Belle can count on one hand the number of instances she has felt ashamed to collect a pay cheque for a day's work.
There were those first few interminable classes after her brother's death. She had returned from bereavement leave and found herself adrift in an anesthetized, gray haze—unable to lecture, unable to focus, unable to steer student discussion in any meaningful direction. Her mind would wander off to Nosty tangled in the sheets of his stale hospital bed, or Nosty sleeping rough beneath a noisy bridge, his hands tucked into his armpits for warmth, or—it was almost unbearable—James asleep beneath the silent, frozen dirt.
No—not asleep.
Dead.
Her baby brother—dead and gone forever, beyond comfort and beyond her reach. If only she had gone to fetch him when he phoned—!
Her students had been patient (and uncommonly quiet) not knowing what was expected of them in the face of such obvious grief. Together they had watched the clock's hands creep forward, waiting for the moment they could pack up their course readings and carry on with their lives. At the end of her first week back, Belle had donated three days' pay to an undergraduate scholarship fund and afterwards had swiftly shaken off her malaise.
And then there was that horrid, ineffaceable afternoon, well over a decade ago, when she was in fifth form and working as a summer lifeguard at a swish health club near the House of Commons. Her teenage self had failed to notice a young child who lost his footing on the steps leading into the shallow end of the lap pool. The boy's elder sister had to leap in and haul him out of the overly-chlorinated water by the elbow, startled and sputtering and crying.
"What does it say on your shirt?"
The boy's frightened, raging mother had wrapped him in a towel, taken his wet sister by the hand, and marched over to the lifeguard stand. The poor woman had witnessed the entire scene from a nearby deck chair, but she was too heavily built to leap up and easily retrieve her son from the water.
The mother jabbed a finger at the white lettering across the front of Belle's shirt for emphasis.
"Young lady, what does it say on your shirt?"
"It says 'lifeguard,' mum."
Belle had swallowed repeatedly and stared hard at her new flip-flops. Hot tears blurred her vision and snaked slender, scalding paths down her cheeks. Never before had she felt so profoundly inadequate. The poor boy could have died! His drowning would have been squarely upon her inept, inattentive shoulders!
She had wanted to quit the health club that very same day, but her supervisor shook his head and gently talked her out it.
"Lifeguards who've had a scare are doubly vigilant, luv," he explained, leaning back in his desk chair and chewing on a stick of gum. "Ask anyone who works here. Just one good scare, and you won't catch a guard chin-wagging or woolgathering whilst on duty."
Belle had begun to cry again, so he smiled kindly and handed her a tissue. "You made a mistake, luv. Let me know when you meet someone who hasn't. Don't eat yourself up over it—just do a better job next time."
In the end, Belle stayed on and even pulled several young swimmers to safety that summer. She gave away two fivers to a destitute gentleman on her way home after the near-drowning, but she hadn't been able to put the experience behind her.
And then—Lord, forgive her—there was this evening's class.
Always—always—Belle lays the emotional groundwork before dimming the classroom lights and pressing the 'play' button on the Film Studies department's ancient VCR. She always offers a lengthy preamble before showing her students various film and stage adaptations of the iconic, bloody scenes from the most controversial of Shakespeare's plays, 'Titus Andronicus.'
She invariably leads her classes in thoughtful, preliminary discussions on performing violence: Is it better to depict cruelty and suffering symbolically—or realistically? Why invite violence on stage or on-screen at all? Does bearing witness to brutality harden the heart—or does it break it wide open?
By the time her students are confronted with images of Lavinia's mute, mutilated suffering, she has them thinking like fledgling film critics.
When the actress slowly turns, pantomiming agony, blood spilling from her wrists and her barren, desecrated mouth, Belle's students are mainly curious if the director will select copious red ribbons or Kensington Gore to adorn the ghastly amputations. After a proper, lengthy discussion, they become nearly clinical viewers, inured to the horrors of stage blood and glycerin tears.
But tonight—Belle was wholly preoccupied with thoughts of Nosty.
She was fixated on whether or not he would return home (let alone follow her across the Atlantic), whether he had eaten any dinner (there were two sandwiches in the sack he had chucked onto the café table), and what sort of dangerous, 'dodgy business' he was involving himself in to spite her.
