The things we do for love. (18 page)

Chapter 23.

As soon as they were on the dance floor Cassie found herself cradled up against Luke as they moved around slowly in time with the slow music that was playing.

Slow and romantic music she noticed. Luke’s cheek rested close to her temple with an arm around her waist and her hand resting in his other hand.

For such a big strong looking man he sure could be gentle. She felt quite safe in his arms, well at least from the outside world. She did not feel safe from him.

“I’m sorry.” She said after several minutes went by.

“Don’t be. Adam is just looking out for you. I’m glad you have had somebody.” Luke told her.

“No, about earlier. Slapping you. It was uncalled for. I don’t know what came over me.” She said.

“I do.” He told her confidently.

“You do?”

“Yes, don’t worry. I’ll remember for future reference.”

“Not to kiss me again.” She attempted a light hearted joke.

“No, to duck out of the way after.” Luke told her and she gasped in shock but then giggled.  “It was my fault.” He told her. “I went a little too fast. I couldn’t help myself. No excuse really.”

“No, it’s fine. It was fine. No harm done.” She tried to reassure him.

“That’s good to know.” Luke told her as they continued to move around the dance floor. Though what music they were dancing to Cassie did not know, everything had fallen into the back ground. All she was aware of was her body and Luke’s. she was very aware of Luke’s and she was very aware of her body’s reaction to it.

“So you were saying that you have one?” she tried to deflect her own thoughts by talking. Perhaps it would help to calm everything down. She was shaking like a leaf and she was sure Luke could feel it.

“One what?”

“Adam.”

“Oh, yeah only my one’s named Vera, my housekeeper.” He said.

How rich did you need to be to have your very own house-keeper. Cassie was impressed, she would struggle getting a cleaner in once a month.

“I bet she’s not as bad as mine.” Cassie challenged him.

“You think?”

“I know.”

“That sounds remarkably like a challenge.” He said.

“Oh no. no.” She tried.

“Okay well, I will see yours and raise you mine.” He told her and she smiled.

“Nothing can beat cleansing chakras and a modicum of authenticity.” She told him confidently.

“Trouncing around the place like a zombie on sedatives.” He said. She moved her head so that she could look at him.

“I think you possibly won that hand.” She conceded.

“Well at least Vera has been good for something. So what is my prize.”

“Your prize?” She frowned.

“For winning.” He said.

“Oh… I… well… I…”

Luke moved suddenly and she found herself at his side as he moved swiftly through the crowd and out toward the door. They passed by her table where Adam and Joe were still sitting.

“You don’t mind if I borrow Cassie for a while do you?” Luke asked Adam and Adam gave a large triumphant smile.

“Of course not. Go have some… fun. Isn’t that right Joe?” Adam turned to Joe.

“Oh yes. Don’t come back to soon curvy ker.” And he winked.

Some friends she had. But she had no time to say anything because Luke was sweeping her along back out into the large reception area and then out the doors, down the red carpet and over to the cobblestone wall of the tower of London. Before he guided her round the corner and into a small dark nook.

She opened her mouth to say something but Luke was there. his arms around her and his lips on hers. She felt a jolt inside and she gasped as she opened her mouth and Luke slipped his tongue into her mouth.

Cassie felt a hand at the back of her neck, cradling her. Whilst his arm pulled her closer to him. She groaned against his mouth as she kissed him back. Luke lifted his mouth from hers and hovered close.

“Do I need to duck now?” he asked her.

“N-n-no.” she stuttered.

“In that case.” And he lowered his lips onto hers once more. She whimpered against him as he kissed her, as she kissed him back.

Her hands clung to him as she drank from his lips. Luke’s mouth found her jaw. He kissed along the clean line leading to her ear and she cried out as he nipped at her earlobe with his teeth.

“I… please.” she said.

“It’s okay.” Luke whispered in her ear as he pulled her close to him. His mouth coming back to her mouth already swollen and plump from his kisses. “You taste good.” He told her and she felt that kick inside and there was even a delicious clenching of a muscle low down between her legs.

“I…”

“Curvy ker?” he asked her.

“Long story.”

“I’ve got time.” He said.

“It’s a very long story.” She elaborated and she felt his lips curve into a smile.

“I’ve still got time.”

“Okay, it’s a very long, long story.” She told him.

“Of course it is. Let’s get you back inside. You don’t have a coat on and you will catch your death out here. If I let you go you are not going to slap me?” he asked her.

“No, I promise.” He lifted his head and then captured her lips once more for a devastatingly passionate kiss before letting her go and then he pulled her along back into the venue through the reception and back into the dining room.

Once back at her table he guided her back into her seat and then pulled up a spare and sat at their table.

