Indecent...Proposal

He turns his head to the side, his jaw set hard, as if he’s working to hold back a response that he doesn’t want to give me. Then he turns back to me, fixing those eyes on me, so stunningly pale in contrast to his midnight-black hair. ‘Why did you do it?’ he asks.

‘Why did I do what?’

‘Why did you take a man you barely know into a room and have sex with him?’

Because I just watched a man I was in love with get married to someone else. Because I wanted to feel something other than hurt, just for a few minutes. I plant my hands on my hips. ‘It might come as a shock to you, Scott, but some women like sex. I happen to be one of those women. I know you think we should be all prissy and virginal, but fortunately you don’t get to tell me how to behave.’

His hands go to his throat and start tugging at his tie. He pulls it loose, letting the ends fall flat against his shirt, then he unfastens his collar. The button below it is unfastened too. I see a flash of skin, a dark dusting of hair. A strange fluttering sensation starts up in the pit of my stomach.

‘But why him?’ he asks.

‘Why not him?’

‘Because he’s a stranger,’ he says. ‘Because you know nothing about him. You had no idea what he was going to do to you in that room.’

‘Trust me,’ I interrupt him. ‘I had a pretty good idea.’

‘No, you didn’t.’ He’s almost shouting now. He looks really, really angry. I stumble to the wall, lean against it, my legs suddenly unsteady. I bend down and unfasten my shoes then pull them off. When I glance back up at Scott, I realise my mistake. He’s tall and I’m not, and those extra four inches were making all the difference. ‘If you wanted sex, Amber, you should have asked someone you know. Someone you could trust. Not some man you’d only just met.’

‘Who should I have asked, then?’ I yell right back at him. ‘You?’

Silence drops. Scott’s chest heaves. He stands there; staring at me, then shoves his hands back in his pockets. ‘Yes,’ he says, his voice low. ‘Maybe you should have asked me.’

Chapter Three (#u59b01076-fe28-5d18-aa17-1367c6347b94)

I go home shortly after that. I tried to dance, but I couldn’t. I tried to drink more champagne but I couldn’t do that either, and the thick slabs of wedding cake that had been laid out on all the tables just made me feel sick. Paul and Victoria disappeared shortly after I got back to the reception, after I’d left Scott standing in the corridor. I hadn’t said anything else to him. I had simply turned around and walked away, and he had let me.

Now it’s Monday, and I’m back at work. I’ve spent the morning dealing with paperwork and answerphone messages, and now I have to show some bloke around various flats in town. One of the things I like about working at the Estate Agents is that I’m not tied to my desk, but right now I’d give anything to be locked in the office with a cup of tea, browsing shoes on the internet.

Especially given that the bloke has turned out to be Lucas. I fix on a smile and try to be professional, but that lasts about five minutes. I don’t seem to have the energy to maintain it, especially not when he’s flattering me with that slow smile. It’s almost a relief to have some distraction from my constant thoughts of Scott.

‘So,’ Lucas says. ‘Got anything good to show me?’

‘That depends what you’re looking for.’ I unlock the door to flat number one, a first-floor two-bed in a new build complex behind the library. I push it open, and we walk into the smell of new carpets and fresh paint.

‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘But I’ll know it when I see it.’

‘A man who likes to keep his options open. I approve.’

I show him the living room, the kitchen. Everything is neutral and bland, completely inoffensive. There isn’t much furniture either, as the owners are abroad and most of it is in storage. ‘Nice,’ he says.

‘If by nice you mean boring, then I agree with you.’

Then we find ourselves in the bedroom, staring at an expanse of mattress. There aren’t any sheets, and the curtains are thin voile that does nothing to block out the light.

‘You know,’ Lucas says, ‘if you did have anything good to show me, this might be the time.’

I glance across at him. His hair is untidy, and he’s wearing a V-neck sweater with a striped shirt underneath. There’s a definite sexiness to him, a scruffy, I-don’t-give-a-damn edge. He’s a couple of years younger than me, I reckon. Eager. Easy. Perfect for my first post-Paul and Victoria fling. He’s practically drooling already, and I haven’t even started flirting with him yet, not really. I lower myself onto the edge of the mattress, and unfasten the front of my suit jacket. My pencil skirt keeps my knees together for now. ‘What do you want to see?’

‘Your pussy,’ he says. ‘It was dark last time. I didn’t get a good look at it.’

The hot ache between my legs cranks up a notch. It has been annoying me all day. If I’m honest, it has been annoying me ever since I caught Scott Smithson staring at my tits. ‘You like looking at pussy?’ I ask, as I ease the hem of my skirt up to mid-thigh, flashing the lace edge of my hold-ups. I never wear tights. Probably because my bras are all a miracle of modern engineering, so I overcompensate elsewhere.

