Guilty Pleasure (8 page)

‘Yes?’

You see, the really stupid thing is that I like Ethan. I like him a lot. Not just because he’s filthy, dirty fun, although he is that and more. But because underneath those black suits and that quiet, thoughtful exterior, there’s a wicked intelligence. This isn’t a man who ever rushes or makes rash decisions. Every move he makes is thought about beforehand. He is making his way through life on his own terms, and I like that.

I envy it.

I shake my head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. And he doesn’t push it, doesn’t try and question me further, he just lets it go, and I like that too.

‘You know,’ he says, as we meander slowly towards the underground station. ‘Cal is having a party at his place tonight, and he invited me. I think you might enjoy it.’

‘Me?’ I laugh. ‘Enjoy a party at Cal Bailey’s house?’

Ethan looks down at me, and the corner of his mouth curves up. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Most definitely.’

I stop, and Ethan stops too. I know him well enough by now to know that he would never suggest something without thinking it through first. If he thinks I would enjoy a party at Cal’s house, there’s a reason.

And I can’t wait to see what it is.

We make our way back to Ethan’s house, managing to limit ourselves to a little light petting on the tube. We stand indecently close, close enough to share air and a few more secrets, and before either of us realise it, we’ve missed our stop. We get off anyway and walk, and I discover that Ethan spent his teenage years at an all boys boarding school. He never intended to get divorced, but then he never intended to get married, and he certainly takes more responsibility for the former than the latter.

We seem so different, the posh boy and the working class girl, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that we are two sides of the same coin. That there is more to this than just two overworked colleagues letting off steam with some crazy sex.

We stop at a sushi place and he teaches me how to use chopsticks properly and I teach him the delights of sharing noodle soup. We slurp it up like a pair of giggling teenagers, mannerless and disgusting, and we laugh and touch and the rest of the world seems so irrelevant and far away. Slowly, carelessly, we walk back to his house and fuck up against the front door just for the hell of it. I want to ask him more about his wife, but I don’t. I want to ask him what happens next, but I don’t. Instead I stretch out on the sofa with my head in his lap and listen as he reads
Salem’s Lot
out loud. Something about his voice, about that cut-glass accent, just slices right through me, as if just being near him can make me better somehow.

And then we catch a train and make our way to Cal Bailey’s house, which is in Hitchin, a stone’s throw from work. I’ve never been there before, and it takes me by surprise. I expected a flat, something blokeish and predictable, but it’s a stylish Edwardian semi, huge and imposing, with stunning detailing and a beautiful garden.

Ethan takes my hand and leads me along the gravelled driveway towards the house, which is brightly lit, with the sound of music and tipsy voices already filtering out through the late evening air.

‘Why are we here?’ I ask him, suddenly anxious.

‘You’ll see,’ he says, squeezing my hand.

I stop. ‘If Cal sees us together, he’ll know,’ I say.

‘Do you have a problem with that?’

‘People think less of women who screw around at work,’ I say.

‘Do you really care that much about what people think?’

‘I…’ I know we’re all supposed to say no, I don’t give a damn, to hell with them all, but the thing is that I
do
care. ‘I worked hard to get where I am,’ I say. ‘My job means a lot to me.’

I stare at the house.

‘There’s more to life than your job,’ Ethan says.

‘I know that.’ Although recently, there hasn’t been. And now Cal Bailey is going to see us together, and he’s going to know. This isn’t about hiding, or pretending nothing is going on, or two overworked colleagues having crazy sex, not any more. It’s a conscious choice. I can either carry on as I have been, and having nothing in my life but work, or I can walk into that house with Ethan and accept that I need something more.

By the time I’ve got my breath back and calmed my pulse, we’re at the elegant front door and we’re walking inside. The entrance hall has a tiled floor and carved newel post, but before I can point them out to Ethan, he tugs me forward, deeper into the house. There’s no sign of Cal, but the house is busy, packed with bodies. Cal seems to know a hell of a lot of beautiful people. In fact, pretty much everyone here is young and gorgeous and stylish, and it strikes me how well Ethan fits in. Women slide up to him, kiss his cheek, and he greets all of them like they’re old friends.

I’m swamped with inadequacy until he locks an arm around my waist and takes great care to introduce me. ‘This is Tasha,’ he says.

