Out of courtesy, he rang the bell. Mel was mostly in. She didn’t go out much. In fact her lack of interest in social activities was one of the main reasons they’d split. Well, correction, he’d walked out. A grinding pang of guilt tightened his gut as he remembered her pleas for him to stay and her floods of tears. But the prospect of life with a party girl like Susan had seemed so much more exciting. As had the copious and uncomplicated sex, a relief after Mel’s intense emotion and her frequent, unexplained melancholy.
No answer. Was she even in? With those hideous blinds it was impossible to tell.
Tucking his bottle and his box under his arm, he fished out his key, already feeling the bright edge wearing off his reconciliation plans. Trust Mel to be out, just when he wanted to spring the great news that he was coming back home for good.
The hall was pitch dark. Which made him realise that there were metal shutters even on the sidelights and the fanlight above the door. What the fuck was that all about? He’d get them removed as soon as he was settled back in again. They were an eyesore, not to mention depressing and unnecessary.
Pausing to switch on a lamp, Richard wrinkled his nose.
Christ, what’s that smell?
A heavy, pungent fragrance hit him in the face. It was so powerful he half imagined he could see motes of it drifting in the flat air. It reminded him of the crumbling roses outside, but laced with unfamiliar spices and herbs and with something earthy and disturbing at the back of it.
He’d never smelled it before, and it was nothing like Mel’s light floral cologne, or even the many polishes and cleaning products she used.
He quite liked it though. In fact he more than liked it. It had a dark and sexy kick that gave him the horn.
Which was a good thing, really. He was planning to fuck Mel anyway, to seal his return with a reunion shag. She’d be so grateful and, since Susan had turned sour on him, he was missing regular action.
He set down his gifts and walked into the lounge. It was in darkness, just like the hall. Switching on another lamp, he went to the window, but he couldn’t find the controls for the blinds anywhere. How the hell did one open the bloody things?
Weaving carefully amongst the furniture, he made his way back to the hall.
What the hell is going on? And why am I so incredibly randy?
It was getting pretty serious now. He was rock hard in his jeans. God, he hoped that Mel came home soon from wherever it was she’d gone.
Upstairs, it got worse. The fragrance was stronger and he was so stiff now it was uncomfortable to walk.
At the end of the landing, the door to the master bedroom was slightly open, and when he reached in and tried to switch on the light inside, nothing happened. Bulb out?
He padded into the room, negotiating by the glow from the hall. The unsettling floral scent was so thick here that it felt like he was struggling to walk through it, like he was wading through treacle. Flopping onto the bed, he was forced to clutch his aching, throbbing groin.
Oh Mel, oh Mel, he thought, stricken by a sudden gouge of desire for his wife. He’d treated her so badly. He hadn’t valued her when he should have done. He’d do better now. He’d do everything she wanted him to.
A heavy lassitude drifted over him, and he leaned back on the bed, kicking off his shoes. Wherever she was, he’d wait for her, and be good to her when she got back. Better than he’d ever been.
Stretching out, his hand connected with something soft and flimsy and, drawing it to him, he discovered it was an item of lingerie. A camisole-type thing, he realised, holding it up in the light from the doorway. It was black, and made of silk, and encrusted with lace. Nothing like the sensible white cotton bras and knickers that Mel usually wore. The soft fabric slid through his fingers like fluid, and his cock leaped as he imagined the silk between Mel’s legs. Not the delicate cloth, but the satin feel of her arousal.
Desire gripped him by the balls, sluicing through his body, choking him.
Why had he left her? He struggled to remember. He must have been insane. How could he have forgotten how sexy she was? Her perfume filled his brain. Or was it her perfume? What was happening to him? His head seemed to whirl while his cock pulsed and raged, dragging at his belly with an agonising need to fuck.
A raw pitiful sound echoed in the room and he realised it was him, groaning aloud, like a beast in pain.
He was lying on the bed, still in his coat, but, with fingers that shook as if he had a palsy, he ripped at his belt, his trousers, his zip. Opening his fly, he reached in and rummaged in his shorts. Finding his burning cock, he wrapped the cool silk around it, wishing it were Mel’s fingers, or her lips, or the soft, liquid paradise between her legs.
