by Bailey, Orla
I see the speculative glances coming my way. Jack holds on to my arm and for once I’m grateful. I’m even a bit scared we’ll get parted in the crush. I decide I’m not going to the ladies restroom all night.
Jack, to his credit, makes a point of introducing me to everyone.
When a group of people approach and Jack’s hand is shaken warmly, I discover he’s on first name terms with the Governor of The Bank of England and his American counterpart from the Federal Reserve. He makes sure they know who I am too and they kindly put me at ease. I vaguely wonder what they would think if they knew where Jack’s right hand had been before shaking theirs but try to stop thinking about it when my face begins to burn.
Everyone talks for a bit about the 125th Anniversary celebration of the Financial Times and I’m wide-eyed they act like old friends. When Jack catches the look on my face he shrugs. I notice he manoeuvres me into a front-line position every time official press photographers take a snap.
He leans in and whispers, “No harm boosting your profile a little.”
“No harm even having one.”
He tries to draw me into conversation by asking what I think. The only thing I think with any regularity is how soon I’m going to be able to get out of here. I still feel like the elephant in the room. A very red one.
“You’re doing fine,” he encourages during a brief lull. “They can be a bit over-whelming but you’ll get used to them.”
Will I? Do I even want to?
I notice things Jack doesn’t. Like how some women glare at me as if I’m the class enemy. I hear the cogs in their coiffured heads turning, wondering why he would be with a little mouse like me, when he could be with a real woman like them. They’re so glamorous, part of me thinks they have a point. I remind myself he’s not really with me in that sense anyway. He’s just teaching me a lesson. Or two.
Someone stumbles against me and I flinch. It’s bad enough accepting Jack’s occasional friendly little reminders but if everyone else plans to take a pop, I’m out of here.
“Watch out.” Jack scowls at the poor perpetrator and pulls me around to shield me. The young man is extremely apologetic but he offers it to Jack, not me. I sigh, understanding completely. Who wouldn’t with the furious force of Jack Keogh bearing down upon them?
I mean little in this place. These people are probably questioning the gullibility of any woman who allows herself to be manipulated by the Jack Keogh PR machine into wearing a scarlet gown at a Black and White Ball. I stare up at the ceiling. From up there I must look like a drop of blood spoiling the cool white purity of a gallon of milk.
Jack scoops two glasses of Champagne from a waiter’s tray. He hands one to me. “Sip it slowly.”
I give him the most indignant look I can summon. “I’m not a child, Jack. I do know how to drink responsibly.”
He raises his eyebrows. “I remember.”
Is he never going to let me forget he spoiled my weekend of drunken depravity or that I got horribly intoxicated and ridiculously emotional last night on Champagne and whisky? “That’s hardly fair.”
He laughs. “I wouldn’t want you quite so sexily wanton anywhere but alone with me.”
Was that how he saw me last night? I did practically beg, right enough. Okay, definitely. Several times. I raise my glass and take a great gulp of Champagne. “You’re no gentleman, Jack Keogh, whatever these idolaters may think.”
He leans in and kisses my hair. “I knew you’d make this dreary event more bearable. You smell really good by the way. I can’t stop thinking about going down on you.” He removes the Champagne glass deftly from my hand just before I choke and deposits it on a passing waiter’s tray. “Dance with me instead.”
He manoeuvres us through the crowds, acknowledging people’s greetings as we go but refusing to be diverted from his path. The orchestral music grows louder, voices indistinct, as we approach the dance floor. I hear violins and the classic tempo of a waltz.
“I can’t dance to this, Jack.” I say it several times but he isn’t listening. Please don’t make me.
He turns me rapidly into him and I land against the rock hard wall of his chest. “You can do anything you want to, Tabby.”
When he says it, I melt. He fixes me with his iridescent blue eyes until I nearly pass out. All those silly romantic stories are true. A woman really can feel that way about a man.
