After Hours: Black Lace Classics (21 page)

Now there were no tantrums over organic fruit and vegetables. Anton didn’t care if the produce was coated in every pesticide known to mankind or even if it was radioactive, so long as it wasn’t actually rotten. Although the staff did whinge a bit about Anton doing
everything by the clock, and being a humourless bastard, and although the kitchens did seem very quiet, even subdued, since Micky’s departure, nevertheless Venny was moderately pleased with her new chef. Box of Delights’ warm ambience, her spadework and Anton’s perfectly competent cooking would combine to win the Blue Ribbon. She just knew it.

She was engrossed in feeding figures into the Sage program on her computer when she heard a clatter downstairs. Someone else was obviously in early. Or were they? She paused and looked thoughtfully out between the slatted blinds on the window at the bright new day. It was just that she’d had the oddest feeling last night when she was with Robert Fielding, almost as if she were being watched. Strange things did happen. Someone could have got hold of Neil’s spare key, or Kate’s, and made a copy. She hadn’t reset the alarm system after she’d come in, so it was entirely possible that some unauthorised person could have used a key to gain entry downstairs. Or maybe they had forced their way in, broken the lock, who knew?

Venny picked up her pretty but very substantial St Louis floral paperweight and hefted it in her hand as she rose from her chair. Carefully she crossed the room, trying not to make the boards creak too much. She passed by the open door to what had been Micky’s room. It was empty now. Anton had his own loft apartment across the city, and she was glad about that. She didn’t want another man under her roof – or under her skin.

Stealthily she went downstairs. At the padded
burgundy door she paused, frowning, listening intently. Her own heartbeat was the loudest thing she could hear now. She pushed the door open, just a little.

It was Anton.

He was setting out pots and pans, pausing occasionally to consult a well-thumbed book which lay open on the counter. Venny let out her breath and relaxed. Knowing he hadn’t heard her approach, she took a little while to study him. Actually, she thought after several minutes’ consideration, he was pretty damned good-looking. He was about five feet eleven, but looked taller because he always wore the full chef’s regalia while he worked, and that included not only chef’s whites but also the chef’s high traditional hat, the toque. He was solidly built, neither running to fat nor too muscular. His thick mat of pale blond hair was cut close to his well-shaped head, but small curls peeped out from beneath the toque. He had a moustache – which was also blond – like a dedicated follower of fashion fresh from the Seventies. His brown eyes were intense and rarely sparkled with any sort of humour, but their very intensity was attractive. Hm, she thought. There was a lot of the stern disciplinarian about Anton; and that was an attractive trait to a lot of women – including her.

Venny pushed wide the door and walked into the bright strip-lit kitchens. She put the paperweight down on a table. ‘Hi, Anton,’ she said casually, because he couldn’t know that she had been eyeballing him with extreme sexual curiosity for some time. ‘What’s on for lunch today?’

Anton turned and gave her a formal half-bow. He was so quaint, she thought. But nice.

‘Good morning, Venetia,’ said Anton cordially. Damn! thought Venny. Why the hell did he always insist on calling her by her full name? And what jerk had told him her full name? She hated the thing. She felt her warm smile cool a little as he spoke.

‘I am going to concoct a fondue,’ said Anton, showing her the incomprehensible but excessively neat jottings in the book. Neat was the word that defined Anton, she thought. He was probably an anal retentive. ‘Also some rosti with a pepper sauce, yes? And of course the sachertorte, very rich, very chocolatey.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Venny encouragingly. She liked his accented English. It was sexy. She glanced over his shoulder as the cuckoo clock over the back door chimed out. The cuckoo, painted in garish colours that no real cuckoo had ever flaunted, shot out and chirruped. There were two chains hanging down below the ghastly contraption, and big lead weights shaped like fir cones dangled at the end of each chain. Maybe this gross little item reminded him of home in the Alps, she thought. It must have some sentimental value, surely, because it certainly was not a thing of beauty.

‘Perhaps you can help me?’ Anton was asking.

Venny’s attention snapped back to him. ‘What? Well, I don’t cook.’ She smiled. ‘House rule. The boss doesn’t have to cook if she doesn’t want to. And I never want to.’

‘But this is such a shame,’ said Anton as if her words
were the cause of deep dismay. He went over to the cuckoo clock, stood on a chair, and made some sort of adjustment to it. Then he came back to her. ‘Come, help me here, Venetia.’

