by Tilly Delane
I crawl back into the limousine, retrieve my leather jacket and try to hang it on her. Emphasis on try. The entire width of her shoulders is so narrow, it barely stays there. Even when she puts her arms through the sleeves, and I zip it up for her, it doesn’t really stay on. She looks ridiculous.
She’s laughing so much throughout the whole process that tears form in the corners of her eyes. When I finish pulling the zip up, she looks at me, flapping the sleeves that are about a foot too long for her arms about, before she doubles over, laughing even harder.
In the background, Chris clears his throat.
“Would you maybe like a blanket instead?” he asks.
“That would be lovely, thank you, Chris,” she answers between short breaths and more subdued giggles.
I note she’s memorised his name.
I like that.
Chris goes around to the boot, pops it open and hands her a soft-looking, black woollen blanket. She thanks him, folds it into a shawl and slings it around her shoulders. We start walking toward the entrance, but she stops suddenly to take a lungful of the shawl’s scent.
“Hmm,” she murmurs. “Smells like cashmere.”
She searches around for a label.
“Knew it,” she says, pleased with herself.
Then she hooks her arm into mine and lets me lead the way inside.
Somewhere between waiting for her to clean up in the toilets and plundering M&S of smoked oysters, salmon, mackerel, caviar and a tray of sushi, it hits me that Kalina really is no stranger to the good life.
And I stop for a moment to wonder how a girl with that much class ended up in Sheena’s house and on my dick.
Kalina
“So,” he says, and I already know what is coming before he drops the next smoked oyster in my mouth. “Tell me something about you, Kalinaaa...”
His voice is stuck on the ‘a’ because he doesn’t even know my, Kalina’s, surname.
“Jasinski,” I inform him, once I’ve swallowed the oyster.
They are delicious. Trust the English to take a fine food, smoke it and pack it into a tin. You’d think these were disgusting, but out of the buffet of snacks we bought, they are by far my favourite. Maybe because they’re a new sensation. Maybe because they are just that good. Time will tell.
I open my mouth, so he can drop in another one. I’m lying with my head on his lap, huddled under the cashmere blanket and feeling totally cared for by this guy feeding me titbits. For a long moment, I marvel at how different he has been today from the guy I’ve known so far. I like who is beyond the three-piece suit so much, I want to preserve him in this state forever.
Whoa - forever?
He doesn’t even know who you really are, Kristina, stop!
I inwardly show myself the middle finger and then I realise that George is still looking down at me, waiting for me to answer his original question.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“Everything,” he says on a sigh, and fingers the cashmere blanket. “Like how come you can recognize cashmere by smell?”
I frown at him because that’s just about the most stupid question I’ve ever heard.
“Because it has a special smell,” I tell him, not leaving room for any doubt as to how idiotic a question I think that is.
“Yeah but, how do you know that?”
“What?” I tease him. “Because I’m Polish and not a cashmere goat?”
He avoids my eyes and bites his lip. He knows he’s being a prick.
I push off the blanket, lift my head out of his lap, sit upright and turn so I’m facing him side on with one foot on the seat, leg bent at the knee and hugging it to my chest, and one dangling over the side. It means that my bare pussy is back on display, but I really don’t care right now.
“I think you’d be surprised if I took you to Poland at what you’d find there,” I set him straight. “But just for the record, I’m Polish, but I didn’t really grow up there. My mum’s a scientist. By the time I was twelve, I’d lived in Bern, Paris, Stockholm and Berlin. I’ve spent less time in Poland than anywhere else in the world. And I’m not some poor charity case looking for a meal ticket. My parents are not rich but, how do you say, very comfortable. And my mother always had the philosophy that you want a few quality clothes that last, and that are worthwhile packing when you move, instead of a whole lot of cheap stuff. That’s how I know what cashmere smells like.”
I flop back into my previous position with my head on his lap, my heart racing in my throat.
I’ve just told him more about the real me than I’ve ever told Grace. So far, I’ve always managed to avoid giving any personal info out by distracting from the subject or hiding behind a lack of English. I think after today, the cat is firmly out of the bag where my command of their language is concerned, but I was never going to tell any of them that much detail of my actual background. The rule by and large is, the longer the assignment, the closer to the truth you stay because, as the Germans say, lies have short legs, and there is nothing more suspicious than getting caught in contradicting yourself. But you should never reveal so much you become traceable.
He looks down at me through narrowed eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” he says very slowly. “You’ve been fucking with us all along, haven’t you? There is no chance you learned to speak English like this in just a few months. No way.”
He’s serious, but there is no way I can fess up to the truth here. It would blow a hole the size of a crater in my cover. And as much as I want to and as certain as I am that he has nothing to do with the case, I just can’t. It’s too dangerous. So I shrug and grin up at him instead.
“What can I say? It’s my superpower. Languages are my talent. It’s mostly mimicry. And the more languages you learn, the easier it is to pick up another one. And English is super easy compared to most languages. Your objects don’t even have a gender!”
