Outside it’s still light, and I’m heading for the car park when I remember that I didn’t bring my car today, I walked. I stop where I am and rub my hand over my face, wondering what the hell is wrong with me. I came here because I wanted to tease Scott about what happened earlier. I wanted to rub the fact that he’d basically had phone sex with me right in his prudish, self-righteous face. I wanted to make him admit that he wants to fuck me, even though he doesn’t like me. I wanted to see that same hungry look in his eyes again, and I did. But instead of leaving him red-faced and ashamed, I ended up making a complete idiot of myself. I’m not even sure how it happened.
‘Amber.’
I hear the male voice behind me, recognise it instantly. I debate running off, but I decide that I’ve already done enough running for one day. I don’t think my boobs or my back could take the punishment.
‘Scott,’ I say, as he moves alongside me. He’s thrown a sweatshirt on over his kit. He offers me the bottle of water he’s carrying and I take it, because it seems less awkward than refusing, but I don’t look him in the face.
‘My car is just over there,’ he says. ‘Do you want a lift?’
I should refuse. I don’t need to make Scott Smithson fancy me in order to prove that I’m still attractive. I should say no and end this now, then we can both get back to not liking each other, and I can shag Lucas until I’ve worn him out. It’s a fantastic plan.
I don’t follow it. I follow Scott to his car instead. It’s a black BMW, so typically guy-with-a-good-job-and-no-ties that it almost makes me laugh. The lights flash and the boot pops open. Scott drops his bag inside, gestures for me to add mine too. Moving near enough puts me dangerously close to him, close enough to smell hot aftershave and hot skin, and my knees go suddenly weak. I sling my bag inside. It falls against his, soft pink fabric against creased black leather. I set my heels carefully down against my bag, then Scott closes the boot and ushers me round to the passenger side.
Such a gentleman. I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything less, really. Scott is nothing if not polite. I am the one who gets drunk and swears and shags random men at weddings. He opens the door for me and I tuck myself into the car. The leather seat is cool against my arms, my bare legs. I take a moment to inhale the smell of polish and Magic Tree and remind myself that I hate Scott Smithson.
Then he opens his door and folds himself into the driver’s seat. ‘Do you want me to take you straight home?’
I nod. I seem to have lost the ability to speak. I wish I’d lost it this afternoon, instead of saying all those filthy things I said to him on the phone. It’s odd, really, because I never usually care what anyone thinks of me, but I can’t seem to help it.
I want Scott Smithson to like me.
He closes his door and starts the engine, then puts the car in gear and pulls out of the car park, gliding easily into the traffic. ‘I’ve never seen you use the treadmills before. I didn’t think running was your thing.’
So that’s it? He doesn’t want to embarrass me about the phone call this afternoon, he wants to lecture me about my exercise habits? I stroke my hand over the edge of my seat. The pale leather is supple and smooth, like the flesh on a man’s upper back when he’s face down on the bed. I know I shouldn’t be thinking about touching Scott like that, but I am. I glance across at him. God, he is beautiful in profile, the lines of his face hard and masculine. He is also clearly not normal. We practically had phone sex this afternoon, for fuck’s sake, and he’s talking about gym equipment. ‘Why not?’
‘A lot of women assume it’s too vigorous,’ he says. He takes a left, pulls the car to a halt on a quiet side street. ‘Especially women with your body shape.’
The part of me that is still me jumps on that without hesitation. ‘By body shape, I take it you are referring to my tits?’
Scott closes his eyes. Then he turns to me. ‘Why do you do this, Amber?’
I feign innocence. ‘Do what?’
‘Turn everything into something crude, something dirty.’ He sounds tired, angry, frustrated, and I can’t help but poke at him some more, just to see what he will do.
‘You didn’t seem to mind this afternoon,’ I point out.
His jaw hardens, and he grips the steering wheel tightly. ‘What happened this afternoon was…’ He looks away from me for a long, heavy moment, then turns back to me again. ‘You use sex as a weapon, Amber. I’m not sure you even realise you’re doing it half the time.’
