The Red Collection (6 page)

I’m semi-speechless anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. But the warm contact of her skin almost makes my heart stop.

Fucking hell, she looks amazing.

I didn’t know her for long, but she was always pretty, and in a far more refined way than a lot of the Z-list slappers that I went through.

But now, oh hell, she’s just beautiful. Blue eyes brighter. Hair shorter, but blonder and wilder in a sort of sexy shag cut. Her perfect heart-shaped face has an inner glow of mystery, of life, of supreme confidence. And her body?

Dear God Almighty, her body is just perfection – the stuff of every wet or waking dream I’ve ever had.

She’s become every inch the superstar that I aspired to be and never was.

‘Let’s dance,’ she purrs, the tip of her forefinger pressing heavily on my lower lip for a second, dragging it down.

I feel as if I’ve just been struck by lightning. And my cock, which was formerly just perky, has turned to iron.

It’s a wonder I don’t fall arse over tit into the mass of dancing people. I just can’t take my eyes off her delicious bottom as she walks ahead of me, parting the swaying, gesticulating throng like a queen on a progress. Like I said, her body is perfect. And her bottom is more than perfect, if that’s possible. It moves and sways and lilts as if she’s dancing before we’ve even found our spot. As if she hears the music in her bones and in her heart.

Was she always this gorgeous? I suppose she must have been, but I was either just too wasted or too full of my own self-importance to appreciate her.

But I’m appreciating her now. Bloody hell, am I appreciating her.

Appreciating that marvellous firm arse, those long, long legs in a sleek, short, but elegant little black dress, and her superb breasts, as she turns towards me and gives me that narrow, cryptic little smile again. A smile that seems to combine with the staccato beat of the heavy, Latin-influenced track that’s playing and wind itself around my dick like a serpent.

Shit, I’m in trouble.

And then we’re dancing and I feel like a terpsichoreally challenged farmhand with seven left feet, instead of the pretty slick mover I once was. Seeing Maria again has rendered me helpless, almost infantile.

But she moves like a goddess. A wild, uninhibited poem of graceful syncopation. I can’t remember if we ever danced together when we clubbed in the old days, but if we ever did, I’m sure she never danced like this.

She commands the space we’ve found ourselves in, carving out more and more with the sheer force of her personality and the energy with which she twists and turns and sways. Her sinuous body seems to interpret subtle rhythms and embedded harmonies that lesser mortals just aren’t equipped to hear. I can hear them, because I was a musician of sorts before I pissed most of it away, but I can’t do with this music what Maria does.

Fuck, I want her so much.

Maybe that’s why my own feet and limbs just won’t work properly. Because my hard-on is so ironclad it’s almost agony. It’s as if I’ve been disconnected from all rhythm and coordination.

She doesn’t look at me. Which is probably a good thing.
She
seems ensorcelled by the beats, her white arms lifted to heaven and her eyes closed.

And yet, from time to time, when her eyes do open, she does look at somebody.

We’re close to the edge of the dance floor, and when – with enormous difficulty – I can shake my eyes away from her for a few seconds, and follow her eye line, I see that I’m not the only one who’s watching her swirl and shimmy.

Lounging at a table, alone, is a large, stocky man with darkish, greying hair, a broad, stubble-shadowed face and intense, gleaming eyes. For a fraction of a second his attention strays from Maria and fixes on me … and I feel almost the same sense of shock I get from her.

I’m not gay.

Really I’m not.

OK, so maybe once … or twice … when I was pissed or high, I had a fumble around with Christian, the guy in the band who was bent. But that doesn’t mean I’m homosexual or even bi.

Yet there’s something about this guy who’s watching us that seems to grab me somehow. Makes me want to shudder and look away, and yet look again. I miss yet another beat and stumble in my pathetic attempt to match Maria’s moves. Torn between her and him, I get strange flash visions of being in a room somewhere, doing dark and dangerous things. With her, and also with him.

As my dick gets harder, I feel scared, yet infinitely excited. It’s like I’m filled with a sense of anticipation of I know not what. I glance at the happy fetish crowd around me, who all seem to know what they want and why – and I envy them.

