Wicked Wives. Anna-Lou Weatherley

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER 14

      Ellie Scott couldn’t sleep. She’d been tossing and turning for most of the night, drifting in and out of a shallow, fitful slumber.

      She still hadn’t heard from Tess and her concern had now, in the grip of a sleepless night, escalated into full-blown paranoia. Her maternal instincts were screaming that her daughter was in some kind of trouble.

      Slipping in and out of consciousness, Ellie restlessly rolled onto her side and wished that Vinnie were here and that she could shuffle into the familiar reassuring warmth of his body; her very own comfort blanket. But Vinnie was in the US on business and so once again she found herself alone with her thoughts, thoughts that had begun to coast towards the moribund.

      As a shallow sleep eventually threatened to claim her, Ellie’s subconscious mind took her back to the summer of 1989. It had been the hottest summer on US record for over fifty years and she could still recall the stickiness of her skin against the thin, cheap polyester bed sheets that she’d slept in. She had been about to turn sixteen years old …

      *

      ‘Stop it! You’re hurting me,’ Ellie yelped as Tom pulled her roughly down onto the bed and pinned her by her arms. ‘I told you,’ she said breathlessly, ‘not until my birthday, and that’s not until tomorrow in case you’ve forgotten.’

      ‘Bloody cock tease, that’s what you are.’ He pulled a face.

      ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, Tom,’ she pleaded, rolling into his back as he turned away from her, spooning him. He was naked from the waist up and his skin felt soft and smooth against her chest. ‘It’s just that I want it to be right, you know, proper.’

      ‘Whatever,’ he sulked. ‘But I might’ve found a replacement by the time you make up your mind.’

      ‘Big head,’ she said, giving him a playful slap on the back. But she knew he was right. Tom Black could have anyone he wanted. With his dark Latino complexion, hypnotic eyes, and cocksure smile, he was as close to perfection as a man could get. Or at least Ellie O’Connor had thought so. And it would be fair to say she wasn’t alone.

      She stared at him, unblinking, and wondered what it was about him that made her love him so much. It wasn’t just his movie-star looks; she came alive whenever he was near her, but she knew him inside out. Tom Black had more front than Blackpool Pier, as her old Nan would’ve said. He could be cruel and dismissive but it was all just a ruse at the end of the day, an elaborate disguise to cover up the insecure little boy underneath, the one who just wanted to be loved.

      ‘I don’t see what difference a day makes anyway,’ Tom said, continuing to push. He wanted her; badly. Ever since he’d noticed the swelling beneath her t-shirt, how her hips had become rounder and smoother, he couldn’t get her out of his head. His little Eleanor had grown into a woman right before his eyes and he wanted to be the first to sample the goods. ‘It’s just a day; just another number,’ he gave a casual shrug. ‘You’ll not feel any different tomorrow, birthday or otherwise.’ He sat up on the edge of the bed, his back still towards her, and she noticed a freckle on his shoulder that she’d not seen before.

      ‘It makes a difference to me,’ she replied, sharply jabbing him in between the shoulder blades. ‘And that, Tom Black, is all you need to know.’

      He was smiling, she sensed it.

      ‘Tomorrow you could get run over by a truck,’ he turned his body to face her then, grinning. ‘Then you’d be up there,’ he pointed to the ceiling, ‘kicking yourself in heaven, thinking “if only I’d done it with Tom!” You could die a virgin, Eleanor. Imagine that, going to your grave never having known the pleasures of the flesh.’

      Ellie gave an uneasy laugh. He could love her and destroy her in the same breath.

      ‘Yeah, or I do it with you, get hit by a truck and end up down there,’ she pointed to the floor, ‘burning in hell for my sins!’

      ‘Hell sounds like my kinda place,’ Tom snapped the ring pull from a can of Colt 45, discarding it on the threadbare carpet with a sniff, ‘more fun.’ He got up from the bed and made his way over towards the stereo, stopping to open the small window a little wider, a wall of cloying Nevada heat smothering his face like a blanket.

      ‘Anyway, it’s hardly romantic is it?’ Ellie threw him a look, ‘what with your dad and my mum tearing lumps out of each other downstairs.’

      The muffled voices from the room below, they had both noted, were getting progressively louder and Ellie knew it wouldn’t be long before it reached a messy, bloody crescendo. She knew the drill only too well.

      ‘They’ll kiss and make up in a minute, they always do,’ Tom said, sensing the despair in her voice and wanting to say something to make it better. He pressed a button on the stereo and Simply Red’s A New Flame began to play as he flopped back down on the bed next to her. She really was quite something to look at now, all bright green eyes that sparkled when the light hit them, pillow lips and long, honey-coloured hair that felt as soft as cashmere to stroke. He certainly wanted to fuck her, but it was more than that. They’d been thrown together through circumstance and it was something unspoken between them, a silent understanding.

      Ellie was distracted by the almighty row taking place between their beloved ma and pa downstairs. She was sensitive underneath all the streetwise swagger and he knew the fighting really got to her. It got to him too, only he was much better at hiding it.

      ‘Sweet sixteen and never been kissed,’ he teased, wrapping his arm around her as the bloodcurdling screams downstairs reached new heights.

      ‘I have been kissed, I’ll have you know. Plenty of times, actually,’ she bristled.

      Tom sighed as he stared up at the peeling artex ceiling above them; it was a depressing grey colour, matching the grubby net curtains that gently lifted from the sticky breeze outside.

      ‘I remember my sixteenth birthday,’ he said, a little wistfully. ‘I got drunk on 20/20 and screwed Chasey Grey in the parking lot behind the Walmart.’

      ‘Wow, a regular romantic.’

      ‘Well, she seemed to enjoy it,’ he retorted, placing his hand on her belly, the feel of her naked skin beneath her crop top giving him an instant hard-on inside his battered Levi 501s.

      They were silent for a moment, the sound of their respective breathing barely audible above the music and muffled cries below.

      ‘I wanna get out of here, Tom,’ Ellie said suddenly, her voice cracking slightly. ‘I don’t just mean this shitty room, I mean this life. I feel like I’m dying a slow death here.’ She sat up with purpose, stretched her long, slim legs out in front of her. ‘I wanna do something with my life. My dance teacher thinks I’ve got what it takes to make it big, you know, the ballet, Broadway! Be someone.’