Secrets After Dark (27 page)

But I’m hardly one to talk.
I remember the things I said to my boss on Friday and a cold shiver that has nothing to do with the autumn wind goes down my back.

‘And how about you? Are you nearly done with Andrei’s project?’ he asks.

I nod.
Although I might not have a job on Monday. I’ll have to see.
‘Yes, it should be over by the end of the week.’

‘Don’t let him persuade you to carry on,’ he says, a small frown creasing the area between his brows. ‘I know Andrei, he likes to collect people and keep them, and he’s obviously taken a shine to you. Watch out, okay?’

‘Believe me, there’s nothing he could say that would make me stay,’ I say feelingly.

‘Why?’ Suddenly Dominic is searching my face. ‘Has something happened? Has he made you feel threatened?’

‘No, no,’ I reply hastily. ‘Of course not. He’s fine, really. I just don’t like the atmosphere, or the way that Anna is always around. She’s determined to let me know just how much she and Andrei enjoy having sex – as if I care.’ I know I’m shifting the subject away from Andrei but I don’t know how I can begin to explain to Dominic about the tensions between Andrei and me. Would it help him to know that his boss has come on to me? Or that I had the crazy idea that I might have had sex with him,
by mistake
?
And that there is still a question over whether or not he drugged me in the catacombs? Of course it wouldn’t. Dominic needs to keep a cool head this week, and any of this stuff might make him furious and unable to deal rationally with Andrei. ‘What do you make of her?’

‘Anna?’ Dominic shrugs. His gaze slides away from mine for a moment and then returns, dark and candid. ‘She’s an interesting woman, full of talent and very clever at her job. She loves to immerse herself in life, you know? Show her a challenge and she’s there. Tell her she can’t ski down that slope and she’ll be at the top before you can say Jack Robinson. Dare her anything, and she’ll take it on. She does everything at full tilt, so it doesn’t surprise me that she makes her presence felt at Andrei’s place.’

‘If you told me she has a good secondary career as an opera singer, I wouldn’t be surprised, not with her lung power,’ I remark drily, and Dominic laughs.

‘She’ll do anything,’ he says, and then more thoughtfully, ‘I sometimes wonder if that’s what draws Andrei to her. Not just her beauty – there are hundreds of beautiful women who’ll sleep with him – but because she’s so unafraid. Whatever he wanted, she would do – and she would love it.’

His words fill me with a kind of dread. Is he telling me this because he wants me to be the same? Does he wish that I didn’t have my limits, places I will not go? Perhaps Anna is the perfect woman because she has no limits. But is she submissive? Could she lie down and take whatever someone else longed to give her – and truly want it? She doesn’t seem that type at all to me. I picture her in spiked heels and a corset, brandishing the instruments rather than letting them be played on her. But who knows? No one knows what goes on in the bedroom unless they’re in there too.

‘Are you happy... with us?’ I venture in a small voice.

He looks at me, puzzled. ‘Of course I am. Don’t I seem that way?’

‘Yes... but I mean, with our sex life.’

He lifts my free hand to his lips and kisses it. ‘Yes,’ he replies firmly. ‘Very happy.’

‘I like where we are,’ I say, feeling a little braver. ‘I like what you do to me.’

He leans in and whispers in my ear, ‘I know. I’ve seen you coming, remember?’

I laugh. ‘I just wondered if... well...’ I hardly know how to say it, but openness and trust are going to be our watchwords from now on, so there’s no point in being shy. ‘Are we only going to use rope from now on?’

He looks straight into my eyes. I can’t stop gazing at his face: he’s so handsome, I can hardly believe he’s really mine. ‘Would that be a problem?’

‘No... no. I like it but I wonder if... all the time. I remember we used to enjoy other things too.’

‘Do you have anything in mind?’

‘Well...’ I want to squirm. I’m embarrassed to say, considering how everything ended before, but I need to be able to talk about my own needs and desires. ‘You know, sometimes I liked it when you used things on my bottom. I never liked anything too harsh, but a little stimulation sometimes got me very hot. You know that little flogger, the one with the soft suede tails... I remember how you used that so that it was as gentle as feathers to start with, and then gradually gave it more bite, and I found that kind of nice.’

