‘What?’
My escort takes a length of black silk from his pocket. ‘I have to blindfold you. OK?’
Now I really am confident that I am meeting Lloyd in there. I assent without protest, allowing the man to cover my eyes and tie a tight knot at the back of my head.
He knocks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. The door is opened and I step carefully in, my heels sinking into plush, Evil-Face’s hand on my elbow.
‘Here she is,’ he says. ‘Special delivery. I’ll leave her to you now.’
There is no reply, again. It’s a person whose voice I’d recognise. I smile as a different hand takes my elbow, leading me onwards.
I try to repeat my triumphant guessing game hat-trick from the Soho stockroom, using my nose and my general awareness of Lloyd’s mannerisms, but he has obviously learned from that day, because he is silent and scentless tonight.
I need to make him talk. ‘So, how do you want me?’ I ask, running a finger down the lapel of the tux.
His response is non-verbal – the removal of said item of clothing. He undoes the button lazily, unhurriedly. A doubt makes itself known, way down in the pit of my stomach. This isn’t Lloyd.
The way he slides his hand into the small of my back, holding me there while he, presumably, takes in my nakedness only magnifies this doubt.
There is something very different here. This is a man in absolute control of himself – he is scarcely even breathing. Lloyd would be at me, on me, all over me by now.
He spins me around, and the hands that land on my shoulders aren’t Lloyd’s. Longer fingers.
‘Who are you?’ I ask uncertainly.
I have this feeling … but it just couldn’t be. It really couldn’t be.
It’s some high roller we’ve had at the Luxe Noir, an elegant stranger.
We stop moving and his right hand sweeps its way down my side to my hip, patting it lightly, while he keeps a hold of my shoulder with the left. One of his fingers brushes my neck, a whisper of a caress.
His lips touch my nape. Oh God. I feel like swooning.
There is something incredibly powerful here. Suddenly, I realise that I am being Tempted. This man represents a different path for me and Lloyd has obviously chosen him very carefully.
I cry out as he pushes me abruptly onto the bed, which is directly in front of me. My upper torso lands flat in a valley of duvet and I bury my face along with it. Any further olfactory clues are going to be drowned out by the scented pillowcases, whose alarmingly musky aroma dominates the air.
I feel the expensive cloth of his suit jacket brush my wrist as he turns me over onto my back. Now he is breathing more heavily. I reach up, wanting to feel his skin, his height, his size, but he puts my hands over my head and presses them down briefly, indicating that that’s where they should stay.
He sits on the side of the bed. I sense his hands, close to me, about to be laid on me. I tense up.
‘I’m not sure about this,’ I say.
Nothing happens for a moment. I think perhaps he is waiting for me to elaborate.
‘It’s not that I’m not used to scenarios like this. It’s not that I’m scared of having sex with an anonymous stranger. If you knew anything about me, you’d know that. But there’s something deeply … wrong … about this. And I can’t even explain why. But I don’t think I can do it.’
I hear him exhale, not quite a sigh, but almost. A cuff link, heavy and cold, makes momentary contact with my hip. My toes are curled tight.
Am I supposed to just leave? I sit up experimentally. He doesn’t prevent me.
But I’m not going without knowing who he is. I can’t. ‘I need to know who you are.’
The duvet rustles – he has stood up. He walks away in the direction of the door.
‘No, you can’t just leave! I think I know who you are, anyway.’
The footsteps still. I feel I could reach up into the air and touch the tension, looping across the ceiling like washing lines.
Just speak, damn you!
‘Chase.’
Terrible silence. I know I am right.
Then he speaks. ‘Sophie.’
I rip off the blindfold and stare. ‘Am I hallucinating?’ I ask the vision in dove grey who stands before me.
‘No.’
‘I thought you’d left the country.’
‘I did. This is a one-off, a favour to your beau.’ He says ‘your beau’ with such vindictive force that I can’t help feeling Lloyd must have blackmailed him into it. But why the hell …?
‘That’s the weirdest favour I ever heard of. What did he say? How did he ask you?’
Chase shrugs. ‘Spend one night in a penthouse suite fucking Sophie or certain truths will be told. He must have worked hard to find my location, which impressed me, I suppose. And there was a quite considerable element of sweetener.’
