Two Halves (Cate & Kian Book 2) Read online

When Kian woke up the next morning, his head felt like it had been in one of those Whack-A-Mole games Lola liked to play at the funfair. The sun streaming through the window was too fucking bright. He threw an arm over his eyes.

  He felt the mattress dip and his first thought was thank fuck, Cate was there. She closed the curtains so the room was shrouded in darkness again. He felt her small hand wrap around the base of his cock. She stuck out her tongue and rubbed the underside of his shaft against it. Fuck, Kian wished he could see what she was doing. He reached down and stroked his fingers through her hair. It felt different, rougher. She took him deep inside her mouth and as she swallowed, the back of her throat massaged the blunt head of his cock. She cupped his balls, gently massaging them.

  “Cate,” Kian grunted, feeling the warmth spread out from the base of his spine.

  She faltered for a second. He dug his fingers in her hair, holding her head still as he thrust up inside her mouth. Then he felt the beads of glue close to her scalp.

  What the…? Cate doesn’t have hair extensions. He pushed her away and fumbled for the light switch at the side of the bed.

  When he looked up, he saw that it was Jenna kneeling over him. “It’s OK, baby,” she tried to move towards him, misinterpreting his expression of horror. “It doesn’t matter.” She thought he felt guilty because he’d called her Cate. Fuck, Kian dragged his hands through his hair.

  “You did the same last night,” Jenna reassured him. “In the lift.”

  Kian jumped out of bed, “last night…?”

  He forced himself to look at Jenna. There was a bite mark around one of her nipples. “Did I?”

  Jenna looked down and giggled; it was such an awful sound it made his ears bleed. “Yeah, you thought you could make me come like that… I tried telling you that since I’ve had them done; my tits just aren’t that sensitive.”

  Kian looked down at his cock, which was sheathed in an empty condom. “Did we fuck?”

  “We tried but you’d had a lot to drink last night.” Jenna gestured to the floor at the side of the bed, “I don’t envy the cleaners this morning, you were so sick.”

  Kian gritted his teeth. “Don’t worry,” Jenna purred. She knelt in front of him on the bed and wrapped her hand around his now limp dick, playing with the edge of the condom. He could smell the vomit. She rubbed her fake tits up against his chest. “You still made me come. After you passed out, I used your fingers. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Kian grabbed his phone and stumbled into the bathroom, trying hard not to gag. He ripped the condom off his dick and went to the toilet, even his piss stank of tequila. As he turned around, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. There were specks of vomit crusted around his mouth. As he reached up to scratch at them, he could smell Jenna’s pussy on his fingers. He lurched back towards the toilet and heaved violently but there was nothing left in his stomach.

  He needed to try and fix this but it felt like the world had started spinning in reverse.

  “Hello?” Sinead sounded as if she’d just woken up.

  “It’s me,” Kian croaked, “I need your help.”

  “Ugh,” Sinead wrinkled her nose when Kian opened the door. “What’s that smell?”

  “I’m dealing with it,” Kian said curtly. He needed to get Jenna out of there now.

  Before Sinead could interrogate him, Jenna came out of the bathroom, dressed in just her lacy bra and skinny jeans. “Sweets,” she trilled when she saw Sinead. “What are you doing here?”

  “We arranged to have breakfast, remember?” Sinead plastered a fake smile on her face.

  “Yay, I’m so hungry,” Jenna unashamedly looked Kian up and down and licked her lips, “your brother helped me work up quite an appetite.”

  While Jenna crawled under the bed, looking for her heels, Sinead pretended to vomit. “You owe me big time,” she mouthed to Kian.

  After she’d found her heels, Jenna stopped in front of the mirror, so she could plump her hair. “Have you got any lippy, sweets? My lips look totally fucked this morning.”

  Kian glared at Sinead. “You’re supposed to be getting her out of here.”

  “Bite me,” Sinead snarled back. “You should be thankful I’m even here.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Jenna giggled.

  “Nothing,” Kian was gripping the doorframe so tightly, his knuckles had turned white. Were they ever going to leave?

