"Rubbish," Dillian said unconvincingly. "I want him to be happy, that's all. You'd want the same thing, wouldn't you, Sara?"
Sara nodded, wondering how Toreth measured up to Dillian's standards. Probably not well — Sara would certainly be horrified if Toreth went anywhere near her sister.
Dillian looked round the room. "I wonder where they are?"
Toreth should have guessed. The doors Warrick opened, ushered him through, and carefully wedged shut behind them with a chair, led into a large room with long buffet tables laid out along two sides. Not surprising in view of the conversation, perhaps, but unexpected in an absolute sense. Fucking in public, with the attendant risk of discovery that Toreth was happy to admit he loved, wasn't in Warrick's usual repertoire. Even more surprising that it was at a SimTech event. Was it an apology for the missing introduction?
Toreth grinned, pulled him over for a kiss to start things moving, and then said, "I don't see a meringue, but you could sit on a gateau."
"That wasn't quite what I had in mind." The alarm on Warrick's face made Toreth laugh.
"No? You just wanted me to admire the salad?"
"I was thinking of something rather more discreet. And involving removing fewer clothes."
Ignoring the objection, Toreth released him, and then headed for one of the tables. "Unfortunately, I don't keep lube in my dinner jacket pockets," at least not when he had other plans, "and I bet you don't, either. So we'll have to find something else first."
Warrick followed him. "I
really
don't think we should start pillaging the refreshments for immoral purposes."
"Hey, it was your idea to come in here. No one will notice. Aren't we supposed to be having an evening off? Having fun?"
"I'm not. Having an evening off, that is — this is work." Warrick paused, and then smiled. "However, I have no objection to some variations of fun."
Sounded more promising. "Good. How do you feel about mayonnaise?"
Warrick shook his head firmly. "Absolutely not. I am not spending the rest of the evening smelling of egg."
"You can always have a wash."
"True, but that removes half the attraction of the idea."
"Which is?"
"The prospect of walking around with you afterwards, knowing that you've fucked me. That you've come inside me. Feeling taken." He shrugged, managing to sound almost matter-of-fact. "Otherwise, we might as well return to the original plan, wait until we go back to the flat later, and do it there in reasonable comfort. Or preferably discomfort."
Toreth swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. Absently, Warrick picked up a prawn, dipped it in the mayonnaise and ate it. Toreth watched him lick his lips and lost several seconds. When he tuned in again, Warrick was saying, "And it would be a shame to abuse such excellent mayonnaise. How about the butter?"
"Probably in a chilled dish." Toreth reached over to poke the block. "Yes. Good way to get chilblains somewhere it'd be tricky to explain."
"Mm. And in any case, rather hard." Warrick scored a nail across the butter, and then sucked the resulting slivers from his finger in a way that did nothing for Toreth's self-control. "Almost as hard as I am."
Toreth laughed. "You know you're asking to get bent over that table and fucked right now?"
Warrick turned round, raising an eyebrow, his eyes sparkling with sex and amusement. "And you've only just noticed?"
"No. But what about your present?"
"Mmh. Yes." When Warrick resurfaced from another kiss, he said, "But later. Now
and
later. If you're up to it," he added faux-casually.
"If
I'm
up to it?"
Although he'd fully intended simply to tease again, to recreate the mood from the flat and leave Warrick desperate, Toreth suddenly changed his mind. Waiting was fun, but too much self-denial simply wasn't healthy.
He cast a more serious eye over the table and said, "What about olive oil?"
"Rather runny."
"I'll be careful."
Warrick shook his head. "You'll get it everywhere."
"Well —" He planted a kiss on Warrick's throat, restraining himself from a bite that would leave a telltale mark. "It's olive oil, or spit and a promise."
"Mmh. What's the promise?"
That I'm going to take your mind off Melissa, if you were thinking of thinking about her.
Toreth picked up the bottle and moved behind Warrick, pinning his thighs to the edge of the table as a reminder of the flat earlier. Warrick wriggled against him, useless from the point of view of escape, exquisitely effective from Toreth's perspective.