He raises an eyebrow at me, taking my breath away.
All that time I spent in pursuit of him and he never gave me an inkling that he found me attractive. Why now? Why here?
‘Do you really think so?’ I hate myself for simpering and blushing when I should be asking difficult questions, but my body has never been much of a one for obeying my brain.
‘You know so.’
There’s a long beat of silence during which neither of us can move or look away from the other.
‘I should leave,’ I mutter. I don’t convince myself, so I don’t suppose he is taken in either.
‘But you don’t want to,’ he says. He moves closer, just a couple of steps. ‘Do you?’
‘It’s too dangerous.’ I’m talking to myself, but Chase still answers.
‘Lloyd wants this.’
I shake my head, utterly bemused. ‘Why? Why would he?’
Chase sits on the edge of the bed, his eyes still locked with mine. ‘Think about it.’
It’s not easy to think with the man I lusted and yearned after for years sitting so close to my naked body, but I try it anyway.
‘Well, like everything we’ve done lately, it’s a test,’ I come up with eventually.
‘Yes.’
You’re the biggest temptation he could ever put in my way. I don’t say this out loud though. I’m still angry with Chase over the way things ended before, and I don’t want him getting ideas.
‘But how do I pass the test? By walking out of here unshagged?’
‘No,’ says Chase. ‘That’s how you fail. Lloyd’s idea was that we fuck with you blindfolded – you would find out afterwards that it was me. And then you could make your choice.’
‘Choice? What choice? I can’t choose you anyway – you’re a fugitive living overseas. You have no place in my life.’
‘Practically speaking, that’s true. But what Lloyd wants to know is if an encounter with, well, this sounds a little arrogant, but the words he used were “your heart’s desire” would change the way you felt about him. Make you dissatisfied, restless, determined to find someone who, if not me, made you feel the way I did.’
I pause to process this. It sounds madder than mad, but I can see a speck of rationale in there somewhere. ‘He’s insecure,’ I say. ‘I didn’t realise that.’
‘Well, I would say he had his reasons to be, wouldn’t you?’ He gestures at me, the prize in a gambling game. I don’t feel like much of a prize now though.
‘No. Everything we’ve done has been for the benefit of both of us. We’ve created our own sex life, and just because it isn’t the hetero-monogamous norm, people feel sorry for him and wonder when he’s going to meet a nice girl. But to him, I am a nice girl. Maybe only to him. But it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, does it?’
Chase sniffs. ‘I wouldn’t stand for it myself.’
‘That’s why you’re wrong for me.’
‘I suppose it is. So. Are you leaving now?’
I hug my knees to my chest and stare at the chandelier-heavy ceiling. ‘If I do … then I haven’t done what Lloyd wants. I haven’t put myself to the ultimate test. And if I don’t, I guess he’ll always wonder. And, perhaps, so will I. Though I’m almost sure I know what I want now. All the same … come and sit next to me, Mr Chase.’
He allows himself a smirk, settling down to lean on the headboard at my side.
‘I should tell you up front,’ I say, ‘that I want to hurt you.’
He draws back a fraction, his eyes wary.
‘Are you surprised? Why? You hurt me. On an ongoing basis, knowing that you were doing it, enjoying it. You’re cruel, and you’re a cheat and a liar.’
‘But you still wanted me.’
‘Yeah, but why? Why do you think I wanted you?’
‘Modesty forbids …’
‘I’ll tell you why. Because I couldn’t have you. And my theory is that, once I have had you, I’ll forget all about you.’
‘Theories are all very well. Practice is what counts.’
‘I know that. Now that you’re here on a plate, though, I have the strongest feeling that I could walk away without a second thought. I’m almost bored by the thought of fucking you.’
This fires him up. His eyes narrow and he grabs a wrist. ‘Bored? Oh, you won’t be bored. I can promise you that.’
The pressure of his hand on me lifts away the tension. My fight or flight response has picked fight, and my blood pumps accordingly.
He leans down to my ear and speaks into it in that low, deadly voice that used to fill my dreams. ‘When we worked together … tell me the fantasies you had about me. What did I do to you?’
