After Hours: Black Lace Classics (7 page)

He smiled. He had the most wonderful smile. Irritated by the observation, Venny looked back at Caspar, who seemed to be reviving slightly now that
he had a luscious dark-haired
houri
leaning over him so solicitously.

‘Only yours,’ said the guy in white. ‘My name’s Micky Quinn, do you remember? And you’re Venetia Halliday.’

Venny winced. ‘Venny,’ she corrected, her eyes avoiding his as she secured a glass of bubbly. ‘So Caspar …’ she pondered.

‘He’s my brother. Caspar Quinn. Younger than me by two years.’ He nodded to the redhead, who was circulating among the sudden throng of guests with an almost manic gaiety. ‘That’s my sister-in-law, Flora.’

‘They don’t look very happy,’ observed Venny. She turned and looked at Micky, and although he was drinking champagne he was
still
looking at her breasts. She turned away again, feeling hot colour engulf her cheeks. Damn Dani and her wild ideas. She should at least have worn a shrug or slung her cosy old pashmina around her shoulders. She felt so exposed.

‘They lived together for four years in perfect happiness,’ said Micky with more than a trace of irony. ‘Then one mad New Year’s they decided to get spliced, and they’ve been miserable ever since. And incidentally, that bloke in the pale grey suit and the dark wig is looking very hacked off at your friend.’

‘Oh, that’s Dani,’ supplied Venny, draining her glass and anxiously reaching for another before draining that too. ‘And the man in grey’s Jamie, who has it rather fixed in his narrow Glaswegian brain that Dani’s his own personal property.’

‘She’s obviously not,’ said Micky.

‘Tell him that,’ suggested Venny truculently.

‘I saw you come out of the bank yesterday,’ said Micky. ‘Hope you’re not having problems.’

Venny turned on him with a look that could have shattered stone. ‘I certainly am not,’ she lied.

‘Good,’ he said, and watched her reach for another drink and swill it back. ‘You really ought to eat something with that,’ he said. ‘Or you’re going to be totally pissed in an hour’s time, I promise you.’

Giving him a withering glance, Venny snatched up another glass and drained the contents. ‘And what the hell have you come as?’ she demanded. ‘I think I ought to point out that Dracula never wore white in any of the movies.’

Micky shook his head and stretched out an arm to the buffet table. ‘I haven’t come as a vampire. I’m a virgin.’

Venny almost swallowed her tongue in shock as she stared at the roguish blue eyes twinkling away at her frontage. ‘I hate to break it to you, but you’re not convincing anybody.’

‘Well, it’s just a costume,’ said Micky, her sarcasm zinging off his hide like grapeshot off a rhino. ‘I thought it was a neat twist.’

It was, but Venny was not about to say so.

‘And you’re supposed to be what?’ he prompted curiously, eyeing her up and down.

‘A
houri
,’ said Venny frostily, not feeling very
houri-
like right at that moment. In fact she felt most unusually
temperamental, for her. Spitting mad, in fact. It seemed to be the effect he had on her.

Micky managed to grab a paper plate and get several bite-sized morsels onto it. He eyed them dubiously. ‘A what? Did you say a whore?’ he asked absently, prodding at the food.

‘I said a
houri
,’ spat Venny. ‘Dracula’s slaves, you know. Who kept his victims drained just to the point where they couldn’t escape.’

‘Drained?’ Micky’s attention was suddenly fully on her. ‘In what way drained, exactly?’

‘Of blood,’ said Venny.

‘Ah. Shame.’ And the laughing challenge in his eyes as they sparred with hers was blatantly obvious. He bit into one of the mini pizzas, chewed and said: ‘Holy shit, they’re trying to poison the lot of us.’

Venny smirked as she watched him swallow the offending article with a grimace.

‘Something of a foodie, are we?’ she goaded. ‘Bit of a gob snob?’

Micky put the plate down hurriedly. ‘I do know a bit about food,’ he shrugged.

‘Like what?’

Micky told her.

Several minutes later Venny said: ‘OK, stop.’

‘Sorry.’ Micky smiled. ‘I’m a chef.’

‘Oh. Right.’ Venny’s green eyes narrowed. Hadn’t she interviewed someone who looked rather like this for the job at the restaurant? The name was certainly familiar, and the looks too. In fact she had fantasised
about those looks more than once over the past few weeks.

‘Excuse me,’ she said finally. ‘Didn’t I interview you for a job?’