Also, her mind was circling round and round something Archie had told her just before they parted ways: "You need to know that substance abuse often presents alongside bipolar disorder, Belle. If he doesn't medicate, it's quite possible he's using other substances to bring himself up—or down."
Is it possible that Nosty is an addict? She's seen none of the tell-tale signs—God, how well she knows them!—and he has only ever spoken disparagingly of the fucking jakeys who buy the 'shite' he sells—which burns her up, but there it is.
Then again, James could go straight for weeks at a time before finally tumbling farther and deeper into his habit.
"We'll watch for just a bit, and then I'll pause the film for discussion."
Belle had absently pressed 'play,' and the television screen had flickered to life with no preamble. It was a new film adaptation of the tragedy, and it had garnered a prestigious London Critics' Circle Award nomination. This particular version, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, was savagely devastating, sublimely visceral, absolutely brilliant—but Belle's mind nevertheless wandered away from the darkened classroom and her slack-jawed, spellbound students.
She only came back to herself when her star pupil lurched to his feet, clamped a hand over his mouth, and staggered out the door.
Onscreen, Lavinia gagged and swayed, dressed in sullied, discordant white: a gruesome ballet set against an arid, desolate landscape. Belle's students were absolutely ashen, the whites of their eyes stark against the darkness, their pencils perfectly still.
A girl in the front row had bitten her thumbnail down to a sore, wet nub.
"We'll stop there!"
She topples her desk chair in her haste to turn off the VCR.
"I'm sorry—I didn't—"
Belle stares around the silent room, feeling the weight of her students' aggrieved repugnance. This film has sickened them. Such a brutal play, known to send even seasoned theatregoers bolting from their expensive seats, and she didn't even bother to—
"We'll just—we'll end early tonight," she finishes lamely, fixing her eyes on the pointed tips of her polished leather boots. She is altogether hollowed out this evening and has no comfort to offer them, only her stammered apologies. "I'm so sorry for that."
They gather up their papers in silence and shuffle slowly out the classroom door. Her star pupil doesn't return, so Belle bends down to retrieve his knapsack and his battered notebook and his cheap, chewed-over, plastic pen. She'll return them as soon as she is able with a heartfelt mea culpa.
Good God, what is wrong with her?
Belle pulls on her tweed jacket and stuffs her lecture notes into an oversized leather satchel. Her classroom is still and quiet. The television screen is a serene, luminous blue.
She ejects the VHS tape and glares at it for a long moment before thrusting it deep into her bag, crumpling her papers.
Belle returns to her desk and wraps a plush, pink scarf around her neck, lightly shivering, remembering Nosty's tongue rasping along her nape early this morning, and then—she imagines she hears a footfall in the hallway.
Her heart leaps up within her chest; he has come to see her home!
She'll confess her gross pedagogical negligence, and Nosty will say something along the lines of: Yeah, well—come off it, beautiful. Think you'll lose your livelihood over showing them plooks some fucking film? Wheest! When I was sleeping rough in Croydon—
And then he'll launch into some darkly funny story—Nosty has an absolutely endless supply of darkly funny stories—about an endeavor gone horribly, horribly wrong and lookit, I'm still alive and running my fucking geggy, right?
He'll wrap his arm deliciously tight around her shoulder, his leather smooth against her nubby tweed, and she'll tuck her head underneath his sharp, prickly chin, and they'll ride the Tube home together to Victoria Station. People will stare, and he'll glower back, ready to leap to his feet and tell the lot of 'em to go to fuck if she chooses to allow it.
But when Belle steps outside her classroom door, the hallway is empty.
Her own dull footfalls echo along the second storey corridor of Norfolk Building, the most stately of all the structures on Strand Campus. There are scant few other evening classes still in session, and the doors are all pulled shut. At this time of night, the stairwells will be likewise deserted, and this makes her a touch uneasy, so Belle elects to take the antiquated lift down to the ground floor.
She pauses for a moment beneath the red fabric awning that shelters the building's main entrance from the elements. The winter sky is spitting moody, fitful snow, and the nearby streets are largely empty. Sighing, stepping out into the baltic night air and thrusting her hands deep into her silk-lined jacket pockets, Belle feels the back of her neck begin to prickle and her cheeks grow hot.
Somehow, she is perfectly certain—Nosty is nearby.
He is nearby, and—he is watching her. She feels it: an incandescent glimmer of electricity all along her scalp and chest and face. Watching her, yes, but—watching her from where?
