‘Morgan, nice to meet you. What can I get you?’
‘I’d love a glass of red wine.’
‘Of course. We’ve got a rather nice bottle of Merlot open, if that’s OK?’
‘Lovely, thank you.’
Gerry poured her a glass of wine, which Lucinda carried for her, leading the way down the hall. The kitchen was better appointed than the one she had in her own flat, Morgan couldn’t help but notice. She wondered whether Gerry cooked, or if the shiny copper pans, wooden block containing half-a-dozen cook’s knives and string of garlic bulbs hanging from a hook on the wall were simply for show. Platters containing an assortment of cheese, pieces of fruit and seed-topped flatbreads stood ready to be taken through to the living room. Morgan put the containers she’d brought down on the scrubbed pine table and set about decanting their contents on to plates, pausing every now and again to take a sip of her wine.
When she’d finished, she took a better look round the kitchen, admiring the big, American-style fridge and the top-of-the range stove. French windows stood open, leading out on to a small walled garden. Glass lanterns hung from the branches of a cherry tree, the softly flickering tea lights within them creating an almost magical atmosphere. Though it was early October, there was just enough warmth left in the air to make it comfortable for those partygoers who chose to go outside to smoke or chat.
Lucinda scooped one of the Parmesan biscuits from a plate, popping it into her mouth. ‘These are delicious, Morgan. I did think about putting in an order with that nice little delicatessen on Farringdon Road, but your biscuits are better than anything they have. Have you never thought of selling them?’
‘Oh, I used to, a long time ago …’ It had long been a dream of Morgan’s, back home in Cardiff, to open a little bakery, but she’d never been able to pull together the finances she needed to open premises of her own. Instead, she’d persuaded a local café cum delicatessen to take some of her biscuits to sell along with their range of speciality teas and home-made preserves. One of the regulars in that café turned out to work for a TV company based in the city and had loved Morgan’s baked goods so much he’d tracked her down and persuaded her to demonstrate the recipes on the local news show. The rest was history.
‘Well, I’ll just have one more before the gluttons get their hands on them, then we’ll take everything through, if you don’t mind helping me?’
‘Not at all,’ Morgan assured Lucinda.
Having carried the food into the living room, Morgan felt she’d discharged her duties for the night and went to join the party. Quite a few of the production team had arrived by now, and most had brought their spouses or partners with them. She spotted Dan, the floor manager, with an arm draped round his visibly pregnant wife, and Carl, the assistant producer, feeding his boyfriend a sliver of Brie. Rumour had it they were planning to tie the knot in a civil partnership ceremony at Christmas, but they wanted to keep it a secret from Carl’s mother, who was in denial about her son’s true sexuality, even though he and David had been openly living together as a couple for three years.
And no doubt Scott would have found himself a date for tonight; she couldn’t see him arriving at Lucinda’s without some prime piece of arm candy to show off. Though, as she looked round the room, he didn’t appear to have arrived yet.
‘Been here long?’ a familiar voice murmured in her ear.
She turned to see Scott, a bottle of Italian lager in his hand. He wore a battered leather jacket over a tight white T-shirt, and his hair appeared more windblown than usual. Morgan thought she’d never seen him looking quite so handsome. ‘Yes, I’ve been helping Lucinda in the kitchen.’ She glanced over at the table, where Donny, one of the cameramen, was piling his plate high with chunks of cheese, celery sticks and slices of French bread. ‘I was going to suggest she might have over-catered, but you know how much the studio crew eats.’
‘So that’s what that little confab you were having at the end of the production meeting was about.’
‘Why, did you think I might have been negotiating a pay rise behind your back?’ Morgan replied, with the sweetest of smiles.
He shook his head. ‘You’re far too straightforward for that. And no, I wouldn’t do something like that to you, before you say anything.’ Scott took a swig of his lager. ‘That’s my agent’s job.’
‘Touché.’ Morgan was surprised to find herself relaxing into this easy banter between herself and Scott. Still she couldn’t resist asking the question that nagged at her. ‘So, are you here on your own tonight?’
