11

He’d slipped through my fingers twice now. Once dressed as a matador; once masquerading as a cyclist. Once watching; once being watched. Yet I had to go after Merlin and taste him again. I risked enraging Miss Breeze, but I had the excuse that Miss Sugar was virtually ordering me to do it.

The weekend was already upon us. I hadn’t returned the MG to Sir Simeon. I would hold it hostage for the time being; it might provide a handy excuse for getting under his skin when the time was right.

The listless-looking girls I’d seen last time were just trotting out of the stable yard when I arrived at Symes Hall. Two teenage lads were forking up piles of dung and straw from the stables. But there was no sign of Merlin or his dilapidated truck, and the boys didn’t know where he was. In any case, they said, they were leaving now, too.

I debated for a moment whether to turn round and go back to London. But that was stupid. An empty Saturday stretched in front of me. I was dressed in my older riding breeches today and, when I saw that the chestnut horse was here, I decided to take her out for a ride anyway.

I wandered into the tack room to find her saddle. I remembered the sight of Merlin’s cute butt bending over in his tight boxers when he was in here getting changed. What I hadn’t noticed before was a big western saddle strapped to its own frame in the darkest corner, big as an armchair. I jumped up and sat astride it for a moment, my legs spread wide to get comfortable on the wide seat. No wonder cowboys had bandy legs. My cunt quivered faintly with the rocking motion as I pretended to be riding along. The leather felt warm, as if it had only just been lifted off a sweating mount, and creaked as if it was speaking.

Outside, the wind rattled the stable doors and knocked over a bucket, but there was no one else here. There was only the image of Merlin’s bottom offered to me as he got changed, and later his dark, sardonic (or was that satanic?) face gazing and his muscular torso arching as he held himself above me and fucked me on his father’s bed. My body had grown hot with longing just thinking about it.

On impulse, I peeled my breeches off and climbed back onto the big saddle, wriggling my red satin knickers down in to it and smiling at the creaking sound it made. I grasped the high rounded pommel at the front with one hand and the back panel of the saddle with the other and slid myself back and forth until the leather heated up with the friction and I felt my private parts vibrating with the heat. The satin slid easily across the leather, the knickers quickly growing damp with exertion and secret excitement. The smell of the leather grew stronger, mingled with my own sweet aroma.

I closed my eyes, raising myself off the seat as far as the long stirrups would allow me so that the chilly air could get to my bare pussy. Then I banged myself down on to the seat, rubbing frantically up and down the saddle, tilting myself so as to feel the heat in every crevice, spreading my legs wider so as to press my clit down on the leather surface and start rubbing some more. I started to quiver with excitement. I couldn’t stop myself. I was still holding on to the saddle to support myself, fingering the high, rounded phallic pommel itself. Now I was eager to get something big and hard inside me. I clambered to my knees and lowered myself on to it. It was too big to get inside me, but the shape of it was perfect for my private game and, before long, I was squealing with growing pleasure as I gyrated round it.

‘Did you know,’ came a deep voice into the dusty silence, ‘that pommel means “little apple”?’

I half groaned, half laughed at the interruption, but I wasn’t going to let him stop me now I was in full flow. I raised one hand in the air as if I was about to throw a lasso, grasped the pommel hard with the other hand and bucked myself wildly until the rapid climax streaked through me and I felt truly dirty and wanton.

Now I had to face the music, or, rather, the Merlin. I panted for breath and lifted my chin. ‘Well, there’s nothing little about you from what I can remember,’ I jested.

‘Been watching me a lot lately, haven’t you? Got some good photographs?’ he said with a smirk, as if I was some kind of peeping Tom. Then he walked in front of me and lifted a saddle and bridle from off their hooks. ‘Don’t they give you enough to do at that club?’

‘Plenty,’ I retorted, swinging my leg over as if I was sitting side-saddle, still wearing the knickers. I crossed my legs demurely. ‘But you already know that.’

‘It hardly looked like hard work from where I was standing. What could be so difficult about entertaining Mikhail and his friends?’

‘I was there to keep an eye on them.’

He shook his head as if my bleating excuses were simply not good enough. ‘Whatever you say. But if you’re so busy, what are you doing here?’ he said.

I didn’t want him to think I was just hanging around to get a glimpse of him, although that was pretty close to the truth. ‘I’m allowed to come down here to ride the horses on a weekend, aren’t I?’

