Waiting in Vain Read online

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  Waiting in Vain

  ISBN #978-0-85715-006-6

  ©Copyright Charlotte Stein 2009

  Cover Art by Lyn Taylor ©Copyright December 2009

  Edited by Christine Riley

  Total-E-Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2009 by Total-E-Bound Publishing 1 The Corner, Faldingworth Road

  , Spridlington, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, LN8 2DE, UK.

  Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has been rated Total-e-burning.

  WAITING IN VAIN

  Charlotte Stein

  Dedication

  To my husband and my Mother, for giving me the space. To Lizzie, for making me.

  And to Justine Elyot, for keeping me going.

  Chapter One

  I always feel awkward at the Hennessey’s annual family Christmas get-togethers—maybe because I’m just the sister of a brother-in-law. I don’t have any family except for him, so I get to be the tag-a-long. But I guess this year my awkwardness isn’t quite so unwarranted, when you consider that the revoltingly handsome eldest son has his hand on my thigh, under the table.

  I try to act cool. I’ve never had a hand on my thigh, under the table. Cathy—my brother’s wife—is telling a very funny story about the family’s trips to Bridlington, and her elderly Grandmother is doling out peas, which makes the experience even stranger.

  Though it could be that he didn’t intend to put his hand on my thigh. Maybe he has some sort of inner ear problem, and thinks he has his hand on his own thigh. Maybe he thinks he has his hand on the thigh of his brother’s wife—Kelly, the cute little redhead. I mean, it could be that he’s having an affair with her and just didn’t look properly at the person he sat down next to at this heaving dining table.

  But when I glance at him surreptitiously to confirm, he’s staring straight ahead at nothing as though everything’s just as it should be. His Gran offers him peas and he says, “Oh, yeah, thanks Gran.”

  If only she knew what a devil he is.

  I know his name, of course. The youngest is George and he’s Mick. Still not married and with something of a reputation. But if he thinks he’s going to splurge his reputation all over me he’s got another thing coming.

  God, that hand is high up on my thigh. How do I get it off without looking like I’m getting it off? I’m in the middle of eating this fabulous Christmas Eve dinner, pork with apple sauce halfway to my mouth. I can’t just suddenly put my hand underneath the table.

  They’ll all know if I do. He probably does this sort of stuff all the time. He’s tall and pouty-mouthed and masculine all at the same time, with these limpid, dark blue eyes that could steam off a pair of knickers from twenty paces.

  Yet I don’t think he’s a sleaze, exactly. It’s not like he’s really rudely fondling me. It’s almost as though he’s giving my upper thigh a reassuring cuddle—one that I could take sexually, if I’d like to. But no pressure otherwise.

  I’m not surprised that he can get so much information into one touch. I bet he crams Bibles into his love-making.

  I glance at him again, but that’s a mistake. Every time I look, he gets more and more handsome. No wonder I’ve spent the last two Christmas get-togethers avoiding looking at him. It’d be my hand on his thigh if I’d done a whole lot of drinking him in.

  His hair is curly, like Cathy’s. Dark and curly in this Lord Byron sort of way. Some of the curls kind of hang over his forehead in a way that should seem a bit affected, but on him they just look rugged and careless. His stubble only backs up this assessment—as do his many, many tattoos.

  I can see one of them now, on the meat of his left bicep. Just peeking out from beneath the worn t-shirt he has on. If it was something common and laddish, something that you’d see any night of the week in some cheap nightclub, I could think less of him. But it’s a labyrinth. A whole labyrinth on his upper arm! Complete with something at its centre that I can’t quite see, unless I lean in close...a little closer...a bit closer than that...

  I try not to scream when he clearly catches me checking him out, but I’m sure a little sound escapes anyway. Which wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t then whack me on the back as though I’ve swallowed a pea down the wrong way.

  I choke on something that isn’t there. He asks me very loudly if I’m all right.

  What am I supposed to say to that? I take a sip of water and smile at everyone through their concern, until he leans right down into my face and says, “Yeah, I think she’s all right. Aren’t you, Nance?”

  Then he winks. Not for them, however—he winks at me. As though that happens to me all the time and this is all just a perfectly naturally thing to occur—his hand on my thigh, his catching me ogling his tattoo, my near-choking, his lascivious eyelid descending over his equally lascivious eyeball.

  I put my hand over his, under the table, and force it down to the much safer climes of my knee. But good God, he’s not going easily. As I sip what seems to be a gallon of water, he uses the pressure of my hand to slide his own to somewhere between my legs. Still at my knee, but even so—between the legs is between the legs.

  My eyebrows meet my hairline. He starts talking to George across the table as though nothing’s going on.

  I wish I could be as calm and impassive as him. Unfortunately, I’m really sensitive just about anywhere on the insides of my thighs, and the last time I was touched anywhere in that region, iPods were something animals lived in.

