Career Girls (21 page)

she?’

They stared at each other, constrained by the presence of the glittering crowd.

‘This is xny patch,’ hissed Topaz.

‘This was your patch,’ spat Rowena.

There was a moment’s hung silence. Then, slowly, both girls turned aside and returned to their seats.

Michael Krebs moved casually towards Rowena across the dance floor. He didn’t enjoy dancing, but he did enjoy watching his beautiful woman whirl gracefully from the arms of one mogul to the next. Her intelligence and her poise were captivating the whole of New York. All of these men thought she was the ice queen. He knew better.

‘Do you mind if I cut in?’ he said to the deeply famous movie director, who was pissed-off because he wanted to get Rowena to consult on his project for the life and times of Led Zeppelin.

Rowena, who’d been searching for him all night, tried to stop herself melting into his arms with relief. Michael hated emotion. He demanded complete detachment. Maybe it took his mind offthe wedding ring glinting on his left hand, she thought with renewed agony.

Krebs took her easily into the sedate rhythm of the waltz,

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one hand on the curve of her waist. He felt her body respond to his touch as if he’d given her an electric shock, and immediately his cock started to swell for her. The intensity of her lust was almost frightening. He knew he could get her wet just by looking into her eyes. It sent a flood of powerful joy through him, to do this to her. Her own sexuality had her in chains.

‘You look lovely,’ he told her quietly.

‘Thank you, Michael,’ said Rowena, determined to keep her cool. ‘It’s quite a party.’

‘Yeah,’ said Krebs, adding matter-of-factly, ‘you’ll meet me in the lobby downstairs in ten minutes. Don’t excuse yourself to Joshua, just come downstairs.’ Rowena felt the

familiar convulsions of longing.

‘I can’t,’ she murmured.

‘You can and you will,’ said Michael Krebs, and she looked at his determined brown eyes, and his wiry salt-and pepper hair, and his beautiful, callous face, and knew she would do whatever he wanted.

‘But the party - ‘ she protested weakly.

‘I know what happens now,’ said Michael in her ear, ‘so you won’t have to stay to see. For Act Three, everyone goes downstairs to the fourteenth floor, which they’ve turned into a giant ice rink. Then for Act Four, everyone goes’up to the roof garden and gets into a fleet of helicopters which ferry them to Alex Martin’s private airstrip, and then two Gulfstream 4 jets take everybody out and back for six hours’ dancing in the Florida Keys.’

‘You’re kidding,’ breathed Rowena.

Krebs made an impatient mo’#ement with his.hand. ‘No, I’m not kidding. But I want to fuck you, so you’re not going.’

He took another look at her in that cream-and-roses dress, the rubies sparkling round her long neck as she moved. She reverted to type, they all did, these aristocratic little rich girls playing around in business. She was a class piece, a European lady, the kind that he dreamt about in college but would have stammered in front of if he’d

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actually had to speak to her. Now he was everything she hoped to be; now, in this new universe where class counted for nothing, he was a lord and she was still a peasant.

Michael Krebs, twice Rowena Gordon’s age, her mentor in business, her tutor in sex.

He splayed his fingers over her ribcage, feeling her slight involuntary squirm. He would have her like this, exactly like this. He wouldn’t let her change a thing. He wanted to see this English lady in her fine clothes down on her knees with her mouth round his cock, with her warm soft lips and eager tongue working him so he could come in her mouth. That would be first. Then a little later, before he was even hard again, he’d make her take his limp prick in between her lips and hands and work him back up to erection, so he could put her on her hands and knees on a hotel bed, shove up that elegant chiffon and screw her from behind, just fuck all that British reserve right out of her. She’d have to please him like ttlat. She’d have to earn her sex.

Topaz fastened her seatbelt as the Gulfstream soared into the skies above New Jersey. She’d got a second burst of energy now, even without the aid of the poppers and speed pills which most of the guests were on. Stewardesses in the navy uniform of Martin Oil moved up and down the spacious aisles of the private jet, presenting passengers with orchids, cigars and miniatures of cognac.

Marissa, orgasmic at the confrontation she was announcing to the world, had ilready phoned in her copy to ‘Friday’s People’.

