The Red Collection (42 page)

Lois simply couldn’t stop smiling, despite the strangeness and incomprehensibility of their situation.

‘How is this possible?’ She touched his new face, trickled her fingers over his hair, which looked less grey now and bore a growing hint of gold. A thought occurred, and she reared back a little, not knowing how to feel about it. Everything was so confused. ‘You didn’t snatch his body, did you?’

She was half laughing as she spoke, but felt a thrill of fear that was as dark as it was delicious.

‘No, Lois, I didn’t snatch his body,’ replied Robin amiably, ‘although I can see why you have to ask the question.’

‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean it that way.’ She searched his face, wondering if she’d hurt his feelings.

‘It’s all right, it was a fair conclusion.’ He took her hands in his big warm ones. ‘I didn’t snatch Edgar’s body. I simply slipped into it when he left it to go elsewhere.’

‘Elsewhere?’

‘Oh, he’s around here somewhere, I think. Not too far … But he’s not alone now. He’s with somebody he loves.’

Lois blinked, and Robin lifted a long finger to wipe away a stray tear from her face.

‘And I’m with somebody I love, so now everyone’s happy.’

Lois smiled, still filled with wonder. ‘So you … you’re completely Robin in there … Not Edgar at all then?’

Robin shrugged, rolled his eyes and seemed suddenly to go inwards somehow. ‘There’re memories, knowledge, information that are available to me.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘Which will no doubt be useful now that I’m going to have to live my life as a human being, don’t you think?’

‘Best of both worlds then?’

‘Most definitely,’ he declared roundly, his eyes twinkling now, looking brilliant and far more colourful. Cradling her jaw, he brought her face to his to steal a kiss.

The healthy human warmth in his lips might be new, but the way he kissed her was completely and utterly Robin. She sighed with pleasure beneath his mouth at the sweet familiarity, and low in her belly she felt another sweetness stir.

She wanted to ask him if he could still read her mind, but it seemed his body was certainly interpreting all the signals.

‘Shouldn’t you be resting?’ she purred as he drew her further on to the bed, and moved over her, unfastening the cord of her dressing gown before plucking it open to reveal
her
bare skin underneath it. She’d not bothered to dress after the hot shower she’d taken to warm herself. ‘I mean, you did just drown about an hour ago.’

‘Ah, but it seems our dear friend Edgar was in prime physical condition, with superb powers of recuperation,’ murmured Robin, beginning to kiss his way down her throat, towards her breasts, in a way that was unmistakeably and utterly and completely ‘him’.

‘Yes, he’s not in bad nick at all,’ concurred Lois, running her hands down the firm and muscular form of her lover’s torso.

And reaching his loins she got a deliciously welcome surprise … Not quite Robin’s fantasy dick, but still a magnificent specimen.

‘Not bad at all,’ she purred, beginning to slowly fondle it.

‘And the best bit is … I still know how to use it.’

For a while, they touched and caressed, Lois entranced by the warm human feel of Robin’s skin and his sex.

Until a thought occurred to her …

She looked up at him, gnawing her lip. She was almost certain that he couldn’t accurately read her mind any more, but she knew he could sense her emotion, her quandary.

‘What is it, my love?’ he asked. His expression was kind and far more tolerant of her hesitation at this crucial moment than any of her previous lovers would have been.

‘Um, well, you’re human now … we need …’

‘Protection?’ His eyes twinkled.

‘Well, yes. I’m sorry, I mean, I don’t …’

Robin drew her back into his arms, close and sweet. ‘Don’t worry, sweet Lois.’ His breath was a whisper against her ear, and, as she nuzzled him, she realised that, very faintly, he
still
smelt of lavender. ‘If you don’t have condoms, there are plenty of
other
ways to give each other pleasure. I have the imagination of
two
men now, remember?’

‘Well, actually,’ she began bashfully, ‘I was sort of half hoping for a holiday romance when I packed for this trip.’ She pursed her lips. ‘There are some condoms in the bedside drawer.’ She pulled back a little and looked up at him, with a little smirk. ‘Although we can still do some of that other stuff first, can’t we?’

