Authors: Sarah Manning
Unsticky (32 page)
He didn’t say anything, but watched Grace run her fingers through her hair to try to smooth down the lacquered hanks. Then she leaned over to the side table to pick up a half-full brandy snifter that Sergei had left and knocked it back.
‘For God’s sake, Grace, that’s disgusting,’ Vaughn snapped. ‘If you want a drink, I’m sure we can find an empty glass.’
All the stresses and strains of the last week were still there with a side order of anti-climax that Grace hadn’t expected. She blinked teary eyes as one of the servers came in with a laden plate, which Vaughn told her to put on the table next to Grace.
‘You barely touched your dinner,’ he chided, once the woman had closed the door behind her. ‘I think you had maybe one scallop.’
Keeping the ball of conversation firmly in the air had completely destroyed Grace’s appetite, though she’d been too aggravated to choke down anything that wasn’t a banana over the last few days. In fact, she was seriously considering pitching her patented Banana Diet to the health editor. ‘I was too nervous to eat,’ she explained, rubbing a hand over her empty stomach, which didn’t feel quite as squidgy as usual. ‘You know what I mean?’
From the envious look on Vaughn’s face, he was a comfort eater from way back. ‘You should eat something,’ he insisted. ‘And there was no need to worry. You handled everything beautifully. I was so proud of you.’
She did? He was? Grace wondered if there was an apocalypse just around the corner, because Vaughn’s affirmative statement had contained absolutely no traces of sarcasm. ‘That’s cool,’ she decided, staring at the plate. ‘That you’re pleased, I mean. I thought it was all going to go horribly pear-shaped just before they served pudding. Lola, Noah’s girlfriend . . . God, she was hard work.’
‘She could have made more of an effort,’ Vaughn agreed, coming to sit on the end of the futuristic chaise longue on which Grace was perched.
‘Tell me about it,’ Grace nodded, surreptitiously easing off her right shoe, which was a good half-size too small. During an awkward lapse in the chatter, Grace had mentioned that she’d been at St Martin’s at the same time that Noah and Lola had been at the Slade. Lola had narrowed her pale blue eyes. ‘Did you know that girl who bailed on her final degree show at the last minute?’ she’d asked. ‘My cousin’s at Glasgow School of Art and even she heard about it.’
Grace had felt her heart do a painful fandango, but she’d forced herself to muster a bland smile. ‘Not anyone I know,’ she’d lied. ‘I think that was just an urban myth.’
Lola had refused to let it drop. In fact, it had been the first time she’d really relaxed. ‘No! It’s true! One of my friends was studying fine art at St Martin’s and it was all anyone talked about for weeks.
They were doing renovations in one of the studios and apparently she dumped all her outfits in a skip and walked out.’
It hadn’t been a skip. It had actually been a common or garden bin in the corner of the sewing room, but Grace had just stared at Lola, aware that her face was going redder and redder. Surprisingly, it was Alex who’d come to her rescue, though it was more a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.
‘So, Gracie, I’m dying to know how you and Vaughn met,’ he said with a sly smile, and maybe her greatest triumph of the night had been the way she’d managed to recover and spin that first fateful meeting into a wry little anecdote that made everyone, even Lola, laugh.
Now she pulled a face at the memory of Lola. ‘I felt sorry for her,’ she admitted, as Vaughn tilted his head and looked surprised. ‘She was really nervous and it just made her aggressive. You know, like fight or flight. She couldn’t run away so she went on the attack. She was OK by the end. She even said she was going to friend me on Facebook.’
Vaughn was dipping his finger into the
pot au chocolat
that Grace would have quite liked to eat herself. ‘And what about her boyfriend? What did you make of him?’
pot au chocolat
that Grace would have quite liked to eat herself. ‘And what about her boyfriend? What did you make of him?’
‘Noah? He’s not as working class as he pretends to be,’ Grace mused, finally kicking off her other shoe so she could curl her legs under her. ‘Like, he and Alex went to the same public school so I don’t know why he got all up in my grill because he thought I was one of the landed gentry. I mean, he’s called
Noah
, for goodness’ sake,’ she summed up scathingly. ‘And he totally took a moment to appreciate the expensive brandy.’