He leaned in close and whispered, "That I'm going to fuck you hard enough that you'll have to stand up for the rest of the evening."
He pressed forward, and Warrick shivered. When he spoke he was rather breathless. "I'll take the olive oil."
Toreth reached round to unfasten Warrick's trousers and pull them down before doing the same for himself. "Good choice. But first . . ."
He undid Warrick's bow tie, pulled it out from his collar, and said, "Give me your wrists."
Warrick lifted his hands without hesitation, and Toreth wrapped the tie round them before knotting the ends.
"There we go." He nuzzled the nape of Warrick's neck and then nipped it, making him jump. "Just a reminder. Now keep still."
Toreth uncapped the bottle and tipped it against his fingers. He misjudged it slightly, and the oil trickled down along them onto his palm, silky smooth, running towards his wrist. He decided not to mention to Warrick that he'd been right about it getting everywhere. In any case, there was no such thing as too slippery, as someone he couldn't remember had once told him. He wiped the excess onto his already aching cock, and then turned his attention to his pseudo-captive.
Warrick shivered again as Toreth's fingers touched him, jerking his wrists against the tie, then said, "I don't do this, you know."
"What?" Toreth asked, knowing the answer.
"I don't fuck in public places."
Suddenly, he was acutely aware of the muffled noise of the reception and the danger of discovery thrilled through him. He worked in a finger and said, "I can tell. Relax."
"This is . . . mmh . . . this is the first and last time."
Toreth decided not to mention offices. "How much are you willing to bet on that?"
"I mean it. It's the only time. So get on with it."
"Now? Are you sure?"
Warrick nodded jerkily. "Yes. Before someone comes in here and —" A laugh cracked his voice as Toreth replaced his finger with his cock and pushed into him. "And finds us —
ah
." He gasped and said, "Careful!"
Muscles suddenly tight — uncomfortably tight — around him. Toreth froze, awkwardly halfway. "Shall I —"
"No! I'm fine. It's simply an unfortunate reflex." Warrick had a particular voice he used for practical discussions in the middle of fucking, serious and disconcertingly detached. Toreth suspected it had something to do with the sim. "Probably due to the prospect of an audience. Give me your hand."
Toreth offered the oily one, and Warrick murmured appreciative comments as he wrapped it round his cock, softened by the unexpected pain.
"Sorry," Toreth said, stroking gently.
"No need to be. It's entirely my own fault."
"Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. I did ask."
Warrick shook his head, but didn't reply.
"I don't know why you're worried about it," Toreth said after a minute. "What about the sim? That's fucking in public, if anything is. And recorded."
"That's not the same. That's work. This is most
definitely
pleasure."
Which, judging from the nicely hardening cock in his hand, was indeed becoming the case. A little longer, and Warrick started to move gently, back onto him and forwards into his hand, slowly speeding up as his body relaxed, accepting the penetration.
Then Toreth remembered something. "Del Halford."
"Mm?"
"Woman on the buffet table. That was her name. Delanie Halford."
Warrick laughed. "For God's sake . . . I don't believe I'm doing this."
"Don't worry, you're not. You're imagining it."
"Ah. I seem to have a — mmh. An even more vivid imagination than I thought."
A few more seconds, then he took a deep breath and nodded. "Now. Not too — oh, Christ, yes. Yes, like that. That's . . . perfect."
Still holding back, Toreth left most of the movement to Warrick, savouring the sight and feel as he quickened the pace. In fact, Warrick seemed in a distinct hurry — a combination, probably, of arousal and a desire not to spend too long here. Toreth followed his lead. He had to admit that the danger of discovery was more appealing than actually being caught, however funny Sara would find it.
Over his own breathing, he heard Warrick panting. He had his head down now, bound hands gripping the table edge, pushing back hard. Toreth ran the heel of his oilless hand down Warrick's spine and back up, again and again. Moving with him easily, relishing the feel of his own orgasm building, listening to the rising moans, until he realised how much of the noise he was making himself.
Slipping his hand round Warrick's chest, Toreth pressed him close, burying his face in Warrick's shoulder. Thinking that, even with the overtone of olives, he still smelt better than any other man he'd ever fucked. Close now, so close, and he had only a very faint awareness of something on the table falling over with a crash.