  “Here,” Sinead held the lip gloss just out of Jenna’s reach. “You can put it on when we’re in the lift.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “I think I saw Colette downstairs,” Sinead lied. Colette was one of the most famous WAGS ever. She’d come into Cut (the exclusive boutique where Jenna and Sinead worked) when her footballer boyfriend was on loan at Manchester City. Jenna’s most prized possession was the tape measure the seamstress had used that day. “Wow,” Jenna had swooned, when she’d seen the markings. “Her waist is almost as narrow as my arm, she’s such an inspiration.”

  “Really?” Jenna stopped buttoning up her shirt. Her fake breasts were almost spilling out of her bra.

  Sinead looked at her watch, “come on, we don’t want to miss her.”

  As they walked down the corridor, Jenna tried to talk to Sinead, “you shouldn’t grind your teeth like that.”

  “I’m not grinding my teeth,” Sinead snapped.

  “Are you cross with me, sweets?

  “He’s married,” Sinead bit out. She wanted to smack her now ex-friend with her handbag. “They’ve got a child together, my niece.” Sinead’s heart twisted at the thought of her beautiful niece. It was just starting to sink in how badly Kian had fucked up.

  Jenna tried to frown but it looked odd since she’d had pre-emptive Botox on her forehead. “But you said he wasn’t happy. That the only reason they were still together was because of the kid.”

  “I never said that,” Sinead snapped but deep down, she knew she’d probably said much worse. She and Jenna had started working at Cut at the same time. It was in the middle of the worst few months of Sinead’s life – her Dad had just died, her boyfriend Jake had dumped her by text and then she’d found out that her best friend, Cate had been secretly hooking up with Kian for months. She’d thrown herself into her new job at Cut, going out every night with her new friends, including Jenna.

  But Jenna was adamant, “you did. When we first started at Cut, you said she was a money-grabbing bitch who got pregnant on purpose just to trap him.”

  Back in the empty room, Kian walked back to the bed. His phone beeped to say that he had a voicemail message so he sat down on the bed to listen to it.

  “Hey, it’s me. I’m so sorry about what happened. I really wish I was there with you. If you want to talk, I’m at Mum’s. Lola’s had food poisoning. She’s OK, she’s sleeping now but I’ll probably be up all night watching her so if you want to talk? I’ve lost my phone but call me at Mum’s. Love you.”

  “Fuck,” Kian threw his phone as hard as he could; it hit the window and punctured the glass.

  While Jenna had been sucking his dick, Cate had been up all night looking after their sick daughter.

  He ran to the bathroom and bent double over the toilet bowl; his insides felt like they were being ripped apart. “Love you,” Cate’s voice taunted him. She wouldn’t love him, not when she found out what he’d just done. He lurched forward again; the acrid bile burning up the back of his throat. Sweat splashed off his forehead and chest into the porcelain.

  Cate had once told him that she felt like she carried his heart next to her own. Kian had loved that image, loved the idea of a part of him always being inside her. He’d rested his cheek just above the soft swell of her breast and listened to the comforting thump-thump of her heartbeat. Now for the first time he knew what she meant, his chest felt hollow - a big part of him, Cate’s heart was missing.

  Kian staggered to his feet; he needed to do something, anything to try and fix this. He splashed hi
s face with cold water but as he reached for his toothbrush, he caught sight of the discarded condom in the bin. “Fuck.”

  He’d destroyed his marriage, his family for what? A lousy, fucking blow job. Kian grabbed a glass from the side of the sink and smashed it against the wall. If he’d been angry last night, this was something else. Looking again at the condom taunting him from the bottom of the bin, his nostrils flared and his heart pounded out of his chest. He picked up the bin and raising it above his head, he crashed it against the wall. The contents spilled out across the floor, the condom sticking to the side of the bath like a limpet. It wasn’t enough, he slammed it again and again until the bin was bent beyond recognition and there was a big fucking dent in the wall. Kian didn’t care; he was already looking around for something else to destroy.

  Full of rage, he kicked and threw anything and everything he could get his hands on. This room, this fucking room. He wanted to destroy every last bit of it until it resembled how he felt inside.