Belle steps farther out onto the Surrey Street footpath, looking first to her left, then far to the right, but apparently Nosty has decided to keep tucked out of sight. Likely he is still stewing over her mealtime tête-à-tête with Archie.
Sulking and skulking, she thinks, blowing out an exasperated breath. The white steam billows around her face, swirling upwards and vanishing into the night sky.
It had been Belle's intention to take the Tube home this wintry evening, but instead she elects to turn on the heel of her boot and walk South, following Surrey Street all the way down to the bank of the River Thames. This meandering walk home will bring her alongside the Waterloo Bridge, a location she overheard Nosty discussing with those chancy looking blokes back at Victoria Station. It will also take her past several parks and into assorted neighborhoods that he has cautioned her are very fucking dodgy after dark.
She'll be in no real danger, though—not with her very own infuriated, lupine bodyguard, cursing and dogging her heels every step of the way.
Up ahead, Belle catches a flash of red disappearing into Strand Lane.
She sets off at a brisk clip, heels clicking, wondering—childishly—just how much of this stunt it will take to awaken Nosty's considerable protective instincts. Exactly how far will she have to stray from the first streetlamp before she flushes her lover out?
As she passes by Strand Lane, hips delicately swaying, Belle would swear she feels the darkness behind her bristle.
"Well, come walk alongside me then," she thinks, holding her chin at a high, dignified angle, tossing back her loose hair, feeling defiant and reckless and utterly mad—mad as a March hare, actually.
But—perhaps—perhaps he isn't there at all.
Why exactly is she begging for trouble? This isn't her. This isn't her in the slightest—!
Belle tightens her grip on her student's knapsack and on her large leather satchel and picks up the pace, realizing that—yes!—she really has gone a bit mad. Is it possible she's absorbed some of Nosty's nervous mania? Is that love, when the walls between two people become fully porous?
Perhaps she's utterly wrong.
Perhaps there's really no one here but her.
But no!—that doesn't feel right.
"He's here!—he's here!—he's here!—"
Belle silently chants this refrain as her boots strike the wet footpath. "He's here!—and there's no need for him to skulk in alleys when he could be walking alongside me. After all, I love him, and I've done nothing wrong!"
She walks briskly past the Waterloo Bridge and is nearly overpowered by the scent of a dozen trashcan fires and the foul, brackish water. She walks through Parliament Square and hears glass shattering and slurred voices and loud, drunken laughter. She walks beneath Big Ben and listens as the clock strikes the hour—nine resounding chimes that rattle her small frame—and, at last, she walks past Victoria Station, very near to the spot she first held onto Nosty's arm and told him she admired his courage.
Finally—fucking finally! Nosty would say (she can hear his voice within her skull just as clearly as her own troubled thoughts)—Belle is standing in front of her own front door, fumbling around the bottom of her bag for the house key. During the final five minutes of this wearisome walk home, the snow switched over to a nasty, stinging sleet, and her hair is now quite drenched, clinging fast to her pink cheeks and numb forehead.
Nosty never once revealed himself, though she remains largely certain he was nearby, guarding his wee bird every step of the way.
Belle glances over her shoulder one final time, wishing he would stop playing the bloody fool and come in out of this wretched weather—but then she softly huffs and steps inside and pulls the front door firmly shut behind her.
Within her warm flat, the lights are all switched off, so she flicks on a low lamp by the sofa, bathing her living room in a consolatory, pink glow. The answering machine on the entry table is blinking red, but Nosty only ever calls her on her mobile, so she leaves it for tomorrow morning.
Sighing deeply, Belle peels the wet tweed from her body and tosses her sodden jacket over the back of an antique armchair.
God, she's knackered!
Before changing out of her damp wool trousers and wrinkled blouse, Belle raids the fridge, pulling out two bottles of expensive, hoppy lager. She hastily twists off both caps and takes a long draw from the first bottle before padding back out into the dim living room.
Her modest record collection is shelved beneath an electric turntable she has held on to since secondary. After taking another deep swallow of beer, Belle crouches down, her wet hair dripping on the parquet floor, and selects a battered Nick Drake album—'Pink Moon.'
She gingerly slides the vinyl out of its faded, Dali-esque sleeve and gently places the record on the turntable. The needle comes down, the speakers crackle, and a wistful, melancholy voice fills up the empty air.
"Saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get ye all…"
She takes another lengthy pull of beer.
Held up to the low lamplight, the first brown bottle glints and gleams. It's almost empty now.
Belle leaves it behind on the wood floor.
She straightens up and sways on uncertain legs and then—humming along with the familiar, heartsick melody—walks woozily down the hallway toward her flat's guest room.
This would be so much easier if the floor and walls would oblige by staying in one bloody place!
Belle stands in the dark hallway outside the guest room door for a full minute, taking deep swallows of her second beer. Finally, with a steadying breath, she turns the doorknob, flips the light switch, and stares at her brother's paltry belongings, spread out over the guest bed's floral duvet. There had been so little left of him after he died! Just the grotty clothes off his back and his pitifully slender notecase and the family pictures already on display in her flat.
She takes another long swallow of beer.
Setting the half-empty bottle down on the guest room floor, Belle clumsily strips out of her wet trousers and blouse. She peels off her white lace bra strap by strap, unhooking the delicate front clasp on the third try, and then stands swaying in her cotton socks and see-through knickers, intent on her brother's clothes laid out over the bed.
The plaintive, bittersweet music has followed her down the hall.
"And I was green, greener than the hill
Where the flowers grew and the sun shone still
Now I'm darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be…"
She hadn't wanted to wash James's clothing, but the flophouse scent had clung to his t-shirt and jeans, and that squalid smell wasn't bloody him—no!—it was the stench of his damnable sickness!—so the threadbare cotton t-shirt Belle pulls over her head smells of her own citrusy laundry soap and of the stale air in this unused room.
She carefully retrieves her beer from the floor and shuffles back out into the hallway, not at all steady on her feet, leaving the light on and the door open. She finishes her drink in the privacy of her lonely bedroom and doesn't realize she's crying until she catches sight of herself in the bathroom mirror.
Thinking she should brush her teeth, wash her face, comb her hair—something—Belle stretches out on the bed with her back against the headboard. Her head is sickly spinning, and the bedroom tilts and weaves, turning nauseous pirouettes. There's nothing for it but to close her aching eyes and pull the duvet all the way up over her wet hair. The stuffy dark beneath the blankets is stifling—and consoling.
She draws up her knees and drifts into a grateful, uneasy sleep.
Hours later, Belle wakes with a jerk to the sound of an electronic beeep and a garbled, tinny, far-off voice: "Miss French…this is…from Columbia University…please call…about the position…at your earliest convenience…I'll also…your mobile."
She hears the sound of glass striking glass and a nasty, husky snicker, then another electronic beeep.
"Miss French…this is…from Columbia University…please call…about the position…at your earliest convenience…I'll also…your mobile."
More tinkling glass, then a thud and a savage, muttered profanity.
Beeep.
"Miss French…this is…from Columbia University…please call…about the position…at your earliest convenience…I'll also…your mobile."
Disoriented, Belle kicks aside the warm duvet and accidentally knocks her empty beer bottle off the nightstand. It strikes the wood floor with a loud thwunk and rolls beneath the bed, but it does not shatter.
Her head is still somewhat muddled by the alcohol, so she trails her fingertips along the hallway wall, steadying herself as she makes her way toward the muffled noises in the living room.
Nosty sits on the edge of the sofa, elbows propped up on his knees, head slung forward. His dark hair obscures his face from view. All around him—on the floor, on the chairs, on the coffee table—are empty beer bottles. His left fist is choking a liter of Gordon's London Dry.
Belle watches him for a short while, then clears the gravelly blockage from her throat and makes an effort to keep her voice low and even: "It looks like you had an empty in here."
Waiting for him to lift his head and meet her eyes, she wraps one arm around her midsection and uses the other to make a halfhearted attempt at smoothing her snarled hair.
"Least I didn't take it to fucking bed with me."
Nosty laughs cruelly and throws back his chin, heaving the gin bottle up to his lips and staring somewhere off over her right shoulder.
His bootheels begin to tap rapidly against the living room floor: an anxious, irregular cadence. His bloodshot eyes are unfocused.
"You're soaked," she says, because he is.
Nosty's kilt is a deeper, sodden shade of red. His dreadlocks are saturated and dripping, and the front of his white t-shirt is nearly transparent.
