And then he drills me right into the table, so I swear at the sudden impact against my pelvis and I assume, from the trembling of his loins and the painful grip of his hands, that he isn’t faking anything at all.
‘Oh.’
His head falls on my shoulder. His face is hot and his mouth nuzzles my bitten skin.
‘Sophie,’ he whispers, clasping his arms around my breasts.
I try to wriggle forwards, to get his cock out of me. I don’t do pillow talk.
‘There we go then,’ I say, trying not to yawn or sound at all tired. ‘Fantasy fulfilled. What time’s your flight tomorrow?’
He sighs, sounding pained. ‘Never mind that. Come to bed.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I want to do that.’
He puts his lips to my ear. ‘Shower first?’
‘No, I mean, I should go.’
With a herculean effort, he detaches himself from me and rises to his feet, looking less impressive than usual with his trousers around his ankles and his shirt flapping around his haunches.
‘Go?’ he says, as if the word is in some ancient mystical tongue. ‘You want to go?’
‘Yeah. I do. Grab us that jacket and I’ll call a cab. Actually, could I borrow your shirt?’
‘Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to stay?’
‘Not really. We’ve done what we came for, haven’t we?’
He looks genuinely devastated. I can’t tell him I faked my orgasm. It would just be too cruel. I know it’s no crueller than he was to me, but I don’t ever want to think of myself as being on the same level as him.
‘Didn’t you … wouldn’t you like to … do it again? In bed? In comfort?’
I give up waiting for him to lend the shirt and grab one from the wardrobe. Beautifully pressed and smelling of something leathery. I put it on, enjoying its smooth, cool feel against my bare skin.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ I tell him.
‘You’d find it harder to leave?’
I look away and smile, mainly to myself. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s it, Chase. I’d find it harder to leave.’
God knows, he doesn’t really deserve the sugar-coating, but perhaps I’m kinder than I realise.
I put on my jacket and shoes, check my pocket for my mobile phone.
‘I understand,’ he says, looking as if he doesn’t.
‘Good.’ I tiptoe up to kiss him on the cheek.
He catches me in a tight hold for a moment. ‘It was, wasn’t it? Good, I mean.’
‘Of course it was. Everything I dreamed it would be. But we don’t live in a dream, Chase. Time to wake up and get on with the day.’
‘You really are every bit as independent as you seem, aren’t you?’
‘Perhaps a little too much so,’ I whisper.
He releases me. ‘I wish you’d stay,’ he says.
‘Sorry. Thanks for this, anyway. Laid a ghost to rest. Cheers.’
I can’t believe my last word to him is cheers, but I can’t think of any others, so I wave awkwardly and dive for the door.
The vision of him, half-naked and oddly vulnerable, his hand reaching out uncertainly, imprints itself on my memory.
Why would I feel sorry for him? For such a long time, all he had to do was ask. It’s his own stupid fault.
Anyway, pity is one thing. Love is another.
I lean against Chase’s suite door and speed dial Lloyd.
His phone is switched off.
Chapter Eleven
Huffing, I stomp towards the lifts, resolving to call a cab from the lobby.
Will Lloyd be at home? What if he’s still in the gambling den? With his phone switched off, that seems the likeliest possibility. I have no desire to re-enter that atmosphere of suppressed evil and dissipation. But I feel I have to see Lloyd, now, more urgently than I have ever needed to.
I have no idea, looking at my strangely-not-me reflection in the mirrored lift, what I’ll do when I find him. Part of me wants to slap him for putting me in that position with Chase. Part of me wants to hold on to him for grim death.
I examine the dishevelled girl in the long shirt and tux jacket more closely. Those bite marks will take time to fade. All my lipstick is kissed off and my mascara has smudged below my left eye. I look like a really, really low-rent Sally Bowles.
I’m halfway through singing a drunk-sounding version of ‘Mein Herr’ when the lift door opens.
I strut across the marble singing ‘You’re better off without me, Mein Herr’ until the night receptionist looks up at me and says, ‘Sophie Martin?’
