The Key (6 page)

I grated my clit against him, and the fire of orgasm burned brighter, searing hot and ready to explode.

“Come,” he said. “Let go and come.”

I went off, sparks flying, the heat of bliss making me cry out with the sheer intensity of it. He bucked, I rode, and his cocked throbbed as the warmth of his cum jetting out filled the condom. I couldn’t get enough of him, panted, whispered, “Yes, oh God, yes!” My body spasmed of its own accord, overtaken by lust, by that greedy little devil who wanted more, wanted this to last forever and a day. The pleasure receded, and I whimpered, wanted to cry out telling it not to go, but I was too spent to utter the plea.

Too spent to do anything but collapse on top of him, amazed at how much we’d got up to in such a short space of time. Too spent to do anything but to slide out from beneath his arms to settle next to him, my body pressed to his side, my eyes closing, kept shut by the heavy and sudden onset of sleep.

Chapter Six

I woke with a tress of hair in and across my mouth like a kinky gag. Spluttering to get it out, I sat up and blinked, forgetting for a moment where I was. Then it dawned on me. The thing was, I wasn’t Chantal now. The stockings and corset were gone, the heels God knew where, and all that was left was my bare-arsed self in a bed that didn’t belong to me.

I turned to find David beside me, his eyes closed, breathing steady. Staring at him was hardly a chore, so while I came to terms with what had happened between us, I might as well have a good gawp at him. Last night, even though I’d looked at him, I hadn’t really studied him properly. It wasn’t something you did, was it, because the person you looked at might think you were a bit touched in the head if you stared at them for too long. Or that you were just plain odd.

He had a little mole beneath his left eye, lashes partially covering it, and the beginnings of wrinkles stretching from the corners. It struck me that I didn’t know how old he was, but given that he had no grey hair—unless he was a L’Oréal fan himself—I’d put him at about thirty. Younger than me, then. I was currently in my thirty-fifth year, and it had taken me all this time to have finally had a damn good orgasm with a man who had
wanted
me to have one before he’d had his own. I’d gathered he was a gentleman from his behaviour prior to getting saucy, but his decency also being evident during sex had been a new one on me.

I couldn’t get over it.

He took a deep breath and it juddered back out of him. His wrists were still tied, so I loosened the knot and watched the fabric fall onto the bed, his skin pink, slightly chafed. He shifted, and I quickly scrabbled for the quilt, drawing it up to cover my boobs. A sudden bout of shyness came over me—that bloody Jane Smith again—and I longed for Chantal to make a reappearance. I doubted she would without me wearing the clothes. David didn’t rouse as I’d thought he was about to, so I carefully got out of bed and padded around the room, picking up my discarded clothing as I went along. I clutched them to my front, shoes dangling from two of my fingers, and looked across the room at him.

How had I ever got so lucky?

I turned away to head for the door, sadness creeping up on me like an alleyway mugger, all stealth and silence.

“Where are you going?” he asked, voice sleep-laden.

“Um, I…”
Be French, you silly cow.
“I thought I had better leave. It is seven o’clock. I have to get home. I have work.”

“Do you
have
to go in?”

“If I want to keep my job, yes.”

“I see. Could you not shower then go from here?”

“I would rather not. It would mean putting dirty clothes onto my clean body. And I cannot go to work in such clothing. I must leave.”

“Wait for me,” he said.

The quilt rustled, and I imagined him getting out of bed. Felt he had, and that he stood right behind me.

“I’ll take you home,” he said, breath whispering across my ear. “If you just give me a minute to get dressed.”

“Thank you. That is very kind. Mont blanc.” I’d said the wrong thing, I was sure of it, but it was too late to take it back now.

He put his hands on my shoulders. My heart did this strange little skittery thing, and I was short of breath. I closed my eyes, willed myself to stop being such a daft tart and just pretend, for the time it took between now and getting home, that I was Chantal, more than just Jane Smith with a French accent.

“Thank you for last night,” he said, then touched his lips to one of my shoulders. “
Arc de Triomphe.”