Maybe I want what they want? I wish I knew … I’m
just
feeling more and more confused. Like a disenfranchised stranger in a very strange land indeed.

And it’s right at that moment – as if she’s read my mind – that Maria suddenly halts, mid-gyration, and fixes me with a steady blue stare. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’ With that she walks from the floor, not looking back, just leading me with her lithe, silky stride in her perfect black heels, and the muscular undulation of her gently swaying buttocks.

I couldn’t not follow if my next breath depended on it.

Like an eager, panting puppy, I almost trot after her, out of the function room, across the lobby and to the lift. She doesn’t check if I’m following, not once, and I have to run and almost fall into the lift carriage behind her in order to avoid it closing in my face.

‘Maria. What on earth are you doing here?’ I babble, still to her straight, smooth back and shoulders, ‘Look, I’m sorry –’

Whirling like a ballet dancer, she cuts me off, mid-grovel, by the simple expedient of pushing hard on my chest, backing me up against the lift wall, and kissing me. Hard.

And as her tongue pushes imperiously into my mouth, her hand unzips my jeans with astonishing deftness, negotiates my underwear, and takes hold of my cock.

I’m so shocked I almost come all over her fingers.

Yet still, inanely, I try to speak and apologise … or something. She allows me my mouth for a moment, even while her fingertips do something infernal to the head of my penis, but her eyes utterly quell me. I can’t utter a word. Somewhere in those periwinkle blue depths there could well be the answer to the meaning of the universe, but all I see is a blend of amusement and disdain, coupled with a disquieting foreknowledge of something I daren’t even think about.

Then she’s kissing me again, and almost dispassionately handling my equipment as if it’s some mildly amusing curiosity she’s passing a minute or two with while listening to the piped lift music.

There’s barely time for a couple of bars of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ before the lift door slides open and she drops me like the proverbial hot potato and just walks away, leaving me standing there with my erection poking out of my flies.

Thank Christ there’s no one on the landing.

Shoving myself ignominiously and uncomfortably back into my jeans, I scuttle after Maria. That beautiful bottom of hers wafts from side to side as if she’s still dancing, still hearing the samba rhythm of Astrud Gilberto. I can’t take my eyes off it, and nearly trip on the edge of the carpet runner in my haste to catch up.

Which means that I nearly cannon right into her when she stops abruptly in front of one of the room doors.

The brass numerals read ‘17’, and my eyes bug when Maria reaches into the front of her dress and pulls out a key card, which has presumably been tucked cosily inside her bra.

Lucky card.

The polished door swings open, and I follow her inside to a softly lit room, where astonishingly, it isn’t Astrud Gilberto singing, but
me
.

Ack, how I hate some of those songs now. And ‘You’re My Fire, Baby’ is a prime example. Poppy, bouncy, over-produced, conveyor-belt chart drivel. I cringe. Even with all the vocal enhancements at the studio engineer’s disposal, I’m barely even carrying the tune. I
can
sing, but this wasn’t one of my finest moments.

Maria turns to me and gives me a look of almost pitying amusement.

She obviously doesn’t think it’s much cop either.

What bothers me even more than my former lack of glory is the fact that the loathsome doggerel is playing at all.

How has that happened? Even I’m not stupid or bemused enough to believe that it’s a coincidence. I start to ask, but she silences me again with her fingers across my open lips.

The scent of my cock is still on her skin.

A second later she’s kissing me again. Dominating me again with her lips and her hands. Her tongue is dainty and mobile but it seems to fill my mouth, and her fingers move efficiently on the fastenings of my jeans. Loosening them so she can slide a hand inside the back of them – and my shorts – and caress my backside.

It feels so sensational that I groan, muffled by her lips, and my dick hardens anew against her belly. I try to caress her in return, but she presses her curved fingers so firmly and so suddenly against my arsehole that I yelp against her mouth, and I can barely remember my, own name.

And then she abandons me again, and whirls away. With a casual, uncaring grace, she throws herself down into a big, deep, chintz-covered armchair, and I’m left standing around like a dolt, my eyes skittering between the overdecorated bed with its elaborate, also chintz-patterned hangings, and the perfection of Maria’s relaxed body and long, sleek legs.

