Sexile

by Lisa Lawrence

  PRAISE FOR LISA LAWRENCE’S NOVELS

  BEG ME

  “A strong female lead and a cracking good mystery

  make Beg Me a solid, page-turning read.’

  —TheRomanceReader.com

  “A great erotic thriller from a top-rate writer.’

  —CoffeeTimeRomance.com

  STRIP POKER

  “A well-written, witty and extremely erotic thriller.’

  —Jade Magazine (UK)

  “Lawrence has hit one out of the park.

  An erotic thriller with a mystery thread that keeps you

  guessing, and a heroine who’s smart, savvy, and

  sexy…Naughty and entertaining.’

  —TheRomanceReader.com

  ALSO BY LISA LAWRENCE

  Strip Poker

  Beg Me

  FOREPLAY: LONDON

  Kim is five foot three, skinny, with small breasts and narrow hips, a face of delicate features—a little upturned nose, small mouth, and green eyes. A mane of blond curls flying as she bounced in a tight circle on the floor, her mouth opening in a brilliant smile of laugh-out-loud joy at being alive and the thrill of moving.

  Tonight she wore faded Levi’s and a red-and-black baggy lumberjack shirt with the sleeves cut off, which only emphasized her petite ethereal body. She had a casual style all her own that I admired but wouldn’t try for myself (can’t even dream of pulling off the gamine-goes-tomboy look). We made quite the visually interesting couple, she and this tall African chick who has a dark brown complexion; round face, nose, and lips; and large eyes that can all be traced back to my ancestral people, the Nuba of Sudan. Of course, the way Kim was holding both hands of her fellow university student, Felicity, as they bopped to the music, you might not think she was with me at all.

  I don’t get jealous. Often. Much. No, not really.

  Kim and Felicity, a tall brunette, floated back to where I sat with her other university friends, and with dramatic flair, my girl downed her shot in one go and slammed the glass on the table, laughing. “You all right?’ she asked.

  “Of course.’

  “We were just dancing.’

  “I know,’ I said simply.

  Her nicely sculpted eyebrows narrowed, her lovely face frowning in disappointment. I hadn’t reacted according to her script. Too bad. I knew this game by now and never cared for it—for one thing, the clumsy obviousness was a mild irritation. Look at me dance and giggle with other girls, and I can upset you, can’t I? Can’t I?

  No.

  She wanted me to feel jealous because she did. She resented the fact that I hadn’t and won’t cut off ties with certain male friends, a couple of whom, yes, are ex-lovers. My policy is you bring your lover to see your old friends, invite her along, and include her—then there is no threat, no par anoid questions over why you’re visiting so-and-so. Everything is out in the open. This wasn’t good enough for Kim.

  She resented me calling myself bisexual, and her argument had a logic that was absolutely perverse to me—that I must be one thing or the other, that I was deluding myself, because I didn’t declare a preference. I was somehow less committed to her because I’d slept with men in the past and liked it, and I can fancy a man as much as a woman. We never came to any resolution after the fights. We would just drift back to each other after a long cease-fire and go to bed.

  It took me a couple of hours to realize what had set her off tonight—must have been my quiet reserve in the middle of the animated discussions of her mates. They were so…strident. They didn’t like when I contradicted their analyses of postcolonial Africa—inconvenient for the student types that I’d been there and that I’m British-African. They didn’t like me going against the fashion of completely demonizing the police when I said yes, much of that’s true, I’ll be the first to say it, but I know a couple of decent police officers who are trying to do good.

  “You going to sulk all night?’ Kim whispered to me.

  “Who’s sulking?’ I asked in genuine surprise.

  She leaned over and Frenched me hard. I pulled back, one hand cradling her face, telling her softly, “We’re in public.’

  “Ugghh,’ she moaned. She grabbed Felicity’s arm and went back to dancing in a corner.

  It’s come to this. I, Teresa Knight, have officially been accused of being uptight. Who would have thunk it?

