The Gallery

by Fredrica Alleyn

  ‘I picked that up at an auction,’ he commented, putting an arm round her shoulders. ‘It was quite a bargain.’

  ‘This room isn’t at all like I expected,’ said Cressida, incredibly aware of the touch of his hand on her bare flesh.

  ‘Really?’ Guy’s fingers eased under the slim shoulder straps of her dress and stroked the flesh beneath. ‘What did you expect then?’

  Cressida swallowed hard, trying to ignore the almost hypnotic stroking movement of his hand. ‘Something more modern.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not like you; I’m not a Francis Bacon type of man at all! Let’s sit down for a few minutes. I’ve made some coffee since you seemed to think you’d drunk too much alcohol.’

  Cressida was scarcely aware of what he was doing until she found herself sitting on the large sofa and sinking back into the soft cushions. Guy watched her through hooded lids and studied her face as she slowly allowed her guard to drop and her lips parted as she gave a sigh of pleasure.

  ‘What about the coffee?’ she murmured.

  ‘In a moment,’ said Guy. ‘Let me make you really comfortable first.’ Bending down, he removed her sandals and then lifted her legs up on to the sofa so that she was lying along the length of it with her head cushioned on the padded arm at the end. ‘That’s better,’ he whispered, and she felt his hands massaging her aching insteps.

  It felt delicious and gradually her whole body relaxed so that when he eased the skirt of her dress higher up her thighs she didn’t even pretend to protest because she wanted the pleasure to continue.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ whispered Guy. ‘Concentrate on the feelings.’ She obeyed, but was aware that now he too was sitting on the sofa and then he lifted her legs and positioned her thighs over his. ‘Do you trust me, Cressida?’ he asked quietly, his hands moving up her inner thighs.

  She knew that she shouldn’t, that he was the last person on earth who should be trusted, but the feelings were so erotic and her body so aroused that she never even hesitated. ‘Yes, of course I do,’ she murmured. Because her eyes were closed she didn’t see the smile of satisfaction that crossed his face.

  ‘That’s good,’ he assured her. ‘Very good indeed.’

  All thoughts of doing this for her chief had long since gone from Cressida’s mind. This was for her, and she was relishing every moment of it. When Guy carefully removed her panties she felt nothing but gratitude that at last he could touch her where she most wanted to be touched.

  Guy spread some of the massage oil that he’d brought back from his bedroom with him over his fingers and then carefully, using only the lightest of touches, he lubricated the whole of Cressida’s genital area, including the highly sensitive perineum. As his fingers moved over the thin layer of skin, Cressida wriggled with excitement and lifted her hips a little to allow him easier access.

  Once she was thoroughly lubricated, Guy softly circled his fingers in the area round her vagina, stroking her outer sex lips and tugging with almost unbelievable lightness on her pubic hairs so that the sex lips were lifted and he could see her inner lips swelling as her excitement increased.

  For Cressida the hot liquid sensation that he was arousing was unbearable because it made her want so much more. She longed for the piercing sharpness of an approaching climax, but Guy continued his slow, relentless teasing as she squirmed more and more desperately against the soft cushions.

  At last he moved his fingers between her sex lips, circling closer to her aching clitoris. When he finally drew the tip of his middle finger around the swollen bud she gasped with delight, and noticing her response he continued with the circling movement until she felt the start of the throbbing sensations behind the mass of nerve endings, a throbbing that promised her the blissful release of an orgasm.

  Guy watched her closely and pushed her dress up higher so that he could see her pelvic muscles tense, and then he felt her lower torso arch towards his fingers in a straining need for stronger stimulation. At that precise moment he stopped circling her clitoris and instead went back to stroking her inner thighs and pulling on her pubic hair so that Cressida’s eyes opened in surprise and for the first time since he’d begun she looked directly at him.

