She was amazingly dextrous and erotic and as usual she oozed sex. Her legs possessed such elasticity it was impossible not to be mesmerised by her intricate acrobatics, the bending this way and that and the contortion into all sorts of complicated poses. Michael was not to know she despised prostituting her legs and every moment she was on stage she had carefully trained her mind to think of other things. She couldn’t see the audience, and good thing too, because the floodlights were angled in such a way all Imogen saw was vacant smoky darkness and that made it easier in a way. Tonight, she strolled around in a haze of hopeful expectation. She didn’t know if Michael was there, but she hoped he was.
Positioning her chair, she leant her chin on it and blinked into the lights. One moment her feet were up on the chair and her knees were opening and closing like a pair of scissors, the next they were over the back of the chair and Imogen was leaning backwards with her face turned to Michael and her hand on the floor. Her luscious blonde hair fell in a cascade around her face and the coat fell over her cheeks to reveal the glorious forward thrust of her legs, the sexy suspenders and the panties with just the barest hint of pubic hair.
For the grand finale, she leapt to her feet and paraded around with the silver topped cane, stroking the silk stockings with it and running it up her thighs, and then she did a saucy turn with the cane between her legs while she pouted and sang and fluttered her eyelashes.
After the show, she came down from the stage and finding Michael at the small table she sat on his knee and gently palpated his erection. ‘How did you find the show?’ she asked boldly.
Grinning, Michael moved his hand over her buttocks and lifting the coat he smoothed his hands along the insides of her silk stockings. Imogen enjoyed the feel of his hands, it was a long time since a man had touched her carefully and she placed her hand on his cheek. When he looked at her she realised it wasn’t simply an addiction for the silk stockings. He had that far away look which told her he was a guy falling in love with the silk stocking whore.
‘I swear I never met a girl like you, Imogen. You’re crazy.’
She clasped her hands around his neck. ‘Do you think so? OK, I’m crazy and a whore of the silk stockings?’ Instantly, her gaze froze and she began nibbling at her bottom lip. ‘There’s so much you don’t know about me, Michael – like Gunter, for instance. He followed me for a while when I left the bar last night and it freaked me out. He was hanging about here all day too, wearing his thunderous expression. He’s a bad man, Michael. I seem to have this penchant for attracting rotten men into my life. Do you think it’d be a bad thing if I asked you to walk me home tonight, since I feel …?’ She wriggled her buttocks against Michael’s erection. ‘I feel a teensy bit scared for some reason.’
‘No, of course not,’ Michael said, caressing the silk stockings with small palm movements of his hand. ‘I’d be delighted to.’
‘Thank you, it’s very kind of you, it’s quite a way.’
She was scared, that much was true, but not for the reasons she’d given. It was not Gunter who scared her half to death – he was all bluster but harmless – no, it was someone else. For three nights now when Imogen put on her coat and came out of the club, she was sure she’d seen a shadow clinging to the buildings and that shadow made her skin crawl. She could be imagining it, of course. If you lived with fear for a great many years you could imagine all sorts of things.
In order to get to her apartment, she had to walk to the tram stop and take the tram quite a distance before getting off. Then, it was a walk along a few dark and not very well lit streets into a shabby part of Berlin, peppered with community housing. She shivered when she thought of it, however, it was necessary because a better apartment would cost a great deal of money and the very intricacy of the streets gave her anonymity.
She sucked her lip, she had an awfully bad feeling. It had crept up on her like a dark cloud and had started two months ago with the call from her old friend, Martha Braun. Imogen had told Martha never to call her on the phone in the lobby because she felt too vulnerable standing there, but Martha said she’d had to break the golden rule because there was something she ought to know. Imogen had become frozen, her hands and feet like blocks of ice. Louis was out of prison.
Imogen always slid in and out of the apartment like a wraith, she was so paranoid about it, now she was more scared than ever. When you had something valuable in your life and you wanted to protect it, that was how you became. She preferred to go out after dark, but when she was forced to leave during the day she pulled the collar of her coat up, scraped her hair back into a coil down her back and she wore no make-up.
