Your Loss by Layla Simon
CHAPTER TWO
LOCK
“Where are we going?”the girl asks and I glance over to her, taking all of a second to assess her current level of wretchedness and decide that telling her anything will just add to it.
“To pick up a dress,” I say instead. A true enough statement without all the foreshadowing of what is going to be one very fucking long night.
I’m still burning at Kari’s dismissal. She knows we won’t break up for real; our parents married us off in their heads a few years ago. Well, not me precisely—I was still minding my own business back then—but the eldest son of Creighton was certainly getting hitched to the eldest daughter of the Abercrombies.
That my half-brother vacated his side of that equation, leaving me to fill the empty slot eighteen months ago, hasn’t put a dent in anyone’s plans.
“You said it was a date.”
“Yeah.” God, the traffic sucks this late in the evening. Half the cars in the city are heading out to the suburbs to lose themselves in screens until it’s late enough to go to bed. The other half are heading into the centre, determined to partake of all it offers before finding themselves a companion for the night who’s just as scared to spend time alone.
Mindless drones, all of them. I can’t stand the dreary routines these sheep brainlessly follow.
Not that I’ve got a lot going for me right now, either. A night with the old man for company is just the kind of evening that I’d rather kill myself than endure.
Hyperbole. Obviously. Otherwise, I’d be finding a nice cliff to drive off instead of ferrying this little mouse to an appointment that Kari should have her moved her arse to meet instead.
It’s a fucking bespoke dress. That’s the bit that gets me. Thousands spent to get it fitted perfectly to her body and now she won’t even wear it.
Not my thousands, not my wasted time, but still.
Kari and I have an understanding. She sucks me off when I need it and I eat her out when her toys and fingers fall short. If I want a real fuck I go elsewhere, thanks to her daddy’s strange adherence to old customs—chief among them, his insistence she remains intact until wed.
Apparently, the fact no one is going to stick a speculum up inside me, taking a peek to ensure I’ve been as good as my word, hit the wrong side of her lately. She even offered me her arse one day, something I promptly refused.
If I wanted to fuck someone in the arse, I’d choose her brother. At least he comes with a name and a business fortune attached.
My dismissal didn’t land as intended. Ever since, not one part of me has been allowed between those plump cherry lips. When I complained, she gave me the card for a full-service massage parlour. I returned the favour, pointing out the variety of ways that she could go get fucked.
Now she’s on her high horse, determined to teach me a lesson. Like it’s my fault her father insists on living in the fifties.
Still, if she wants to play silly beggars, I can do the same. It’ll be fun to see how long her current abstention lasts when she sees shots of me and whoever-the-fuck-it-is-sitting-in-the-passenger-seat hit my feed.
I could send Kari a shot from my bedroom afterwards just in case she’s worried that I’m missing out.
“How long will this take?” The girl’s querulous voice breaks into my thoughts. “I have school tomorrow.”
Jesus. I can’t deal with this pick-pick-picking the entire drive. “We’ve got a family event. You’ll be my date for the evening, and you’ll do everything and anything I tell you. Someone’ll get you home afterwards, in time for school. Don’t worry.”
“And what about my father’s debt?”
She’s insistent. I try glowering at her, but I’m distracted by a random prick of a driver who decides the side street leads to a merging lane and have to lay on the horn. By the time I turn back to her, there’s a small crease of worry between her eyes. Every cell in her body looks set to anxious.
“Do everything and anything I tell you tonight and it’s wiped. All of it.”
I can’t even remember how much he owes.
It’ll serve Dad right if it’s an astronomical figure. He has no business sending me out on these paltry jobs. As much as he insists it’s to teach me the ins and outs at all levels of the business, I know it’s to shaft me because I don’t have my nose jammed far enough up his rectum to satisfy him.
Miss Chatty settles back into her seat, apparently satisfied. The prospect of making small talk with a stranger for the entire evening annoys me, but nothing like it will annoy my father, and not even in the same ballpark as how much it’ll upset Kari.
Still, Gerald better be waiting at the door with a large drink.
I turn into the carpark, winding around the storeys until I reach the second to top. There are hundreds of empty parks before the one I choose but, on this level, we just need to walk out of the parking garage and across the air bridge to reach the department store. It’s closed to the public as of fifteen minutes ago, but that doesn’t apply to me.
Most rules don’t apply to me.
“Lock!”
I glance up at my nickname and smile as a cloud of fuchsia, rosewater, and blonde hair envelopes me. “Hey, Tandi. Slight change of plans.” I jerk my chin towards my new companion, then frown. “What’s your name?”
She blinks in surprise when I stare at her, taking so long to catch up that I’m worried she’s a bit slow. “G-George.”