‘Oh,’ says one of the women, twisting a strand of hair around a manicured finger. ‘Does that mean you’re not playing tonight, Ethan?’

‘Not tonight,’ he says, and she sighs and glides away.

‘What did she mean, not playing?’ I ask him, because I’m starting to get a vibe from the room. There’s an atmosphere in here, amidst all the gloss and mood lighting and Jo Malone perfume. Everyone seems so…friendly.

And by friendly, I mean that on the huge leather corner sofa, there’s a couple making out. Which isn’t so weird, in and of itself. I mean, people are clearly a bit tipsy, and you can’t put this many drunk, unnecessarily attractive people in a room together and not have the odd few decide to cop off with each other. But the woman is sat on another man’s knee. And that man has his hand inside her T-shirt. I feel like I shouldn’t be watching, but I can’t seem to stop myself, and god, it’s hot, watching the three of them, even though they’re not really doing anything.

There’s still no sign of Cal, and Ethan is close behind me, so close that I can feel the press of his long, lean body. His hands come around my waist and settle themselves over my belly and we stand there, not moving, not speaking, simply watching the three of them as the woman strips off her T-shirt and things get a little out of hand.

And by out of hand, I mean that the man she’s sitting on carries on playing with her nipples, and the other guy, well. He gets to his feet and unfastens his jeans. I’m blinking fast, too fast, sure I’m imagining it. This can’t be real, can it?

But Ethan is real, I’m sure of that. His hands are real, where they’re sliding under the hem of my T-shirt and gently stroking my skin, and his mouth is real, when it bites down on the side of my neck, and the hard cock pressing between my bum cheeks is definitely real, I’m sure about that.

The man pushes his jeans down to his knees, and his boxers quickly follow, and he pulls his shirt out of the way as he puts his other hand on the back of her head and pulls her forwards. I’ve never watched anyone do this in real life before, and I jerk back in shock, fascinated, enthralled, utterly awestruck. It seems such a brave thing to do, and envy rears up inside me, until arousal swamps it, and then that’s all there is.

I can’t stop watching. I don’t want to stop watching. She’s sucking his cock with such blatant enthusiasm, loud and sloppy, and I can see that other people in the room are watching them too. ‘Ethan,’ I whisper.

‘Tasha,’ he says. He nuzzles my neck.

I feel like we shouldn’t be here, like we shouldn’t be watching. It seems so naughty and wrong, and I guess that’s partly what makes it so erotic. One of the men catches my gaze, catches me looking. I don’t look away and neither does he, and suddenly I’m part of it. And I begin to understand that this isn’t just about him, or her, or the three of them, it’s about everyone in the room. They’re going at it in this room because they want to be watched just as much as everyone here wants to watch them.

I pull in some air, the room suddenly hot and claustrophobic, almost too much for me. As if he senses it, Ethan takes my hand. ‘Shall we see what else we can find?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper, though I turn my head and keep watching as he leads me out of the room, long enough to see the other man open his pants and tilt her hips. A flare of heat makes my clit throb.

I don’t know what to think, how to react, what to do. This is Cal Bailey’s house, although I haven’t seen any sign of him, and clearly Ethan knows things about Cal Bailey that I don’t. ‘Have you been here before?’ I ask, as he leads me out of that room and towards the back of the house and whatever lies that way.

‘A couple of times,’ Ethan says.

‘And have you…did you…’

‘A couple of times.’

I can’t seem to move when he says that. I mean, I knew he had history. The man is hardly a virgin, nor would I want him to be, but I don’t want to be just another woman he’s brought here. ‘Oh,’ I say.

There’s a door on the left, and Ethan pulls me through it, pulls me into what looks like an office. There’s a good-sized desk with a Mac on it, shelves of books and files and trinkets, framed prints of artistically shot nudes, which I guess makes it Cal Bailey’s office, given what I now know about him. Ethan pushes the door closed, leaving me nowhere to go. ‘Is that a problem?’ he asks, hands on my shoulders as he searches my face.

‘No,’ I say. I try to laugh. ‘Of course not.’

‘If it is,’ he says, ‘I need you to tell me.’

‘Why would it be a problem?’ I ask him. I move away, pretend to examine one of the photos on the wall.

‘Because if you told me you’d fucked other guys here, it would be a problem for me,’ he says. His voice sounds rough, not quite as certain as it usually does.

I turn around, surprised. ‘It would?’

