Chapter 2: His calloused fingers dig into her hips as he grinds against her, the scent of whiskey and motor oil thick between them - 'You think I wouldn't notice how you bite your lip when I'm near?'
The silence in the pub after Matty left felt heavier than the noise. Casey moved through the rest of her shift on autopilot, smiling at customers, pulling pints, but her mind was a static loop replaying the cold precision in Matty’s voice, the way Billy had crumpled. It wasn’t relief she felt. It was a kind of hollow vigilance. Something had been settled, but something else had been uncaged.
An hour after closing, she dragged the last black bag of bottles out to the bins in the back alley. The night air was a sharp, clean shock. The alley was a canyon of brick and shadow, lit by one dying bulb that buzzed and flickered, making the piles of stacked crates dance. The smell was familiar—stale beer, wet cardboard, the underlying sweetness of decay.
She heaved the bag into the skip, the crash echoing off the walls. She leaned for a moment, palms on the cold metal, breathing white vapor into the gloom.
“You alright?”
She didn’t startle. She’d almost expected him to be there. She turned.
Matty stood a few feet away, just outside the second pool of faint light from the pub’s back door. He’d taken his jacket off. His forearms were bare, crossed over his chest. He looked more tired than he had inside, the sharp edges of his control softened by the shadows.
“Yeah,” she said. The word was small in the vast, damp dark. “Thanks for that. In there.”
He shrugged, a slow roll of one shoulder. “Should’ve happened a long time ago.”
“Maybe.” She wrapped her arms around herself. The gratitude felt itchy, incomplete. “Now he’ll tell everyone you’re a madman. That you threatened him.”
“I did threaten him.” Matty took a step closer. The flickering light caught the line of his jaw, the serious set of his mouth. “And let him tell them. Might make the other clever bastards think twice before they get grabby.”
He was right. The message would ripple out. She’d be left alone. But the cost of it sat between them, a third presence in the alley.
“Why now?” The question left her before she could stop it. “All these years, Billy’s been… Billy. Mick said something. You didn’t.”
Matty’s expression changed, a fracture in the composure. Something raw and impatient flashed in his eyes. He closed the distance between them in two long strides, not touching her, but his presence was suddenly overwhelming, blocking out the night sky.
“Because Mick standing up was the fuse,” he said, his voice low, grating. “But the powder keg was already there, Casey. You know it was. It’s been there since we were kids.”
He was too close. She could smell the faint scent of his soap, the whiskey on his breath, the cold air on his skin. The brick wall was at her back, cool through her thin shirt. She didn’t retreat. A lifetime of holding still, of making herself small around men, warred with a sudden, electric current sparking in her veins.
“What powder keg?” Her voice was a whisper.
“This.” The word was rough. His hand came up, not to grab, but to hover beside her face, his fingers a breath away from her cheek.“You. Me. All the things not said.”
“Matty…”
“Don’t.” His control, the careful distance he’d maintained for years, was gone, stripped away by the adrenaline of the confrontation and the thick, private dark of the alley. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”
His hand finally made contact, his thumb brushing the high arc of her cheekbone. The touch was searing. It wasn’t a grope. It was a claim.A question. It held the memory of every look she’d ever felt on her back, every time he’d quietly shifted a difficult customer away from her section, every Christmas he’d slipped her an envelope with a bonus and looked away before she could thank him.
Her breath hitched. All the quiet resilience, the internalized composure, began to crack like ice under a sudden, sustained heat. She’d built walls to survive in that pub, to endure the Billys of the world. But Matty wasn’t breaking down a wall. He was walking through a door she’d left unlocked a long, long time ago.
His other hand came up, cupping her jaw, tilting her face up to his. His eyes searched hers, looking for permission, for a sign.She gave it. A slight, almost imperceptible lean into his palm.
It was all he needed.
He kissed her. It wasn’t gentle. It was a raw, hungry release of years of pent-up wanting. His mouth was demanding, hot, his stubble rough against her skin. One hand slid from her jaw into her hair, tangling in the long brown strands, holding her to him. The other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her body flush against his, erasing the space between them.
