“Good evening.” Joseph’s voice was gravelly with static on the other end of the phone. Don’t ask me why I answered his call. Don’t ask Charlotte, either.
“Evening.” I pressed a finger into my vacant ear. “The signal’s pretty bad here, just to warn you.”
“And where are you?”
“Off to meet a friend.”
“Liar.” That same playful tone had rasped in my ear from behind. “I’m at a strip club.”
“If you are, it’s an awfully quiet one.”
“Unwaxed strippers. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, so everyone just pretends it isn’t happening.”
Second-guessing this man never made me feel comfortable, but the invitation was intriguing. “You’re at home.”
“Just another night with my ginger beer and Sylvanian Families.”
“I bet you put Mrs Badger in a gimp mask.”
His snigger swelled to a full-blown laugh. “There’s a mental image that needs bleaching out with vodka.” A pause. “Hmm. You’ve gone to meet Matt’s parents.”
Bloody office gossips. “You know, this is woefully unsubtle. I expected more of you, Mr Merchant.”
“Leila. You don’t want to be there.”
One knee fell on top of the other with a little smack of flesh. Crossed legs made me feel safer around him, even around his voice. “That’s not true.”
“Oh, come on. You don’t want to be there any more than I want to be finishing these fucking reports. Come home.” Come see me.
Dovecoate Hall loomed at the end of the drive. It was a gorgeous building, all stained glass windows and winding turrets like something from a Grimm fairytale. It looked more than a little eerie with its half-deserted car park and topiary creatures shrouded in dim light–Medusa had glared at the carnival and skulked off to hunt.
“I have to go.”
“Leila.”
“I’m busy.”
“So am I, sweetheart. It’s not even relevant.” Because we should be busy together.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” I said through my teeth.
“This isn’t you. Isn’t what you are.”
I hung up, palms simmering, before I insulted him. As much as he deserved it, he was still my boss. But the words lingered like smoking embers. You have no idea what I am. Hell, not even I did.
“There’s still someone on reception,” said John, pulling up to the entrance. “Tell them you’re here for the Dahlia suite.”
I gave him another hug. “Crosswords tonight, is it?”
“Nope. I’m going back to my room to make the most of the porn on cable,” he tittered. “You be good, now.”
“I’ll see you later.”
I headed up to the reception desk as he parked, and took directions to the suite. While I’d have preferred the lift in my heels, a curved stone staircase lined with obscure oil paintings was too fascinating to resist.
Aidan, clad in a towel, opened the door before I even reached the room.
“Not only is he a pre-Raphaelite god, ladies and gentlemen,” he spread his hands, “but Aidan Reaper is a psychic, too.”
“You heard the car, you gobshite.”
“Feeling Irish?”
“Nope. I’m sober.” I closed the door and gazed around the suite, whistling. “I don’t think we’ve had a nicer one yet, have we?”
He shot me a knowing smile. “Oh, the one at De Mavro’s was pretty memorable, I reckon.”
I swatted him across the ass cheeks and he gave a mock groan of pleasure.
Not long into my residence at Ladarna, Aidan and I had a no-show. We’d waited for over an hour in the pre-booked suite and the client had never arrived. Aidan persuaded me into bed anyway, and we spent the afternoon mapping each other’s bodies with the tips of our fingers and tongues. He taught me how to deep throat–he wasn’t exaggerating about his generous proportions–and where to kiss a man so that his resolve withered to nothing and he turned to a mess of desire. Then he spent the rest of the time with his face buried between my thighs, delighting in making me gush and squeal. The boy had a magic formula, and what can I say? Moaning by numbers was not the same as fluid mathematical skill. It wasn’t like being with a lover and yet, not like being with a client either. I could let go and be somewhere else, walk away at the end of it…and between us, nothing changed.
But things had been different when I only belonged to myself–not even Charlotte was quite as possessive.
“I’ve ironed your outfit,” he said, pointing to a rather small school uniform on a hanger. “Where’s your bag?”