Topaz knew it and she welcome.d it. There would only be one winner in this war. New York was her turf, born and bred, and the stuck-up bitch would never survive. Everybody knew she hadn’t even lasted this party, whereas, she, Topaz, had tied up two joint ventures and optioned a bestseller.

She tapped Joe Goldstein on the shoulder. He was an arrogant, sexist bastard, but she had a use for him. ‘Yeah, Rossi,’ he said, engrossed in his Wall Street Journal:

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‘Joe,’ she asked, ‘what do you hear about a rock band called Atomic Mass?’

Rowena gripped on to the edge of the mixing desk with one hand, her feet splayed against a Marshall stack, her other hand in her mouth, muffling herself.

Michael stood in between her legs, rocking his cock into her with perfect control, in and out, making her look at it as he fucked her. He felt her pussy rippling round him, young and tight and hot with pleasure. She was trembling on the brink of orgasm, mutely imploring him to push her over it.

‘Absolutely,’ he said into the phone. ‘No, the second Atomic album, Josh, I’ll make the time.. Yeah, well, what can I tell you. Two per cent of nothing is nothing! Sure! You know I love doing business with you, Oberman, and with

‘

Rowena Gordon as well. She’s a very good friend of mine. Yes, very talented.’

He could feel the insistent clutching of her belly, unable to resist him much longer.

‘Well, I’ll catch you later,’ he said casually, and put the phone down. , He moved deeper into her. ‘You like that, don’t you?’ he asked her conversationally. ‘You like having me fuck you while I’m doing business.’

Rowena had her head back, and her eyes were wild. She couldn’t speak. She made little choking noises, which he loved, as she gasped in ecstasy.

‘God these rivers of passion,’ he said. ‘You’re a slave to it, aren’t you? Is this everything you dreamed it would be? Is it as good as you remember it?’

‘Michael! Michael!’ Rowena sobbed, abandoned utterly to pure desire. Krebs grinned to himself, as the pleasure in his own loins began to build. She was in New York for good. Now she belonged to him.

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Topaz stood in front of her new bedroom window, looking across the Village.

The blue expanse above the warm red brick of the elegant townhouses shimmered, holding out the promise of another scorching day. She stared at the view below her, drawing strength from it. After all, she was a New Yorker

now.

Like the city itself could help her stay on top of things. She turned away from the window and padded towards her dressing room, across the lush blue carpeting of the bedroom, noting with satisfaction the Art Deco table, the Lalique lamps, the huge Moston bed with its silk sheets still rumpled from the way Nathan and she had christened it last night.

Nathan Rosen. Her lover. Her partner.

He’d been superb last night, probing, stroking, kissing her everywhere. Almost as good as the first few weeks they’d been lovers. And she was glad of that. She couldn’t understand why Nathan wanted to take it slow. ‘Let’s pace ourselves.’ ‘Later.’ ‘Sweetheart, I’m beat right now.’ He’d been like that for weeks.

Not that they hadn’t made love. Sometimes:

Topaz adjusted the belt of her Yves St-Laurent silk gown, feeling it flow round her magnificent body like water. Her full breasts still thrust upwards despite their weight, tilting towards the sky with the confidence of youth.

She caught sight of her reflection in their full-length wall mirror, and pirouetted, pleased with that at least. No way. she needed an uplift, Topaz thought. Although the second

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she did she was gonna get one. Why should she have sagging breasts, when she had plenty of money to ensure otherwise? Of course, Rowena Gordon would probably think plastic surgery was low-rent. Well, she could go fuck herself. This was America. Where pasty complexions and sexual repressions weren’t something to be proud of.

Topaz shook her head, as if to dispel thoughts of Rowena. Time enough for that when she got into the office. Christ, she’d kept that anger bottled up for years. It could wait a few more hours.

Her Italian blood was raging for revenge. She still couldn’t believe Rowena Gordon had had the chutzpah to actually get up in the middle of dinner and confront her. Of course she’d known Rowena would be there Just like she knew she’d been posted to New York, and that her act Atomic Mass were being talked about all over knowing circles in the city.

British live sensation.

Michael Krebs producing. No fee. Just a piece of the action.

Five young boys with looks MTV would eat alive.

Debut single out this week.