“Right. G-George is now my date instead of Kari. She’s about the right size, yeah?”
Even if she wasn’t, Tandi isn’t about to correct me. She’s old school servile. Thinking ten steps ahead and barking orders to make sure the people paying her bills never have to think about anything twice.
If I had my way, I’d marry her, not some spoiled princess like Kari.
“Would you like a glass of champagne while you wait?”
See? The perfect woman. I hold out my hand and a full flute appears in it like magic.
“You’re very flat chested,” Tandi says, wrinkling her nose as she surveys George. “What undergarments do you have?”
She strips the clothes off my unfortunate date while the girl’s still trying to frame an answer, the four attendants darting in to get things done while she spins in a slow circle, completely failing to grasp what’s happening.
I sit in a nearby chair. I also need to get changed, but a suit isn’t exactly rocket science. I don’t need my hair cut and styled; my face painted over with a better-looking version.
Even if I wear the shirt stays that seem completely overboard, it’s still nothing like the intricacies of ladies’ underwear.
So, as another nail in the misogyny coffin, I get to sit here getting sophisticatedly wasted while George is sprayed and painted and dunked under water to achieve a fairly similar effect.
“We’ll have her ready to go by six-thirty,” Tandi reassures me after her staff have given my new date a thorough inspection. She’s bundled into the shower, probably with an attendant nearby with a stopwatch, telling her exactly when she needs to step out to make the deadline.
Honestly. Some days, being wealthy is a hassle and other times, it’s a sheer delight.
“What the fuck are those?” I snort when my date reappears, dressed only in her underwear. They’re some discount supermarket brand by the looks of them, washed until their original white has turned into a dishrag grey.
There’s no way I’m stripping those off with my teeth. I’d need to brush them after.
“Can you put her in something nicer?” I ask Tandi, looking forward to the afterparty more the longer I stare at George in her current state of undress. Her body’s so different from Kari’s I can’t wait to explore it.
“Get the white lace with garter belt and suspenders,” Tandi orders, after a glance at my expression, tutting over the inadequate provisions. “What bra size are you? B cup?”
“If they’re padded.” The girl blushes such a deep red she looks likely to give Rudolph a run for his money. “Otherwise, it’s an A.”
Tandi snaps her fingers at one helper, who rushes off to fulfil the request. As I sit back and watch her strip out of one bra only to don another, I couldn’t care less about their size. All I know is they’re the cutest, perkiest set of titties I’ve seen in a long while. More nipple than substance, but I bet they’re sensitive.
My tongue licks away a drop of champagne from my upper lip, easily imagining what they’d feel like under its rough caress.
George glances over to me, seeming to realise for the first time I’m still in the room while she’s being manhandled into and out of her clothing. Another blush joins the first until her entire skin looks like she spent a half hour too long in the sun. Delicious.
Kari is immune to humiliation. Something that sounds good in theory but makes her far too hard to manipulate.
This girl, though.
Not that I need more ways to manipulate her. Her father’s debt seems like it’ll work just fine by itself.
I work my way through most of the bottle by the time George is ready. Turns out Poverty McPoorface scrubs up okay. Given the price tag, she ought to.
The deep green of the dress looks fantastic. It brings out slivers of the same colour in her eyes, making them flash as dangerously as emeralds against the ruby crimson of her painted lips.
Released from its elastic, her hair is dark blonde rather than the mousy brown I’d first thought. With a few highlights added, it’s full of warmth, even under the cold glow of the store’s fluorescent lighting.
Everything fits. Everything looks exactly like it should.
She grabs her phone off the makeup bench and stuffs it in the side of her bra. “Could I get a matching bag?” I ask Tandi, and she nods, grinning at the idea of adding another commission point to the sale.
“Oh, I don’t need…” George trails off, biting her lip.
“You can keep it after,” I say, unsure what’s worrying her. A childhood trauma involving a purse? Seems unlikely.
“You’ve already spent so much…” She cups her elbows, glancing nervously after the saleswoman. “I don’t want to cost you anything more.”
The concept is so foreign, it takes me a few seconds to understand she’s serious. “You don’t want a free handbag?”
“I’d love a free handbag,” she immediately retorts, then holds up one of the selection that Tandi hurriedly arranged. She flips the price tag around so I can see the four-figure sum clearly. “This isn’t free.”
I start to ask why she would care, then shrug. Either way, it doesn’t bother me. “Whatever you want.”
I tip Tandi a few hundred to make up for the loss and strip off my jeans and t-shirt, stepping into my suit and getting ready in about two minutes. One assistant folds my discarded clothing into a bag, handing it to me along with George’s original outfit. After knocking back the last of my glass, I hold an arm out for my date.