  The front door opened and he heard Ben’s voice. “What the…?”

  Ben found him in the bathroom, he’d wrenched the shower fitting off the wall and there was water gushing everywhere. There was a fist-shaped crack in the centre of the mirror and thick streaks of blood.

  “Kian, stop,” Ben shouted. But Kian punched the mirror again and again; he couldn’t bear his own reflection.

  “Stop,” Ben said, again. This time he used all of his strength to restrain Kian.

  “Let me go,” Kian roared, struggling to free himself.

  “No,” Ben said, struggling just as hard to contain him. Eventually Kian stopped fighting and sunk to the floor with his head in his hands.

  Ben had never seen such a sorry state. “What the hell is all of this?” he asked, sitting down on the closed toilet seat.

  With his hands covering his face, all Ben could see were Kian’s knuckles with the skin ripped off and bleeding.

  There was a knock on the door so Ben went to answer it. It was Yoakey – he was in the room next door. While they were talking, the door opened to the room opposite Kian’s. “All right?” Frederick Meyer grinned, wearing just his red satin boxer shorts. As he held the door open, his greasy-haired agent escorted the blonde from last night through the door. “You’ll call me?” she pouted at Fred.

  “Course I will, sweetheart,” Fred laughed. The agent manhandled her towards the lifts.

  He gestured towards Kian’s room, “I’d knock first if I were you,” Fred wiggled his eyebrows.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Fred said, putting his hands up. “I’m just saying, when Warner left the bar last night, he wasn’t alone. If the room’s a-rocking, don’t come-a-knocking.”

  Ben shot a glance at Yoakey, “what’s he talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” Yoakey shrugged. “When me and Sara left, Kian was still at the bar getting pissed.”

  Ben turned around to open the door and he could feel Fred’s foul breath on the back of his neck. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I want to see,” Fred said, bouncing up and down. “She might still be in there.”

  Ben saw red, “listen to me you little shit, this isn’t a fucking game.” He pinned Fred up against the wall with his forearm against his throat. “Kian’s got a wife and kid.”

  “Let me go,” Fred choked, turning red.

  “Come on Ben,” Yoakey said, pulling him away. “He’s not fucking worth it.”

  “Why do you care so much anyway?” Fred gasped, trying to catch his breath.

  “Because his wife is my little sister,” Ben lunged for him again but Yoakey managed to grab him in time.

  The agent appeared from the other end of the corridor, “what’s going on?”

  “Get him back in his room,” Yoakey said. “Now!”

  As the door closed behind Fred, Yoakey let go of Ben. “Do you want me to come with you?” He gestured towards Kian’s door.

  “No,” Ben shook his head. “I’ll handle it.”

  Ben walked back into the bathroom, finding Kian still slumped on the floor where he’d left him. “You piece of shit,” Ben yelled, kicking him. “Is that what all this is about? Who was she?”

  Kian looked up at him. “What?”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me,” Ben raged. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets so he didn’t punch him. “You cheated on my sister?”

  The hotel phone rang again and Ben went to answer it. It was the manager of the hotel, one of the other guests had reported the broken window. Ben said he was dealing with it and of course, they would pay for any damages. As he walked back, he saw the condom stuck to the side of the bath.

  “Get up,” Ben said angrily. “I mean it, Kian, get the fuck up.”

  “Just leave me alone,” Kian replied.

  “No,” Ben said. “If you care anything at all for my sister, you’re going to get up off the floor, clean yourself up and we’re going to do our best to fix this hotel room. The longer you stay in here, the more likely it is that she’ll find out about whatever you’ve done from somebody else or even worse from the newspapers and she deserves better than that from you.”

  Kian got up from the floor. “You go, I’ll deal with it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “We’re just getting reports there’s been trouble at the England team hotel.”

  Cate switched off the TV. She didn’t want to hear any more; she just wanted him home.

  Before she went upstairs, she tried calling Kian again but it kept going to voicemail. Ugh, Cate slammed the handset down. She was so frustrated that she couldn’t find her mobile. He was due home either tomorrow or the day after, Sara would have texted her the details but it wasn’t soon enough. She hadn’t spoken to him since yesterday morning and she was desperate to hear his voice. She really hated these tournaments, hated being away from him.

