The Babysitter(20)
A low moan escaped her as he slid one hand over the soft round of her tummy.
‘Have we got time for this?’ she gasped, as he moved lower.
‘Always,’ he said huskily, hitching her towards him. She ached for him; she needed him. She wanted to slide her hands over him, soap his broad shoulders, to trail them down over his chest, his taut stomach.
Feel his body up close to hers.
She caught her breath as he slid a finger carefully inside her, his thumb now expertly circling, building her to heights of ecstasy she wasn’t sure she could bear.
‘Beautiful,’ he breathed, with such intensity that, despite her baby blues self-doubt, she truly believed she was.
‘Now?’ he asked her.
Melissa could only moan her affirmation as he pulled her closer. With one hand propped against the wet tiles of the wall, his other supporting her, he eased himself inside her, pacing himself, checking with her, as if she were made of precious porcelain after all her body had been through. She loved him so much for that. And then he increased the rhythm, in tune with her, until he was plunging deep inside her.
Eleven
JADE
Bitch. Stunned, Jade backed silently out of their bedroom to press herself against the landing wall, her stomach clenching painfully inside her as she heard Mark’s deep, throaty moan. Primal urges, that’s all it was. He was a man. He had needs.
Jade tried to temper her fury, squeezing her eyes closed to block out the images of him making love to another woman. It was only because she was convenient. A convenient fuck! Why else would he?
Peeling herself from the wall, Jade tried to slow the rapid beat of her heart, and then, pausing at the nursery door, made her way quietly back to the stairs. She needed to be calm, she reminded herself. The epitome of niceness.
Notching up her chin, her back straight, Jade descended the stairs. Stopping in front of the hall mirror, she tried to compose herself, working to obliterate all emotion from her face.
Walking into the kitchen and calmly opening the dog food cupboard, she selected a chew from the plastic storage box therein and then headed for the back door, collecting the key for Melissa’s workshop from the hook on the utility door as she went.
The cat was on the patio, basking in the sun. Whispering reassuringly to it, Jade picked it up. She actually couldn’t wait to be rid of it. What was Melissa thinking, allowing a cat free run of the place? It could easily slink upstairs to lap at lips fresh with milk and end up suffocating her baby. Irresponsible cow.
The dog was on the lawn, its head plopped dejectedly between its paws. The stupid mutt had clearly realised the cat was too clever for it by far.
‘Stay,’ she instructed it, and then headed to the workshop with the cat. Once inside, she placed the cat on the bench, using a sliver of the chew to entice it to stay there, and then went over to the window. Melissa was right, it was definitely in need of repair. Jade eased the latch and opened the window, and then, scanning the tools on the workbench underneath it, she selected a knife-like sculpting tool, which pushed easily between hinges and frame. It took a couple of heaves, but both hinges came away from the rotting wood fairly easily.
‘Stay, Felix,’ she said sweetly, running a hand the length of the cat’s back and up its tail as she passed it. Feeding it another nugget of chew, she moved to the sculpture, trailing a hand languidly over that, tilting it sideways, and then allowing it to fall and crash satisfyingly to the floor.
Alarmed, the cat jumped down, but Jade was already at the door, slipping sleekly out and closing it behind her. It didn’t take much to push the window in. One hard shove was enough. Jade was impressed with the dog’s agility skills, she had to admit, as she watched it sail through the windowless hole after the chew she threw into the workshop.
Jade furrowed her brow as she let herself out through the gate beyond the garage. Might it have cut its paws on the glass, she wondered. Briefly.
Twelve
MARK
‘I wasn’t drinking on my own in the small hours,’ Mark assured Melissa, as he towelled his hair with one hand and checked a text from Lisa Moyes with his other. ‘We were out of coke in the fridge so I—’
Reading the text, Mark stopped:
Forensics back. Stain on stairs confirmed blood. DNA match to Daisy.
Shit! Cursing silently, Mark tossed the towel aside. He was pulling on his clothes when he heard a distressed mewl and frenzied barking from the garden. Heading fast for the window, Mel close behind him, he looked out to see the cat scaling a tree as if its tail were on fire. Mark waited a second, expecting Hercules to come belting after it. More frantic barking but no sign of the dog. There followed a brief silence, followed by a sudden heart-flipping, high-pitched yelping that meant she was in trouble. Serious trouble, Mark realised, sensing the dog’s escalating panic.
Turning, he raced to the landing, while Mel grabbed up her dressing gown, tugging it on and stuffing her feet into flip-flops to follow him.
‘I’ll go,’ Mark said, nodding towards the nursery. He was probably being neurotic, but his inclination right now wasn’t to leave the children on their own, and out of hearing distance.
Once in the kitchen, Mark stopped to search for the workshop key, but it wasn’t hanging from its usual hook.