Sexy as Hell Box Set (49 page)

He fisted his cock, which had reduced to a semi. “Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to have a think.”

“Yes, you bloody do that, use your damn brain for once and not your dick.”

A flash of hurt crossed his face. He was clearly struggling to think of a solution. I’d have to give him a few pointers if I was going to get us into that damn villa with Victor and Zara.

And I had to make that happen, it was the only way I was going to be able to help Victor properly, if I was there, by his side.

“Who is your closest friend?” I asked. “No, don’t answer, just think who he is and then go and see him and tell him your new girlfriend needs a trip away, to somewhere quiet and in Europe and see how the conversation flows. You’d be surprised sometimes how fate can lend a hand when you need her most.”

Ollie narrowed his eyes. I was sure the cogs of his brain would be turning, him no doubt trying to read between the lines of what I was saying. Which he would easily be able to do, had he known Victor and I were still in touch, but since he didn’t I should be covered.

“And just remember,” I said, swirling my fingernail around his nipple. “You get me this trip away, exactly how I’ve just described, and you’ll see that everything we’ve done so far is just the warm up, the starter. Fucking me will be the main course, and for dessert…” I touched my lips to his. “Dessert will blow your goddamn mind, Ollie. It will be everything you’ve ever dreamed of and more.”

“Hey, mate, how you doing?” I gripped Ollie’s hand in a firm shake and grinned at him, feeling full of festive cheer and seasonal spirit. Well, it was Christmas Day after all.

“Happy Christmas, Victor,” he said, pumping my arm and then knocking back a mouthful of Aunt Edna’s eggnog.

It was potent stuff, three and he’d be on the floor. I’d been there, done that, when I was nineteen.

“Same to you.” I sipped warily on my drink and looked at the log fire crackling in the grate.

It was a tradition, since Ollie’s mother had died and she used to host the family Christmas, to come to Edna’s, the next sister in the line of four, for turkey on the twenty-fifth of December. I didn’t mind in the least. It was an easy, commitment-free day to catch up with lots of relatives I hadn’t seen since the previous festive season. Plus, it was only just outside London, quite near Geoffrey’s in St Albans, actually. Briefly, I wondered what he was doing, if Helen was with him, tied up with shiny red tinsel and wearing a sexy elf outfit as he slapped his thick dick across her face. I could almost see her hungry mouth chasing for his fat cockhead.

“So I was thinking,” Ollie said. “That I’ve had enough of the rat-race and this damn cold weather.” He glanced out of the window at the winter wonderland that was Aunt Edna’s country cottage garden. “I’d quite like some rest and relaxation and some sunshine. Nothing too hot, just in Europe, Italy maybe. I’ve always fancied the north of the country.”

“
Mmm, it’s supposed to be lovely.”

I thought of the private jet I’d chartered to take me and Catherine to Tuscany. I’d surprised her with it as a Christmas present. Put the details of the plane in a card and presented it over dinner at The Criterion last night. She’d squealed with delight, causing several other diners to glance our way, and then flung her arms around me. We only had three weeks until we flew. Okay, the weather wouldn’t be stunning, but it was the isolation, the lack of daily demands that was important—the just being us and being able to explore the possibility of being truly compatible in every department.

“You know I’ve been seeing this woman,” Ollie said. He paused and drained his glass. “I’d really like to take her away, but it would be nice to go as a group. What do you think, Vic? You and Catherine up to a trip away with us?”

“We’re already going away, actually, to Tuscany.”

Ollie reached out and gripped the mantel, his fingers clawing at it. His usual cool, controlled mask slipped for a second, and I wondered what I’d said wrong.

“You are?” he asked.

“Yes. In a few weeks.”

“But… How would she…?”

“How would she what?”

“
Er, nothing.”

Uncle Brian wandered over with a bright orange Tupperware jug brimming with lethal eggnog. “More, gentlemen?” He always spoke a decibel too loud—his hearing aid never worked.

“Please.” Ollie held out his empty glass.

I covered the rim of mine with my palm.

