Angel had taken Christine to the rooftop bar at Galvin’s on the twenty-eighth floor of the Hilton, just a few doors down from Vivienne’s mansion. The views of London from that height were breathtaking. They drank French 75s, a sharp-sweet mixture of champagne, lemon juice and gin, talked about everything and nothing, and by the time Christine reluctantly said that she needed to get home so she could be ready to break the amazing news to her bosses at Berkeley the next day, she had been in thrall to Angel. His beauty, his charm, those amazing violet eyes that, when trained on her – as they had been for practically the entire time – made her shiver like a rabbit hypnotized by a snake; a rabbit desperate for the snake to consume it whole.
Angel had not eaten her up that night, however. He had taken her and her suitcase home in a black cab all the way to Acton, pulling her onto his lap and kissing her for the entire drive with expert, leg-trembling skill. He had accompanied her to the door of her flat, naturally carrying her suitcase. Then, instead of the final goodnight kiss she was eagerly expecting, he had slid his hand up her skirt, tweaked the lace of her underpants and whispered in her ear:
‘I’ll take you out to dinner tomorrow night. Don’t wear any knickers.’
Christine had managed barely any sleep that night at all in anticipation, and the next night, of course, she had got even less . . .
‘You’re wearing knickers again!’ Angel said now with great disapproval, having pushed her skirt up.
‘Angel, I’m at work,’ Christine said as firmly as she could, considering that her legs were parted and his fingers were now splayed around her crotch, holding it as he might a piece of fruit he was about to consume. ‘I need to behave properly and focus, and I don’t feel serious about my job without knickers on! I’m wearing hold-up stockings because you like me to, and that’s enough of a nuisance . . .’
‘But I like to think of you knickerless at all times,’ he said, and though he had promised to make her purr, it was he who sounded like a cat. ‘So that I can pop by here and slide a finger up you whenever I feel like it.’
She opened her mouth to tell him that this auction was her most important ever, indubitably the most important one she would ever have in her career; that if he hadn’t been Vivienne’s grandson, she would have told him that she couldn’t start a relationship with anyone during this crucial period. That she didn’t want him dropping in to seduce her when she was in the middle of cataloguing his grandmother’s jewels, because it was horribly distracting. That she didn’t want him treating her like a toy.
And yet, as he closed his fingers tighter around her and started tracing slow circles with his thumb exactly where she wanted to be touched, not a word of that perfectly reasonable speech issued from her lips. Instead she heard herself moan, a sound of complete surrender and abandon. She reached out to circle his neck with her arms, bracing herself on his chest, her head on his shoulder, gasping as he flicked his thumbnail against her most sensitive point in a series of snaps that for some reason sent her crazy.
‘I’m not going to take your knickers off,’ he said against her ear, the feel of his lips exquisite torture. ‘I’m not going to put my fingers up you, and I know you want them there, don’t you? You want them there really badly. You feel empty without them. Tell me.’
‘Yes,’ she sobbed into his shirt, squirming against him. ‘Yes, I want them, please, please . . . do it, please do it . . .’
‘If you’d been good and not worn knickers, I’d be finger-fucking you right now,’ he said, biting her earlobe hard and tracing one finger up and down the edge of her knickers, teasing her, slipping underneath just enough so that she could feel his touch beneath them and then retreating as her hips jerked forward, her body pleading for him to keep going, trying to show him how wet and needy she was.
‘Oh no,’ Angel mocked her. ‘This is your own fault. If you’d been good, you’d have half my hand jammed up inside you, making you come all over my fingers, you dirty little bitch. But you don’t get that. Not today. You get to come, but not to get finger-fucked, no matter how much you beg and plead and cry . . .’
She was begging now, her mouth damp against his shirt, her words incoherent, her hips still jerking. His thumb returned to the circles it had been tracing over the fabric, tight and even and faster and faster until her whole body juddered and clenched and she wailed her release into his shoulder, bouncing on the polished wooden top of the dressing table, hearing a seam in the lining of her skirt tear as she spread her legs.
