Portia Da Costa is one of the most internationally renowned authors of erotic romance and erotica, and a Sunday Times, New York Times and USA Today bestseller.
She is the author of eighteen Black Lace books, as well as numerous short stories and novellas.
Entertaining Mr Stone
Gemini Heat
Gothic Blue
Gothic Heat
Hotbed
How to Seduce a Billionaire
In Too Deep
Shadowplay
Suite Seventeen
The Accidental Call Girl
The Accidental Mistress
The Accidental Bride
The Devil Inside
The Gift
The Stranger
The Tutor
Short Stories:
The Red Collection
‘Oh, get a life, you sad, sad bastard!’
Joanna Darrell couldn’t believe she had actually said that. It had just leapt from her tongue as the very first thing in her mind; a release of pressure that had felt so good it was almost sexual. She had listened to her blood pounding through her veins in the following silence, and the moment after that she had slammed down the phone.
It was only afterwards, and more so now, that she had considered the ramifications of her outburst. There had been a major client on the other end of the line, a prime mover in one of the company’s most lucrative accounts. The confidential file specified kid glove handling at all times. And she had called the man a ‘sad bastard’.
It could have been worse, she supposed. She could have called him a ‘sad fuck’ instead. In fact now she wished she had done. Either way, it would have got her carpeted, so she might as well have made it worth the effort.
The company rule at Perry McAffee was to keep the client sweet at all times, and she had just broken it in fine style. It could possibly – no, would probably – mean dismissal.
Waiting in the lounge outside Halloran’s office, Joanna had plenty of time to consider her faux pas.
The client had deserved her vituperation, she knew that. He was petulant, whingeing, a financial prima donna. A pain, in other words. He had always demanded more data than even the most talented analyst could supply or interpret, and Joanna had always done her best for him. Had stretched herself to her limits on his account. Even so, it had never seemed to be enough, and the client had not held back from letting her know that.
Why was it, Joanna wondered, that she had not let his complaints slide off her as they had always done in the past? Like water off vinyl. Harsh words meant nothing, it was part of the job when huge amounts of money were on the line. Discourtesy went with the territory. From the client, that was.
So why today? Why had she suddenly snapped and blurted out what she really felt?
With no real answer for that, she studied Halloran’s personal assistant, who was sitting straight and perfect behind her desk, doing some apparently elaborate task that Joanna couldn’t even begin to guess at.
Has she plucked that look straight from the pages of Businesswoman? Joanna wondered. The self-possessed young woman was so immaculate she might have been air-brushed, and just the sight of her made Joanna feel ill-kempt. Surreptitiously, she smoothed at a wrinkle that had appeared in her pencil skirt, and began to worry about the freshness of her white poplin blouse. She flared her nostrils, trying to detect sweat and other, more musky odours. She imagined the shock on that supermodel face across the room, if she should open her jacket and boldly sniff her armpits.
I’m going mad, thought Joanna, astounded at the tenor of her own thoughts. It’s the waiting, it must be. I probably won’t get near enough to Halloran for him to smell me. He’ll just have me stand on that fancy rug of his – the oriental one the Zip Corporation gave him – while he calmly sacks me without turning a hair. Bastard!
But not a sad one, she reflected, as it occurred to her that, in a certain sense, she was looking forward to her ordeal. She enjoyed a battle. A challenge. In finance, life was just one long series of confrontations, and she relished each one she was involved in.
Halloran’s ante-room was a blank, neutral expanse, designed to lull one into a false sense of security, no doubt. All beige, cream, and fawn shades; no-colours. Joanna suddenly wished she was wearing a suit in a brilliant primary colour, or at least a pair of red shoes to spice up her navy and white corporate look. Anything to break up the inoffensive monotony.
Had she felt this unsettled the last time she had waited outside an office? She didn’t think so. She found interviews as stimulating as any other confrontation, and whenever she had been interviewed for a job, she had always ended up getting it. In fact, her success record was a stunning hundred per cent.
No, the last time she could recall feeling trepidation outside an office was back when she had been at school. In the sixth form. And even then her fears hadn’t been justified – a light dressing down was all she had received, not the punishment she had imagined. Not a thrashing. Not being made to slip down her knickers and . . .
Dear God, where had that come from? What a bizarre thing to imagine. Her school had been modern, liberal, enlightened; corporal punishment in education had just been a horror from the dark ages, and she’d known that perfectly well at the time. Who was it who had now twisted her thoughts that way? she mused. Halloran himself, probably. He had very pure, stern features, and a vaguely autocratic demeanour – she could easily imagine him as a disciplinarian. His face would be a cool, handsome mask as he struck her tender flesh with blow after blow, his body as still as stone between each swing.
To distract herself, Joanna studied a print on the far wall. Unsurprisingly it was a sepia wash thing, suitably insipid, to match the rest of the room. Restless, she crossed her long legs, listening to the unnaturally loud rasp of one stocking against the other, and receiving a little shock when she realised she was aroused.
It must be all these weird fantasies, she thought, trying to adjust her posture without appearing to move. She was definitely a little wet between her legs, and she felt uncomfortable. Swollen. Engorged. It was a sensation she relished in its proper context, but it was unnerving to feel it here and now.