‘With pleasure, my love.’ His lips began the process that his hands and his body would soon complete, beginning the journey down her body, tasting lightly and sampling her skin with his tongue. ‘With the greatest of pleasure,’ he murmured, looking up at her, his odd eyes twinkling as he kissed the gentle curve of her belly.

Epilogue

The sky was bright, the sun was high and the air was warm. It was summer already, a gorgeous June day, when just a week ago it had felt like deepest winter.

Lois squeezed Robin’s hand as they strolled contentedly on the beach. They were barefoot in the surf but the rolling water held no fear for them. A short while earlier they’d taken a swim, frolicking happily.

‘Look!’ Robin gestured elegantly to a large chunk of driftwood a few yards away and, following his eye-line, Lois saw a pair of birds perched together on its highest branch.

They were billing and cooing, preening each other, a perfect picture of mutual devotion and affection. Lois squinted, in the sun, and wondered if her eyes were deceiving her. The two birds looked vaguely familiar, and very much like the gull-like
form
her Robin had taken before he’d found this new body, lately vacated by the unfortunate Edgar.

‘They could be us,’ she observed, as the birds continued to canoodle, despite the presence of two humans so close by.

‘Not
us
,’ replied Robin, turning to her, an odd expression on his broad handsome face. His hair was gold-tipped now, and it shone in the morning sun. ‘But perhaps someone we know … and the one he longed to be with.’

‘Really?’

Lois’s astonished exclamation finally disturbed the two lovebirds, and they took to the skies above the bay, whirling and wheeling, their glossy wings seeming to entwine as they soared in an aerial ballet of sheer exuberance.

‘Looks like they’re making love, doesn’t it?’ observed Robin, smiling as he watched their play. ‘Shall we go back indoors and do the same?’

Lois looked up into his eyes, smiling back at him. The blue one was bluer and the brown one browner now that, more and more, he became the natural resident of his brand-new body.

‘I’d love to, Magic Man, I’d really love to!’

Tugging on his big warm hand, she led the way towards the path.

Buddies Don’t Bite

1

‘DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!’

Teresa Johnson trudged into the cosy, softly lit kitchen and flung her bag across the room, grimacing at the thought of her mobile and her PDA in a thousand bits, but in no mood to really care all that much.

‘Idiot!’ Avoiding a damage inspection, she headed for the fridge. First things first, she needed wine. Then a think.

Yanking open the big old refrigerator door, she stilled herself, closed her eyes, breathed deeply. Tantrums were pointless. And so was breaking things. Whether that be her wine or milk bottles, or the ones containing Zack’s peculiar ‘iron shake’.

‘Chill out … chill out …’ Reaching in for her Chardonnay, she wondered for the hundredth time what
was
in those dark-brown vacuum-sealed bottles lined up on the middle shelf. She’d opened one once, and it’d made her cringe. The heavy earthy raw-meat smell had been disturbing. Poor old Zack having to drink that mucky stuff for every meal. She didn’t envy him his anaemia and food allergies.

Almost overfilling her wine glass, she teetered over to
the
refectory table and slumped down in a chair. Her anger was all but gone now and dim disappointment felt like a low pressure front.

‘So what’s it to be, Teresa?’ She took a long slurp of wine. ‘To wedding or not to wedding? Is it nobler in the mind to stay at home like a cowardly, boyfriendless reject? Or to take arms against a sea of smug marrieds and lovey-dovey couples and get laughed at because I’m a loser?’

‘Talking to oneself is the first sign of madness, my dear, didn’t you know that?’

Wine went everywhere, and Teresa’s chair rocked on its back legs. She braced for impact with the hard kitchen floor and the thump of pain – then she found herself upright with her heart pounding fit to burst.

‘Zack, for Christ’s sake, don’t sneak up on me like that! I hate it when you creep around and I don’t hear you!’

She’d
definitely
felt her chair going over, but now it was four square again, and
she
was on her feet. And there was Zack, her tall, dark and handsome landlord, mopping efficiently at the spilt wine on the table with squares of kitchen roll.

Teresa glanced at the bottle, disorientated. Even allowing for spillage there was plenty left. She wasn’t drunk and she wasn’t imagining things.

Zack had put in one of his famous appearances right out of thin air.