‘They changed over time.’
‘How did they start out?’
‘I’ll tell you if you’re honest with me.’
The muscles in his cheek twitch. He’s not keen on the concept of honesty.
‘Honest with you about what?’
‘About your time at the hotel. And about what you thought of me.’
‘A truth game? You might wish you’d picked dare.’
‘As I understand it, we’re doing both.’
He considers this. ‘I accept your terms. But you go first.’
‘OK. You don’t get to lie or cheat or squirm your way out of the deal, though. Or I’ll rat on you to Lloyd, who clearly Knows Too Much.’
Chase humphs and shrugs. ‘Do you want me to undress?’ he says.
‘No. Keep your suit on. It’s kind of relevant. Cuff links and all. Are you sitting comfortably?’
‘Almost.’
My eyes follow his down to the incipient erection straining against his suit trousers. ‘Comfortably enough,’ I amend. ‘Then I’ll begin. A long time ago in a galaxy pretty close to here, there lived a girl without a father. I hate to say it now, because I’ve always denied it to myself and to others, but that’s why I wanted you. You’re older than me, and you have an air of authority about you, and you were completely untouchable and unwinnable. I must have thought that if I could get you, somehow, then I would have what I’d been missing in my life.’
‘God, how depressing. I have no desire to be anyone’s father.’
‘No, just as well, because you’d be a shit one.’
‘Thanks.’ He smiles. ‘Can we get to the fantasy now?’
‘I fantasised about having your approval. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Just a bit of positive attention. It wasn’t as if that was lacking in my life – all those men, all the time. But they weren’t special. Easy come, easy go, and I knew at bottom that they didn’t approve of me, just the ready availability of my cunt. Our relationship was different.’
‘Our relationship?’
‘I know it was employer/employee, but there was respect and a rapport between us. Wasn’t there?’
‘I liked you. You were easy to work with, and eager to please.’
‘I know.’ I wince. So eager to please. It was pathetic. ‘I think you knew that there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do, to impress you, to get a pat on the head and a few words of casual praise. My fantasy was about things going further than that. At first, it was about rewards.’
‘So … an outline?’
‘Here’s an example of something I used to masturbate to.’
He puts a hand down to his crotch, loosening his buttons, and settles in for the tale, laying his long arm along the headboard, behind me. ‘Yes?’
‘After I’ve performed some super feat of hospitality, you call me into your office. I stand there, in my reception gear, fitted jacket, tight skirt, blouse, stockings, heels, waiting for your words of praise.
‘You sit behind your desk, fingers steepled, that stern look of yours on your face. I begin to be afraid you’re going to tell me off instead. But no.
‘“Come closer, Sophie,” you say.
‘I walk all the way up to the desk.
‘“I’ve heard some good reports of you. Your service has been exceptional. I’ve decided that you deserve a little token of my appreciation. Take off your jacket.”
‘I don’t know what to expect, but I take it off and put it on the desk.
‘“You’re a very good girl, aren’t you?” you say. “Always doing as you’re told. I want to see just how good you are. Take off your skirt.”
‘The fantasy was as much about hearing you say these things, your voice, as it was about the sex. I would hear it in my mind, telling me to do things, rude things. It turned me on without fail.
‘So I take off the skirt, as demurely as I can, and put it on top of the jacket. You can see that I’m wearing suspenders with my stockings now, and you can see the little white lacy knickers peeping out from the hem of my silky blouse.
‘“That’s very good,” you say. “The blouse now.”
‘I stand in front of you in my underwear and high heels, arms at my sides as if I’m on an army parade ground, head back, tits out. Not for the lads, though. For the man. For you.
‘I know and you know that I will do anything you ask of me.
‘You stand up and face me, turn me around with your hands on my shoulders, take it slowly, drinking me in. “This is your new uniform,” you tell me. “This is what you’ll wear whenever you’re in my office.”
‘“Yes, sir.”
‘Other versions of this include me sitting on your lap taking dictation while you finger me, or you fucking me while you’re taking a conference call, or me sucking you off under your desk while you’re in a meeting. But I’ll stick with this one for the time being.