She glanced across at the PA and speculated. Did such bandbox grooming ever get ruffled by the absurdities of lust? Joanna couldn’t imagine so doll-like a creature ever getting turned on, even by their handsome, stony-mannered boss, but then, suddenly, she remembered a story she had heard a few months ago. A choice piece of gossip exchanged between two giggly temps in the cloakroom.
According to the overheard whispers, someone had once forgotten to knock before walking into Halloran’s inner sanctum – and had found ‘Ms Perfection’ face down across the leather-topped desk while her boss gave her an energetic shafting. The rumour went on to recount that he had said, ‘Just a moment . . .’ then climaxed, pulled out and zipped up, before smiling calmly and asking the intruder to take a seat.
It had to be purely apocryphal, surely, the product of the word-processing pool’s fevered collective imagination, but Joanna had to admit the idea was hot. There was something quite compelling about the image of Halloran, all businesslike and formal, but with his bottom jerking as he fucked a willing woman.
Had he actually dropped his trousers and undershorts? Joanna wondered, picturing a pair of male buttocks tensing rhythmically. Would he have cried out as he orgasmed? It didn’t seem in character. She imagined him to be as impassive in climax as he was in everything else; just a brief spasm distorting his fine, solemn features.
Lost in her musings, Joanna started wildly when the inner office door opened. She heard the tail end of a conversation – conventional pleasantries tacked on to business as a matter of form – then a familiar figure appeared on the threshold, before moving into the outer office, closing the door behind him.
‘Hi! How are you?’ said Kevin Steel, one of her colleagues, a freelance computer specialist who had been working in her division for several weeks.
To her chagrin, Joanna blushed. ‘Fine, thanks,’ she murmured, wishing Kevin hadn’t chosen this particular moment to appear. He was another of her current preoccupations, and her heartbeat speeded up as he sat down beside her, placing the reams of printout he had been carrying on the floor at his feet.
‘You’re not in trouble, are you?’ he said, his narrow face serious as he inclined towards her. He was an odd-looking man, and yet at the same time curiously attractive. His features were sharp and angular, almost pixie-like, and his eyes were a light, clear, bluish shade, sometimes stormy, sometimes limpid, always changing. His hair was dark golden blond, and very thick; the colour of overripe wheat. It was beautifully cut, but, though he always arrived at work with it brushed neatly into place, within minutes his boyish fringe would be flopping into his eyes. Just as it was doing now. With a swift, unconscious gesture, he swept it back.
‘Nope. There’s no problem,’ Joanna lied, silently begging Kevin to go about his business and leave her alone. The fact that they had been to bed together a week ago made him one of the last people she needed to see right now. She wanted her wits about her when she went in to see Halloran, and thoughts of sex – more thoughts of sex, that was – would distract her. Kevin Steel was a conundrum she had not yet had a chance to decipher.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he said, his concerned expression shifting into a slow challenging smile. ‘You’ve got that “I’m about to get a rollicking” look to you.’ He waggled his expressive blond eyebrows. ‘What did you do? It must’ve been pretty bad . . . I would’ve thought you, of all people, could get away with just about anything in this place.’
Before she could challenge this statement, Kevin leapt lightly to his feet, scooping up his sheaf of paper as he rose, then patted her encouragingly on the shoulder. ‘Look, I’ve got a meeting like ten minutes ago . . . But I’ll see you later and you can tell me all about it.’ He flashed her a knowing wink, then was gone almost before she could register its impact, his exit as quick and mercurial as everything else about him was.
‘Bastard,’ Joanna muttered, adding him to the growing list under that heading. She was aware of the cool eyes of Halloran’s PA sweeping over her, and she wondered if she and Kevin were the subject of salacious whispering too. It had been purely a once only thing, so far, and they had been careful and made no reference at all to it at work.
Without conscious volition she found herself remembering . . .
It had started when they had worked late together. Working late wasn’t an unusual occurrence at Perry McAffee – far from it – but it was the first time she had stayed behind with Kevin. She had needed a new way to present the data in a crucial report and, with his expertise, he had been the ideal man to call on. The task had taken longer than either of them had expected, and when it was done, Joanna had suggested dinner, purely on a whim. She hadn’t been entertaining any specifically seductive intentions, but the light in Kevin’s eyes had been so immediate and so gratifying that Joanna had suddenly wanted him.
Kevin had countered her suggestion of going to a bistro with the proposal that he come back to her flat and cook for her. And the idea had been so unexpected that she had agreed.
Perhaps it was the same sense of novelty that had caused them to end up having sex. Kevin Steel certainly wasn’t her usual type. She generally preferred tall, dark, very grown-up men. Like Halloran, she observed ruefully. But somehow, it had seemed quite natural to invite Kevin to make love to her. In fact, looking back, she couldn’t remember if she had even asked at all. It had come about almost instinctively, in the way the whole evening had done. One minute they were eating, talking, and getting on so comfortably with each other that they might have been friends for years, and the next they were kissing wildly and searching for gaps in each other’s clothes.
Or, at least, she had been searching.
‘Hey, steady on,’ Kevin had said, laughing, as he grasped her wrists and kept her still. ‘What’s the hurry?’
Joanna blushed, aware that she was dishevelled and breathing heavily. She felt mortified at having seemed so keen. She usually played the self-possessed, hard-to-get hand with men, and it usually worked. It was only because she was tired and disorientated that she had let herself rush things.
Frowning, she jerked free of him, then clutched at the gaping neckline of her blouse.
