Chapter 11

Aloud scream jolts me awake. It's pitch-black in the shelter and I lie there for a moment, my heart pounding like a jackhammer. Have I imagined it? I listen intently. Then I hear it again. An unearthly scream. Someone is being murdered. But that's crazy, we're in the middle of nowhere. The scream comes again. I freeze. Next to me, Tom sleeps on. Oh God, I have to go and investigate, like all those dumb girls in the horror films, but I can't just lie here even though I'm actually really warm and cosy. I wriggle free of the sleeping bag, the groundsheet rustling beneath me. I glance towards Tom even though I can't actually see him. From the even breathing I can tell he's still asleep. My torch is by my rucksack and I grab it as I ease my way to the end of the shelter, horribly conscious of the creak and crunch of plastic with each move.

The scream comes again and I freeze.

Tom's torch snaps on as he sits up. The thin beam of light cuts through the darkness but I can't see his face. ‘What the fuck are you doing?'

Is he in the SAS or something? He's immediately awake and alert.

‘There's someone out there. I think they're in dang—' Another horrible shrill cry splits the air and I cringe but Tom … Tom starts to fucking laugh. A snigger at first but then it seems he can't help himself and it turns into an uproarious belly laugh.

My stomach shrivels as I feel that familiar sense of humiliation, the feeling that I'm not in the know. I'm outside and not privy to things that other people take for granted.

‘What?' I snap, grateful that the dim light hides the hot flush of embarrassment racing up across my chest and up my neck.

‘It's … it's a…' He can't get the words out because he's too fucking busy clutching his stomach, bent double at the waist. He just gets a grip and then starts laughing again.

I'm not sure what to do. Braining him with the torch seems the most enticing option right now but I button my mouth, determined not to make any more of a fool of myself, and shuffle back into position and lie down, pulling the sleeping bag back into place with a sharp tug. I turn my back on him. I'm in the school playground again, and everyone's laughing because I'm totally unaware that my new ‘Mike' school bag is a knock-off.

Tom's wheezing has stopped now. ‘Lydia?' There's puzzlement in his voice.

I ignore him, squeezing my eyes shut and burrowing into the sleeping bag.

‘Lydia. Are you okay?'

‘Fine.'

There's a silence but he doesn't lie down. He taps me on the shoulder. ‘Lydia?'

I swallow a sniff but I'm not as successful as I'd hoped. If I could, without giving myself away, I'd curl into a ball right now, as defensive as a hedgehog trying to protect itself. Instead, I lie stiff and tense.

Tom's hand settles on my shoulder, his fingers cupping the bone around my thick jumper, and his voice softens. ‘Lydia. I'm sorry.' He pauses and I swallow, oddly touched by his apology. ‘It's a fox. I'm used to them, there are loads where I grew up, but if you're not used to the sound, it does sound pretty bloody awful.'

A fox! A bloody fox. Now I really do feel stupid.

‘It does sound like someone being murdered. Why the hell didn't you wake me? Were you really going to go out there and face down some knife-wielding maniac?'

I shrug, not quite able to bring myself to speak. What has happened to all my carefully constructed defences? I've been in charge of my emotions and rebuilt my life. I've faked it to make it and, if I say so myself, I've done a pretty good job. What is it about Tom fucking Dereborn that makes me feel so vulnerable all of a sudden?

‘I'm sorry. Can't decide if I'm impressed that you were brave enough to go out there and confront a potential murder or horrified that you'd put yourself in danger.'

‘I wasn't in danger though, was I?' I retort, trying to save face.

‘You didn't know that,' he counters, perfectly reasonably. ‘You could have woken me, you know.'

‘I didn't like to,' I mutter.

‘You know we're in this together. You can ask for help.'

‘Thanks,' I say. Like that's ever going to happen.

He laughs softly in the dark.

‘What?' Suspicion shades my voice.

‘You've got no intention of ever asking me for help, do you? You're far too self-contained. That's what struck me that first night I met you.'

