A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger (24 page)

‘Where's your bedroom?' I asked suddenly.

‘Oh, Lambert, where's the romance?' John asked, a mock-peeved expression on his face.

I grinned. ‘I'm interested from a design point of view,' I informed him.

John turned to a metal door. ‘In here,' he said, flicking a switch. I gasped – it was magnificent. More globes of light were arranged on the floor. The bed was gigantic and an entire wall was made of glass. I grinned with pleasure. ‘Wow.'

And then: ‘ARRGH!' The lights had suddenly gone out and an automatic blind was sliding fast down the floor-to-ceiling window. ‘John! I can't see! Put the lights on!' I heard an evil giggling from somewhere over my right shoulder. ‘Now!'

‘Make me,' he breathed, somewhere over my left shoulder.

I felt afraid and excited, not to mention madly aroused. ‘Where are you?' I said softly.

A low chuckle, this time somewhere in front of me.

I tingled in ways that were not related to alcohol. ‘John …' I said. I was breathing rapidly now, almost unable to believe that I was only minutes away from a dirty tryst with John MacAllister. If I figured out where the bastard was hiding.

I screamed as a finger trailed up my ankle and then was whipped away. I grabbed out in the direction I thought he was in, and got nothing but a handful of thin air. Another low chuckle came from what sounded like completely the other side of the room, near the bed.

‘John!'

‘Lambert, I should tell you I've got the most enormous erection I've ever had. You're going to have to find it and deal with it very quickly.'

I breathed in slowly, enjoying this prospect.

I started to move over to where his voice had come from and heard a rumble of laughter to my left. ‘It's not getting any smaller,' he said softly.

I lunged in the direction of his voice but still found nothing. This was excruciating. There was a pulse beating between my legs. ‘I can't take much more of this,' I said. ‘If you don't come and find me, John MacAllister, I'm going to take my clothes off and make myself come and you won't be invited.'

I heard a soft groan, very near me now. ‘I would like that very, very much … but I'd have to watch, Lambert. And my dratted night-vision goggles went missing.'

I began to shake with laughter. ‘You're a mad pervert! Damn you, scampering around with your massive erection, torturing me. I'm getting naked!' I unzipped the Stella McCartney, which fell to the floor with a soft, clothy thump.

‘Oh, good God,' John muttered, from what sounded like just in front of me. ‘Charlotte Lambert is shedding her clothes in my bedroom.'

I took my bra and knickers off and stood there, feeling my whole body pulsating. ‘Correct,' I told him. ‘Naked and very, very ready.'

I screamed again as a hand reached out from nowhere and grazed past my nipples. ‘Bullseye,' John murmured, his breath sounding raggedy. I made a sudden lunge to my right and then I had him.

My hand closed around his arm and I swung myself over, clamping my body against his. He slid his hands up into my hair, tilted my head back and kissed me very, very hard. We both gasped as he slid his erection along the gap between the top of my thighs. It was, as promised, pretty enormous. It grazed my clitoris as he moved, kissing my neck and shoulders. I held on to his torso for all I was worth and he moved himself against me, still kissing me hard. I slid my hand down his back and grabbed his rewardingly muscular backside, pulling him in.

‘Lambert, I …' he muttered hoarsely ‘… I don't know what to do. I want to taste you, I want to be inside you, I want to see you, I want to feel that wonderful mouth of yours around my cock …'

‘Right,' I said, digging my hands up through his hair. I pushed him downwards on to what felt like a very expensive hide rug beneath us. ‘I suggest we try all of the above in that order. Item one on your agenda: tasting me.'

I lay back against the end of the bed as John kissed his way down my chest and stomach and arrived between my legs. At first, he just breathed hot breath on me, until I was writhing and begging. A slightly unwelcome memory of Hailey popped into my head, of her eyes sparkling as she said, ‘I bet he'd just make you
scream
in bed!'

As John's tongue finally made firm contact with me, and his fingers slid into places where I'd never expected John MacAllister's fingers to be, I started to do just that. ‘Oh, GOD!' I shrieked. ‘John!'

‘I don't know what you find so funny, Lambert,' John said. He was wearing his favourite peeved expression, a mixture of furrowed brow and wickedly twinkling eye.

I pulled a section of pricey feather duvet over my face but carried on laughing. ‘It's just –' I broke off, laughing even harder.

John looked down at his naked body. ‘Are you laughing at my physique?' he asked. ‘Because really, Lambert, I don't see anything to laugh at here.'

‘No!' I giggled. ‘It's just … It's just that when you ran off to the loo in the restaurant last night I was looking down at Leith and imagining spending the night with you and this is exactly how the day started! You padding towards me with a wanky cafetière and a basket full of aspirational pastries!'

John grinned. ‘You're every bit as much of a wanker as I am,' he said. ‘I ordered these at great expense to impress you. The least you could do would be to eat one and shut up. There's even a brown one made of horrible health-food things in case you decide to be difficult,' he added.