His leather jacket has been discarded in a wet heap on the floor.
"Worried I'll lay waste to the upholstery, beautiful?"
His tone is nastier than she's ever heard it. Spread out in front of him on the coffee table are Belle's family photographs.
He reaches for a small, silver frame and holds it up to the lamplight for inspection. The picture shows Belle frozen mid-laugh, watching a teenaged Archie and Matthew feign a tussle over a trophy. The boys are dressed in grass stained sporting gear, and Belle has on her natty, black and white Westminster uniform.
"You look proper fanny-struck in this one, beautiful." His smile is false and feral. "Whenabouts was Doctor Cognitive Neuropsychology your fucking glot, eh? Or did he ever stop being?"
Nosty drops the photograph disdainfully onto the sofa and takes another long swig of cheap gin. His knuckles are white, and his hands are trembling.
Belle exhales slowly, willing the room to stay still beneath her feet, willing herself to show a bit of patience.
"Archie and I were never together, Nosty. He was Matthew's best mate back at boarding school. They played cricket together."
She leans over and plucks the silver frame from the sofa cushion, smiling softly down at her younger self. She's fond of this carefree picture. The summer sun had brought out her freckles, and Matthew still has that silly trophy on display in his study in New York.
"Archie prefers red heads," she says mildly, a wry expression playing around the corners of her mouth, "Chubby ones."
"Fucking shite, think of the pudgy, pasty bairns that'll result in," Nosty mutters, surprising a short laugh out of her.
"Yes, well—are you hungry?" Belle sets the picture gently aside.
"No," he lies, ignoring the gesture of goodwill and picking up another photograph. This one is of James on his graduation day.
There is nothing of the junkie her brother will one day become in this picture—just healthy, tan skin and dark, close-cropped hair and honey-brown eyes and sharp, intelligent features.
"I'm his fucking doppelgänger, eh? Is that it, bird? Didn't really let myself see it before today. Shite, I'm a fucking dead ringer."
Nosty snickers at his nasty little joke and heaves the bottle back up to his cracked, wet lips. Belle opens her mouth to tell him to go straight to hell, but then—a flash of insight and empathy: He's drinking to bring himself back down! Nosty's razor-sharp mind is spinning like a roulette wheel, and this nasty drunkenness is his poor attempt to slow the spiral, to help the whirring little ball of his thoughts find a pocket to rest in.
She turns and walks out of the room.
Behind her, Nosty coughs, curses and makes a strangled plea:
"Shite!—Belle—"
She returns a short while later, holding a thick, terry towel and a dry, cotton t-shirt and clean, wool socks. Nosty has already dropped his head back into his hands.
He's muttering to himself fast and furious under his breath.
She overhears the hissed words, "Fucking worthless…"
"Let me take these off you," Belle says, startling him from his stupor.
She kneels down between his splayed legs and begins unlacing his scuffed leather boots. Above her, Nosty exhales slowly and pushes his wet hair back from his face. "Ah, Belle…" he breathes, then quiets, watching her hands gently undress him.
His laces are soaked through, making them difficult to loosen, but Belle plucks away with studied determination, finally sliding off one wet boot, then the other. As suspected, Nosty's socks are damp and cold, so Belle rolls them down over his bony ankles, revealing pale, blistered, narrow feet.
She guides each chilled foot—one after another—between her naked thighs, heating them, enclosing them within her soft, warm flesh and pressing them up against the hot underside of her lace knickers.
Nosty draws in a sharp breath and shifts restlessly above her on the sofa cushions. His toes flex and curl.
"This too, love," Belle murmurs, rising up on her knees and lifting the wet t-shirt over his head. She uses it to gently wipe his clammy face and chest.
Nosty watches these ministrations from beneath hooded, unblinking eyes, breathing heavily through his open mouth.
After she has pressed and patted his long hair with the towel and pulled a dry shirt down over his mangled chest, Belle unfastens the safety pin that holds Nosty's kilt in place and draws the fleecy throw blanket from the back of the sofa down over his lap.
"This wet wool cannot be comfortable, sweetheart," she says, slowly pulling the kilt out from beneath his skinny arse and legs and tossing it onto the floor near his jacket.
Nosty shakes his head and shuts his eyes—no, nothing about today has been very fucking 'comfortable,' save for the drowsy, loving wank Belle gave him just before sunrise.