Brian filled Ollie’s to spilling point and then offered him a glazed cherry on a stick.

Ollie took it, dunked it in his drink with a splash and then knocked back a mouthful. I watched the tip of the stick dig into his cheek, the one that still held the lemon-coloured remnants of the bruise of only a week or so ago.

“You want to take the woman who did that to you away?” I asked, gesturing to his cheek.

Ollie glanced at Brian, who grinned, carefully—too much of a show of teeth and his dentures had a habit of escaping.

“I’ll leave you two city lads to catch up,” Brian said, sucking in a breath. “Must keep everyone topped up.” He held the Tupperware aloft.

“Thanks, Brian,” I said loudly, “wonderful to be here.”

“No, no, fabulous to have you both. You make Edna and I very happy that you step out of your busy lives to visit.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Ollie said, shoving a hand through his hair.

Brian wandered off and I turned to Ollie. “So, this woman…”

He shrugged and stared at the flames again. “She’s different, you know the sort.”

“Yes.” Boy, did I ever. “I know what you mean.”

“And she’s a busy lady, works hard, setting up her own business, taking the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she’s said specifically, to me last night, that she’d like a trip to Tuscany.”

“Tuscany?” What was the sudden obsession with Tuscany?

“And now, well, it’s a bit odd, you just said you were going there.”

“Yes, Catherine has friends with a villa. They’re away on some kind of world education tour with their kids for a few months, and I’ve just chartered a plane to take us there for a week at the end of January. Some quiet time, to well, you know…” I glanced around at various relatives, all necking eggnog and eating pineapple and cheese on sticks.

“Yeah, I know.” Ollie tilted his chin, rubbed his fingers over his neck.

He hadn’t shaved; there was a healthy dose of dark stubble going on and what looked like a bite mark on one of his tendons, or a lovebite or something. Seemed his new woman was still into leaving evidence of where she’d been.

“So this villa. Is it big?” he asked.

“I think so. I’ve seen some pictures on the internet, looks very rustic. Open fires, stone floor, a built-in range, fabulous views over an olive grove and a lake.” It appeared to be a little slice of Italian heaven. I was looking forward to it now that it was booked.

Ollie set his drink on the mantelpiece, crossed his right ankle over his left foot and leaned towards the fire. “So you reckon you could fit me and my girl in too?”

I nearly choked on my drink. “What? You really want to come with me and Catherine while I’m on a mission to…” I lowered my voice. “Discover if she has even one other flavour than vanilla?”

Ollie shrugged. “Why not? You never know, an extra pair of hands might get her going.”

“You seriously think I’d let you touch my woman?” I was aghast at the thought of Ollie getting naked and sweaty with Catherine. There was no way in hell she’d cope with his brand of shagging. All hardcore, go for the rough, letting-out-the-beast type of fucking—the kind I yearned for.

Mmm
, the beast. I had to think logically. That was exactly what Catherine needed to get used to, or in touch with, or something, if we were going to work. I couldn’t ignore my yearning. But have Ollie and his new bit of the side there? No, it just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t into sharing.

“The thing is,” Ollie said, “I really like this girl. Like, well, she could be
The One
.” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head, as though despairing with himself that he’d been captured again. “And I never thought that would happen to me after Marie…”

“Really? You’re actually thinking that this woman, who…who beats you, might be marriage material?”

He laughed, tipping his head back and rocking on his heels. “No, I can’t imagine anyone would ever get a ring on her finger, but yes, something like marriage, but only her version. A commitment that means the world to her and me, a pledge of obedience, so to speak.”

Pledge of obedience. That sounded really damn twisted. A kind of twisted I knew all about. “Fuck, you’ve got in deep there.” I thought of Zara, knowing full well she’d never wear a ring on her finger; a collar around her neck maybe, but never a wedding ring.

“So has there been any more, you know…” I gestured to his face and then looked at his neck.

“Beating?”

“Yes.”

He laughed, quietly, secretly. “Yes, you just can’t see the marks when I’m clothed.”

