“Yes, I am.”
Sugar scattered around his cup. “I don’t really understand it.”
I craned my neck to check outside for the cab; the drive was empty. “Does it matter?”
He draped his arm around me on the back of the sofa. “Not now, no. Coffee?”
“Not really a non-Starbucks person.”
“I don’t think you need it as much as me anyway.” He finished another cup. “Where’s Aidan?”
“Aidan is molesting a poor young lad outside. I suggest you stay away unless you fancy a spot of dogging.”
He looked confused. “Is it still dogging if they’re doing it next to an octopus?”
I put a hand on his thigh to steady myself laughing. “I can see how you got into LSE now, such a critical brain.”
He stroked my hand, smiling languorously. “Too right.”
A horn sounded outside and I ran into the ballroom to fetch his jacket. He managed to walk in an almost-straight line to the car and was evidently quite pleased with himself.
Aidan and Nikolai were nowhere to be seen. I suspected they might have fallen into the fountain.
Street lights swished past the cab, catching on the edges of our trail. We travelled in easy silence. It was…nice.
“Looky, you. I’m sobering up.” Matt yawned as we crept up the stairs. “I seem to remember doing the robot to bagpipes though, so I’m not entirely sure.”
“Yep, you did that.” I paused outside his bedroom door. “This is my stop.”
“It is.” He fumbled about with his collar. “Will you be all right?”
“I’ll cope.” I found myself gazing up at him. “If that’s your way of asking to join me, you know what my answer is.”
“No, I…I’m going to bed,” he mumbled. “Sleep well, babe.”
I reached up to hug him, wrapping my arms round his neck. Picture frames trembled on the wall as he fell against me, and shoved me back. He smelled like fresh green leaves–topiary?–and alcohol, a memorable mix.
I brushed my teeth and fell into bed in a most unladylike manner, kicking off my heels last. The bed, while beautiful, was so huge with just me beneath the sheets, and how strange did an apparently willing man have to be, to stay across the hall and not lie naked beside me? Whispers of his half-drunk breath still mingled with mine.
My thoughts strayed to the text that sat unanswered on my phone.
Would Joseph still be awake? Probably. Should I be responding in the first place? Probably not. He never complained that I didn’t. I sometimes mused that his messages were much like the rhetorical questions he would toss at us in meetings. His thoughts were what mattered…he was just throwing them out there.
Then I had Matt, probably asleep by now, who had been lovely to me tonight. It could have all gone so wrong and it hadn’t. There’d been no arguments, no sharp remarks, save my lead balloon about the threesome. The Charlie Problem languished somewhere below all that, but I ignored it, sinking into a fantasy where Matt lay underneath me and I tasted the skin at the hollow of his throat. No more knives.
My phone buzzed loudly.
“Matt?” It was hard to keep my voice down.
“Sorry,” he said huskily. “I can’t sleep.”
“Won’t you wake Toby?”
“He’s not here yet. Probably off his face somewhere in town.”
“Rock and roll.”
“Yeah. So…what are you doing?”
I twisted a ringlet around my finger. “I was thinking about you,” I half-whispered.
“Yeah?”
“About what might be happening if you were here in bed with me.”
“I was thinking about that too.” Bedding rustled. “Are you still wearing that dress?”
“No.” I bit my lip. “Are you still wearing that suit?”
“No.”
The line went dead and a moment later, the door clicked open. Matt’s broad-shouldered shadow poured over the bed. I gathered the sheet around my bare breasts, smiling at him as he walked in. He wore just his boxer shorts.
“Seemed silly to stay there,” he murmured, the bed bracing with his weight. “Like talking on paper cups and string.”
“Are you still drunk?”
“A little bit.” He glanced back at the door. “Only a little bit.”
“Good. I’d hate to take advantage of you.” I reached out for him and he leaned away. “Tease,” I muttered.
“I meant what I said about not…consummating anything. But I figured that there’s other stuff we could do.” His eyes were wide and playful in the darkness, and my skin began to prickle with familiar heat.
“You’ve gone from no touching to just no screwing in just over a week. What makes you think I can’t push you further?”
He brushed the hair from his face. “Try me.”
Oh.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Watching,” he said softly. “I want to see your little show, Leila.”
“It’s not much fun with just me.”
“I’ll join in.” He eased back against the foot of the bed, raising his knees. “I’ll be right down here.” Breath caught in my throat as he rested his hand over his cock, eyeing me expectantly. It wasn’t fair–I just wanted to touch him.
He grabbed a fistful of the sheet and drew it down, exposing flesh and modesty. I felt strangely vulnerable being naked with him that night–I don’t know why. All that need and such limited means to sate it with.
“Take those shorts off,” I said.
He complied, slipping them down his muscled legs. Hard already, the smooth head of his cock sat neatly against his belly. He took it roughly in his hand and nodded.
“I want to see you,” he said. “Show me where you’re wet, babe.”
The air rushed in as my thighs spread, and when I glanced up, I found him smiling.
“Spread a little more,” he urged.
I sat up on the pillows and did as he asked.