He takes hold of the blanket covering his lap in two great fistfuls.
This is the 'Sweet Baby' blanket he's gripping with jittery hands—a tender language spoken only by the two of them. When Nosty reaches for this particular blanket, it's an unspoken request to be wrapped up tight and gathered close and told he is Belle's precious sweetheart, her only love, her sweet, sweet baby. Sometimes he is desperate to be brought off while being kissed and pet and bundled and cherished—and sometimes not—but always, always when he reaches for this soft fleece, Nosty wants to be cradled close and told over and over and over again how fiercely Belle loves him.
"You're sure you're not hungry, sweetheart?" she asks, taking his cold fingers tenderly in hers and rising to stand in front of him. "There's leftover clootie pudding in the fridge…"
"No—Belle…please—"
Nosty works his fingers loose and reaches upwards with shaking hands to grasp her hips. He burrows his forehead against her abdomen, hiding his flushed face, breathing quickly.
Belle easily relents, cradling the back of his skull with one hand and using the other to stroke his dark, ropy hair. A tremor of pleasure runs through him—beginning in his thin shoulders and traveling all the way down along his spine.
Nosty sighs and groans and dips his head, tugging her brother's shirt up over her navel and impatiently kissing her belly.
His right thumb brushes over and over Belle's soft mound of dark curls, just visible through her sheer, lace knickers, begging her:
"Just this—just this—just this, only for a wee bit fucking longer, beautiful…"
She doesn't know what to make of this strange, almost desolate plea, oh, but then—Nosty is gripping her ever tighter and mouthing her curls through the transparent lace and digging his too-long fingernails into her flesh and whispering, "please…please…please, Belle…" against her aching sex and—finally—tugging her downwards to stretch out alongside him on the sofa.
They press together instinctively, belly to belly, Belle on the outside, Nosty's back pressed against the over-stuffed couch cushions. He hastily draws the 'Sweet Baby' blanket up over his angular shoulders.
Belle settles his damp, intoxicated head upon her breast, and he grunts, tugging her t-shirt up farther still, then covering his head with the fleece blanket and disappearing from view.
"My sweetheart," she murmurs, cradling his head and stroking his rough, stubbled cheek, "My precious Arran…"
She feels a cold nose pressed hungrily to the fleshy, outer curve of her breast, nuzzling greedily, breathing unevenly, and then—eager, open-mouthed kisses and teeth quickly follow, traveling ever closer to her tender, puckered, waiting nipple.
"That's right, sweet baby…"
When his mouth at last finds the sensitive, rosy peak of Belle's little breast, a shudder runs through her, and she drags him closer still, murmuring while he soothes himself with rapid, fluttering sucks at her flesh that it feels so good to hold him in her arms…she was thinking of him all day long…he is her beautiful Arran…her precious treasure…her darling love.
In a trance, kneading and cradling her other breast in his palm, Nosty parts his legs and Belle pushes a warm thigh in between.
She reaches under the blanket to caress and adjust his half-hard cock—and also to stroke and lift the delectable, warm sack of flesh behind it, carefully settling him against her bare leg.
This lovely, gentle pressure soothes some of his low-belly ache, just as Belle knew it would—just as his hungry, fervent sucks at her breast simultaneously inflame and assuage her.
"I had a—I had another fucking go at myself this morning, right after you left—and then again tonight before you woke up—I can't seem to fucking leave off, Belle…"
She isn't sure if Nosty is apologizing for being only half-hard or for being erect in the first place—but these words, whispered frantically around her wet nipple, fill her with such engulfing tenderness, and she assures him don't worry—don't worry, baby—I'm here—I'm here—however you need me—I'm here…
There is a long, sweet silence while he suckles and kneads her breasts, and Belle strokes his woolly hair. The tender quiet is broken only by Nosty's breathy, grateful grunts and her loving words, whispered into the shell of his ear.
At last—just when Belle is feeling strung too tight—just when she is considering moving his eager, worshipful left hand downwards, thinking of guiding his curled fingers between her restless, aching, parted thighs, Nosty breaks away from her breast, breathing hard, and trails the tip of his searing tongue all along the hills and valleys of her body—over her ribs, over her hip bone, over her quivering abdomen—pausing only when he reaches the dainty, elastic waistband of her knickers.
