Set Me Free (19 page)

She reached for
him, wanting to take him with her. His erection was bursting out of the top of
his jeans, and it surged towards her fingers as they brushed its tip. He paused
at her breasts, to moan throatily. Her hand traced its length on the wrong side
of his jeans, and his fingers step, step, stepped up her thighs, searching
determinedly for her underpants. As he yanked them down, rather desperately,
her mind turned to the condoms in her bedside drawer. And the fact her bedroom
was occupied.
Damn!
 

She withdrew her
hand and hoped to find some neutral territory on his arm, but the shift of his
biceps as he tugged at her underpants did nothing to douse the flames. Gathering
every ounce of willpower she could summon, she pulled back from him. He
followed at first, greedy, but he quickly sensed things had changed and
released her.

‘We can’t,’ she
managed when she found her voice. ‘My condoms are in my bedroom.’

He’d straightened,
but his fingers remained entangled in her underpants. He twisted them tighter,
unwilling to resign just yet. Breathing deeply, he looked down at her and
considered her.

She was panting
heavily and could feel the flush across her cheeks, neck and chest. One of her
shoulder straps had slipped off, exposing the breast and aroused nipple he’d
been nibbling on.

He kissed her
again, tormenting her until she surrendered once more, unable to resist his
lips, his mouth, his tongue. She pulled him closer, wriggling across the bench
top to wrap her legs around his hips and hold him fast. Her hands dove under
his t-shirt, and then skated across his tight chest, exploring.

Still refusing to
let go of her underpants, he pulled back slowly and carefully from the kiss. ‘The
condoms are a problem,’ he murmured. ‘But I seem to have started something
here, and it would be remiss of me to walk away and leave you hanging.’

Unsure of where he
was going, Charlotte started to object. ‘Craig...’ she sighed, ‘we can’t...’

‘Do you trust me,
Charlotte?’

Hands still
fastened to his chest, legs still clamped around his hips, Charlotte exploded
with laughter.

‘Of course not!’
she exclaimed. ‘You’re going to ruin me.' But she was laughing as she said it
and he grinned at her.

‘But you took care
of my sister last night,’ she said, ‘and you threw out those little shitheads
and stayed with me when I needed someone to hold me. So even though you're
planning on ruining my career, I’d trust you with my life.' She grinned at him,
savouring the feel of his fingers against her thighs, ready to give him almost
anything.

His smile was an
odd mix of regret and triumph. He untangled one of his hands and reached up to
trace a finger from her forehead down her cheek. ‘Trust me then,’ he said. ‘If
I really am going to ruin things for you, I should chalk up some favours.' His
hand found her chest, and he nudged her gently. ‘Lie back.’

She complied,
slowly, releasing him and watching to see what he would do. Trusting him. When
his free hand found her breast, her eyes closed, and she relished in his touch.
The hand in her knickers came alive again, tugging, tugging, tugging until they
fell down her legs, over her ankles to be lost on the floor. Suddenly his
fingers were caressing her, exploring, teasing, opening her. She relaxed and
surrendered to his touch.

His breath against
her breast warned her before his lips reclaimed her nipple. She arched into his
mouth, the movement opening her more so his fingers probed deeper. The
sensation started to rock her and recognising it, he withdrew, slowed down to
concentrate some more on her breast before he slid his tongue down, down, down,
jumping the satin of her slip bunched around her waist to find a sensitive spot
on her hip. His fingertips skated the flesh on her inner thighs, driving her
legs slowly apart, in anticipation of his next move.

Once more, his
breath warned her of the touch to come. But as his mouth claimed her and he
proceeded to devour her, nothing could have prepared her for the sensations
coursing through her, making her completely lose control. She came quickly and
remarkably. When he lifted his head to grin at her, rejoicing in his
accomplishment, she might have cried if she had any tears left.

Instead, she said,
‘Holy shit,’ and lay there, panting as he gently rearranged her slip. Eventually,
she sat up and wrapped her arms around him.

