Page 17 of Witch You Weren't Here

‘Well … maybe I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, but it would not be the frenzy of passion we both deserve.’ She sighed. ‘What’s the place like?’

Kay looked around her again. She would have thought an apartment of Harry’s would’ve had a touch more colour, or artwork on the walls, but it was nice enough. ‘It’s small. Neat. Not in a dodgy neighbourhood so far as I can tell.’ She sat down on the bed and did a little bounce on it to test the mattress. ‘Bed feels comfy. It’ll definitely—’ She broke off as she noticed that the bed, which had looked totally normal initially, had rings – metal rings – set at each corner.

‘What? Did you notice a dead rat somewhere?’ Ilina asked.

‘I’m going to put you on video calling now, is that OK?’

‘Sure.’

Kay jumped up and flicked on the light switch and then turned the camera on her phone to face the bed. ‘Tell me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they for bondage ropes?’ She zoomed in and, after a second, Ilina’s gleeful cackle echoed out of the speaker of her phone.

‘Yes. They do look like it to me. Oh, angle the camera up.’

Kay obeyed, scanning towards the small window and wardrobe, pausing when she found a big metal plate on the ceiling to the side of the bed, with more rings on it.

‘And a sex swing,’ Ilina hooted. Clearly, she didn’t care too much about the people who overheard her on the train. ‘Perhaps your friend is thinking of hook-up possibilities, too?’

A deep flush rushed across Kay’s body and face. She turned her back on the bed and switched off the camera, putting the phone to her ear again. ‘Not with me, he isn’t.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Out, getting something to eat.’

‘I bet he is.’

‘Ilina, stop it.’ Kay half laughed, half groaned. It wasn’t like she was kink-averse at all, it was the way it forced … scenarios with Harry involved directly into her brain – her overworked nervous system couldn’t handle it.

‘Seriously though, Kay. You trust this man, yes? You feel you are safe there, if he does suggest something and you say no?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, before she even really thought about it.

A loud announcement sounded in the background at the other end of the phone. ‘Good. I have to go, liebling, but let me know tomorrow what is happening with you.’

Kay wished her a safe walk home and hung up. She turned to look at the bed again. Her coat was crumpled across it, looking far too much like a person with their arms flung out in welcome.

She wasn’t just trying to appease Ilina when she said she was safe with Harry. She did truly believe that or she never would have come back here, but it didn’t stop her from feeling all squirmy and uncomfortable now.

Had he entertained someone in here last night? In that bed. Maybe he had a partner who lived who lived in Prague. She’d assumed he was on a business trip, but he hadn’t said either way, and she couldn’t sleep in that bed now.

She pressed the backs of her cold fingers to her flaming cheeks. In fact, where could she even sit in the apartment? Perhaps it was the exhaustion kicking in, but her mind was busy arranging a slideshow of X-rated hypothetical images in her head. Harry tying a man to the bed, his long fingers deftly tightening ropes … rocking a woman back and forth in the swing, his narrow hips moving … bending a man over the back of the sofa in the living room … lifting a woman up and pressing her against the wall of the shower as water streamed down his face and chest …

Wow. It was like the Pandora’s Box of all her repressed teenage hormones had been cracked open. Not that she’d have fantasised those kind of things when she was a teenager – when did her brain develop its own PornHub? Perhaps she needed to ease up on the spicy BookTok reading material.

Grabbing her coat, she went into the living room. There was no way she was even going to consider the sofa bed either. She took one of the brochures from inside her suitcase, putting it on the smallest, least clinch-inviting armchair, before she sat down on it. Then she plumped a cushion, thought better of it, and balled up her coat to rest her head against.

It was no great surprise that sleep didn’t come easily. It wasn’t exactly comfortable. Even so, Kay had dozed off before she heard the front door opening and snapped upright, swearing, and slapping a hand on the side of her neck as it refused to flex enough to let her straighten her head.

Harry strode into the lounge, and she didn’t even question how he had let himself in without a key. He was pink-cheeked and windswept, probably both from drinking and from the cold. An eerie howl rattled at the windows now.

‘What are you doing out here?’ He paused halfway across the room, his great coat slipping down his shoulders before he threw it onto the sofa. She half expected it to jingle like it was full of treasure, but it made a soft slap and deflated. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’

His husky voice uttering the word “bed” as he stood there, all elemental vitality and shadowy allure, had the images she’d been plagued with earlier whirling back to life. She stomped those ideas straight out, the same way she would an errant spark from a fire which had landed on the rug.

‘I didn’t fancy it much. You can take it. I’ll sleep out here.’ She massaged the muscles of her neck and tentatively stretched it in the opposite direction.

‘You didn’t fancy the big, comfy double bed?’ Harry shoved back his hands back into his hair, rubbing it roughly and leaving it sticking up all over the place. ‘Why not?’

‘Because of all the …’ She shook her head. Don’t blush, Kay, don’t you dare blush. ‘Fixtures and fittings tailored to your … specific tastes.’

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