He pumped and pumped himself, almost in tears, crying out her name, ‘Mel! Mel!’
How could he have left her? She was a goddess … He was unworthy of her, he’d been lucky to have been allowed anywhere near her.
His hand was inept and clumsy, not like her gentle hand, the way she’d always held him. Caressed him. Pleasured him. The exotic perfume that reminded him so perfectly of her seemed to be drenching his brain and creating pictures, memories, longing, longing, longing …
Confused and frustrated, he felt orgasm barrelling towards him, but as he reached for it, almost clawed for it, a subtle displacement of air stopped him dead in his tracks. The shock of it held him, kept him still, denied his release.
A figure rose with utter grace from the chair in the corner of the room, strangely visible in the darkness as if he were suddenly granted special senses to see it.
‘Mel?’
She was here. Walking towards him. His Mel, of whom he wasn’t worthy, so familiar yet strangely, utterly different.
‘Ah ha, sometimes they come back, it seems, these errant husbands.’ In the strange light he saw the ghost of a wry smile on her familiar face. ‘Regardless of whether you want them to or not.’
Richard tried to rise, but he’d lost all his strength. It’d been leached out of him by his lust, his remorse.
‘Mel … oh, Mel …’ he managed to gasp, staring at her as he still held his cock in his fist.
How the hell could he have forgotten she was so beautiful? He frowned, his vision blurring and shifting. For a moment, the notion that she never had been quite this beautiful flitted through his brain and nibbled at the edge of his consciousness. But then his perception seemed to phase again, and he acknowledged his beloved wife’s supreme loveliness.
Her pale face shone in the gloom, her skin white and pearly. Her lips were like bloody rose petals, her eyes like dark stars. Black, thick and shiny, her hair cascaded lusciously to her shoulders. Had she done something with it? No, it had always been like that, hadn’t it? So lustrous and so sensuous, so seductive.
And her body … Oh, her body.
She was wearing a dark silk and lace robe that seemed to be part of the same set as the camisole with which he was rubbing his aching dick. The sleek fabric was mutable, like black liquid metal, forming to the lush contours of her breasts, her thighs, her delicately curved belly and the little mound of her pussy.
She was close, so close now, and the way she’d moved made him feel giddy as if he’d been on a merry-go-round too long. Had she walked, or had she glided somehow?
No, that was ridiculous. People didn’t glide, especially his wife. And yet somehow she was here, sinking gracefully down onto the bed beside him, having traversed the room without any discernible effort.
‘Mel, I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. He couldn’t manage more because his cock was pounding with blood, and he felt as if there were a great weight pushing down on his chest.
‘Indeed you are.’
Her voice was as quiet as his. She’d always been soft spoken. Yet the words seemed to resound against his eardrums as if she’d roared.
Reaching out, she dashed away his fingers from his cock and folded her own around it. They felt cool through the silk of the camisole.
S
tark fear washed through him. A terror he didn’t understand. Dear God, might she wrench his dick off as a horrific retribution?
The way her red mouth curved, promising yet cruel, seemed to suggest that she’d read his very thought.
She began to pump him, slowly and teasingly, her sultry body rocking and weaving as she did so, as if she were pleasuring herself at the same time, rubbing her sex against the mattress as she moved.
Maybe she was? Her crimson tongue flickered out like a serpent’s kiss, moistening her lips as her eyes closed and she undulated her hips.
Then she let out a little gasp, as if, astonishingly, she’d come.
A thought whipped across his mind like a bullet train, yet he managed to grasp an impression of it.
Hadn’t Mel always been hard to rouse, slow to climax?
Not now though. Oh, not now. She threw back her head, keening her triumph to heaven. Her perfect white throat rippled as she cried out in pleasure.
How? How?
Confused, he found himself noting, as if through a haze, that her throat wasn’t quite as perfect as it had first appeared to be. There was a delicate yet pronounced red scar close to her chin, a few inches beneath her ear. It was faint, like two minute red spiderwebs, but it had the look of a fierce wound long healed.