She sat back coquettishly, swinging her legs back and forth and drawing little spirals on the back of his hand. ‘Did you find my little present, Michael? It was a bad thing for me to do, but I can be impetuous. I try to be good, I really do, but there’s a part of me which is very bad indeed.’
‘And what present would that be?’ Michael replied. He seemed determined to play her at her own game.
‘Naughty. You know exactly what present.’ Her gaze travelled over his face. His eyes were wide and glistening and there was a hungry look about them. Imogen couldn’t tell him, she’d thought about him last night. For the first time it wasn’t Anni who’d claimed her thoughts, but Michael. She could almost feel the curve of his body, the way he held her and she pushed back against him and felt his erection pushing between her legs. Imogen took his earlobe between her neat square teeth and bit it gently. ‘Don’t fool with me, Michael. You found the silk stocking, didn’t you? I knew you were craving one. I could tell by the hungry look in your eyes. Every man wants to touch and play with my silk stockings and they all want to have one. For a moment there I became silly and a bit childish and I thought, I like Mr Michael Levenstein immensely and I want to thank him. What can I give him as a thank you present? So I made you a gift of the silk stocking. And after I did it, I lay in bed all night imagining what you were doing and if you were titillating your dick with it. Did you do that? You see I have fantasies too.’
Michael took Imogen’s hand and then he turned it over and kissed her palm, circling it with his tongue as Imogen’s eyes glowed with pleasure.
‘I might have thought about it a little bit, but it would have been bad of me having thoughts of that nature about a nice girl like you.’
‘Nice girl! Oh, I wish you knew about me and then you’d change your mind.’
‘I want to find out about you, if you’d let me.’ He jiggled her on his lap. ‘I’d like to take you out to this fabulous little café where they have the best hot chocolate in Berlin.’
Imogen licked her lips, she loved chocolate and she felt an orgasmic frisson at the thought of it. She was on a very strict budget and she rarely stopped at cafés since she was carefully saving every penny for Anni and putting it into a savings account. It meant there was nothing left over for any treats.
‘I don’t know.’
Michael was frowning. ‘I asked Larry about you. I didn’t want to tread on any guy’s toes if you were dating. He said you didn’t seem to have a guy, so, I got to thinking.’
‘What, you thought I was maybe a lesbian?’
‘No, I didn’t think that, not in the least.’ Michael slipped his arm around her waist and caressed her gently with his thumb. ‘I thought perhaps here’s a woman who’s been stung by love. A beautiful single woman with haunted eyes.’
Imogen was afraid because Michael was staring at her with the same intensity Louis had stared at her, except it lacked the fierceness. Louis had been frightening in his obsessive love for her.
‘Is it possible you’re falling a little bit in love with me, Michael? You are, aren’t you? But, you don’t have to admit it if you don’t want to. After all you are the great Michael Levenstein and I guess you can have any woman in the world you want.’ She paused. ‘I’d have to say to you if you were considering falling in love with me, it’s a very bad idea.’
‘Why?’ Michael asked.
Imogen shrugged. ‘No man would want to become involved with me, because I’m complicated and I attract trouble.’
Michael shrugged. ‘I can take a bit of trouble and you’re right, women throw themselves at me all the time.’
Imogen stared at him, she didn’t know if he was kidding or not.
‘However, maybe I don’t want any woman in the world.’ Michael stroked a loose tendril of hair out of her eye. ‘Perhaps I want a silk stocking whore.’
‘You’re not lying, are you?’
‘Sadly no,’ Michael replied.
‘We’re playing a little game aren’t we, Michael, and it feels nice but it’s such a long time ago that I was in love? I don’t know if it would be such a good thing to have a romance with an American.’
Michael took her hand, turning it over and then he kissed it and ripples of pleasure welled up in Imogen and the place between her legs opened and became wet and she moved her legs. He pressed his mouth to her palm and she felt his tongue lapping; it was perversely erotic.