If the rumours were true, Atomic Mass were about to burst on an unsuspecting world as the biggest new band since Nirvana.

Topaz made it her business to know these things. Somebody else might have sneered at the hype, dismissed it as gossip flavour-of-the-month stuff. But she remembered Rowena’s passion for music - yeah, she remembered everything about Rowena. In th6se days, in the cloisters of Oxford, it had been the one rebellious trait in her personality. She’d had the elegant clothes, the social grace, the e,cer-present volume of medieval poetry or some other scrupulously academic book tucked under her arm. Rowena Gordon wouldn’t have dreamt of relaxing with a Jackie Collins or a John Grisham. But her rock ‘n’ roll Rowena loved too much to hide, even for the sake of her precious image.

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And Topaz wasn’t about to underestimate her opponent. That was a mistake for amateurs. That was what Rowena Gordon did to Topaz Rossi, and was she ever going to pay for it.

I said I wasn’t going to think about her now! Topaz lectured herself, and strolled into the kitchen. Light was streaming in from the windows and skylights, flooding the polished wood floor, the expensive oak table and the European Aga cooker, which Topaz had insisted on. In fact she’d insisted on the whole thing. Moving in together. Nathan selling his co-op. Her selling her chic single-girl’s apartment. If they were going to be partners, she’d persuaded Nate, they ought to be partners. In love. Money. Everything.

And who could deny that it was a good move? she asked herself, setting up the coffee machine so Nate could get his fix when he came back from his early morning jog. Pooling their resources, they’d been able to buy a house, an actual house, in the middle of Manhattan! West Ioth Street, prime Village property and very suitable for a media couple. And their place even had a garden. OK, so it was a tiny scrap of a

garden, but in New York that was saying something. Specifically, that was saying, we are very rich.

So? Topaz thought. They were rich. Who could deny it? Nathan was a director for American Magazines, and she was editor of Girlfriend and about to become editor of Economic Monthly.

Whatever Joe Goldstein thought.

Joe thrust again, twisting his hips a little, pushing himself deep into the pulsing heart of her, “feeling for the hot, wet core that would send her crashing over the edge. The excitement in his cock seemed to feed through into his whole body, making his bloodstream sing as though it were liquid fire. He gently caressed her fine, pointed breasts, taking the swollen nipples into his mouth and circling each of them with his tongue, then sucking them, while she moaned and gasped with delight, making those small

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guttural sounds in the back of her throat that turned him on even more. They rolled over and she was on top, her dyed blonde hair tumbling round her face, eyes still closed in bliss. He hadn’t missed a beat.

Joe pushed up her breasts in his hands, more urgently now, feeling the first tremors of orgasm start to build. The ecstatic expression on Lisa’s face had triggered it; he took pleasure in the woman’s pleasure, always making sure they came several times, always leaving them hungry for more.

On automatic pilot he gathered himself for the final seconds and plunged deep, deep inside her, hitting the g spot, the little tender melting spot on the wall of the vagina, the place some sexologists and most women swore didn’t exist. But not the ones who’d slept with Joe Goldstein.

Well, it had taken men a while to discover the clitoris, Joe reckoned. They’d get round to the g-spot eventually.

Of course, it helped to be a connoisseur of women.

Of course, it helped to have a twelve-inch cock.

]0e!’ Lisa screamed, her entire, perfectly flat belly visibly rippling with the force of her convulsions. ‘Joe!Joe! Oh, my God!’ ‘ ‘Lisa,’ he breathed, feeling his orgasm tear through him

and explode inside her.

They were immobile for a few seconds, gasping for breath, recovering.

‘Jesus Christ, you are the best,’ she said, rolling off him and pushing the damp hair out of her eyes.

‘You’re something special yourself,’ replied Joe automatically. ‘You always were.’

She got up and sauntered towards the shower, displaying a firm, full body, with nice breasts and legs, maybe a little chunky around the hips, and sassy, uneven bl6nde hair with the roots showing. Joe and Lisa had screwed on and offfor years. She was married in name only to a Wall Street financier who could rarely get it up, and she was as careful in choosing her lovers as Joe was in choosing his: no involvement, no commitment, and plenty to offer in the sack. Lisa Foster was a sensualist, but she was also a mater.ialist. She