Lucky Seven

by Elle M Thomas

  Jim laughed at her. “Not for on the red carpet, baby, but as you know I am more than happy to rip your clothes off in private.”

  “Let’s go then.” She nodded, getting to her feet.

  Tasha had tried on five dresses and none were quite right; she’d tried strapless, sleeved, full length, short, with a split, full skirt, and although some had been quite nice, none were right. The sales assistant appeared as Tasha stood in a full length, strapless dress that was struggling to contain her breasts.

  “It’s nice, but one false move and there will be a serious wardrobe malfunction,” said Jim wryly.

  “Would madam consider black, rather than a colour?” asked the assistant.

  “Yes, I hadn’t actually discounted black,” said Tasha.

  “No, I assumed as you had only selected colours,” replied the assistant as she ushered Tasha back into the changing room with several predominantly black dresses. She had dismissed three without leaving the changing room then the assistant zipped her into the fourth black one.

  “I think this could be the one,” she called to herself and Jim. Turning to the assistant she asked, “Do you have any silver shoes?”

  “Heels?”

  Tasha nodded and like that the assistant disappeared with Tasha calling her size after her.

  In an instant she had returned with a pair of metallic looking silver shoes, complete with a spike heel that looked as though it was solid steel. She slipped them on to complete the look and smiled at her reflection. The dress had a short bustier style top with straps, all hand decorated with beads, sequins and crystals, fitted tightly with a horizontal chiffon band finishing under the bust, similar to an empire line and from there the black chiffon flared out to the floor. She thought that it looked very glamorous, but incredibly sexy without being too obvious as Jim had put it.

  The assistant allowed her to make an entrance into the opening of the changing area where Jim was waiting with several other husbands and boyfriends. As she appeared all of the waiting men turned to look.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Very nice,” said one of the waiting men.

  “Beautiful,” said another.

  “Bit much for a curry and a pint.” Laughed one.

  “No offence, but I wouldn’t say no,” offered another.

  Tasha laughed and looked at Jim who was looking at the others, irritated by them.

  “I think my girlfriend was actually talking to me.” He turned to her now. “Turn around, baby.”

  She gave him a full twirl and swooshed the fabric of the skirt.

  “It’s very nice. I like it. And the shoes,” he added.

  “How much is it?” she asked the assistant only to be interrupted by Jim.

  “It doesn’t matter how much it is. We’ll take it and the shoes. Is there a clutch, a purse or something?”

  The assistant nodded. “A clutch and a chain bag, purse,” she said, embracing his American English. “I’ll fetch both for you to try.”

  Tasha stood smiling at Jim as she waited for the assistant to return. She was joined by several other women who were modelling their possible purchases for their own partners.

  One of the ladies looked across at Tasha and did a double take. “Tasha Winters?”

  Tasha nodded.

  “Oh my life. Dave, look, it’s Tasha Winters off the telly,” she said to the man next to Jim. The one who’d said, bit much for a curry and a pint.

  “Can I have an autograph and a photo?” she asked.

  Tasha nodded. “Of course, could you just give me a minute to get changed first?”

  “Leave the poor girl alone, ‘Chelle, she’s trying to do her shopping,” said Dave.

  “Sorry,” said ‘Chelle. “But I’m a big fan and I have four of your dresses, sorry,” she repeated.

  “It’s not a problem.” Tasha smiled as the assistant returned with a clutch and a chain bag and offered them to Tasha in turn.

  ‘Chelle then turned to Dave, “What do you think?” referring to the cocktail dress she was trying on.

  “It’s okay, but a bit tight. Do you want to try the bigger size?”

  Jim looked at him bemused as Tasha tried to hide a smile at ‘Chelle who said, “No, I bloody don’t. I am a size fourteen, have been since I was seventeen, they must be coming up small.”

  “Clutch?” she asked Jim having already decided that for herself, but thinking a distraction from the size debate may be warranted.

  “Whatever you want honey, have both.”