“Is that comfortable?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “You’re being awfully bossy, Matthew.”
“You like it.”
“I do.” My fingers sat on the tender skin between. “Do you like this, here?”
“Very much.” A sharp breath as he squeezed his cock. “I remember how good you tasted there, too.”
I let my fingers walk up to my slit, toying with the wetness there.
“I wish you’d do it again.”
“Is that what you like?”
I rolled my inner lips as if they were being sucked. “I like all sorts of things.”
“Huh.” Now he was too busy watching to bother touching himself. “I think you should tell me about them.”
“I can’t concentrate that hard right now.” I brushed my clit for the first time and arched my back with a little sigh. “How can you…”
“I’m suddenly very focused.” He grinned, creeping across on his hands and knees. Then he sat on his side and peered between my thighs. “Very alert indeed.”
He was so close to me now, his skin grazing mine every few seconds. I could feel his breath as he exhaled hotly over my shoulder, could almost hear the thud of his heartbeat deep in his chest. When he dropped his mouth and trailed a soft mess of kisses against my throat, I melted, crying out…it was too much.
“Shhh,” he murmured, his warm hands wandering. “We’re not alone here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“God, I love watching you.” He cupped my breasts and made firm circles over my nipples. “Don’t stop.”
“I…I won’t.”
Fingers were sticky, now, and I got slowly drunk on the sound of his voice, so thick in my ear.
“When was the first time you did this?” he asked.
“I read about it in a Judy Blume novel.”
“Where were you?”
“In a hotel room, on holiday. My parents were down in the bar.”
He leaned forward to watch me as I slowed.
“What did it feel like the first time you came?”
I bit my lip, waiting for a particularly sharp wave of pleasure to subside before I spoke. “Very slow…achy.”
“Mmm. I know what that’s like.”
I could feel his cock against my thigh. It twitched every time I spoke.
“Do you touch yourself inside?” he breathed.
I opened my eyes, wanting to see his face as I spread my pussy for him, showing him how open and ripe it looked. That little dip in his brow as he followed…oh.
“I bet you have toys,” he said softly.
“I do…but I like fingers better.”
“Yeah?”
“Fingers are better for finding the right spot.”
Thick fingers nudged against mine. “Show me where, Leila.”
I tensed and guided him in, pressed upward urgently, and his strokes were torturously slow. “No, harder,” I begged.
“Like this?”
“Ow…please.” I sank back on the pillows as he drove into the spot, over and over, as hard as I urged. There was a warm little gush and then his other hand suddenly clamped over my mouth, my cries muffled with it.
“God, I felt you do that.” He kissed my throat again. “Do you want me to–”
I peeled his hand from my face. “Don’t stop!”
“Okay, okay.” He laughed.
Another tiny climax pierced me and I pressed my face into his chest. The urge to stroke myself was too strong to resist, and I wanted to fall off the edge of the world, to come painstakingly hard all over him. For him.
“What do you think about when you do this?” he said.
“Mmm…lots of things.” I sighed. “There’s this horrible, mean tease of a rugby player…he’s my colleague…he won’t fuck me, it drives me mad.” That finger jammed into my spot again and I sucked at the air.
“Sounds like a bastard.”
“What do you think about? Tell me. I need to hear…”
“I have some photos of this girl I know that I found on the internet. She’s all bound and blindfolded. You can see everything.” Careless teeth found my earlobe. “I look at those pictures a lot.” Warm tongue on my neck. “I’ve…I’ve even looked at them at work.” He tugged my free hand down toward his cock, and I began pumping in the same rhythm as my bucking hips. “She…she makes me…fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever been so hard in my life.”
He twitched in my palm, swelled and ebbed at the head. I was so close.
“Tell me how it feels for you.” I twisted to meet his touch now.
“When I come?” Sweat moulded the pair of us. “Like half of me falls forwards onto hot coals.”
“Very poetic.” I squeezed him and he groaned. “You should write a song about that.”
“Maybe…ahh.”
We were done with talking. The air was full of the rustle of sheets beneath us, heat spilling from our bodies and our little pants and moans. I shoved his finger deep inside me with a rough jerk and crumpled in on myself.
Somewhere in the midst of all that, I felt a warm splash on my stomach. Matt gave a gasp and then a stuttering growl. We fell into each other limply and stole cool mouthfuls from the saturated air. When I could move, I found his mouth and kissed his bottom lip lazily, experimentally, and he kissed me back with renewed hunger, his tongue winding around mine.
“That was–”
“Educational,” he slurred.
I dissolved into giggles against his shoulder. “What?”
“I’ve never been able to watch like that. S’nice.”
“Just nice, hmm?”
“There’s a mess all over your belly to prove it.”
I surveyed splattered skin and grinned at him wickedly. “Picasso would be proud of that load, Matt.”
“You’re very…inspiring.” He dug damp hands into my hair as he kissed me again. “Why don’t they have diagrams for that G-spot thing in GQ, anyway?”
“I thought they did?”
“They never made it look that interesting.”
“It’s not quite that simple.” I smiled. “It’s like a different kind of orgasm.”
“Yeah?”