He nodded. ‘I thought it probably wasn’t a good idea to bring anyone, just in case there’s an emergency at the restaurant that needs my attention. I don’t normally go anywhere near the place on a Saturday, but seeing as it’s five minutes down the road it would be hard to refuse …’
To Morgan’s ears, that sounded like a flimsy excuse. Maybe Scott was trying to disguise the fact he’d asked someone to come with him and been turned down. And wouldn’t that be a turn-up for the books?
‘Have you met Lucinda’s husband?’ Morgan asked, quickly changing the conversation.
‘Gerry? Yeah, he’s a nice guy. We’ve been having a chat, and it turns out he used to eat at Le Cartouche when I was head chef there. It’s always nice to meet a fan of my roast saddle of rabbit … Look out, Janice is on the prowl.’ He waved his bottle in the direction of a grey-haired woman walking towards them with a determined expression on her face. The show’s chief home economist, Janice was the person least likely to switch off from work mode in a social setting.
‘What do you think she wants?’
‘I don’t know, but I don’t fancy sticking around to find out. Come on, unless you want to find yourself pinned in a corner discussing the best way to julienne vegetables all evening.’ Scott grabbed Morgan’s hand, guiding her through the little knots of party guests and out of the living room. By the time Janice made her way out into the hall, Scott and Morgan were already standing on the first-floor landing.
‘D’you think she’ll follow us?’ Morgan asked in hushed tones.
‘Maybe, but just to make sure …’ Scott opened the door of the first room they came to, and hurried Morgan inside.
They found themselves standing in a bedroom that must double as a study, judging by the shiny new iMac sitting on a sturdy oak desk in the corner and the bookshelves that filled all the available wall space, crammed with everything from old university textbooks to dog-eared Agatha Christie paperbacks. Giggling, Morgan plonked herself down on the sofa. Scott sat down beside her, so close she could smell his signature cologne, something subtle and woody.
He smiled at her, his features softening. ‘Phew, that was a close shave, but I think we’ve given her the slip.’
‘How long do you think we should give it before we make our way back down there?’ Morgan’s heart pounded in her chest. Try as she might, she couldn’t put the reaction down purely to having raced up a flight of stairs.
‘That depends on whether you need that wine glass refilling, or whether you can cope with one of these …’ He produced two more bottles of lager from his jacket pockets. Whether he’d brought them with him or liberated them from the supply on the dining table she didn’t ask.
‘That will be perfect,’ she said, watching Scott prise off the bottle tops with a metal opener shaped like a shark’s mouth that hung from his key ring. He passed one of the opened bottles to her, then chinked his own against hers in a toast.
‘Here’s to Cook’s Treats blowing all the other cookery shows out of the water,’ he said.
Morgan took a drink, relishing the crisp coldness of the lager. ‘You sound awfully cheerful for a man who was absolutely convinced he’d been given the wrong co-presenter.’
‘Hey, I don’t think I ever said “wrong”. Inexperienced and unprofessional, possibly, but you’ve proved I was wide off the mark on both counts. I mean, you dealt with Zachary Klein beautifully this morning. You completely avoided be
ing sucked into the vacuum that is his personality.’
‘You’re not still smarting about having to cook vegetables for him, are you?’ Morgan grinned. ‘Or is it the fact he was just so damn handsome? Handsome – and incredibly boring.’ She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somehow they seemed to be sitting even closer together than before. Scott’s muscular, denim-clad thigh pressed against hers; she swore she could feel the heat radiating from his skin, even through the layers of clothing. Trying to ignore the fact her pussy was coming alive even with this minimal bodily contact, she continued, ‘You know, this reminds me of the last time I sneaked away in the middle of a party.’
‘Really? So you make a habit out of this kind of anti-social behaviour, then?’
‘Not exactly. I was 18, and my friend, Bronwen, threw a party to celebrate finishing our A-level exams. Well, you’ve never seen anything like a bunch of Cardiff girls when they let their hair down. It’s a scary sight. People were getting absolutely wasted on cheap cider and Irish cream liqueur, and someone had brought along one of those portable karaoke machines, so we could murder our favourite Take That songs ...’