‘That’s me.’
She nods over towards the cocktail bar, which must surely be closed at this hour. I turn away from the desk and teeter towards the smoked glass dividing the darkened bar from the low-lit lobby. Damn these heels.
I peer around the doorway, into the gloom. In the corner, I can just make out the silhouette of a man. He has a drink on the table in front of him, a tumbler, and he’s staring down at it, his shoulders low.
‘Lloyd.’
He looks up and leaps to his feet. ‘You … you’re here.’
‘Why the fuck did you turn your phone off?’
‘I didn’t! I …’ He grabs it from his jacket pocket and stares at the screen. ‘Oh. Sorry. Battery’s flat.’
‘Just as well Chase didn’t try to kill me then, eh? Jesus, Lloyd! What were you thinking?’
‘I really thought it was charged up.’
By now we are facing each other, inches away, in the centre of the deserted bar.
There’s a weird quality to the air between us; it seems thick and swirly, like a fog. His eyes are brimming with something – not tears. Something else.
‘I would never have put you in danger. Did he do anything to you? Are you OK?’
‘I’m OK. Can we go?’
‘Sure, I’ll call a cab. Or rather, you can.’
‘No, it’s not that far. I want to walk.’
‘You came down,’ he said, wonderingly, as we leave the bar, still not touching. ‘I thought I’d be there until morning.’
‘Did you?’
‘You’re pissed off with me, aren’t you?’
We nod our goodnights to the receptionist and pass out of the sterile lobby and into the city, its night beat pulsating faintly under the never-quite-darkness. Sirens, street lamps, dreams, nightmares tangle together with the stars.
‘Pissed off?’ I stop at the foot of the steps.
‘You think I went too far,’ he says.
‘You risked everything. You risked me.’
‘But do you understand why?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’
‘So?’
‘So. I think I’m going to take these shoes off.’
I slip my feet out of the tyrannous towers of heel and carry them instead, swinging the slingbacks from my finger. I set off along the pavement, which is cold but less dirty than those in the cheaper parts of town, at least. I wouldn’t be walking barefoot outside that peep show, that’s for sure.
We cross the road and walk along the perimeter of the park. Some paving slabs are canvases for chalk masterpieces, living to delight another day as long as it doesn’t rain. I spot a near-perfect rendition of Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Kiss, glowing red under the lamplight.
‘It seems such a shame it has to fade,’ I say, stopping to gaze down at it.
At last he touches me, the palm of his hand on my elbow. ‘Sophie,’ he says. It sounds urgent. ‘Please talk to me.’
‘I am talking to you.’
‘No, come on.’
‘Let’s go into the park.’
‘It’s closed.’
‘I know a way in. There’s a broken railing. Come on.’
I lead him about a quarter of a mile up the street, then duck in through a warped rail, dragging myself through the hedge to the other side.
I start to run, ecstatically barefoot, through the wet grass, past the twisted dark shapes of the trees, towar
ds the lake. I feel as if I might start to lift off the ground, bumping along and then rising into the air like a kite. I’ve never been more free.
At the lake’s edge, I turn and watch Lloyd catch up with me.
He bends slightly, puts his hands on his thighs, waiting for his breath to settle.
‘Sophie, please tell me you’re OK.’
‘I’m OK. Really, more than OK. Much more than OK.’ I laugh and twirl around, dipping my toe into the silted waters.
‘You sound a bit manic.’
‘I’m not manic. I’m free. Something’s shifted up here.’ I tap my head. ‘It’s like I know what I’m doing.’
‘I wish I did.’
‘Everything that stood in my way, everything that scared me – it was all in my head. All those fears I had about you losing interest in me, leaving me, wanting to pin me down or imprison me, well, they’ve gone.’
His brow lifts and a brightness returns to him. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. And the biggest thing is, even if you do leave me or lose interest in me, or whatever, I can’t let fear stop me taking that risk. The risk is worth taking.’
His lip quirks up. He still looks disbelieving. ‘So you’re saying …?’