I was hard pressed not to cry. That had been a tender moment, one I’d never experienced before. I smiled, eyesight blurring, the door appearing as though it belonged in a watercolour painting. He took his hands away, and I heard him walk off and a door opening then closing. I turned, spotting the other door, and assumed it was his en suite. Leaving the room, I stood out on the landing and hurriedly dressed, leaving the stockings off, stuffing them into my raincoat pocket. One of the toe ends dangled out, reminding me of his tie. I smiled to myself and leaned against the wall, recalling everything about last night from the moment I’d peered through The Plough window until the time I’d fallen asleep.

It felt as if it had been much longer, those hours, a whole day instead of just an evening. I’d had my first one-night stand, could only hope that it would be my last, that we had something worth pursuing. He liked me a lot, he’d said so, yet good things like this didn’t happen to me, so I expected it all to come crashing down the second he sped away after dropping me off at my flat.

The door to his room swung open, startling me away from the wall. He came out, grey sweatpants slung low on his hips, a tight-fitting black T-shirt stretched across a chest I knew to be muscled, firm and decorated with a soft pelt. I sighed, remembering the feel of it beneath my hands, and smiled at him as he saw me standing there.

“Oh, I thought you would’ve gone downstairs to help yourself to coffee. Or tea, if you prefer.”

“That would have been presumptuous of me,” I said. “And besides, your worktops are empty. I do not know where you keep your kettle.”

“There is that,” he said, taking my hand and tugging me along the landing. “How are you this morning?”

“Very well, thank you. And you?”

“The same. More than very well, actually.”

We went down the stairs, me finding it a bit of a job with the heels on, but I made it safely to the bottom, then went to walk to the front door. What else did one do after a one-night stand? His hand slipped from mine, and I glanced over my shoulder to make sure he was following.

“So you don’t want coffee, then?” he asked, jerking his head towards the kitchen door.

I estimated around five minutes had passed since I’d looked at the clock in his bedroom. I supposed I still had enough time to stay here a little while longer.

“All right,” I said. “But I must be out of here by seven-thirty. I have been to the ball, turned back into a normal woman, and really need to get ready for work.”

“We’ll be quick, I promise.” He turned away and went to the kitchen door. This time he checked to see if
I’d
followed.

I hadn’t. I stood there staring at him, thinking how bloody easy it would be to share his life if he was as easy-going as he’d been so far. I had a brief flicker of a visual in my mind of us both reading via lamplight, glancing up occasionally to smile at one another before returning to our books. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I pulled myself out of wishing and went into the kitchen with him. He opened a tall floor cupboard. The inside of the door was like a fridge, with shelving that held ground coffee and powdered creamer, breakfast cereals and other morning items. One of the main interior shelves had a coffee maker on it. He filled the top section with bottled water, added scoops of coffee grounds, then switched the machine on. I watched him, mesmerised as he got everything a person could need to start their day displayed on the table.

“Will you join me?” he asked, drawing a chair out.

I moved forward, conscious of appearing like a slut after a drunken bender, and sat, wondering how he could even look at me with my hair shrieking for a brush, my teeth, too, and my bare legs unsightly without their stockings.

“You still look beautiful,” he said, sliding a bowl across the table to put it in front of me. “I can tell what you’re thinking, you know.”

“I probably look disgusting,” I said, glad that I’d managed to inject a no-nonsense, this-is-a-fact edge to my words. “I do not like the morning after, not that I have had any with men I have only just met.”

“Ah.” He sat to my right. “I had a feeling, despite you coming across as forward, that you weren’t really, that you hadn’t behaved like that before.”

Shit, and there was me thinking I’d successfully pulled the wool over his eyes. “No, but it was fun being someone else. I would like to do it again, but I suspect that the moment you drop me off that will be the end, despite what you have said.”

“Then you’d be wrong.”

He got up and dropped a kiss on the top of my head, and from the sounds going on behind me, I guessed he was getting the coffee. The smell of it drifted towards me, and I longed for a cup to not only wake me up properly but smooth the ragged edges of my nerves that had decided to act a little torn. I was afraid of rejection, that was it, and the sooner he got rid of me the better. I could continue with my crappy little life and look back on this time with a sad smile and a Sainsbury’s carrier bag full of what-ifs.