She kissed him back. A dam broke inside her, flooding her with a sensation so acute it was almost painful. Her hands came up, fisting in the fabric of his t-shirt at his sides, holding on as the world narrowed to the feel of his mouth, his hands, the solid, unyielding strength of him pressing her into the cold brick.
He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers, breathing ragged. “Christ, Casey,” he murmured, the words a raw vibration against her lips. His hands moved, one sliding down to grip her hip, the other tracing the line of her neck. “All this time. All this fucking time.”
Then his mouth was on her neck, hot and open, and she gasped, her head falling back against the wall with a soft thud. The night air was cold on her throat, then his lips were burning a path along her collarbone. His hands were everywhere, mapping her through her clothes—the curve of her waist, the swell of her hip, the length of her thigh hitched up over his as he pressed into her.It was overwhelming. Consuming. It felt less like passion and more like necessity, a long-deferred truth finally forcing its way to the surface.
She tugged his shirt, her fingers finding the warm skin of his back beneath. He made a low sound in his chest and reclaimed her mouth, the kiss deeper, wetter, more desperate. This was nothing like the fumbled, disappointing encounters she’d had before. This was a storm. She was lost in it, willing, pulling him closer.
His hand slipped under the hem of her top, his palm rough and warm against the bare skin of her stomach. She flinched, not from him, but from the shock of it, the realness. He felt it, and froze, pulling back just enough to look at her. His eyes were dark, blown wide with desire, his lips swollen.
“Okay?” he breathed, the word strained.
She nodded, words beyond her. She dragged his mouth back to hers.
It was he who finally slowed them, who pulled back with a ragged, shuddering breath, resting his forehead against the brick wall beside her head, his body still caging hers. The fever broke, leaving them both shaking in its wake. The buzz of the flickering bulb was loud again. A distant siren wailed somewhere across town.
Slowly, he straightened. His hands came up, tender now, to smooth her hair where he’d tangled it, to straighten the collar of her shirt with a clumsy gentleness that made her heart clench. He looked wrecked. She felt wrecked.
“Casey,” he started, his voice hoarse.
She put two fingers lightly over his lips. She didn’t want words. Words would make it a thing to be defined, to be managed. Words would bring the outside world crashing into this damp, dark, perfect alley.
He understood. He caught her fingers, kissed them, then leaned in and pressed one last, soft, closed-mouth kiss to her lips.A seal. A promise.A beginning.
He stepped back, putting a foot of cold, damp air between them. The absence of his heat was a physical ache.
“Get inside,” he said softly, his composure returning in fragments. “It’s freezing. Lock the back door.”
“You’re not coming in?”
He shook his head, a sharp, final motion. “Not tonight. If I come in now, I won’t leave.” He ran a hand through his hair, looked at the ground, then back at her. The intensity in his eyes was banked but still glowing. “This isn’t… this isn’t a back alley thing. You understand?”
She did. It was too big for that. Too loaded with history.
She nodded, pushing off from the wall. Her legs felt unsteady. She walked past him, towards the glowing rectangle of the pub’s back door. At the threshold, she turned. He was still standing where she’d left him, watching her, a tall, solid silhouette against the shifting shadows.
She went inside, turned the heavy lock. Through the grimy glass pane, she saw him finally move, turning to walk away, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, disappearing into the darkness from which he’d come.
Leaning against the locked door, she could still feel the imprint of the brick on her back, the heat of his hands on her skin, the taste of him on her tongue. The pub around her was silent, empty, a stage after the play has ended. But everything had changed. The air itself felt different, charged, as if the entire building was holding its breath, waiting to see what happened next.
The air itself felt different, charged, as if the entire building was holding its breath, waiting to see what happened next. Casey slept fitfully, her body humming with a strange, restless energy. The memory of the brick against her back and Matty’s hands on her skin replayed on a loop, tangled with the shock of Billy’s public shaming.
She arrived at The Crow’s Nest early the next afternoon, the stale beer smell from last night’s clean-up still hanging in the air. Every mundane task—unlocking the cellar, counting the till floats—felt surreal, performed by a woman whose skin still remembered a specific, seismic heat.