‘Did you ask Sir Simeon? Strictly speaking they’re his horses, not mine,’ Merlin said. He sauntered back towards the door and kicked it open. The air whistling in from the yard was bitterly cold, and I jumped down from the saddle to get my breeches.

‘Oh, he won’t mind,’ I lied airily, thinking fast. ‘As far as he’s concerned I can do what I like with his belongings. Got quite a soft spot for me, your father has.’

If I was hoping to get a rise from Merlin, I was failing. My opinion of him was starting to revert to square one. An arrogant little oik, no matter who his father was. I scrabbled into my breeches, pulled up my boots and stumped out after him.

He was already saddling up the grey horse and, without another word to me, he swung himself up on to her back and started to walk her through an archway towards the parkland.

‘Wait for me,’ I called, but he ignored me. Right, I thought. I’m not leaving here empty handed.

A few moments later, I squeezed the chestnut mare’s sides with my ankles and we cantered out across the parkland. Merlin’s horse was still walking slowly, almost thoughtfully but, when he heard me coming up behind him, Merlin clicked his tongue and spurred his horse into a gallop. Soon we were racing each other across the frost-hard fields with Sir Simeon’s house crouching in the distance. Merlin kept in front of me, riding like a jockey with his bum raised off the saddle, his buttocks round and hard in his white jodhpurs, his long black hair streaming out behind him.

His long brown fingers were curled on the reins, controlling his horse as we raced. The blood was pounding through me, beating in time to the drum of hooves. I was determined to catch him, but he was keeping his distance. I was beginning to tire of gripping for dear life to my racing steed when suddenly Merlin swerved into a nearby coppice and disappeared. With one last effort I urged my horse and chased after him.

The coppice was dense, with overhanging branches and tree roots just waiting to trip us up. I could just see Merlin’s horse flickering through the stark winter shadows up ahead, obviously knowing perfectly well which way to go. For a few seconds, they disappeared from view, and then I burst into a small clearing enclosed by tall oak trees and knee deep in fallen leaves.

He had stopped dead. He was already off the horse, feeding her some sugar lumps. Without a word he stepped forwards and pulled me off my horse, practically hurling me against a tree trunk. My legs were shaking from the gallop, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Before I could inhale any air into my lungs, Merlin’s mouth was hot and wet, crushing down on mine. I twisted my face away, purely because I couldn’t breathe. A dark look of uncertainty flickered across his face, but he knew damn well that I wasn’t going anywhere. I got my breath then pulled his chin and mouth towards me again. I nibbled greedily on his lips like the horse nibbled its sugar lumps, sucking in his breath as he kissed me. Then he made me screech with pain and delight, making the horses look up and shake their heads, as he started to lift my shirt and my bare flesh scraped over the cold rough bark of the tree.

‘Is this what you came chasing down here for?’ he demanded. He grabbed my breasts so roughly that it hurt. ‘A good seeing to in the open air with a real man?’

‘Like you and Avril, you mean, out there on a park bench? I’m not the only one who’s ventured out of her natural habitat. What were you doing in London? You wanted me, didn’t you?’

I enjoyed the flash in his eyes when he saw the scarlet bra under my scarlet shirt. He had no idea how horny it made me, having my shirt yanked aside, seeing the scarlet-clad tits poking upwards to greet him. Last time, he’d murmured ‘later, later’. Well, now the time had come. I wanted to silence any remarks from that sardonic mouth, feel it wrapping round my erect nipples instead. I wanted to see him weakened by lust for my body, see if I could capture more of him. I wanted, with Miss Sugar’s words ringing in my ears, to see if I could make him forget all about the charms of Mimi Breeze.

‘Maybe I wanted to see if riding horses was your favourite thrill,’ he said. He pulled the scarlet lace off one swelling breast and we both looked down at the dark red nipple springing up hard against the cold air.

‘I’m happy so long as I’ve got something big and strong and red-blooded pounding between my legs,’ I said. I was scrabbling about for something nonchalant to say, but it wasn’t working. I could hear a moan of desire already gathering in my throat.

‘But you’d rather be mounted by a well-hung man, wouldn’t you, Miss Summers? Or do you fancy going bestial, trying a little stallion action?’

