Jail Bird

desirable.

But now she was moving, he was slipping out. Fuck it, he’d just been getting into his stride there. She turned on the bed, great breasts, high and firm and brown-nippled, slim waist, brown pubic hair, so not a natural blonde, but who gave a fuck? She lay down on her back and clasped him with her wide-open thighs, smiling up at him dreamily.

‘Let’s do it this way for a change,’ she panted.

That annoyed him. He liked doggy-style the best. He’d thought about why over the years and had concluded that he liked it best that way because the woman in the bed could be anyone, anyone at all, you didn’t have to see her face, you didn’t have to tell her you loved her (that came later, orearlier if she was proving resistant to all his other best lines), or have it rammed home to you that it wasn’t Lily: doggy-style, you could be shagging anyone or anything, you could be putting it in a hole in the fence. It was simple, and it was – nearly – guiltless.

Okay, he was nearly there anyway. He pushed back into her warm wetness and she pulled him in close, skin to skin. She was a fabulous lay and so he was willing to forgive the interruption – this time.

‘Jesus!’ she was yelling in his ear now. ‘Oh God – Leo!’

And now she was applying those nails that had marked the headboard to his back.

‘Ow!’ he complained as she ripped the talons down his flesh. ‘Jesus, take it easy…’

Marking him was completely out of order. She knew that. She knew the rules. No love bites, no tooth marks, no scratching. No evidence for Lily to find and start to complain over. Although Lily was a good girl, never really nagged. Lily wasn’t an in-your-face sort of woman. She was quiet. Restrained.

A doormat? sprang into his brain.

No, not that. Was she?

Anyway, here was this stupid bitch Adrienne, breaking the rules, flouting them in his face, but oh Jesus, that felt so good, she was a fantastic lay; she was just the best.

‘Arghhhh!’ shouted Leo as he came.

He collapsed onto her, gasping.

‘Jesus, you’re heavy,’ she complained mildly.

Leo was a big bull of a man, dark haired and dark skinned and tipping the scales at eighteen stone. Considerately, he heaved himself off her and collapsed onto the bed.

‘That was good,’ said Leo, eyes closed, a broad smile on his chops.

‘Yeah,’ she said, and cuddled up to him, smoothing her hand over his chest hair.

Knowing what was required of him – this was what they all required, after sex, he’d found – he dropped a kiss onto her cheek and gazed deep into her eyes. ‘Love you, babes,’ he murmured.

‘Love you too,’ Adrienne whispered, her eyes intense as they stared back into his.

He groped around for something else to say. She was waiting for something. He came up with: ‘You’re something special.’

‘Hmm.’ Adrienne knew she was special. She’d been his mistress for over ten years now, even since before he’d wed Lily. But now…well, what she had begun to suspect had been proved to be the case. Jack Rackland had done a thorough job and dug up a whole heap of dirt. She knew that Leo had been keeping secrets from her. From Lily, too. But then – Lily was no concern of hers.

She cuddled in against his chest. Her face grew serious. ‘Do you really think that I’m special?’

‘Sure you are.’ Leo stifled a yawn. It always knocked him out, chilled him like nothing else, having sex.

‘I think you’re special too,’ she whispered, her fingernails circling on his chest, her eyes fixed upon the little whorls she was forming in his dark chest hair. And I’m sick of sharing you, she added silently.

‘Thanks, babes.’ Leo’s eyes were fluttering closed.

‘That’s why I’ve decided,’ she said.

Leo heaved a contented sigh. ‘Decided?’

‘I’m going to tell Matt. Then you can leave Lily, and we can be together.’

2

1996

LILY

Usually Lily King loved a little me-time, a little girly pampering, but on this particular Monday to Friday break she realized that she wasn’t in the mood to be relaxed and soothed at her favourite spa with her mates; she had too much on her mind.

She hadn’t wanted to let the girls down, but by Wednesday she was pacing the grounds of the super-deluxe spa like a caged animal, and by Thursday she could see that it was hopeless. She couldn’t just lay about any longer, fulminating over what the hell Leo had been up to, without a thought for good old Lily; dependable, quiet, stupid Lily.

Even a worm turns eventually, she thought, hurling her stuff back into her Louis Vuitton suitcase.

You could only heap so much shit onto a person’s head before they finally came spluttering to the surface and said okay, enough. And – finally – here she was, a very domesticated and dull little worm, turning around at last. Going home.

‘Miserable mare,’ Becks had said with a cheery grin through a wad of chewing gum. Becks always chewed gum. Tall and lanky and sporting her usual blonde bouffant up-do, Becks had been swathed in a thick white towelling robe when she’d knocked on Lily’s room door and found her dressed and packing her things. She swept Lily into a hug. ‘You’ve had a cob on all week,’ she said, pushing Lily back a pace and staring into her eyes. ‘Anything you want to talk about?’

Lily shook her head.

She couldn’t talk about it. She was sure that her husband was shagging around and it was painful even to think about, much less discuss. This break had been a mistake. She wanted to go home and have it out with Leo. They had things to discuss. Important things. She’d tried before, but he’d just said she was crazy, she was imagining things.

She knew she wasn’t imagining things.

Sure, the marriage hadn’t been perfect. They both knew it. But they’d both tried to make a go of it, after the first flush of lust had worn off. Well, she’d tried. Obviously Leo had been trying out other things, playing other games. Like hide the sausage.

‘Well take care,’ said Becks, and hugged her again. ‘I’ll have to make do with Hairy Mary for company, won’t I? She’s always in that pool. She’s still in the bloody pool; she’ll look like a prune by the time she climbs out. Pity Adrienne couldn’t have come along. Or Maeve.’

Lily forced a laugh. Hairy Mary was in fact their good friend Mary, who was married to one of the East End’s biggest drug dealers. She was a stunning little dark-haired hottie who went in for ultimate waxing; the only hair she had on her body was on her head. Maeve was Lily’s sister-in-law, married to the middle King brother, Si.

Leo, Si and Freddy – they were a set; inseparable: brothers in arms.

As for Adrienne…well, Lily thought that Adrienne was probably busy. And she knew what she was busy doing, too.

‘I think Mary does it to be streamlined,’ grinned Becks. ‘Less water resistance.’

So, Lily went home.

Home was a 1930s art deco mansion in deepest Essex, with both an indoor and an outside pool. Leo had fallen in love with the place when they had seen it up for sale. He liked the fact that Si’s place – equally palatial – was just up the road. Lily had been pregnant at the time with Oli, and Saz had been a bumptious two-year-old, whining with boredom as they house-hunted. This was the thirteenth house they’d viewed, and Leo had said ‘we’ll