She was polishing the same brass tap from the night before when the front door opened, casting a long, familiar shadow across the sticky floor. Her hand stilled.
Matty walked in. He moved with a deliberate calm, but his eyes found her instantly, a magnetic snap across the empty room. He looked like he hadn’t slept either. He wore a clean dark grey hoodie and jeans, his hair still damp from a shower.
“Alright,” he said, his voice sounding ordinary, rehearsed.
“Alright,” she echoed, the cloth motionless in her hand.
He didn’t approach the bar. He stopped by his usual corner booth, running a hand along the back of the bench seat. The silence stretched, thick and awkward, charged with everything they hadn’t said in the alley. The familiar space between them was now a field of unexploded ordnance.
“Came to check on things,” he said finally, still not looking directly at her. “After last night. See if there was any… fallout.”
“It’s been quiet.” She resumed polishing, focusing on a stubborn spot. “Billy won’t be back. Everyone else is just drinking their tea and whispering.”
“Let them whisper.” He finally looked over, his gaze a physical weight. “You’re not upset?”
“About Billy?” She shook her head. “No. I’m not.”
“Not about Billy.”
The clarification hung there. She understood. Are you upset about what happened out there? With me? She put the cloth down, leaned her palms on the cool bar. The directness was terrifying. It was also a relief.
“I don’t know what I am about that,” she said, honesty surprising her. “It was a lot.”
He nodded slowly, absorbing that. He finally walked to the bar, stopping on the customer side, leaving the solid wood between them. A deliberate boundary.
“I shouldn’t have done it like that,” he said, his voice low.“In an alley. Like some… I don’t know. It wasn’t how I meant it to be.”
“How did you mean it to be?”
He let out a short, breathy laugh, shaking his head. “Fifteen years of thinking about it, Case. Never really got to the ‘how’. Just the ‘when’s it finally going to happen’.”
Her heart knocked against her ribs.Fifteen years. Since they were teenagers, since that summer before everything got complicated.
“Matty…”
“I’m not asking for anything,” he interrupted, holding up a hand. “I’m not that guy. Last night… that was me finally losing my head. But I need you to know it wasn’t just about Billy. It was always going to be about you.”
The back door swung open, banging against the wall. Liam stumbled in, arms full of clean linen bags, humming off-key. “Delivery man’s here! Oh. Hey, Matty. All right?”
The spell shattered. Matty straightened up, his public composure sliding back into place like a shutter. “Liam. Yeah, sound.”
Casey turned away, busying herself with glasses, her cheeks warm. The mundane reality of the pub flooded back in—the clatter, the smell of lemon cleaner, Liam’s cheerful oblivion.
She heard Matty’s footsteps approach the bar again.She turned. He was closer now, his voice for her alone.
“I’ve got to run to the cash and carry. Stock for the weekend.” He paused, digging his keys from his pocket. They jangled in his hand. “Come with me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a quiet, earnest invitation.
“What, now? I’m on in an hour.”
“I’ll talk to Denise.Cover your shift. An hour in the van.We can talk. Properly. Without…” He gestured vaguely at the empty room, at Liam whistling in the back. “Without all this.”
She looked at his face, the serious set of his mouth, the faint shadow of stubble she’d felt against her skin. The sensible part of her, the part that kept her world orderly and safe, screamed that this was a mistake. That getting into a van with Matty was stepping into a current that would pull her far from shore.
“Okay,” she heard herself say.
A single nod. “Five minutes. Meet you round the back.”
He walked out the front, the bell jangling. Casey stood perfectly still, listening to his footsteps fade on the pavement outside. Her hands were trembling again, just slightly. She balled them into fists.
“Everything all right, Case?” Liam called from the storeroom.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice miraculously steady. “Just need to pop out for a bit. Denise is covering.”
She untied her apron, the simple action feeling momentous. She folded it neatly, placing it under the bar. She grabbed her jacket from the hook, the same one she’d worn in the alley.
She pushed through the back door, into the same concrete canyon where the world had shifted. His white van was there now, engine idling with a low diesel rumble. The passenger window was down. He looked across at her, his expression unreadable.