He bent his head and swiped his tongue across my tits, teasing me, circling the flesh, nipping, biting, keeping a few millimetres from the burning points. He let his tongue flicker out, just tickling the flesh that was puckering up with anticipation. Then he went in for the kill and I nearly screamed with gratitude. He took one taut nipple in his teeth and worried at it, causing actual, delirious pain.

‘Is that what you reckon you are?’ I taunted, pretty weakly. ‘The stallion action?’

My breasts throbbed with the cold as well as the pleasure. They were desperate for more. The thrill of being outside, and the risk of being caught, was intoxicating, but so was the way the bitter cold whipped up the blood beneath my skin.

‘Ask all the grateful wenches around here.’

His teeth were really sharp on me now, nipping and biting, and sending a livid desire zigzagging through me. It was weird. We had been more gentle, almost affectionate, with each other last time, even though we had been strangers. This time we were still strangers, exchanging insults, but he was the aggressor today, and I was only too happy to submit.

‘What is it about you rough tough country types? Think you’re God’s gift to womankind.’

‘That’s because we are. You know bloody well how good I am,’ he panted. ‘But seeing that you’ve come all this way, I’ll show you. Or rather, I’ll remind you.’

He hoisted me higher up against the tree, holding me up with his hands and the strength of his thighs. I kicked my jodhpurs and knickers right off so that he could spread my legs open and I could grip round his body. The tensing of all my muscles only made me more horny, more impatient to get him inside me, but I could only grip him hard with my legs and ankles and wait for him to find his way in.

I couldn’t even grab at his cock, but now he was scrabbling at his flies, getting his own jodhpurs unzipped enough to get his beautiful fat penis out ready to ram straight up me. He pulled me down on to it, still supporting me with his hands and thighs, and impaled me on his stiff length. We kissed until we were dizzy with lack of oxygen, and we humped against the tree, grunting like animals, the cold air trying to creep into every exposed orifice and under every flap of clothing.

‘Bestial enough out here, you filthy mare?’ he whispered into my ear. ‘Or would you prefer to get on all fours back there in the stable? I’m sure me and the lads could easily arrange it. Give you a proper rogering.’

The horses stamped their feet disapprovingly and jingled their bridles as if they understood him. The idea was appalling, but still the thought of being at the mercy of several rough stable lads’ cocks was intoxicating. His shocking words drove us on, gasping and grunting, my thighs locked tight around his waist while he ground up me and up me, until I felt his dick contract and, with a final violent thrust, he spurted his hot liquid into me.

‘Don’t you dare. I’m not done with you,’ I groaned. I wriggled myself frantically down his length, tighter onto him, and caught up with him, squeezing the breath out of him with my legs until we slithered down, skin and clothes scratching and scraping, onto the mossy, muddy roots of the tree.

I looked past Merlin’s black hair where he rested against my shoulder and blinked up at the white sky. The bony fingers of the bare branches were totally still in the windless afternoon. The silence was tangible. How different from London, where there was never silence, even high up in a penthouse.

I couldn’t work out where I felt more at home. All my life I had felt at one with the earth and the sky, as I did just now, but perhaps that was because I had a gorgeous man lying on top of me, his warm cock still fitted inside. There was a part of me that was itching to get back to London, too. I wanted to know what else, or who else, might be waiting for me at Club Crème.

‘Come back to London with me,’ I said, sitting up and realising just how cold it was. ‘We could have so much fun.’

‘I know. I’ve seen what sort of fun you’re into,’ he replied, jumping to his feet and pulling up his breeches. ‘Remember? I was at Mikhail’s party.’

‘And I’ve seen what you got up to in the park with Avril Grey,’ I retorted. ‘So if there’s fun to be had up in the city, why do you skulk about down here all the time? Are you really a country bumpkin or do you stay away from the city because you and your father have fallen out?’

‘Neither, as it happens,’ he snapped. His response shocked me. ‘I skulk down here, as you put it, because I run this country estate. I don’t know if that makes me a bumpkin. As for what goes on between my father and me – that’s none of your business. You are an employee, if I remember rightly. A housekeeper. And as far as I’m concerned you’re just a roll in the hay.’

It was like a slap in the face. I grabbed his arm as he walked over to his horse and turned him to face me.

‘I was right the first time!’ I shouted, still heated from our lustful encounter. ‘You are an arrogant oik! Your father is worth ten of you!’

‘So they keep telling me.’

‘Who keeps telling you? Mimi, perhaps?’