‘I’m saying that I want to be with you. In our own way, the way we’ve been. With all the fun and … and more than that too.’
‘More?’
I take his hands and laugh up into his face. ‘I love you, you knob.’
‘Well, I love you too, you bitch.’
I pretend to slap him and it turns into a kiss, the two of us clinging to each other, pressing into each other. The bite marks and the bruises are forgotten, his kiss the best analgesic ever. Somewhere in the fog of passion and tongues, our balance goes missing, we stagger drunkenly on the kerbstones and then topple sideways into the shallows of the lake with a huge splash and a scream.
An alarum of quacks and flapping wings surrounds us as we laugh like idiots, unable to get up for falling back down, trying to help each other up with no success at all, until we temporarily give up and huddle together against the chill water, teeth chattering, fingers slimy with pondweed.
From a distance I notice a gang of swans approaching at speed. ‘We have to get out,’ I say to Lloyd with a shiver. ‘Those fuckers are vicious.’
He grabs my arm and manages to haul me to my feet and back onto land.
It’s the very darkest part of the night and, though it’s summer, I am aware of the need to get out of these wet clothes before we succumb to hypothermia.
‘Let’s go.’
I start the run across the grass but he is soon sprinting faster than me, pulling me along so I stumble and whoop with laughter all the way until we get to the hedgerow. It takes a while to locate the broken railing again and, when we do, we are so cold and wet and pleased to see it that we squeeze through without regard for what might be waiting for us in the street beyond.
A police officer is patrolling the pavement and we straighten up, two dripping apparitions, directly in front of her. She halts abruptly and stares, her hand on her extendable baton handle, then she relaxes when she sees we are just night-time revellers, probably a bit happy-drunk but no kind of threat.
‘Evening, officer,’ says Lloyd smoothly, ‘nice night for it.’
She stares for a moment. ‘You know that the park isn’t open at night, don’t you? It’s trespass.’
‘Is it?’ we both say, looking at each other in mock surprise.
‘You know it is. But you look like you have an urgent appointment with a shower, so I’m going to pretend I’ve seen two very bedraggled ghosts tonight and tell you to take care on the way home, OK? Goodnight.’
She walks on and we chorus thanks before running hand in hand across the road and back to the Luxe Noir.
We pause on the bottom step and look up at our dominions; floor after floor of guests paying us for the pleasure of our hospitality. It is our kingdom and we are its monarchs, working in harmony now, day and night.
‘This place,’ I whisper. ‘It’s ours.’
‘Yes,’ says Lloyd, his arm around my shoulder. ‘For as long as we want it.’
We kiss again, a kiss like a baptism, a kiss like the start of a life, expressing infinite forgiveness and infinite hope.
‘Let’s go round the back,’ suggests Lloyd. ‘Don’t want the night staff to see us like this.’
***
It’s the best shower of my life, watching the grey-green muck disappear down the plughole along with the last traces of Chase. It’s all the better for sharing it with Lloyd, who lathers up my hair, soaps my skin and makes extra-specially sure my most intimate parts are thoroughly cleansed.
‘You did it, then?’ he asks, once we are warm and clean and dry and lying on the bed together in bathrobes. ‘You fucked Chase?’
‘Yeah. I thought you might want me to walk out – I thought that might be the challenge. But that would have been too easy. I should have realised.’
‘I can’t believe it’s worked out.’ He sits up with a shuddery little laugh. ‘I was sure this was going to backfire on me big time and you’d be off to the Virgin Isles or wherever with Chase. Either that or you’d decide to find Chase Mark Two.’
‘Why would you take that risk?’
‘I had to know. The stakes had got so high. I didn’t want to win this thing and have you move in with me only to find that you left a few weeks or months later because you still weren’t sure.’
‘I’m not such a prize, Lloyd. There are lots of better people than me.’
‘Not for me there aren’t.’
I pull him back down, face him and stroke his cheek. I can’t imagine ever wanting anyone more. ‘So I fucked Chase.’
‘How was it?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Yes, fine. I’ve had worse; I’ve had better. It was certainly nothing to write home about though.’