  She shook her head at the assistant. “No, just the clutch, the dress and shoes please.”

  She followed Tasha back into the cubicle and undid the concealed zip. Tasha stepped out of it and the assistant left with her items.

  Redressed, Tasha emerged from the changing room to find Dave and ‘Chelle waiting for her with Jim. While Dave had his phone ready to take a photo, ‘Chelle thrust a piece of paper and a pen at her. Tasha signed the piece of paper and after chatting with ‘Chelle for a few minutes she made her way to the cash desk with Jim.

  “Did he really ask her out loud if she wanted the bigger size?” He laughed.

  “He really did. I thought she was going to hit him.” She laughed back.

  The assistant scanned and packed the items for them before she revealed the total with a smile. No wonder the woman was smiling, Tasha was fairly certain they worked on some kind of commission system here. She stared at the assistant, still slightly stunned at the cost then remembered that Jim hadn’t batted an eyelid at over seven hundred dollars for a bikini, so nearly three and a half grand for an outfit would be positively cheap.

  She reached into her bag which earned her a steely stare so removed her hand and left her purse in her bag as Jim handed over his own credit card.

  They were about to enter the lift when Jim’s phone rang. “Sara.”

  Tasha looked at him and noticed his expression had changed to one of irritation.

  “So? What do you want me to do about it? Maybe Lenny should take her, to make amends.” His sarcasm was unmissable. “No, of course not. Who does she want to take her? Okay. No. I will check and I’ll be back on Friday, so if you’ve told her not to call until after then I will warn Tasha. Oh, and tell Lenny that neither my daughter nor my girlfriend are tramps.” His sarcasm had moved to anger now. “Speak to you Friday.”

  “Problem?” asked Tasha once Jim had hung up.

  “Lizzie wants to go to some concert, with some friends and Sara rightfully said that she would need an adult to go with her, so she’s roped Philip in, but he is not a responsible adult. Sara has said no, but she wants you to go with them, so Sara has warned us and has told Lizzie to wait until I get back to L.A.”

  “What concert is it? Has Lenny called me a tramp?” she asked, slightly hurt that she really had done nothing to earn his disdain.

  “I dunno who it is, and apparently Lenny has said that places like that are full of tramps trying to pick up rock stars.”

  “He doesn’t think very highly of anyone who does anything fun, does he?”

  “No. So in case Lizzie gets in touch, she has been told to wait until the end of next week.”

  As they got out of the lift on the ground floor, Tasha’s phone rang.

  “Hello Grandma,” she said. “Sunday lunch?” She looked at Jim who nodded and smiled at her. “Yes, that would be lovely, yes of course I’ll bring him with me. Okay two o’clock, yes, see you then, love to Grandpa,” she said and hung up.

  “I get to meet your oldies then,” he said, smiling.

  “So it would seem,” she replied as they walked out onto the busy London street and hailed a cab.

  ****

  They were walking back towards their hotel after dinner when Tasha let out a long yawn.

  “Tired honey?” asked Jim.

  “A little, although I have been a little lacking in sleep lately.”

  “I did warn you about the sleep deprivation, baby.” He smiled.
>
  “I wasn’t complaining.” She laughed as they ascended the steps to the hotel entrance.

  “Good, because unless you are ready to drop, I was rather hoping for another night of it. I have plans for you.”

  “I seem to remember something about a blindfold,” she whispered as he led her into the empty lift.

  “Yeah, but if you’re tired, Tasha, it can wait,” he teased as he cornered her in the lift and leaned down and tormented her by bringing his lips to hers and almost allowing them to touch before moving them away, just out of her reach.

  She tried to anticipate where they would be next, her desperation to make contact with them increasing with every passing second, making him smile each time she missed them.

  “So, how tired are you?”

  “Not at all now actually.”

  “Well in that case—” He pulled her arms above her head, spreading them against the wall of the lift, enabling him to press himself against her before he kissed her hard, passionately, causing a long moan to escape her parted lips.

