Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (3 page)

What the fuck are you doing, Layla?

But I don’t turn away and run out of the room like any sane person would. Instead, I do a truly strange thing. Something I have
never
done before. I feel the blood pounding in my ears. So loud I cannot hear the logs crackling anymore. I take the tiepin out of its box, open my purse, and… oops… it falls in. Freaking strange that! I am a good girl, brought up as a proper Catholic. I don’t take what’s not mine. But my fingers snap my purse shut. The sound is loud and makes me jump. I can hear other sounds now, the merry fire and, faintly, the sounds of the party downstairs.

Slowly, almost afraid of what I will see, I raise my head and look at my reflection again. What I see there is far more frightening than a thief. My reflection is no longer alone in the mirror. BJ is standing in the doorway. His huge, muscular body fills it entirely.

Oh God!

TWO

Layla

C
old fear races down my spine. My pulse accelerates wildly while my mind jerks into overdrive. Maybe he didn’t see me lift his tiepin. Perhaps I could just slip past him. I could pretend I am lost and that I didn’t realize I was in his
bedroom
. Maybe. Just maybe. Very deliberately, I place my forefinger on the edge of the drawer, shunt it closed, and turn around to face him. Some men have looks, others have charm. BJ has presence. An edgy, almost menacing presence. The moment he appears in a room he owns it. He changes the atmosphere the way a grizzly coming into a room does.

He is wearing a silver hoop in his right ear, a black T-shirt, army surplus camouflage trousers, and combat boots. He is half-pirate, half-smuggler. He remains perfectly still. Danger and power ooze out of him. My heart starts to hammer inside my chest.
I can do this
, I think defiantly
. I’m not scared of you. I’m an Eden. Edens eat Pilkingtons for breakfast.
Straightening my back and keeping my expression cool, I begin to walk toward him. I pray he cannot see my legs wobbling.

When I am five feet away I see his eyes. They are pools of gleaming black tar. No light there. They are flat and utterly impenetrable. For a fraction of a second I have the strangest impression of sexual tension. But of course, that is a trick of my overwhelmed emotions. His mouth is set in a forbidding line. I have seen it stretched in laughter, but never full on. Always from afar, by accident, and only from the corners of my eyes.

A foot away from his looming form I stop. He really is so damn huge. The scar on the top of his left cheek appears alive in the firelight. I swear no man has ever looked more inhospitable, or made me feel more intimidated.

‘Sorry,’ I say tightly. ‘I got lost and wandered in here by mistake. I guess I better get back to the party.’

He does not step aside to let me through. He is so big, so meaty. He is like a predatory animal.

I clench my handbag tensely. ‘Will you please move?’

‘You want to pass? Squeeze past,’ he suggests mildly, his face devoid of any expression.

‘How dare you? I’ll call my brother,’ I threaten. Attack is always the best form of defense.

Something flashes in his eyes. I know then that I’ve made a mistake. I should have been more humble. It would have made my escape easier. He slips his large hand into his trouser pocket and produces a phone.

‘That’s a good idea.’ His voice is silky with warning. ‘Call him. Last time I looked he was with his pregnant wife. I believe your mother was sitting nearby, too. They can all rush up here to
my
bedroom and save their precious little princess.’

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I ask contemptuously.

His eyebrows rise. ‘What the hell is wrong with me? You’re a thief, Layla Eden.’

My cheeks flame, but I am not giving up so easily. ‘I’m not,’ I cry hotly.

‘Then you have nothing to fear. Call your brother,’ he invites.

I bite my lip. ‘Look. I’m sorry I was in your bedroom. I’ll just go downstairs and we won’t spoil anybody else’s night, OK?’

‘OK.’

My mouth drops open at my effortless victory. I close it shut. ‘Thank you,’ I say softly and add a smile of gratitude.

‘After you admit that you stole and … I’ve punished you.’

A bark of incredulity explodes out of my mouth. ‘What?’

‘It’s only fair. You make a mistake, you pay for it.’

My eyes narrow suspiciously. I knew it. I’ve always known it. He is no friend of our family. This is the proof I have been looking for—that he is just low, low, low. He has always been low and he will always be low. Enough even to blackmail me! Perhaps he wants me to reveal some of Jake’s business secrets. ‘What kind of punishment are you talking about?’

‘You should have what you’ve never had … a spanking.’ His tone is terrifyingly pleasant.

I stare at him in disbelief. The idea is too ridiculous to contemplate. I laugh.

He doesn’t.  ‘I fail to see the comedy.’

The laugh dies in my throat. ‘You can’t seriously mean to spank me?’ I ask incredulously. I feel a chill invade my body.

He raises a challenging eyebrow.

‘You seriously mean to spank me.’ I repeat stupidly.

‘The problem with you, Layla Eden, is that you were spoiled when you were young. Your Da and Jake were much too much in love with you to exercise any kind of discipline over you. As a consequence, you’ve grown up an unruly weed,’ he explains patiently.

‘How dare you—?’ I begin.

