The Party Starts at Midnight

by Lucy King

  Feeling almost dizzy with the need to have him inside her, Abby eased out of his grip and with his help divested him of his shorts. Unable to resist the desire to find out what he felt like, she curled her fingers around him, and moved her hand slowly up and then even more slowly down, feeling him harden further, strain against her fingers, hearing him swear.

  ‘Abby,’ he said warningly.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Don’t.’

  With some reluctance, she let him go, settled herself between his legs and carefully tore open the foil packet. She extracted the condom and, pressing the tip of her tongue to the end of it, put the whole thing in her mouth.

  As she closed her mouth she heard him inhale sharply, and she glanced up at him to see him watching her intently, his jaw rigid. Then she leaned down, held him steady and opened her mouth over him, using her tongue and her lips to roll the condom on in one smooth practised move.

  ‘Jesus,’ he breathed, his voice gratifyingly hoarse. ‘Neat trick.’

  She straightened and grinned at the way his eyes had glazed over. ‘A staple in the repertoire of any self-respecting tart, I’d have thought.’

  ‘You should consider a career change. You’d make a fortune.’

  ‘I already do. My turnover last year was over three million pounds.’

  ‘Profit?’

  ‘Gross or net?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Either.’

  ‘Two point five. Gross.’

  ‘Tidy.’

  She tilted her head and smiled. ‘Numbers turn you on, don’t they?’

  His eyes glittered. ‘That thing you just did turns me on. You turn me on. Especially on the dance floor. The numbers are just the icing on the cake.’

  He reached for her and kissed her and, dizzy with longing, Abby moaned into his mouth. He held her tighter, kissed her harder, and, unable to wait any longer, she reached between them, took him in her hand and sank slowly down onto him, groaning as her body took him in, adjusting to his size and then revelling in it.

  ‘My net profit,’ she murmured into his ear when he was lodged deep inside her, ‘was just under two.’

  ‘Enough,’ he growled, clamping her hips to him, then lifting his knee and rolling her over so that she lay beneath him, pinned to the bed by his big powerful body and his dark, intense gaze.

  He lowered his head and kissed her and then began to move, slowly pulling out of her and then thrusting back, rolling his hips as she lifted her legs and wound them around his waist, and there was now nothing but searing heat and clamouring desire and the powerful, intoxicating journey to release.

  Supporting himself on his elbows, Leo held her head in his hands as they kissed and moved together, and despite the thick fog in her head, the desire swirling through her that was growing stronger and stronger, she felt oddly cherished.

  But she didn’t have time to wonder about it, wonder whether she should be concerned about it, because Leo was upping the pace and she couldn’t think about anything but the way he was making her feel. Electric and on fire and so very nearly there.

  He was driving faster, harder, deeper. She could see the pulse hammering at the base of his neck, could feel the tension bunching the muscles of his shoulders, and could feel her response to it. Her body was tightening, the pleasure spiralling, the release she so desperately craved tantalisingly close yet still agonisingly out of reach.

  And then he reached down, wound an arm around her lower back and tilted her pelvis, drove into her hard and deep and without warning she came, hard and fierce and long, her insides unravelling and stars exploding behind her eyelids as she gasped for breath and shook with pleasure, just as with a harsh groan Leo erupted inside her, pulsing into her and setting off a flurry of aftershocks that had her trembling and convulsing around him all over again.

  How long they lay there Abby had no idea. She was too busy recovering from the most intense orgasm of her life to even think about looking at her watch. Too busy wondering whether her heart might have suffered permanent damage from all the extra beating it had done. Too busy thinking, Cherished? Cherished? What utter, sentimental heat-of-the-moment rubbish.

  But eventually Leo lifted himself up, and stared down at her, looking as blown away as she felt, his eyes and his expression, for once, not shuttered. ‘Well, that proves a point, don’t you think?’ he muttered hoarsely, brushing a damp lock of hair off her forehead and frowning slightly as he tucked it behind her ear.

  ‘Possibly,’ she said, her breathing going skittery and her mouth drying at the caress. ‘But what exactly, and to whom?’

  ‘God knows.’

  He shook his head as if to clear it, and she could feel the movement along the length of his body. On top of her. Inside her. It made her shiver, made her want more.

  ‘Maybe in a quest for clarity,’ she said, her heart beginning to pound against her ribs as heat wound through her, ‘we should try it again.’

  ‘Excellent thinking,’ he muttered and bent his head to kiss her.

  * * *

  Clarity might not have been achieved—despite the number of condoms they’d got through—but one very good point, thought Leo, yawning, rubbing a hand over his face and reading Abby’s note, was that whatever last night had been about, apart from endless and scorchingly hot, they weren’t done. Not nearly.

  Apparently she’d left at ten this morning. She’d therefore been out of his bed for—he picked up his watch and glanced at it—approximately seven hours, but he wanted her back in it. Now.

  Sitting up and dropping the note on the bedside table where he’d found it, Leo stretched to ease the not unwelcome ache in his muscles and wished she were there to relieve the ache in an altogether different part of his anatomy.