I look up at him as he crushes me to his body. What is it about midnight black hair and blue, blue eyes that does such strange things to me? My senses flood with Clive Christian and Jack and as the backs of my knees slowly dissolve my breasts swell, tender and tight, against him. But it’s the soft insistent thud pulsing down low that really grabs my attention. That and the definitively hard length of Jack’s erection pressing against my belly.
I’ve never danced with a man this way before. This is no bump and grind boogie on the dance floor. It’s seductive and intimate. Far too sexual. Slowly deliberate, swaying and turning, bodies tight against each other, like we’re making love. Hot as hell.
“Can we leave yet, Jack? If I wore the red dress, you promised me.” I wish everyone would disappear; I wish we were back at Belvedere; I’m desperate to be alone with him.
“Feel the music. Feel me against you.”
“Oh, believe me, I do.”
He moves with animal refinement. All powerful muscles and controlled intention. Compelling me with unrelenting force to his own tempo, until my needs fulfil his desires. He dances the way he will make love, I know it, increasing my impatience to be alone with him. No foreplay has ever been so erotic and the look in his eyes tells me he feels it too.
“Why do we have to wait?”
“So needy. Waiting to know you that way is a delicious torment.” With a low groan, he crushes me to him so tightly I have no choice but to follow his moves.
Each step he takes forwards or sideways carries me along. With one hand planted firmly against my back he holds me still. I feel the rise and fall of his chest, the swell and dip of his muscles. It’s sensory overload.
I try to ignore the thigh pressing between mine which isn’t easy as he rises and falls.
His left hand tightly holds my right as he twirls me around the floor. We’re surrounded by couples dancing but I don’t see a thing. Jack has all my attention focused on him and he never takes his eyes from mine.
“Your first ball,” he says. “Your first formal dance.” I nod. “Your first red gown.”
First love too, I think. And the first time I offered myself exclusively to anyone but which he gave away. I feel that loss especially in my heart. He waits for a response – perhaps he regrets those other firsts too. I don’t want to disappoint him. Not tonight. “Yes, Jack. Thank you.”
He smiles, pleased with me and, at that moment, I’m very pleased with myself. As he spins me round suddenly moving backwards, I gasp but don’t trip. He holds me way too close and when my feet fail he lifts me off the ground taking me with him anyway. Jack will never let me fall and I’m no longer scared of dancing with him.
“So many firsts,” he whispers against my hair as I sink my head onto his shoulder. “They all belong to me.”
I sigh contentedly when I feel the rumble of pure pleasure roll through his chest.
The music ends. Everything has to end sometime, I suppose. Gentle applause breaks out around us. Jack leans back and looks down as I open my eyes again. I don’t want to move. I don’t want him to let me go. I want to stay here, wrapped in his embrace like this forever. The orchestra begins a new number. I wordlessly ask if he will carry on dancing with me but he laughs and shakes his head. He laughs more at my disappointment.
“Lots of people for you to meet.” He guides me off the dance floor.
I realise I haven’t hyperventilated once, since leaving the car. That alone is a minor miracle. I had visions of collapsing in a red-faced heap in the middle of the Mansion House, wheezing like an old horse heading for the knackers’ yard and ha
ving to be stretchered off by the St John’s Ambulance first-aiders.
If I wasn’t such a rabbit it really could be a perfect night. Apart from the resentful stares of incredulity I’m still attracting from quite a number of females. And not all of them single either. It’s amazing just how many actually approach us. They do it to get on Jack’s radar, of course, laying their grasping fingers on the lapels of his jacket and laughing falsely, batting thick fake eyelashes and pouting with their stop-right-here lips. I can’t understand why Jack seems so enchanted by all that phoney when he overreacts to even a little lip gloss on me.
I might be the one wearing red but they are infinitely more vampish. I bless the girls at the salon for the subtle job they did on me. If I thought for a minute I looked anywhere near as synthetic as these desperate dames, I’d spank myself. I roll my eyes at them repeatedly until Jack stops pretending he hasn’t noticed. He allows the flat of his hand to tap my rump whenever he catches me doing it. I try to shift my hip out of reach but he pulls me back against him. These women must be queuing round the block. When I start sighing impatiently and flirting back with their disgruntled partners, Jack’s not above letting me know his disapproval.