I'm so surprised by his words that I relax and roll onto my back.

Why is it that the only proper conversations Tom and I have are in the dark?

‘You were so cool and uninterested over dinner…' He pauses. ‘And all I wanted to know was what your face would be like when you came.'

My involuntary gasp pierces the air. His words are hardly tender, but they melt me. It's his brutal honesty that gets to me. That night he wanted me, and he didn't hold back from showing or telling me.

‘And now you know,' I murmur, trying to ignore the hot, wet spurt of desire between my legs. I'm turned on, damp and a little bit squirmy. Can he hear my hips pressing into the plastic ground sheet, my mound chafing at the seam of my jeans?

‘Shame it's so dark now,' he says.

‘Mmmm.' My voice is strangled.

‘I'd like to make you come again,' he says, his breath hot against my ear.

I close my eyes, even though it's pitch-black, and swallow, unable to say a word. He hasn't touched me, but I think my body may go up in flames at any moment.

‘May I?'

Oh God. My clit is hot and swollen. No. No. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. My body is at war with my brain. I can't open up to him again, I can't. But when he asks again…

‘May I, Lydia?'

The polite request is a reminder of how careful he was with me that weekend, attentive and in tune with my needs, dirty-mouthed and respectful at the same time. The needy, neglected part inside me wants to be showered with that focused attention once more. I hate being this weak but I crave feeling like that again.

‘Yes.' My voice is a breathy squeak. What am I doing? I'm making a mistake but I can't seem to say no.

His hand moves under the sleeping bag, skimming my stomach, sliding over the zip of my jeans and down to the fabric between my legs. ‘Do you like this?' he asks as he runs a finger along the seam of my jeans. My hips buck in response. I want more, so much more. ‘Yes.' All the tension leaks out of me and anticipation shoots through my veins like meteor showers.

He presses a kiss behind my ear. ‘Are you going to come for me?' he asks in a husky whisper that makes my heart contract. ‘Are you?' His hand rubs insistently. I can't think straight, my body is a blur of sensation all focused on the hot needy core of my being.

When he undoes my jeans and slides his hands inside my pants, my hips lift to meet his touch. I'm wet and slick, ready and greedy for him. He's kissing my neck, murmuring encouragement and it's sweet and filthy at the same time. His finger glides and smooths its way over my clit, the touch scorching. It's the sweetest torture and I pant as the rising tide of orgasm begins to swell but he doesn't let it break. I hear myself whimper. I can't help it. He teases and touches, relentless and gentle, and all I can feel is the hot sweetness of sensation. I want more but he's not giving it. Not yet. He's content to torment me, over and over. There's a thrill in knowing he's watching me, even though he can't possibly see my face in the dark.

Just when I'm starting to despair and the word ‘please' hovers on my lips, he slides two fingers into me and with a couple of slow, firm drives over tender flesh, the orgasm explodes, pulsing with white-hot sparks of pleasure bursting like fireworks, fierce and bright in a black sky.

I'm left weak and breathless, my body limp and my brain scrambled. He moves his hand to my waist and it rests there under my T-shirt on my bare skin. His fully clothed body is warm next to mine.

Sated and sleepy, I turn my head as he kisses my neck again but he draws back, although his hand tightens on my waist reassuringly. ‘Go to sleep, Lydia. Go to sleep.'

With a last sigh, I do just that.

Her skin beneath my fingers is soft and warm and I can't bring myself to remove my hand. I can feel how peaceful she is, as supine as a fireside cat, as if all the tension in her has been smoothed away. It relaxes me, especially as she hasn't said anything – no digging into my motivations and meaning. She accepts what I've given almost as if she knows I'm not really sure why I did it.

Somehow in the dark it's easier to give in to that low burning ember of longing for Lydia. She's the least needy person I've ever met, which for some perverse reason makes me want to look after her. Her voice when talking about her parents was so bleak, so barren of hope. She seems so alone and self-sufficient, it makes me want to ease her loneliness, which is laughable because I'm the last person to offer succour to anyone.