‘Hey,’ he said again, softly this time, cajolingly. Then, like quicksilver, he caught hold of her by the upper arms, and leant forward to kiss her slowly on the mouth.
For the first few moments, he simply pressed his lips to hers, letting her enjoy the warmth of the gentle, quiescent contact. Joanna had closed her eyes, automatically, but now she opened them and found that his, too, were open. Blue and placid, they were level, intent, lazily watchful. She tried to pull back, but his hands whipped up from her arms to cradle her head. Her eyes widened, and she tried to struggle, but before she could achieve anything his tongue flicked between her lips like a small, hot serpent. He continued to watch her as it probed and darted lewdly.
For a reason she didn’t quite understand, Joanna found it impossible to move. She stood, almost limply, her head still lightly gripped in Kevin’s hands, while his tongue flashed around her mouth and explored its inner membranes. She closed her eyes, but sensed that his were still open.
The kiss went on for several minutes and throughout it Joanna remained passive, letting Kevin take the initiative for them both. His hands moved constantly in her soft blonde curls, adjusting the position of her head; gently tilting it, occasionally stroking it. It was as if he were a sculptor creating the kiss as a work of art. Joanna had never been kissed that way before.
When his lips finally left hers, she swayed slightly. Though her eyelids felt weighted she opened her eyes just as Kevin released her head and, as she focused on him, she realised he was stripping off his clothes. Torn between anger and desire, she let the latter win, and began unfastening her blouse. She was astounded, however, when Kevin – his tie, shoes and socks already flung about him, and his fine cotton shirt undone – grasped her hands again, and squeezed them, as if to hold her still. She was even more surprised that, when he let them go, they stayed where they were – clasped against her chest, the fingers curled, while he continued.
In a moment or two he was naked and, almost reluctantly, Joanna was impressed. Wearing clothes, Kevin was an appealing man, for all his unusual, pointed features; without clothes he was something else entirely. Wiry almost to the point of thinness, his body was nevertheless hard-muscled like a dancer’s or an athlete’s, exuding physical power without the slightest trace of vanity. He was not particularly hairy, with just a few sandy wisps across the centre of his chest and a larger, thicker mat at his groin, but his cock was unexpectedly distinguished. Not wanting to fall into the trap of appearing visibly awed, Joanna was still forced to stare at it – with hunger. Kevin himself seemed to have no special pride in his genitals – unlike a lot of men of her acquaintance – but, even so, his erection was sizeable, both in terms of length and, more importantly, of girth. He was circumcised, she noticed, and his glans was rounded and glossy, with a clean and succulently ruddy glow. A small amount of moisture was already seeping from the little eye at its very tip and, as Joanna watched, it swelled to a pearl-sized drop.
Meeting his eyes again, she found him studying her. She coloured hotly, and he glanced down at his prick, shrugging dismissively. She half expected him to take her hand and close her fingers around it, but instead he took her in his arms and kissed her again, the same deep, involving kiss as before. He seemed almost oblivious to his own state of nudity.
Joanna wasn’t oblivious to it, though, especially when she slid her arms around him in response, and felt the smooth, almost glassy texture of his skin. Running her hands up and down his back and his buttocks, she heard, and even felt him make a gruff sound of appreciation in his throat. His cock leapt against her thigh, and she could feel its heat clean through the fabric of her skirt. She imagined his pre-come oozing freely over the fine linen, and as – ludicrously! – her mind drifted to the resultant cleaning bill, she felt Kevin’s hands slide to her waistband, and unfasten the button. Before she knew what was happening, her unzipped skirt was in a pool around her ankles and he was teasing down her satin half-slip as well. When that had been dispensed with, he suddenly nipped playfully at her tongue, and then, while she was distracted, he sank to his knees on the carpet before her, deftly skinning down her tights and panties as he went.
Laughing softly, he probed her crotch and gently opened her, parting her blonde curls and exposing her inner wetness. Joanna moaned as his thumbs peeled back her outer labia and the tension made her clitoris rear up proudly – a fat red bead in the coral setting of her sex. Hobbled by her clothes around her ankles, she struggled to part her legs and give him better access, but all she could manage was an ungainly, bent-kneed crouch.
Kevin seemed unperturbed. His thumbs pressed in more determinedly than ever, as if he were attacking a particularly juicy fruit, then, darting forward, he took her clitoris between his lips.
‘Oh God!’ Joanna began to pant, then almost to grunt, uncouthly. He was sucking hard now, drawing the tiny, sensitive organ as deeply into his mouth as he could and mashing his face against her swollen, moistening vulva.
The stimulation was too much, too soon, and too fierce. Or maybe Joanna had been wanting him for far longer than she had realised. Her knees went weak and she suffered a sudden, juddering climax that was so sharp and unexpected it almost hurt her. She grabbed Kevin’s head, meaning to pull him off her but, of their own accord, her hands only clasped him closer.
Even though her intimate flesh seemed to be on fire, she was still keenly aware of the soft, almost baby-like silkiness of his hair around her fingers, and of the scent of herbal shampoo that rose up from it.
‘No! Please! Kevin, it’s too much!’ she cried, wriggling frantically as the suction on her clitoris increased.
But instead of letting her go, he released her labia and slid his hands quickly around her hips until he was clutching her surging bottom. His grip became unyielding as he continued to plague her core.