‘Look, Maria … I … um … I’m sorry I never called you,’ I bluster, then dry up when she raises an imperious hand to stop my babble.

‘Shut the fuck up, Jason,’ she says in a quiet, unperturbed, almost affable voice, ‘and take your shirt off.’

What?

I feel confused and excited again, but I obey her. I’ve started working out again now I’ve cleaned up my act, but
I’m
painfully aware of the fact that I’m not as buff as I once was. Her all-seeing eyes seem to notice it too, and narrow slightly.

Fucking hell, I wish she’d turn off that music. My own trilling voice mocks me as I stand there shivering despite the gentle warmth from the central heating.

I wait, but she doesn’t speak again, and I feel nullified, unable to act or move until she does.

Slowly, she licks her pink-painted lips.

She uncrosses and recrosses her peerless legs, careful not to allow me even the slightest glimpse of what lies between her thighs.

Barely seeming to pay the slightest attention to what she’s doing, she reaches back into the low neckline of her black dress and slowly and idly begins to play with her nipple. Her fingertips move like some tiny animal burrowing about beneath the dark fabric and, after a moment, she closes her eyes and gives a little gasp of pleasure.

It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

I’m in agony. My cock is tenting my jeans, and it’s aching for me to wank it. But I know I can’t touch it until she gives permission.

I’ve never done the submission and domination thing. And I’ve seen no more than odd bits of scenes in films and half-watched documentaries. But suddenly I seem to understand … or at least begin to.

It’s something I never wanted until now.

I watch and watch as she rubs her long, silky thighs together and continues to fondle her breast. I’m still immobilised, like a pillar of burning salt.

Eventually she gives a little gasp, and a little sigh, and relaxes back into her seat.

Has she come? I didn’t think women could do that … just orgasm from rubbing their own nipples. Maybe she hasn’t … I get the feeling she’s just teasing me, and that’s strengthened when she opens her limpid blue eyes, and they mock me.

Men are such idiots, she seems to say, without speaking.

I don’t speak either, but while my voice burbles on and on from the sound system, a thousand questions jostle behind my lips.

Chief amongst which is … why did I ever, in my right or addled mind, let this glorious woman go?

I nearly fall over when she springs lightly to her feet and sashays towards me and, as I fight for composure, she looks me up and down as if I’m some kind of stud animal or piece of meat she’s assessing.

‘Unzip your jeans. Drop them to your ankles. Don’t step out of them,’ she instructs, her voice strangely neutral. As if she doesn’t really care if I obey her or not.

I do though. I really care.

‘Pants now. The same.’

I obey again. My mouth is dry. My heart is bashing against my chest. My cock bounces up against my belly as it’s released, tip moist and sticky.

She does that stockwoman looking at the beast thing again, and I have a horrible feeling I’ve been judged lacking. I feel like a complete idiot standing here buck naked, with my jeans and underpants round my ankles, yet in a slightly sick but overpowering way, I like it. I like it a lot.

There’s a knock at the door and I sway, nearly toppling over. Our eyes lock.

‘If you so much as move a muscle, you can put your clothes on, get out of here and I never want to see you again.’

I’ve never fainted in my life, but I feel as if I want to now.

But no way on earth am I going to move. Not a millimetre.

‘Come!’ she calls out and, as the door handle turns, I realise the door was never locked.

I close my eyes for a moment, and I feel sweat trickling from my armpits and from between my thighs. I imagine if I could stand outside myself, and look at my skin, every inch of it would be blushing, especially my rigid, seeping cock.

‘Robert,’ she breathes, her voice soft, loving and happy. As she walks right past me the air she displaces feels almost blissfully cool, and a moment later I hear the small, feverish sounds of an intensely passionate kiss.

Fight or flight instinct screams at me to grab up my clothing, bolt for the door and run for my room, then check out as soon as is possible. But another force, a greater force, keeps me in place. Rigid in muscle and in cock. Eyes wide open now and wondering what’s going on behind my back. I glance at the mirror on the dressing table, but frustratingly, the angle doesn’t show them.

The kiss goes on and on, and not only does Maria purr and murmur, but her mysterious companion – Robert – does too. I remember her kiss and I can’t blame him.