He responded,
pulling her closer. ‘You’re beautiful, Charlotte,’ he murmured into her hair. She
sighed into him some more. If only she could stay there forever.

‘Well, now that’s
an interesting way to start the day,’ she said eventually, reluctantly creating
a small gap between them.

‘Indeed,’ he
growled, a fingertip skating the underside of her breast before he stepped back
and out of her arms.

She shuddered.

But once his touch
was gone, common sense started making a comeback.

‘What do we do
now?’ she asked him.

‘I don’t know,’ he
said.

‘Hmm. Another
coffee perhaps?’

The silence
stretched uncomfortably between them as she brewed the coffee. He didn’t move
away entirely, but gave her room to move in the small kitchen. His restraint
was painful. If only he would touch her hair, her arm, her fingertips when she
handed him his coffee.

Charlotte was in
trouble. Where
did
they go from here?  Back to being foes?  Back to
fighting each other?  Neither of them was going to renege, she was sure of that.
Neither would compromise. She’d already offered to meet him mid-way, and he’d
declined. There was no second-chance in this competition, and there was no
second prize. Charlotte looked at him sadly. The dull ache in her heart would
only intensify if she let this man any further in to her life. Her defences
needed to go back up.

‘I want to be
clear I am
not
complaining, but you know, we’re not doing each other any
favours here,’ she said.

He sighed heavily
and ran his hand through his hair.

‘I’m sorry,
Charlotte,’ he said, his brown eyes dripping with regret.

‘Craig, I don’t
want you to be sorry. Believe me, I’m not. I just think we need to stop doing
this.’

‘I know. You’re
right, we do.' He sighed heavily again. ‘But is that what you want?’ he asked,
his voice inflected with a hint of hope that perhaps it wasn’t.

No.

‘Yes. It is. You’re
messing with my head. I can’t focus on my career or my future when you keep
distracting me. I’m supposed to hate you, Craig. I need to hate you, so I can
take care of myself.’

‘I don’t want you
to hate me, Charlotte.’

‘It’s not easy.' She
laid her palm against his cheek to emphasise the point.

He covered her
hand with his own and then lifted it to kiss. ‘I should go, huh?’

Ignoring the
nagging part of her brain making a point of what an ungrateful tramp she was
being, she nodded her agreement. ‘I’m sorry, Craig.’

‘Me too,’ he said.
He planted one last passionate kiss on her unsteady lips.

‘Bye, Charlotte’,
he murmured and then he was gone, leaving his untouched coffee staring at her
accusingly.

Thankfully,
Emily awoke not long after Craig left and commenced vomiting into the toilet
bowl, her body purging the toxins she’d poisoned herself with last night. Distracted
by face wiping, hair holding and toilet cleaning, Charlotte was able to take her
mind off Craig. Not entirely, but enough to hold the sense of loss at bay.

By mid-afternoon,
Emily managed to crawl out of the bedroom and work up the stamina for some
mashed potatoes, a sure sign her stomach lining was recovering.

‘I’m not even
going to ask you how much you had to drink last night,’ Charlotte said, handing
Emily a warm bowl of mash.

‘Oh God,’ Emily
moaned, spooning tiny mouthfuls. ‘I just lost control. At first I just wanted
some liquid courage after the Cassette incident, and then I got my stupid drunk
bravado going. Suddenly I was invincible. I’m not even sure how I got back
here, but I vaguely remember being held up by Craig.’

‘Yeah, he brought
you home.’

‘Sorry.’ Emily
looked sheepish. ‘He would have been the last person you wanted on your
doorstep last night. He’s nice, you know,’ she continued, not breaking pace. ‘Not
very dastardly at all. Especially not for a property developer.' She eyed her
sister suspiciously.

Fighting to
control a blush, Charlotte replied, ‘At least he kept you safe. Well, maybe not
from yourself.’

The dig was a
successful sidetrack. Predictably, Emily was eager to avoid any further navel
gazing. She asked after Andrew and his band. ‘When did they leave?’

‘Early this
morning. I suppose they wanted to try and get a surf in before their
sound-check this afternoon.’