  Kim went to the London School of Economics. I thought I had fallen in love with her. I liked that she told me she didn’t want to become a star player for the banks, and whilst she admitted she might end up in academia, she wanted to come up with a new dialectic, get all the strands of ambitious ideas in her head knitted together to take on the big challenges like poverty, Third World debt, et cetera. Have to confess that world saving is very sexy to me…when the opinions are informed, and when there’s a focus behind the passion. I’m a pushover for that.

  Anyone who knows me, of course, could say my own crusades have been accidental. I never go looking for them. I’ve done international courier work and helped with modern art appraisals in Geneva, and occasionally friends hire my talents to solve particularly sensitive problems. Like when they’re robbed blind or blackmailed or when certain other people have been declared dead. I get into trouble. Deliberately. Frequently. You’d be surprised how often that entails winding up naked with interesting, less-than-reputable individuals, plus getting embroiled in debates over international oil concessions raping Third World countries and forgotten war crimes in struggling nations. I suppose you start to call a job a career after you start piling up the war stories.

  Kim and I got involved not long after I returned from a case in America. In New York, I had infiltrated this BDSM cult, and tying up loose ends on that case literally meant tying up my loose ends, as in wrists and ankles, me nude, shining with sweat and getting lashed by leather whips. (I’m a fun date.)

  I met someone when I was over there, someone who became very important to me very fast. I managed to leave New York with a couple of photos of her, because I never want to forget her face—or how I was responsible for what happened and why we’re not still together. I don’t pull out the photos as often anymore, but I’m glad I have them. I remember large brown eyes and lush eyelashes, hair in elaborate cornrows, café-au-lait skin. Special in every way—the things she said to me, the things she said she would do with me and on her own. I’ll never see them happen.

  Funny how you lie to yourself that it would have stayed perfect if it hadn’t come to a sudden stop. But of course, it would, wouldn’t it? You’d work at it, wouldn’t you? You can steal and promise time to someone lost, time you stubbornly refuse to buy for that person you have right now.

  “She’s a lovely girl’ was Helena’s tepid verdict on Kim. At least she didn’t quip that my lover wasn’t man enough for me. When I pressed hard on what Helena really thought, I was told: “She’s immature, Teresa.’

  “I’m immature.’

  “No, you’re impetuous, headstrong, and sometimes a nuisance,’ she replied, striking a big-sister note. “But you don’t have tantrums.’

  She nearly floored me with that one. “Kim’s never made a scene when you’re around.’

  “No. But she makes them, doesn’t she?’

  “How can you tell?’

  Helena indulged herself in a light laugh. “Darling, you know I have to appraise beef all the time—take a measure of the men I send out. What you forget is I have to understand women, too.’

  Helena Willoughby. First acquaintance, then client, and now best friend. Beautiful, blond, late thirties, one time hell-raiser with marauding Sloaneys and, if the rumors are true (which she won’t confirm just to tease me), ex-lover of a certain Brit star known for period costume dramas. She can afford the mortgage on her five-bedroom hou
se in Richmond-upon-Thames because she runs the most successful male escort agency in London. Rich women in their thirties, forties, and fifties will pay for company that not only looks good on the arm but also knows how to offer a compliment in a sincere whisper under chandelier light and, better still, how to prompt a moan and a shudder in the dark.

  I helped save Helena’s business many moons ago, and she was there to sweep up the pieces I was in after the devastation I suffered in New York. I like to know what she thinks. She’s also one of the few people whom I want to think well of me.

  “You know you rushed into this, don’t you?’ She tried to sound more compassionate than challenging. “And you know why.’

  “She’s not at all like her,’ I protested. “Not that you could know, you never met—’

  “I know what you’ve told me, darling.’ Helena started ticking off fingers. “Intellectual overachiever, sweet, younger, not as experienced at life…Have I missed anything? And you know the resemblances are not the point. It’s the differences really. You’re trying so hard to bend over backwards to be compatible with this girl, to compromise, and I’m sure you two have many moments of joy together, Teresa, but—you are on the phone to me more often than not, sighing and wondering what to do with her.’