‘You remembered!’ Micky gave a delighted smile. ‘At last,’ he added, snidely. ‘And you gave it to someone else.’

Yeah, she thought. Bloody Bill Thompson. But while Bill had been a pain, she looked at this laughing-eyed hunk in front of her and acknowledged that life with this man working for her would make the time spent with Bill seem like a family outing. She had correctly identified him as trouble at the interview, and so far she had seen nothing to make her change her mind. No, she wanted a quiet life.

But she needed a chef.

‘I’m still available, you know,’ Micky said, watching her face instead of her chest, for a change.

She looked at him, half-opened her mouth to say something irreversibly stupid, recovered herself and managed to say instead: ‘Well, I hope you find something soon. Hey, it’s been nice, but I’d better mingle.’

And she dashed off into the crowd.

She managed to avoid him after that, busied herself eating and drinking and dancing. She had to admit she felt slightly slewed, but that was good. It gave her the nerve to carry on with this outrageous costume without resorting to borrowing a bra off Flora – which wouldn’t fit her anyway, she had to admit. During that sexy old
Dean Martin marimba track she got locked in a clinch with Jamie but, despite her rivetingly bouncing tits, she felt that his attention was elsewhere – even though his erection was pressing against her belly. Later, she met up with Dani, even managing to prise her away from Caspar for a bit of a chat.

‘What do you make of them, our host and hostess?’ Venny asked as Dani sipped seawater-blue absinthe and continued to sway to the hard Latin beat. Her pert little cherry-nippled breasts swayed too, and Venny found her eyes tracking them back and forth. It was like watching Wimbledon, only more fun.

‘What do you make of them?’ countered Dani.

Venny told Dani what Micky had told her. That they were miserable together because they’d got married rather than continue living in flexible sin.

‘That’s precisely the impression I got,’ said Dani, jiggling away now that the tempo had quickened. Their hostess passed by, smiling briefly. The grey eyes dipped reflectively to Dani’s front, and then up to Dani’s face. Dani smiled back at Flora. ‘Her tits are enormous,’ Dani hissed to Venny. ‘Every man in the room’s wishing she had them out on display like ours. What was I saying? Yes, her and Caspar. Well, that’s marriage for you. You know how you can tell if a marriage is heading for the rocks?’

‘Nope,’ said Venny, seeing Micky pass by arm-in-arm with a dinky little blonde vampette. They were dancing so close together that you’d need a machete to get them apart. She watched Micky’s hips rubbing against
the blonde, and noted the rapt, dazzled expression on the blonde’s face. God, she was almost at the point of orgasm, thought Venny, turning away.

‘They move, they build an extension, or they have a baby. They’ve moved, right? You just watch. Next comes the extension, then the baby. Then it’s off to the divorce courts and change partners.’

‘You’re such a cynic,’ said Venny.

‘I’m never wrong.’

‘And you’d be waiting to comfort Caspar, I suppose?’

‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ Dani crowed with delight. ‘He looks so wrung out, poor sweetheart. Do you think they still fuck? Do you think she climbs on board him every night, slips his cock up her and puts those stupendous great tits of hers to his mouth so he can suck her nipples? I bet she does. No wonder he looks shattered. She must take a lot of keeping up with.’

‘His brother’s here, too,’ said Venny, pondering interestedly over the vision of Flora and Caspar in a fucking frenzy.

‘Caspar told me he was. The tall gorgeous bloke with the spiky hairdo. Nice eyes, too. Micky.’

‘He’s a chef,’ said Venny.

‘Is he?’ Dani’s eyes widened. ‘Well, that’s just great. You’re looking for a chef.’

‘Yes, but not him,’ said Venny.

‘Why not him?’

‘Because he’s trouble.’

Dani tutted and leaned confidingly towards Venny. One of her nipples brushed tinglingly against one of
Venny’s, and Venny experienced an almost unbearable flash of heat. God, I’m drunk, she thought. Being drunk always got her incredibly randy.

‘Honey,’ said Dani with a smile, ‘you need that sort of trouble. Desperately. Take it from me, you do.’

‘What I need is to lie down,’ Venny informed her stiffly. She had to speak stiffly, because she was afraid that if she didn’t keep rigid control over her speech, she would start slurring her words. ‘Next door. Right now.’

‘What, already?’ Dani looked around at the heaving merry-making crowds. ‘The evening’s young, babe.’

‘I am going next door,’ said Venny carefully. ‘To bed.’

‘Well … OK,’ said Dani with a regretful shrug.