‘Believe me, I know exactly what I’m doing,’ I say, refusing to let the shock I feel show on my face. ‘I certainly got a kick out of making you stare.’ I unfasten my seatbelt and turn to face him, sliding my thumb under the strap of my gym top and playing with it. If he thinks I use sex as a weapon, then that’s just what I’m going to do. I ease the strap down over my shoulder then let it go, exposing the bare skin of my shoulder and half my left breast. His gaze falls hungrily onto that swell of exposed flesh, and oh yes, there’s the kick. I feel it right between my legs, a hot jolt of excitement.
I want to know why he stayed on the phone when he realised what was going on. I want to know why he lingered in the hotel room, when he could have walked out. I don’t care if he likes me or not, as long as he wants to fuck me. ‘Do you like looking at me, Scott? Did you like it when you caught me shagging someone in the hotel? Did you like it this afternoon, listening to me come?’
I’m being a complete cow, I know I am. I can tell from the look on his face that he hates this. I can tell from the way his dick is pushing against the front of his shorts that he’s turned on as hell. ‘Yes,’ he says, his voice low and hoarse and rough with frustration. ‘Damn it, Amber. Why are you doing this?’
‘Pissing you off entertains me,’ I tell him. ‘Always has.’
‘You’re a bitch,’ he says.
‘Pretty much.’ I shrug. ‘But then you’re an uptight bore. At least, that’s what you want people to think.’ I lean closer. ‘But it’s not true, is it, Scott? Did listening to me come make you hard? Did you sit in your office and wank yourself off as you listened to me, or did you sneak off somewhere so you could have a quick tug?’
And it’s then, as we sit in his flash BMW in our sweaty gym clothes, that Scott Smithson makes a move on me. I don’t know why I don’t see it coming. His hand finds the strap of my top wrapped around my arm and pulls it lower. He takes the heavy weight of my breast in his hot hand and squeezes. I pull my other breast free, hook a hand round the back of his neck, and pull his mouth down to the sensitive tip.
He hesitates, but only for a moment, and then he sucks me deep. Strands of pleasure stretch from my nipples to my clit and pull tight every time his tongue works my flesh. All that time on the running machine seems to have made it more sensitive, and the lap of his tongue feels positively rough. As for the scrape of his teeth…
‘Fucking hell, Scott,’ I moan, not to annoy him, but because I can’t think of another way to express what I’m feeling. I wonder if I could come just from this. Actually, fuck wondering. I want to find out. I bury my hands in his hair, the short strands of it soft against my palms, and hold him in place.
He bites down on a tight nipple. I can feel the pressure building between my legs, an incredibly delicious throb, and he isn’t even touching me there. I’m imagining him doing it through, with thick fingers and a sure thumb, and then with fingers and cock. I wonder what his cock is like. I press a hand between his legs and find out.
His cock is huge, and so very, very hard.
Cold air touches my nipple as he lifts his mouth away from it. ‘I didn’t wank myself off this afternoon,’ he says. ‘I wish I bloody well had.’
‘Why?’
‘Because then I might have been able to focus on the meeting I was in instead of thinking about your tits.’
‘You fantasised about me?’
He doesn’t bother to try and deny it. Now it’s my turn to imagine my own fantasy scenario. I think about him taking me from behind,
so his balls can slap against my clit with each fierce thrust. This is not a man who will be gentle. He’ll be rough with me, I can tell. I shiver as his fingers pinch tight around my aching nipples.
‘Harder,’ I order him. ‘Harder. Oh god, Scott. Use your mouth on me.’
With a sharp exhale, he obeys. He bites down on my right nipple and my hips jerk forward in my seat. He bites me again, and my response is the same, only fiercer this time. I dig my fingers into the soft curving leather but he catches my wrists, pinning them together in my lap. He doesn’t let me touch him when I try to tug my hands lower. His grip is like iron. I guess all those sessions in the gym have paid off.