Noah
, for goodness’ sake,’ she summed up scathingly. ‘And he totally took a moment to appreciate the expensive brandy.’
‘So you think he was impressed?’ Vaughn was now stealing little forkfuls of lemon pudding, and closing his eyes blissfully every time he sneaked a piece into his mouth.
‘I think he was impressed, but maybe they were out of their comfort zone. Just a little bit.’
‘But that was the whole point of having dinner here; it was more intimate.’ Vaughn frowned. ‘Usually I just book a table in a restaurant, it’s a lot less bother.’
And he’d said that he was easing her in gently? Grace decided that it wasn’t worth seething about. There’d been that line in the contract about
other duties: as required
and Vaughn was entitled to ask her to do anything he saw fit, considering the amount he was paying her. Besides, he was being nice to her for once so she also decided that there was no point in telling him that she’d been in airports that were more intimate than his home. ‘I guess Hampstead is a long way from Dalston,’ was all she said. ‘Like, in this metaphorical way ’cause it’s only a few miles as the crow flies.’ This relaxed debrief and watching Vaughn have multiple foodgasms wasn’t helping to make Grace any more lucid. Her brain had packed up shop for the night.
other duties: as required
and Vaughn was entitled to ask her to do anything he saw fit, considering the amount he was paying her. Besides, he was being nice to her for once so she also decided that there was no point in telling him that she’d been in airports that were more intimate than his home. ‘I guess Hampstead is a long way from Dalston,’ was all she said. ‘Like, in this metaphorical way ’cause it’s only a few miles as the crow flies.’ This relaxed debrief and watching Vaughn have multiple foodgasms wasn’t helping to make Grace any more lucid. Her brain had packed up shop for the night.
But he just gave her another lazy smile. ‘Duly noted. This pudding is rather good. Do you want to try some?’
He waved the fork temptingly in front of Grace’s mouth and part of her job was to put things in there when he told her to so she obediently opened up to let Vaughn feed her a huge piece of surprisingly sugary sponge.
‘Too sweet,’ she complained, squinching up her face as she chewed, then took a huge gulp of champagne to wash it down. ‘I can feel my back molars protesting.’
There was something sticky clinging to her lip and before Grace could discreetly dab it away with her napkin, Vaughn was cupping her chin so he could rub his thumb slowly at the offending glob of sauce. ‘That’s better,’ he said, stroking the pooch of Grace’s lower lip and smiling when she flushed.
‘So how did things go at your end of the table?’ Grace asked, in a voice that sounded as if she smoked at least forty Gauloises a day.
His hand hadn’t left her face, but was trailing a path along her neck, where her pulse was thundering away like she was a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolism. ‘Boring,’ he confided. ‘We had to talk about Third World debt but I think I managed to offload a painting I hate for a lot more than I originally paid for it.’ Then his fingers moved down and curved around the swell of Grace’s breast and they were both surprised when she relaxed into his touch.
‘That’s cool,’ Grace whispered, and it was even more surprising that she was closing the gap between them so she could get to his smiling mouth but Vaughn was leaning towards her like he was totally down with that.
Grace kissed him slowly because she wanted to savour the lemon-tart taste of him. Vaughn’s lips clung to her and she could feel the faint scrape of his stubble against her cheek. When Grace shifted restlessly, hips circling against him, he was hard. Sometimes it seemed like his dick was the only part of him that never played games. And sometimes it seemed as if she spent all her time veering from not liking him to liking him a lot.
Vaughn was still stroking her breast, rubbing his thumb against the spot where Grace’s nipple was peaked and aching. ‘There are three people standing outside the door waiting to clear up,’ he remarked conversationally. ‘Shall we go upstairs, because I’d like to get you out of this pretty dress as soon as possible.’