  She should have woken him. He wouldn’t have minded. He had no plans for the weekend other than getting over jet lag, and so closing the curtains, shutting the door, blocking out everything but Abby for the next day or two would have reset his body clock nicely.

  He wouldn’t have minded if she’d left a phone number either, but she hadn’t, although that obstacle wasn’t altogether insurmountable. If he wanted to call her, he could.

  The question was, did he?

  Despite what his brother might think he hadn’t exactly been a monk since his near miss of a marriage—he’d just been discreet and careful—but generally his relationships with women over the last five or so years had been short. As in less than twenty-four hours short, which suited him perfectly because he wasn’t interested in engagement of anything other than the physical kind.

  The very thought of it, of having to actually talk to the women he took to bed, or, worse, have them trying to get to know him, brought him out in hives, so discreet, mutually beneficial one-night stands had always been fine with him. They scratched an itch, offered a distraction, relaxation, and, more importantly, never left him wanting more.

  Abby, however, for some reason, did. Not a lot more, obviously, because a relationship was absolutely out of the question. He’d tried it once and look what had happened. His feelings had been trampled, his heart had been sliced into ribbons and his pride decimated.

  However, another night he could probably handle. Maybe even two. And he probably needed them, actually, because the strength of his desire for her was undeniable. It was also odd. Unusual. A bit unnerving but strangely exhilarating.

  As was Abby, because he didn’t think he’d ever come across anyone quite so open, so uninhibited, in the bedroom. To his surprise but delight, she’d had no qualms about telling him what worked for her and what didn’t, and she’d gone along with his suggestions with enthusiasm. Not sufferance. Enthusiasm. And a hell of a lot of it.

  All of which was, apparently, addictive, because even though it went against his modus operandi of late he was up for more o
f it. Literally. And bordering on painfully.

  The night had been fun, unexpectedly so, and he wanted a repeat, so would seeing her again really be that much of an issue?

  Of course it wouldn’t, he told himself, contemplating with a faint grimace the ice-cold shower he was going to have to take in Abby’s absence. He might want her more than any other woman he’d taken to bed recently, but even so, because he was no longer susceptible to any member of the opposite sex, she posed absolutely no threat to his peace of mind. No woman would ever again, so the niggling suspicion that she somehow could was simply jet lag messing with his head.

  And anyway, just because he’d like to see her again it didn’t mean he was embarking on anything, did it? It wasn’t as if he’d have to actually talk to her much, was it? No. Judging by the way things had gone last night, Abby seemed to be the ‘less talking more action’ type, which was, happily, exactly his type.

  So he’d call her up and suggest they get together. Tonight, if she was free after whatever work she had to do. Or tomorrow. Whenever. But soon.

  Spying his clothes, which from memory he’d left in a heap on the floor beside the bed but were now draped neatly over the back of the armchair that sat in the corner of the room, Leo got up and headed over in search of his phone. His shoes were positioned together at the foot of the chair, and as he rummaged around his trouser pocket for his phone he smiled slightly and wondered whether he’d find his socks and shorts in the laundry basket in the bathroom.

  Thinking that after her abandon on the dance floor and last night’s subsequent private performance he’d never have had her down as a neat freak, he pulled out his phone and saw that he had had three missed calls and two new voicemail messages from his brother and a text from his mother.

  Well, they could wait, he thought, bringing up a search engine with a couple of quick taps. He had a phone number to find and an entirely different call to make.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘OH, MY GOD, you slept with a client?’

  At the astonishment in her best friend’s voice Abby consulted her clipboard needlessly and wondered if she’d done the right thing in telling Gemma everything that had gone on last night.

  It had seemed like an excellent idea when they’d sat down with a cup of tea in the huge kitchen/diner of the posh Kensington house five minutes ago—firstly because she and Gemma had met years back at the catering company they’d both once worked for, were closer than sisters and knew practically everything there was to know about each other, and secondly because after spending the entire day thinking about it she’d had to tell someone before she burst—but now she sort of regretted it.

  While the memory remained hers alone she could label it a fantasy, revisit it whenever she fancied and in the meantime continue to deny to herself that she’d ever behaved so wantonly. Had ever lost control quite so spectacularly and, even worse, enjoyed it all quite so much.

  Putting it out there made her behaviour and her loss of control irrefutable. It made the whole encounter real, available for dissection and analysis and she wasn’t sure she wanted either. Which was unfortunate because Gemma relished both.

  ‘Strictly speaking there wasn’t a lot of sleeping involved,’ said Abby, abandoning her clipboard because she knew perfectly well from the checks she’d carried out ten minutes ago that the catwalk was complete and secure and the make-up artist, the costumier, the DJ and the photographer were all good to go. ‘And technically he wasn’t a client at that point, but essentially, yes.’

  ‘After meeting him what, six hours earlier?’

  She took a quick sip of strong but not nearly fortifying enough tea. ‘Thereabouts.’