‘That’s right, kitten,’ Angel said, and even as she obeyed, she was amazed at his self-control, the cool possession in his voice, his ability to stand back, as it were, and watch from a distance as she completely lost control of herself. ‘Come like a fucking train, just like I said you would.’
He flicked her with the nail of his index finger now, right on her nub, and although it smarted, it made her come again immediately, much to her surprise. She clung on to him for dear life as he alternated thumb circles and nail flicks against her, randomly, so she never knew what was coming next, heard herself pleading with him to stop, to slow down, even as he worked her to orgasm after orgasm.
‘This is my game, kitten,’ Angel said, biting her earlobe again, hurting her even as he brought her once more to climax. ‘You play by my rules. No knickers next time, right?’
‘No, Angel, no – I promise – please, please stop, it’s too much . . .’
Tears were forming in her eyes when he finally showed mercy. His hand left her crotch, and he pulled back from her a little, taking in the sight of her as she panted for breath, her shirt partially unbuttoned, her skirt shoved up above her knees, eyes glazed and eye make-up smudged, lips parted. His erection was swollen and prominent, pushing at the fly of his trousers, but he showed no need to attend to it.
She pointed at it. ‘Do you want me to—’
‘No, no,’ he said airily. ‘You need to get back to work! You don’t have time for any more games. We can save that for later.’
‘I don’t know how you hold out like you do for your “games”,’ Christine observed. Her body was slowly coming back under her control; she started to button up her shirt. ‘It’s like you can choose exactly when you want to come.’
‘If you’d had my very specialized and particular boarding school training, you’d understand,’ Angel said, smiling reminiscently. ‘You wouldn’t have fitted in there, kitten. You’re too sweet. They’d have made mincemeat of you.’
‘They would not!’ Christine said crossly, slipping off the centre island and smoothing her skirt down, checking to see if the outer material had ripped as well as the lining. ‘I went to a really rough school, and my foster home wasn’t exactly the Ritz.’
‘Oh yes? Playground games with kicks and hair-pulling, maybe a stabbing or two?’ Angel said. ‘What does that teach you, apart from not annoying the kids who have knives?’
Christine was feeling the back of her skirt. It seemed intact, but she needed to make sure.
‘Can you see if there’s a rip?’ She swivelled round to show him the back.
‘Let’s see . . .’ He bent over, straightened the back seam, and then, even as he said: ‘No, you’re all fine – as respectable as ever,’ his fingers pincered on one buttock like a lobster claw closing, so hard that she yelped in pain. She was immediately aware that he had deliberately bruised her.
‘See?’ Angel said, his voice full of amusement. ‘If you’d been to my school, you’d never have made a noise when someone pinched your bum. We used to take turns doing it to each other until we all learned to keep as silent as mice. And then we’d check each other’s bruises to see who’d made the best one. My technique’s impeccable now. You’ll see, later. You’ll have a lovely pair of them, finger and thumb.’
‘That really hurt!’ Christine complained, rubbing her bottom.
‘Pain and pleasure, kitten,’ Angel said gently. ‘Pain and pleasure.’
‘You play too rough sometimes, Angel,�
� Christine said, still cross, pushing past him to open the dressing room door.
‘No such thing,’ he said lightly, dropping a kiss on her neck. ‘You’ll learn. So, what are you working on today?’
‘Oh!’
Christine’s expression immediately lightened, her resentment forgotten as she told Angel about her search for the photographs, spilling out her excitement at the revelation that they existed.
‘Do you know where they are?’ she finished. ‘Have you seen them anywhere around here? Of course, not seen them – I mean, they’re of your grandmother! – but do you have any idea where they’d be?’
‘Didn’t Granny Viv tell you?’
‘She pretty much drifted off and fell asleep while I was asking her,’ Christine said. ‘Maybe she’s woken up, now, though.’