Cassie was breathless, everything had happened so fast. Had it actually happened? Cassie wasn’t sure.

“So” He turned to Joe. “Curvy ker?” he asked him.

Cassie opened her mouth to say something, to tell Joe not to tell him. But, Joe was already sitting up straight in his chair and Adam began bouncing about.

“There were two Cassie’s in our art class.” Joe began and then Adam joined in.

“There was Cassie, nice Cassie. And then there was the other one.”

“Like a blood hound. A proper nasty bi –”

“Joe.” Cassie shrieked at him. And then Adam added.

“A proper female dog.” And he pulled a face.

“So I nick named her kicking ker.”

“As in phonetics, you know.” Adam explained.

“Yes. So then we started calling Cassie curly ker.” Joe said.

“But then one day, Joe accidentally called her curvy ker instead of curly ker and well it kind of stuck.” Adam told him.

“And he doesn’t need to know why you slipped up and called me that.” Cassie warned them both.

“We don’t need to tell him.” Adam told her.

“He’s a man.” Joe added.

“Would it be on account of…” Luke began and then stopped and held out both hands and with a sweep he traced a line of an hour glass figure.

Going out then in and then out with both his hands. Which, it would appear, all men seem to know and know what it means without having to be told.

“See we didn’t need to tell him.” Adam said.

“How do you know that?” She asked, her cheeks burning hotly.

“Can you believe she needs to ask that?” Adam shook his head and then rested an arm on Luke’s shoulder. “You might want to adjust your dress dear, your naivety is showing.” Without thinking Cassie looked down at her cleavage before bringing up a hand to cover it.

Adam began laughing and Joe followed suit. She slumped her shoulders, looked up at Adam and leant her head to one side.

“That’s not funny.” She moaned at him.

“She is adorable isn’t she?” Adam asked Luke. “Couldn’t you just take her home and tuck her up beside you.”

“It would be very easy.” Luke agreed.

“When you have all finished making fun of me.” She said peevishly

“We have finished, and yes, it is because of those lovely curves of hers.” He agreed. Cassie blushed.

“They are rather nice.” Luke agreed.

“There are a little less of them recently. She’s lost a little weight because of demon demented sister. But I am sure she’ll get them all back soon.” Adam assured Luke.

“I can’t wait.” Luke looked at her and her mouth went suddenly dry as she looked at him, she watched a slow lazy smile curve his mouth.

“It is well worth the wait.” Adam agreed. “And I rather think that is our cue. Wouldn’t you say Joe?”

“I would yes.”

“Luke, you wouldn’t mind being a darling and drop Cassie off back home would you.” Adam asked in his best innocent voice. Cassie looked at him then, her eyes narrowing as she regarded him.

“What?” she said, her heart beating wildly in her chest. She sat up straighter in her chair as alarm bells rang in her ears.

“I would love to.” Luke said.

“Wait.” She tried again.

“You know where she lives, don’t you?” Joe asked.

“Yes.”

“Hang on a minute.” She said. And then Adam leaned down and kissed her cheek.

“Sorry, gotta run.” And then Joe leant down and kissed her cheek also.

“What he said.” And then they were leaving and not taking her with them. They were leaving her here with Luke. On her own, to fend for herself.

Chapter 24.

Cassie stared at her friend’s departing backs until she could no longer see them. Or perhaps that was ex-friends. She was definitely never going to talk to them again.

“Wow.” Luke said and she turned to face him again.

“Yeah.” She agreed. He smiled at her then.

“It would appear you have been abandoned to your fate.” He told her.

“It rather does look that way. It’s a good job you are not a mass murderer. I could have been in real trouble now.” She joked with him.

“Who says you’re not.” Luke asked her quietly and she felt that lurch low down and her heart flipping around with something that resembled fear mixed with excitement and sprinkled with a little anticipation.

“I… Um.” She cleared her throat.

“Don’t worry Cassie. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise.” He told her.

And there in lied the problem, there wasn’t much that she didn’t want him to do. Damn she was in real trouble, curse her so called friends.

“Can your divorce friends?” she asked him, trying to divert his attention onto something else. Anything else that was safer than what they were talking about.

Luke stood up in panther like fluid moves. Wow, she swallowed and felt the heat sting her cheeks again. What was it with the blushing?

She had never been one prone to it except recently with Luke. When he was around her she seemed to revert to a giddy school girl. It was very disconcerting to say the least.

He took hold of her wrap that was draped on the back of her chair as he helped her out of it and then wrapped it around her. His arms staying around her for a fraction as he brought his head close to her ear.

“Unfortunately you can’t, you are stuck with them.” And he put a hand on her arm to guide her from the room.