  I want to stop him, I do. I want to stop squirming around as though that pea I didn’t choke on is lodged against my central nervous system. But it’s impossible when his hands are this massive and firm and I really like it. Even with his Gran staring at me, I like it.

  At one point, I think he actually holds my hand. Which is even weirder than all the groping and tingling feelings and winking, I have to say.

  I try to squeeze his hand to give him some sort of sign—not in front of your Gran. Though it could be that I won’t mind if your entire family isn’t here. You know, that sort of sign. I’m not about to pass up a hunk of beef as delectable as he is, after all.

  But he doesn’t seem to be getting the message. His hand is now definitely underneath my skirt. I thank the Lord that I dropped a napkin over my lap, because otherwise I’m sure it would be obvious that something is operating under there. He’s stroking me in soft maddening slides, while I resist the urge to lean into that pressure rather than away from it.

  And all the while he does nothing but joke about some job he did in Ipswich and compliment his Mum on the lovely tinsel-y decorations spilling about all around this already chintzy dining room. There are prim little dancing figurines in the sideboard behind his brother. I’m sitting on a cushion that has birds tapestried all over it. Everyone is wearing pearls.<
br />
  His hand is at my knickers.

  I try to send him brain waves—don’t come on to me like this, don’t come on to me like this, don’t! But he’s not getting them and I don’t have the willpower for anything more. I can feel my cheeks growing hot and glowy, and my nipples are peaking under the nice blouse I picked for this lovely occasion. I know that his hand is at my knickers, but really, he could breathe on me there and I’d feel it harder than a fist to the face.

  This is not how I thought dinner would go, when I was busy packing my little suitcase and getting comforting Christmas hugs from my brother. “You’ll have a lovely time, just like last year,” he said. “No need to be on your own at Christmas.”

  How not on my own did he want me to be, exactly?

  I think the main problem is that I can’t escape. If I jump up, everyone will know that something’s wrong. I’ll have to make up some sort of excuse, like I’m about to throw up. But staying seated just means that I have to fight myself and him.

  I think about passing him a secret note, as he strokes one sly finger over the plump pout of my pussy through the thin—and damp—material of my knickers. The note will read, Please try this again later, when we’re far away from your chintzy family.

  But then his hand slides away just as I’m holding my breath and feeling that sweet ache build in my beating clit, and I sag against the table quite suddenly.

  I’d be lying if I said I sagged because he set me free.

  * * * *

  I should have known, really. What an idiot I am! Why didn’t I let him do whatever he wanted while I had the chance? Hell—I should have actively encouraged him. Go ahead, fondle me, Mick! Let your Gran see, I don’t care!

  But I didn’t, and now he’s ignoring me. I can’t even say how vastly unfair that seems. My only opportunity was an illicit grope under the Christmas dining table. Great.

  Of course, it could be that he’s not ignoring me. I mean, we are all very busy after dinner. He helps Granny wash dishes, and I help George and Cathy sort out the clearing of the table and the folding it away. I’ve no idea why it needs folding away as it’s going to be out again tomorrow, but who knows how the inner workings of the Hennessey family sort themselves? They’ve probably got all kinds of routines and traditions that I still haven’t fully grasped.

  Groping under the table was certainly a new one.

  It’s still brand new when I crash into him in the narrow flock wallpapered hallway, me carrying a mile high stack of plates and him armed with full bin bags. It gets newer yet when he squeezes past me as I clutch the good china, lopsidedly grinning at me in this awfully knowing sort of manner.

  “All right, Nance?” he asks.

  He’s not really asking anything, however. He winks again. I hate that his winks now apparently go straight to my groin. I shiver, and the plates make a racket.

  So I guess he’s not ignoring me, exactly. He’s just picking his moments to corner me, like a mouse in that labyrinth on his arm. He does it again, when we’re all sitting around in the Hennessey’s vast living room, stuffed and sprawled on fat couches. The game is charades, of course, but I’m pretty sure he’s not miming film, three words, first syllable.

  He’s miming the exact size and shape of my breasts, for the benefit of his oblivious family. They seem to think he means A Clockwork Orange, but I can assure them he doesn’t. But he agrees with them, and slouches back down into the soft maw of the sofa, long legs spread out before him like pathways up to heaven.

  It’d be okay, if his jeans weren’t so tight. Especially up there, near the top. When he spreads his legs, it’s practically obscene. I pinch my own legs together as I perch on this little I’m-not-quite-a-relative chair, and try to look at other things.

  Like his built upper body.

  I mean, he’s not massive, or anything. He’s not Vin Diesel. But neither is he Crispin Glover. His shoulders are big and round and smooth, like apples. All of him stands out really nicely in that worn and tight t-shirt he’s wearing.

  I feel awkward and bulky by comparison, not casual at all in my little blouse and skirt set. With the sensible flat Mary-Janes, of course. My hair neatly back in a little plaited bun. My hands crossed in my lap. Likely they all think that Cathy married well—such a lovely young man, and what a well-mannered and pleasant sister he has!