She walked to the van, opened the door, and climbed inside. The cab smelled of him—clean cotton, engine oil, that faint, familiar soap. He didn’t speak. He just released the handbrake, put the van in gear, and pulled slowly out of the alley into the grey afternoon light.
He drove without speaking, his knuckles pale where he gripped the wheel. The van’s engine grumbled through the quiet residential streets, past rows of terraced houses with drawn curtains. Casey watched his profile, the tight line of his jaw, the faint pulse in his temple. She didn’t ask where they were going. The destination felt irrelevant.
“Talk properly, he says,” Matty finally muttered, shaking his head slightly. “Now I can’t think of a single fucking thing to say that doesn’t sound stupid.”
“Starting with ‘sorry’ again would be stupid,” she said, her own voice surprising her with its steadiness.
He glanced at her, a quick flicker of dark eyes. “Not sorry. Just… reckoning with it.” He turned the wheel, leaving the main road for a narrower lane lined with overgrown hedges. “With how much I wanted to do that. For so long.”
The confession hung in the air, mingling with the smell of warm vinyl and his soap. It was too big to answer directly. She looked out the window at the blur of green. “Where is this?”
“Old quarry road. Leads to a viewing point. Nobody comes up here on a Thursday afternoon.”
The van climbed, the engine straining. They emerged onto a flattened gravel area overlooking the valley. The city was a grey smear in the distance, the pub and Billy and all of it reduced to a tiny, insignificant stain. He killed the engine. The sudden silence was absolute, broken only by the tick of cooling metal and the distant cry of a crow.
He didn’t turn to her. He stared straight ahead, hands still on the wheel. “I meant what I said. This isn’t a back alley thing. Or a van thing.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He turned then, his body shifting on the creaking seat. His gaze was intense, searching. “Because I need you to know it’s not just about last night. It’s not just because I saw him touch you and lost my head. That was just… the match.”
“What’s the powder keg, then?” she asked, repeating his own alley-words back to him.“You. Just you. The way you’ve always been. The way you’d bite your lip when you were counting stock, concentrated. The way you handled Billy and all the others before him, with that quiet look that could freeze a man’s blood. The fact that you’re still here, when you’re so much smarter than this place.” The words came out in a rush, raw and unfiltered. “It’s been years of watching you. Wanting you. Being too much of a coward to screw it up by saying it.”
Her breath felt tight in her chest. She had built a life on being unseen, on managing perceptions, on being efficient and composed. He had seen every crack, every silent moment of resilience, and he’d wanted it. Not in spite of it.Because of it.
She reached across the space between the seats. Her fingers touched the back of his hand, still clenched on the gear stick. He flinched as if shocked, then turned his hand over, his fingers lacing through hers. His skin was warm, his grip firm.
“You’re not screwing it up,” she whispered.
Something in his expression shattered. The last vestige of control vanished, replaced by a raw, hungry need that mirrored the coiled tension in her own gut. He brought her hand to his mouth, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her knuckles, his eyes locked on hers.
Then he moved.
It wasn’t graceful. The console was in the way, the seats didn’t recline far. He released her hand and shoved his seat back with a violent crack. He half-climbed, half-fell across the space between them, his mouth finding hers in a clumsy, desperate collision. The steering wheel dug into his ribs. Her elbow knocked against the window.
None of it mattered.
His kiss was a claiming, a confirmation. It was nothing like the controlled, almost reverent kiss in the alley. This was pure hunger, a years-long famine finally being fed. His hands cupped her face, his thumbs rough on her cheekbones, holding her still as he plundered her mouth. A low, broken sound escaped his throat, vibrating into her.
She met him with equal desperation, her fingers threading into his hair, pulling him closer. The taste of him, the feel of his weight pressing her into the passenger seat, was an answer to a question she’d stopped asking long ago. He broke the kiss, his breath scorching against her neck.
“Casey,” he growled, the word ragged. “Tell me to stop. Tell me now.”
“Don’t you dare stop.” Her own voice was a stranger’s, thick and wanting.
