Gemini Heat (15 page)

On this upper floor, the works of art were blatantly sexual. She remembered Deana's description of the exhibition and wondered now if the best and most pornographic pieces were here. Elf didn't chivvie or hurry her, so there was plenty of time to study the pictures and photographs as they passed. Plenty of time for her eyes to widen, her mouth to drop open, and her sex to grow hot again, and moist.

The most explicit pieces were representations of Jake himself. Photographs and drawings of him as naked as she was and involved in various esoteric sex acts. There were scenes of him alone, with a woman, and with several women. There were even some pictures of him with men.

Delia wondered what her sister would think of these most private of private exhibits. With her pure, vibrant talent, and her openly sex-loving nature, Deana could probably have created work of at least the same quality or even better. With either paintbrush or pencil or camera. Or maybe even her own living body?

They were standing before a door now: a plane of smoothly painted panels, quite neutrally featureless and menacing. As Delia hesitated, Elf said, 'Don't be frightened,' and reached forward to twist the handle.

Delia's heart started pounding and leaping as the door swung open in front of her . . .

Chapter Seven
The Throne Room

T
he room Delia entered made her think of Jake's office at the de Guile tower. He seemed to have a penchant for these long spacious areas, and what stretched out before her was more like an eastern potentate's throne room than a bedroom in a London town house.

The decor was unconventional too. Each wall was hung with a translucent Japanese-style screen or
shoji,
although instead of being the traditional pale fawn shade, the hangings here were fiery and vivid. Shades of orange, sand red, cerise and ochre. They were painted too, the designs like swirling nebulae, lit from behind by cleverly recessed lamps.

It was an odd place, womb-like and moody for all its spacious dimensions. The atmosphere was sultry and mysterious, the ruddy light menstrual with its reds and rich venous pinks. It felt like being inside a woman -which was probably what Jake had intended.

Scattered around on the deep piled, almost purple carpet were a series of low backless couches and huge squashy bean-bag style cusions. There were other items of furniture around the periphery, but with the light so diffuse and angled they were difficult to properly identify. The only true, visible focus of the room was the largest couch, which was set on a kind of platform, one step up.

This couch was strewn with soft, fat cushions and was the only one possessing a back - a high, almost kitschy shell-shape of buttoned scarlet velvet. Lounging against it was Jake himself, a cool blue poem on a hot red page; his lean brown body enswathed in a thin azure silk robe. The pose was so cliched and improbable that he looked like the hero of some cheap, erotic novelette. If Delia hadn't wanted him so much she might have laughed.

Yet even in repose, he had power. He looked more like her Prince than ever, but as she moved closer, she felt a sudden, intense, and annoyingly sexual irritation . . .

The swine was asleep in his splendour!

Creeping silently forward, Delia could hardly believe what she was doing. According to Elf, Jake was supposed to be 'busy'. What she ought to do was storm straight up to him and raise hell. Deana would've done . . . but she was Delia, the diplomat, and not as feisty as her freewheeling sister.

And anyway, he looked too beautiful.

Delia found it hard to believe that this was only the second time
she'd
met this man. Standing just inches away, it felt as if she'd been obsessed with him forever. Her dreams and fantasies, and Deana's fulsome descriptions, made her feel as if she knew him completely. Mind, body and soul.

It was probably all false, she realised, but one thing was obvious and true. Sex was the key to him, the secret. He was the most erotic being she'd ever met; and right now, in his utter, cat-like relaxation, he was a far more stirring and sensuous sight than anything in his outrageous art collection.

He was stretched out full-length on his soft red throne, his bare feet peeping from beneath the embroidered hem of his robe. She could see now that it was cut as a real Japanese kimono, with the distinctive square-cut sleeves, but she doubted if any samurai warlord had ever worn anything so flimsy. The silk itself was indecently thin and left nothing to the imagination. She could see not only the firm clean lines of his limbs and torso through it, but also the shape of his penis, his testicles and the mat of his black pubic hair.