  ‘Why did you stop?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I want to make it last,’ he said with a smile, brushing her hair off her forehead with his right hand. ‘Rick might have liked to do things in a hurry but I prefer to savour every moment. You’ll find it’s much better for you as well.’

  Cressida thrust her body upward. ‘No!’ she protested. ‘I was about to come then. I didn’t want you to stop.’

  ‘I asked you if you trusted me and you said you did,’ he reminded her. ‘Just for tonight, let’s do it my way. Now close your eyes again and leave it all to me.’

  By now the incredible tension that always preceded a climax had dissipated and Cressida’s body, although aroused, was no longer on the brink of release. With infinite patience and pleasure, Guy began to raise the level of arousal once more. Cressida felt his fingers gliding along the thin skin between her front and back passage, delicately teasing the sensitive nerve endings there until it felt as though all her internal organs were coiling and knotting as slithering snakes of pleasure writhed inside her.

  This time Guy waited until she was moaning with need and then took her clitoris between the finger and thumb of his left hand, gliding across the oiled tip with the softest touch imaginable and once more the hot, desperate need mounted as he kept up a steady dependable rhythm that helped her body climb higher and higher towards its goal.

  Now the sexual tension and tightness threatened to consume her and Cressida started to lose control as her body began to thrash about on the sofa. Her mouth was swollen and pink, her breasts so tight that they had risen up, revealing far more cleavage than earlier in the evening, while the nipples stuck out through the thin black material, whose touch only increased the stimulation of Cressida’s body.

  Guy felt his own breathing quicken at the sight of her so wantonly thrashing around beneath him but still he kept her waiting and as she uttered a tiny mewing sound and began to arch off the sofa he stopped all stimulation and bent over her. ‘Wait just a little longer,’ he whispered. ‘Next time you’ll come, I promise.’

  Cressida’s lower belly and pelvis ached with frustration and she moaned in dismay at his words, but without the wonderfully clever movements of his fingers she felt her approaching orgasm slowly vanish yet again and turned her head to one side so that Guy couldn’t see the disappointment that she knew must be visible on her face.

  He didn’t need to; her taut muscles, the tell-tale sexual flush on her breasts and neck and the involuntary twitching of all her muscles told him better than any expression how frustrated and desperate she was, but this was the way Guy wanted to play her, and his pleasure in watching her was almost as great as hers would be when she was finally able to come.

  He waited until her body had started to descend from its high level of arousal and then with cruelly exquisite care he began the entire process again, massaging the crevices at the tops of Cressida’s thighs, rotating the muscles of her lower belly with his fingers and pressing lightly against her pubic bone until she was once more moving restlessly beneath his touch and uttering tiny cries that drove him wild with desire to possess her, a desire that he didn’t intend to fulfil that evening.

  For Cressida this third arousal was painful in its intensity. All of her senses were now so finely honed that everything had a keener edge to it and the strange coiling sensation deep within her seemed tinged with a dark edge that was only just pleasure but affected her more deeply than anything that had gone before.

  Guy knew that Cressida had to come soon or the moment would be gone. Carefully he stroked the side of the stem of her clitoris and her whole body jerked with pleasure. Sustaining that movement he also slid a finger of his other hand inside her vagina until he was able to locate her G spot, now as engorged and firm as her clitoris a
fter all his foreplay. Then, with great care, he stimulated both the side of her clitoris and her G spot in the same rhythm, and Cressida felt as though she was about to explode.

  She pushed herself against his hands, bore down with her clitoris and moved her hips in an effort to finally release herself from the all-consuming tension, but then Guy murmured ‘Now!’ and as he spoke he changed the rhythm of his finger against her clitoris so that he was flicking at the stem with a soft padded fingertip. At last Cressida’s climax erupted and she heard herself screaming out in an ecstasy of gratitude and pleasure as her internal muscles finally contracted and released in an incredible bitter-sweet orgasm.