He poured me a cup. “Help yourself to sugar and whatnot. Something to eat?”

“Thank you. I am not hungry, though.” That was a lie, I was ravenous, but like I’d told him last night, I wasn’t a dainty eater. The last thing I wanted was to have milk dribbling down my chin or oats and raisins attaching themselves to my bottom lip instead of going inside my mouth where they belonged.

“Fair enough, whatever makes you happy.”

He sat then filled his bowl with muesli, seeming totally at ease with having a Neanderthal-looking woman sitting at his table. All I needed was a leg of lamb in one hand and a club in the other and I’d be set.

“What do you do for a living?” he asked, adding milk to his bowl.

“I work in an office. I do not enjoy it, but it pays the bills, no? What about you?” I added two sweeteners and a spoonful of creamer to my coffee. Sipped and closed my eyes while swallowing.

“Same as you.”

“Ah. You do not enjoy it either?” I opened my eyes.

“Yes, I enjoy it, although I hardly need to be there anymore. They can get along well enough without me, which is why I wondered if you could take the day off. But”—he lifted one hand to stop me repeating what I’d already told him—“I know you have to go in.” He paused. “Mind you, there’s always that thing called ringing in sick.”

“Are you saying you wish to spend the day with me?” I asked, blinking, telling myself I’d made a rather massive assumption.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. What do you think?”

“What would we be doing?” I kept my eyes down, drank some more coffee.

“Whatever you want, but I thought it might be nice to have a walk by the river then have a pub lunch.”

“That would be very nice. I need a moment to think about it.” And it would only be a moment. I
could
call in sick, but… God, I couldn’t walk down by the river in these bloody clothes. “Okay, I agree, but I still have to go home to change. I do not wear this kind of thing all the time. I am sure you are happy to hear that. I am also sure you would not want to take me out as I look now. People would think you had picked me up on a street corner.”

“So?”

I shook my head. “I will wear my usual clothes for this jaunt.”

We sat in comfortable silence, and once we’d finished, I stood and allowed him to take me home in his red sports car. Discussing what books we liked on the journey was interesting, and I felt that at last I’d found someone of like mind. He parked outside my place and glanced out of the driver’s-side window at Mr Big Bollocks.

“That your swollen neighbour?” he asked, tilting his head.

“It is. He is waiting for me to come out of my flat to go to work. He will be surprised to see me get out of this car.”
And you’ll be surprised if he speaks to me and I have to answer with an English accent.
This had the potential of being a bit of a mess. I wasn’t ready to reveal Jane Smith to him. She belonged in my past, but I knew she couldn’t stay there indefinitely. At some point, if David wanted to see me more often, I’d have to confess that he’d been fooled into liking a French woman who was nothing but a fraud.

“Shall I wait here or go into your flat with you?” he asked. “I’m quite happy to do either. Whatever you want.”

“Come with me,” I said before I’d had a chance to think about it. “Perhaps then he will stop this silly gardening business if he sees another man is on the scene.”

“I shall play the possessive boyfriend to the max,” he said and grinned.

Oh. I really did like him. A lot.

We got out of the car. Mr Big Bollocks straightened up. This morning he had a shovel instead of his usual little trowel. He stared at us as he dug the end of it into the ground and held the handle with both hands, using it as a cane.

I scuttled past, not looking at him, and made it to the bottom of the steps, David swaggering behind me.

“Morning, Jane,” Mr Big Bollocks shouted.

I ignored him and went up the steps, fumbled in my raincoat pocket for my keys, then opened the flat door. Once inside, I sighed out my relief, stooped to pick up the mail then tossed it onto the coffee table. Turned to see David had come in, was closing the door, a frown firmly in place.

“Jane?” he asked.

My stomach plummeted.

It seemed my lies had caught up with me quicker than I’d thought they would.

Chapter Seven

I would just have to tell some more.

“He has me mixed up with someone else. Always getting us mixed up, silly man. No matter how often I tell him I am not Jane, he calls me Jane anyway.”