‘No, she’d be calling for you or Gregory if she had,’ Angel said. ‘It’s teatime – she’d be screaming for her pot of Earl Grey and lemon shortbread biscuit from Fortnum’s. Come with me, kitten.’
He took her hand and pulled her out of the dressing room in his casually imperious way. They went into the octagonal central foyer, hung with a pair of enormous, elaborately curlicued Venetian glass chandeliers, a riot of gold and yellow and blue, specially made by the glassblowers of Burano for this hallway. Set around the walls were console tables holding matching glass vases, each three feet high: transparent glass swirled with ribbons of the same shades of blue and yellow, holding great sheaves of yellow roses.
Angel crossed the foyer, heading for the dining room at the back of the apartment. Rarely used now, its long mahogany table and set of twelve matching chairs, and its pair of marble-topped console tables, both topped by imposing silver candelabras, had the air of having been long abandoned, even though they were impeccably polished and shiny. It was like walking into a stately home that had been turned into a barely-visited museum.
A huge mahogany credenza anchored the back wall, its glass-fronted cabinets holding Vivienne’s priceless china collection. It had been one of the few pieces she had brought from Brompton Square; she had always kept its doors locked when she lived there. She and Randon had so often thrown things at each other in anger: she’d been determined, at least, that the gold-rimmed Sèvres dinner set which had belonged to Madame de Pompadour wouldn’t get smashed in a drunken rampage.
‘If I show you where those photos are, will you do something for me?’ Angel asked, and Christine said ‘Yes!’ instantly, before she’d thought it through.
‘Wait, hang on . . .’ she added quickly, but he was already laughing.
‘Do you know how to deep-throat?’ he said, chucking her under the chin again.
‘Yes! I mean, I’ve definitely . . .’
‘Ever lain with your head over the edge of the bed and taken a big cock all the way down your throat?’ he said. And then he winked. ‘I have. At school. I told you it was a highly educational period of my life.’
Christine felt the blood rise to her face. Angel had dropped hints before, but this was the first explicit reference he had made to having sex with men.
Well, boys, really, she thought. Other boys. That does make a difference. And it was boarding school, after all – you hear stories about posh boys messing around at school, and then they grow up and don’t do it any more, do they?
Or do they?
Christine resolved to ask Nathan cautiously, generally, without bringing Angel into it, what he thought of the possibility that you could suck cock in your teens at school but basically be straight. She had an uneasy feeling that his answer might not be exactly what she wanted to hear. It wasn’t that she had any prejudice against gay men at all – God knew, that would have been difficult in the art world. But what if Angel were bisexual, and wanted to have sex with men while being in a relationship with her?
You really can’t worry about this now! she told herself firmly, adding it to her increasingly long list of Things to Think About After the Auction.
‘I’ll teach you proper deep-throating tonight,’ Angel said. ‘There’s a trick to it. I’m going to love watching your eyes go big as I bury my cock in your mouth. You’ll think you can’t take it all, but you will. I’ll have you gargle with some hot water before to loosen you up.’
Christine’s eyes widened in shock, but Angel had timed his words perfectly, following them immediately with a dramatic reveal. He bent down, unlatched two of the lower doors of the credenza and nudged them open to show, inside, a stack of several big storage boxes. Vivienne’s cleaners were thorough, so there was no dust or cobwebs around the boxes, but they were clearly decades old, the pattern dated; as Christine dropped to her knees to start pulling them out, her heart racing in excitement, she could see that the metal that trimmed the edges of the box was tarnished with age.
‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘oh my God . . .’
‘Just what I’ll be saying later as I fuck your mouth, kitten,’ Angel said, as he hefted the first box up onto the dining table.
But Christine was dragging out the second box and opening it eagerly, gasping at what she saw as she lifted the lid.
‘Oh wow,’ she said, as reverently as if she were looking at a holy relic. ‘Oh wow, this is incredible.’