The whole thing makes me livid. They can see he’s with me. He’s hardly let go of my hand all evening, but they just don’t seem to care. It’s like I’m a challenge to them, as if they’re trying to show him by comparison, what a lousy choice he’s made.
“You’re encouraging them,” I complain during a brief lull.
“I’m being polite.”
“I’m being polite to their partners.”
“I won’t have you flirting with other men.”
“I’m networking. Same as you.”
“No way is what you’re doing, the same as what I’m doing.”
“So you know what you’re doing, right?”
“I hope you’re not developing any nasty habits,” he warns, glaring back.
I huff. “I’d just like it if we could have a minute. Alone.” My emphasis on the final word makes it clear to both of us I’m ticked off with all the female attention he’s drawing.
He looks highly amused. Well he would. All the adoration is directed at him and he doesn’t seem to find it unpleasant at all. I hate feeling so jealous and it’s making me more and more irrational.
“Do we need a quiet place to go lower some more tension?” His eyebrow arches and I read the warning clearly.
I’m shocked at his reminder and blush. Personally I‘m beginning to think he’s enjoying this new hold over me. If I wasn’t so embarrassed, I’d call his bluff and have it out, here and now. I’m beginning to wonder just what I’ve started. But my blood is up.
“Perhaps I just need a stiff…” I hesitate, wondering how long I can effectively hold the dramatic pause. Satisfyingly, I note his eyebrow wing into his hairline. Even the latest siren swaying her skimpy little black dress suggestively in front of Jack catches the undertone and freezes. My work is done. “…drink.” I give the sweetest wide-eyed innocent, lash-fluttering look that I can manage. Jack is stuck for words for a second so I jump in fast. “But I can see you’re still busy... socialising, so I’ll get it.” I twist my wrist in his hand and know I’ve caught him by surprise as I manage to free myself at last. I stomp off.
I don’t get very far. Two large hands clamp themselves around my upper arms and I’m steered off to the side of the salon in double quick time. My feet hardly touch the floor. I’m in immediate danger of retaliating violently. I don’t suppose anyone has ever questioned Jack’s actions in quite that way before. And in public too. But I’m damned sure I’m not going to let him take me to any quiet room. I’ll scream the place down. To hell with making a scene.
He wheels me around. “I’m sorry, Tabitha.”
I wasn’t expecting that. A rare apology from Jack is definitely worth hearing. Then his uber-dominant expression rapidly superimposes itself over any friendly one. “I’m sorry you don’t like it, but social discourse is a necessary part of business.”
He isn’t apologising to me for encouraging those women’s flirtatious behaviour. “Social discourse?” I scoff. “Try soliciting. If money changed hands you’d be arrested!” I’m not holding back.
“Why don’t you tell me what you really feel?” His eyes burn into mine with an obvious dare.
“Nothing like you’re feeling. Other women’s hands all over you! No wonder you can’t lose the erection.”
He pauses momentarily, in disbelief. “You’re jealous.” The idea doesn’t appear to displease him. In fact, he makes the accusation so often I think he rather likes it.
“Jealous?” I counter the notion for about the third time that day. Okay, I’m jealous as hell but really, it’s so blatant he’s rubbing my nose in it. “Your monstrous ego is getting the better of you. Again.”
He laughs, tightly. “If you could begin to see what’s right in front of you, you’d know you have no reason to feel jealous.”
Right. He’s not exactly mine. I keep forgetting. The thought hits me square in the stomach. It hurts so I hit back.
“It’s hardly good PR – let alone appropriate – to flirt with other men’s wives and girlfriends. You’re damaging my reputation by association, not building it.”
He frowns like he doesn’t get it. “They’re flirting with me.”
So he damn well does know it. “You’re not exactly discouraging them.”
