Sexy as Hell Box Set (20 page)

She’d wish she fucking hadn’t.

Eventually, my cock eased its spasming and I slowed my hips.

Sanity began to trickle back into my brain like a mountain spring growing from a stream to a river to an ocean.

I shivered.

“Fucking hell. Zara, I’m really sorry.” I withdrew, released her and stepped backwards, to the other side of the room. Shame gripped my chest. Horror stabbed at my guts.

Had I just forced myself on her?

“I’m so sorry. So sorry.” My knees went weak. I leaned into the wall, dropped my head in my hands. The plasterboard was cool on my hot arse, but that was nothing compared to the chill that flooded my veins.

“What for?” She straightened her skirt and pushed her hair behind her ears.

“Jesus, I was so rough, I didn’t ask. Just grabbed you.” I wasn’t sure my knees would continue to hold me. They were watery; my hips hurt too. My cock was softening rapidly, my nakedness making me feel even more wretched.

“Victor?” she said quietly. “Why are you so upset?”

I lifted my face. Stared at her standing in the middle of the room. She was gasping for breath, her tits shifting rapidly. Her cheeks were red, her lips swollen and pink from my kisses and bites. She was beautiful beyond belief, and I’d just gone and shoved my greedy cock into her with no thought for her feelings, no respect for her experience.

I’d never been so ashamed of myself.

“Victor?” She stepped close, concern slicing through her eyes. She wrapped her hands around my clenched fists which were locked beneath my chin. “Please, you’re worrying me.”

“You should go,” I said and swallowed down a bite of bile. “I’ll wait here if you want to report me to the police.”

“The police?” Her eyes widened. “What the fucking hell are you talking about?”

“The police. I just…I just fucked you, without asking, without thinking. That’s a criminal offence. Jesus, I’m so sorry.” A sob was growing in my chest. My heart was flipping about like I was on the dodgems. I could visualise my life going down the pan, being flushed away. The shock on Mary’s face. My partners slinking off to find new jobs in respectful establishments with decent citizens for management.

“You didn’t force me.” Zara frowned and shook her head.

“But I did. I just grabbed you, shoved in you…” My chest juddered, quite pathetically, but I couldn’t help it. “I just took what I wanted, it was like I was consumed with lust or something. I
had
to have you.”

A slow smile spread on her face. “Oh, Victor. Don’t you see? That’s what I was working you up to! That was the plan.”

Confusion swam through my mind. “You were? It was?”

“Yes.” She released one of my hands, stroked her fingers through my hair. A soft, intimate, comforting gesture, and one I certainly didn’t deserve. “Today’s lesson was about letting go. Submitting to me, doing as I told you, certainly. But using the show and the pain on your buttocks to drive you to a point of lust where only that existed. Nothing else. It was what I was hoping would happen.”

A modicum of calm steadied my heart rate. “I…I don’t understand.”

“Victor, you control every aspect of your life, every minute of every day. What you must realise is that desire is a basic instinct not just in animals but also in humans. It rules the world, keeps species from going extinct. And you, Victor, are an animal. You have to know that you have that passion in you, that instinct is vital to the human race.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” She pressed close, kissed me sweetly. “Because I’m not. That was bloody wonderful. Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to see you lose it? Just throw everything out of the window, all of your gentlemanly ways, your crap about making love, and just fuck? Fuck until you just about kill the both of us with your urgency?”

“Did I nearly kill you? Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Stop it.” She slapped the side of my buttock. Not hard, but enough for me to flinch. “No more apologising. That will not earn you Brownie points.” She stepped away and stooped for my boxers, flashing me the sopping wet gusset of her panties as she did so.

“Oh, God, I didn’t use a condom.” I rubbed at my face. My stomach lurched. Could I have behaved any more horrifically this evening?

She shrugged. “I’m clean and I’ve got contraception covered.” She passed me my underwear. “You?”

“Er, yeah, clean, and apart from Helen, which was ages ago, I’ve never not used a condom.

“Helen?”

I couldn’t think about Helen right now. Throwing her into the casserole pot of emotions that were boiling inside me might just induce a meltdown. “Yeah, I’m clean. But I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” It had sounded pathetic, but it was the truth.

“That bloody ‘s’ word. Zip it, Victor.” She hoisted her enormous handbag onto the chair, shoved the paddle into it, pulled out a wedge of tissues, and began to scoop my cum from her inner thighs.

I stared at her bustling actions for a moment, wondering how she wasn’t madder at me for slamming her against the wall and filling her with my spunk. But it seemed she wasn’t. If anything I was making her mad by being remorseful. Quickly I began to dress. The soft material of my shirt and suit offered me a shield, turning me back into the polite, efficient businessman I was used to being and not a Neanderthal hell bent on fucking his woman.

“So you see,” she said when I was dressed and she’d straightened her clothes, re-applied perfume and lipstick. “There’s a plan behind all my lessons.”

“I don’t quite see it, though.”

She reached for my hand, brought my knuckles to her lips the way I had hers earlier. “I know you don’t, but you will. You’re doing so well.”

I stared into her eyes. They held a softness that hadn’t been there before.

“Did you come?” I asked. “Just then, against the…” I nodded at the wall.

“Do you even need to ask?”

“That’s why I’m asking.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, twice. You were amazing, Victor.”

A glut of male prowess rolled through me and the see-saw of my emotions caused my stomach to flip. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I may have to paddle your arse again if it turns you into a sex-crazed beast.”

I raised my eyebrows. Sex-crazed beast. I supposed I couldn’t argue.

She smiled wickedly. “I can’t wait to see what you’ll become with the whip.”

“
Mmm.” I titled her chin with the crook of my index finger. My arse was still an inferno, more so now I was dressed and the material was rubbing against it. “I think I may need to recover before you even suggest that.”