‘So there I stand, down to my underwear, and you have had a good look at me.
‘“Good girl,” you say and those words “Good girl” make me so happy, deliriously happy, so warm and so wanted and loved and cared for and appreciated …’
I tail off and look at Chase. He looks troubled, but the erection hasn’t gone anywhere. I turn my head away and continue. ‘You pat me on the head, stroke my cheek, drop a little kiss on my brow. Then you sit back on your desk, perching on it, about a foot away from me.
‘“Now the bra,” you order.
‘I don’t know where this test will end, but I don’t care either. I take off the bra without demur and hand it to you.
‘“Touch your breasts.” You make me cup them, squeeze them, stroke them, squash them together, then you make me pinch my nipples or circle them gently. You want them as stiff as can be, so I breathe on them and then poke out my tongue and lick them delicately until they are sore and throbbing. My crotch is damp now and my clit growing fat and wanton.
‘As if you know this – and you probably do – you say, “Now the rest.”
‘I take off everything else, slowly, giving you plenty of time to appreciate the unveiling.
‘When I am fully nude, you stand back up and move to the side of the desk.
“Now, lie on your back on this desk, Sophie.”
‘I place myself on the flat cold surface, shivering a little, but I’m feverish as well, ready for anything you want to give me.
‘You make me spread my legs so my toes point to the corners of the desk and raise my arms above my head. For what seems like an age, you stand looking down at my open pussy lips. You bend your head to inspect them at closer range. I feel your breath on them, but you never touch them outright.
‘“You’d like me to touch you here, wouldn’t you?” you say.
‘“Yes, sir.”
‘“Perhaps one day, if you’re a very, very good girl, I will.”
‘I moan. You aren’t going to touch me! I can hardly bear it. “Not today?”
‘“No, not today, Sophie.”
‘You can see how wet I am and you comment on it, in detail, at length, then you speculate about how tight I would be, how hard I would grip your cock. You make sneery remarks about how many other men have had me, but I feel too wildly turned on to be hurt by it.
‘You make me lift my hips so you can get a good look at my bum. You make me spread the cheeks and you home in close, checking my tight hole, asking me how often I’ve had anal sex and whether I enjoy it.
‘I have to confess that I do, and you aren’t surprised. You make me describe in detail all the things different men have done to my arse until I can barely get the words out any more because I’m so desperate for you to fuck me.
‘But you don’t have any pity and you make me tell you my favourite positions, my best sexual encounters, whether I like thick cocks or long ones, whether I like to be held down, whether I like it from behind, whether I’ve ever been double-penetrated, what’s my record for the number of men who’ve fucked me in one day.
‘Question after question rains down on me in your unholy aphrodisiac of a voice until I’m squirming on the desk.
‘Then you command me to touch myself, to make myself come, so you can see how I do it.
‘I’m massively relieved, but at the same time disappointed, because I want your fingers all over me, so much, so very much. But I lick my fingertips and reach down, getting to it as quickly as I can, rubbing my clit, pushing the fingers of my other hand up inside my slick cunt.
‘You keep up a running commentary all the time, telling me how wet I am, how fat my clit is, how much I need it, how you aren’t surprised I need all those men because I have the hungriest cunt you’ve ever seen.
‘When I come, you touch me, finally – putting your hands on my ankles to stop me kicking. I feel completely under your control and I say your name, over and over.
‘You tell me I’m a good girl.’
Throughout this monologue I have deliberately avoided Chase’s eye, going into a kind of trance to overcome the inherent difficulty of narrating a fantasy to its object.
I turn to him once I have finished speaking. He has one hand on his crotch and there is sweat on his upper lip.
‘Strange, I suppose, that you never touched me in that one,’ I say. ‘But it was an early version.’
‘I want to ask you those questions,’ he says, in a low, intent rasp. ‘I want you to answer them.’
‘But it’s your turn now. Your turn to tell me a story of what you would have liked to do to me, if you only you weren’t so bloody self-controlled.’
He shuts his eyes and screws up his face for a moment, regaining some of that aforementioned self-control, which seems to be on sabbatical tonight.
