

Thoughts of her former lover made her stop. A knot developed in her stomach, an ache. She missed him, his attentions, his care. Three years was a long time to share someone else’s bed, even if part-time.

Across the road sat the hire car. She could get in, drive non-stop to Norwich, be in Rob’s arms before tea. A thrill ran through her lower abdomen as the delicious memories stirred around inside, visions of his hard body, those arms holding her, his lips pressed against her ...

As the world came back into focus, she looked up and gasped at the man standing by her car, nonchalant, huge. Talk about arms, Rob’s were nothing compared with this guy’s.

He smiled. Warm, friendly, disarming. She certainly felt disarmed as she crossed towards him in something of a daze.

From nowhere, his hand took hers as he introduced himself. “Good to see you again. You remember? We met the other day. I’m your neighbour and your name is Samantha.”

His hand enveloped hers like a bear’s, huge and strong. Ebony skin stretched taut, shining. She gazed into his eyes, which seemed to smoulder. Brown, deep, inviting. To be held, to experience his power, his ...

She frowned and pulled herself free, shrugging off her whimsical thoughts. “I’m sorry, you have me at a disadvantage—how do you know my name?”

He chuckled, shook his head, and slowly swaggered off without a backwards glance.

She studied him as he drifted away, those firm buttocks pressing against tight jogging bottoms, t-shirt tucked into the waistband, shoulders wide, the muscles ...

“Christ.”

She tried to ignore the heat rising to her cheeks, fished for her keys, and got in behind the wheel. This was how it started with Rob, in the queue at the baker’s, sensing him close, turning to find that smile. Had he always been hovering nearby, waiting for the right moment? She recognised him shortly afterwards. Of course, Rob. School, the cricket club. It all came flooding back. They’d drifted, of course, gone their separate ways but it troubled her that he’d been so close and she hadn’t so much as seen him. With her office situated around the corner, surely she would have noticed him before? But life, being so mundane, seemed to blur. Steve, always coming home to complain about his boss, then the late nights. She never asked questions, not thinking for a single moment anything could possibly be wrong. Until she found the texts. She hadn’t planned it, of course she hadn’t. A Saturday morning: Steve in the shower, his mobile going off like that, and the irresistible urge to take a peek, and the words, ‘See you at eleven’, the meaning so ambiguous. Nevertheless, some sixth-sense gripped her and when Steve phoned the following Friday to say he’d be working late, she packed the kids into the car an hour later and went round to check.

The office was in darkness. Not one vehicle in the car park.

So, when Rob met her again and asked if she’d like to share a jam doughnut in the park, she’d accepted. And soon a jam doughnut became what she’d always suspected it meant. Full-blown s*x in his car. He drove her out into the country, beside an old Norman church, and he’d got her into the back seat, pulled off her panties and spent about an hour between her legs. She had never experienced anything so wanton, so utterly fantastic in all her life. She came, hips bucking, begging him to f**k her. Which he did. Repeatedly.

And now this guy.

He’d laughed. A mocking laugh. A knowing one. ‘You have me at a disadvantage.’ Christ, did I really say that? Had he assumed a double-meaning?

The interview at the employment agency went well and she stopped for a coffee in a nearby bistro, snacked on a salad bowl, flicked through a magazine left behind by some disinterested customer. He sat down opposite her without announcement and she gaped at him, went to speak, but instead put down her magazine and sipped her coffee. “You’d like one?”

“Espresso.”

She should have known. She caught the waitress’s eye and made the order. He sat in silence, a knowing smile creasing his face. She moved around on her seat, averting her eyes. When the coffee arrived, it looked like a tiny doll’s cup in his enormous fist, so tiny. He drank it down in one gulp, set the cup on the saucer and grinned. “I’m not stalking you, I promise.”

“I never said you were.” She stirred around the salad bowl with the white plastic fork. “What did you say your name was?”

“It’s Nick. Nick Carson, but no need for my first name. Everyone calls me Carson. I work for Mr Knills.”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course you do.”

“I saw you watching me.”

Her heart stopped for a moment, so did the fork in the bowl. She didn’t look up, afraid he might notice the reddening of her cheeks, the steam rising from beneath her blouse. “You did?”

“Yes. You were there, gazing out from the top floor. We’re not so very far from one another, so you were easy to notice.”

How could he know? From outside, the interior of a house would appear black, unless Bea, with her nose pressed up against the windowpane ... a guess. Nothing more. He couldn’t know.

“You should come round and introduce yourself formally to Mr Knills. He’s anxious to meet you.”

“Is he?” She pushed away her unfinished salad bowl.

“May I?” He reached out, wrapping a hand around hers and the bowl.

She gazed at his thick fingers, noted how small and fragile her own appeared in his, how white her flesh appeared against his gleaming, burnished bronze fist. “Yes,” she said breathless and watched him slowly pulling the bowl towards himself, his attacking of the salad, the demolishing of it in a few mouthfuls.

“So, you’d like to come?”

She snapped her face to his, his eyes mocking, twinkling, as he patted his mouth with a napkin. She forced the words out from a throat grown dry, “I’m sorry?”

He sniggered. “You’ll come to the house, say hello to Mr Knills?”

“Oh.” The heat rose still further, “Yes, I’ll talk to my husband.”

“I’d like you to come on your own,” he said, voice low, simmering.

“Yes,” she said, resistance fading.

“Without your children. Just you.”

She nodded, throat swollen, unable to speak.

He leant forward, those great hands taking hers. “I’ve seen you with him. You don’t seem happy.”

Massive hands and yet so gentle, the way he held her, lightly with so much care, as if she were a captured bird. “No,” she snapped, and retreated into her chair, wrapping her arms around her body for protection. “No, we’re perfectly happy, thanks. And we’ll come and visit Mr Knills together. The children too.”

He inclined his head, broad smile. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”

“Offended? No, not at all, but ...” She shrugged. “It’s been a difficult few days, what with the move, the way we arrived during that awful storm. We’re all a little fraught.”

“I quite understand. Norwich wasn’t it?”

Her mouth dropped for a moment, a tiny tremor of trepidation. “Pardon me?”

“You came from Norwich? East Anglia? A long way.”

“How do you ...” Her voice trailed away, splintering in the charged atmosphere, his eyes, that manner of his, so assured, such total confidence.

“Nothing much stays secret here for long,” he said and he leant forward again, hands clamped together, resting on the table, a short distance from her.

Those bare arms, smooth, strong. She allowed herself to relax and she went to pick up her coffee cup. All he needed to do was reach across—

“I’m happy you’re not offended, but also sorry if I made you feel awkward. I have a tendency to do that. Unwittingly, I hasten to add.”

“Yes. Well, you are somewhat intimidating, Mr Carson.”

“Carson is just fine.”

“Carson. Yes.” She stared at his fingers as they drummed on the tabletop. “How did you get to be so big?”

He laughed and she realised what she had said and her hand flew to her mouth. More laughter, this time from her. The tension eased and when she went to pick up her cup, his fingers took hers and this time she didn’t move away.

“I’d like you to come,” he said. “Soon.”

Her stomach lurched, the meaning so clear, and she thanked God she was sitting down. “Yes,” she said at last. “I’ll see what I can do.”

,