‘Please call me Venny,’ she said with desperation, but she knew he wouldn’t. She’d said the same thing before, half a dozen times; the man was just so formal that he had to use one’s full name. Anything less probably seemed like sacrilege to him.

Anton nodded; but he didn’t call her Venny. Sighing inwardly and feeling that a wicked twinkle in the eye and a broad grin would be a pretty welcome sight right now, Venny approached and stood facing the worktop. There were weird-looking nobbly little potatoes laid out ready for peeling. I don’t believe this, she thought. This guy is going to get me peeling potatoes. At least Micky had never done that. Not that she missed him being here – no way. She picked up the scraper, stifling another sigh. Well, let’s get it over with, she thought glumly.

‘Now you hold the scraper like so,’ said Anton, coming up close behind her and putting his arms around her like a golf pro showing an amateur how to hold the club.

Venny stiffened in surprise. His hot male body was pressed up tight against her buttocks. And was that a rolling pin in his pocket, or was he rather more pleased to see her than she had anticipated? He picked up the scraper and showed her how to scrape away the skins from the potatoes. ‘These are Pink Fir Apple,’ said
Anton right beside her ear. His breath tickled her lobe almost unbearably. She could smell that he was very clean – no surprises there. The sweet odours of soap and cologne drifted around him.

‘Oh,’ she said, not very intelligently. She was more interested in that rolling pin. She discreetly wriggled her arse back just a little and came to the conclusion that this was not a rolling pin, but a very erect penis.

‘You like that, yes?’ asked Anton, scraping away at the potatoes while his pole-like cock moved against her buttocks. ‘My penis, yes?’

Goodness, thought Venny. Maybe not so anally retentive as she’d thought, after all. ‘Your penis, yes,’ she echoed faintly, swallowing convulsively as the manic desire to laugh gripped her.

‘Good. You try now. Hold it tight.’ He handed her the scraper, lying his large blond-furred hands on her forearms to guide her. Oh, well, thought Venny, and started scraping. She would much rather hold his cock tight, but she was humouring him here.

‘No, no!’ burst out Anton suddenly. ‘You are scraping too deep. Wasting too much potato, yes?’

‘Yes,’ allowed Venny. So what? she thought acidly. Hardly a hanging offence, was it? Hardly a matter for judge and jury.

‘I think you are a very bad girl,’ Anton scolded her in his sexily accented English.

‘Guess so,’ said Venny lightly.

‘Bad girls have to be punished, yes?’ Anton’s warm
body drew away from the back of hers. ‘Now you pull down your pants, Venetia, and I will punish you.’

Wow! Not anal retentive at all. By this time she was starting to get quite seriously aroused. She wished he’d put his body back against hers, but she felt very stimulated by his unexpected request and more than happy to play along.

‘I’m not wearing pants,’ said Venny breathlessly.

‘But such behaviour is shameless,’ said Anton, looking genuinely scandalised. ‘You will prove this. Lift your skirt. Show me.’

With
a frisson
of pleasure Venny complied, lifting her suit skirt very slowly, so that he first appreciated her lace-topped hold-up stockings, and the fine contrast between the tan of the thin nylon mesh and her own much paler, finer skin. Her well-shaped thighs had the translucent sheen of silk pulled tight over a pad of the finest down. She heard Anton catch his breath in appreciation. Then she proceeded until the lower swell of her arse became visible to him. Proceeding further, and leaning forwards against the worktop as she did so, she slowly bared her bumslit to him. At last she held her skirt up around her waist so that the whole of her delectable buttocks were exposed. Feeling extremely turned on at the thought of him watching from right behind her, she gave her naked bottom a little wiggle, teasing him with it.

‘Ach!’ said Anton. ‘Such a very bad girl.’

To Venny’s surprise, a stinging slap was administered to her private parts. She squealed in pain, and the tender
skin of her arse throbbed hotly. Venny glanced over her shoulder and saw that Anton had taken up an icing ruler; it was obviously this that had been whacked across her buttocks. She could see the outline of his aroused penis even more clearly now, rearing up underneath his chef’s whites, and he was breathing hard. He looked up at the clock. Venny looked up at it, too, in curiosity, while wincing a little from the stinging pain Anton had inflicted on her. The clock chimed as another minute passed, and out popped the cuckoo with a chirrup.