  Gemma shook her head in disbelief, her eyes wide with shock. ‘Wow. I think I need something considerably stronger than tea.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ No amount of coffee and tea could make up for the fact that she’d had little more than two hours’ sleep last night. Tequila, on the other hand, would work nicely. Shame it was only half past five in the afternoon and she was working.

  ‘That’s something I normally do,’ said Gemma. ‘Not you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And even I draw the line at clients.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So come on, then, what happened?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Abby, still a bit bemused by it all even though she’d thought about little else in the intervening hours. ‘One minute we were talking, then we were kissing and five minutes later we were in bed.’

  Although it hadn’t been quite that simple, had it? The talking had been laden with subtext, the kissing had been mind-blowing and as for the bed bit, well, that had been explosive. So actually, factoring in the misunderstandings earlier in the evening and the subsequent questioning of her integrity, it had all been rather complicated.

  ‘And how was it?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine?’ Gemma said, a smile slowly spreading across her face. ‘That’s all? If it was just “fine”, then why did you stick around to do it six times?’

  ‘OK, then, it was great.’ Which was still a total understatement for how it had been, because she couldn’t remember a night like it. When she’d finally managed to drag herself out of his bed this morning she’d barely been able to walk. A hot shower in Leo’s en-suite had helped but, even now, pretty much every time she moved she could feel muscles she didn’t even know she had pinging and lingering traces of heat and pleasure shimmering through her.

  ‘Then it was probably just what you needed,’ said Gemma, dragging her back to the present. ‘Especially after Martin.’

  Abby shuddered at the thought of her ex, who’d accused her of being undateable by way of being intimidating, overly self-reliant and, of all things, too capable. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘He was a jerk.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘I mean, how can anyone be “too capable”?’ grumbled Gemma, voicing a grievance that was familiar to both of them.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do about it anyway?’ said Abby. ‘Dumb down? Pretend I can’t put up a shelf or change a tyre or something and feign ignorance when someone mentions quantitative easing, just in case I hurt some poor man’s feelings?’

  Gemma shuddered. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Neither would I.’

  ‘I bet you wouldn’t have to with Leo.’ Gemma sighed and fanned her face. ‘I’m deadly envious, you know. I mean, he’s successful, rich and hot.’ She stopped, considered, then added, ‘Although not as hot as Jake, clearly, but still.’

  Abby stared at her friend. ‘Jake? Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, seriously. Leo might have the whole brooding, enigmatic thing going on, but give me that melt-your-knickers charm any day. He’s delicious.’

  ‘Leo’s not just brooding and enigmatic. He’s imaginative, too,’ Abby couldn’t help saying as the finer details of some of what they’d got up to flashed into her head.

  ‘And now I’m even more envious.’

  Abby grinned and put down her tea cup. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You know, now I think about it,’ Gemma mused, ‘I wondered if there was something going on between you two.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean? We didn’t speak. We didn’t meet. We didn’t even look at each other.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Gemma with a triumphant grin. ‘You spoke to Jake plenty, yet you studiously avoided Leo. And you know, I happened to see you on the dance floor on my way back from taking a whole load of plates to the van. Did you notice the way he was looking at you when you were dancing?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said, choosing to gloss over the charged moment their gazes had clashed. ‘How was he looking at me?’

  ‘I have no idea. His face was totally blank, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off you. Who knows
what was going through his head? I had no clue and I consider myself something of an expert when it comes to men. It was weird.’

  ‘Talking of which, have you heard from—?’ Abby broke off and racked her brains for the name of the man who was the flavour of the week but drew a blank.

  ‘Bob?’

  ‘Bob.’

  Gemma sighed and shook her head. ‘Nope. So there’s a surprise.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She shrugged. ‘That’s how it goes, right?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to.’

  ‘So you keep saying, but one of these days I’ll meet someone who’ll actually call after we’ve done the deed. I know I will.’

  Abby, who was familiar with the pattern of old and had had to pick up the pieces more times than she could remember, doubted it but she bit her lip because this wasn’t either the time or place to try and persuade her friend to perhaps re-evaluate some of her lifestyle choices.

  ‘Maybe whoever comes along next will be the one,’ she said, hoping against hope that he would be but knowing it was unlikely.

  ‘Maybe he will. But, anyway, enough about my rubbish track record. You and Leo Cartwright are far more interesting.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Don’t be coy. When are you going to see him again?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Gemma’s jaw dropped and her cup clattered in the saucer. ‘What? Are you insane? Why on earth not?’

  Abby set her jaw and reminded herself that she was doing the right thing even though her body, which clearly agreed with Gemma, was doing its damnedest to get her to change her mind. ‘Well, for one thing, I didn’t leave my phone number.’

  ‘Idiot,’ said Gemma, who gave her number to pretty much every man she met, with limited success. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d make such a schoolgirl error.’

  Abby shook her head. ‘No error,’ she said. ‘I did it deliberately.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘It seemed a bit desperate,’ she said pointedly.