Indecent...Desires (7 page)

But I am not imagining this. It is real. And as I slowly come down from my climax, I could swear I hear him whisper my name,
Meredith,
and
Are youOK?

I decide that I didn't, though, because that is not the game we are playing. In this, I am in charge, and nothing happens unless I say it can, and I did not give him permission to use my name, or to make me feel these things that I should not be feeling. I push myself off him, make myself stand at the side of the bed. ‘On your knees,' I order him. He does as I say, and I reach out and take him in hand. He's breathing hard, fighting to keep himself together. I stroke him, wonder what he's waiting for.

And then I realise. He's waiting for me. ‘You can come now,' I say, as I grip the end of his cock and give a sharp twist. He stiffens, his hands flexing into fists by his sides. And then he spills himself all over the sheets.

Chapter Six

I leave him sprawled out on the bed and panting. I gather up my clothes, but I don't put them on. I take the shirt from the hanger on the back of the door and put that on instead. It doesn't fit me and I like that about it. It smells of him and I like that too.

I go into the living room, explore the pile of books on the table, then I go into the kitchen and explore the contents of his fridge and cupboards. He is, it is quite clear to see, a twenty-four-year-old single man living on his own. He is also, I quickly begin to realise, full of surprises. The cupboards in his living room are full of wires and circuit boards and other unidentifiable objects, which I suppose makes sense given that he works in IT. I find football boots next to the kitchen bin and sports kit in the washing machine, and a stack of cook books on a shelf in the kitchen. No sign of fishing tackle or the girly calendars that my ex-husband insisted on hanging in his office.

I know I'm intruding on his private space, but I can't seem to stop myself looking. I want to know more about him. I want to know who Lucas is when he's not sat naked in his window, pleasuring himself for my entertainment.

‘Find what you need?'

The voice comes from the doorway. I turn quickly, find him watching me. I tuck a stray curl of hair behind my ear, suddenly embarrassed. ‘I shouldn't be looking through your things,' I acknowledge. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Why?' he asks. ‘I've got nothing to hide.'

No, I think to myself. I am the one who hides, sitting in the darkness of my bedroom as he sits in the light and lets everyone see. He puts me to shame, he is so open, so free, so comfortable with himself. I think about those weeks I spent sending him anonymous notes, and questions rush into my mind.

‘Why did you do it?' I ask, unable to stop myself. ‘Why did you follow my notes? You didn't know it was me.'

‘I didn't know who it was,' he confesses. He's pulled on a pair of white underpants, David Beckham-style briefs that emphasise the hair on his thighs and the beautiful shape of his penis and balls. ‘I knew you lived in that building, though. I hoped it was you. I imagined it was you, when I was touching myself.' He looks a little shy, a little embarrassed as he says it, like he thinks he's done something wrong. As if, after everything we've just done, that is the thing he's ashamed of.

‘It could have been anyone watching you,' I point out.

‘Yes, I know,' he says. He opens the fridge and peers inside, but I'm pretty sure it's just a distraction technique. He closes the door, a carton of orange juice in his hand, then finds glasses and pours some out. He pushes a glass in my direction. I take it.

‘And didn't that bother you?'

He drinks some of his juice, passing the glass from hand to hand. ‘I, ah…I've always fantasised about being told what to do. When I was a kid, I had this really bossy maths teacher called Miss Wilkes. All the other boys thought she was evil. I used to get myself put in detention on purpose just so I could sit in a room with her while she shouted at me.'

‘Seriously?'

‘Yes,' he says. ‘You probably think I'm crazy.'

‘No.' I shake my head, and think about all the notes I've sent him, all the things I've made him do. ‘I don't think you're crazy at all.'

‘The last proper girlfriend I had thought I was,' he says. ‘She said…' He pauses, as if it's hard for him to get the words out. ‘I asked her if she wanted to try some stuff, you know, maybe handcuffs or a blindfold. She thought I wanted to put them on her. When I said no, I wanted her to tie me up, she said I was weird.' He swirls the juice in his glass, slides me a wary glance. ‘We broke up soon after that.'