“Not got it. This was a bit of a last minute decision,” I admitted.
“Did you tell him, then?”
“Kind of.” I fingered the green tartan of my old school skirt. “He answered William’s phone call about it earlier and told him it was fine.”
Aidan raised an eyebrow. “Smooth operator, huh?”
“I’m not so sure.” The feathers tugged the curls from my hair as I pulled them. “I’ll do what I can without my make-up bag. Have you got any hair stuff?”
“Is Elton a fudgepacker?”
I laughed. “I’ve missed you, Aid.”
“So you fucking should have, Lei-Lei. Blowing me off the other night, indeed.”
I shot him a mischievous grin. “Be a good boy and I’ll blow something else in a bit.”
“Mmm.”
I slid out of my clothes and into a hot shower, making the most of the Molton Brown toiletries. The rock club–as fun as it had been–was a relief to wash away, and the trickle of hot water lapped pleasingly between my thighs.
From Matt’s schizophrenic mantra on touching, to Joseph’s light thumbs, I had been edging toward release since the morning…it would come soon.
When I towelled myself off in the bedroom, there were places I couldn’t dry. God, I ached for this, and I grazed a finger there, enjoying how silky and warm it felt.
“Are you starting up without me? Because that’s hardly fair.”
The doorway framed Aidan, now clad in charcoal trousers, a white shirt and green school tie. Auburn curls dusted his collar, still damp.
“I don’t think I need it tonight,” I confessed, taking the hanger from him. “I’ve been deprived.”
He stood behind me and his fingers joined mine. Slow, meandering strokes.
“Poor girl,” he breathed. “I’m going to make you scream in there.”
“Meanie. Be gentle with me. I won’t last long like this.” I tugged his hand away and pulled a pair of white cotton knickers on. “Don’t suppose there was a bra in with my costume?”
“Afraid not. It wouldn’t have been on long though, and you are meant to be my slutty little exchange buddy.”
My breasts spilled out of my palms. “What do you reckon–can I get away with it?”
He stared at them with glazed eyes. “God, I love my job. I think you’ll be all right.”
I turned back round to slide my skirt on and he did up the zip for me. “So what’s the plan, Captain Cock? Which one are we doing?”
“I like violent one. If you’re up for it, that is.” He paused to slide a hand under the skirt, to fondle my buttocks. “I mean here.”
A shudder fell through me at his gentle probing. “After I’ve come.”
“You will.” He drew back to hand me my shirt. “I’m going to get a drink and stuff. I’ll see you in ten, okay?”
I gave my hair a quick blow-dry and fastened it into loose bunches. Since Aidan had no make-up–though I wouldn’t have put it past him–I made do with an appropriately fresh-faced look: a smear of Vaseline over my lips and cheeks. Then I rolled on knee-high socks and fastened Mary Jane shoes. I’d been wondering where those had got to.
Joseph would love this outfit—it painted me a schoolgirl who broke all his rules. I resolved to share it with him before remembering about Matt, but that stuffed the next few minutes with scarlet guilt.
Screw it. Where was the minibar?
>
I wandered back through into the living area and fixed myself a gin and tonic.
“Hello, Charlotte.” Aidan grinned.
“Hello, Felix.”
It felt surreal, using our working names again. Strangely comfortable, too.
“You look shamefully young.” He grabbed at my hips. “Am I allowed to kiss you tonight, what with Meester boyfriend?”
“I don’t know, Aid. All this stuff with Matt–”
“He’s happy for you to fuck someone else, but not to kiss them?” He scowled. “Go home after and kiss him all you like, but if you’re going to suck my cock, I don’t see the point in missing out my mouth.”
“I can’t kiss him,” I grumbled. “He won’t do anything like that with me until I’ve finished with my boss.”
Aidan rolled his eyes. “No wonder you’re so wound up. Jesus. You do pick them, don’t you, Lei-Lei? I wonder how many skeletons are in that closet.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not doing something so blatantly stupid just because of you. You realize that, no?”