Poseur! she thought, angry but already falling deep into lust. Wearing blue in a red room was pure drama, and could only be pre-meditated. That the damned thing was also virtually transparent was skirting dangerously close to being camp - but she didn't think that would bother Jake at all . . .

He stirred then, and Delia gasped when she noticed his hair. It was unbound tonight and looked longer than ever as his slight, uneasy movement made it ripple like a wave across the cushions. Some strands were clinging to his face and throat and shoulders, sliding across his skin as he turned unconsciously in sleep. The effect was pure seduction and Delia felt weak as she stared at him. She sensed Elf standing close by her side.

'Glorious, isn't he?' the Japanese girl whispered, and in spite of her sexual confusion, Delia was forced to agree.

'Yes, he is,' she answered, half under her breath.

A tenth of a second later, it dawned on her that Jake was faking. He was a consummate manipulator. How could he
not
be awake,
not
be listening, and
not
be playing his games with her?

'Why thank you, Mizz Ferraro,' purred a familiar whipped-chocolate voice, and stretching languorously, Jake sat up. As he did so, his robe gaped open and his eyes - which she realised were the same shade of blue - flared hot and bright with mischief.

'You look rather glorious yourself, might I add/he continued, rubbing his hand idly across his body, then reaching out to touch her before she could protest, respond or even blush. His fingertips brushed her jaw, her pearl-encircled throat, then slid on and down to cup her left breast. He flicked the erected nipple with his thumbnail, then leant across to kiss her on it. By the time he'd licked, then sucked, then bit her slightly -and straightened up again - her skin was pink all over and her sex was swollen and dripping.

As he settled back, the filmy floating robe billowed open to his groin and Delia saw wisps of dark hair. His penis was still shaded by several layers of overfolded silk, but the sight of its furry black accompaniment made her quiver. It looked flossy and vital, and quite at odds with his sleek chest and limbs. She remembered Elf's mention of shaving him . . . and she imagined a glittering cut throat razor being drawn across his face. Then across his legs, his arms and his pectorals too.

With her head full of bizarre thoughts and visions, Delia couldn't shape conversation. She was stark naked, shaking with desire. Her verbal powers were gone. 'Good evening, Jake,' she said at last. 'Elf said you were busy.'

'Well, I have been, in a way,' he replied, reaching up to sweep a thick black tress of hair from where it had fallen across the side of his face. There was an impish quirk to his lips and something in the sly, sideways flick of his slanted eyes made Delia catch his look and follow it.

On a low hardwood table with legs carved in the shape of dragons, stood a small, flat-screen TV set. The image it showed was static and empty. And familiar. It was the luxurious but now abandoned bathing room, and the white leather massage couch was standing at exact centre stage.

'You shit! You pervert!' she shrieked, aware with a peculiar detachment that she sounded more like Deana than she'd ever done. 'You've been watching us, you creep!'

'Yes, of course I have,' he said, swivelling on the couch to sit cross-legged and flashing them not only a grin, but also another glimpse of his sooty-black pubis. 'Women are always more natural when they believe they're unobserved.'

She could've exploded with fury. He was such a chauvinist, such a pig! She wanted to either punch him right in his truly gorgeous face ... or have him take her and ravish her immediately. The urges were exactly equal, and her anger and indignation were exceeded only by her boiling embarrassment. She'd responded like a maenad to Elf, hadn't she? She'd shouted. She'd climaxed. She'd cried.

'What's the matter, Dee?' he asked gently, taking hold of her and pulling her down onto the cushions beside him. 'It was nice with Elf, wasn't it? You can't say you didn't enjoy it.' He was snuggling her against him now, as if she were a recalcitrant child. Cradling her to his body, he touched her breasts exquisitely, then slid his fingertips down across her belly.

'Now come on, sweet Dee,' he cajoled, tilting her face towards him. One hand held the back of her neck, while the other was already at her furrow. 'You don't want Elf to be upset, do you?' His finger danced insultingly on her clitoris. 'If you carry on complaining, she'll think that you don't like her.' His wide blue eyes were absolutely steady and absolutely serious. It seemed impossible that below he was caressing her. Slowly. Remorselessly. Irresistibly.