‘Mutual agreement?'

‘I guess technically speaking, she got in there first. But to be honest, my cock had already left the relationship.'

‘You couldn't get it up for her?'

‘Could you? I mean, not that you have a dick, obviously. But could you perform for someone you knew thought you were weird?'

My mind rushes back to those last few sexless months of my marriage. ‘No,' I say, shaking my head. ‘My ex-husband…I…he said I was bossy. A nagging cow who didn't know when to shut up. I couldn't…'

Lucas Brady is watching me with those dark, dark eyes, and something in the way he looks at me sends warmth cascading over my skin. ‘I don't think you're bossy,' he says.

‘Liar,' I retort. ‘I'm bossy as fuck.'

‘Well, yes,' he says. ‘But I like it. I like it when you boss me around.'

‘I like bossing you around.'

And there, right there, is a confession that leaves both of us silent for a moment.

‘I've never met anyone like you before,' I say eventually, when the silence has expanded and filled me. ‘I didn't know men like you existed.'

‘I knew bossy women existed,' Lucas tells me. He folds his arms and crosses his legs at the ankle, leaning back against the work top. ‘The problem has been trying to find one.'

I blink. ‘How could you possibly have had any problem? Have you
seen
you?'

‘It's not that easy,' he says. ‘I met someone I thought might be into it, but it turned out that she had a thing for another guy. And she was too young for me, if I'm honest. Anyway, it's hardly a topic you can bring up in the middle of a first date. “Oh, by the way, I really want to be bent over the end of the bed and spanked, would you be up for that?” It's OKwhen women say it,' he continues. ‘Then it's kind of kinky, you know? Naughty. But when a man says it, women think it's weird. And then they tell all their friends, and before you know it they're posting it on Facebook and your mother has found out and is refusing to speak to you.'

He sounds angry. Bitter, almost. ‘Stop whining,' I say sharply. His head jerks up. For a moment he looks shocked, and then that small smile curves up the edges of his mouth, and just like that, we move smoothly into play.

I dip my fingers into my glass and flick juice at him. It spatters his chest, his belly. ‘You're dirty,' I inform him. ‘You need to clean yourself up. I won't tolerate poor personal hygiene, Lucas.'

I've never used his first name before. Never said it out loud. It feels soft and delicious on my tongue.

‘No, of course not,' he says hastily. ‘What do you want me to do?'

‘Do you have a bath? Or a shower?'

‘A shower,' he says.

‘Show me.'

He leads me through into a small bathroom, even smaller than my own. It's reasonably clean, although not pristine. I picture him wearing nothing but a pair of Marigolds and think about making him scrub it out, but decide to leave that for another day. I check the assortment of shower gels and soaps, the aftershave that sits on the windowsill. Then I lean into the shower and turn it on. A blast of cold water thunders down into the tray.

I look at Lucas and gesture to it. And like the true gentleman that he is, he climbs under the spray without a single complaint. I watch as he lathers himself from head to toe with soap that smells of mint. He rinses his hair as goose bumps rise on his perfect skin and his nipples tighten into dark little discs and his penis thickens and lengthens, standing proudly away from his body.

He says nothing when I turn off the water, when I order him to get out of the shower and stand, shivering, on the floor. He stays silent when I take his cock in my mouth and suck it deep, when I rub it between my breasts, over my face, stroking and sucking until he comes in hot, sticky spurts all over my chest.

But when I tell him to clean me up, not with a cloth but with his tongue, then he does say something. And it's two little words, spoken softly, as I pull a towel around him and try to warm him up.

Thank you.

We spend the next few days at work passing what I can only describe as
longing glances.
I've let things get out of hand there, out of control, and I have to get a grip before anyone notices. Lucas is behind too, and he comes in early and leaves late and there are no more assignations in the stationery cupboard, though I spend more time thinking about it than I should.