They walked at a leisurely pace now. Unlike earlier when he had whizzed her past everything at the speed of light and everything had been like a blur. “They seem to be very good friends.”

“Huh, they abandoned me to fend for myself.”

“I could fend for you if you would like.” Luke told her as he handed a ticket to one of the staff as they went out to the reception. “I really don’t mind.”

“I don’t need anyone to fend for me. I am quite capable of doing things on my own.” She told him.

“There is no fun in that.” Luke said as they walked down the red carpet and by the time they reached the end of it his car was pulling up and the valet was getting out.

“Yes well, I don’t need anyone. I am quite fine by myself.” She told him.

“Yes you told me that earlier. I find myself disbelieving it more now than I did this afternoon.” He informed her. Huh, that showed how much he knew.

Luke opened the passenger door for her and she thanked him stiffly as she slid into the seat and then, once Luke was settled in the driver’s seat they were driving away. “So, you’ve known them since University?” Luke asked as they travelled along. She looked at him. “Adam and Joe.”

“Yeah, we took art together. If it wasn’t for them.” She stopped and sighed. “I think I would have lost my sanity years ago. Well that’s assuming I had any in the first place.”

“They became someone to talk to about Faye.” Luke guessed.

“About Faye, about my Mum. All of it really.” She told him.

“There was no one before?”

“I didn’t have time to make friends at school. Between Faye and Mum… well.” She looked down at her hands. “Faye took up a lot of my time. When I woke up each morning I had no idea which Faye I was going to get.”

“How do you mean?”

“There were two Faye’s back then.”

“Tell me.” He asked her, his voice inviting. She should have kept her mouth shut. but she had had a couple of glasses of wine and a glass of champagne. So her guard was down and her tongue loosened somewhat.

“Well there was up Faye, you’ve had the misfortune of meeting her. She does stupid things, and makes a nuisance of herself. But then there was down Faye, and she was… scary.” Cassie admitted. She hated down Faye. Down Faye was nasty and dark and twisted.”

“Has she ever tried to commit suicide?” She heard Luke ask her, so matter of fact, but then he was a doctor and he was probably used to asking these sorts of questions.

“A couple of times, not in recent years. After Mum, she lost it for a while. But that’s not what made her scary.”

“What made her scary?” he spoke softly, keeping his voice low.

“She…” Cassie stopped, did she really want to tell him this. Did she want it to come out? “She could get nasty.”

“How nasty?”

“She didn’t like a boy I was seeing once and she…” Cassie took a breath. “She got angry, told me to leave him or else.”

“Or else what?”

“She threatened to cut herself. I had just got out the bath and well…”

“Yes.”

“The next thing I knew, I was feeling myself being pushed down in the bath and she was holding me down, under the water.”

“She tried to drown you?” Luke sounded horrified, she guessed it was. Funny how she saw it all as quite normal.

“Oh she would never have done it.” She instantly jumped to her sister’s defence. “I mean it was scary at the time and I had almost passed out before she pulled me out of the water but…” Luke swore savagely under his breath. “But she was really sorry about it afterwards. I mean really sorry. She cried her eyes out all evening.”

“You make it sound like it was a regular thing.”

“Only when down Faye was about. I got pushed down the stairs. She tried to set light to me once. Silly things really.” She tried to cast it off.

“Silly things.” Luke echoed. “You make it sound like it was your fault. Did she cry every time she did something like that? Promise to never do it again? Tell you that if you had just listened then she wouldn’t have been forced to do what she did?”

Silence fell in the car. Yes, she promised never to do it again. Yes, she had told her that if she hadn’t kept on at her she wouldn’t have done it. But she wasn’t about to admit to that. She knew he would take it the wrong way. He would see those actions as deliberate, calculated and controlling. And that wasn’t it. It just wasn’t.

“She was inconsolable, sometimes I had to sit up with her all night while she slept. It would take me a long time to finally get her off to sleep.” Cassie told him. “And she would apologise and beg me not to stop loving her and not leave her and well…”

“And you never tried to get her help?” he asked her and Cassie heard the harshness of anger in his voice. Had she angered him somehow?

“Of course I did, lots of times. But I can’t force her. What else can I do.” She shrugged.

“Walk away and tell her that unless she is prepared to get help you want nothing to do with her.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“What if she hurt herself?”

“What if she killed you?” Luke asked her.

“She wouldn’t.” Cassie denied.

“She held you under water until you were at the point of passing out. But before you get that far you would have taken water into your lungs. When you were thrashing about fighting for your life. You could have died from secondary drowning hours later.”

“Yes but…” she sighed. Yes, but… what?

“She pushed you down the stairs, that cannot be controlled. If you had fallen just at the right angle it could have broken your neck, or you could have struck your head.”

