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He takes her away with him after the police declare there is no case, that Philip Lombard will not be prosecuted for the murder of Judge Wargrave and that neither of them will be charged with any of the other murders.
They have been careful. They have been so very careful, doing nothing to arouse suspicions, nothing to show that they are or have ever been anything more than acquaintances brought together by a harrowing experience. They both have to stay in Devon while the investigation is ongoing, of course. Vera stays in a dreary little bed and breakfast place on the coast, Philip stays in Exeter. She doesn’t ask where he’s living or what he’s doing. She spends her days reading cheap novels and writing job applications, and trying to forget the awfulness of Soldier Island.
But not the good parts. She remembers the good parts. At night, in her bed, in a fussy little room with too many frilly cushions, she remembers the feel of his hands on her and the way he had pushed her up against a wall. She remembers how he’d rewarded her lies. She pinches her nipples and rubs at her clit and slides two fingers into her core. She can’t make herself feel the way he made her feel, but on those long, hot summer nights in the bed and breakfast, she brings herself to orgasm again and again thinking about him.
They’ve met for coffee once or twice, she and Philip. Usually the police call them in separately, but occasionally they have coincided at the police station, or at the train station before or afterwards. They’ve shown nothing. Nothing to make anyone watching think that they have any lasting connection beyond the ordeal of Soldier Island. Vera is so very good at playing a frightened, traumatised girl, clinging to her rescuer from gratitude. Philip is not as good a liar as she is, but he’s good enough. Nobody could suspect anything. There has been nothing to suspect. Vera could almost believe the lie herself.
Only sometimes, when he catches her eye, has there been some hint of anything more. And even then, Vera thinks it’s only her that sees it. The hunger. The predator, biding his time until he can take her again. The thought of it makes her heart beat a little quicker, though she’s too good a liar to blush. She thinks Philip knows what he does to her, when he lets that hunger show for the briefest of moments. He knows what she does at night.
When the police call to tell her that she’s free to leave the area, and that Philip Lombard has not been charged, Vera packs her bag and pays her balance at the bed and breakfast. She intends to go to Exeter, but there’s no need. Philip is waiting for her outside the bed and breakfast, leaning against a car, cigarette in hand. She hadn’t told him where she was staying. It doesn’t matter how he found out.
“Miss Claythorne,” he greets.
“Mr Lombard,” she says. The sun makes his eyes glitter, and she wants so very much. She can have him, she can have this. He knows what she is and he doesn’t care. He likes it.
She looks at him, and he looks back, and then he smirks and tosses away his cigarette. He knows what she’s thinking. It should scare her. If she was another woman, it would scare her, the way he sees right through her. But she is who she is. There are many things in the world that frighten her, but Philip Lombard isn’t one of them.
He puts her bag in the car and holds the door open for her, as if he’s a gentleman and she’s a lady, as if they aren’t both what they are. They don’t talk when he drives, travelling down winding country lanes away from the coast, but occasionally his hand leaves the gear stick and rests, possessive, on her knee. Once she lifts her skirt, so when he reaches for her his hand meets stocking and garter. He glances at her then, smirking still, and Vera tilts her head back and bares her throat.
She’s not prey, not for him and not for anybody. But her submission pleases him, just as the strength of him, the force with which he’d taken her that day, pleases Vera. They are a pair, not perfectly matched but good enough. Good enough for now, at least.
He drives for an hour or two. Vera doesn’t care where he takes her. The school won’t have her back; not even a third-rate school will have her now. She will have to reinvent herself, and it doesn’t matter where she starts from. Philip offers her no information. The signposts say they are heading for Dartmoor. She wonders, idly and without real concern, whether he means to take her somewhere isolated, have her until he is sated, and then kill her. He could do it, easily. He has no more morals than she has, though she thinks he comes by it a different way.