Scott regarded her, bottle halfway to his lips. ‘So why did you flee this scene of wanton debauchery?’
‘Because I’d finally got my hands on the guy I’d fancied all year. Rhodri Thomas. He was captain of the rugby team at our sixth form college and he was absolutely lush. Playing rugby gives you the best thigh muscles ever, you know?’ Even as she said it, Morgan couldn’t help thinking whatever Scott did to work out had much the same effect. Doing her best to fight her powerful physical reaction to the man, she continued, ‘So we did one of the most clichéd things you can ever do at a mate’s party. We crept up to the room where everyone had piled their coats on the bed so we could share our first kiss.’
‘Ah, how innocent that sounds.’ From the faraway look on his face, Scott appeared to be reliving some similar incident from his own past. ‘And how was that kiss?’
‘Well worth waiting for,’ Morgan admitted. ‘It would really have put me off if he’d been a bad kisser, but he knew how to use just the right amount of tongue, and when to spice it up by breaking off so we could look into each other’s eyes ...’
‘Why is it you have the uncanny knack of making everything in life sound like a recipe?’ Scott asked, but he was clearly hanging on her every word. More than that, he’d put his bottle down, and his face was only inches away from Morgan’s, so when she looked directly at him their eyes met, just as hers had with Rhodri’s more than a decade ago. And, just as on that night, she saw pure, undisguised desire reflected back at her.
She didn’t answer his question, couldn’t do anything but act on the overwhelming erotic impulse surging through her. For the briefest moment, Morgan wondered whether she was about to make the biggest mistake of her career, mixing business with pleasure – and there was another cooking metaphor for Scott to add to his list, she thought giddily – then his lips met hers.
All the kisses she’d experienced up to this point in her life paled in comparison to the feel of his mouth against her own, soft lips and clever tongue working to turn her to a helpless, melting puddle of need. Her fingers twined in Scott’s thick, untidy hair as his fingers roamed over the nape of her neck and the soft skin exposed by her sparkly vest top.
She wasn’t sure, but when they finally broke the kiss she thought she heard him murmur something like, ‘Want you so badly.’ Was the brash, self-centred Scott really expressing his desire in such heartfelt tones?
Her only response was to pluck at his T-shirt, working it free of his jeans so she could stroke the warm, flat expanse of his belly. He pulled away for long enough to peel the garment over his head, revealing firm pecs, lightly sprinkled with soft, sandy hair.
So this was how it was going to be, quick and urgent? That suited Morgan fine. She was all too conscious of the party taking place downstairs, and a small voice at the back of her mind warned her that if she and Scott were away from the gathering for too long, someone would surely notice and come looking for them.
His hands on her top, seeking to remove it, brought her back to the present. Letting Scott strip it from her, she didn’t object when he quickly followed up by flicking open the catch of her bra. Teasing him, she held the cups tight to her chest with her hands as he pulled the straps down, so her breasts weren’t revealed to him until the last possible moment.
He took a breast in each hand, cupping the soft flesh as though he held something more precious than diamonds. ‘Oh, they feel even better than they look,’ he exclaimed. Bending his head, he latched on to one nipple with his greedy, sucking mouth. Morgan’s nipples stiffened to peaks in his mouth, and she felt the suckling sensation all the way down to her pussy, wanting his mouth there too.
Reaching for his belt, she made short work of undoing it, not wanting anything to impede their race to be naked. Her palm brushed over his cock, trapped behind his zip, and she felt it twitch in response, anxious to be free. In other circumstances, she might have delayed the pleasure of releasing him, but they didn’t have the luxury of time. So she brought his zip down in a smooth movement, reaching in to discover that, unlike in her fantasies, he hadn’t bothered with underwear tonight. Her fingers closed round the hot, solid length of him, and he sighed at her touch.
‘Oh, Morgan ...’ His words tailed off as he buried his face in her freshly washed locks. Fingers still toying with her hard nipples, he breathed in the scent of her hair.