During this worshipful descent, the blanket falls away with him, and it's intoxicating to see his dark hair spread out over her belly and thighs.
Nosty nips and kisses her public bone through the gossamer fabric, finally taking the lace in his teeth and dragging it lower.
Belle obliges with an anxious upward thrust of her hips, allowing him to slide her underthings all the way off and—oh God, at last!—bury his sharp, hooked nose in her curls, breathing deeply.
"Ach—Belle, you're so fucking—"
Belle doesn't get to hear what her lover believes her to be—he has already ducked his head impatiently between her spread thighs and is gripping her legs and pressing tender, wet kisses to her burning center.
Nosty is determined to set her on fucking fire with his greedy, velvet tongue.
He pries a startled gasp from Belle's lips when he covers her entire sex with his open mouth and thrusts his tongue deep within, easing in and out of her slowly—maddeningly slowly—then abruptly dragging the hot length of his tongue upwards to press against the sensitive, swollen, wee nub that's just pleading for his touch.
Nosty holds the flat of his tongue against her, letting Belle push and rock against him, waiting for her to find her own tempo.
"Yes, baby, that's…yes, baby—Arran, yes…"
She whimpers and praises him when he slides a single finger inside her.
Nosty pauses, feeling Belle's slick, hot muscles grip him tightly. He lifts his head and presses wet, adoring kisses to her bent knees.
His knuckle is knobby and thick, tormenting her, easing in and out of her searing, slippery entrance. Belle waits as long as she can bear to wait—but then her own trembling right hand travels downwards to rub and caress her sex—until Nosty dips his head and mutters: "Let me, beautiful, let me…" He hastily slides two fingers deep within her, and Belle's body contracts around them.
Nosty expertly curves his hand and massages her supple, yielding inner walls just above her public bone, all the while steadily licking around and around and around the wee nub she is rocking and pressing against his mouth.
Belle's breathing lowers and her movements become rough and urgent. Perspiration breaks out upon her brow.
"Yes, baby—yes baby—yes baby—"
Belle has been sweetly stroking the top of his head, but she finally loses herself and grabs hold of Nosty's hair, holding him firmly in place until a tremor begins to run through her, and her body clenches and releases, clenches and releases around his thrusting fingers and against his hot mouth.
He kisses the insides of her thighs while she comes down from her high, nipping gently, making her smile, and afterwards Belle is tugging him upwards by the hair, glancing between his legs at his fully erect cock, saying: "That felt so bloody good. I want you to feel good, sweetheart."
He kisses her swiftly on her lips and her pink cheek, then crawls further up, sighing, resting his forehead on the overstuffed arm of the sofa and pulling up his knees.
This position is very important to him, though Belle has yet to understand why. Sometimes he like to kneel and grip the headboard of their bed and let her slowly caress his back and kiss all along his bony spine.
Belle made the mistake once of thinking he wanted her finger inside him—that Nosty wanted his prostate massaged and to be brought off that way (Gerald adored a bit of arse play back in Uni)—but he went nearly wild when she tried it, pushing her down on the bed, holding her wrists up over her head, and sinking his teeth into her shoulder while he fucked her roughly.
No. Nosty merely wants to be held and touched gently while he's on his knees, so Belle brushes aside his locks and kisses the back of his neck and traces her tongue along the outer rim of his ears.
She strokes his perfect hips and arse with her left hand until he's moaning and rocking forward and back, forward and back.
Belle tells him, "Lie down, baby."
He lies down upon his empty stomach, groaning when she slips a hand beneath his pelvis to tenderly cup his cock, easily fitting her hips to his tailbone. Her sex is still oversensitive and engorged from the earlier climax.
Belle rocks gently forward, and Nosty follows suit, pressing his cock into her palm and breathing hard.
"As fast or as slowly as you want," Belle promises, though it is difficult to speak now—she has already found a steady rhythm against his clenched arse.
Belle has her head start, and it won't take long to get herself off this way.
Nosty has turned his face into the cushions and is moaning with each forward thrust of her hips. "I'm not a—" he says thickly, his voice muffled, his fingers digging at the sofa, "I'm not a fucking buftie, Belle!"
"I know it, baby," she breathes.
Belle covers his hands with her own, lacing their fingers tightly together. Nosty groans and presses his face deeper into the cushions.