  She was about to walk up the stairs when she saw movement by the front door. “Oh sweetheart,” Cate knelt down by Monty’s side. Monty was her sister-in-law, Erin’s cocker spaniel; Cate was looking after him while she and Ben were at the World Cup. “They’ll be home soon, I promise.”

  “Do you want to come upstairs with me?” Cate asked, stroking the top of his head. He wasn’t usually allowed upstairs but she figured that they could both do with the company tonight. Monty didn’t budge, keeping his big, black eyes trained on the front door of his own house, just visible through the frosted glass.

  “I know,” Cate smiled. “I miss them too.” She went back into the kitchen and got Monty’s bed for him so at least he’d be comfortable while he kept watch all night for Ben and Erin.

  Before she went to bed, Cate checked on Lola, who was sleeping peacefully. Cate gently placed the palm of her hand on her daughter’s forehead; it was still a little warm but it wasn’t feverish. Lola stirred, “Mummy?”

  “It’s OK sweetie,” Cate whispered. “It’s still night-time, go back to sleep.”

  “When’s Daddy coming home?”

  “Soon.” As Lola rolled on to her side, Cate saw that she was hugging her England shirt like a comfort blanket.

  Cate tiptoed out of her daughter’s bedroom and snuck a quick peek over the banister; Monty had dragged his bed so it was right up against the front door, his wet nose was twitching against the glass. “What a family we are.”

  In the bedroom, Cate quickly got undressed with the lights off. She hated sleeping in their bed on her own. It was so cold and empty. Kian was adamant that she slept there though, he got really annoyed if he found out she’d slept on the sofa or in one of the guest bedrooms while he was away.

  She climbed under the duvet and pressed her face against his pillow to see if it still held any of his scent. He’d been away too long, it didn’t smell like him at all. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep without some reminder of him. She padded across to the bathroom and found an almost empty bottle of his aftershave at the b
ack of the cupboard. She spritzed his pillow. “Ugh,” Cate cried with frustration as she hugged his pillow tightly to her chest. She’d thought that it would help but being able to smell him just made her miss him more.

  Eventually she must have fallen asleep because a little while later, she felt someone tugging on her pyjama bottoms. Cate opened her eyes, it was pitch-black outside but Kian was there. “I need to pinch you,” she mumbled, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She didn’t want to get her hopes up in case this was just a very vivid dream. She reached up and pinched his cheek. It felt lovely and stubbly against her fingers.

  “Ouch,” Kian yelped. “Aren’t you supposed to pinch yourself?”

  It was really him. He was home. “When did you get back?” Cate cried, she was so, so pleased to see him.

  “I got an earlier flight.” Kian pulled off his jacket and threw it on the floor. He tipped Cate back on the mattress and kissed her, his tongue pushing into her mouth.

  “Fuck, you taste good.”

  His hands went back to her pyjama bottoms and he yanked them down to her ankles. Cate kicked them off.

  “Take off your top, I want to see your tits,” he grunted. As he sat back and unbuttoned his shirt, she obeyed and quickly pulled her vest top up and over her head.

  “Fuck,” Kian grunted, looking down at his wife’s half-naked body. It was like he hadn’t seen her in months. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in those fucking intoxicating blackberries. He felt the breath hitch in her throat as he trailed his fingers up over her ribs. Cate arched her back, pressing her warm breasts into his hands. Her eyelids fluttered closed as he kneaded her tender flesh, “oh.”

  She ran her hands up his back, taking everything in; his scent, the feel of his muscles flexing underneath his warm skin, the weight of his hips pushing her deep into the mattress.

  “I think somebody wanted me to pinch them,” Kian chuckled, pinching the stiff peak of her nipple. He followed that with a sharp twist. “Ah,” Cate jerked upwards, her torso crashing into his.

  As he moved down, she felt his stubble scratch against her tender skin and then, “oh God.” Cate sunk her nails into his back as he took her stinging nipple into his mouth, soothing her with his lips and tongue.