Emotional detachment is my super-power. I don't want, or want to need, anyone. Nor do I want the responsibility of their emotions or of ultimately disappointing them. Being loved is a heavy burden; it comes with too many strings attached. I prefer to watch life from the sideline and stay in control but I've been fighting the unwelcome attraction to Lydia since I laid eyes on her in Barcelona.

Her isolation makes things so much easier – she neither expects nor demands anything. Maybe I'm taking advantage of that to make myself feel a little better about my own failings. In the dark it's okay, I can justify myself, pretend detachment, even though those soft breathy sighs of hers made me ache with a longing to pull her close and bury myself inside her. I can close those down in the morning, leave them in the dark where they belong. Tomorrow we'll go back to being two work colleagues on a task. I close my eyes and listen to her gentle breathing beside me and hold on tight to the pleasure I gave her. For once I do feel better about myself.

* * *

When I wake, Lydia is still sound asleep, her sparkly bobble hat poking out of the top of the sleeping bag. She's curled up away from me, her spine curved against my side. For a moment I lie there savouring the peace but the weight of my dick, desperate to break free of the confines of my boxers, bothers me. There's no way I can jerk off and ease the throbbing insistence for quick release when I'm lying next to Lydia, not on this rustle-fest of a groundsheet. The memory of last night crowds in, almost suffocating me with the realisation I've made a mistake. Daylight is a salutary reminder of the realities of life. Despite having great sex that weekend, I am not going back for a return visit, despite last night's weakness. I felt sorry for Lydia, that's all – at least that's what I'm telling myself. I'm not sure what to do with this little black hole in my chest when I think about her.

With a quick glance to check she's still asleep I wriggle out of the tent and wade through the heavy, wet grass down to the lakeside. Ripples race across the surface pushed by the brisk breeze but aside from the rush of the water across the small gravel beach and the distant cries of a couple of hawks wheeling across the sky, there's no other sound. The space and sense of being out of reach harden my resolve. Today's a fresh start. Lydia and I are teammates, nothing more. I can't afford to take my eye off the prize. Instead I close one eye and imagine how I'd film this scene, the lighting I'd use to capture the palette of greys crowding the sky with ominous intent. My growling stomach distracts me. After last night's lacklustre offering I'm starving and desperate for coffee. Time to get my Boy Scout pants on and go and hunt out some firewood, although after last night's deluge I'm not that hopeful of finding anything dry enough to burn. The thought of nothing for breakfast urges me on, despite my pessimism.

When I wake up I'm in smurf world with daylight spilling through the blue plastic sheeting above me. It's early and outside the birds are in full orchestral manoeuvres, trilling and singing in the round, like a professional choir. There's no sign of Tom apart from his rucksack, which, for some reason, is a gut-wrenching relief.

Oh God, I've got to face him this morning. Why the hell did I let myself give in? I know exactly why, because in the dark, it's easier to pretend that things are different. I sit up and roll my tight shoulders, trying to ease the stiffness out of my back. The morning air is dank and damp when I emerge from the makeshift tent into fine drizzle and a pewter-grey sky. Last night's fire looks pitiful, black charcoal pieces and white ash smeared by the rain, which has doused the pile of unused kindling and wood next to its remains. They're damp and useless. My stomach rumbles, hunger gnawing at it, leaving a dull ache. No chance of a hot sachet of anything this morning. I walk through rain-soaked grass down to the water's edge to give my face a hasty wash in the freezing water and my teeth a quick clean.

I study the glade, wondering where Tom is, and almost as if I've conjured him up, he appears, coming through the woods with an armful of branches and twigs.

‘Morning,' I say, as brightly as I can, hiding sheepish concern about how last night is going to affect things in the stone-grey daylight.

Any worry vanishes when he gives a polite but dismissive nod. ‘Morning.'

So that's how we're going to play it. Pretend it didn't happen. Again. Fine by me.