‘Can’t you just take this interlude?’ he said. ‘And not make a big thing of it. We like each other, don’t we? There was some sort of mutual attraction when we met. Shouldn’t we get to know one another because if we didn’t, possibly we’d regret it?
Imogen looked at him sadly. She was suffering a battle inside, yet her one overriding desire in that moment was love and how it felt to be loved and absorbed and lose herself in passion. She threaded her fingers through his soft corn coloured hair and planted a kiss on top of his head. The heat which had started in her cheeks seemed to be slowly dribbling in a warm river down her body, ebbing and flowing into her cracks and curves and setting her alight with delicious anticipation.
‘Don’t you think such legs and such silk stockings need to be worshipped, Michael. Tell me how you’d do that?’ Imogen felt very naughty indeed. She knew it was dangerous to tempt and lure, but she couldn’t help it. Her eyes were shining and her cheeks were flushed. ‘Come along, if you whisper it, no one will hear. Whisper it here in my ear.’
‘I think I ought to walk you home right now, before I do something I shouldn’t,’ Michael said. ‘Hop up.’
Giggling, Imogen jumped off his lap and ran to the dressing room, returning a while later dressed in a neat wool suit and carrying the hat and tails over her arm. Michael was waiting for her by the door. He took her hand and held it tightly. As they walked, Imogen’s thighs in the silk stockings brushed together with a sound like static and she could see him smiling as he listened to the crackle, crackle of the silk stocking friction. After a while he pulled her closer and whispered in her ear. ‘Imogen, what is that way you have of walking with the friction of the stockings rubbing together. Such a thing could ignite a man in flames?’
Imogen gripped his hand and she held it to her thigh and as they strolled along she pressed his fingers to the edge of her lacy seams and he moved his finger beneath her suspenders. ‘Either one of us could be set on fire.’ She laughed. ‘But, perhaps it’ll be me and not you.’
On the tram he kept watching her and it made her tingle all over. Somehow he had found a way to slip beneath her defences. Sometimes she caught him watching her out of the corner of his eye and at other times he watched her reflection in the glass. Michael, she deduced, was like a watery sun popping out from behind a cloud and gently warming her frozen body.
A cold wind blew down the strasse and Imogen buttoned her coat as they walked together in silence. She was afraid. Her number one rule when she’d moved here was never to bring men back to the apartment. She had to avoid the possibility of Louis finding out where she lived and worked and to do that she had to learn to keep secrets and lead a solitary life. She’d even made sure she didn’t shop at the same shops, just in case she was followed, and her dentist and doctor were right the other side of town.
Her apartment was situated up a narrow side street and reached through a curved archway which led into a courtyard. Searching in her pocket for her key, Imogen unlocked a door into a small shabby halfway and Michael, consumed with excitement, pressed his hands to her thighs and forced her up against the wall. Imogen sighed and shivered as his hands felt under her skirt and stroked between her thighs, then giggling she took his hand and pulled him over to a small elevator. ‘It’s a curious old building, isn’t it? They tell me this section was once part of the old hospital.’ She punched a button and the door opened and then slammed with a clang, the two of them ascending in the dark cage which creaked and groaned and occasionally shuddered, like a woman approaching orgasm. Michael held her tightly, with his arm around her waist and his mouth buried in her perfumed hair, and Imogen wondered how it would feel to have his hand right down against her flesh, inside the silk stockings.
The door clattered open and, laughing, Imogen lifted her skirt coquettishly and sashayed along the corridor doing a little dance and walking on the tips of her toes.
‘Well this is my little boudoir, Michael,’ she said as she leant seductively against the door. ‘You must promise you won’t be alarmed when you come inside, but I’m rather an untidy girl, I’m afraid. And, since I hardly ever ask men back to my room I don’t bother tidying up much. Actually, I can’t remember when I last had a real boyfriend, although naturally many men hang around the stage door.’