  “I know,’ I said glumly.

  “Can you seriously tell me you’re ready to have the girl move in with you?’

  “I don’t know.’

  “Then I’d say, my love, that you have your answer.’

  It was true. Kim and I were past the infatuation stage but somehow had taken a detour away from comfortable coasting. It was, forgive the pun, stranger than friction. I still don’t know how the whole debate about her moving in with me started, and in my uglier resentful moods, I got it into my head it was her steering me towards the idea, guilt-tripping me into helping her out as a struggling student.

  But that probably wasn’t fair. She’d kept putting off the move, kept putting it off, and then she insisted that after all, she wasn’t doing so badly with her roommates in their flat down near Elephant and Castle, though she did keep applying for the LSE students’ accommodation at Grosvenor House. In our smoother, more romantic moments, she talked about packing and where this item of bric-a-brac she owned would go in my flat in Earl’s Court—in our more romantic moments.

  ♦

  According to the people who are versed in these things (and I do have a little experience with them myself), you never see the ones who shadow you if they’re any good at their job.

  If they do let you see them, it’s because they want you to know. For a few weeks now, I’d been getting the creeps every so often that I had picked up a tail. Make that tails, because the smart way to do it is to have a team that laps each other, ones that fall back, ones that quickly skip over to pick you up on the next corner. Why I was getting such attention, I couldn’t imagine. I wasn’t working a case, and I was still living off the generous money I’d earned from the last one. No one should be interested in me at the moment.

  Granted, it can get pretty dodgy near Whitechapel Tube Station, where we had to catch a train home after the Smersh bar, but I was bothered by the gray hoodie that conveniently lingered a few seconds too long, a woman’s face I remembered back on the train now conveniently getting off at Earl’s Court, same as us. A lot of conveniences in people hanging around lately, enough of them tonight to coin my own herd term—a “convenience’ of shadows.

  I was focused and therefore quiet, and Kim took this for me being cross with her and freezing her out. I didn’t see the point in alarming her over what I thought was really happening, and whoever was following us kept a healthy distance. I didn’t see the point in even trying to shake them—I was dealing with obvious pros, which meant they must already know where I live. If Kim weren’t along, I’d probably start mischief, abandon going to my house, and lead them in circles, but I didn’t feel like games tonight.

  So we headed home in silence, the late October cold like a slap as we climbed the steps from Earl’s Court Tube. That’s weather in London for you. Bleak white canopies of cloud overcast the summer, and in autumn and winter you have the charcoal smear across the sky and the pelting bullets of rain. The cold and the dark made it easier for the tails to bundle up in heavy coats and hide in plain sight.

  I drew the blinds when we came in, checked the bolted door.

  Kim plonked herself down on the sofa and pulled out one of her textbooks she’d left earlier on the coffee table. I selected my own book to go read in bed. After a while, I heard her switch on the stereo (never knew how she could study with pop songs blasting), but I managed to immerse myself quite nicely in my narrative. I was just finding out from Christopher Hitchens why God is not great (he even titled his book that) when her voice called out: “You do know a lot, but you don’t always have to remind them how little they know!’

  Take a breath. Maybe do a slow count. I knew exactly what she was referring to. One of her friends feeling wounded because I’d shut her down quite efficiently during the political discussion. Me, gently: “How can she sit there and keep quoting The Guardian after I tell her, look, I’ve been to Nigeria?’

  “There are other points of view!’ she shot back.

  I started to laugh, the book tipping back on the blanket. “Yeah, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Times—typical academic attitude. Cite sources like the Holy Bible. You want to buy what’s said in an opinion piece instead of listening to somebody who tells you ‘No, it’s not like that’, who got back less than a year ago and saw with her own eyes! You might as well tell me there are other points of view on gravity.’

  I heard the textbook thud on the coffee table. Kim said in exasperation, more to herself, “Can’t believe your dad’s a history professor …’

  “My father has a healthy respect for common sense,’ I said, trying to find my place again in the book. “And direct experience.’