‘No! Oh Jesus God!’ she yelped, experiencing another huge orgasm. Her hips bucked and jerked, but Kevin clung on tenaciously, his fingertips deep in her bottom cleft, pressing and probing as he lashed her clitoris with his tongue. ‘Oh God, no!’ she cried again. His fingers were on either side of her anus now, stretching it open with tiny, pulsing tugs that were timed to the frenzied jabbing of his tongue in her sex.
‘You can go in now, Ms Darrell.’
Joanna started violently at the sound of her name. She had been so entranced by her memories of being with Kevin that the real world – Halloran’s outer office, and her forthcoming disciplinary reprimand – had lost all substance. It seemed incongruous to be sitting here, outwardly calm, decorous and untouchable, while, between her legs, she could almost feel the stroke of a man’s nimble tongue.
‘Ms Darrell? Are you all right?’ enquired the sleek PA, looking faintly pleased by Joanna’s confusion. ‘Mr Halloran will see you now. If you’re all right, that is?’
‘No problem. I’m fine,’ Joanna answered curtly, wary of this smooth, unruffled young woman, whose faultless grooming and creamy pallor made her feel sleazy.
‘Go straight in, then,’ said the PA, adding ‘please’, after a moment, and somewhat grudgingly. Joanna was suddenly struck by the thought that the other woman might be jealous.
Straightening her jacket and putting on her airiest, and most indifferent expression, she attempted to banish her memories of Kevin Steel’s exquisite way with cunnilingus, then opened the door that led to Halloran’s spacious office.
‘Ah yes, good morning, Joanna.’
‘Hello, Joanna, how are you?’
The presence of two men in the room, as opposed to the expected one, disconcerted her somewhat, but, composing herself carefully, Joanna gave no sign of it. Instead, she took the seat in front of Halloran’s desk, that was so obviously meant for her, and crossed her legs with an elegant deliberation. In the brief hiatus that followed, she studied her inquisitors.
Halloran looked the same as he always did; dark and imperturbable in his Savile Row suit, his calm face a perfect picture of corporate authority. For her part, Joanna had always found him sexually intriguing – and now, more so than ever, after all the scurrilous talk. She tried to imagine him leaning across the broad expanse of desk that stretched between them, with a pliant female body bucking ecstatically beneath him. In her current frame of mind, it didn’t take much effort to put herself in the place of his PA.
About his companion, she had no such stimulating thoughts.
Davidson – who was slouched in a leather chair at a right angle to her – was the fancifully titled ‘Human Resources Coordinator’, seconded to London by their transatlantic masters, to oversee the utilisation of personnel in their UK establishments. The common opinion of him was that he was also a spy, a snooper, reporting to the New York office on matters relating to far more than just the purely personnel matters. His smooth, almost glib persona certainly added weight to the notion. It also gave Joanna the creeps. It wasn’t that Davidson was an ugly man, or repulsive in any way – quite the reverse. But there was definitely something not quite right about him. He was ‘soft’ somehow, his voice quiet, and strangely light. She would have categorised him as effeminate, but there was nothing concrete about him that deserved the tag. He was tallish and dark-haired, with a good physique and, like Halloran, he dressed well but conservatively. He should have been a turn-on, but he made Joanna’s hackles – rather than her libido – rise.
‘So, what can I do for you?’ she said in an even tone, aiming her attention pointedly at Halloran, and not at the closely-watching American.
‘I think it’s more a case of what we can do for you,’ said Halloran, steepling his fingers before him. He cocked his head questioningly to one side, and the light overhead glinted on his severely gelled hair. Something about his manner reminded Joanna of a benevolent schoolmaster, and she had to choke back a gurgle of amusement, recalling her peculiar notions of a little while earlier.
‘Are you OK, Joanna?’ enquired Davidson, leaping to his feet and stepping towards her. ‘Can I get you a glass of water or something?’ He gestured towards the carafe and glasses on a side table, the model of solicitude, but Joanna still found his languid style unsettling.
‘I’m fine thank you, Mr Davidson,’ Joanna replied sweetly, matching his smile with one of her own. She was aware of Halloran watching her, observing the interplay between herself and Davidson. He was probably wondering if she could be goaded into calling the American a bastard too.
‘Please. It’s “Denis”,’ Davidson murmured, returning to his seat. As a faintly complicit look passed between the two men, Joanna suddenly had a rather ominous thought.
Did they want her out of the company in any case? Not just because she had called a client a bad name, but because she didn’t fit the job profile in some way? Perhaps she was too good at what she did, and was making one of the Americans’ pet employees look inferior? It could be for any of a multitude of such reasons, in a company like Perry McAffee, and it must have a personnel angle if the ‘Human Resources Coordinator’ was present at the interview.
Davidson lolled back in his seat, and with a discreet cough Halloran took things over once again. ‘I think we all know why I’ve asked you to pop in and see us, Joanna,’ he said suavely but not unkindly. ‘Your little outburst with the representative of Vale Associates.’ He paused, then looked a little regretful. ‘It just wasn’t like you at all, was it?’ He fixed her with a thoroughly understanding smile. ‘You work hard for this company – very hard. And you produce superlative results. But I, that is we –’ he glanced towards Davidson, who nodded ‘– think that for the last few months you’ve been working too hard.’ He studied his fingernails for a moment. ‘When did you last take a holiday, Joanna?’