His head lifts and his gaze locks on mine, those pale blue eyes dark. ‘Is that what you like?’ he asks. ‘Pain?’
I shake my head. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t like pain at all.’
‘Then what are you asking me for?’
‘The way you’re touching my tits makes me want to come,’ I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Don’t ask me to explain it.’
I can’t explain things I don’t understand. I can’t explain why the feel of Scott Smithson’s hands on me is turning me on so much. I don’t even like him, for fuck’s sake, but I like what he’s doing to me.
‘You want to come?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you came earlier, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wasn’t that enough for you?’
‘No,’ I say, my breath coming in fast little pants. I rock my hips, trying to press my clit into the seat so I can get some relief from the ache. He pinches my nipple again, harder this time, the sting making me whimper as those strands of pleasure linking my tits to my clit become rope.
And then he lowers his head and works that sensitive flesh with the hot stroke of his tongue and I explode with an orgasm so powerful that my legs shake and only the pressure of his hand on my shoulder keeps me in my seat. A trembling silence follows. Scott releases my hands and I fall forwards, collapsing against him. His shoulders are broad, his chest hard under the soft fabric of his sweatshirt. I suddenly want to touch all of him, to taste all of him, to hold onto him.
But this is Scott Smithson. So I do none of those things. Instead, I straighten up in my seat and tuck my breasts back inside my top, smoothing the fabric over my sensitive flesh. I shake my hair back in place and tilt my head to one side in that way I know he hates. ‘If I’d known you were a breast man I’d have worn a low-cut top more often,’ I say, my tone cruel and sarcastic. I don’t like the way I’m speaking to him, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I didn’t sign up for this. This was supposed to make me feel better, not worse. Powerful and pretty, not uncertain and vulnerable.
‘I’m not a breast man,’ he says, as he turns back in his seat and starts the engine. He whips the car out onto the road with a recklessness that tells me he isn’t in control. I’ve never seen Scott not in control before. It’s unnerving as hell.
‘Legs, then?’ I say. ‘Arse? Don’t tell me you’re into feet.’
‘I don’t think there’s any point in me telling you what I’m into,’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t be interested.’
‘Definitely something kinky then,’ I say, as he drives in the direction of my flat, fast, too fast. ‘I know. You like to be tied up and spanked.’
He shoots me a look that I might describe as pitying. If I wanted to interpret it that way. ‘Not spanking,’ I say. ‘OK. Shoe fetish? Leather? You want me to bend you over the end of the bed and do you with a strap on?’
We’re on my street now. I can see my building on the right, the red brick glowing softly in the late afternoon light that makes everything look pretty and warm. Scott pulls in next to my building. I let myself out of the car and am halfway to the door before I realise that I don’t have my bag or my keys. I don’t know how I think I’m going to get in the building.
‘Amber,’ he says. I turn to see him opening the boot, lifting out my gym bag. I walk back towards him and take it, humiliation looming large in every step. How did he manage to do this to me? How did he manage to make me feel so prickly and inadequate?
I let my gaze travel over him, slowly, and fake disdain. He is tall and broad and all the time he spends in the gym shows in every defined muscle, every ounce of strength that body possesses. I want to fold myself against him, let those arms come around me and protect me. But I let myself feel that way for a man before, and look how that turned out. He fell in love with someone else. I’m not making that mistake again. And this is Scott Smithson, for fuck’s sake. The guy has a stick wedged so far up his arse it’s a wonder he can walk. ‘What is it, Scott?’
He holds out my bags and I take them, making sure our fingers don’t touch. I fish out my keys. Then he turns back to the boot and retrieves my shoes, and I take those too. There is something indescribably sexy about the way they look in his hand, small and impractical, and the way he holds them, as if they’re delicate and precious.
I assume we’re done, so I turn and walk to my door, and then he says something else, a final parting shot.
‘You’re beautiful when you come.’