He walks up to the stone circle we'd built the fire in the night before and rakes away the soggy ashes with the heel of his boot. ‘I've got a bit of dry wood. Thought I'd try and get the fire going,' he says.

‘Right. I'll fill the billycan. If we can get hot water we can have something to eat, whatever it is.'

‘Great,' he says without enthusiasm. ‘I could murder a flat white.'

‘I have coffee.'

‘Sorry?'

I go into the tent and retrieve a couple of sachets of instant Nescafé from one of the pockets in my rucksack.

‘Here you go,' I say and pop them on one of the stones.

‘You just happened to have these on you?'

I shrug. ‘I picked them up in a hotel, thought they might come in handy.' Before he can say anything else or ask about my hoarding habit, I grab the billycan and stride down to the water's edge to fill it.

The water is flat and grey and I can barely see the hillside on the opposite side. It feels as if we're the only people in the world and it makes me uneasy. Very uneasy. I want to get back to crowded pavements, other people, electricity and knowing where I am, where I'm going and what I'm doing. Being in the great outdoors is like being trapped in a void.

When I return, Tom is desperately trying to fan a smoking heap of twigs into life. After a lot of effort, the flames take hold and I pour half the water away as it will take for ever to heat.

‘What about the bracken from the tent?' I ask. ‘It'll be dry and there's plenty of it.'

He gives me a cool look. ‘We could try.'

Despite this lacklustre assent, I hurry off and grab an armful of the flattened bracken and feed it into the fire while he holds the billycan over the flames with a long stick like a makeshift fishing rod.

Dry bracken, it turns out, burns fiercely and far too quickly, but as we've got so much of it, Tom risks putting a couple of the drier logs on the fire while I run back and forth to what was our bed and bring more each time the last lot burns out.

It feels like a losing battle and the fine mist is seeping into my clothes on the outside while on the inside I'm building up a sweat with the workout.

Unlike last night, when the fire was our friend, this morning it's the enemy determined to outwit us. A voracious thing that refuses to be fed. The water in the billycan isn't even steaming yet but I refuse to give up. One of the logs begins to burn … well, smoke, really. Thin wispy tendrils of grey rise up from it and then give up the ghost in the fine wet drizzle.

My hands are cold and the scratches from yesterday, when I gathered the bracken, are sore.

‘This isn't going to work,' says Tom, when I'm down to the last armful.

‘That log is starting to burn.'

‘It's too wet.'

‘Look, it's red, there are embers.'

He gives me a hard look. ‘It's never going to heat the water. We might as well give up.'

I put frond after frond of bracken one at a time into the fire, praying it will catch properly, but they curl up in an instant flame that quickly burns itself out.

Tom sighs. ‘You really know how to flog a dead horse, don't you?'

‘And you know how to give up without trying.'

‘Don't be ridiculous. I defy anyone to get a fire going with wet wood. We did our best.'

He lowers the billycan into the smouldering ashes next to the wooden branch that isn't smoking anymore. I dunk a finger in the water. Not even tepid.

‘If we leave it to sit in the warm ashes it might heat up.'

Tom gives me a dry look. ‘Yeah and look at that – a whole heap of pigs flying by.'

‘You're such a defeatist.'

‘And you're such a deluded optimist. You just don't know when to give up. It's like when we were in Barcelona. It was a cut and dry case. Visiting the site was a formality but you had to go poking about, winding the guy up.'

‘I was following protocol,' I snap at him. ‘Making sure there would be no comeback. It's called being thorough. It's called doing a job properly.'

‘Are you saying I don't know how to do a job properly?' He drops his voice into a husky purr, damn him, and his eyes lock on mine.

Oh shit. A familiar curl of heat coils between my legs. I glare at him. Bastard. I have no comeback. If we're talking orgasms, then he bloody well does know.

I snatch up the coffee sachets. ‘We won't be needing these this morning.' Childish, I know, but he brings out the worst in me. I march back to the tent and kneel on the floor, stuffing them back into my rucksack in exactly the same pocket as they came out of. Tom Dereborn will not be laying another hand on me ever again.