‘I went to France last year,’ she said. ‘For a whole month. It was great.’
‘Do you like France?’ Davidson enquired, something sharp in his eyes making Joanna suspicious. For all her vague dislike of him, she readily conceded that he was a good-looking man nevertheless, and his strange, silky aura had a disquieting effect on her.
‘Yes, like I said, it was great,’ she snapped. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘We think you need another holiday,’ said Halloran, gently, picking up the thread of the conversation. ‘A complete break. A change of scene.’ His tone hardened. ‘In fact, we think it would be a good idea if you left straight away.’
Joanna sprang to her feet. ‘You’re sacking me, aren’t you, you bastard?’ She saw Davidson roll his eyes and her fury mounted. ‘You’re giving me the push! Just because I told that old fart at Vale a simple home truth!’ She stood there shaking, her heart racing, astounded that her anger could feel so erotic. ‘Well, you can stuff your bloody job!’ she cried, turning on her heel and heading for the door. ‘He needed telling. Everybody knows that account is more trouble than it’s worth!’
In a few seconds, she would have been out of the office, and probably out of her job altogether, but with a turn of speed quite unexpected in a man so seemingly laid back, Davidson darted across the room again, took her quite firmly by the arm and led her back to her chair. Joanna wasn’t sure why she allowed him to do this; it was as if something primal in her responded to his strong male grip, a part of her personality that she disliked and usually kept hidden. The need to succumb to a man, to submit to him, that usually only surfaced in bed. As she sat tensely in her chair, glowering at Halloran and then accepting the glass of water that Davidson seemed set on her drinking – as if she were a fragile Edwardian flower with the vapours – she found herself suddenly thinking of Kevin, and remembering again how he had so easily overwhelmed her.
After sucking her to a climax, he had drawn her down on to the carpet, then entered her where she lay, still in her clothes.
‘Nobody is sacking you, Joanna,’ she heard Halloran say, as if from a great distance. ‘But I think we must insist that you take a break now. Before – well, we won’t be able to overlook another, similar incident so easily.’
He continued to speak, but Joanna hardly heard him. She felt like a hart cornered by two wolves, and the sensation was scary. Doubly so, because she never usually let men in the workplace intimidate her. Trebly so, because she still couldn’t work out why she was finding her state of vulnerability to be so arousing.
‘I think you’ll enjoy yourself,’ Halloran was saying as she tuned back in to his discourse, realising she had just nodded her head in agreement with something. ‘Whiteoaks is a superb facility. They employ all the latest relaxation therapies, and there are sports facilities if you’re feeling energetic.’
‘Oh – Er – Yes, thanks. It sounds first class,’ she muttered, trying to snap back to a state of full attention. Both men were on their feet now, signifying that the interview was over. Davidson in particular was looking unpleasantly pleased with himself, his sharply-defined, almost voluptuous lips curving in a way that produced thoughts she preferred to reject.
‘Lisa will make all the arrangements,’ Halloran continued, escorting her to the door now, guiding her with a hand on her elbow. ‘And we’ll see you back here in a week or so, hopefully with all the stresses and strains worked out of you.’
‘Don’t worry, Joanna. It’ll make a new woman of you,’ murmured Davidson, just as Halloran opened the door for her. The American’s tone was unctuous, yet somehow mischievous and exciting, too. As she left the room, Joanna wondered what he had meant, and just what exactly it was that she had so unresistingly agreed to.
‘Whiteoaks, he called it. It’s a health farm or something. Have you ever heard of it? I thought Littlebourne was just a place people retired to.’
‘No, it doesn’t mean a thing to me,’ replied Kevin, taking a sip of his wine. ‘I have a hard enough time getting to my own health club.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m the world’s worst when it comes to serious workouts.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Joanna, feeling the effects of her own wine. She was already on her third large glass. ‘I’ve seen your body. You look in good enough condition to me.’
Kevin grinned, his thin, well-shaped lips curving sexily. ‘A little goes a long way,’ he said, his eyes twinkling and looking even bluer than usual. ‘But thanks anyway. You don’t look so bad in the buff yourself.’
It was the first time, since it had happened, that Kevin had referred directly to their lovemaking, and Joanna felt relieved. It hadn’t been a disappointment, or a non-event, far from it, and the fact that he hadn’t mentioned it had perplexed her. She wouldn’t have liked him to have bragged about it to all and sundry, but between themselves, she felt a need to address the matter.
‘Oh, so you do remember that we went to bed together, then?’ she enquired, pointedly. ‘I was beginning to think it had completely slipped your mind.’
‘Oh no,’ he said softly, flicking his fringe out of his eyes. ‘I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot. I just got the impression that you wouldn’t want to make a big deal about it at the office.’
He was quite right, of course, but his diffidence was irritating. Joanna sipped her wine again, and decided to change the subject. Kevin seemed as reluctant to be pinned down about sexual matters as she herself was, and to harp on about them now might sound possessive.
‘So, do you think I should go to this Whiteoaks place, then?’ she asked. ‘I mean, all the way to a neither dead nor alive place like Littlebourne when I’m a member of a perfectly good health club here in town?’
‘Why not?’ replied Kevin reasonably. ‘It’s all expenses paid. It’s a change of scene; sea air and all that. Plus the fact you’ll be on salaried leave. Take advantage; it’s not often the company offers something for nothing.’