‘I hired you because you brought men to the hotel. I knew what you were and, at first, I must admit, I feared for you. I thought you’d get into some dangerous predicament or other. Occasionally, I’d fantasise about rescuing you. Sometimes I’d fantasise about being the person who put you in the dangerous predicament. So you see, my feelings for you weren’t straightforward. Sometimes I liked you for your fearless sexual adventuring, and sometimes I hated it. Sometimes I thought that somebody ought to stop you, and that somebody ought to be me. But it couldn’t be me. I was in no position to offer you what you sought.’
‘But you thought about it?’
‘Often. You troubled me.’
‘Troubled you?’
‘Yes. I wanted to be impervious to your brazen charms, but I found I couldn’t be. I considered it a personal failing. I try not to get emotionally involved with people.’
‘Especially when you know you’re going to rip them off and ruin their lives.’
‘Especially then.’
‘So, you had fantasies? What were they?’
‘I’ll give you an example. I catch you up to no good when you should be at work – though, to the best of my knowledge, you always kept your extracurricular activities out of working hours.’
‘Yeah, uh, mostly,’ I mumble, recalling a few incidents when that might not have been the case.
‘You don’t know I’ve seen you, so I call you into my office as soon as you’ve finished and tell you I want to do a spot check. You don’t know what I mean, but once I’ve ordered you to pull down your knickers and bend over, you start to get the picture.
‘Sure enough, the smell of recent sex is on you and your cunt is looking well used, as I mention to you.
‘You beg me not to sack you, I think you even burst into tears, although you’re not the tearful type, I know.
‘I say I’ll let you keep your job, but there’s a condition.’
‘Oh, I’ll bet there is.’ I try to sound scornful, but this scenario is making me giddy and my breath flutters in my lungs.
‘The condition is that you stop having anything to do with other men and surrender yourself to me.’
‘Surrender myself?’
‘Completely. Place yourself under my absolute control. Oh, the plans I had for you – in this fantasy, I mean, not in real life.’
‘What plans?’
‘I think one particularly sleepless night I drew up a daily timetable. Blow jobs with the coffee, having you chained under the desk, that kind of thing. Tying you up, having you every which way, exhausting you, making you beg for mercy.’
‘Hmm. I’m not a beggar, I’m a chooser.’
‘I know you are. That’s what maddens me about you. You seem to genuinely enjoy your promiscuity.’
‘And women aren’t supposed to, are they? They’re supposed to sleep around because they’re so terribly lonely, or so awfully damaged or whatever. It upset your little apple cart, didn’t it? You wanted to either save me from it, or punish me for it.’
‘Yes,’ he admits. ‘I did. But I knew I couldn’t. It was frustrating.’
‘I imagine so.’ But I’m beginning to see that I had a lucky escape, and this gives me so much strength that I feel surrounded with the glow of it. ‘So, tonight,’ I say, putting a hand on his thigh, ‘you can live out your fantasy.’
‘Some of them went a little further than you’d like, I should think,’ he warns me.
‘How far?’
‘I don’t want to say.’
‘Chase, I know the difference between fantasy and reality. Just because you get off to the thought of something doesn’t mean you’ll do it.’
‘The fantasies were sometimes violent. I suppose because my attraction to you was so unwanted and so problematic. I would, well, slap you around a bit. I was cruel.’
‘You are cruel,’ I point out. ‘We all figured that out ages ago.’
‘So, living out my fantasies then? Where do we stand on that now?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I think about the purpose of all this, the nature of the test. ‘I think the idea is that I live out my fantasies. So, no slapping. And I don’t trust you enough to give you control anyway. I don’t trust you at all, in fact.’
‘It’s understandable.’
‘And I still want to hurt you.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘You don’t get to choose. OK. Stay there. I’m going to get this out of my system, and I think it’ll only take a moment.’
I straddle his knees, facing him. He looks furious and confused, on the verge of pushing me away, but whatever hold Lloyd has over him is pretty strong, it seems.
‘Take off your glasses.’
‘You’re going to hit me, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not a violent person. No fists, nothing like that.’
He removes the spectacles.
My open palm catches him square on the cheek. The slap reverberates around the room, sounding much harder than it actually was. A patch of red rises satisfyingly on his skin and I bunch my fists and hug myself, instantly ashamed.