“In business you’re selling yourself every bit as much as the service or product you provide.”
In that case I’m doomed before I start. However I’m not letting him off his hook because of my shortcomings. “So you’re having a public rummage sale, then?”
He narrows his eyes at my defiant attitude. “Allow me to benefit from your feminine expertise. How would you advise me to handle such very public, unwanted attention?” He thinks he’s put me on the spot and defended his nefarious deeds at the same time.
Like I’ve ever have to handle unwanted attention. I have no expertise as he well knows. “That’s assuming it is unwanted.”
Right on cue another femme fatale tries to catch his eye. I raise mine to him in a complete told you so, kind of way. I’m surprised when Jack turns his back on her and presses me against the wall of the dark nook he’s manoeuvred us into.
“That’s one way.”
“This way?” He whispers the words harshly, his body close enough to mine to smell his heat, his scent.
“Yes.” I part my lips. My voice is practically swallowed up by a tense gasp.
Jack’s body forces itself closer until he rests his fore-arms either side of my head on the wall, trapping me between them. Doesn’t he remember we’re at a ball? People are watching. Women will be clawing their bleeding eyes out with their own crimson nails if they see this. His mouth descends hungrily upon mine.
His hips push against mine until the old adage – rock and hard place – enters my mind.
“If this is an alternative technique to subdue me, it’ll work every time.”
“I don’t wish to subdue you,” he growls.
“What do you want to do to me?”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you too.”
His tongue shunts between my unresisting lips which I open for him on a moan. He forces my body so tight to the wall I can’t breathe. His pelvis and his impressive erection, thrust against my pubic bone providing just the right amount of stimulation to take me from where I’ve been hovering in frustration all evening to where I want to go, with just a moment’s more friction. My fists bunch in his lapels, and I keen, lest I pass out from all this longing as lights start to flash behind my closed eyes. I’ve been teetering on the brink since the limousine and think he has been too. It makes us dangerously over-crowded cell mates.
I’m going to fuck you in that red dress.
I almost don’t care if it happens right here. I feel reckless. Crazy with lust. I’d happily give the newspapers their next sc
andalous headline if Jack would ease my need. Especially in front of his incredulous and brazen harem.
His heart-rate soars off the scale thudding against mine. When he pants like he can’t catch breath and groans into my mouth, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. I really believe the man has finally broken his cardinal rule and lost control over me. It seems to take a great effort of will for him to stop himself; to push himself back. He rests his forehead on mine for a minute until his breathing grows more measured and he gathers up enough willpower to move himself away from me.
He stands upright allowing the shutters to fall over his features and I wonder how he can appear so normal after that. I’m an oil slick oozing down the wall. I already miss full-body contact desperately. The tender places where I throb and pulsate are bereft. My teeth almost chatter but I’m not cold. Quite the opposite.
“Do you think we’ve done enough to discourage them yet?” he gasps.
I shake my head. He renders me speechless.
His lips twitch. “You feel it might require something even more drastic?”
I nod. I’d go to my death quite happily drowning in those two deep Irish pools of blue ice melt.
“Soon,” he promises.
“Not soon enough.” I snipe with frustration and he laughs tightly at me. My faculties return slowly but I can’t bring myself to look around to see who might be watching us.
“Thank you for your collaboration,” Jack says cryptically. “I think that ought to keep the Amazons at bay for a minute or two longer until they gather forces for another full-on assault.”
Is that what that was? A show for their benefit? When he winks at me, utterly recovered, I’m confused. Disappointed. That’s the only reason he kissed me? To make those other women desire him all the more. Clearly any woman would have to have some brass neck to try her luck with Jack again after witnessing that little charade. I know I wouldn’t dream of it.
But I underestimate the resolve of his all-female fan club and the innate power of his magnetism. They’re at it again almost immediately and with renewed vigour. I sigh and roll my eyes resulting in a swift glare. If it wasn’t for the fact that my sanity has been splattered all over that far wall, it would teach me a lesson for being so naïve. We’re right back where we started.