An arm which she leaves hanging like I’m some loser who isn’t worth the trouble to treat politely.
No. Worse than that. She’s actively glaring at me.
“What?”
“Have you been drinking the whole time?”
I feel a hit that she didn’t pay enough attention to me to know for sure, then forgive her the oversight on account of the parade of staff members who’d been fussing over her while they left me to my own devices.
Another hit comes because she’s right. Even if she hasn’t voiced the whole opinion.
I’m meant to be driving her to Dad’s ‘little house’ in the country. Even with my tolerance, most of a bottle of champagne is at least half a bottle too much.
Nothing I can’t buy my way out of, but I still don’t need to court trouble.
“Here.” I toss her the keys. “You’re not on anything, are you?”
“No, I’m not on anything,” she says, mugging me and turning on her heel like she’s pissed off I just ruined her night. “Where are we even going?”
The change in attitude is startling, setting my curiosity alight. What happened to Miss Meek and Mild?
“I’ll give you directions,” I mutter, waving goodbye to Tandi with far less grace than I’d greeted her. “And you might want to try pulling your neck in.” Thinking of the incident with the bag, I slyly add, “You’re wearing about ten grand worth of dress and jewellery. A thank you wouldn’t go astray.”
The flush comes back, creeping out from her neck to the delicate curve of her shoulder. The dress only has spaghetti straps, one of which I pretend to fix into position just to touch her gorgeous creamy skin.
She jerks away like I burned her.
“Sorry,” she says, holding a hand to her throat, eyes staring at the floor. “My mum was ki—” Her voice breaks off, and she compulsively swallows once, then again. “Drunk driving is dangerous, that’s all. I didn’t mean to be rude or imply anything or…” she trails off for the second time, shaking her head.
A dead mother to add to her deadbeat father. The sharpness of her inquiry dulls to tolerable levels.
“Luckily, I’m at the stage of inebriation where I’m incredibly forgiving,” I say, throwing my arm over her shoulder.
She’s so tiny that it steers her off on a tangent for three steps before she counters the weight. The door back to the carpark doesn’t open as we approach; the time since closing enough that they’ve turned off the sensors for the night.
Like the gallant gentleman I am, I step forward to press the release, then hold the door open for George to walk through.
“D’you remember where the car is?” I ask, peering into the dim cavern ahead of us.
She responds by pressing the fob and the car unlocks with a thump, indicators flashing twice in case I was still having trouble locating the vehicle.
I head for the driver’s side, only correcting when she frowns across at me. “Are you sure you’re okay to navigate?” she asks with a tiny snort. “That must’ve been excellent champagne.”
“Either that or I’m drunk on the sight of your tiny titties,” I murmur, earning a scowl. “What? Aren’t I allowed to mention they’re the perfect size for my hand.” I get into the passenger seat and lean across as she gets into the driver’s side. “Allow me to demonstrate.”
Instead, I get a palm in my face for the trouble. “Do up your seat belt. I’ve already got demerit points on my licence. I’m not getting blasted because you’re too drunk to remember basic safety tips.”
I bury my entire face in her lap, laughing as she tries to move my head with her miniature hands. “Let me snap your garter, at least.”
“Do I…?” She frowns as I raise my head, hands on the wheel but taking no action to start the car. “How am I meant to return all this?” She waves at the clothing. “Do I get it dry cleaned or—?”
“Keep everything. It’s not my size.” I sit upright, leaning away from her so my shoulder rests against the side window. “If anyone asks tonight, you go to school with me and you were happy to fill in when Kari was unexpectedly taken ill.”
“Okay.”
She finally starts the car and steers out of the parking building. With each descending level, her comfort increases until by the time we exit at street level, she relaxes back in the seat. “Which direction from here?”
“Head out towards Amberly. When we’re closer, I’ll show you the turnoff.”
“Sure.” She navigates through the city streets, the ebb and flow of traffic fading into a steady stream as we get onto the motorway.
When we approach Woodend, a sign calculates our speed, spitting out the results in flashing red.
“What are you? A racing car driver.”
“I wish.” She makes a concerted effort to slow and by the time we pass underneath the sign, it’s calmed down to green. “Why? How fast can this baby go?”
“Take the next turnoff and you can find out.”
She glances over to me for an explanation, and I smile as the light catches her eyes. For a desperate last-minute date, she scrubbed up pretty well. I won’t be embarrassed parading her through the doorway.
Kari will hate her on sight. I check my phone battery, making sure there’s enough juice left to record a plethora of photographs.
I point out the side road leading to my dad’s place, and she smoothly makes the turn.