‘Well done,’ he says dryly. ‘I hope that did the trick.’
‘Not really. This is what we’re going to do.’
I hop off the bed and take myself to lean against a large, highly polished desk, big enough to hold a conference around.
‘Here I am, Chase, naked and available. We’re in your office and this is your desk. Come and do what you would have done, if it had ever been possible. Not what you did in your fantasies – what you actually would have done, in real life. I need to know.’
He spends some time just watching me from the bed, as if weighing up options. I lean back, flex my legs, perform a number of standard come-hither moves, but he responds to none of them.
Perhaps I should leave now. I don’t even care about failure any more.
But then he is on his feet in a flash, bending me backwards over the table, more by the force of his presence than anything corporeal and I am looking up into eyes that gleam with determination.
‘Have you any idea how long I’ve waited for this?’
I shake my head, holding my breath until it hurts.
He puts a hand on my cheek, cupping it, pressing his thumb into the soft skin beneath my chin. One finger strokes me beneath my ear lobe. It is almost too sensual to bear and the phrase ‘I am undone’ flits through my mind. If I had a bodice on, I think he would be about to rip it.
His lips hover about mine, as if undecided whether to kiss me or bite me. Eventually, they find a third way, opening to emit speech.
‘Years,’ he whispers. ‘So many years of having you within my reach, and never being able to touch you. Knowing that you wanted me to, knowing that I couldn’t. Can you imagine what that does to a man?’
‘Roughly the same as it does to a woman, maybe. I should know.’
The cloth of his jacket nudges my breasts, tormenting my nipples with little blasts of sensation. His crotch, hard and protuberant, fits snugly into the yielding delta between my thighs.
This is how it could have been.
His lips have done with talking. They fit themselves to mine, over mine, holding my mouth briefly shut before descending into frenzy. We devour each other, teeth, tongues, arms, hands, legs. He jolts me against the table until my back aches and then he lifts me on to it so I sit with my legs locked around his hips, pushing my hand down to his imprisoned cock, giving it a hard squeeze.
He kisses exactly the way I thought he would, passionate and yet controlled, with not a hint of vulnerability or uncertainty. He knows what he wants and he gets it. Everything I saw in him, everything that turned me on about him, is distilled into this huge Eve’s apple of a kiss. Here he is, the tree of knowledge in human form, and I am no better than those poor saps in the Bible.
Does that make Lloyd the serpent?
The thought of Lloyd throws me off my stride. A wave of discomfort at the idea of him seeing this washes over me like cold water.
I make a weak attempt to pull away from Chase, but he won’t have it, putting a hand on my ribs and laying me flat on the table while he suffocates me with the intensity of his kiss.
You wanted this, Lloyd. I’m doing it. I hope it makes you happy.
He starts to bite and I try to protest, but without knowing why or how, I find myself enjoying it, the way I used to enjoy play fights with my cousins as a child. Adrenalin pumps and I find new reserves of spirit and strength, using them to bite back, to growl, to push and kick.
His force is superior, of course, and his hands are everywhere, all over me, all at once, and they are none too gentle either.
When he breaks the kiss, I shout, ‘I hate you, you fucker!’ and he laughs loudly and sinks his teeth into my neck.
I use my pelvis as a weapon, jerking it upwards, trying to grind him to pieces, but he enjoys this, and enjoys subduing me and pinning me down even more.
By the time his hand reaches my pussy, ready to take it as his right, I am helpless.
‘Tell me you want it,’ he growls, his fingertips primed and poised. ‘Go on. Tell me or I’ll stop right here.’
I can barely breathe, the blood rushing in my ears.
‘Do it.’
He gives my clit the lightest of feathery strokes then he stands up, releasing me from my pinions. Even now, I can’t really move, the struggle having sapped all power from me.
I gaze up at him, little blue spots dancing in my peripheral vision, taking in his well-cut suit and his elegant neck, his perfect hairstyle and the look of naked ferocity in his eyes. The devil went down to Savile Row.
He takes off his jacket, with its lining of grey-green silk, and casts it away from him, on to the bed. I used to admire that fluidity of movement, that prowling grace of his.