‘True,’ she answered doubtfully. ‘It’s just I don’t like to be outmanoeuvred by the likes of Halloran. And as for that creep Davidson? Ugh!’ She shuddered expressively, remembering the American slouching languidly in his leather office chair.
‘What’s wrong with Davidson?’ Kevin looked puzzled. ‘He seems OK to me.’
‘He would. You’re a man!’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
How could she describe it? Why did she need to? She would have thought that Davidson’s ambiguous smoothness would have thoroughly spooked a red-blooded heterosexual like Kevin.
‘He’s weird,’ she said, aware that the word was inadequate. ‘He’s too smooth. He’s a creep,’ she finished, spurred on by Kevin’s look of curiosity.
‘If you say so,’ he conceded, reaching out to top up her wineglass.
They were in a wine bar near the office, and it was well past lunch time. Joanna had decided that regardless of whether or not she went to Whiteoaks, she would still take the rest of this annoying day off. Kevin had dropped by her desk not long after her interview, and had cheerfully announced that he might as well join her, giving Joanna no real opportunity to refuse – making him yet another man who had pushed her into something she wasn’t sure she wanted!
Joanna studied the brimming glass, aware that she was already more than a little drunk.
‘I do say so!’ she proclaimed, in answer to Kevin’s easy-going observation. ‘And even if he was a paragon of sweetness and light, I still wouldn’t want to be told what to do by him! Or bloody Halloran, for that matter!’
‘Well, don’t go then,’ said Kevin, still logical.
‘I have to,’ she said, through gritted teeth, then tried to describe the subtle ultimatum she had been given in Halloran’s office; the unspoken threat that, if she didn’t take this break now, and take it where they had specified, she might find herself out of a job.
Kevin shrugged. ‘You’d better go, then,’ he said. ‘But pretend it was your own idea. Enjoy yourself.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘I’d offer to come with you; you know, make a bit of a dirty weekend of it –’ His eyes lit up wolfishly. ‘But I’ve got a lot on at the moment. I can’t get away. I shouldn’t really be here now.’
‘Well, you’d better get back then, hadn’t you?’ Joanna said tartly, although inside, the idea of a dirty weekend with Kevin had a powerful effect on her. He was a bit of an odd cove, really, and she hadn’t the faintest idea where she stood with him, but he was, she had to admit, a remarkable lover. One of the best she had encountered in ages. She thought back to the feel of his mouth against her vulva; to the way he had sucked her to climax after climax.
And he hadn’t been a slouch when it came to the actual fucking, either. He had exhibited an impressive endurance when he had first taken her, on her sitting room carpet, and had then been able to get a second, sturdy erection only a few minutes later, when they had finally got as far as her bed.
Meeting his eyes, she drained her glass of wine, then licked her lips, knowing she was being so damned obvious that she might as well have shouted, ‘I want you!’ at the top of her voice, but not caring at all.
Kevin smiled a slow, impish smile that said, ‘you’re on!’. Then he rose to his feet, took out his wallet, and tossed a handful of notes on to the table in a gesture so cinematic that – if Joanna hadn’t already wanted him – would have rendered her amorous enough to receive him straight away.
‘Come on,’ he said, then turned and led the way out of the darkness of the wine bar and into the sunny day outside.
Gathering up her bag and her trenchcoat from the banquette seat, Joanna felt thoroughly confused. A second ago, she had been desperate with lust for the man, but now he was behaving like just as much of a high-handed macho shit as Halloran and his ilk. Sweeping out of the wine bar like a maharajah, and expecting her to follow meekly and dutifully in his wake.
When she reached the pavement, Kevin had already hailed a taxi, and the black cab stood at the kerb, engine running, like a magic chariot to take them to God alone knew where.
‘Changed your mind?’ Kevin fixed her with glittering eyes, having registered her hesitation. His look challenged her and, remembering again the pleasure he was capable of inducing, she strode forward, accepting his dare. She wanted to get either to her home, or to his, fairly quickly anyway. Three large glasses of wine were beginning to play havoc with her bladder and, as she sat down on the back seat of the cab, she felt a nasty little jolt. It was with some care that she arranged her legs, her coat, and her bag.
Kevin gave the cabby her address.
‘Assuming a lot, aren’t we?’ she said as the glass partition slid up to give them privacy.
‘I could just drop you there and go back to work,’ Kevin observed.
‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t,’ she said, trying for an imperious tone, but not quite achieving it. She suddenly felt very, very unsettled. The heavy drag of her bladder seemed to impose itself upon her like a presence. Yet another controlling entity to modify her behaviour; just like Kevin and, before him, Halloran and Davidson. She shifted her thighs cautiously against the leather, glad that she had her trenchcoat spread across her lap to mask her wriggling.
‘So would I,’ said Kevin softly, then suddenly his arm was around her waist. The hold was light, and not even possessive, but somehow it seemed to exacerbate her plight. She moved again, uneasily.
‘Is something wrong?’ he enquired, his voice strangely loaded.
‘No! No, I’m fine!’
‘Sure?’
Joanna turned to face him in the gloom of the back of the cab, and to her horror saw that his eyes were as bright as torches.
Dear God, he knows! The bastard! He knows!