“It’s not a private road but nobody else uses it much, so it may as well be. Dad owns all the land around here.”
“Is he a farmer?” she asks in such a sweet, polite voice that I’m halfway through framing a serious answer before I catch the humour lurking behind the words.
“You’re a comedian, too?”
“Racing driver first,” she says with a smile, then steadily increases the speed until we’re flying along the dark streets.
Out here, there’s so little traffic that streetlamps are only planted in the intersections. The sole light illuminating the stretch of road in front of us is from the headlights, the beams picking out a hundred metres clear before it turns into a black unknown.
“There’s a curve coming up to your left,” I warn her, grabbing the handle above the passenger door as the speedometer needle continues to climb. “After that, it’s pretty much straight roads until we hit the mansion.”
“You live in a mansion?”
I laugh, some of it releasing my nerves for the forthcoming evening, most of it at the gap between my father and me. “I live in a boarding room not much bigger than this car.”
“You’re a boarder?”
I glance over, wondering at the sudden interest but her eyes are glued to the road, her lips wearing a relaxed smile of such contentment that I feel a stab of envy. “Yeah. Otherwise, I’d spent half my week commuting.”
She nods as though that makes sense, even though it’s only taken us forty minutes to get where we are and another ten will see us to the door.
Cut that down to five. This girl really knows how to wrangle some impressive performance from a vehicle.
“There’s a grain road cutting through if you’re really interested in showing off,” I tell her, pointing to where it’s coming up, the actual turn not yet in view.
“Sounds like a challenge,” she says, her eyes sparkling, and her lips parted in enjoyment. Instead of keeping my attention on the road, I focus on her face. The sharp jut of her chin melding into the sweet curve of her jaw. The beautiful pout of her top lip, larger than the bottom, so plump my teeth ache to bite into it, to make her squeal and squirm.
“Here,” I say, belatedly pointing out the turn.
The whole car judders as she swings the wheel to the left, holding the vehicle on the road by sheer force of will, the gravel spitting out from its wheels to punch bullet holes in the darkness.
She shifts gears, eyes narrowing as she wrestles the steering column for control. The back-end shivers, making the car vibrate like its crossing a cattle grid.
For a split second, I think she’s lost it. Then she steers into the turn, easing off the accelerator until she’s back in charge. Laughing like a maniac with the wind whipping through her open window, tugging her hair out of shape, strands flying across to stick to her lipstick, her flushed cheeks, her mouth.
I laugh along with her, enjoying the difference between her and the women I’m used to. The mouse has briefly turned into a lion, roaring as loudly as the car engine.
Another kilometre or two down the road and she slows the car, pulling to the side though not so far the wheels are in danger of sinking into the mushier soil of the pasture.
Her giggle warms me more than the alcohol still buzzing through my veins. Her hands stroke the leather contours of the steering wheel like it’s a lover.
I tease her, feeling more like I’m sitting next to a friend than a captive stranger. “You need me to take over? You seemed to lose control back there.”
Her eyes flash with the reflection of the dashboard lights. “No, I do not. Until you sober up, this pretty little tin can is mine.”
Tin can. It’s a late model charcoal C8 Corvette with green leather interior. If she weren’t so obviously appreciative despite her words, I’d take issue.
Her laughter trills into the night as she pulls back into the road, performing a three-point turn that shouldn’t be possible on the narrow strip of hard packed clay that passes for a road.
“How long till we need to be at the mansion?”
I reach over, pulling the loose strands of hair away from where they’ve caught on her mouth. “About right now.”
She wrinkles her nose, twisting her lips to the side. “Are you sure your watch isn’t running fast?”
“Not unless it’s conspiring with my phone.”
“Well…” She puts her hand on the gearstick again, raising her eyebrows and poking the tip of her tongue out between her teeth. “Better get you there pronto.”
For a minute I’m tempted to tell her no. To drive wherever she wants, whatever speed she wants, just to see how much she enjoys the ride.
It’s been a long time since I found such joy in the excess that my father brings to everything in our lives. Her happiness is intoxicating but reality kicks back in soon enough.
A night with the family shouldn’t be something so dreaded but there’s no avoiding the fact I’d rather be anywhere but on my way to a dinner sitting opposite the man who belatedly claimed me as his son.
But George doesn’t know all the dirty secrets piling up in our closets. She can have an enjoyable time driving this expensive car, wearing her expensive dress, fiddling with her expensive earrings while dining on the finest dishes and sampling the finest wines that money can buy.
And later, I can strip every last thread of clothing from her body. Kari’s found her own entertainment for the night, so I have a free pass to do the same.
I’ll strip her and see if I can find my own joy in the girl I just bought for the price of her father’s debt.