But she doesn’t think he will do that. She doesn’t think he’ll kill her, not now. He could have killed her on Soldier Island, but instead he’d fucked her and called her his. His Vera. She has never belonged to anybody, not even her own parents, but she could see herself staying with Philip. She could see herself belonging to him. His liar. Her cold-hearted killer.
Finally Philip pulls up at a house on the outskirts of a village. It’s hardly grand, the house, but it looks comfortable. It is private; the closest house is further down the road, surrounded by lush gardens. Nobody will be passing by this house, nobody will wonder about strange sounds.
“It belongs to a friend of mine,” he says briefly, when she glances enquiringly at him. “Well, an associate. It’s safe enough.” She accepts his judgement, just as she accepts his arm as he escorts her to the front door. He has a key, lets them in, and then when the door is shut behind them he slams her up against it and kisses her. It’s hard and messy, his tongue not so much stroking as taking and possessing her mouth. Then his teeth are against her lip, biting hard enough to hurt, and Vera moans into it and grasps the lapels of his jacket.
He kisses lower, scraping teeth across her jaw before moving to her throat. She tilts her head back again and arches her hips against his. He’s hard already. He pushes a leg between her thighs, forcing her onto tiptoe, and then he puts his hands on her hips and thrusts against her. Even through her rumpled skirt and her knickers, the friction is perfect. It makes her moan. Philip mouths her neck, teasing her with his teeth before soothing the sting with his tongue.
“Been waiting so long,” he murmurs. Vera ruts against his leg. She could come from this. The anticipation on the drive has been so great. The past few weeks have been so long. Her breasts feel heavy, and she wants his hands on them. He has barely touched her and already she feels reduced to basic urges.
“Every night,” she gasps. “Every night in bed…”
“Tell me,” Philip coaxes.
“Every night I thought about you – and when I sat in those interview rooms lying, I thought about you – thought about your hands –,” She tries to find his mouth, shoves his jacket off his shoulders, catches his mouth with hers and kisses him. He shrugs aside the jacket. Vera reaches for the buttons of his shirt, but he growls and takes hold of her wrists, pinning her against the wall. He withdraws his leg from between hers, and Vera cries out from disappointment.
“Upstairs,” he says, snarling the word. He uses his grip on her wrists to move her, spinning them both around before pushing her towards the stairs. Vera takes her time going up them, conscious of his stare. She’s halfway up before he follows her, leaping up the stairs to catch her up. He pinches her behind. “Hurry up,” he tells her. She can hear roughness in his voice, and she obeys, but she tucks away the idea of provoking him, to be examined at a future time.
The first door is flung open the reveal a bedroom. Vera wastes no time. She unbuttons her blouse and kicks off her shoes. Philip does the same. They undress, watching each other. There will be time enough for a slow undressing later, but there is no patience in the way Philip looks at her now, and Vera has waited long enough. They strip hurriedly, with no shame and no finesse. Clothes are tossed aside, and then Philip crowds her close to the bed, one hand on her hip and the other at her breast. Her nipples are hard. He lowers his head and sucks one into his mouth. It feels connected straight to her clit, and she wants his hands, his cock, anything, filling her, using her.
“Do you want to know what I thought about?” she asks him, digging her nails into his shoulders as she clings to him. The marks she made on him last time have long since faded. She wants to make new marks, to scratch his back and to claw into his head, as he has clawed into hers. He is under her skin, a separate but symbiotic entity. She cannot say he is in her heart. She has so little heart, so little love to give anyone. Perhaps in time. Perhaps.
“Tell me,” he says. He pinches her other nipple between finger and thumb, and then he pushes her backwards, onto the bed. She lets herself fall, then wriggles up the bed and slides her hands across her stomach.
“I thought about you taking me up against the wall,” she tells him. “With Wargrave dead on the other side of the room.” He doesn’t join her on the bed. He means to, she can see, but she slides one hand down, over the swell of her abdomen, until her fingers are trailing through the hair covering her mound. It makes him stand still, cock erect, chest heaving as he watches her from the foot of the bed. Vera feels powerful. She slips a finger down, through the hair and into the wet folds of her sex. He watches her, eyes darting from her face to her cunt. She parts her legs, displaying herself, and is pleased by the way his hunger seems to increase.