My mouth feels bruised and my bones ache.
I am wetter than he deserves.
I watch his fingers move lazily over the knot of his tie, freeing his neck from its tyranny. The length of silk slides under his collar and out; he winds it around his hand as if contemplating using it for bondage purposes and I catch a breath.
No. He can’t tie me up. I don’t trust him.
He looks from me to it, regret shadowing his face, then lets it fall to the ground.
Next his top button is undone, then the one beneath.
I wait for him to remove the whole shirt, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he pulls me up and spins me around and bends me over the desk the other way. I yelp at the sensation of the cold wood on my nipples, and yelp again when he takes my wrists and twists them behind my back. I kick out at him, finding his shins, but if he feels it, he doesn’t let it show.
‘Like this,’ he says, pushing his still trousered thighs into mine. ‘This is how I’d have done it.’ With his free hand he smacks the inside of my legs until I have them open wide enough to please him. ‘With so many competitors for your attention, I’d need to make sure I made an impression on you.’
‘If you hurt me I’ll kill you.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you, Sophie. I’m going to make you want me, even though I can’t have you. I’m going to make you see what you missed.’
‘I didn’t miss anything. You were never available.’
‘Don’t fight it. Give in to me. Let yourself go.’
His free hand starts to massage my pussy lips. I twitch and squirm, but he’s too good. My muscles relax and my body yields to him. Just this once, he can have me. Just this once, these juices are for him.
‘Oh, you do want it, don’t you? Are you this wet for all your men?’
I don’t reply. I don’t want him to know anything about me.
‘No wonder they always came back for more,’ he continues, brushing my clit, left to right, right to left. ‘You’re soaked, absolutely saturated in sex, aren’t you? I used to think of advertising your services, changing the name of the hotel bar to The Sure Thing. But we didn’t need advertising. Everyone knew where to go to get a good, hot fuck when they were in town. Your number’s in half the little black books of the business world.’
His pace increases; his pressure grows.
‘I wondered what it would take to impress you, Sophie. I wondered what a man had to do to make you want more of him. You took all the sex you wanted, but you never needed anybody, and that bothered me. Then Lloyd seemed to capture your attention and I was so angry. So jealous. What did he have, that jumped-up cocktail waiter, that I didn’t? I had to get rid of you all anyway. I was glad to get rid of you all. But I felt I’d missed my chance with you. If only I’d done this. Perhaps I’d have you chained to my bed on my Pacific isle right now.’
My breathing is fast and shallow. He lets go of my wrists, but I don’t want to move them. He uses his other hand to stroke my bum cheeks, pinching and squeezing.
‘You’re close, aren’t you?’
I nod.
‘How close?’
‘Very.’
‘So close. So very, very close.’
I’m there, I’m there, I’m … not.
He takes his hand away and smacks my bottom, very lightly, but it’s like a vicious swipe in my maddeningly oversensitised state.
‘You want me.’ It’s a statement, not a question. He wants my confession.
‘Yes. Just do it. Get it over with.’
‘Romantic as ever, Sophie.’
‘Just sort yourself out and do it.’
‘Ah.’ I think he’d been hoping I wouldn’t mention the need for condoms, but I certainly don’t want this night to be unforgettable for the wrong reasons.
The noises he makes in unwrapping and snapping on the rubber are violent and impatient.
‘You need protection, Sophie?’ he says grumpily from behind me. ‘You aren’t so self-sufficient as you like to think.’
‘We’re all at the mercy of biology,’ I point out, equally bad-tempered.
This is going to be one tetchy fuck.
‘Some more than others,’ says Chase from between gritted teeth, and then he is in me, quick as a blade, if a lot blunter.
Oh. He feels good.
I didn’t want him to feel this good.
He reaches around for the fronts of my thighs, giving himself optimum leverage, and begins to thrust. There is no ceremony or finesse, and that makes it easier.
Every time his cock lodges its full length, I imagine a little portion of my infatuation with him getting knocked out of me.
One for the lonely nights.
One for the dreamy days.
One for the fruitless flirtation.
One for the imagined tenderness.