  Kim appeared in the doorway, arms folded. “I wouldn’t know.’

  Oh, boy. Set myself up for a fall.

  “Oh, you want to play that one again tonight,’ I muttered, finally losing my patience.

  “Don’t keep telling me about your family if I’m never going to meet them,’ she protested.

  “You’re not interested in meeting my family! You want me to out myself for you, hoping I piss one of them off so that I’m more ‘authentic’ for you. I’m not going to be rushed. There are guys I haven’t brought around who I’ve dated for years—’

  “You’re such a coward on this—’

  “No, I’m cautious,’ I cut in, trying not to raise my voice and get heard by the neighbors. “Why should I make my family know our personal business before we’re stable?’

  “We’re not stable?’ she asked softly, as if this was a shock.

  “No!’ I said in frustration, slapping the book in my lap. “Are you kidding? How often do we end up bickering like this? We go round and round in circles, and half the time I don’t even understand what we’re arguing about! I know you’re under a lot of pressure, and I’m trying to be supportive, but—’

  Tears glistened in her eyes, and she rushed over to sit on the edge of the bed and hold me. So help me, I sighed impatiently, knowing deep down I was being played again. I let it go, not because the tears worked on me, but it was the weekend, it was late, and I really was genuinely sick of our regular cycle of verbal combustion. Helena was a good friend in forcing me to start staring at the truth. Kim and I just weren’t compatible. The only time we fit was when…It was when …

  She kissed me hard, our tongues coiling together, and as my eyes shut, we went to our familiar place of exquisite perfect sync. Though it sounds like a cliché, she really did taste like strawberries. Probably those goofy liqueurs she chose to drink in between shots of vodka. Her tongue was amazing, playing with mine like she could anticipate exactly how my own would dart and tease. Warm, so warm, and I closed my eyes, and for a moment there was only this fusion, liv
ing through our mouths together. I opened my eyes to watch hers still shut, to see her completely absorbed in sensation. My fingertips unbuttoned and parted her lumberjack shirt and cupped her small breasts, kneading them, playing with them until the pink nipples, so delicate like the rest of her, were hard points. My God, she’s so pale, I told myself for the umpteenth time, marveling at the ghostly whiteness of her body. I had her Levi’s and panties off in seconds. The blond down of her mound fascinated me in the same way she and lovers of other ethnicities explored my tight curls.

  Impatiently, she straddled me and began rubbing her vulva against my thigh, her eyes glassy and wild. I felt the heat from her core and watched the little bounce of her breasts as she arched her back and looked desperate for release. I took her face in my hands and kissed her again, making us collapse in a slow-motion fall onto the bed, and then I was placing two fingers on her lips below, already slick with her lubrication. Yes, yes, there, the give, and I was pushing gently inside her. Gloriously hot and wet with my pressure, and I watched her eyes close and her small mouth open as she received me. Loved that, loved the flutter of eyelashes and the high whimper. Head resting on my shoulder for the moment, the tickle of blond hair as I watched the feeling overwhelm her, light from the lamp making the delicate hairs of her mound glisten like a tiny wheat field. My girlie girl, stretching out to luxuriate in the sensation, perfect little pale tight tummy and small breasts in contrast to my dark skin. Sometimes I couldn’t get enough of her feel and her taste, my mouth breathing hot on her stomach, moving south in a fervent caress of lips, hands squeezing her tits.

  Kim’s an ardent vegetarian (yet another debating point for us—I always joked go ahead and eat your vegetables, when the big one comes, we carnivores will consider you all nice and healthy snacks). Not to get crude, but it made her taste sweet, and I loved going down on her. I loved parting her legs and bringing my hot mouth to her gates, lapping her insistently to make her grab her own breasts with urgent need, sucking her clit in my mouth the way I preferred it to be done to me. I heard her mewl, a sheen of sweat glowing on her chest, and it turned me on, arousing my sweet girl like this. Her fingers ran through my hair, and I relished the taste of her, the tremble in her thigh under my palm. She never reciprocated, but she had other ways of pleasing me.