The parquet felt rough under her bare feet as Grace stood up and stretched languidly, aware that Vaughn’s eyes were resting on her body as it undulated under the black dress. Just the way he was looking at her, like everything she did tonight was perfection wrapped up in a big bow, was making Grace itch inside her own skin.
Apparently, approval really turned her on. Who knew?
And when Vaughn stood up and took her hand, Grace let him pull her bonelessly behind him as he opened the door and startled the servers who were lounging against a Corbusier table that cost more than their combined annual earnings.
The small blonde Polish girl flicked a glance at Grace, at her perfectly polished toenails, understated dress that still managed to shriek its net worth and Vaughn clutching her arm in a death grip, before turning away with a knowing smile, while he murmured platitudes about their silver-service skills. For the second time that evening, Grace marvelled that simply looking the part made up for what really lay underneath.
The split second that the door closed behind them and Grace heard the first clink of china, Vaughn pushed her up against the wall.
Usually he tried to show some restraint for the first few minutes of kissing and caressing, but this time he was fucking her mouth with his tongue, his skin feverish hot beneath Grace’s fingers. The warm glow from a job well done had gone, not to her head, but between her thighs, or maybe that was Vaughn’s hand sliding up her leg to press and knead.
Getting upstairs became an undignified stagger. Vaughn hauled Grace down the landing and through a door then pushed her down on his bed so enthusiastically that she bounced a couple of times, then lay there momentarily stunned as Vaughn pulled his shirt over his head without bothering to unbutton it.
‘How much did that dress cost me?’ he asked, voice muffled as he bent down to take off his shoes.
Grace didn’t like the sound of that. Talking about payment in kind was very tacky when they’d been thundering towards the kind of dirtybadwrong porno-sex that she’d remember on her deathbed.
‘Two thousand and change,’ she said, feeling that little hiss as the fire in her belly went out.
‘You’d better take it off then,’ Vaughn drawled. ‘Before it gets damaged.’
His eyes were all pupil and Grace scrambled to her knees and yanked at the zip. She could have slowed it down, drawn the moment out, but she wanted the dress off and Vaughn’s hands on her.
The Chanel dress was thrown into one of the far corners of the room as if it had been a ten-pound Primark number, but Grace didn’t care - which was a fashion first because Vaughn was on the bed, pushing her down again and pausing to kiss and suck at every piece of skin that distracted him along the way. Grace hadn’t even known that the area above her left knee was an erogenous zone.
She gasped every time Vaughn touched her until she wanted to scream because it was happening too fast. Or maybe it was happening too slowly? Vaughn made a pleased sound when Grace grabbed his hand and shoved it between her legs. ‘You’re ready?’ he muttered in surprise.
Grace didn’t answer, just sank her teeth into his shoulder in the universal language for, ‘Yes, now, don’t make me wait,’ and Vaughn must have understood because he was inside her in one sudden thrust.
It might have been when she wrapped her legs round his hips or scored a path down his back with her nails but Vaughn’s control upped and left. He surged into her harder and faster than before, hitting this perfect little spot that made Grace arch her back and swear that she’d just seen God.
And it was suddenly OK that it was messy and sweaty because sex was supposed to be. And when the sex was this good, the mess and sweat didn’t seem to matter so much.
Grace was drumming her heels against the small of Vaughn’s back when she realised that she was going to come. All she needed was one more lip-biting kiss, one more bruise blossoming because Vaughn had pinned her arms over her head, one more hungry rasp in her ear about how much he loved fucking her and she . . .
There was a groan and a quick jerk of Vaughn’s hips and apparently they were done. Move it along, nothing to see here.
Except Grace was still trying to remember how to breathe and had to be persuaded to unlock her legs and let Vaughn pull free. Just the feel of his still half-hard cock sliding slowly out of her, had Grace closing her eyes as another shudder of almost-there hit.
‘Are you all right?’ Vaughn asked solicitously, like he wasn’t some selfish wanker who’d just fucked her into the mattress and left her stranded. He’d done this many times before, with many other women, so how could he not know that Grace hadn’t reached the finishing line? ‘You look exhausted.’
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