Master of the House (25 page)

I nodded. I wanted it. I wanted to feel him inside me, where no other man had been.

‘Oh, I don’t deserve you,’ he said, then his fingers were out and something thicker and blunter nudged at the evacuated space, stretching me to stinging point.

I whimpered and shuffled my hips, but he held me firm and reached down below to turn the vibrator back on.

‘How’s that?’ he asked, pushing no further but rocking me gently, his hand over the clitoral attachment to keep it in place.

‘Oh, God, I’m so close but it keeps me on edge. The vibrations aren’t quite … getting me there …’

‘Then that’s perfect,’ he said. ‘Concentrate on holding off your orgasm while I …’

He made a sharp stab forwards. I inhaled but kept down the cry I had felt sure would spill out. He’d gone in remarkably easily, the lubricant greasing the way, but now the painful part was coming and I knew it.

I shut my eyes and directed every iota of my attention on to the vibrations, on keeping them down, shutting out the oncoming tide of climax. It boiled at the pit of my stomach, just out of reach, just barely in the safe zone.

He moved forwards, achingly slow, making me feel every tingle, every shooting pain of friction.

‘Oh, I can’t,’ I cried when it seemed that he was just too big and wasn’t designed to fit back there.

‘You can. You’re doing it. You’re almost past the worst.’

He reached down again and twiddled with the base of the vibrator until it was turned to a more powerful setting. I was sure he was keeping himself still at the most uncomfortable point on purpose, and he probably was.

A moment later, he was all the way in, sunk deep in my behind, his balls resting against my hot cheeks. The vibrator throbbed hard and strong and tore a blinding climax out of me, so intense that I forgot I was in a public room and howled while I slapped the bedspread until my palms were sore.

Having him inside me, plugging that tiny tight space while the toy did its work, had given me the biggest orgasm of my life. I felt faint and he kept still, stroking me, shushing me, kissing my neck, until I recovered and was able to push myself up again.

I loved the dirty, animalistic feeling of him inside me and I wriggled my hips, making the most of it. The vibrator was still on but I was numb and spent down there, which he seemed to realise, switching it back to low.

‘Darling girl,’ he murmured, rearing back up. ‘You’re asking for this. Hold tight, because you’re going to get it.’

It was probably gentle, as a first time should be, but it felt as rudely vigorous as any fuck we’d ever had. He thrust away at me, not fast but very thoroughly, driving himself to the very hilt before pulling almost all the way out. I felt the pain but it was not so sharp now, merely an echo or aftertaste of what had been. Eventually it became a different thing, a fizzing soreness rather than the wince-making stretch of before. He used me to the full and I pushed myself back and back, urging him to have all of me, own all of me.

He came with one hand in my hair and the other grasping one of my bottom cheeks hard, pulling it aside so he could see himself plunging in and out of the tight aperture.

‘Yes,’ he shouted. ‘Yes, mine.’

He stretched out on my back and laid his face beside mine, our skin sticking together while sweat and juices linked us below. That silk shirt was ruined and the dress would at least need a good hot wash.

I didn’t want him to pull out. I shut my eyes and felt every precious moment of him inside my bottom, even as he began to soften and shrink.

‘Dear God,’ he slurred. ‘I feel like you’ve pulled my soul out of my body. I’ve never come like that before.’

‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘But you can turn off the vibrator now, if you like.’

He exhaled, long and deep.

‘Can I indeed? I might just keep it on, teach you a lesson.’

‘Oh, God, Joss …’

‘Joking.’ He switched it off. ‘I don’t think either of us is fit for anything but the knacker’s yard now.’

‘No.’ We kissed, noses and teeth all clashing together, sticky hair in eyes and on foreheads.

‘That was amazing,’ I said. ‘I love you. I love all of you and everything about you.’

He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me tight.

‘So do I, but more so,’ he said. ‘Thank God you came back.’

We lay in sticky silence until the curtain fluttered again and Joss propped himself up, bleary and tousled but still vaguely compos mentis. He leaned over to take out the vibrator and dropped it into the used-toy bucket at the side of the bed.

Vaguely, I wondered whose job it was to clean them up, and how they did it. Did some sub in an apron and a pair of long latex gloves treat them by hand, or were they tipped into a dishwasher at sixty degrees? Or maybe they were all thrown out. What a waste, if so. Were sex toys recyclable?