  When it was over she opened her eyes and stared at Guy, who was looking down at her with an unfathomable expression on his face. Reaching out, he touched her briefly on the side of her mouth in a gesture that was almost affectionate, but then he stood up and glanced at the clock.

  ‘I must take you back,’ he said calmly. ‘We both have to go to work in the morning.’

  Cressida knew that she should have been grateful for his detachment. After all, she wasn’t in love with him and however expert a lover he proved to be she had to remember that she wasn’t really an assistant at his art gallery. She was a working policewoman on an undercover assignment of international importance. Unfortunately she didn’t feel grateful; she felt confused and let down after his display of tenderness and the incredible pleasure he’d given her.

  Luckily her years of police work enabled her to hide her feelings well. ‘You’re right,’ she said lazily, pulling down her dress and swinging her legs off the sofa. ‘I never did get that cup of coffee either!’ she pointed out as they left the house.

  ‘Next time,’ promised Guy, and relief flooded over her – professional relief because after this Detective Chief Inspector Williams would certainly expect her to keep intimate with Guy until the operation was successfully concluded.

  ‘Does Rick help with renovations like the one you got tonight?’ she asked Guy before he dropped her off.

  ‘Rick? Good heavens no! He’s creative; restoring and cleaning old paintings is a very specialised job and not usually one that creative people are interested in. What made you think he’d be involved?’

  Cressida realised that because she felt so relaxed and languorous she’d made a mistake. She was certain that Rick would be asked to copy the Correggio and had totally forgotten that as far as Guy was concerned she knew nothing about copies or large-scale fraud. ‘I only wondered if that was another way for struggling artists to make some extra money,’ she said lightly.

  ‘Rick isn’t a struggling artist, he’s a highly successful one and in a few years time he won’t need me or my gallery,’ said Guy shortly. ‘Here we are. I expect I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll have to call in at the gallery to arrange for Hugo’s picture to be examined by our expert. Goodnight, and I’m very glad you were able to take Marcia’s place!’

  ‘I’m glad too,’ replied Cressida, and she was.

  As soon as she got indoors and played back the messages on her answerphone, she found one from Detective Chief Inspector Williams asking her to call him the moment she got back. Reluctantly, because she was afraid of giving away precisely how intimate an evening it had been, she called her chief’s number.

  ‘Cressida, thanks for ringing back. How did the evening go?’ he asked. She told him everything, except for what had happened on the sofa in Guy’s house. ‘What about your stay at his place?’ he asked when she finished.

  Cressida hesitated. ‘What stay?’

  ‘We had you followed – for your own protection, you understand – and our man said that you spent over an hour at the house Guy Cronje is renting. What happened during that time?’

  ‘He rents it, does he? That explains why it wasn’t quite what I expected!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘No doubt he wants to be free to leave the country at a moment’s notice. The place belongs to a friend from years back. So, what happened, WPC Farleigh?’

  It was plain her superior expected an answer and Cressida knew that she was going to have to admit that they’d become rather more than casual friends, although not yet lovers in the full sense of the word.

  ‘We chatted and got to know each other on a more personal level,’ she said curtly.

  ‘Did you sleep with him?’ asked her chief eagerly.

  ‘No,’ retorted Cressida.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, I hope you’re not going to go all coy on us now!’ he shouted. ‘You’ve got him hooked, so make the most of it.’

  ‘He didn’t ask me to sleep with him, and I’m not in the habit of making the first move with men,’ said Cressida shortly. ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’m sure it won’t be long before both you and he get what you want.’

  ‘What I want is to see that man behind bars,’ snapped Detective Chief Inspector Williams. ‘Peter Thornton’s one of my closest friends and if I find that he’s been swindled by this con artist and we let him escape I’ll never forgive myself, or you either come to that. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Perfectly clear, sir,’ said Cressida, suddenly desperately tired as the adrenalin of the night’s excitement died on her. ‘Don’t worry, tomorrow I’ll make sure Lord Truscott’s picture has been logged in the renovation book and then, when it’s returned, we can get Hugo to call in an expert and you’ll have caught Guy red-handed.’