‘Yes I imagine they would,’ Michael said huskily.
The apartment was little more than a room situated high up in the attic. However, it had a startling panoramic view of Berlin and, far away, the roof of the cathedral. Through the draughty old window, around which she had stuck pieces of newspaper, the wind whistled with a strange high musical cadence. Imogen watched Michael carefully. She supposed Mr Levenstein lived in a chic loft apartment in the city and was used to opulent surroundings. After all, the Levensteins apparently owned a huge house in the Hamptons, with tennis courts and swimming pools. She’d read about Mr Levenstein senior, he had defended politicians and actors. His wife, Norma, had apparently alienated her children with her overbearing manner but she recalled her own mother had admired the woman – her dresses and shoes, beautiful grooming and impeccable style. Imogen twisted a strand of her hair around her finger. She found it odd and unsettling and like a mysterious twist of destiny, that the Michael Levenstein was standing in her little room and that he had a connection, however loosely, with her past and her mother.
‘It’s not much. But, it’s convenient for work. Plus there’s the added advantage of Herr Eichel, who owns the bakers and who saves me the leftovers. Herr Eichel makes the most wonderful butterkuchen. I have a small piece left if you’d like it?’
‘I can think of another butterkuchen I’d rather have,’ Michael murmured.
Imogen flicked on a lamp. ‘You can see I’m telling the truth and I don’t have many visitors, can’t you? It’s simply a place to sleep, that’s all. Make yourself at home, Michael.’
Imogen began clearing a chair. Taking the strewn clothing she dumped it onto the floor in an untidy pile before carefully placing her top hat and coat onto an old dressmaker’s mannequin in the corner of the room.
The room was very shabby indeed with faded flock wallpaper. It was dominated by a Chinese screen in one corner, a huge ornate wardrobe and a French cheval mirror. Nearly every piece of furniture was covered in items of clothing and in particular loose silk stockings, which hung here and there like discarded condoms.
Michael sat down cautiously on the bed, which was covered in a blood red quilt and various items of alluring underwear: real French lace panties and a thin silk chemise. She could tell he was suffering from compelling sexual urges as he kept crossing his legs and tugging his jacked down over his erection, men were so bad at hiding these things.
Imogen was feeling relaxed. She shook a cigarette out of a box on her dressing table and striking a match and cupping the flame, her face was briefly illuminated. Then, smiling, she stubbed it out. She must be excited to so quickly forget one
of her promises. Boldly unbuttoning her overcoat, she shrugged it from her shoulders before unfastening her blouse and unzipping her skirt and kicking it away with her foot.
Imogen was now completely naked except for her suspender belt and stockings and her impossibly tall high heels. Next, hooking her leg around the chair she drew it out and sat down at the dressing table. What was it her mother had said? “It was better to be hung as a sheep than a lamb.” Michael watched her apply make-up remover to some cotton wool and remove her make-up. Then she pushed open the door of a tiny closet and drawing some water she washed her face and hands and between her legs with a washcloth.
‘You don’t know what to make of me, do you, Michael?’ she said as she strolled back into the room. ‘And, it’s probably just as well because you’d hate me.’
Michael was staring at Imogen’s legs. In the glow from the lamp her stockings shone. She saw him staring, sat down and pushing the chair away a little from the dressing table and knowing she was being deliberately provocative, she crossed her legs extremely slowly, compelling the black suspenders to tighten and pull on the fine inflexible silk. A darkness seemed to be trickling out of her, a desire to be very bad. Louis had made her behave badly, she thought ruefully, but those times had gone. However, sex was such a compulsive human drive, once you had a taste for it, it kept coming back and you couldn’t push the itch to be naughty away.
She sat back in the chair, parting her legs and running her hands up the insides of her thighs in a gesture of downright sexual decadence, before trailing her fingers over the curve of her belly and thrusting her hips forward so Michael could see the plush mound of pubic hair between her legs.
Seduce: A Cariad Romance Three Book Bundle (Cariad Collections) Page 17