‘Home? That’s here now. Isn’t it?’
‘I thought I’d passed the task!’
‘Soph, I just need to hear it. You are going to stay, aren’t you?’
There’s a second’s vicious tug at the pit of my stomach, a moment of panicky nausea. I gather all my strength to dismiss it. ‘Yes. I’ll go to the lettings agency tomorrow and give notice on the flat. But you have to give one of your rooms over to me for a darkroom.’
‘Sure, you can have the spare bedroom, like I’ve always said.’
‘We’ll call that settled then.’
He kisses me, sealing the deal.
‘There’s something I haven’t told you about fucking Chase,’ I mention, holding him close to me, my hand on his neck.
‘Oh? His dick’s made of gold? He has a massive tattoo of you on his back?’
‘No, you knob. He wasn’t bad, but he left me unsatisfied.’
Lloyd does a stagy gasp then he laughs and kisses my nose. ‘He didn’t?’
‘He did! I had to fake it in the end or I’d have grown old over that desk.’
‘Ah, over the desk. Knew it.’
‘I’ve got the bruises to prove it.’
‘Hard going, was it?’
‘Just a bit. So anyway …’ I trail off delicately, leaving him to draw the inference.
‘So there’s a hungry pussy that wants feeding?’ He slips the bathrobe over my thighs, baring them, and runs his hand up one flank.
‘Very hungry,’ I whisper. ‘Starving. But go easy. It’s a little raw down there.’
He presses down against my clit, finding me wet, then tries to curl a finger inside my inflamed vagina. I wince and he withdraws it.
‘Poor puss,’ he croons. ‘Got treated harshly tonight.’
‘After all those goings-on at the gambling club and Chase on top of that – I don’t think I can …’
‘S’OK.’
He unties my sash and opens the robe wide, kisses
my nipples then installs himself between my thighs, spreading them for a closer inspection of the scene. ‘Oh yes, you’ve been busy tonight,’ he diagnoses.
‘I think I knew that.’
He grins at me. ‘This little pussy likes to stray, but she always comes back.’
‘Maybe you have the best cream.’
‘There’s a thought.’
He crouches down, putting his hands underneath my thighs, holding them steady while his face moves in closer. The first stroke of his tongue is almost dangerously good, and I let out a little ‘oh’ of bliss.
The need that had been deadened by our sojourn in the lake was reawakened in the warmth of the shower, and my clit is pulsing with it, almost jumping forwards to offer itself for licking.
He obliges with deadly exactitude, a master of his art, knowing exactly how and where and how hard to use his tongue. At first he is all hot breath and artful teasing, then he deepens his technique and his strokes, covering my cunt in the dewy evidence of his possession. My pussy becomes his instrument and he plays it like a virtuoso. He leaves my sore spots alone, but he pulls apart my bottom cheeks all the better to consume and overwhelm me, his whole face working at me until, much quicker than I intend, I come hard, tossing my head from side to side on the pillow, wailing as if I mourn the loss of control. For a moment it always seems that way, as if I should be ashamed to feel such pleasure, ashamed to let it happen, then the rapturous flood of sensation mixes in with the shame and makes everything golden.
He gives me a long, firm lick for luck, then kisses the tops of my thighs all over before lying back down beside me.
‘All better?’ he whispers, stroking my hair.
‘The best,’ I sigh, my eyelids heavy, my body sinking into the mattress. ‘The very best.’
When I wake up, he is still sleeping.
I’ve woken up in this bed many times, but never feeling like this, like something is different, something has changed.
I like to watch him sleep, like to see his pale eyelashes flicker and his face so flushed and far away, but this morning I am like some kind of adoring sap, wanting to gaze upon his unearthly beauty or something. And yet there is nothing unearthly about it. He has luscious full lips and some cute freckles and the beginnings of laughter lines at the corners of his eyes. He’s a reasonably good-looking bloke but Adonis doesn’t have to worry about the competition. Why am I so bowled over by the sight of him?
Game Page 21