‘Looking,’ Lucas says. ‘Touching. Tasting. All the usual things.’

I ease my skirt higher. He doesn’t move from his position in the doorway. ‘What else do you like?’

‘Women who know what they want.’

‘You mean slutty women,’ I say. It doesn’t offend me. I’m used to it. Something about the combination of blonde hair, big boobs and high heels makes people think I’m easy. I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve never bought into the idea that it’s wrong for women to chase sex, to want it, that we’re somehow dirty if we want lots of sex with lots of different people and we don’t need it to mean anything.

It’s just sex.

‘No.’ He gives me that nervous smile again, and this time I notice he’s got dimples. I’ll do a lot for dimples. ‘Not at all.’

I move my legs apart, lean back on my hands and let him look. My knickers are sheer and hide nothing. ‘Like what you see?’ I lift a finger to my mouth and toy with it, let my tongue slide over it then suck it deep, like it’s a little cock.

‘Yes,’ he says. His hand is drifting in the direction of his groin, and right at that moment I am absolutely not missing Paul, or Victoria. I am thinking about Scott Smithson, though. About the way he looked at me, with my dress round my waist. About the way he said that I could have asked him.

I don’t want to think about him. I don’t want thinking about him to turn me on, but it does. I force myself to focus on Lucas, who is watching me with a growing hunger in his eyes and cupping his cock through the fabric of his trousers. ‘Naughty boy,’ I tell him, moving my knees a bit further apart. ‘Naughty, naughty boy, playing with your cock.’

He wraps his fingers around the base of his erection, and I like it. I like it a lot. ‘Maybe you should punish me,’ he says, a little shyly.

I can’t imagine Scott ever asking for that. He’d have to admit he was wrong first, and that would never happen. I beckon Lucas closer, closer. I wonder what Scott would think if he could see me now, sat on a bed that’s not mine in a flat I don’t own with my legs spread for a man I barely know. Oh, he’d be so angry, but he’d be hot, too, just like he was back at the hotel.

An image of Scott stripping off his bow tie flashes into my mind, bringing with it an immediate rush of heat to my cunt, a heat that can only be soothed with one thing. ‘On your knees,’ I tell Lucas, who immediately obeys. I ease my fingers under the gusset of my thong and pull it to the side. Lucas looks at me, dark eyes burning under half-lowered lids. ‘What are you waiting for?’ I ask. ‘Lick it!’

He exhales slowly, sets his hands to my thighs, and then he lowers his mouth to my pussy and starts to suck. His tongue is firm and hot, and I am just starting to feel my way into the stroke of it when my phone starts to chirp and vibrate in my pocket. I take it out, check the screen, more out of habit than anything else. I don’t recognise the number, which means that it’s work. All calls to the office are being redirected to me.

I glance down at Lucas, who is still busy between my thighs. I should answer it. I’m supposed to be working, not fucking. And it will only take a minute, anyway. ‘Greenway Estate Agents, Amber speaking.’

Lucas pauses. He makes a noise that sounds a bit like a laugh, and then he gets back to work. I prop my feet on his shoulders. I like the way my heels look, resting against the darkness of his sweater, my legs spread wide, his dark head between my legs. He’s watching me as I take the call, and the whole situation takes on a new, erotic dimension. A tongue in my cunt and a customer on the phone, how very delicious. What would Scott think of this? Would he get that same flush in his cheeks, I wonder, that same desperate hunger in his eyes?

‘Amber,’ says the man on the other end of the line.

My skin goes tight at the sound of that familiar voice. No. It can’t be. It just can’t be. ‘Scott.’ I try to get air. ‘How did you get my number?’ Stupid question. All he had to do was ring the office number, which is on the internet and in the phonebook.

‘Ellie gave it to me.’

Ellie being his sister and my sort of best friend. ‘Oh,’ I say, only half as an answer, half because Lucas has just discovered the entrance to my vagina, and the feel of his hot, wet tongue fucking into me takes me by surprise.

‘I thought we should talk,’ Scott says. ‘About what happened the other night.’

‘Talk?’ Apparently I can’t say more than one word at a time. Fuck me; Lucas is good with his tongue. I squirm back on the bed as he slides his tongue inside me, then moves higher, finding my clit and teasing it with his teeth.

‘Yes,’ Scott continues. He sounds irritated, as if he’s angry that he’s having this conversation with me. ‘I’m not happy with the way things were left.’

‘Right,’ I manage, as Lucas brings his fingers into play. I lie back on the bed, because sitting upright and talking are beyond me now. Two fingers. No, three. Fuck.