Venny started to weave her way – stepping carefully, because she was drunk, and when she was drunk her knees seemed to go in the most alarming fashion – across the room to the door. She cordially and carefully thanked Flora and Caspar, and nodded and smiled her way towards the exit. Basking in a rare sense of achievement, she opened the door. She’d made it, drunk though she was, without falling over or embarrassing herself in any other way. And then she realised that someone had followed her out into the cool, airy corridor. It was Micky Quinn.

‘Glad I caught you,’ said Micky, closing the door on the party noise. Still the Latin beat thrummed through the walls. Suddenly the corridor outside the flat seemed cold and empty to Venny. ‘Look, my cheque book’s in the car. Walk me down and we’ll settle up now, OK? Save me posting the cheque on to you.’

‘No, I—’ started Venny, but he had taken hold of her elbow and was guiding her towards the ratchety old steel-cage lift. Micky stepped inside, taking Venny with him. She propped herself against the wall of the lift and watched as he closed them into the steel cage and pressed the button for the ground floor. The lift lurched after a stuttering moment or two and started edging its way downwards. This was not high technology or high speed, this lift. In fact, all the residents had complained to the builders who had refurbished the warehouse block about the lift being so slow; but the builders had insisted that the character of the building called for such a lift. And maybe they were right, thought Venny foggily. It was charming. You could see the corridor and the stairwell through the meshed steel bars as the lift ponderously descended. It was a nice lift.

‘Don’t nod off on me,’ said Micky.

Venny opened her eyes with a jolt. She had been going to sleep, right here against the cold lift wall. She shook her head a little to clear it. Micky was standing very close to her.

‘So
houris
drain their victims, do they?’ he asked, his eyes twinkling blue as neon.

‘They do,’ said Venny positively. Ten out of ten, full marks. She wasn’t slurring her words at all.

‘So.’ He leaned both hands on the wall, one on either side of her head. Venny glanced at the hands. Long and thin, dextrous. She liked his hands. She looked up into the laughing blue eyes. ‘Drain me, Venny. Drain me
to the dregs,’ he said, and his head came down and his mouth covered hers in a hot, enveloping kiss.

Wow, she thought. Oh, holy wow.

Either this man was a great kisser or she was even drunker than she’d thought. She swayed into the kiss, into his arms. She felt how hard his body was, how stiff his cock against her belly. The suit he wore was soft, summer-weight, silky. Such thin material. And with her belly naked as it was, with only the tiny thong and the purple chiffon covering her crotch and her legs, she could feel the whole length of his cock. As his tongue entered her mouth and teased her own, her hands dropped irresistibly between their bodies to feel him.

She outlined the big rearing organ with her hands, smoothing the fabric that covered it, marvelling at its concealed strength. Her touch had the desired effect. Micky’s mouth left hers suddenly and his head went down with a moan of pleasure. He stretched out a hand and the lift juddered to a halt beside the stairs. Anyone using those stairs could see them in here, Venny thought. And she found that she didn’t care. As Micky’s mouth sucked on one rock-hard nipple, she clutched his head with her hands and sighed with complete delight, throwing her head back in abandon.

‘I haven’t been able to take my eyes off these all night,’ muttered Micky, changing over to the other breast in case it should feel it was being neglected. Then his mouth was too busy for speech.

Venny leaned back and let him take her tits into his mouth with long, greedy sucks and kisses. Her cunt felt
like liquid fire, wide open and flowing like honey. Her clitoris twitched and rose so that she pressed her hips against his, seeking release from this crazily mounting inner pressure.

Micky’s mouth left her nipples and trailed downwards. His hands clutched at the narrower indentation of her waist and his lips anointed the skin of her belly until the skin fluttered and she moaned louder. Then his hands slipped down, and were suddenly under the sides of the thong and beneath the flimsy chiffon of her harem pants, and he pushed both down around her ankles so that she was totally naked for him now – or at least only wearing the crossed gold belts at her breast, and her jewellery.

With a long gasp of pleasure Micky ran a hand down over her neat little toffee-coloured bush and, with one deft movement, his outspread fingers pushed her legs apart so that he could see how wet and ready for him she was. Venny was panting helplessly now, almost lying against the lift wall for support. Micky went down onto his knees and stuck his tongue out to tickle her clitoris. Then he moved in closer to suck at the tender little nub while his hand moved back and found her opening. His thumb slid easily into her. Venny cried out and ground her hips mindlessly against his probing mouth, begging him for more.