“I thought about you making me lie,” she says, stroking wet fingers over her clit. No pressure, gentle and soft, the opposite of the way he will touch her soon. She wants to push her hips up into it, to grind against her own hand, but she resists. “You liked it,” she whispers. “You wouldn’t touch me until I told you how I’d sell it.” She moves her forefinger in lazy circles around her clit. Philip watches her. So very hungry, standing over her, waiting to pounce.
“I touched you,” he says. Vera tilts her head and stops touching herself. She holds her hand out to him, her fingers glistening. Philip crawls onto the bed, straddles her thighs, brings her hand close and sucks two fingers into his mouth. Vera moans, twitching beneath him. She wants. She’s had to hide for so long, to lie for so long, and now here is Philip, naked and warm and on top of her. Philip, who has stripped her naked in a way nobody else ever has. He sees her lies and he likes it. Not like Hugo, who had looked at her like…
“You didn’t touch me the way I wanted,” she says, challenging him. “Not until I – oh!” Her fingers are still in his mouth. His hands are on her body now, cupping her bare breasts, pinching her nipples. Philip sucks hard on her fingers one last time and then lets them go. Vera reaches for him at once, stroking her arms across his shoulders, scratching her nails down his biceps. He covers her with his body, trapping her against the bed. She tries to kiss him, misses his lips and finds his jaw instead.
“How did you want me to touch you?” he asks. “Like this?” He pinches a nipple hard, hard enough to make her cry out. He laughs at her and does it again, and then ducks his head to take the nipple into his mouth and soothe the sting with his tongue. Vera arches her back, trying to get closer to him, pushing her breasts up into his hands and his mouth. “Vera, Vera,” he murmurs, his breath hot against her skin. “What a piece of work you are.”
“You – you fucked me up against a wall,” she says breathlessly. “You fucked me against a – God – against a wall after you’d just killed him and I –,”
“You loved it,” he says. A roll of his hips and his cock is pressed between her thighs, rubbing against her clit and her cunt but not going inside, not yet. She’s aching for him, an ache that she’s felt for weeks and tried to soothe by herself without success. “You were ready for me on the beach,” he reminds her. “You liked me holding you down, hm?” Vera can’t speak, but she doesn’t have to. Philip sees her. Nobody else has ever looked at her and seen through her lies, not like Philip. She doesn’t have to answer him. He already knows the answer.
He bites her neck, just like he had that day on the beach. There’s no danger now, no murderer waiting for them, but his bite makes her feel the same as it had then. It makes her feel like he wants to devour her. It makes her want to be devoured.
“Now,” she tells him. Not a beg, never a beg. She isn’t the begging kind. He thrusts against her, but not in her, and that’s where she wants him. “Philip,” she gasps. She arches up against him, she claws at his shoulders and presses wet kisses to his throat, his jaw. “Now,” she insists. He laughs again. It’s a dark sound. It should scare her, but she isn’t scared of him anymore. She doesn’t think she would be afraid of him even if he were to put his hands around her neck and squeeze the life out of her. At least he’s seen her.
He moves. His cock slides into her, just a little at first, but then he thrusts deep, an uncompromising act of possession. Vera makes no sound, has no breath to make a sound, but she inhales sharply and then lets her head fall back. Open to him. Vulnerable. But not prey. This is a willing submission, and they both know it. She thinks he might prize it all the more for being given so willingly.
They are still for a moment. Philip is in her, deep as he can go. Her nipples brush against the black hairs scattered across his chest. There is sweat between her breasts and in the hollows of his collarbones. A moment of stillness and panting breaths. Two killers, locked together. For now, and perhaps forever. He is under her skin. She thinks it’s mutual. His need is displayed openly, nakedly.