Delia's hips began to move. She hated herself for it, but she couldn't stop herself. He was treating her like a toy; a rub-me-and-I-wriggle doll. But it was the very demeaningness, and his quiet little pep-talk, that made her body burn and ache beneath his fingers.

As her bare bottom squirmed on the cushion beneath her, she was humiliatingly conscious of her juices. Slippery wetness was flowing out of her, over Jake's fingertips, and soiling the luxurious fabric. She could feel her pleasure building quickly and solidly, sensations zinging wildly through her body. It stormed through her nerves, limbs and glands, then returned redoubled to her vulva - and the slim brown hand that possessed her.

'Dee, oh Dee,' he murmured. 'D for "delight". I don't think I've ever had a woman so responsive.'

'But you aren't having me!' she gasped, her hips bucking upwards as he taunted her by withdrawing for a second.

'Ah, but I shall,' he whispered, his mouth against her ear as his finger resumed its torment. Pressuring her so delicately that her thighs opened wide to encourage him. 'When Elf's had you, my darling, and you've had her.'

'I don't understand! I ... Oh God! No! Ungh! Ungh! Ungh!'

It was happening again. The heavy pulsations. The wrenching pulls at her womb. The pleasure so great it seemed painful. The impossible abandonment of dignity . . .

I'm not like this, she thought blearily. This isn't me! As the feelings faded and tempered, she lay back in Jake's arms, a floppy burnt out husk.

I'm not an orgasm machine. It's hard for me to come. How the hell can he do this to me? Can
they
do it, she thought confusedly, opening her heavy eyelids to look at Elf, who was kneeling on the carpet next to the couch and watching the proceedings intently.

And then she remembered Peter.

I came easily for him too, didn't I? No problems, no struggling and straining. I never even worried about it. What's happening to me? She looked up at Jake and wondered if he had infernal powers. Had he affected the weather? Done something to the ozone layer that meant the whole city was swathed in a seething erotic mist? Was he the Devil - who changed everyone he met into a sex-fiend?

It seemed so, because as Delia's body still twittered and jumped, Elf rose to her feet to undress. At Jake's slight nod, she reached around behind her back and unfastened her tiny pink bra. As the clip was freed, she caught the flimsy scrap in her fingers and held it against herself, the very picture of virgin modesty. The look she gave Jake was pure seduction, straight from the 'floating world' of the geisha trained to please, and its answer was a haughty flick of the fingers. Continue . . .

Obedient, yet strangely unbowed, Elf let the pink silk drop to the carpet. Her breasts were small but beautifully shaped, slightly pointed and with the darkest nipples Delia had ever seen. Broad, plump buds of deep marooney brown that looked lovely with her slightly olive skin. They were erect too, and Elf drew her fingertips across both of them, to emphasise their exotic perfection.

'And the rest, please, Elf,' said Jake huskily. He licked his lips, clearly affected, even though the woman was his constant companion and her body must surely be familiar.

'Of course,' Elf said softly, sliding her dainty hands to her waist and hooking down the elastic of her knickers. Slowly, teasingly, she slid them down and stepped free of them, this time showing no trace of shyness.

Delia envied her. Not only for her grace and composure, but also for her sweet, tight body. There was no flaw whatsoever in Elf's trim figure: her waist was narrow, her hips gently swelling, and her deep-naveiled belly was completely and uncompromisingly flat. Unconsciously, Delia adjusted the way she was lying, trying to hide her bigger curves. She wasn't fat, but she had a definite belly, where the other girl was virtually concave.

'Don't worry, pretty Dee/ Jake said quietly in her ear. His fingers slid up from her vulva and cupped the slight bulge of her belly, 'I rather like this.' He moved her flesh in a slow, subtle circling movement and Delia moaned. She could feel it pulling on her sex-lips, aggravating her still-tender clitoris. When his thumb slid into her navel, she pushed herself upwards to meet it.