My train of thought came to an end as Joss adjusted my dress and helped me, not without some difficulty, into an upright position.

I was still finding it hard to connect thoughts. This was what they meant by mind-blowing sex. My circuits were in flames.

O and Mal hailed us on the way out of the boudoir, wanting to stop and chat about how we were finding the party, but they seemed to understand that we were past the conversational stage and wished us goodnight with knowing smiles.

We slept like the dead, making no use of the excellent kink facilities in the room, which seemed like a shame in hindsight. But even Joss had his limits.

The next morning, having been brought eggs Benedict, coffee, orange juice and croissants by the sissy maid, we sat in bed and tried to work out if everything that had happened the night before was a dream.

‘I don’t think anybody would have believed you were a novice,’ said Joss, sipping his coffee.

‘It was like being in a trance,’ I said. ‘Once you gave up expecting anything to be normal, it was easy. It was like being down the rabbit hole in
Alice
.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed enthusiastically. ‘It is a bit like that. All the social norms are turned upside down. You have to expect the unexpected. Until you get used to it, that is.’

‘Are you used to it?’

‘I don’t know. I was. It’s been a while.’

‘Seems like riding a bicycle for you.’

‘Much, much better than riding a bloody bicycle.’

He leaned over and gave me a coffee-flavoured kiss.

I could still feel where he had been the night before and it made sitting in certain positions deliciously uncomfortable.

I felt skinned, raw and tender, both physically and emotionally. He was my blind spot, my Achilles heel, and there was no escaping it. I loved him more than I’d ever done.

‘Joss,’ I said, my heart skittering madly.

‘Mm hmm?’

‘Christmas is a long way away. Don’t you think we could … bring the plan forward?’

‘Plan?’ He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.

‘You know. You and me at one of your big man’s kinky weekends.’

‘Christ.’ He blinked for a while and then laughed. ‘Lucy. Do you know? I haven’t thought of that since we arrived here. In fact, I’ve thought of it less and less over the last few weeks.’

I smiled, tore off a piece of croissant and popped it into his mouth.

‘Are you saying you’ve had other things on your mind?’

He nodded, chewing then swallowing the croissant.

‘I’ll admit, when I first approached you, the Hall was uppermost in my mind. Though the idea of getting you back in my life ran a very close second. But now … ah. I don’t know. I was a bit obsessed, really. Making myself ill. I think you’re saving me.’

‘From yourself.’ I took some orange juice. ‘But don’t say that. I’m not saving anyone. I’m not doing anything I don’t want to. We need to talk about the Hall, though.’

‘I still think Christmas …’ he said.

‘Well, I don’t. I think I’m ready for this. I could do it.’

Joss looked away and sighed.

‘I don’t want this to end,’ he said quietly.

‘What?’

‘If you file your story and everything goes to plan, then …’

‘Listen, Joss.’ I put my hand to his neck, making him turn back to me. ‘I’m not going to file a story. I don’t think that’s a good plan. I never really did.’

‘What? Then why …?’

‘I’m doing this because of you. I think you know that. I think you always did. Yes, my career could do with a boost, but if we play this carefully, we could all get what we want without the nastiness of a sex exposé.’

‘Really?’

‘When you met me and pitched that idea, Joss, it showed me how desperate you were. That was what reeled me in. Not the thought of journalistic glory or claiming a high-profile scalp. You, and your alcohol-soaked delusions.’

‘Thanks. OK. I know.’

‘So, my story isn’t the priority here. We are. Us and our future. Because I think we have one – don’t you?’

‘God, I hope so.’

‘So, let’s work together to come up with some other options for the Hall. And, when we have them, we can simply terminate the leasing agreement.’

‘I don’t think he would want to.’

‘Why not? Is Willingham Hall the only country house in the world suitable for kinky weekend parties?’

‘Of course not, but –’

‘But what?’

‘It’s convenient for him.’

‘Everything’s convenient when you’re a billionaire.’

Joss looked hunted. ‘
I
can’t get him out, Lu. Don’t ask me why not, I just can’t. It has to come from somewhere else. That’s why I wanted the press scandal. He wouldn’t be able to blame me for it.’