“Like…like a smaller piece of cake. It tastes just as good but you’ve always got room for more.”
“Is it wrong that I’m already getting hard again?”
“Mmm.” I stroked along his length with my fingertips. “You won’t let me do what I really want with it, though.”
He took my hand away gently. “You’ve corrupted me enough as it is.”
“Think yourself lucky that I’m knackered. Men can still be raped, you know,” I said.
“Soon, my pretty.” He rolled me sideways and curled up behind, scooping the sheet back over us. “You don’t need to be jealous any more, by the way. That is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in this bed.”
“You sound like a teenage boy.”
“I reverted to being one for most of it.” He stroked my hair slowly, teasingly. “Now I have something else to think about when I’m…you know.”
“Me too.” Bare skin stuck to mine as I writhed against him. “I really am wiped, actually.”
“Go to sleep then, babe.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“Always.”
We lay in silence for a while, melting together as we breathed. Slumber began to claim me.
“I think I know what you are, Leila,” Matt murmured.
“Oh?”
He leaned in, his lips almost brushing my ear. “You’re my punishment. For what I did to Niamh. I want you so badly, but you’re not mine.”
Punishment.
I went cold. “I see.”
“I feel like I have to earn this somehow. I don’t deserve it.”
“Does it matter?” I whispered.
“Of course it does…you understand, don’t you?”
I was suddenly very glad that I couldn’t see him.
“You picked a girl you thought you couldn’t have so you could carry on torturing yourself…?”
“That’s not what I meant.” He sighed, rolling away slightly. “Forget that I said it. Go to sleep.”
And the sleep became my own punishment; he waited.
He wasn’t Matt.
Chapter 11
Two weeks before, I’d been a prostitute.
Sunday afternoon. One of my more regular clients. He had not known it, but I would never be at his bidding again–I had three jobs left before I’d paid off the debt, and I would quit by the next weekend.
Or so I thought.
The next Wednesday lunch time, a text from William had booked me in for the evening. I’d agreed. Somewhere not too far from me, Joseph had opened his confirmation email and known that in just a few hours, I would be on my knees for him. So it came to be that I was still a whore, albeit for only one client. God knew, I’d be his whether he paid me or not.
This morning, I seemed to have a boyfriend. However it had occurred, it felt organic and calculated in equal measure. He claimed that I belonged to him.
That wasn’t necessarily true.
I ought to have told him that, should have whispered the warnings that brewed, but I needed to enjoy the calm before the blade. The sun, velvet and beautiful, bounced off the froth in the mouth of the tempest. I wanted this.
Something cracked urgently beneath my breastbone. New passions, old wounds.
I hear thunder. Don’t you?
* * * *
I was naked and the room was dark. My hands were bound behind my back–tightly, as far as tugging them told. Air writhed against my flesh, at war with it.
“You’re not going anywhere,” said Joseph. His voice spilled over me like a pail of water, splashing into places I swore it couldn’t reach.
He dug firm fingers into my hip. “I can smell you from here,” he whispered. “Dirty little girl.” He pressed himself against my back, his cock thick and warm between us. “Do you want this?”
I nodded.
<
br /> “Well…we knew that already.”
Something cold and sharp caressed the skin on my thigh, and I shuddered.
“What about this?” he said.
He held the blade up for me to see: smooth and silvery, anointed in moonlight. My eyes widened just to get around it. Everything was ice, save the liquid heat between my legs, and it yelped, yes, yes, yes. Anything.
He pressed the chilled metal against my cheek and I inhaled sharply, waiting for the split and the gush. Then he brought it back behind me, scratching along my spine in chalky little grazes. It came to rest between my fists as it sliced through the rope, which fell heavily at my sides.
“What do I do now?” I whimpered.
“Whatever you want.”
His arm came around me, forcing me against him. I bit my lip and sighed; my skin sang its pleasure.
“Who are you?” I panted.
The laugh echoed, playful in my ear. “I don’t know. Whore are you?”
“I’m…I’m sorry?”
“Who are you talking to, babe?” Matt mumbled, his face still pressed into my neck.
The body was his, the erection his, but the dark room had become his warm bed.
Oh.
“Weird dream,” I said sleepily. I rolled over and he caught my mouth, sucking my bottom lip.
“Was it about me?”
The image of the dream still spun. I paused to remember Joseph, and then Charlotte smiled coyly and blew magic dust from her palm. Oh no, you don’t.
“I’m not sure.”
“Mmm. Were we naked?”
“I…”
He kissed me, his hands kneading my buttocks and knotting into my hair.
“I can’t remember,” I lied.
“Well, I had an awesome dream,” he murmured. “The girl I told you about last night…the one at work, the one with the pictures…she was in bed with me.”
“Oh really?” I grinned up at him. “I’ll bet she was filth.”
“You were.”
How long had it been since I’d woken up in the arms of a lover? Moulded against another body, drenched in the smell of sex and sweat and honey; nothing quite like it, is there? As the unsettling dream of Joseph faded and the memory of Matt last night trickled in, I felt myself relax against him. This could not be bought.
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