The Couple in the Dream Suite

She felt the rumble of his laughter. ‘No. Are you?’

‘I?’

‘Do you like girls, Vera?’

‘No more than Dexter does. Would you like it if I did, Mr Yorke?’

‘Justin. And no, I would not like it if you did. In fact I’m very pleased to hear that you don’t.’

His smile was wicked. That thing he was doing to her neck, touching, stroking, fluttering, whatever it was, that was wicked too. It was making her feel wicked, and she hadn’t felt wicked in a very long time. Vera smiled back. She reached up to touch him, finger tips straying over his temple, behind his ear, to rest lightly on the back of his neck. She felt him tense. She heard the faint intake of his breath, and that made her feel even more wicked. ‘How pleased?’ she asked, choosing to ignore his implied question.

‘About this much,’ he said.

He kissed her. It wasn’t really a kiss. His lips merely grazed hers. Not even enough to make her worry about her lip rouge, though it was enough to make her heart jump into her throat, and to make her inhale just a little too sharply. Not much of a kiss, but enough to make her want more, which was something she hadn’t wanted in a long time. All this she thought, as his lips touched hers, as his fingers ruffled the sleek cap of her razor-cut hair, and then it was over, and she was left wondering if she’d imagined it. Not the kiss, but the effect.

‘I wouldn’t count that as so very pleased,’ Vera said with something like her usual coolness.

‘Really? But what else could I have done, within the bounds of decency?’

His fingers were doing that thing again, on her shoulder this time. ‘Oh, if you’re going to worry about decency,’ Vera said, ‘you should have confined yourself to kissing my hand.’

He took her hand. He lifted it to his mouth. His lips on her palm. His eyes, watching her as he kissed her, his tongue flicking over her skin. She wished her gown didn’t cling quite so much, for it gave her breathing away.

‘Decent enough for you?’ Justin asked her.

It was the way he was looking at her that made her do it. Teasing. Taunting. Daring. It had nothing to do with the way his mouth and his tongue on her skin were making her feel, and everything to do with a simple need to get even. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, dragging her hand from his mouth, pulling his hand to her mouth. ‘You tell me.’