And now – domesticated yet still manly – he was cleaning up her mess and making her ears burn with guilt. ‘Oh, God, Zack, I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t yell … it’s your house and you’re entitled to creep about if you want to.’

‘No problem. I’m just sorry I startled you, love.’ With his usual deftness and elegance, her landlord made short work of the clean up operation, and in what felt like a split-second,
he’d
poured her another glass of wine and was nodding for her to sit back down again.

Not for the first time, Teresa decided that it was a criminal waste to live every day with an unusual but desirable man like Zachary Trevelyan – and not be anything more than good house buddies. His narrow elegant face was alight with pleasure, even though he’d just been soundly bellowed at. What normal man would suck up such abuse and still smile?

‘Better now?’ Before the words were out, he was sitting down opposite her.

‘Yes.’ She was. It was always better to be looking at Zack than not looking at him. She loved his beautiful calming stillness that was such a contrast to the spookily swift way he sometimes moved. What would be even better was for him to move swiftly in her direction, take her in his arms and kiss her – instead of clearly observing the boundaries of their respective personal spaces.

In the interests of long-term house harmony and cordial landlord/tenant relations, Teresa always squished down hard on the temptation to think of Zack in ‘that way’. But it was hellishly difficult when even after six months of friendship and platonic cohabitation he still did the maddest, hottest things to her hormones.

He was far from her usual type.

The accursed Steve and various assorted men who’d preceded him, had all been healthy, tanned, gym-buffed and metrosexual, and Zack was as far from that as it was possible to be.

The word ‘Goth’ always sprang to mind when she looked at him. Tall and lean and vaguely etiolated, he had all the characteristics of a typical night dweller, which wasn’t at all surprising, considering he suffered from photophobia and
sun
sensitivity on top of his other problems. And yet his pallor captivated her. As did the stylish gauntness that seemed to suggest his bones were just a bit too big for his skin.

The lean sharp lines of his cheekbones and his jaw conferred on him a louche romantic glamour that reminded her of those sexy silent movie stars who dressed as sheikhs and wore eyeliner. Couple that with the kind of dark curly hair that could have looked like a yokel on anybody else, but suggested wild Byronic decadence on him and the most hypnotic blue eyes, the colour of a rare antique perfume bottle.

Teresa surreptitiously clenched her teeth. If exotic Zack had shown even the slightest hint of a whisker of a glimmer of interest in her, there would have been no need to go out with substandard men like Steve anyway.

‘Come on, love … what’s the matter? You can tell your Uncle Zack.’

Slipping into ‘therapist’ mode, Zack crossed his long lean arms in front of him, and then settled into a perfect waiting tranquillity. Playing up to his own gothic image, he was wearing a loose frilled poet’s shirt, half open down the front to show a tasty wedge of his smooth hairless chest.

Teresa stilled too. She’d whirled into the house in a maxi state about a micro drama, and now, after five minutes with Zack, she could barely remember what had been bugging her.

Looking into his clear blue eyes, she felt a low internal thud deep in her body.

This
was the man she’d wanted to go to the wedding with, not Steve. It had never really been Steve. He was just a substitute and she almost felt sorry for him, despite the fact he was a rat. She’d only started dating him because Zack, her dearest friend, was off limits.

She’d fancied Zack, despite his peculiarities, ever since the first moment she’d set eyes on him, one night in a local coffee house. Then, as now, he’d offered sympathy – that time over her losing her flat when her previous housemates decided to sell up. They had been total strangers and yet he’d offered her the hospitality of his big rambling house and without thinking twice, or even once, she’d accepted.

Her fingers prickled with the desire to reach out, unwind those strong arms of his, and coax him to rewind them around her. She wanted to kiss his sweet red mouth, push her tongue between his lips, and find out if those large, white teeth of his were really as sharp as they sometimes looked. She wanted to rip his shirt all the way open and kiss his chest – and maybe his neck too. Perhaps she’d nibble him a bit? She often seemed to find herself imagining that. She wanted to peel off those tight black jeans that clung to his lean legs like liquorice – and see if the astonishing bulge she sometimes saw there was as magnificent as it was in her fantasies.

‘Teresa?’

Zack’s voice sounded shaken somehow, as if he had sensed her thoughts but wasn’t sure he liked them.

‘It’s the wedding. I can’t go!’