  He virtually dragged her through the door of their suite and immediately found the zip to the red, sleeveless shift dress she was wearing and discarded it in the hallway before unclipping her bra and throwing it behind him.

  “So that just leaves these.” He grinned as his fingers teasingly pulled at her remaining item of clothing.

  She instinctively parted her legs.

  “Oh baby, so, so eager. You really are very naughty, we may need to address your naughtiness,” he said as he hooked a finger into her pants and gently stroked it across the surface of her skin causing her to shudder beneath his touch.

  “James,” she moaned.

  “Ssh, now what am I going to do with you?” He pulled at the lace fabric until they fell apart at his fingers and let them drop to the floor. “That’s better.” He stepped back and looked at her with hungry eyes. “I think that before I go home we will have a day where you stay naked, baby. A whole day with no clothes.”

  “That sounds like a very good plan.”

  He winked at her and lowered his face to hers, whispering against her ear, “You go through. I’ll join you soon.”

  Tasha stared up at him wide-eyed and opened her mouth to speak, but didn’t. He looked conflicted somehow and she felt sure she was going to end up fucked against the wall just a few seconds before. She reached up and gently stroked his cheek then turned on her heels in the direction of the bedroom and deliberately walked purposefully, fully embracing and emphasising her wiggle as she went, knowing he was watching her. Tasha wondered what had changed between the lift and him sending her to bed first. Perhaps it was him assuming some control or maybe it was a game, although she’d noticed his change in demeanour in the hall. He so often thrived on his ability to drive her to farther and farther depths of desire and need which this was doing.

  Tasha had just returned from the bathroom, naked except for her red stilettos to find Jim lying on the bed, pawing the blindfold, watching her.

  “I found the blindfold myself.” He grinned.

  Tasha reached into a drawer and pulled out a black, satin chemise and slipped it on.

  He still stared at her from the bed as she slipped the item of clothing over her head. “Come here.”

  She paused, watching him.

  “It wasn’t a question, Tasha. Come here now.”

  “You confuse me,” she said in a hushed tone, uncertainty and insecurity infiltrating her words and mind.

  “How?”

  “Is this a game, James? Am I your current favourite play thing? Because if I am then you should at least have enough respect for me to tell me.” She hadn’t exactly planned to ask those questions, to air those concerns, but now that she had she expected his reply to be as serious as her questions were. She still stood in the middle of the room, waiting for his response.

  He looked to be deep in thought, not because he needed to think about his reply but because he was choosing his words wisely. He needed there to be no doubt in her mind that what he said was the truth, the complete truth. His expression suggested he needed her to believe him more than anything else in the world and his words confirmed this. “No, of course not. I love you, more than anything.”

  “And I love you, but I find you hard to keep up with, well your moods anyway. I have had a lovely day, thought we both had…in the hall…then you sent me to bed alone, it’s like you’re intent on tormenting me.”

  “I’m sorry, really. That wasn’t my intention, not to torment you in a bad way, honey, never. But I can see how you might feel that way. I know we are still so new, baby, but I’m not sure I can remember my life without you in it and I really don’t want to fuck this up with you, Tasha. So, if I confuse you, tell me, okay? And I will try not to torment you in a bad way.”

  There was a tingling ache in her jaw as her emotions came to the forefront of her mind. He loved her, she knew that, but whilst she struggled with the intensity of the speed with which they’d got together, she never dreamt he’d have the same issue. He struggled to set his mind back just a few weeks to a time when there was no Jim and Tasha together and that stunned her. His words about wanting to know when she was confused reassured her, the ones that said he would try not to torment her in a bad way in the future, not so much so.

  “Tasha, what do you want to do? Sleep? Sex? Fuck it, just forget everything, and come here, baby.” He invited her rather than summoned her with a curl of his finger.