‘Oh, very good. You really do have your snout in our business, don’t you?’ he said. His face was twisted with anger where a few minutes ago it had been close up against mine, loosening with desire and rapid satisfaction. Something told me to ease up on him.

I backed off. In any case, I realised I must look crazy trying to have a go at him when I was naked from the waist down, still dripping with our mingled juices and starting to shiver. I yanked up my knickers and trousers and buttoned up my jacket. But still I couldn’t stop shivering.

Instead of galloping off and leaving me, he watched me silently, tightening the buckle on his girth unnecessarily and absently patting his horse.

‘I’m sorry, Merlin,’ I said, when I was dressed. I stumbled over the leaves to get to my horse, but my legs still felt weak and I was extremely cold now. ‘That was out of order. You’re right, I am just an employee. But I’m not your employee, remember. I work for Sir Simeon. And I was told these things about you. I wasn’t prying. In fact, I only mentioned you because I saw you at Mikhail’s party, and it was pretty obvious from Miss Sugar’s attitude that you weren’t supposed to be there.’

He nodded, and pulled me towards him. His body was warm, despite the dropping temperatures around us, and I huddled into his chest.

‘I know. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that I’m persona non grata at the club. The invisible man. The oik. Take your pick. But I was at that party because Mikhail is my friend, not my father’s. Just as Mimi was my friend, before she was his  . . . it’s a very sore point.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No. It doesn’t feel right talking about her, when I’ve just fucked you.’

‘Charmingly put. Now tell me.’

He sighed, but he still held on to me. ‘I met Mimi Breeze in Paris. I was an art student, she was the nude model for our life drawing class. Nothing like as grand as she is now, but every bit as sensational. You can imagine it, can’t you? Reproduced by the students’ sweaty hands on canvasses throughout the land, as Venus, as the Madonna, as a thousand different women. Anyway, I persuaded her to come back to England with me. Like a fool I introduced her to my father. I was mad about her. Who wouldn’t be? You’ve seen how she operates.’

I nodded, remembering her hands on me, on my hair, her fingers thrusting up me, our bodies reflected in her Venetian mirror.

‘And so he came under her spell, too. She took him over. Club Crème was her idea. His flat in London was her idea. Becoming his lover was her idea  . . .’

‘Now that I don’t believe,’ I sputtered, trying not to laugh. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t the other way round? Your father’s perfectly capable of deciding his lovers for himself.’

‘Whatever. They’re the same as each other. That’s why he and I don’t get on, because we’re simply not the same. He wields his power like a big stick and everyone dances,’ he said. His grip tightened around me. ‘You dance to his tune, don’t you?’

I flushed scarlet. I couldn’t look at Merlin. I’d danced on the end of his father’s prick, to be precise. He’d taken me from behind, cool as a cucumber, hardly mopped his brow afterwards. In the space of a week I’d been up close and personal with both Merlin’s enemies, if only he knew it. The thought of Mimi and Sir Simeon, either as a pair or separate, made me hot and cold. And I wanted Merlin, too. I wanted them all.

Now it was my turn to fiddle with my horse’s bridle.

‘We’d better get going,’ I announced. ‘I’m freezing my tits off here.’

‘But he’s not as clever as he thinks he is,’ Merlin went on, letting me go. ‘Because she’ll come crawling down here again to see me when he starts to show his age. I’m sure of it.’

I stuck my foot in the stirrup and hoisted myself up on to the chestnut horse.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ I warned him. ‘Your father will never slow down. And Mimi doesn’t crawl anywhere.’

‘Not jealous of her, are you?’ he mocked as we walked our horses out of the coppice. It was getting dark now, and I was yearning for a hot bath.

‘Jealous? Moi? Not my place to be jealous,’ I said. I leaned over my horse’s neck, ready to take flight. I was lying. I was jealous. I didn’t want to think about Miss Breeze sitting on Sir Simeon’s face. I didn’t want to think of her up against a tree, wrapped like a limpet around Merlin. But I couldn’t tell him that, could I? ‘I’m just the housekeeper, remember?’

‘Not my housekeeper. Which means –’

‘That we can do what we like. No one belongs to anyone else. We’re all free spirits, after all,’ I cut in, galloping away from him. I wasn’t ready for what he might say next.

But I wasn’t making sense. Because actually, I wasn’t sure just how free I was any more.