“Fuck, and you like it?” I could just imagine what he’d been subjected to. I wondered if he’d had his arsehole breached as well.

“Yes, course I like it. It makes me feel alive, free, like I have nothing else to think about except her and coming. Wouldn’t let her do it otherwise. But you know the score, you’ve been there, done that with your ex.”

“Ex is the right word, thank God. She nearly killed me. I hope you’re not with someone like Zara. She’ll chew you up and spit you out, Ollie.”

“What makes you think I couldn’t take a little chewing and spitting out?” His attention was caught by an arrangement of holly, berries and ivy lying across the mantel. He poked at a glossy red berry. It fell off, rolled to the floor then settled against the hearth.

“Trust me, you might not have a dodgy ticker, mate, but still.” I hesitated, images flashing through my mind. Zara paddling my arse, making me come. Zara sucking me off, shoving a butt plug up my backside at the same time. Me with her bent over my knees, wearing the collar I’d fastened around her neck and marking her arse with my initials, pumping my cock into her at the same time as a dildo sat deep in her bum. Hot, sweet, breath-stealing memories that spoke of a time in my life when desire, lust, arousal and dabbling with deviant fantasies had ruled my world.

But not anymore, and if Ollie wanted that then he could go and do it. I had a new agenda that only flirted with the bad and the ugly. I didn’t want to submerse myself in it.

“So what do you think?” Ollie asked.

“About what?”

“If we come with you?”

“Well, I don’t know really. It kind of defeats the object of me and Catherine having some alone time.”

“You could still have alone time. We wouldn’t get in your way. Well, not unless you wanted us to.” He gulped on his drink. “It could be good for you, Victor. Plus, you might just want the moral support.”

“What, from you?” As if I needed Ollie to help me out in Catherine’s
knicker department.

“Yeah, of course from me.” He smiled, the kind of tilt to his lips that drew me back to a time we’d been building a tree house in his garden and he’d needed to take apart my go-kart so we had enough wood. The kind of grin that could persuade me to part with my king marble in return for only three of his bog standard little blighters.

“You really want to come?” I asked.

“Yes. We do, I do. It’ll be just the thing to brighten up this goddamn endless winter.”

“Well, the plane does seat eight and there’s only two of us, and I suppose the villa is big enough for ten, really.”

“So you’d hardly notice we’re there.”

“Well, if she starts knocking you around, Ollie, it’ll be hard not to notice that.”

“Floggers are pretty silent, and I’m not in the habit of screaming.” Ollie waggled his eyebrows and licked his lips, catching a stray drop of frothy eggnog.

“Screaming!” I thought of a few occasions I’d caught a scream in my throat with Zara. And I knew damn well she’d screamed out a couple of times as I’d made her come spectacularly—in a way I’d never made any other woman orgasm before or since.

Damn, what was it about Zara? I just couldn’t get her out of my mind. It was like she was still in my life, all day, every day.

“Sure, Ollie.” I’d made a decision. One for the best. One that would mean I had other, new, interesting people in my world who would stop me obsessing over the one woman I couldn’t ever have. “Sure, why don’t you come with us? The more the merrier.”

After spending part of Christmas Day evening with Catherine at Mary’s house among countless people I didn’t know, my cheeks sore from grinning at elderly relatives and children that shrieked far too loudly for my liking, I was spent and felt the need for some alone time. I didn’t mind family gatherings, but it had been too much crammed into one day. I was tired, getting
arsey, and seeing as Catherine had wanted to stay at Mary’s, I went home.

I stared out at the lights of London, imagining all those families enjoying each other’s company—and also those who spent Christmas alone. Ollie had gone off to meet with his girlfriend, probably to get a present of another black eye, or, if she was feeling extra generous, a broken rib. I worried about him. Was he in over his head with her? She sounded as mean as a box of knives, that one, and although he wasn’t the cowering sort, it seemed she had him cowering all right. What did she have that other women in his past hadn’t? Or had they just clicked, no explanation for that clicking necessary?