Page 81 of The Price of Love
‘Well, I hope you washed it, is all. I’d better go, just in case. See you later.’
‘Yes,’ I whispered as he closed the door. Strangely, the fact that I knew Cal was here made me relax and I lay down on the bed, adjusting my underwear so that I could lie comfortably.
Bleeurgh. I woke up, blearily aware that one leg had gone dead because my suspenders were pressing against a nerve, and checked my watch. It was ten to two! I leaped up, rearrangingmyself, tweaking stockings straight and repinning bits of hair, fighting my cleavage back into the containment vessel of the basque. I felt smeared, distant, as though I hadn’t properly woken up yet. My reflection reassured me that I didn’t look quite as dislocated as I felt, although my make-up had fallen into my skin and my lipstick was non-existent. I was reapplying the lipstick when the door to the suite opened, framing Luke.
‘Hello,’ he said, his voice dropping down the register as he noted my appearance. ‘You look absolutely bloodyamazing, Willow.’
‘Thank you.’ I sparkled at him, smoothing my skirt over my thighs so the bulges of the suspender belt stood out and the low neck of the dress pulled even lower over my chest. ‘There’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Would you like to open it?’
‘Not as much as I’d like to open you.’
Nadine, think of Nadine. ‘Plenty of time for that in a minute. Let’s have a drink first.’
Luke’s eyes were almost red-hot with friction, running up and down over my body, taking in my wasp waist and the way the high heels made my legs look forever and slender, veering back towards my breasts every time they got bored. ‘Yeah. Good idea.’
Carefully I poured the champagne, watching in the mirror as Luke took in my back view and then glanced around the room. There was a noticeable flicker as he saw my bag with the cheque book right on top. ‘I thought’ — I turned around slowly to give him plenty of time to change his field of vision — ‘that we might test out the bed before we do anything else.’ Now he looked at the bed and his eyes flickered again, seeing the props I’d laid out. It wasn’t like me to instigate sex quite so blatantly. Had I panicked him? ‘Of course, if you don’t want to . . .’
‘Oh, it’s not that, I’m just a bit . . . You always seem soproperabout sex. I didn’t think you were really into all the tying up andthat, and now, here you are.’ He waved a hand at the blindfold I’d left on the bedside table.
‘I thought you’d like it.’ Demurely I turned away, letting one shoulder drop so that my dress fell away to reveal the tight-fitting black underwear, making my skin look extra pale where my breasts spilled out over the top. ‘If it’s too much, that’s fine.’
‘Shit, Willow, I didn’t mean that.’ Luke drained his glass and stood up. ‘It’s a real turn-on knowing that you got off on it all the time. All that time you laid there, you were really getting kicks from it.’
‘Oh, yes.’ I backed towards the bed. ‘Absolutely.’ Another shrug and my dress fell clear of my body, leaving me standing in black lace underwear and high heels, fingering the silk cords which tied the velvet blindfold. Honest to God, Oscar Wildewould have got a hard-on. ‘Now, come here.’
Now, for reasons of good taste, decency and suchlike, I’m not going into what happened in the next half-hour. But for those of you shuddering and thinking of Cal,sex never took place, all right?
However. Time passed, and now Luke was beginning to fret for some sort of conclusion. He lay, naked and coated in aromatic oil, spreadeagled across the huge bed with his arms handcuffed to the bedhead and legs loosely tied to the foot, a purple blindfold across his eyes and a most impressive erection on his lower quarters. As I continued to massage the oil into his torso, he bucked and thrust beneath my hands trying to bring his groin into contact, moaning slightly and biting his lower lip. ‘Aw, Will, if you don’t sit on me soon, I swear I’m going to coat the ceiling.’
I smiled, although he couldn’t see it. ‘Don’t worry, the longer you have to wait, the more spectacular it’ll be. I’m going to go and take this basque off in the bathroom, and then I’ll come and attend to you properly.’
‘Christ.’ He shuddered and for a second I wondered if I’d misjudged. But he lay back and a lazy look came over his face. ‘Okay, but don’t be too long.’
‘I’ll just be a moment.’ I went into the bathroom and hastily climbed back into my dress, tweaking it down so that the tarty nature of my underthings was more or less concealed. Then I tiptoed out. Crept across the thick, plush carpet with half an eye on Luke in case he’d managed to escape his bonds, and turned the door handle to release the lock. ‘Hey Luke, I’m on my way,’ I murmured in my most seductive tones to cover the sound of the door inching open. I don’t really think I needed to bother. He was so far gone in his own exotic fantasy that I could have driven a herd of wildebeest through and he wouldn’t have noticed, straining his weight against the ties that bound him, jabbing his hardness ineffectually into the air.
‘Come . . .on. . . bitch . . .’
‘Would you like me to show you something, Luke?’ I asked teasingly. ‘Something that’ll really,reallyshock you?’ Just another few seconds.
‘Oh, God . . . yeah . . .’
The door closed again and my mouth went dry. Shit, come on, Willow.
‘Okay.’ I climbed onto the bed and pulled the blindfold free. For a second Luke blinked, seeing me fully dressed again, then his eyes focussed and he glanced over my shoulder.
‘Shit! You fucking,fuckingbitch!’
Behind me, the room was nearly full. More people stood in the doorway, and a line snaked out and down the corridor outside. All women. All stone-faced, some with tears in their eyes. To my left stood a young woman with an acne-scarred face and a blank expression, beside her a middle-aged lady in an unfetching pleated skirt and seventies perm. On the other side of the bed a girl who didn’t look much out of her teens hoisted achild higher on her hip, two more women flanked her, both with equally pinched faces.
‘Hello, Luke,’ said the girl with the child. ‘Say hello, Hugo.’ The child obediently removed the thumb from its mouth and burbled something. It had Luke’s violet eyes and blond nearly-curls. ‘Looks just like you, doesn’t he?’
I was impressed by her cool. And also, grudgingly impressed that Luke hadn’t instantly lost his erection, although flaccidity was beginning to arrive, his willy drooping like a sulking Dalek.
‘Smile.’
Neil leaped forward from the throng and pushed between the women, clicking his camera over Luke’s body.
‘Youfucker.’
