“It’s not as though you’ve got very far finding out who murdered Harvey,” I threw back.
“Patience, Tam. I believe in playing the long game. The truth will come out eventually, and then we will make them pay.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hallie
––––––––
IWENT TO MEET LAYLAin a coffee shop on the high street.
Layla spotted me and threw her arms around me. “Fucking hell, Hallie. I’ve been so worried about you. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. It’s been a crazy couple of days.”
“I want to hear everything.”
We both ordered tall glasses of ridiculously sweetened iced coffee, filled with syrup and whipped cream, that were more like desserts than a drink, and carried them over to the bar in the window where we were able to perch and watch the pedestrians of Greenwich High Road pass by.
I hated that Tam was getting to me, wearing me down. I didn’t want to piss him off again, especially since he’d thrown me an olive branch in the form of an actual date. I was in no doubt that this was full on manipulation, and that it was working. Was this how men did it? How they got women under their control? They made us frightened of upsetting them, so we ended up doing what they wanted willingly? I didn’t want to turn into that person, but what choice did I have? The only other option was to go back to my father, and I was more frightened of his reaction than I was Tam’s.
Layla sat back on her stool. “How was the trip?”
Heat rushed to my face at the memory. God, what could I tell her? It was humiliating, mortifying, and possibly the most turned on I’d ever been in my life.
At my expression, her mouth dropped open. “You had sex with him, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t. At least, not full sex.”
“Oh my God. What was it like? I don’t think I’ve ever been with someone so much older. Was it weird?”
“He’s not that old, Lay. I mean, he looks like a man, doesn’t he? He’s definitely not a boy.”
“You’re skirting the subject. What was it like?”
I couldn’t tell her the full truth. I’d told Layla everything in my life, but I couldn’t tell her how he’d shaved me down there, and then licked me so intensely I thought I was going to lose my mind. The way he’d covered my entire pussy with his mouth and eaten me like he was starving. But then after I’d come, he’d leaned over me, his face rigid with something that had been closer to anger, and he’d held one of the posters on the bed with one hand, while he’d masturbated with the other. I’d just lain there, like a fucking moron, not knowing what to do, until he’d come over my tits. Then he’d rolled over and gone to sleep, leaving me to clean up his mess.