  I suppose it only occurs to a person that they need to keep up appearances when those appearances are about to be shattered. Or are simply in need of shattering. I need shattering all over the place, I know that much.

  By the time we all start departing for bed, I’m a mess. All the fear and the need and the fear and God knows what else is turning me inside out. When I’m just about to go into my bedroom and from two rooms down the hall Mick calls out, Night, Nancy, I almost fall over my own feet.

  Mainly because the left one wants to stride towards him, immediately. And the right one wants to run into my room, right the hell now.

  Chapter Two

  The Hennessey house really creaks at night. I remember all the bumps and groans in the night from previous years, as well as the drafts under every door. Last year I was in the hideous green room on the other side of the house, and that was cold enough.

  This is unbearable. David popped in to see me not ten minutes ago, and brought me another blanket when he saw that I had the covers up around my ears. But it’s already not enough. I need the cardie in my suitcase—it’s only two steps from the bed.

  Two steps too many, I reckon. I think I can see my breath in the air. The windows are those sorts that a lot of quite big, old houses have—the ones that look as though they’re made of black toothpicks and sugar glass.

  Don’t even get me started on the curtains. I think they’re silk, but someone should tell them—silk is thin. It’s not well-suited to keeping drafts out.

  And yet somehow, somehow I fall asleep. I know I do, because I have to wake up to feel the sudden heat on the backs of my legs, on my freezing bottom, on the hatefully exposed-to-the-air back of my neck.

  Still groggy with half-sleep and not sure where I am, I push back against the heat simply through instinct. Something is warm. I want to be near it. I’d push back if it was Cathy. I’d push back if it was Gran, for goodness’ sake.

  So really, when you think about it, I can’t be blamed. Even when I realise that Mick Hennessey has snuck into my bed in the middle of the night, I can’t be blamed. He’s absolutely boiling hot, and that is not a problem at all. In fact, I actually snuggle right back into the curve of his big body, and pull his arm around me tighter.

  He seems surprised by that, I’m certain he does. I feel him stiffen a little—bodily, I mean—and when I tell him how lovely and toasty he feels, he laughs low and throaty into the darkness.

  “Ah,” he says. “So you’d have let me touch you in the dining room if I’d have provided some warmth?”

  “You provided plenty of warmth, you cheeky bastard,” I reply and he laughs again. Much too loud, this time. I tell him to shush, but he just squirms against me and laughs some more.

  “What have you got on under here, Nance?” he asks, and with more incredulous humour in his voice—“Is this a dressing gown?”

  “I’m freezing—stop it! I can’t believe you’ve just jumped into my bed in the middle of the night!”

  “Well, technically, this isn’t your bed. It’s my old bed. So I suppose you’re the one who’s intruding.”

  That gives me pause. I don’t know where this sudden curiosity about Mick is sprouting from, but it’s definitely there. Maybe if he wasn’t stroking my dressing gown as though it’s my pelt, it wouldn’t exist.

  “This is your old bed?”

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t see any Kylie Minogue posters on the walls.”

  “I was much more of a Winona Ryder fan, you know—small, bookish, so neatly put together that you just want to ruffle her up...”

  His mouth is suddenly hot and wet on the curve of my
neck, and his hand is in my still-wavy-from-the-plaits hair. True to his word, he ruffles it all into a right old mess, though I’m not sure that I look anything like Winona Ryder.

  Bookish and neatly put together, possibly. Gamine and lovely? Maybe not quite.

  Not that he seems to mind. In fact, quite the opposite. His left hand is busy tugging at my dressing gown while his right strokes great bone melting lines through my hair.

  I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this far with a man without going on some sort of date, first. But then maybe he views the other Christmases we’ve spent together as dates. Or as foreplay. All those games of charades where I apparently teased him with my tight bun of hair!

  Even so, I have to put him off. Just a little.

  “Mick...” I begin, as his tongue curls just ever so slightly around my earlobe. “I think you’re gorgeous, but...”

  “You think I’m gorgeous?”

  I’ve not idea why he sounds incredulous, again.

  “Did I say that? I meant—”

  “Because I think you’re gorgeous. I think you’re delicious, too. I just want to...unwrap you.”

  I bite my lip against the tingles his words produce. They’re not even particularly sexy words—why is he making me feel this way?

  “That’s very Christmas-y of you, but we don’t know much about each other...and you’re being really, really loud...”

  “Afraid someone will hear?” he says, without missing a beat. I think he’s known for some time that that’s exactly what I am afraid of. “Maybe they’ll hear you being really dirty with a distant relative, and frown down on you on Christmas morning.”

  “Maybe...” I say, but I can hear my voice getting more and more faint. Pretty soon, I’ll be saying nothing at all. Plus, there’s the fact that I seem to be rubbing back against his soft mouth and his big warm body.