Then, far more distinctly, he heard the handle of the door turn, and a muttered exclamation of annoyance.
Warrick's head came up. "Oh, no!"
Stop or not? Toreth wasn't even sure he could, and he certainly didn't care.
"Toreth, stop it," Warrick hissed, bound hands scrabbling awkwardly at the arm around him. "Plastic duck. Plastic
duck
. Toreth!"
Wanting so badly to finish, Toreth pulled out instead, leaving Warrick to pull up his trousers, and grabbed a handful of disposable napkins, wiping oily fingers before he fastened his own clothes. Was that another noise outside?
Warrick said something.
"What?" Toreth asked.
"My hands — untie my hands!"
The frantic note in his voice made Toreth laugh and then he found that he couldn't stop, despite Warrick's furious whispers. He kept laughing — giggling, Sara would no doubt call it — while he struggled with the tightened knots, until by the time they were ready to go he'd given himself hiccups.
When they reached the door and moved the chair, Toreth heard sudden, clear voices on the far side.
"I told the girls to leave it unlocked, sir, and they said —"
"
Fuck
," Toreth said, almost too loud.
Beside him, Warrick had gone rather pale, and appeared to have taken root. Toreth grabbed his hand and dragged him to the far end of the room. They ducked behind a screen as the door opened.
"See? It's not locked at all. I have better things to do with my time than — my God! Look at the state of the buffet. What precisely are your staff playing at? The
mess
. It looks as though someone's been shaking the table."
The urge to laugh again was so strong it hurt; the sight of Warrick beside him, now also quivering with suppressed laughter, didn't help. Then there were the hiccups that, somehow, he kept quiet enough that the outraged catering manager didn't hear them.
"You are paid to check these things — that is your
job
."
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what's gone wrong. I'll get them back in here straight away."
"I suggest you do that. The doors open to the guests in ten minutes. If the room isn't ready, then you won't have a job to come in for tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
Footsteps retreated, and Warrick peeped quickly round the edge of the screen. Then he put his mouth to Toreth's ear.
"One of them's still here. And stop that bloody
noise
."
Toreth hiccupped again. "I can't."
"Hell." Warrick looked round, and brightened. "There's a door to the outside. Through the curtain."
Keeping a wary eye on the room behind him, Toreth crept forwards (and hiccupped), eased behind the curtain, examined the doors (hiccupping again), and went back to Warrick.
"Alarmed. Can't tell if it's switched on." And he hiccupped. Twice.
"For Christ's sake."
Warrick pulled him forwards and kissed him, firmly and deeply. It went on for rather a long time, and gave Toreth plenty of time to decide that not only did Warrick smell better than anyone else did, he tasted better, too.
When Warrick finally let go, Toreth waited, but the hiccups seemed to have gone. "Fucking hell."
"Guaranteed patent cure," Warrick whispered, then smiled wryly. "Lissa taught me that."
A stupid stab of jealousy, before he pushed the feeling firmly away. "I'll make sure I get hiccups more often. Has he gone yet?"
Another glance, and Warrick returned, his expression a strange mixture of amusement and unease. "No. And there are two young women examining the table with great suspicion."
"We'll just have to wait until the crowd comes in. Then we can slip out, mingle, and no one will know a thing. Come here."
Warrick handed him off, looking wary. "Why?"
"Because I want to make sure the hiccups don't come back."
" . . . but if we're not to be confined simply to what we can generate from templates or copy from the real world, creativity is still required. We — every one of us here tonight — are the source of that creativity and the source of the future success of SimTech. Not simply technical creativity, or sim room design, but creativity in finding new applications, new markets, new opportunities for that technology to shine — to show the world what it can do. No single person . . ."
"He speaks nicely, doesn't he?" Dillian murmured.
Sara nodded, which made the room tilt alarmingly. That was the problem with free alcohol, especially when there were seemingly invisible staff circulating with the endless bottles. How many times had someone refilled her glass without her noticing? It was full again now, of champagne, and she had another sip while she listened to Warrick.