I watch as he keeps scrutinizing me and I can tell the exact moment when doubt turns into pride. He’s proud of having bedded an intelligent female. Good man.
“I’ve fucked a genius,” he states and leans down to kiss me.
I kiss him back before I gently push him off me a little.
“Correction,” I say, staring into his beautiful grey eyes. “You’ve been fucked by a genius.”
He sighs.
“True,” he says, and seeks my lips again, only to carry on muttering against them. “But I’ve never been good with the tenses. I’m confusing the past with the future again. What I meant to say is...”
“You’re going to fuck a genius,” I finish the sentence for him.
And then I let him kiss the shit out of me and leisurely finger my pussy, until we pull up outside Sheena’s house.
Diego
She is super close to another climax, just before Chris pulls into the pub car park opposite Sheena’s house. I’ve been kissing her and leisurely finger fucking her the whole rest of the journey, but I deliberately wouldn’t let her come again. Just yet.
I decided sometime between her telling me off for my preconceptions and realising that she is about twice as smart as I am that I was going to stay the night. I want to hear her roar again.
Only this time I’ll be making her. I’m not just gonna sit there and let her take her pleasure. I’m gonna rock her world the way she rocked mine.
It’s a matter of pride.
Or so I tell myself.
Kalina
He never asks if it’s okay for him to stay over.
He just thanks Chris, gives him a huge tip and tells him to get the company to bill him for the blanket ─ because, apparently, I’m keeping it. Then he leads me by the elbow across the street to Sheena’s house and helps me with opening the door.
Not that I mind, I was maddeningly close to coming just before Chris parked up and if George wasn’t going to finish what he started, I would have dug up the vibrator I can’t ever use in this house because the walls are paper t
hin. Not that that ever deters Silas and Grace.
When we step inside, George gives a last wave to Chris as he drives out of the car park, shuts the door, hangs his leather jacket on a hook next to it and takes my handbag from me to put it on the hallstand. Then he takes off his boots and socks, all the while looking at me with fresh desire. As if it wasn’t nearly dawn after a long day, as if we hadn’t already had sex, as if I was fresh as a daisy.
Just that look makes me go all gooey again. Inside, and where it matters.
As soon as he’s barefoot, George backs me up against the wall and picks up where he left off in the car. His hand slips into my short hair as he bends down to spear his tongue deep into my mouth. He groans and his grip tightens, when I immediately give back in equal measure. I have to stand on my tippy toes to meet him, but as soon as he realises, he bends his knees a bit more to take the strain off. Our tongues play like they’ve practiced their dance for a lifetime already. Like they’ve never needed another play partner. I’ve never had a man I’ve been so in sync with. It’s amazing. I could do this forever, but I’m also still burning for the release he’s been teasing out of me for the last hour, and I growl in frustration.
His hand immediately slips back between my legs and he carries on in exactly the way he caressed me in the limo, stroking my folds with two fingers, long slides, starting from my clit, down into my hole where he slips them in to massage my magic spot for a moment, before he retracts them to start from the top. Over and over. It’s maddeningly good and within minutes, I am really close again.
He detaches his mouth from mine for a moment.
“You ready?” he asks, pulling the hem of my dress up, all the way past my waist and over my head when I lift my arms.
“Depends,” I answer, muffled by the fabric that’s being pulled past my face.
He looks at me for a moment, taking me in. I can feel my defences going up already. I’ve heard it all in my life. From ‘you look like a boy’ to ‘you look like a child’. But he just smiles.
“Wow, a pixie with brains and a six-pack. You’re the fucking hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Quick as a whip, he turns me around to point me at the stairs and slaps my naked butt. Not hard. Not like a man who’s into paddling and all that, but playfully.
“Upstairs,” he says. “Now.”
I make it to the second step before he changes his mind.
“No, actually, stop there,” he demands. “Bend over. Hands on the step. Don’t look.”
I do as I’m told, while I hear him pop the buttons of his jeans and shimmy out of them. There is another noise of fabric rustling, signalling he’s pulling his shirt off.
I can feel the air move when he steps up behind me then the tip of his cock brushing my arsehole.
It’s not where he is headed, though. I know as soon as he reaches down and spreads my folds with one hand to get access. I’m guessing the other is wrapped around his cock as he lines it up. He dips in a little, just enough to hold it there, and to make my insides clench. Then he repeats his question.
“Are you ready, Kalina?”
“Yeah,” I answer but before I’ve breathed out the word fully, he rams home.
Not so that it hurts but so that I feel it in my teeth.
He steadies me with one hand on my hip and another clasping my nape, as if I were a kitten he’s about to pick up by the scruff. And then he fucks into me. Withdrawing all the way and pushing back in, over and over again, until I scream his names, both of them, begging him not to stop. Never to stop.
And when my orgasm hits, it’s like I’m being shot up in a shower of bullets.
Diego
After I fuck her on the steps, I collect her up in my arms and carry her up to the shower. I make sure the spray is nice and warm before I put her under and soap first her and then me.