  God, that always made her so horny when he did that and it always led to one thing. She was so weak where he was concerned. She had gone from being determined to go to sleep in spite of her own desires to being desperate to just throw herself at him after a simple curl of his finger together with his incredibly sweet and heartfelt words. He was grinning at her now. He knew what she wanted, and he knew what she was going to do, he always knew. He spun the blindfold around his finger and summoned her now, but said nothing. She kicked off her shoes and like a lamb to the slaughter she went over to him and was astride him within seconds.

  “Now, what do you want to do? You decide, to avoid the confusion.” He smiled, but briefly seemed unsure of himself.

  What did he even mean by that? She should decide what? How? Whether she followed his orders or not? Or was it that she could now dictate what happened tonight? Unlikely, even when he handed over control to her it was never fully given; even in the bath that morning he had surrendered himself to her, but still dictated the speed and terms of the sex they had.

  “You know,” she said, feeling embarrassed and over exposed.

  “Let me rephrase because I do know what you want, but how?” He was enjoying her embarrassment.

  Her shrug made him laugh.

  “You are a strange one, Tasha. You’ve been everywhere with me and I’ve been all over you and in you, but still you are here cringing and squirming at the prospect of telling me what you want me to do to you. Now, if I was to do this,” he said, gently caressing her breasts through the satin fabric of her chemise. “Or this,” he brushed the straps of the chemise off her shoulders. It fell away leaving her breasts exposed. Deliberately he blew across her nipples before pulling each one between his teeth causing her to throw her head back and moan loudly. “See, you know exactly what you want. I could even do this…” His hand disappeared beneath the chemise and made its way up her inner thigh where he found her heat and moisture. Slowly, he slid his fingers inside her to the sound of her breathing becoming a series of pants. Intent on turning her desire up a notch or two he did that rotating, stroking thing he did so well and caused her to cry out as she clung to his shoulders, clawing them slightly. “If I do this you will tell me what you want in graphic detail, honey,” he said and allowed his fingers to rotate and rub inside her once more. “You like this?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was husky, her eyes hooded.

  “You see, if you can’t tell me what you do want, how do I know you’ll tell me when I’m doing something y
ou don’t want?” he asked, but no reply was required, he was simply making his point and very well he was making it too.

  He pulled his hand out from beneath her clothing and from her position astride him she watched as his hand made its way to his face. She knew exactly what he was going to do. Why was that such a turn on for her? She looked at him with a mixture of horror and excitement as he bypassed his mouth and simply smelled her.

  “You smell real good, baby,” he told her and smeared her lips with his fingers, making her moan loudly as she tried, unsuccessfully to capture his fingers with her mouth. He allowed one finger to briefly brush the inside of her lips. “You want to play?” He held the blindfold up.

  “Yes,” she admitted and suddenly felt brave enough to ask, “will you tie me to the bed?”

  “Yes,” he replied making her groan and smile until he added, “I’ve told you I will, you can consider it my wedding present to you.”

  Her face fell immediately. “I meant tonight.”

  “I know, and I saw the handcuffs you bought.” He pointed towards her now open Prada bag. “And I love that you are so turned on by that, but I think we should keep something back for Vegas.”

  She shook her head, slightly disappointed that she wouldn’t be getting her wish, but more surprised that he was still playing that Vegas card at every opportunity. “What then?”

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Be careful with that,” she replied with a short laugh and cock of her head.

  He laughed back, genuinely amused by her. “Do you really want to risk the mouth, baby?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  He laughed again as he rolled her beneath him and pulled the chemise from around her before leaning back to study her lying there naked.

  “At least you didn’t rip it off me.” They both knew she was referring to his destruction of her pants in the hallway.

  “I think you like it when I tear your clothes off. I think it makes you horny, hornier than you usually are.”

  “Maybe,” she repeated, her eyelids closing coyly.

  “No, it’s not a maybe, Tasha, and if you charge your clothes to me, then technically they are my clothes so I can tear them off you whenever I want.” He shifted back, resting on his heels to study her. “Sit up,” he told her flatly but with unmistakeable firmness.