One for the betrayal, the anger, the confusion.
‘I’m going to make you come,’ he rasps, pounding away.
‘No, you aren’t.’
Good as he feels, thrillingly rough as he fucks, he isn’t going to make me come. I just don’t want him to.
He doesn’t like my answer, but he thinks it’s just playful goading and puts his fingers on my clit. I suppose he thinks that’s how I come.
It can be.
Sometimes the stimulation of fingers on my nerve endings, sometimes the pressure of a warm, wet tongue. Sometimes the friction of a cock, or a dildo, rubbing against my G-spot does the trick. But none of it ever happens unless I’ve given myself to the transaction, and that’s what Chase doesn’t understand. He can finger and lick and fuck and suck as much as he likes, but I won’t ever be properly there. Not for him.
I figure he’s a man with a pretty overwhelming sense of pride, though, and he isn’t going to finish this unless he thinks he’s driven me to the starry-eyed orgasm of my life. So I fake it.
There’s a first time for everything, after all. Well, maybe a second.
‘Oh yes,’ I hear him croon behind me. ‘Oh yes, Sophie, that’s it, you’re taking it well, you’ve taken it so well.’
And then he drills me right into the table, so I swear at the sudden impact against my pelvis and I assume, from the trembling of his loins and the painful grip of his hands, that he isn’t faking anything at all.
‘Oh.’
His head falls on my shoulder. His face is hot and his mouth nuzzles my bitten skin.
‘Sophie,’ he whispers, clasping his arms around my breasts.
I try to wriggle forwards, to get his cock out of me. I don’t do pillow talk.
‘There we go then,’ I say, trying not to yawn or sound at all tired. ‘Fantasy fulfilled. What time’s your flight tomorrow?’
He sighs, sounding pained. ‘Never mind that. Come to bed.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I want to do that.’
He puts his lips to my ear. ‘Shower first?’
‘No, I mean, I should go.’
With a herculean effort, he detaches himself from me and rises to his feet, looking less impressive than usual with his trousers around his ankles and his shirt flapping around his haunches.
‘Go?’ he says, as if the word is in some ancient mystical tongue. ‘You want to go?’
‘Yeah. I do. Grab us that jacket and I’ll call a cab. Actually, could I borrow your shirt?’
‘Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to stay?’
‘Not really. We’ve done what we came for, haven’t we?’
He looks genuinely devastated. I can’t tell him I faked my orgasm. It would just be too cruel. I know it’s no crueller than he was to me, but I don’t ever want to think of myself as being on the same level as him.
‘Didn’t you … wouldn’t you like to … do it again? In bed? In comfort?’
I give up waiting for him to lend the shirt and grab one from the wardrobe. Beautifully pressed and smelling of something leathery. I put it on, enjoying its smooth, cool feel against my bare skin.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I tell him.
‘You’d find it harder to leave?’
I look away and smile, mainly to myself. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s it, Chase. I’d find it harder to leave.’
God knows, he doesn’t really deserve the sugar-coating, but perhaps I’m kinder than I realise.
I put on my jacket and shoes, check my pocket for my mobile phone.
‘I understand,’ he says, looking as if he doesn’t.
‘Good.’ I tiptoe up to kiss him on the cheek.
He catches me in a tight hold for a moment. ‘It was, wasn’t it? Good, I mean.’
‘Of course it was. Everything I dreamed it would be. But we don’t live in a dream, Chase. Time to wake up and get on with the day.’
‘You really are every bit as independent as you seem, aren’t you?’
‘Perhaps a little too much so,’ I whisper.
He releases me. ‘I wish you’d stay,’ he says.
‘Sorry. Thanks for this, anyway. Laid a ghost to rest. Cheers.’
I can’t believe my last word to him is cheers, but I can’t think of any others, so I wave awkwardly and dive for the door.
The vision of him, half-naked and oddly vulnerable, his hand reaching out uncertainly, imprints itself on my memory.
Why would I feel sorry for him? For such a long time, all he had to do was ask. It’s his own stupid fault.
Anyway, pity is one thing. Love is another.
I lean against Chase’s suite door and speed dial Lloyd.
His phone is switched off.