She remains silent throughout our shower, and a bit shaky. And though I feel like the fucking shit for making her come that hard, it’s also mildly disconcerting. She seems almost sad, and I can’t figure it out.
I shut off the spray and when we step out, I grab a towel and rub her down before I grab one for myself. She huddles inside the terry cotton and perches on the side of the bathtub as she watches me dry myself.
Finally, she speaks.
“Are you staying?” she asks, and I stop towelling to look at her.
I frown.
It suddenly occurs to me that I never really asked her if that was okay.
“Unless you throw me out, yes, Kalina, I’d like to stay,” I say neutrally.
She gives me a small smile.
“Cool. Sheena keeps spare toothbrushes in the kitchen drawer.”
“Why the...” I start but don’t finish because it’s Sheena and pondering Sheena’s logic has driven more mentally robust men insane. “Okay, I’ll be back.”
I sling the towel around my waist and leave her behind to go in search of a toothbrush.
I find a few dozen single use ones in packaging that tells me they came with compliments from the Palais, the hotel where Sheena is head of housekeeping, in a drawer that also has an equal amount of partially used complimentary soaps, spare light bulbs, single shoelaces and an array of rubber bands in varying sizes.
Before I leave, the cat flap opens and shuts. Once, twice. Luna and Sol, the two cats that live here, come to trip me up and demand food. I have no idea how much, or what, they get, but I’m guessing they haven’t had anything since yesterday afternoon and that they won’t shut up until they’re fed.
I rummage around the kitchen until I find a tin with cat biscuits and I put some in their bowls for them. I check their water and fill it back up, and then wonder if I should make Kalina a cup of tea. I turn to the door and there she is, wearing the nerdiest thick-framed glasses ─ and a smile.
The sadness that seemed to have taken hold of her after we christened the staircase has gone.
Good.
“You coming up?” she asks, making my heart trip with the realisation that she actually wants me to stay.
“Yeah,” I say. “I just thought I give these guys something to eat, so they don’t keep us up meowing.”
She looks at the cats and then back at me and there is such a brand new, soft expression on her face that I realise that even at her most relaxed, we normally only ever see a hardened, guarded version of Kalina around.
“You’re nice,” she states.
And then she turns around and holds out a hand behind her back for me to grab on to.
I take it and we go to bed.
Kalina
I’m not big on hugging people, but I was born a snuggler.
I like curling up to people.
I never had issues cuddling up with Lauren after we’d make each other come either, or my first boyfriend, Arion.
But ever since I’ve left school and started training then actually working the field, I’ve found that whole sharing a bed with a man after sex thing tricky. I’ve heard intimacy being described as a cocoon by people, but for me it’s more like a spider’s web that just keeps growing each time you spend cuddle time with somebody. And before you know it, that intimacy is the background your life happens against ─ the web that is everywhere.
And I can’t afford that, yet.
One day, sure. When I’m too old to do what I do, but still young enough to have babies, I’ll grow my hair long again, get a desk job, find a man and let my life be spun in silk. But that day isn’t here, and that man won’t be this man.
I know this.
But it didn’t stop my entire being from screaming yes! when he asked me if it was alright for him to stay the night.
So now I’m lying here, in my bed in Sheena’s house, squished up against his hard chest as he lightly runs his fingernails over my back and makes a half-arsed attempt at suppressing a yawn.
I’m not surprised he’s tired. After the shower, we kissed and explored each other some more, though we were both too lazy to actually fuc
k again. Now dawn is breaking, and it really is time to go to sleep.
He kisses the side of my head.
“You still awake?”
“Hmmm,” I murmur.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Hmmm.”
“When you were begging me to go faster on the stairs you used both my names. Why?”
I smile against his chest. It’s a damn good question. There was a moment on those stairs when he was fucking into me when fun, gentle George went out of the window and I knew I was being fucked by a guy who is also kind of ruthless and wears three-piece suits while he orders people to fuck other people up. A guy who has blood on his hands. As far as my intel says, he doesn’t have hits put on people, it’s just not the British way, but there are people out there who are missing an eye or are relearning how to speak because of what Diego’s thugs did to them. Or to each other. Most of his business is purely being the ringmaster for the modern gladiator game that is bare knuckle fighting. His philosophy is very much, ‘they know what they are letting themselves in for and if I don’t organise it, somebody else will’. A twisted part of me can see his point. There are other parts to his mini empire that I’m not as clear about, but I know enough about him to know he doesn’t hurt women, children or animals. For somebody of his status, he appears to have quite the moral code and I like that. More than that, it turns me on. Diego isn’t ruthless as much as he is anarchic and fuck me if that doesn’t get my own rebellious pussy all hot and bothered.
“I think because I like you both,” I answer at long last.
“You know I am both, right?”
I can feel him hold his breath and get the significance of what he’s asking me here. It is important to him that I understand who and what Diego is as much as that I understand that underneath there is also this guy, in the jeans and lumberjack shirts, who is nice to cats and listens to classic rock. I nod against his skin and he runs a hand through my hair.