But he interrupts me coldly. ‘This is getting boring. The choice is simple: you apologize and submit to a spanking or we call your brother—or, if you prefer, your mother.’

Jake? My mother? My pseudo fury drains out of me like water from a sink plug. I worry my bottom lip and imagine my mother’s eyes dimming with humiliation, Jake staring at me without comprehension. He has given me the best of everything. When we were young and poor, my mother says Jake would always forgo his share of something if I wanted it.

My actions are inexcusable. I have thoroughly disgraced and dishonored my family. I walked into a Pilkington’s bedroom and stole something from it like a common thief. Worse of all, I have no idea why I did it. I’ve never done anything like this before. It is the stupidest, maddest thing I have ever done.

My gaze slides to his hands. They are as large as spades! My eyes jerk up to his tanned face. ‘Why do you want to do this?’

He shrugs, nonchalantly, his face giving nothing away.

‘There’s nothing in it for you,’ I insist desperately.

He smiles, an action devoid of any amusement. ‘How do you know what’s in it for me?’

My stomach sinks. I look at the space between his legs. It would be undignified, but I could try diving through it. I think I could make it, but it is almost certain that he will catch me, and that would be worse.

‘Look,’ I try to reason. ‘I’m really, really sorry I came in here. It was wrong of me to intrude on your privacy, but if you let me go now I promise I won’t tell a soul about any of this.’ I wave my hand at the room. ‘It’ll be our secret.’

‘That’s a very kind offer, but I’m afraid there are only two ways you’re leaving this room. With a spanking or,’ he holds out his mobile phone in the middle of a baseball-mitt sized palm, ‘or in your brother’s company.’

I stare at the plain black phone. Physical punishment for me, or mental anguish for both Ma and Jake. Not much of a choice. I swallow hard and meet his eyes. ‘I’ll,’ I whisper, ‘take the … punishment.’

‘Great,’ he says softly, slipping his mobile into his trouser pocket and taking a step forward. Suddenly the room seems so much smaller. Instinctively, I take a corresponding step backwards. He kicks the door shut with his heel.

‘How do we do this?’ My voice is clear and matter-of-fact. I have to assert some sort of control.

‘I’ll sit on the bed and you will position yourself on my lap. I will raise your skirt and spank you. Eight times.’

Raise my skirt! My eyes stray to his right hand. God! I feel heat creep over my body. Oh, the shame of it. And yet, to my absolute horror, there is something else sizzling in my core, something dark and hot. Something I’d never dreamed would happen to me. How could I be turned on by such a depraved, dreadful prospect? I look into his eyes. They are blank mirrors. There is nothing to see, only what I am. A thief.

But as I stare into his eyes, I see a flash of something old.

And suddenly I know. This humiliation is not punishment because I came into his bedroom and stole his tiepin. It is because of what happened when I was thirteen years old, when I tripped over a tree root and fell down. My skirt flew up and my panties showed. I can remember them even now, white cotton with red polka dots. All the other kids and BJ saw them. I hated everyone seeing them. I wanted to jump up, but I was too winded to move. Utterly humiliated and ashamed, I remained sprawled on the ground, an object of ridicule.

Some of the kids laughed. I knew them. They were afraid of Jake and they would never have dared laugh if BJ hadn’t been there. At that time our families—BJ’s and mine—were in a bitter generational feud. It is only recently that Jake and BJ had uprooted the barbed fences between our families. Since everybody knew about the bad blood, they thought they could ingratiate themselves with BJ by laughing at me.

But in a flash, BJ came to me and pulled me up easily. Even then he was a big lad. The other kids immediately ceased laughing. They were scared of him.

‘Are you all right?’ he’d asked.

But I was so mortally embarrassed that he had witnessed my humiliation, I lashed out ungratefully. ‘Take your dirty hands off me, you filthy Pilkington, you,’ I spat.

He had a mohawk then and it looked strange when he flushed bright red. He jerked his hand away from me.

I turned on my heel huffily, and limped away on my twisted ankle, my nose held high. I knew he was watching me but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning back to look. After that we became enemies. And now he had caught me in his bedroom.

Finally, he can exact his revenge.

He takes a step towards me and I nearly cower, but he only strides past me. Alarm plucking at my belly, I watch him sit on his enormous bed, slap his thigh and say, ‘Ready when you are.’

‘Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitation of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.’

—Leon Trotsky 1879 -1940

THREE

Layla

H
e holds a hand out to me. Dazed with disbelief, I walk up to him. Even now, I still can’t believe he means to go through with it. This surely must be the part where he admits it has all been a brutish Pilkington joke. My eyes plead frantically with him.

‘Lie across my lap,’ he instructs politely.

Oh dear God! For a moment I cannot move, my mind unable to accept that he really expects me to submit to such humiliation.

Unaffected by my silent pleas, he cocks a dark eyebrow and nods meaningfully at his lap. ‘No need to be shy. I’ve seen it all before, remember?’ he taunts.