Although the idea didn’t totally turn me off. But it wasn’t the pain that I liked, that just hurt. It was having Zara do her dominant thing, because I had to admit, that was what had got me so riled, so fucking stiff. The show hadn’t done much; pissed me off because of its weirdness really. But Zara, dressed and me naked, her adoring my body, ordering me about, making me take whatever she doled out. Yes, that was new, that was interesting, and it had certainly pressed some buttons inside me I hadn’t even known were there.

“You’ll recover. Rub some oil or cream on your cute little tush when you get home, that will sort you.”

“Why don’t you do it for me?”

“What do you mean?” She stiffened, her shoulders rising a little.

“Come back to my place. Stay the night.” I touched the tip of my nose to hers. “Rub the cream into my arse and kiss it better.”

She shook her head and pulled away. “No. I can’t. I have to go home.”

“You do?” I couldn’t explain the sagging feeling that went through me. Sure, she infuriated me, wound me up until I didn’t even recognise myself, but still, that didn’t mean I wanted to be without her this evening.

“Yes, I have things to do, Victor, at home. Believe it or not you are not the only thing I have going on in my life.”

“I never said you were.” So what else did she have? I didn’t dare ask.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night. For your next lesson.”

“Ah, yes, about tomorrow,” I said.

She tipped her head, tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Don’t tell me you can’t make it. I have another lesson for you.”

“Put it on hold. I told you, I need to recover.” My heart chose that moment to fire out five extra beats in a row. That always made me a little dizzy and I paused and pulled in a deep breath. Closed my eyes for a couple of seconds as I expanded my chest.

“You okay, Victor?”

“Fine.” I opened my eyes and smiled, let the air seep from my lungs. “I’m taking you to see
my
kind of show tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at six.”

“That’s a bit early.”

“It’s traditional in the West End to have a pre-theatre meal. I’ve booked us in at The Savoy for dinner and then I have a surprise for you.”

Me, Zara Watson, at The Savoy. Again. I hadn’t wanted to tell Victor that I really couldn’t go. That Man had invited me here on occasion, and to be honest I didn’t want to dredge up all the memories about our time together that I’d safely stored away. But I hadn’t been able to deny Victor’s request. The look in his eyes as he’d asked me had melted my reservations, and I’d agreed solely because I didn’t want to upset him. He was a nice man, and, well, it didn’t hurt to return that niceness once in a while, did it? That was another first for me since That Man. I didn’t usually care who got upset. I took what I wanted and had fun while doing it, never a thought for the other person.

Similar to That Man.

I disliked myself a tad for becoming a female version of him, of
them
too, but I didn’t ever think of
them
.

So here I was, standing in the foyer of one of the plushest places I’d ever been in, waiting for Victor, who’d nipped to the restroom. I battled off images of That Man waiting upstairs in his room the way he used to—waiting for me to turn up and beat him, fuck him and make him feel all the things he needed to feel. I could see now I’d been nothing more than a prostitute to him, a young woman he could buy with casually tossed affection and wise words that had been designed to keep me coming back until he’d got bored of me six months after he’d moved out of the city and into his gorgeous barn conversion. Oh, and he’d helped me to cope with what
they
had done to me. Mustn’t forget that. So he’d been good for something, then.

To make the unsettling visuals go away, I glanced around. Yes, everything was exactly the same, from the black-and-white tiled floor to the beautiful, highly varnished wooden walls. Everything appeared to gleam,
especially
the floor, the suspended ceiling lights—wood-encased, circular full-moon faces—reflected in it. I leaned against one of the white pillars in the centre of the room and glanced down at the shiny black panels surrounding the bottom. My red dress and seven-inch-high scarlet shoes were mirrored there. I stared at my shoes and imagined pressing the heels into Victor’s arse cheeks, his skin dipping from the pressure, a horseshoe-like shape remaining even after I’d taken my sole away. Men seemed to like that, I wasn’t sure why.

I shook my head and looked about, wondering whether to go to the desk and announce I was having dinner with a Mr Partridge so I could go to our table rather than wait for him to reappear. To my right, sitting on a light blue fabric sofa, side-on to me, was a woman with long black hair much like my own. She was laughing, her head thrown back, her slender neck exposed should her male companion wish to lean across from his gold-and-burgundy brocade-covered chair and kiss it. He had one elbow digging into the armrest, his chin sitting snugly in his hand, fingers splayed over his cheek, their tips reaching above his eyebrows. With his face so obscured, I couldn’t see his full expression, but his lips were parted in a smile—one, I suddenly realised, he had bestowed on me from time to time. I froze, widening my eyes as my heartbeat skittered.

It was That Man.

He lowered his hand and reached across the triangle of space between the armrest of his chair and that of the sofa. She dipped her head back down and took it, their fingers entwining. Said something that made him shake his head as if he were indulging her. He shifted his gaze my way—already bored of her, I guessed—and we came into eye contact.

Heat flushed my face as I took him in. He’d aged—well, I had to admit—but I wondered what I’d ever seen in the man. His nose was slightly hooked, his eyes cold, mean, and I must have been blinded by love or lust to have ever considered his features handsome. His mouth dropped open a bit as he realised who I was, and, much unlike him, he blushed too. Why, I had no idea. Perhaps he thought I might make trouble.

I was determined not to look away first, and it seemed he had the same idea. This battle of wills was one I wasn’t prepared to lose. Not now, not when I’d grown up and saw him for who he really was—a user, a man who messed with women’s emotions. Made them think they loved him and he loved them, only to cast them aside when it suited him.

My heart hurt for the young duped, blinded, damaged woman I’d once been. I’d loved That Man and all we’d done was fuck, so I couldn’t imagine how attached I could become to someone if I spent time in his company that wasn’t linked to having sex.