I blinked at him. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Be prepared for baggage. That’s all I’m saying.” He paused to check the time on his phone. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. I’ve put your pretty pretend homework on the desk, okay?”
“Okay.” An antique French bureau sat a few foot from my bed, the kind I’d fantasize about writing letters on in loopy, ridiculous handwriting. “Who do we have?”
“Two gay couples including Angus and Will, a straight couple, and a single guy.”
“Can we leave the single guy out of it this time?”
“I was planning on it. You know how I feel about straight men.”
I stifled a laugh as the door shook with knocking.
“You answer, Lei–I mean, Charlotte. I’ll be in the bedroom.”
The mirror beckoned. I gave myself the once over and Charlotte winked back. Show time.
Our audience filed in, getting quietly comfy on the sofas that Aidan had organized around our little bedroom set. Will and Angus were in their pyjamas and had evidently come from the spa–I could smell the aromatherapy oils on them. The other couples were both mid-thirties. Two women held hands and played with each other’s hair on the corner sofa, while another woman in jeans arranged herself at her partner’s feet. The single guy curled up in the arm chair, a whisky in one hand and a camera in the other.
“No pictures, I’m afraid.” I held my hand out and he gave up the camera reluctantly.
“Spoil sport.”
“I already told you about that, Richard,” Will called. “You mention photos one more time and I’ll go back to calling you Dick when we’re in public.”
They exchanged grins and dirty hand gestures that I gracefully ignored.
I busied myself for five minutes while everyone made drinks from the mini bar. The room filled with chatter about work, people’s children, the wedding ahead. Just like any other party. When they were settled, I turned the lights to glowing fuzz and took my place at the desk.
Silence scraped the walls. Hollow, jagged. Shivers.
An old school exercise book sat on the bureau, and inside, Aidan had written Leila and Matt, sitting in a tree, he doesn’t have a cock, just a rugby trophy. I had to grit my teeth to stem the giggling. Oh, I was going to make him suffer.
Not a lot of people liked to be watched. I knew this because so often, my clients sought to be voyeurs above all else. They had to pay for it. Me, I found a strange sympathy in it, the realization that yes, this was what men thought about. I wanted it more. Now, I made a show of stopping and starting my homework before sighing and slapping down my pencil, heading over to the bed.
I climbed up and lay down, facing the sofas. Closing my eyes, I eased up my skirt and spread my legs. The air hit me harder than my fingers.
Somebody gave a little sigh as I reached the gusset of my knickers, as I stroked just enough to feel the warmth through the white. It was so easy to lose myself in this, to forget who watched, and it felt so–
“You’ve got to start locking your door, Charlotte.” Aidan’s sharp words made me jump.
“What are you doing?” I tore my hands away and sprang up. “I was just…just…”
“I saw what you were doing,” he said. “Those boys at school were right–you really are a slut. You can’t even keep your hands out of your knickers long enough to finish your homework.” He paused, cocking his head. “What will your parents say?”
“They won’t believe you.”
“You think?” Aidan stepped closer and grabbed my hand. His tongue slid, wet and coarse, against my palm.
“Oh my God, what are you doing?” I squealed, trying to yank it away.
“They smell really good.” He smirked. “You can’t expect me to see you doing that to yourself and not get hard, can you?”
I struggled while he pushed my hand down to the bulge in his trousers. “You’re sick. My parents trusted you, they–”
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said slyly. “You show me just how slutty you are and I won’t tell your mom and dad anything.”
I shook my head manically, my hand still pressed over his cock.
“I’m not asking, Charlotte,” he went on. “I’m ordering.” Aidan could inject this wonderfully demanding tone into his voice–just the right side of whiny for a teenage boy.
He started to rub himself against my hand and groaned loudly. I bit my lip without thinking–the size of him beneath my fingers was enough to make me moan, too.
“What if I say no?”