The box was full of photographs stacked in piles, with a big brown envelope at the back. It had once been held together by elastic bands, but the rubber had dried out and broken over the years, and lay in discarded coils at the bottom of the box. Pulling out the envelope, Christine confirmed that it was full of strips of negatives; she knew what they looked like from watching old films.
The photographs were tired and old now, their gloss faded, their edges bent and wrinkled. Carefully, Christine picked up the top stack of one file and started going through it. It was a treasure trove. Vivienne in full make-up, her hair set in thick black ringlets, a champagne glass in her hand, laughing, back from a party probably, looking a little tipsy and hugely happy; Vivienne with a bare, un-made-up face, drinking coffee on a balcony overlooking the Amalfi coast, and giving the finger to Randon for some reason. Vivienne naked, sprawling on a huge bed, its white sheets thoroughly rumpled, her arms spread wide, her hair a dark pool framing her face.
It was supposed to look spontaneous, but Christine could tell it had been staged to some degree: Vivienne’s hair was arranged in perfect coils, as if they had been artfully spread out around her face, and her outstretched limbs were equally symmetrical. Christine imagined Randon standing on a chair with his Kodak, issuing directives, jumping down to move a lock of hair or the bend of a knee, before climbing up again to start snapping away, while Vivienne gazed up at him with such absolute love and adoration in those wonderful eyes, every pore of her body radiating the self-confidence and relaxation of a woman who has just had world-class sex.
It could not have been more clear that they had just made love, but Christine had the feeling that the jewellery Vivienne was wearing had been donned afterwards, because she was literally draped in a king’s ransom of rubies and diamonds, the necklace as big and ornamental as one of the collars she had worn when playing Nefertiti, the bracelets as wide as cuffs. The tiara was as large and lavish as the one Princess Belinda had worn on her wedding day No one could possibly have sex with that amount of metal and stone fastened around her body, not without being cut and bruised, and Vivienne’s skin was smooth and perfect, not a mark on it, in this photograph taken years before Photoshop was invented.
And although she was slim, her waist small, her limbs long, she was much curvier than was currently permitted for a leading lady. Vivienne’s breasts were large and full, her hips voluptuously rounded, and the small swell of her stomach was visible from above – by no means as concave as would be required nowadays, when actresses needed not just to fit into size six sample dresses, but to be as toned and buff as heptathletes. Just thinking of the women’s bodies that were featured in magazines nowadays – the tightly abbed singers in tiny bras, the reality ‘stars’ starving themselves to be phot
ographed in minuscule bikinis in Ibiza – made Christine immediately aware of her own small but protruding stomach. Even when Angel had been making her come just now, in the dressing room, a tiny part of her had been trying to suck her stomach in as much as she could . . .
Christine dragged her thoughts away from her own body issues with resolution. If nothing else, she had been staring at this photograph of a naked Vivienne so long that it was beginning to feel a bit pervy. She leafed through more of the photos; they were randomly stacked, as if someone had piled them into boxes without any attempt to sort them. There were pictures of Vivienne laughing on the ski slopes, all fur and diamonds and huge goggles, Vivienne in the swimming pool wearing a tiara – wonderful – and then Christine came across one that she initially thought was a mistake, something snapped and printed out by accident. She stared at it, baffled: it looked like an oddly shaped finger with a ring on it. Then she giggled in embarrassment when she realized what it actually was.
Not a finger at all, but a penis. A large, erect penis with a long string of white pearls looped around it, its full juicy head protruding proudly from its decorated shaft, the pearls trailing into the thick mass of tight black curls at its base, draping over the full balls below.
Well, we can’t use this one! Christine thought, still giggling. Imagine putting this in a catalogue – I think the partners would have heart attacks!
She couldn’t stop staring at it. How often did you get to see the penis of one of the most famous actors of all time, let alone fully erect and decked out with matched pearls, each as big as the tip of her little finger? It looked like a 1920s-style strand, made long enough to take a short loop around the neck and let another one dangle down over the bosom.
Killer Diamonds Page 21