He fumbled with the lever at the side of her seat, cursing under his breath. It jerked backwards suddenly, tilting her almost horizontal. He followed her down, his body a heavy, welcome anchor. The van was too small, too full of sharp edges and immovable objects. It felt feral, unplanned, real.
His hands were under her top, pushing the fabric up. His palm was calloused and hot against the skin of her stomach, then her ribs. He found the curve of her breast through her bra, his touch reverent and rough all at once. She arched into it, a gasp catching in her throat. He kissed her again, swallowing the sound.
He shifted, his knee nudging her legs apart so he could settle more fully against her. The hard ridge of his denim-clad erection pressed against her thigh, a blunt, undeniable reality. He rocked against her, once, a slow, deliberate grind that made her see stars behind her closed eyelids.
“Christ,” he breathed into her mouth. “Tell me this is okay.”
“It’s okay.” She clawed at the hem of his hoodie, needing to feel his skin. “It’s more than okay.”
He helped her, yanking the hoodie and the t-shirt underneath over his head in one frantic movement. The cab was cool, the air raising goosebumps on his skin. She ran her hands over the planes of his chest, the hard muscle of his shoulders, the dusting of dark hair. He was real.This was happening.
His fingers worked at the button of her jeans, clumsy with urgency. The zip gave way with a loud, vulgar sound in the quiet cab. He pushed the denim down over her hips, his hands hot on her bare skin. His own jeans were next, shoved down just enough. There was no finesse, no careful seduction. It was a raw, mutual need stripping away every pretense.
He paused for one last, searching look, his body trembling with the effort of holding back. She nodded, pulling him down to her.
He entered her in one slow, burning stroke. The world narrowed to the feeling of him, the shocking, perfect fullness. She cried out, a short, sharp sound muffled against his shoulder. He stilled, buried deep, his face pressed into the space between her neck and the seat.
“Okay?” he whispered, his voice strained to breaking.
“Yes.God, yes. Don’t stop.”
He began to move. It wasn’t gentle. It was frantic, a desperate rhythm born of years of silence. The van rocked slightly on its suspension, a creaking metal accompaniment. His thrusts were deep, claiming, each one pushing a gasp from her lungs. His mouth was everywhere—her lips, her throat, the slope of her breast where her shirt and bra were shoved aside.
She held onto him, her nails digging into the hard muscles of his back, her legs wrapped tightly around his hips, pulling him deeper. The confined space amplified everything—the sound of their ragged breathing, the scent of their sweat, the slick, intimate friction. It was overwhelming. It was perfect.
His pace quickened, becoming more urgent, less controlled. A tension was coiling deep in her belly, hot and unfamiliar. She matched his rhythm, meeting him thrust for thrust, chasing the feeling. He reached between them, his thumb finding the sensitive core of her, and the world shattered.
Pleasure detonated through her, wave after wave, blinding and absolute. She heard herself sob, a raw, broken sound lost in the skin of his neck. Her body clenched around him, pulling his own release from him a moment later. He shuddered violently, his own groan a low, guttural thing against her collarbone, his entire weight sinking into her as he spilled himself deep inside her.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their panting breaths fogging the cold windows, the rapid, synced beating of their hearts. The van smelled of sex and salt and him.
Slowly, carefully, he softened inside her. He didn’t pull away. He shifted his weight to his elbows, cradling her face in his hands. He looked down at her, his eyes dark and utterly unguarded. He kissed her, softly this time, a slow, tender exploration that felt like a different language altogether.
“Casey,” he murmured against her lips. Just her name. It was an apology, a thanksgiving, a promise.
He finally moved, separating from her with a wince. They fumbled with their clothes in the cramped space, the air growing chill on their damp skin. He pulled his jeans up, then helped her with hers, his fingers gentle as he fastened the button. He found a half-empty pack of tissues in the door pocket and handed her one, taking one for himself.
They sat in the quiet aftermath, the gravity of what had just happened settling over them. He reached for her hand again, lacing his fingers through hers where it rested on the console between them. He stared out at the view, the city hazy in the distance.