Kissing Cousins 5

Lara resolved to ignore Kevin. She went to mix herself a drink. From the kitchen, she heard the beep of Kevin programming the microwave and then, over the hum of it working, the rustle of paper. He was reading the newspaper? Lara didn’t credit him with that level of awareness. It irritated her. How dare he be capable of being a rational adult and yet continue to act like such a little…

And how on Earth had she ended up with him? Lara knew that it wasn’t as if she, of all people, had room to be all that discerning when in came to family. But she wasn’t in the mood to be appreciative. What good did it do her to have this man in her life? He was too distant, too remote to give her any familial comfort and yet he had just enough of the Croft blood that she couldn’t turn her back on him. Endlessly frustrating, as everything about Kevin Craft seemed to be.

Kevin came into the living room now, slicing into her private thoughts with his plate of reheated hotcakes, overflowing with syrup of course. If he spilled any on the carpet…!

“Hey, make me one, will ya?” Kevin asked, nodding towards the martini shaker Lara was working.

Lara yearned to snarl at him to make his own drink. But she didn’t. She prided herself on being more civilized than that. Or at least, if she managed to be civil, she would pride herself on it. Right now, she felt downright bestial. Like some territorial animal with a rival come to its hunting grounds.

Coolly, she filled her own glass, then went to sit down at the breakfast nook.

Kevin looked up from… bloody hell, he was looking at the Page 3 girls! The absolute todger! Lara knew she should’ve canceled her subscription eons ago—all that dross about the free press, knowing what the hoi polloi were on about…! How many hundreds of quid had gone into giving Kevin a cheap thrill over breakfast?!

“You know, if you had wanted a drink, I would’ve made you one,” Kevin said with some annoyance, like he had any right to be irritated while he was living under her roof, being so free with his own wild hormones that he was throwing the little order Lara actually enjoyed having in her existence all out of sorts!

“Alright then,” Lara replied tersely. “Go make me a drink.”

“Ha!” Kevin barked. “Probably wouldn’t like it anyway. You have any beer?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“Sucks. Look, I’m going on a trip for a few days. Think you could go through the dirty laundry? You don’t have to do all of it, I just need enough clean shit to last me until I get back. Shirts, socks, you know. Oh, and could I borrow one of your suitcases? You have like a billion, so I might as well retire my backpack. Thing is mostly duct tape these days…”

“I’m not your mother, Kevin!” Lara replied.

Kevin’s eyes flashed into alertness. “Okay, whatever, I was just asking you to toss some clean clothes my way the next time you do laundry. We both have dirty laundry, you know?”

“Then why don’t you put a load in the washer and turn it on?” Lara hissed.

“Cuz I don’t know how you like to wash all your girl stuff. Mine’s whatever, you know? As long as it’s clean, I don’t care if you use a fabric softener or bleach or anything.”

Lara tried to cover the intensity of her flaring emotions with a smile. “You know, Kevin, you have at present the opportunity to better yourself to an unprecedented degree. Your lodging is free. There’s no padlock on the refrigerator. You’re in your motherland, England, which if not the birthplace of civilization is at least a close second. Pick a social event, a museum opening, anything—I can fairly guarantee I have an invitation with a Plus One. Hell, you could invite practically anyone over. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t love to tour Croft manor.”

Kevin’s eyes darted to the Page 3 girl of the day. You cheeky little shit! Lara fumed.

“Look, I can handle myself, I don’t need your charity. I haven’t even been here a week and I’ve already got a podcast lined up. They’ve got like a million subscribers on Listenmachine and all they want to do, for four hours, is talk family history.”

Oh bugger all. “And you’re going on air to discuss the Crofts?”

“Nah, I’m going online. I mean, I could do it over Skype or some shit, but they also fix these, like, souffles while we’re talking and chow down on them…”

Lara should’ve left him to his inanity, but she didn’t want to end the conversation before she’d made some contact with Kevin—as if paying him back for the oversized space he’d taken up in her thoughts of late. “Kevin, you cannot discuss our family with some… Howard Stern wannabe! I won’t have it!”

Kevin reached for his wallet. “You won’t have it? Geez, it’s not like I’m asking you to come along. I know it’s not your thing. Way too rich for your blood.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean? Look around, you…” She censored herself before she could use profanity. “All around you are artifacts that I’ve recovered from the ravages of abandonment!”

“Yeah, but that’s, like, you jetting off something, parachuting places, looking over satellite maps… it’s all like climbing Everest or shooting a lion. Rich people shit.”

“Rich people shit,” Lara repeated darkly.

Kevin seemed bored and uncomfortable with the conversation; Lara was greatly tempted to give him a thrill. “Yeah, you can’t have a normal hobby, you have to do something no one else can do. Normal people climb mountains, right? But you have to climb to some ancient temple and shoot a Yeti so that everyone knows you’re special. It’s kinda desperate.”

He looked around the room as though casting about for the nearest exit.

“And hosting a podcast, that’s…” Lara’s voice sizzled with sarcasm. “That’s the dignity of working men?”

Kevin adopted the exasperated air of an adult talking to a child. “I’m not hosting it, I’m a guest,” he explained.

“Bloody hell!” Lara exploded, pushing her chair back from the table and knocking over her empty martini glass. “How can you be such a fucking clod? Don’t you think there’s enough stress in my life as it is without coming home to your toss?”

“Fuck you!” Kevin retorted. “I’m sorry you have one tiny problem in your perfect life, but some people have to put up with roommates without living in a mansion the size of Rhode Island!”

“You are impossible to put up with!” Lara shouted at him. “One tiny problem? You’re a blooming ulcer! You spy on me, you steal my panties, and you parade your trollops up and down this house! Perhaps all your listeners would like to know that bit of Croft family history, hm?”

And she stormed off before she could burst into tears, hating herself for having lost control so totally. Keeping the secret of Kevin’s perversion had felt like having an ace up her sleeve and she’d blown it in a moment of rage. It felt like a certain miss, a denied opportunity, like she’d come within one bad number of winning the lottery.

To her shock, Kevin stalked after her. “I spy on you? You’re the one broadcasting your body like you’re running an ad campaign! Doing gymnastics in yoga pants, sunbathing in the backyard, swimming laps in a string bikini! I took your panties? You’re goddamn right I did! I had to do something to take the reins for a minute! If I hadn’t, you probably would’ve slipped them under my door!”

Lara turned to look at him, his towering body framed in the doorway. He really was a large man. Obviously strong. And for one fleeting moment, Lara imagined what it would feel like for all those sleek muscles to be feeding his big cock into her, the same way she had seen him doing to Chloe.

No, she didn’t want that. But it was good to have his complete attention. At least he was taking her seriously rather than treating her like some landlord he could bamboozle out of paying rent to.

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself?” she told him, knowing British swearing would no effect on him, so hoping that some blunt forthright cussing would do the trick.

It did. Kevin’s rigid jaw went slack and his eyes widened.

“What was in that drink?” he laughed suddenly, as if flipping a switch from offense to amusement. “You just cannot hold your liquor!”

“I told you to fuck off,” Lara said again. “What’s the matter, you daft cunt, need your hearing checked?”

In all the time she’d known Kevin, he’d never been so nonplussed as when she let him have some Cockney.