And then, out of the blue, Martin Banks asks me out to dinner. I'm so flustered that I say yes before I can think to say no, and we agree to the following Monday night at the little Italian on Bridge Street, just as I had planned. It's a classy place, the sort that expects an LBD and pearls even on a week night. The kind of place I've always thought I wanted to be taken to.

But suddenly the idea has lost its appeal. Unfortunately saying no is not easy. I've hardly been on top of my game for the past ten days. And if someone somehow finds out what I did with Lucas in the stationery cupboard, I'm going to need to be on Martin Banks's good side.

So I fix on a smile. ‘That would be lovely, Mr Banks.'

‘Please,' he says, smiling that expensive smile. ‘Call me Martin.'

‘Martin,' I say.

‘I'll pick you up at seven-thirty,' he says. ‘We'll go for a drink first.'

‘Lovely,' I say, my brain switching onto autopilot. This is, after all, what I wanted. A scenario I had played out in my head countless times as I sat behind my desk and watched day after day disappear on my calendar. Days when I wasn't getting any younger, when my insides were getting older. Tick, tock.

It isn't the scenario that had played out in my dreams, however. Those were entirely different, and now, thanks to Lucas Brady, they have real-life focus. They're no longer a blurry, faceless longing, but a sharp, defined desire. Thanks to him, I finally understand who I am. I finally understand what it is that I need, what it is that makes my heart beat and my world turn.

So I agree to the date with Martin Banks, but I know it will be the only time I will go out with him. Somehow, I will make him see that we can never be more than employer and employee. We'll laugh about it, and we'll never talk about it again, and if I get him in the Secret Santa at Christmas I'll give him a bottle of red that costs more than a tenner, as a sort of apology.

By the time Friday afternoon rolls around, I am so horny that I can barely contain myself. It's all I can do not to march into the office that Lucas is currently working in, kick the door shut and order him to finger me until I come. Only the thought that I am going to take him home with me and that he is going to be mine to do with as I wish for the entire weekend keeps me going.

At five-thirty, I switch off my computer. I've worked like crazy today, and everything is back as it should be. Even the stationery cupboard has been restocked, though as of today, I've instigated a new rule – the door has been left open, and everyone can help themselves. I feel surprisingly unstressed by the new process, and it has freed up a surprising amount of time.

Which is why I'm able to put on my coat and pick up my handbag now, and not an hour from now. I decline the offer to go for a drink. No one seems surprised, probably because I always decline. There is always too much work to be done.

Not today, however. Today I am leaving on time and I am taking Lucas Brady with me. He looks up when I walk into the office he's working in.

‘Turn off the computer,' I say. ‘It's time to go home.'

‘Oh,' he says. ‘Home?' He leans back in his chair, his fingers linked together, and gives me a look that could set the walls on fire. How did he learn to do that, I wonder? How does he know that staring at me that way, with those dark, dark eyes hooded by heavy lids, with his mouth creasing in that way that makes his dimples pop, sends lust barrelling though me, making my breasts heavy and my pussy wet?

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Home.'

He is out of his chair like a shot, packing away discs and various bits of hardware. I don't have the faintest clue what any of it is for, but I've heard the other staff singing his praises. Apparently the new software he's installed is fantastic, and has simplified their job tremendously.

Lucas slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and follows me out of the office. When we get to the exit he holds the door for me and, as I walk through it, I feel my excitement expand inside me, filling every inch of my body. I am taking this beautiful man home with me. He is going to do whatever I ask of him for the next two days. There is no anxiety, no fear that I am going to say or do the wrong thing, that I will go too far.

We walk back to our street in silence, not needing to fill the space with pointless small talk. And somewhere along the way, he slips his hand into mine. His fingers circle mine, deliciously firm and strong, and his thumb strokes over the back of my hand in a soft, relentless rhythm. It is tender and gentle, and when I glance across at him, he smiles at me.

And I smile back.

When we get to our street, he starts in the direction of his building, but I stop him with a look. ‘My flat,' I say.

He raises an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Absolutely.'