Charlotte paused,
searching for the right words. Emily had her fair share of issues to deal with
at the moment, suppress them though she might. Was she ready to deal with
Andy’s as well? 

Regardless of
Charlotte’s reservations, it was only a matter of time until Emily learned of
the overdose and she'd be furious with Charlotte for not telling her here and
now.

Charlotte drew a
deep breath. ‘Em, there’s something I need to tell you about Andy, and it’s not
good.’

Emily looked up
from worshipping her mashed potatoes and clocked the seriousness of her
sister’s face and tone. ‘Oh crap. I don’t think I want to hear this.' She put
her spoon down and braced herself.

‘Andy’s been using
heroin.’

‘Using using or
occasionally using?’

Charlotte looked
at her sharply. ‘Depends who you ask. Does that matter?’

‘Sort of. He told
me last year that he'd been tasting. I thought perhaps he might still be just
tasting.’

Charlotte’s blood
pressure rose instantly, propelled by Emily’s matter-of-fact tone. ‘You knew,
and you never told me?'

‘I didn’t want to
freak you out,’ Emily explained flippantly. ‘Sometimes you forget you’re older,
Charlotte, and you knew Dad longer. His death was harder on you than Andy and I.
I guess Andy thought it was something he could share with me and not you.’

‘Jesus, Emily.' Charlotte
was pissed. ‘Forewarned might have been forearmed. I was so fucking angry with
him that I threw him out this morning. If I had known I might have handled it
differently.’

‘You threw him
out?’

‘Pretty much.' Charlotte
skated around the detail. ‘We didn’t part on amicable terms.’

‘Do you want me to
talk to him?’

‘Well, yes,’ she
snapped. ‘Given you’re in on his little secret you probably should. Then you
can both talk about how unreasonable I am and how hard it is to deal with me.' Getting
huffy wasn’t the most mature response, but Charlotte had channelled all her
maturity into turning away the man of her dreams after he’d eaten her for
breakfast that morning. Sullenness was all she had left.

Clearly her
siblings didn’t trust her. Clearly they had secrets between them from which she
was excluded. Ouch, ouch, ouch, it hurt. She may not have had any tears left to
shed after that orgasm, but they’d had some time to build up again.

Observing her
sister was close to weeping, Emily gingerly pulled herself up off the couch and
encased Charlotte into a hug, opening the floodgates as she did. ‘It’s not like
that, Charlotte,’ Emily explained, holding her sister until her sobs abated. She
found her a tissue, and they sat down together.

‘You've always
looked after us, Charlotte. And when we were kids we needed you, but we’re all
grown up now. You can’t stop us from fucking up all over the place. I married a
tosser and am now getting outrageously drunk to try and prove to, I don’t know
who,
someone
, that I don’t care he cheated on me with the only woman in
the entire world I loathe. Andy is experimenting with the drug that killed our
father. You can’t stop us from being reckless, Charlotte, and you can’t always
be the one to pick up the pieces. You can’t mend my broken heart, and you can’t
make Andy admit he has a problem and he needs help. We have to figure this
stuff out on our own. If you keep trying to fix us, what is going to happen to
you?  You won’t have anything left to look after yourself.’

Who’s looking
after you?

Charlotte sniffed,
not very daintily. ‘Someone said something like that not long ago,’ she told
Emily.

‘You’ve got to
stop living through us and for us, Charlotte. You need to look after yourself
and your own happiness.’

Silent minutes
ticked by. Charlotte was afraid to think of what that might mean. What would
make her happy?  What did she really want?  Somehow, she couldn’t allow herself
to imagine what it might be. After a time she remarked, ‘You’re very
philosophical for someone with a hangover.' Emily wasn’t the only one skilled
at avoiding introspection.

But she wasn’t to
be deflected this time. Emily had a point to make. ‘The other night when we
were working in the gallery, you said you thought of the gallery as ours. You
took me by surprise. I’ve always thought of it as your baby. I thought you
loved it. The whole package, supporting emerging artists, providing the
neighbourhood with a space to appreciate the beautiful and unusual – that’s all
you. All I do is paint.'