He’d never seen it before, although they’d been married for seven years.
A moment later, she worked her shoulders, opened her eyes and focused on him.
Richard flinched. Was he imagining things or were there glittering specks of red in her pupils?
She looked down. So did he.
Good God, he’d almost forgotten that she’d got his dick in her hand.
With a little ‘humph’ of displeasure, she whipped the camisole from around his shaft and flung it away. But when her fingers closed on him again, they were still as cool as the silk had been. They felt delightful, sweet and soothing against his feverish, rigid heat.
He looked into her eyes again, but the red flecks were scary. He closed his own eyes, not able to face her, reluctant to think.
For a few moments, she played with him, manipulated him, flickering her cold fingertips up and down his length as if he were a flute and she was picking out a tune.
He still didn’t dare open his eyes, but behind his eyelids her image danced and terrified him, all crimson pupils and wild Medusa hair.
When cold moisture hit his glans, he shouted out loud.
His eyes shot open again, and the sensation of being consumed by something cool and wet and mobile compelled him to look downwards at his dick.
Mel was sucking him, her ruby lips moving up and down along his shaft, as her tongue plagued and tantalised him. He shouted aloud again as her teeth grazed his hardness.
And she was naked too, her robe flung away across the carpet, and her lush body curved over him, utterly graceful. Her magnificent breasts brushed his thigh, her nipples as hard as two studs of icy metal.
Oh God, she’s going to bite it off!
Black fear gnawed his gut, but insanely it made his dick even harder. Her soft laughter around his flesh nearly finished him, but she did something infernal with her fingers that kept him hanging, unable to climax.
Releasing his precious member from immediate danger, she straightened up, smiling.
‘It would have served you right if I had done it, darling husband,’ she purred, her voice low and terribly thrilling. ‘But why bite off your dick to spite my face?’
With a toss of her head, she slithered forwards and crouched over him like some beautiful but deadly spider, moving strangely.
Terror surged in his belly as she climbed on top of him and sank down.
The shock of her around him seemed to fracture his perceptions. For a few precarious moments, he grabbed at consciousness, and clarity, and realised he’d been stupefied.
His wife’s slick body was cold, so cold around him. He started to soften, but then she gripped him and massaged him, and he stiffened again.
The room rocked and revolved, circling like a carousel, but he clung to the fragments of his sanity.
‘Why the … the shutters?’ he gasped, his voice rising to a squeal as she rotated her hips and jerked his erection this way and that, clasping him and milking him at the same time. ‘What’s going on?’
He felt like a worm, a peon, gazing up at her. She was goddess, an icon of sex, deigning to look at him, deigning to fuck him, deigning to touch him.
For a while he thought she wasn’t going to answer. For a while he thought he was going to pass out or that the top of his head was going to fly off.
How in hell could he have left a woman who could do this to him? Fucking Susan had been like fucking a log of wood by comparison.
‘I had an intruder, my dear. Someone broke in,’ she cooed, leaning down over him, her sex never faltering in its grip and squeeze, grip and squeeze. ‘And you weren’t here, so I decided to take precautions.’
‘I’m sorry … I’m so sorry,’ he gasped, not sure what he felt. It was difficult to think straight with his dick plunged into a cold silky paradise.
‘I believe you are, Richard.’ Her voice was like honey in his ear, and her cool lips were satin against his neck, as she kissed him there. He felt her tongue pop out like a little dart and work delicately against a patch of skin as if preparing it for something. ‘Do you still love me?’
The words should have been a shock, but somehow he’d been half prepared for them. And half prepared to give a fully truthful answer.
‘Oh yes, Mel … Yes, I do!’ Her lips pressed against the moistened patch of skin, right over his pulse vein, as her satiny channel rippled around him, a perfect counterpoint. ‘I was stupid and cruel and thoughtless, but I won’t be again. I won’t be again. Believe me.’
She was licking, licking, licking, but somehow at the same time smiling. He could feel it.