"There's no one here but us, sweetheart," she whispers into his ear. "These old walls are thick. Be as loud as you need to be."
Nosty turns his face to the side, gasping for air. His brow is furrowed, his eyes are clenched shut, and his mouth hangs open.
"Ahh—ahh—-fuck, fuck…"
He pants heavily, calls out loudly, and thrusts against her palm.
Belle gives herself over to it: the firm curve of his arse, the pressure against her already slick sex, the gorgeous groans coming from his wet, parted lips.
"That's it, sweet baby—oh, that's it…"
Her climax steals over her slowly this time, like a languid wave. Belle's abdomen flutters, and she feels a deep sense of cessation and peace.
She kisses his still-bucking shoulder and whispers: "Turn over, love…"
Shaking, red in the face, Nosty immediately obeys, and she sinks onto him easily, drawing a soft, "Ahh!" from his open mouth.
She allows him to guide her for one, two, three deep thrusts, and then his beautiful, flushed face contorts, and Nosty calls out something unintelligible, gasping, pulsing, and then—it's over. He is finally sated alongside her.
Belle leans upwards to kiss him, tracing his dark eyebrows with her lips, and then they settle side-by-side, and she draws the 'Sweet Baby' blanket back up over both of them.
This moment—forehead to forehead, nose to nose, breathing together, stroking his hair—seems to be the moment to ask him.
"Sweetheart, I've had a job offer—"
Nosty's entire body goes rigid within her arms.
"Aye. So—are you going to take it?" His voice is low, almost inaudible.
"Yes, I do want to…" she begins.
Cursing, he heaves himself off the couch, stumbling over her, and staggers over to his boots and jacket.
"What are you doing?" Belle rises up on her elbows.
He's wrapping the damp kilt tight around his waist with trembling hands and stepping clumsily into his unlaced boots.
"So—had your bit of fun, yeah?" he spits out, glaring daggers at the wood floor. "Had your walk on the fucking wild side."
"Nosty, what—"
"What a fucking thrill, right? Getting fucked by some radge, homeless bloke you picked up at hospital—?"
"Nosty…"
"What a fucking fantastic story for your next holiday getaway with the maties, right?"
He has brought both wrists up to his temples and is pressing in on his skull, shaking his head, unfocused, frantic.
"Nosty, stop…"
"No! It's you who fucking stopped, Belle! You said it wouldn't ever fucking stop!"
He takes one step forward and snatches the picture of James from the coffee table, then throws it hard, shattering the low lamp by the sofa.
They are both thrust into stunned darkness.
Belle draws in a sharp breath, then sits up fully, and commands:
"Get out."
No one intimidates her in her own home. No one throws her things.
Nosty can return when he's cooled off and ready to speak rationally.
He releases a breath that sounds more like a sob.
"Yeah, well, it took you fucking long enough—didn't it, sweetheart?"
He wrenches the silver bracelet from his wrist and chucks it onto the floor—a talisman, a charm, her tender claim upon him—then grabs his leather jacket.
"Hey, maybe you'll find some other fucking charity case in New York, beautiful. Maybe you'll find yourself some other, better lost cause."
"Get out," Belle repeats, her voice thick with tears.
He turns on the heal of his boot and stalks out the front door, rattling the frame when he slams it shut.
Belle walks on unsteady legs to the front window and reaches it in time to see Nosty standing on the stoop, his head hung low and his hands in his hair.
He's breathing raggedly, his shoulder blades rising and falling against the thin cotton of his t-shirt. Gooseflesh is visible on the backs of his skinny upperarms.
He looks so young and slight and hurt in the yellow lamplight that she wants to call him back—but, no!—she cannot accept violence in her home. Nosty needs to calm himself down.
They'll talk about New York once he's sobered up and thinking straight. She'll explain that she would never, never leave him behind.
After all, he carries her heart.
Nosty straightens up, exhaling slowly, and thrusts his arms into the sleeves of his black leather jacket.
It's like he's put on armor.
He thrusts his narrow shoulders back, and suddenly he stands ten inches taller.
Nosty steps off Belle's stoop into the frigid winter night.
It's still sleeting, but he walks away from Eaton Square like he fucking owns these streets, arms briskly swinging, gait jaunty, as if there's nowhere he'd rather be than out for a stroll in a posh neighborhood on a shite night such as this one.