‘They're lovely,' I replied. ‘And you're naughty, assuming that I'd come home with you.' John smiled and got into bed next to me.

‘Well, of course you were going to come.' He grinned,
leaning down to kiss my left nipple. ‘You've waited seven years, Lambert.'

As we shot through the early-morning streets of Leith twenty-five minutes later, BBC Gaelic gabbling away softly in the background and smatterings of rain driving into John's windscreen, I began to sober up mentally.

I turned my head and watched him driving. He looked strong, relaxed and undeniably happy. ‘Stop perving at me, Lambert,' he said, without glancing round.

‘I thought you'd ditched Lambert in favour of Charley,' I said, ‘as part of your attempt to convey the depth of your sincerity about us.'

‘I'll call you Charley if you want,' he said, placing a large warm hand on my thigh.

‘We have to be really, really careful,' I said quietly.

John turned the radio off and the sound of the rain hitting the windscreen increased. ‘I know. At a time like this … I'm sure you won't be discussing it with anyone.'

‘Most certainly not,' I said. Someone who looked very much like Hailey was jogging across the road ahead of us at the traffic lights. I leaned forward, rubbing the windscreen with my sleeve, but the rain was too heavy for me to be sure. Hailey didn't run anyway. In Leith or anywhere. I settled back and tried to come to terms with the enormity of what had happened. Oh, my God! Arrgh!

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting at my desk, eyes down, convinced that everyone knew what John had done to me that morning after I'd eaten the ‘horrible' wholegrain
pastry. The memory of it both delighted and terrified me. John was right: we'd both be dead if Bradley Chambers found out.

I turned my chair to the window to take a deep breath and compose myself. Tomorrow was the launch day for Simitol and tonight we were all flying to London, ready for a day of press interviews. It was the biggest day of my career: I simply couldn't have a head spinning with mad thoughts – indeed with anything that didn't involve Salutech.

I felt rather irritated when, a few minutes later, an email entitled ‘William/Shelley' dropped into my inbox from Sam.

Good morning, you dirty woman, I thought we agreed there was to be no rogering your boss last night? Anyway, I know you're up against it today but any chance you could reply to William's email? I really think we need to keep these two simmering: they both seem to go mad when there's any gap in communications. Sorry to ask but knowing you it'll only take twenty seconds. Have a good day. Bowes, Acting Director, First Date Aid X.

‘Piss OFF, William and Shelley,' I muttered, under my breath. ‘I'm busy!'

But I had never been good at saying no to people when they asked me to do things. As fast as I could, I opened up Shelley's email and read Sam's latest offering. As usual he'd done a good job and – as planned – ‘William' was now asking about Shelley's family.

Without fully realizing what I was doing, I went a little off-piste with my response.

My family … well, my father is credited with having invented vibrating anal eggs. He now runs a naturist resort in Ibiza. My mother is an art thief and was last seen skulking in a bush outside Drumlanrig Castle in 2003. The world's press reported the theft of Leonardo's
Madonna of the Yarnwinder
the next day and I haven't heard from her since. But a large sum of money is deposited anonymously into my bank account annually so she must be alive. Oh, and my brother is having an affair with the milkman. Pedestrian stuff.

Bugger, work calls. I'd better go. Thank God I'm leaving tomorrow. And I just cannot believe we're seeing
The Pearl Fishers
, you have no idea how much this means to me. It is the best second date ever.

Shelley x

John walked past the glass walls of the comms office, throwing a gigantic grin in my direction.
Oh, fuck it
, I thought happily, adding a whole row of kisses.

As I closed down Shelley's email and got to work, an instant message pinged onto my screen.

I blushed deeply, checking over my computer to see if anyone was watching me. Then I put my head down and
worked. John having fallen into place somehow helped me shut out everything else and concentrate solely on tomorrow's launch. I worked without stopping until eight p.m. when a car arrived to take me to the airport. All the boxes were ticked, the people briefed, the problems ironed out. By the time we took off, I knew we were ready.

Maybe I'm getting another crack at a perfect life
, I thought, as our plane banked down into the glittering light maze of London. I was truly back on top of work; Margot had somehow faded away; the madness of my William phase had vanished. John wanted to start a life with me; Sam was running my brilliant little business for me; and, even though Granny Helen was ill, my family were still as close and loving as ever.

I wasn't really sure what I wanted beyond this.

Three hours later, wrapped in a combination of luxurious sheets and a slumbering John, I decided I
didn't
want anything else. Which must surely mean that I had arrived. Perfection.

The next day was caffeinated, stressful and difficult. Unlike just about every other pharmaceutical company in the UK, we did not have our offices out near Heathrow so we couldn't very easily invite the press to come to us. Today we were running around between various media studios in the morning and giving interviews at Claridges in the afternoon. A mini press launch had been organized at the last minute and was taking place at the end of the day. This didn't happen for drug launches any more. Today was big. The pressure was on.

