Cross My Heart. AM Hartnett

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СКАЧАТЬ she first moved into the building, she became a little giddy whenever she ran into Seth. ‘Sex on legs’ was how she described him to her sister once. Not at all her type, not like Ryan, but he certainly fitted nicely into those fantasies that had yet to be indulged by a young woman out on her own for the first time. In her imagination, Seth had her on her knees in the elevator or bound to the cage down in the storage basement, or even bent over the banister outside her apartment with his hand in her hair.

      She would have settled for a hard screw in her virgin bed and was on the verge of asking him for a drink when Ryan became a fixture, and her fantasies about Seth were overtaken by the flutter she got just thinking about her adorable neighbour. Then, once Ryan told her about Seth’s wife, she couldn’t meet Seth without feeling a little sad.

      It was a little funny watching him walk into her apartment now, the picture of manliness with broad shoulders covered in plaid and the ink on display from the elbow down where his sleeves were rolled up, but wearing moccasin slippers, his usual uniform.

      A horrifying thought struck her as he headed for the bathroom, and she followed behind him.

      ‘Oh, I think I forgot my phone. I’ll just be a second and I’ll be out of your hair.’

      As he turned on the bathroom light and set his toolbox aside, Evie veered off into the bedroom. The bed was made – she hadn’t slept in it for days – but a tangle of sheets was the least of her concerns.

      Evie peeked back to make sure Seth was still turned away from her, then quickly untied the nylon restraints from the head and footboard and dropped them into the hamper. She did another quick check around the room but there was nothing else, no handcuffs carelessly tossed on to the vanity table and no vibrators or plugs mingled with the bottles of nail polish and pots of creams.

      ‘So, do you need to use the toilet before you go?’ Seth asked, appearing in her bedroom door as she finished her perusal.

      ‘No, I’m good.’ She smiled up at him as she replaced her purse across her chest. She hated to admit it, but just watching him lean on the threshold had the potential to get her really horny really fast.

      ‘I think you probably should,’ he said, holding her gaze with a crooked smile, and mortification gushed through her.

      She clapped her hands over her eyes and groaned. ‘Oh, shit, I’m so sorry.’

      ‘I’ve seen worse,’ he said with a quiet chuckle as she rushed past him to the bathroom.

      Laid on the lip of the tub where they had been left to dry was a row of vibrators in various colours.

      ‘Define worse,’ she groaned, then held up her hand. ‘No, please don’t. I don’t want to hear about the fucking machine the middle-aged couple downstairs has in their spare bedroom.’

      ‘You need to run up to Ryan’s and do a sweep?’

      She swivelled around and frowned. ‘You’re having too much fun with this, aren’t you?’

      ‘I don’t have a neatly arranged line of vibrators air-drying in my bathroom, so I’m actually feeling a little bad about myself at the moment.’ He slipped a hand into his breast pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. ‘I’ll give you a minute to put those away and dismantle the sex swing in the closet.’

      ‘You’re not funny,’ she called after him, and quickly gathered up her freshly washed toys. She was pretty sure she didn’t need to check Ryan’s place, as they hadn’t used any toys the night before, but after she called out her goodbye to Seth she went up to check anyway.

      She’d already missed her bus to the mall, and so she sank down on the end of Ryan’s bed and pulled up her text app.

       Seth saw my toys in the bathroom and now I think I’m going to die.

      Not the anal beads! came the reply almost immediately. He must have been at the nurse’s station or on break.

       You’re not mature enough to be my boyfriend.

       I’m not the one with a vibrator shaped like a dolphin.

      Evie flopped back on the bed and dragged the pillows over her face. She supposed her smell was in there somewhere, but all that filled her head was Ryan.

       What would have happened if you had given up on Ryan and asked Seth to come in one night?

      She tried to push the question away, but it refused to be banished. She rolled over, closed her eyes and cuddled into the pillow as she would have done if he was holding her in his arms.

      She knew now it probably would have ended badly. Now that she knew Seth better, she could see that they might have burned hot to start, but he would have left her charred. On those nights when they sat together on the fire escape she could feel the blackness inside him seep out to join the shadows around him. Some nights he drank too much and fell silent for long stretches. Other nights he caught himself before he said Rita’s name.

      It’s possible that Seth would have indulged her fantasies like Ryan did, but even if she had been able to withstand his darkness, there still would have been Ryan. He still would have knocked her world off its axis, and things would have become messy.

      She pressed the pillow against her face and breathed deeply, and then guilt pricked her.

      Ryan would be furious if he knew she had gone ahead and made a second profile online. Not on the free site he had been trying, but one that cost her a tidy chunk off her credit card. She couldn’t take waiting any longer. If she wasn’t driven out of her mind by those filthy things he whispered in her ear while he played with her, she was twisted into knots watching his impatience grow.

      In the three hours since she’d created the profile, she’d received almost twenty replies. There was a definite improvement, but no one had grabbed her so far. She hadn’t replied and wouldn’t until one of them really attracted her, and then she’d tell Ryan about it, let him have a little sulk and then show him what she’d found. If none of them appealed to her, she’d just close the account and think of all the things she could have bought with the money she’d spent.

      ‘Fuck! Goddamn motherfucking cocksucking bitch!’

      Evie tossed the pillow aside and went to the window. She could see movement below, and when she pushed the window open all the way and poked her head out she couldn’t help her laughter.

      Seth stood on the landing, soaked from the waist up.

      ‘Find the leak?’ she called to him.

      He shot her a look as filthy as his language, then tugged his ponytail free. ‘I busted a pipe.’

      ‘But my vibrators are OK?’

      The fury he directed towards her made her giggle, and Seth followed suit as he shook his soaked hair.

      ‘As long as they’re waterproof,’ he said, and leaned back against the railing. ‘It’s not that bad. I’ll clean up the floor before you get home but I’m going to have to call the plumber. Oh, look at this dirty little fucker coming to gloat.’

      Marco had pattered up the fire СКАЧАТЬ