Hers. All hers. She’s taking him as much as he’s taking her. Possession and possessing. Vera doesn’t easily give up the things she wants. She imagines it, in this moment. She imagines spending weeks with him, months. Years. She imagines letting him unwrap her layers, expose her secrets. Yes, she thinks. Yes.
“My Vera,” he murmurs. “My liar.” He kisses her. Her mouth feels bruised, but she welcomes it. She nips at his lip and bucks her hips into his. She won’t beg with words, but she’s not above letting her body speak for her. Philip chuckles against her skin and puts his arm under her knee, hitching her leg over his shoulder. The change of angle is intense, even before he begins moving, pounding into her as if he means to destroy her before the day is much older.
Vera doesn’t care if he does. She’s loving every second of it. If destruction feels like this, she will welcome it gladly. Flesh slapping against flesh, his cock thrusting deep into her, his mouth at her breast. It spirals higher and higher, until at last they tumble over the edge, tangled together, orgasm feeding orgasm. His cock pulsing inside her, her core spasming around him. He releases her leg and collapses onto her, mouthing words against her shoulder. Vera shudders through the aftershocks. She is destroyed, in some small way. And yet she is also rebuilt. She shivers, cold and yet not cold. Philip is a furnace above her.
In a few moments he rolls off her, softening cock slipping from her core. Vera is still shivering, so she lets Philip manhandle her until she is under the blanket instead of on top. She watches as he strolls across the room to his clothes. He bends over, and she appreciates the view. Lean muscle, not an ounce of fat on him. Then he comes back to the bed, cigarettes and matchbook in hand. He holds a cigarette out for her, but Vera shakes her head.
He climbs into the bed beside her, leans back against the headboard and smokes his cigarette. Vera rests her head on his stomach and listens to the sounds his body makes.
“D’you have plans?” he asks her after a while.
“No,” she says. She doesn’t even think about lying. It’s liberating, not having to think out every word and emotion before she lets anything pass from her mind to her body. “The school won’t have me back,” she adds. “I’ll find another job somewhere. I can type, and take dictation…I’ll find something.”
Philip exhales slowly. She glances up at him, curious. She has made no assumptions about his plans. He had said ‘together’, on Soldier Island, but to a man like him, ‘together’ could mean many things. She expects nothing.
“I’m going to the States,” he tells her. “Europe’s too hot. There’s a war coming, and I don’t mean to get caught up in it.”
“What will you do there?” she asks. He strokes her hair back from her face and trails his fingers down her shoulder and arm.
“Same thing I do everywhere,” he says. “There’s always a need for people like us.” Vera says nothing. She sits up, turns to him. The blanket falls away from her, baring her chest. Philip’s gaze flickers over her breasts, and there’s a smile hiding in his eyes. He smokes his cigarette and watches her. Vera won’t ask. She won’t give him that.
“Come with me,” he says. He exhales, and the smoke obscures his face for a moment. When it clears, his sharp gaze seems to pin her down and flay her open. “New name, new life…”
“Start over?” she suggests. “Disappear into the crowd and find a new life?” She’s provoking him now, and he knows it. His nostrils flare and he reaches with his free hand to grasp her upper arm. There will be finger marks left when he lets her go; he’s holding her too tightly. Vera lifts her chin and stares him down. “Or?” she adds.
“Or,” he says, “stick with me. We’re a good pair, us two. We understand one another. It could be interesting, don’t you think?” Vera kisses him, inhaling cigarette smoke from his mouth. Mine, she thinks. He echoes her thoughts: “Mine,” he growls against her lips. “Be mine.”
“Yours,” she agrees. “And you’re mine.” She straddles him. Philip reaches out to extinguish the cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. Vera smiles down at him, and she does not let anything be hidden.
“Fair enough,” he says. He kisses her again. Vera thinks she will never get used to this. A lifetime might not be enough. She supposes that she will have to find out.