Undoing her skirt, Morgan let it fall to the floor. The lacy boy shorts she wore beneath it were already soaking with her juices, and she rubbed herself through the wet material, feeling little sparks of pleasure shoot through her sex.
‘How do you want me?’ she asked Scott.
‘The sooner the better,’ he replied, guiding her up on to the couch so her curvy rump was facing him, high in the air. When he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her shorts and began to ease them down, she shivered in anticipation of the moment her pouting pussy would be revealed to him, peeping out from between her thighs.
Once he’d bared her completely, Scott stepped away. Looking over her shoulder, Morgan watched as he hunted through his jeans pockets. Finding what he’d been looking for, he unwrapped the condom and rolled it over his shaft. Getting into place behind her, he smoothed his hands over her bottom before sliding his cock into her tight, velvet depths.
Having him inside her felt so good it was almost sinful. Big and deliciously thick, his cock stimulated her in all the right places. And unlike the other really well-endowed men she’d been with in her time, he seemed to know exactly how to use those extra inches, instead of believing that simply being big was enough.
‘Fuck me, Scott,’ she demanded, asking for her pleasure in a direct way that was usually alien to her. Scott responded with fast, urgent thrusts that made her breasts bounce and her knees slide along the cushions beneath her. She clung on tight to the back of the couch as he pulled out almost all the way before driving back into her, harder than before.
‘Yes, yes, that’s it!’ she panted, even as she wondered quite how she’d reached a place where she was kneeling on a couch in her work colleague’s house, naked but for her heels, while a man she’d barely been able to stand a matter of weeks ago ploughed into her with strong, confident strokes.
Scott reached underneath her to stimulate her clit with his fingers and she found herself shuddering with a tiny, unexpected orgasm, her inner muscles fluttering like a butterfly’s wings around his cock. She cried out in pleasure, but Scott didn’t even pause in his thrusts. She could feel his body banging against her buttocks as he neared his climax.
With Scott’s hands caressing her breasts once more, Morgan felt the need to stroke her clit, the heel of her hand pressed against her mound, sandwiching the thin wall of flesh between it and Scott’s cock. Again she came, her cry a pleasure-sated squeal this time. The sweetness of her orgasm seemed to have robbed her of
her caution; she didn’t care any more whether someone might pass by in search of the bathroom and hear the noise she made.
The rippling of Morgan’s pussy around his shaft was too much for Scott, triggering his own climax. She felt every jerk as he filled the condom with his come, his hands snug around her waist.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered, dropping an affectionate kiss on her bare shoulder. For a moment, she felt closer to him than she ever had, then he pulled out of her with an abrupt motion. As though a spell had been broken, she remembered where they were, and where they really ought to be.
‘Do you think anyone will have missed us?’ she asked, scrambling back into her clothes. Her underwear had somehow been kicked under the couch in the throes of their passion, and she had to hunt to retrieve it.
Scott shook his head. ‘If the booze keeps flowing, they won’t have noticed a thing. You know,’ he added, as he zipped his jeans up, ‘as amazing a fuck as that was, I really think we should keep it as a one-off. I mean, the gossip columnists would have a field day if we started seeing each other on a regular basis, and it might not be the best publicity for the show.’
If he expected her to object to his proposal, hankering after a more meaningful relationship, he was disappointed. His words seemed to echo her thoughts about the danger of getting their personal and professional lives mixed up. Morgan ignored the small, traitorous part of her that thought how nice it would be to have that gorgeous cock filling her on a regular basis, to fall asleep in his arms and wake to find him hard and ready for her again. ‘You’re right. It’s never a good idea to get involved with someone you work with, in my experience. There’s too much at stake.’
When they left the study, they went in separate directions, Scott back down to the living room and Morgan in search of the bathroom, which she found at the far end of the landing. By the time she returned to the party, Scott was deep in conversation with a couple of the cameramen, laughing louder than anyone at the punchline to a joke. No one who saw him would ever believe that less than five minutes earlier, he’d been buried to the hilt in her pussy, calling out her name as he came deep inside her.
Traded Innocence Page 13