But I had an answer and a back-up plan for every problem and was able to face off every glitch before it could hurt us. Sporadically, I would catch John watching me proudly and feel a warm, rather naughty glow. Last night had been even more spectacular than Wednesday. John's fascination with my body gave me a confidence I'd never realized I had. ‘Dear God, Lambert,' he'd gasped at one point. ‘You've set my testicles on fire, young lady!
Why did we wait so long for this?
'

I'd had four orgasms between one and three o'clock this morning. It was an all-time personal best.

In the lobby at Broadcasting House we bumped into Margot and the leader of a patient group, fresh from an interview with Radio 2. ‘Went absolutely brilliantly,' Margot told us happily. ‘No problems at
all.
' She smiled warmly at me and I shuddered. I still didn't trust her.

We agreed to share a taxi to Shepherd's Bush where we would split up to cover various BBC assignments. John sat between Margot and me in the back of the taxi, two of our researchers chattering away on the fold-down seats. His thigh was pressed firmly against mine. I tingled all over with excitement. At last, at last, at last!

As we passed through Notting Hill, I pulled out my phone to listen to my backlog of voicemails. There were five messages from the media, two from Cassie and one, rather annoyingly, from Sam. ‘Hey, Chas, hope it's going well. I had a message from a new client last night asking you to call her urgently. She insisted on talking to a woman … She didn't give her name but here's her number …'

Not without irritation, I copied the number down as my phone started to ring again.

‘Charley Lambert?' I answered.

‘Hi, Charley, it's Cassie. The
Mail
wondered if someone could do a phone chat later today. Here's the number. The journalist is on a mobile.'

I scribbled it down and gave John an unobtrusive pinch on the bottom. He responded with a schoolmasterly shake of his head and a look that made me feel even naughtier.

Stop flirting and get back to the
Mail, I told myself sternly.

I dialled the journalist's number and leaned my head against the taxi window while it connected.

‘Hello?' a woman's voice answered. Margot was talking to someone on her phone too and I covered my ear to drown her out.

‘Hi, it's Charley Lambert, you wanted me to call about the piece in the
Mail
?'

There was a pause.

‘I beg your pardon?' the woman said. She sounded oddly familiar; I wondered if I'd spoken to her before. ‘What's going on?'

‘Er …' I stopped, confused. Oh,
shit
, I thought suddenly. I pulled my book back out and realized I'd made a fairly substantial error: I'd called the new First Date Aid client rather than the
Mail
journalist.

I lowered my voice to something barely more audible than a whisper. ‘I'm so sorry,' I said. ‘I got my businesses a little mixed up. It's Charlotte from First Date Aid. I was given a message to call you. Although actually now isn't a great time to –'

‘
What?
' the woman said.

‘
What?
' Margot barked into her phone.

And then my heart stopped. Slowly, I looked up from my phone call, just as Margot looked up from hers. I looked at my phone screen, which said,
Margot: active call.

‘I'll have to leave you here. The rest of Wood Lane's closed,' the taxi driver said.

Margot stared at me and fear rolled in.

It was Margot who'd contacted First Date Aid. And it was Margot I'd called back.

In a state of shock I got out of the taxi and stood on the pavement outside Wood Lane tube, frozen. John followed me, digging out his own phone, which was ringing. ‘Two minutes,' he said, walking a little way up the road. The researchers were deep in conversation, leaving me with Margot, who was emerging from the taxi with a face of pure evil.

She walked up to me with a glint in her eye. ‘I might have known it,' she said softly. ‘With an ego like yours … Of course you'd set up a pathetic little business on the side. One big job not enough for you, eh, Charley?'

‘What are you talking about?' I faltered.

‘Shut up, Charley. Don't you
dare
patronize me now.' The eerie smile Margot had worn for the last week had gone. In its place was someone who terrified me. If she told anyone about this, I would be in more than a compromising position. I'd be totally rogered.

‘Well, this is a nice little surprise,' she remarked, folding her arms. ‘There I am, innocently seeking some help with my love life – because I'm humble, unlike you, Charley. I
know
there're some things I'm not so good at – and look what I found.'

‘Please don't do this,' I said quietly. ‘I don't even work
on the company any more. I handed it over to a friend … Can we not just let it go?'

Margot started to laugh again. ‘Oh, no, Charley, I'm afraid we can't. After all, you're a stickler for putting Salutech first, aren't you? Isn't it you who likes the communications department to be run with one hundred per cent dedication? Eh?'

I gaped at her.

Margot folded her arms across her chest. ‘So. The press conference later,' she continued. ‘
I
should run it. I don't think you're in a position to be representing the company on such an important day.'

I shook my head dumbly. ‘No,' I began. ‘No, Margot, you know I can't –'

She held up a hand. ‘Oh, but you can, Charley. Because not only do I now have proof that you're not giving Salutech your full attention, but I also have proof that …'