‘No, you won’t, that’s very true,’ she confirmed, in a zephyr of breath against him. ‘And in spite of everything, I still love you, Richard. Which is luckier for you than you could ever possibly know.’
Her hips rose and fell, her body, inclined over him, as supple as a contortionist’s. Her mouth was open now, against his neck, her sharp teeth grazing.
Sensing his climax near, Richard tried to grab her, but somehow without even touching him she dashed his hands away. He lay stretched out on the bed like a frozen starfish, unable to move, unable to do anything but feel.
She was nipping him now, nibbling and worrying his neck, moaning at the same time, a deep and feral sound. Her vulva fluttered as she was orgasming almost continually.
Richard screamed as she bit hard into his neck, not from the pain of it but from the intensity of coming. Cold light flooded his head and his pounding loins began to empty.
The next day at work, he felt nervy, out of sorts, lacking in energy. He couldn’t concentrate on his job and he could barely remember his own name.
His neck hurt and his dick felt as if it’d been through a mangle. Every time he touched it – and he touched it a lot – it tingled with pleasure as if it could remember details he’d forgotten.
He couldn’t do anything without thinking of Mel, and yet he couldn’t really remember what had happened with her. His brain was fuzzed apart from the remembrance of pleasure. Acute, intense, painful pleasure, the like of which he’d never realised was possible. He couldn’t even recall how he’d got out of the house or whether she’d said he could return to it again.
The hours dragged. His neck throbbed and burned. The day was too hot and muggy and the sun was far too bright. All he could think of was the cool darkness of the bedroom back at home and the cool darkness of plunging his cock into his wife.
When evening fell, he left his hotel room, jumped into his car and drove home at faster than the speed limit. For some reason he wasn’t sure of, it’d seemed important to wait for nightfall … but now, he was in a hurry. He hungered.
Tearing through the streets
like a madman, he felt his spirits rise, and his cock too. Soon he would be with her. Soon they would be alone. And fucking.
But outside the house, in his drive, there stood another car. A sleek black beast of a car, a beautiful Aston Martin the like of which he would never be able to afford even if he lived for ever. Confusion whirled in his gut, a nausea of panic. Who was here? Why were they here? Why couldn’t they leave him alone so he could convince the woman he loved to let him come back home for ever?
He rang the bell. He rattled the door. He rang the bell again. It seemed important to observe the courtesies now, and yet the dark churning bile of fear and jealousy overcame him. He pulled out his key and, scrabbling and scratching furiously, he finally let himself into the house.
Again the darkness. Again the overpowering scents. Rotting roses. Ancient spices. Something not quite right that nevertheless wound itself around his aching cock and seemed to caress it.
Richard dashed through the dark house, barking his shins on furniture and cursing. He had to get to her. Where was she? Who was she with?
The savageness of his jealousy gnawed on him like a rat on a bone, and yet, dimly, he was aware that it served him right that he was feeling it. How much of this dark acidic emotion had he inflicted on Mel? She must have felt it, knowing he’d been with Susan, living with her and fucking her.
Sounds from upstairs nearly made him faint in an agony of mental pain.
It was voices. Mel’s and that of a man. Low with pleasure and ragged, as if deliciously close to orgasm.
He almost flew up the stairs, more sure footed now, his anguish lending him wings.
In the bedroom, as he burst in, exactly the tableau that he’d feared assaulted his eyes.
His Mel, astride another man, her body magnificent in torn black lingerie, her eyes wild with lust and hot dark glee as she gazed down at the pale muscular form of her lover. A lean man, ripped and powerful, with long flaxen hair.
Richard froze, unable to speak or move. He could do nothing but watch in a saturation of horror and grinding despair.
Slowly, slowly, Mel undulated and rocked on the body of her paramour, her slender form hypnotic in its grace and almost glowing, fluorescent with sensuality. Slowly, slowly, she turned her head to the side and looked straight at Richard, her beautiful face a disdainful mask of passion. Her eyes still on him, she reached down, to the apex of her thighs, where she sat on the slim hips of her lover, and languidly, almost insultingly, strummed her clit.
The Red Collection Page 10