“Yes but…”

“And I don’t even want to think about the fire one.”

“But when down Faye isn’t there things are better and down Faye doesn’t show up very often. Just in times of high emotional distress. She hasn’t shown up for years now. The last time was…”

“Go on.” Luke prompted.

“When I was at University and she found out I had a boyfriend.” She cleared her throat.

“Ah…”

“Ah… what?”

“Ah… nothing.” He said and shrugged a shoulder.

“Ah… something.” She accused him.

“That’s why you placate her so much. Why she gets away with it all. You don’t want to wake up down Faye.” Luke guessed correctly.

“No that’s not it.” She defended but it sounded hollow even to her own ears. She knew that is why she did it.

“And down Faye only shows up when she thinks that she is going to lose control over you. And, she does have control over you.”

“No she does not. It’s not about that.”

“Yes, it is definitely about that. She needs you to be complicit. She needs her punching bag when life gets too much for her.”

“No, you don’t understand. Faye is delicate.”

“Not as delicate as you think. Cassie I can help you. I have a really good friend, someone that I have been talking to these past couple of months. This is his area of expertise. He runs a specialist residential unit. He has agreed to take her as a patient.”

“You talked to someone… about Faye?” She oddly felt the bitter sting of betrayal by that. She shouldn’t have, she knew but she couldn’t help it.

“Please don’t be hurt. I needed to understand. Like I said it’s not my area. I know enough to get by in my role but not anything in depth.” Luke told her quietly. But still he had spoken to someone about Faye. She didn’t like that at all.

“Thanks for the offer.” She said.

“Cassie, she needs help. This unit is a brilliant place. They do fantastic work. It’s residential so she would have to stay there but it wouldn’t be forever.”

“No… she wouldn’t like that.” Cassie told him as panic set in.

“She wouldn’t? or you wouldn’t?” Luke asked.

“I…”

“Cassie, let me help you.” Luke asked her. “I am not suggesting anything that is going to make her worse. In fact, quite the opposite. There are very good treatment options. She needs a diagnosis, she needs the right medication and she needs the right counselling. The unit can provide her with all of those things and more. They even teach new life skills. This would be good for her and for you.”

“I’ll think about it.” Cassie finally agreed.

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you?” he sounded sceptical.

“I promise.” She said.

“That’s a start.” Luke told her. “I’m not going to let it drop though.” He promised quietly

They fell silent then, as he drove her the rest of the way to her home. All too Soon Luke pulled up in front of her home and he shut off the engine and went to remove his seat belt.

“No.” She said and put a hand on his arm to stop him. “I can take it from here.”

“I’ll see you to your door.”

“No.” She said, her voice rising in alarm. She had a feeling that that might not turn out well at all. “It’s fine really.”

“I can see you to your door.” Luke told her, he sounded amused.

“Really it’s okay.” If he took her to her front door, well, there was every chance he would be stepping over that threshold and there really was only one way that was going to end up.

“It’s no trouble at all.”

“I am sorry you got lumbered with bringing me home. I shall be having very stern words with my friends about that.”

“Will that work?” Luke asked and she heard the note of disbelief in his voice. He was right it would make no difference.

“I know you went out of your way to bring me home. I do appreciate it.”

“It was my pleasure really.” she removed her seat belt and turned in her seat to look at him.

“No it was unforgivable of my friends to put you on the spot like that.”

“It really was no trouble.”

“Don’t worry, I shall make sure they understand never to do that again.”

“Cassie…”

“I am really sorry that your evening was spoiled.” She ploughed on not giving him a chance to speak.

“Cassie…”

“I know that you are a busy man.”

“Cassie…”

“And I know you felt pressured into saying yes to giving me a lift back.”

“Cassie.”

“But I shall be letting Adam know that his actions were –”

“Cassie, shut up.” And before she could say anything else. Luke leant over and captured her mouth with his. His hand came up to cradle the side of her face as he kissed her lips.

His teeth nipped at her bottom lip and she groaned, a deep guttural sound that came from somewhere deep in her lungs.

Cassie’s hand found its way to rest on his chest and he pulled her closer to him. He lifted his head to look at her.

“I should get inside before…” She stopped.

“Yes, you should or else…” He agreed.

“Or else what?”

“The wolf is going to be knocking on your door.” He told her.

“I…” she felt that delicious shiver again.

“Believe me if I come knocking you will let me in.” His voice dropped seductively. Oh boy, she was in trouble. She needed to get out of the car.

She pulled away from him and fumbled with the door, her hands shaking. Her breathing staggered. She pulled the handle and it gave under the pressure. She spilled out of the car and then ran up her path to her front door.