‘Of course it would,’ he says. He moves closer, his hands moving as if he’s going to touch me, but at the last minute, he doesn’t.

‘Do you want it to be a problem for me?’ Now I’m the one moving closer. I touch his face, and he closes his eyes, but he doesn’t move away.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it is,’ I tell him. ‘I can’t stand the thought of you fucking anyone else. I know it’s completely irrational, but I can’t help it. And do you know what else?’

He opens his eyes, fixes me with that water-blue gaze. ‘Tell me,’ he says.

I slide a hand down over the front of his shirt, find the delicious bulge at his groin. I’m hot and horny from what I saw in the other room, from the photographs on the wall, from simply being near Ethan. And suddenly I know that I don’t just want more. I want a
lot
more. ‘It makes me horny as hell.’ He swallows, and a flush hits his cheeks as I continue to stroke him through the fabric of his trousers. ‘What do you want from me?’ I ask him, leaning closer.

‘Everything,’ he says.

Chapter Nine

A wonderful sense of pleasure floods me, but I have to be certain. I have to know. ‘What are you saying?’ We’re here, and that’s bad enough, but Cal hasn’t seen us yet. There’s still a chance that we could leave before he catches us, that this weekend could be just that. A weekend. A couple of days when two horny workmates shagged each other blind before forgetting all about it.

‘I’m saying….I’m saying I think there’s something here, Tasha. Something between us. I’ve never felt like this before. Hell, I was married and I didn’t feel like this.’

‘It’s the same for me,’ I confess. ‘You’re not like anyone else I ever met, Ethan.’ Neither of us mentions the L word, but it’s there, lingering, sweetening the air between us.

‘So what do you want to do?’

So many options. So many possibilities. I turn my head, look around the room. I gesture to the door. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to….you know.’

‘Fuck like a porn star in full view of everyone else.’

‘Yes,’ I shake my head at the ease with which he says that. ‘That.’

He reaches for the door handle. ‘How about we just open this a little, and see what happens?’

Open the door.
And in the end, it’s as simple as that. ‘We could do that.’

He looks at me for a long moment, and then he smiles wickedly and turns the handle. Outside, the hallway is empty, though the sounds of music and voices and pleasure and the unmistakeable groans of a man about to get his rocks off let us know that we’re not.

I rub my hand over the bulge at his groin, which is now less of a bulge and more of a raging hard on. ‘Dirty bastard,’ I say.

Ethan slides his hands over my hips, down to cup my arse, then moves them under the hem of my dress and pushes it up until it rides my waist. ‘Dirty bitch,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ I say, as I get to work on his flies. I unfasten the button on his jeans as he strips off his T-shirt and then pulls up my dress, revealing the rest of my body, inch by inch. I haven’t bothered with a bra, and the snug fabric clings onto my breasts, lifting them up before releasing them, making them bounce. ‘And do you know what a dirty bitch like me needs?’

‘No,’ Ethan says. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

I lift my hands to my breasts, start to play with them. I’ve always liked them, always found them pleasantly sensitive, not too big, not too small. ‘She needs cock,’ I tell him. ‘Big, hard cock. And she needs to be bent over that desk and fucked.’

‘I see,’ Ethan says. I stroll over to the desk. I stand next to it, watching him, and then I slowly ease down my knickers and kick them away, though I don’t take off the cute little wedges I bought earlier. I place my hands on the desk, loving the cool, smooth surface of the polished wood, and then I bend over, easing my thighs apart and sticking my arse in the air.

I don’t say anything. I don’t need to, because Ethan is unfastening his jeans and shoving them down, and wrapping long, elegant fingers around his big dick. He strokes himself slowly, and I know he’s doing it for me. At some point I’ll get him to wank himself off just so I can watch, but not now. He’s hard, so hard, and as he moves behind me I hear footsteps in the hallway.

Ethan shoves the head of his cock into my wet cunt. I can feel it stretching me out, and I wiggle my hips as I adjust to him. ‘God, you’re tight,’ he says. He rests his hands on my arse, and then he pulls my bum cheeks apart, and I know he’s doing it so that he can watch his thick cock sliding in and out of my tight hole. Just the thought of him watching what he’s doing to me turns me on. Actually, everything he does turns me on, even more so now that I know this is something more. He fucks into me, all the way into me, and it feels amazing.