Smack.

Venny let out a cry as pleasure and pain warred within her. Oh, that icing ruler hurt. It really hurt. And yet at the same time, standing here half-naked before an aroused man while he slapped her backside was wildly exhilarating, hugely exciting. Her nipples were suddenly standing starkly to attention. She craned her head around and saw that he was watching the clock again. The seconds were ticking swiftly by. Venny watched the clock too; and then there came the chime, the cuckoo’s ghastly call, and she was slapped again, whacked right across her tender butt with the icing ruler. She groaned.

‘Ah, that hurts you, yes?’ Anton crowed. ‘And so it should, such a wicked girl you are. No pants – and wasting the potatoes.’

‘I’m sorry,’ gasped Venny, joining in the fun. ‘I’ll try to be good, Anton.’

But he was clock-watching again. Venny’s nerves tingled enjoyably as she too looked at that monstrosity he’d hung on the wall. She wondered vaguely if she
was going to be phobic about horology for the rest of her days, after this. Suddenly, another minute was up. The second hand seemed to be whizzing around the dial now, unstoppable. The thing chimed. The cuckoo squeaked. Anton’s arm swung, and Venny let out a shout of pain. Her buttocks seemed so hot that she felt they must almost be glowing. She glanced back, and down. They were very pink, but no welts had been raised. He was perhaps being careful with her. She looked at Anton. He had paused in lambasting her, and while the icing ruler hung in one fist, his other hand rubbed busily against the hard outline of his erection.

And oh, the clock was still ticking, those seconds were racing by like a whirlwind.

Again, the cuckoo cried out.

So did Venny as the ruler hit her backside again.

It was almost too much for her now. Her buttocks felt quite sore. Also, her slit felt very damp. She was sure that he must be able to see the snail-trail of desire that was wetting her thighs with juice now. As if to confirm this, she felt Anton’s hand touching her lust-swollen crotch. He spread his fingers and by so doing pushed the cheeks of her arse open wide. Leaning over the worktop and breathing heavily, Venny imagined the picture she was presenting to her sadistic employee. She could feel her anus clenching, puckering with excitement; her labia were hopelessly soaked and swollen; her clit was leaping and twitching hungrily beneath its concealing hood; and her cunt felt so empty, so juicy, so unbearably open that she felt he must be able to see right up inside
her. Of course he couldn’t, but it certainly felt like that.

The cuckoo clamoured again, and she tensed in anticipation of the blow, her hands clenching into fists on the worktop, her nails digging into her palms. Her teeth caught her lower lip almost hard enough to draw blood.

But the blow never came. Instead Anton was moving around the worktops again – no doubt fetching some new instrument of torture to torment her. With a groan of acute arousal, Venny felt the pressure of his body hard against her own once more, his still-clothed cock pressing desperately against her, and then his fingers were delving down between her legs, pushing them wider, inserting something – please, let it be his penis soon! she thought – into the wide-open depths of her wet vagina.

It wasn’t his penis. Venny felt a weird fizzing sensation in her pussy and straightened in alarm. What was he doing to her now? But Anton kept her pinned there against the worktop with his body when she would have squirmed upright. And as the seconds passed, and the damned cuckoo let out its ugly squawk again, she began to feel that the fizzing was in fact very pleasurable. It tickled and teased at her soft inner surfaces; she felt more wetness trickling from her as her body responded to the stimulation.

‘What?’ she gasped out.

‘Alka Seltzer,’ said Anton beside her ear. ‘Feels good, yes?’

‘Yes,’ groaned Venny as Anton’s mobile fingers
started making incursions into other more forbidden places. One finger wriggled inside her anus, and then another pushed a tablet up there too. Again, there was that unbearably arousing sensation, like champagne shooting from a bottle after it had been vigorously shaken, like cascades of foam frothing around her most secret parts and tickling them with an intensity that made her wince and cry out. Her heart seemed to be beating its way right out of her chest, and her nipples felt as hard as bottle tops. Moisture flooded her now.

‘Ah, now you are ready, yes?’ asked Anton.

Too ready, thought Venny, thinking that orgasm was only a heartbeat away. Furiously she pressed herself against the edge of the worktop, seeking relief.