‘Of course he would,’ I said, frowning. ‘You’d be the one who brought the journalist into the circle.’

‘Yes, but
unknowingly
. That would be my story, anyway.’

‘And you think he’d believe it? Come on, Joss.’

Joss paused, pushing the breakfast tray away from him.

‘The thing is, he knows stuff about my family. I can’t get rid of him.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Stuff about my parents … look, I don’t want to talk about them. But it’s pretty serious. If it got out, it would … ugh. I didn’t want to drag you into it all.’

‘I’m in your life. Your problems are my problems.’

‘Not these ones. These can’t … I should never have started this.’

‘It’s too late to say that. It’s started. I’m involved. You can tell me.’

But he wouldn’t.

‘After everything I’ve done for you, you won’t trust me?’ I felt as if an arrowhead was lodged right between my ribs. I could almost see the blood seeping from the wound.

‘It’s not that. I do trust you. It’s not that.’

‘Oh, God, Joss, what do you want from me?’

‘I want what we have right now. I just want that.’

There were tears in his eyes. I couldn’t be angry with him.

‘This is my final offer,’ I told him. ‘We don’t wait till Christmas. You take me to the next party. I get to know him, maybe find some other way round him. Once I know who he is, I can dig. If you’d just tell me that much …’

‘OK,’ he cried, ‘OK. It’s Arkady Voronov.’

‘The one that was owner of …’

‘Yes. That one.’

‘Oligarch.’

‘As you say.’

‘Rumours about …’

‘Yes, quite.’

I took a deep, deep breath. Really, if there was one man I would choose
not
to get mixed up with in any way whatsoever, he would probably be it.

‘The thing is, Joss …’

‘He’s a dangerous man, but he has an impeccable public façade.’

‘Well, yes, he is, and he has, but that isn’t what I was going to say.’

‘What, then?’

‘No newspaper would print a sex-scandal story about him. And if they did, I certainly wouldn’t want my byline on it.’

‘Well, I suppose I knew that, deep down. That’s why I held off telling you his name for so long. But couldn’t you file anonymously? And surely some editor somewhere would be brave enough?’

‘Not brave – stupid. Really, really stupid. For fuck’s sake, Joss. I thought this was going to be some lame celebrity or politician. Not the prince of fucking darkness.’

He drew his knees up to his chin and gave me the most wretched of hopeless looks.

‘It’s all over, then?’ he said. ‘You’re pulling out?’

I shook my head.

‘I have to think about this. You see, the other thing I should mention is that we’ve met before.’

‘Oh, God, really?’

‘In Budapest, years ago, the year I started out there. I can’t guarantee he’d remember me, but he might.’

‘Oh, shit,’ said Joss. ‘This really is all over with. How did you meet him?’

‘I wanted to interview him about a project he was funding. He was going to turn a block of slum buildings into a shopping mall and entertainment complex. He circumvented about a thousand planning regulations and I wanted to ask him about it.’

Joss sucked in a breath, his mouth stretching downwards.

‘Brave of you.’

‘Well, it would have been. But in the end, the questions were never asked because the interview was nixed by the powers that be. So I went down to the site the next day to try and find out some more.’

‘Proper newshound, you, aren’t you?’

‘Well, I used to be, apparently. I stood and watched the building work from a safe distance, then this man in a hard hat came over. I thought he was the site manager or something. Starts warning me in terrible Hungarian that the place is dangerous and I shouldn’t hang around. I make some smart alecky comment about some bad grammatical construction he’s just come out with and he looks at me properly, really hard. I thought he might hit me. But instead he said he was due a break and did I want to get a coffee with him.’

‘This was our Arkady, I take it.’

‘Well, yes – I wasn’t sure straightaway because of all the building gear and the dust, but once he washed up and took it off and we were in a café, it was clearly him. He’d guessed I was British or American from my accent and wanted to ask me about my homeland because he was thinking of acquiring some business interests in those places. So we chatted about Britain and Britishness in quite a general way, then he asked me out to dinner.’

‘He fancied you.’

‘I suppose. Obviously I accepted. I wanted my interview. But he was slippery as an eel, I couldn’t get a damn thing out of him. He was far more interested in the full-on seduction. But I told him I had a boyfriend and he didn’t pursue it, let me leave without anything heavy. Though he did give me his number.’