Dominic looks away, and his fingers start knitting through mine, as though he’s thinking hard. When he returns his gaze to me, he looks serious. ‘Beth, I told you. I took a vow not to use those things on you again.’

‘Never?’

‘That’s right. Because of what happened.’

‘So – you don’t trust yourself.’

He doesn’t answer for a while but sighs heavily and then says, ‘There’s a part of me that’s like a bad limb I want to get rid of, because it’s gangrenous and could infect the rest of me. So I’m cutting off the blood supply and waiting until it falls off and I’m not bothered by it any more. Does that make sense?’

‘Kind of. Yes, I suppose so,’ I say, and it’s true, it does, in a way. But I still feel there is something unanswered. ‘And you – you’re still the same?’

‘Er... I think so.’ He sounds amused. ‘Do I seem different?’

‘Well – I mean, you’re still a dominant lover, aren’t you?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ he murmurs. ‘I’ll never stop being turned on from seeing you yielding to my desires and letting me take you to extremes of pleasure...’

My stomach tightens delightfully as his words buzz in my ears. But I have the sense that there’s something I’ve forgotten, something I ought to remember and ask him about. But it stays on the edges of my mind and won’t let me seize it and pull it to the centre where I can see it.

I push it out of my mind and snuggle into him.

‘Finish that tea,’ he commands. ‘I want to get you home and ravish you, if that’s all right by you.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I whisper back.

All the way back through the park, we play a silly but exciting game in which I am already his slave, doing his bidding, obeying his commands. When I fail in something or mess up an order, he punishes me in small ways.

I’m ordered to let my master cross the road but when the traffic signals don’t immediately change so that we can cross, I’m at fault for not arranging things better. My punishment is Dominic’s hand, cold from the wind, pushed up my jumper and pressed against my warm flesh, making me squeal, though I try to stifle it.

It’s jokey but also provocative, and by the time we’re walking through the Mayfair streets, it has taken a more serious tone. I walk obediently ahead of him, letting him watch me, waiting in case he issues another order. Darkness has fallen and the city is illuminated by the sodium orange of street lighting. As we get closer to Randolph Gardens, he suddenly orders me to change direction and walk towards Grosvenor Square. I obey, wondering what he has in mind. In the square, one side is dominated by the huge modern building that houses the American Embassy, with the concrete fortifications and armed guards patrolling in front. The guns and guards have always given me the shivers when I pass, making me think of bombs and terrorists and attacks, the kind of dreadful things I hope will never disturb the peace of the beautiful city again, even if they are an undeniable reality.

‘Stop.’ It’s Dominic issuing a command.

I halt immediately. We are on the edge of the square, near the gardens. Around them, just shadows in the darkness, are benches facing into the garden, where people might stop in the daytime but which are now deserted, except one on the other side of the square that has a tramp fast asleep on it.

Dominic walks past me, goes to the nearest bench and sits down. ‘Now come over here,’ he commands. ‘But look only into the garden. Don’t look at me. Come and stand directly in front of me with your back to me.’

I do as he says, looking only into the dark shadows of the garden, with the odd patch of orangey grey where the light of a street lamp has fallen. When I’m standing immediately in front of him, he says, ‘Lift your skirt at the back, higher than your bottom.’

I’m wearing a short pleated woollen black skirt with thick tights and black brogues. What does he have in mind? Does he want to spank me? Have I erred in some way that I don’t yet understand? I do as he says, lifting the skirt up high. My bottom feels the cold air despite the tights. I hope no one can see me.

‘Good. Now pull down your knickers and tights. Just at the back, if that’s possible. Show me your bare bottom.’

I pull in a quick breath at this, but I have to obey. It’s tricky but I manage to slide down my tights and knickers, exposing my bare bottom and the tops of my thighs, while keeping them up in the front. I hope to goodness the guards over the way can’t see my white bottom in the darkness.