“If you really meant it, you wouldn’t be stroking my cock like that,” he said thickly–and I was stroking him, like a reflex I couldn’t control.
Aidan kissed me then, hard. He held my head in place until I reciprocated with a little cry of defeat.
“See, you want it. Don’t you?”
The whimpers fell on deaf carpet.
Aidan yanked my bunches. “Don’t you?”
“No,” I said again, jutting my lower lip.
He stared right into my eyes as he pushed his hand between my legs. I cried out as he tugged the briefs down, manhandling them off and shoving me onto the bed.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Spread your legs,” he demanded.
One, two, three…I counted the seconds until I was exposed to our audience. I sucked in air as he ran a finger down my slit.
“You’re wet for me,” he said. “You’re wet for a practical stranger. Do you know what that makes you?”
I hung my head. “A bad girl.”
“And bad girls get punished, don’t they? Take off your shirt.”
I sat up, legs still parted, to loosen my tie and pull it over my head. Now I wore nothing by my skirt bunched around my waist and my socks.
Aidan fondled my breasts roughly. “I should catch you more often,” he added, rubbing my hard nipples. He pushed me back down and angled me so everyone could see, pressing my thighs back with the heel of his hands. “Have you ever had a boy lick your pussy?”
“Yes,” I said meekly.
“Did you like it?”
“Y–yes.”
“You really do need to be punished.”
He gave my pussy a sharp slap before dropping to his knees. Already lost–to him, to myself–I cried out with pleasure before the drag of his mouth hit. I was so hot and swollen there, open and waiting for his tongue, and I gushed a little at the first lick, bucking my hips against his face.
His fingers spread me like a banned book, stroked the dirty words corporeal. I really wouldn’t take long like this–out of the shadows, this might have embarrassed me just a tad.
But the day lay slain in the wake of dirty secrets. That kind of submission–the stretch of foreplay that began days and hours and men ago–primed me in places a lover had no hope to reach.
Aidan tasted my orgasm just as it bit me, and he groaned
in delight.
“Felix, Felix…” I panted my way down the slope to the first wave. The room was a drunk bubble that popped and popped and popped. When the light was new again, he brought his sticky fingers to my mouth and I lapped at them in sated obedience.
“See what you did, huh?” He finished them off himself. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. A little sore, maybe.” I smiled sheepishly.
“Oh, you will be.” The bed creaked as he stood, dropped his trousers. His cock sprang up, and mutters stirred by the sofas as he took it in his fist.
“I want you to get this nice and wet.”
“I can’t do it, Felix–it’s so big–”
In one swift motion, he tugged my head back and shoved himself into my mouth with the rough grace of a butcher. It always shook me, that move, though we’d practiced a hundred times–there was no way to handle a cock Aidan’s size without a little force.
He stroked my hair as he let me adjust around him. “That’s it…suck it for me, ah…”
He tipped his head back as I found room to use my tongue. I loved the way his whole body trembled every time he hit the back of my throat. This was all so clichéd and yet, I knew how much he got off on it.
The audience wasn’t far behind.
As he pulled out, I made sure he got well-coated in saliva, and the strands stretched out between us in a cobweb of dew.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said.
“I guess not.”
“Did you like the taste?”
I slid a finger round it. “I liked the size of it better. I’ve never seen one so big,” I murmured in awe.
“It’s going to feel huge in your tight little asshole,” he said gleefully.
Muscles went rigid, the anticipation swelling between my legs all over again. “No, no Felix–I don’t want it there!”
“Yes you do,” he insisted. “You don’t want your parents to find out what a whore you are, do you?”
“No, but–”
“Hands and knees, now.”
The tie licked at my spine as he got up behind me. Laboured breaths of pleasure emanated from the sofas–we’d been convincing enough so far.
Aidan’s tongue dragged over my asshole and I gave a startled little cry as he spat, as he spread it around. Then came the cold little squirt of lube–the one our spectators weren’t meant to notice.
Breaking Leila Page 13