As Kevin smiled slyly, she recalled how eager he had been to fill up her wineglass each time. It had occurred to her while he was doing it that he might be trying to get her tipsy so he could also get her into bed – but could he really have had a far more sinister motive? His hand, on her thigh, beneath her coat, seemed to suggest the latter.
But what if it was all just relatively innocent sexiness? His hand was moving now, deftly edging her skirt up her thighs at the front. It was a slim-cut skirt, but its satin lining betrayed her, allowing its hem to slide right up to her crotch.
Expecting him to finger her immediately, Joanna almost sighed with relief when Kevin touched one of her suspenders. His expressive eyebrows showed his preference for the stockings she had on today, over the tights she had been wearing the last time he had explored her.
Joanna held her breath as Kevin’s fingers began to move again, tracking inwards towards her panties – and towards her problem. Should she tell him? Ask him not to touch her just yet? Beg him not to put pressure on her bladder?
Damn! she thought, in torment. She had been manipulated yet again. Put into a man’s hands, and at his mercy. She gnawed her lip as he reached her mons pubis, his fingertips brushing across the flimsy, damp lace. His arm around her shoulder urged her to lie back against the seat, and she felt his breath like a hot wind against her throat. When he pressed lightly on the pit of her belly she almost choked.
‘Kevin! Please don’t!’ she cried, experiencing daggers of fierce sensation. A feeling that was half discomfort, half delight.
‘Hush,’ he whispered, nodding towards the cabby in front of them as he pressed down again, and she bucked up from the seat.
‘Oh no,’ she hissed as his fingers circled in her pubic hair, then slid down into the brimming channel of her sex.
‘Oh yes, I must,’ he said, his voice as intent as his probing fingertips. ‘You’re such a beautiful girl, Joanna. So tempting. You almost force me to touch you.’
‘Please . . .’ she murmured incoherently, feeling him massage the area above her pubic bone with his thumb, while his nimble fingers strummed her throbbing clitoris. The tension inside her was almost unbearable now. Every time he bore down on her distended bladder a delicious wave of pleasure-pain swept through her loins. Her legs were kicking now, involuntarily, as he fondled her.
‘Please, Kevin, I’m going to wet myself,’ she groaned, feeling her face flush hot with embarrassment.
‘No, you’re not,’ he said gently, adjusting his hold on her. Withdrawing his thumb from its devilish ministrations against her belly, he used it, and his slim forefinger, to pinch her clitoris. ‘You can hold it. Don’t worry,’ he said, speaking now in a perfectly calm and ordinary tone, just as if he wasn’t pulling and flicking at the most sensitive part of her body at all. As if he didn’t have his whole hand stuffed inside her panties, and it wasn’t wet and thoroughly sticky with her juices.
‘We’ll soon be home,’ he said, then kissed the side of her face before nibbling at her earlobe. Beneath her clothing, he rolled her clitoris from side to side. ‘It’ll soon be better. Just try to hold on.’
Beside herself, plagued almost to madness, Joanna fought hard to clench every muscle in her body. She was desperate to climax, but she knew that if she did, she would pee all over Kevin’s intruding hand. Not to mention her clothes and the back seat of the taxi. She felt sweat break out in her armpits, between her breasts and in her groin, and she guessed she must be scarlet in the face from her efforts. She moaned like an animal as, delicately, he pinched her.
Joanna had no idea how she got through the rest of their short journey without disgracing herself. Never before had she actively had to resist an orgasm. Kevin had two fingers inside her, and his thumb squarely on her clitoris when they drew up outside her building, but when the cabby turned their way, to collect the fare, he calmly withdrew them. And using the same, sex-scented hand he proffered the payment.
Flinging open the cab door, Joanna shot from the interior of the vehicle, then ran inelegantly inside, clutching her crotch, but no longer caring if anybody saw her. Panic flared when she reached her door and realised she had left her coat – and, more importantly, her bag, containing her keys – in the taxi. She had to dance from one foot to the other while she waited on the landing. After what seemed like a millennium, Kevin came trudging slowly up the stairs.
‘My keys,’ she groaned, as he reached her. She was cupping herself with both hands now, convinced that she was already trickling, but hoping that the moisture she felt was merely coming from her sex.
Smiling broadly, Kevin rummaged through her bag and, when he pulled out her keys, she snatched them from him, unlocked the door, fumbling in her haste, then almost flew through her flat towards the bathroom.
‘Oh God. Oh, please, no!’ she whimpered when, finally sitting on the loo, she found she was too tense and too aroused to relax and urinate. Tears sprang into her eyes, and she rocked to and fro, but nothing happened.
‘There, there,’ said a soft, soothing voice, and suddenly Kevin was crouched beside her, his arm around her shoulders.
Beyond shame, Joanna slumped against him, resting her hot face against his soft, silky hair. There was one simple way now to start her flow and, without hesitating, she reached for it. Taking Kevin’s hand, she drew it determinedly towards her vulva.
Dropping his arm around her waist again, he began, with the utmost gentleness, to stroke her. His fingertips moved in small, careful circles, caressing both her clitoris and the entrance to her urethra. With nothing to fear now, Joanna gave in and accepted the pleasure.
Pleasure indeed. Her orgasm, so long denied, crested through her like a huge, descending wave and, as her loins relaxed, her pent-up water was finally released. She laughed with relief, and with pure joie de vivre, as it splattered and tinkled around the pan. Kevin’s hand was deluged, but he continued to rub her until the flow was all but gone.