And in that moment, when I need a smart reply more than I’ve ever needed one, all I can think of is ‘Thank you.’
Chapter Five
I don’t sleep that night. My brain won’t be quiet. It keeps on playing that incident with Scott over and over, forcing me to think it through, to dissect it and wonder what on earth I was thinking. There’s no denying that I went to the gym intent on seeing him. There’s no pretending that I didn’t initiate what happened in the car, or that I didn’t enjoy it.
What I don’t understand is why I felt so shaken afterwards.
I roll that thought around in my head until I’m bored of hearing myself think it, then I reach for my phone. My first thought is to call my best friend Ellie, but it’s one in the morning and she’ll be tangled up with the love of her life, Tom Hunt. I’m happy that she’s found someone; really I am, although I feel a little pinch of shame about the role I played in it. Right after Paul dumped me for Victoria, I decided two could play at that game. So I propositioned Tom, dragged him to Ellie’s photography studio, and got her to take pictures of me giving him a blowjob. I wanted to hurt Paul, and I thought the pictures were a good way to do it. I didn’t know that Ellie was nurturing a long-term crush on Tom at the time.
Although Ellie and Tom are both pretending that it doesn’t matter, it does. I should have just let Paul go. Instead, I got completely obsessed and my friendship with Ellie still hasn’t recovered. Plus there’s the small side issue of Scott being Ellie’s brother.
My next instinct is to call Victoria and Paul, initiate a few over the phone sex games. They both made it clear that as far as they were concerned, their being married made no difference. We could talk dirty and I could listen to them fuck and it would be just like it was before. I can’t deny that thought has some appeal, and I play around with it for a while as I slide a hand under my nightie and finger myself, but all I succeed in doing is making myself frustrated. Which is why, at two in the morning, I call Lucas.
He rings the buzzer twenty minutes later. His hair is mussed and he appears to be wearing his pyjamas with a jacket thrown over the top, but his breath is minty fresh and there’s no hiding the erection tenting his pyjama bottoms.
He pushes the door closed behind him and grins at me. ‘I think you should know that I drove all the way here with a hard on. You’re lucky I didn’t get stopped by the police.’
‘I don’t think you can get arrested for having a hard dick in your own car.’
‘No,’ he agrees. ‘But what if I’d been pulled over by a horny policewoman who insisted that I drop my trousers so she could inspect the evidence?’
This is exactly what I need. Sex with someone uncomplicated who just wants to have a good time. Lucas has already proved that he knows how to get me off, and there’s a naivety about him, a willingness to learn that
I find fascinating. I’m going to enjoy teaching him a few things. He isn’t hard work, not like Scott Smithson. ‘What would you have done, if that had happened?’
Lucas watches me from beneath half-lowered lashes. His pretty eyes are dark, full of mischief and longing. This is the sort of sex I like, the sort of sex I missed out on when I was busy being in love with Paul.
‘I would have done as I was told,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t want to get myself in trouble with the law.’
‘So if she told you to slide your pants down over your hips, you’d have done it?’
‘Of course.’
I gesture to his trousers, which are a pale blue jersey. ‘Go on then.’
Slowly, so slowly, he hooks his fingers under the elastic at the waistband and eases them down, widening his stance so that they cling at mid-thigh. I take a good, long look at his erect cock. ‘Do you really think it’s appropriate to be walking around in that state?’
‘No,’ he says.
‘Perhaps you should do something about it,’ I tell him. I fold my arms.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he says. ‘I’m very inexperienced. Perhaps you could show me?’
Oh, he’s naughty and he’s fun, and he’s exactly what I need. Screw you, Scott Smithson. I walk over to Lucas; wrap my fingers round his cock.
‘You’re very hard,’ I say thoughtfully. I start to stroke him, taking him in a firm grip and slowly pumping base to tip. He tenses, pressing his shoulders back against the wall. ‘Are you sure you weren’t masturbating in the car?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Definitely not.’
‘What were you doing when I rang you up?’
Indecent...Proposal Page 3