‘Excellent. Now sit in my lap. As far back as you can. Lower yourself slowly, pushing out your backside.’

I think of the squats we used to do in gym lessons, and push out my behind. The chilly air is biting it now, and the skin goosebumps with cold. Then I begin to lower myself towards him. I have a feeling what is coming next but it’s still shock to feel the hard top of his penis pressing against my bottom, right at its centre.

‘Mmm, delicious,’ he murmurs, ‘but I don’t intend to deflower that part of you here. It requires a little more finesse than I can manage at the moment. Press out your bottom a little more.’ He puts one hand on my hip to guide me. Now the head of his cock is hard against my entrance. ‘That’s it. Just right. Now. Lower yourself. Sit on me.’

It’s a curious sensation to impale myself on his shaft. I’m damp with arousal from our games and the turn it has taken, but not so wet that he can go in easily. He seems to like this, though, and I can hear his breathing quicken as I have to force myself downwards, coming up a little in order to go further down on the next push. It’s exquisite, pressing down and swallowing him up, each centimetre giving me a greater feeling of repleteness, and once I’m sitting back in his lap and he’s entirely engulfed within me, he pushes my skirt into place at the front so that I look quite normal.

‘Good,’ he says again, approval in his husky voice. ‘Now. Stay very still, do you understand? Listen, someone’s coming.’

I can think of little else than the gorgeous feeling of him filling me up, hot and throbbing inside me.

There is the rapid tapping of footsteps and a man in a dark overcoat comes quickly towards us. He glances at us and then away without interest. We must look like a young couple enjoying the evening air, a girl sitting on her boyfriend’s knee. There’s nothing to show that he’s buried in me to the root. The man disappears, his footsteps fading away. Dominic slips his hand down the front of my skirt, pulling my jacket round so his arm can’t be seen, and his fingers creep under the band of my knickers and downwards. They quickly find the plump clitoris and he begins to play with me.

‘Don’t move,’ he whispers. ‘If you move, I’ll stop.’

I don’t want it to stop, that delightful tickling that is exciting me as the penis within me stretches me round it with such delicious sensations. I stay still, despite my instinct to move up and down and make the hard shaft pleasure me. That finger though, rubbing harder and harder on my clit... my heart is racing, my breath coming in short, sharp pants. I know I’m not going to last long if he carries on like this. The whole scene is exciting – the night air, the people walking about the square, the armed guards, unaware of the congress taking place so near. Two more people stroll past us.

‘Evening,’ Dominic says, so that they look directly at us.

‘Good evening,’ replies one politely, nodding at us, just as Dominic rubs me right on my sweet spot and I gasp loudly.

‘Yes,’ I say quickly, my voice curiously high and breathless, ‘it’s a... a... lovely evening.’

And they move on, apparently noticing nothing.

‘Oh God, Dominic,’ I say between sharp pants of rising excitement. ‘You’re making me come... oh, it’s lovely...’

‘I don’t think we should linger too long over the starter,’ Dominic says in a low voice. ‘We’ll spoil our appetites for the main course.’ With that, he begins a strong thrumming on my clit, thrusting his hips so that his huge erection starts to move and massage inside me. The dual effect is exhilarating and I know that I won’t stand it much longer without giving in to the rolling pleasure that’s building inside me.

‘Yes,’ I say, longingly, ‘just there... that’s right, Dominic... oh yes... oh
please,
yes... don’t stop...’ His fingers make delicious circling motions on my bud, just hard enough to work the sweet spot up into a frenzy and suddenly my orgasm overflows, and I throw my head back and cry out as my limbs stiffen and I feel a gush of liquid inside me. I’m contracting and squeezing on Dominic’s cock and I hear his panting as he feels me nip and tighten on him with the power of my orgasm. Then I go limp, my head drooping, as I recover from the climax, feeling the last ripples of pleasure ebbing outwards.

‘Everything all right, miss?’ comes a deep voice.

I look up to see a policeman standing nearby in the light of a street lamp and looking at us suspiciously.