‘Good God,’ she said eventually, when a stunned kind of silence fell around them. ‘That was – God, I don’t know what to say.’ Now that the actual pleasuring was over, the lewdness of her situation reasserted itself, and her embarrassment became a flaming red miasma. Making a sound of disgust, she looked downwards at her body.
Her spread thighs accused her, as did the nectar-soaked knickers around her ankles, but most damning of all was Kevin’s hand, still curved around her crotch. His tapered fingers were as soaked with fluid as her sex was. Unable to look him in the eye, she watched as he reached, unconcernedly, for a sheaf of toilet tissue, then blotted the evidence both from his hand and from her pubis.
‘Hup!’ he said next, slinging his arm round her waist again, then helping to her feet. After a second or two, he calmly pulled the flush. ‘There. All done. Nothing to worry about.’ When she finally caught his eye, he appeared serene, but still excited.
‘What do you mean, “nothing to worry about”? That was . . . that was grotesque!’ Shaking free of him, Joanna struggled to pull up her panties and straighten her skirt. ‘I haven’t urinated in front of anyone since I was a tiny child. That was the most mortifying thing that’s ever happened to me!’
Kevin’s lips twisted in amusement. ‘Maybe so,’ he said, after a moment, ‘but you enjoyed it. You can’t deny that.’ He took a step forward to close the distance she had put between them. ‘Don’t try and kid me that was a faked orgasm.’
Joanna had no answer. Her own feelings confused her. She turned towards the washbasin and ran some water, then took the soap and worked up a thick lather between her hands, rubbing them compulsively, massaging the foam carefully between her fingers and beneath her nails.
‘Hey! You’re not upset with me, are you?’ asked Kevin, coming up behind her, slipping his arms around her, then prising the soap from her grasp. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you with all that.’ His breath was warm against the nape of her neck, ruffling the soft fronds of her hair in a way that soothed her. ‘I thought you seemed to want it. I’m sorry if it wasn’t really good for you.’
Joanna remained silent, but for a different reason now. Kevin might have certain sexual foibles, but she sensed a genuine kindness in him, too. She pressed back against him, and observed – from within the circle of his arms – as he followed her example and rubbed soapsuds over his hands.
She began to relax even more as the lather was rinsed away, and as Kevin took a towel from the rail and dried them both. He moved the soft terrycloth very gently but thoroughly over her fingers, in a way that was sensual yet understated and, as she leant against him, Joanna’s desire awoke anew. She could feel his erection nestling snugly between her buttocks, its vigour undiminished by the layers of cloth between them.
‘I don’t really want to move,’ he said, almost apologetically from behind her, as he replaced the towel on the rail. ‘This feels too nice.’ Shifting his hips, he rocked his hardness in her furrow, delicately caressing her anus with the knot of his desire. Joanna reciprocated, swirling her bottom against his groin.
‘How do you feel about finishing what we’ve started?’ he suggested, letting his hand fall on to her belly, then remain there. As if awaiting her permission to venture lower. ‘I mean, if you don’t feel like it, just say so, and I’ll go.’
‘No! Don’t do that!’
The idea of his leaving her was unexpectedly harrowing. She could feel her sex beginning to engorge again, to flow. She imagined his penis forging into her, pacifying both the furore between her legs, and its own aching need. Her entrance fluttered as if he were already demanding admittance.
‘Can I have you, then?’ questioned Kevin, pushing more determinedly.
Something in Joanna’s psyche protested faintly at his choice of terminology, but was instantly shouted down by the voice of lust. This was not a moment for feminist semantics.
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she answered. ‘Shall we go to bed?’
‘No time for that,’ he gasped, already rucking up her skirt, ‘I’m too far gone . . . Let’s do it here.’
Joanna felt an immediate and violent increase in her excitement. She remembered Kevin’s stunning performance in the sitting room, the sensation of his lips and tongue working on her clitoris. She knew that wasn’t what he wanted to do right at this moment, but the frisson, the delicious thrill, was just the same.
‘Oh yes,’ she whispered, almost choking on her own desire as he hauled up her tight skirt again. He touched her briefly through her panties, and she couldn’t help but cry out, astounded at the speed of her own rousing. Just the lightest brush against her sex and she had almost come.
As Kevin moved a little way away from her, to unzip himself, Joanna peeled her knickers down her thighs as far as her knees. She was just about to slide them the rest of the way off, and step out of them, when Kevin suddenly gripped her arm and stopped her.
‘No!’ he gasped, ‘I like them there. You’ll be tighter when I push into you. Just leave them. Please!’
Confused, and hampered by the bridge of cloth around her knees, Joanna let Kevin take control and arrange her to his liking.
Moving her by the hips, he placed her parallel with the side of the bath, then encouraged her to lean forward and take her weight on her hands, her body forming a right angle. Closing her eyes, she could imagine what he would be seeing – her bare buttocks framed by the arch of her ivory suspender belt; the soft, coral slash of her pouting vulva at the heart of things. She moaned as she felt him delicately prising open the ruffled folds of her labia with his fingers, then grunted a welcome when he pressed his smooth, hot glans inside her. The fact that he had to use his hands to guide his stiffness into her made the sensation of being entered feel twice as titillating. She cooed with instant pleasure as his firm length breached her.