Charlotte picked
at her fingernails as Emily pressed on. ‘But once you said you thought of it as
ours, I started to think about why you were doing it, and whether all that
stuff was enough for you. I started to wonder whether you were truly happy. I
tried to think when I last saw you happy. When I last saw you have a good old
belly laugh. I had to go back to before Geoff and I got married - when you were
studying and working casually for that architectural firm. That was the last
time I saw you excited about the world.’

‘These emerging
artists don’t excite you, Charlotte. They're a pain in the arse. Me included. And
yes, I can see that you love the neighbourhood, and you love seeing Ben every
day, but do you really need the gallery to have that?'

Emily continued. ‘When
I saw your sketches, I couldn’t help but wonder why you shut yourself inside
that virtually empty gallery all day, staring at average art, when you could be
bent over a desk creating architectural masterpieces. And then I realised you
only did it for me.’

Charlotte looked
up from peeling back her cuticles as Emily started to cry. It wasn’t entirely
the hangover’s fault.

‘I don’t want you
to live your life for me, Charlotte. If that’s what you're fighting for, I wish
you wouldn’t.’

Charlotte found
her voice and defaulted to denial. ‘I’m not, Emily. I love the gallery. I
actually quite like most of those talentless artists, and you’re right, I love
seeing Ben every day. I don’t have to answer to anyone, and I have no stress in
my life. Well, I didn’t have any stress in my life. I’ll be devastated if I
lose the gallery, Emily.'
Was it true?  Was it?
  Charlotte wasn’t so
sure. Emily was making sense. She had to admit, when she was sketching, she'd
felt more alive than she had in a long time; like someone had given her a key
and set her free.

Emily wasn’t
finished. ‘There’s something else I need to tell you.’

‘What is it?' Great,
another secret to be revealed. Fidgeting and looking around the room, Emily
seemed to be struggling with this revelation the most.

‘The pieces I’ve
been working on. I showed some photos to Gareth Moorehouse, and he’s agreed to
show them. An exclusive show, in two weeks’ time.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I’m showing my
work in the Moorehouse Gallery.’

Charlotte was
slower to digest this piece of information. Emily was showing in another
gallery. The Moorehouse Gallery. One of the most exclusive in the city. Because
Gareth Moorehouse wanted to show her work. Emily had finally been recognised. Gareth
Moorehouse wouldn’t show her unless he expected to make good money off her. Better
money than the kind you make through some shitty little West End gallery run by
your sister. The Moorehouse Gallery. Wow.

This was the
breakthrough Emily had been working for. Charlotte didn’t want to feel
betrayed, but she did. Emily didn’t need the Evans Gallery any more.

So if Emily didn’t
need it, who did?  No doubt there would always be a line-up of mediocrity
outside the door, desperate to get in. But was that enough?  Would that make
Charlotte happy? 

Emily was
assessing her reaction, waiting for a verbal response. ‘Okay,’ was all
Charlotte could muster, to reassure her she’d heard.

‘Charlotte, are
you mad?’

Mad wasn’t the
right word. ‘No, I don’t think so. Confused more than anything. But it’s great
news, Em. It’s everything you've been working for. I’m insanely proud of you.' And
she meant that.

‘Thank you,
Charlotte. I’m so excited. These pieces are the best I’ve ever done. I feel
like I’ve come alive again. Like Geoff was a weight holding me back, holding me
underwater while I slowly drowned. It feels like things will fall into place
for me and the end of my marriage is actually the beginning of my life.’

Charlotte smiled
at her sister, pleased to hear the hope in her voice. If only she could bottle
it and take a dose. She'd thought removing the distraction that was Craig would
help her think straight, but evidently it wasn’t enough. Now Craig was gone,
Emily was going and the gallery was still in the firing line, with Ben included
in those sights. At this rate there would be nothing left, she thought morosely.

What the hell
am I going to do?
she
wondered.