  ‘Only if we establish a firm link between him and the people who clean the paintings,’ pointed out her chief.

  ‘I think the link between him and the artist who does the replica is probably just as good,’ said Cressida, wishing she could banish Rick’s face from her mind.

  ‘True, very true. Well, you get some beauty sleep now and from tomorrow you’d better concentrate on making yourself totally irresistible to the man. It’s amazing how careless men are when it comes to pillow talk.’

  ‘I’ve got a feeling he doesn’t go in for any talking afterwards,’ said Cressida, but her chief had already replaced his phone.

  The next day she was surprised to find that Guy was at the gallery before her, and Marcia looked equally startled. He smiled at Cressida and as he walked past her ran a hand through her hair. ‘You look tired!’ he laughed. Cressida blushed, and Marcia gave her a hard look before turning and following Guy into their office.

  Later that morning a customer bought a painting by one of their newest artists and wanted it framed there and then so that she could take it with her to a birthday lunch as a present.

  ‘You’d better go into the framing room and see if there are any of the plain black frames left,’ said Marcia to Cressida. ‘I do wish Polly came in some mornings as well, or at least told us more about her work.’

  ‘It’s all right, I know what I’m looking for,’ Cressida assured her.

  The framing room was at the far end of the gallery, up three steps, and as usual it was crowded out with discarded old and new frames all stacked haphazardly in piles. Polly didn’t have a tidy mind.

  Cressida put on the light as the room was dark and then jumped with surprise as she realised that Guy was already in the room. He glanced at her thoughtfully. ‘You look guilty, Cressida. What’s the matter? Are you doing something you shouldn’t be doing?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ she laughed, hoping he only meant at this moment but suspecting that he meant far more. ‘You startled me, that’s all.’

  ‘You startled me last night,’ he responded. ‘I guessed that you were a very sensual young woman, but your responses were even better than I’d hoped. How would you like to go to dinner tomorrow night?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ she murmured.

  ‘Good, I’ll pick you up at seven as it’s quite a drive. I prefer to eat out of London, especially when the weather’s as hot as it is now. You can dress casually – I want it to be a really relaxing evening for us both.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful,’ she said truthfully, but then Marcia came in and Guy quickly slippe
d away leaving the two women alone together. Cressida quite expected some kind of trouble from her employer, but Marcia didn’t say a word. She simply took the black frame from Cressida’s hands and went back to the customer.

  She maintained her icy politeness all day and by the time Cressida left work she was certain that Marcia must have given her agreement, however reluctantly, to Guy making a move on Cressida, which had to mean that they were both suspicious of her. The trouble was, Cressida was more excited about the prospect of an evening out with him and what might happen after their meal than she was about the opportunity of finding out about Hugo’s painting. Her unusual lack of professionalism shocked her.

  Because she felt guilty, Cressida decided that the least she could do was call in on Rick on her way home. If she caught him up and about and looking perfectly well then she’d know that her suspicions about the previous evening being a set-up job were right, and that would help to keep her on her guard the following evening.

  At first Rick didn’t answer his door, which made her think she might have been wrong after all, but then after her second ring she heard his footsteps on the stairs and when he opened his front door he had a paintbrush stuck behind his right ear. His face went pale when he saw her. ‘Cressida!’ he exclaimed in surprise.

  She nodded. ‘That’s right, it’s me. You’re lucky I didn’t bring a Thermos of soup and a bunch of grapes or you’d have looked even sillier than you do now.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ blustered Rick, oblivious to the brush behind his ear.

  ‘Well, you seem to have made a miraculous recovery from the incipient bubonic plague that was troubling you when you rang me yesterday,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I felt really bad for twenty-four hours,’ he protested. ‘In fact. I’ve only got dressed this evening because I thought it might do me good. I didn’t really feel well enough to get up.’