Sexy as Hell Box Set (108 page)

“Fuck off then,” the receptionist said. “Be gone, the pair of you. You’re cluttering up my reception.”

Julie laughed, her eyes twinkling. “God job I know that’s just your way.”

Fifi’s
laughter filtered over to me, distant like her words. “Yes, otherwise you might flog the shit out of me. Look, bugger off. Mr Dresden the doll man will be here in a minute. The last thing Mr Mason needs is to be recognised by him, he’s a bit unstable. Good job you turned up, really, Julie. God knows what Carlos is up to.”

“Come on, you,” Julie said to me, jerking her head then turning in the doorway.

I followed her, admiring her arse as she swayed it down the corridor. She used a key to unlock a door at the end marked PRIVATE, one I knew opened to another corridor and then the exit.

Once outside, she reached around me to make sure the door was secure, and as she moved to draw away her hand brushed my outer thigh.

“Shit, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine. Honestly.”

She smiled, wider and fuller than she had in reception, the meagre light from a streetlamp casting an amber hue on her skin. God, she was so lovely.

“Um, this is awkward.” She laughed again. “I mean, I asked you to come out here, and now you have, now we’re alone, I have no clue what to say.”

“It’s different to in there,” I said. “Because now it’s reality. Not that what you do and how you make me feel isn’t. Shit, can I just take you home? Make sure you get there all right?”

“You could, but I’m a big girl and drive myself home from here every week without a problem.”

It was my turn to laugh—to cover my sudden inability to be confident. I wasn’t the Mason Ward who appeared on screen. Tough guy, words for every occasion. I was me—and I felt naked. Exposed. “I see. Yes, silly of me to have thought—”

“But you can follow me, if you like. I make good coffee.”

My guts rolled. I was thrilled to have been asked. It took me back to before I’d become famous, when the heady rush of a new relationship had sent my mind whirling and my nerves pinging. “That would be nice. The coffee, I mean.”

“Just coffee?” she tilted her head.

I got the sense she’d asked for two reasons. Was I expecting a fuck because I thought that’s what she did after work? Was I indulging her, letting her have her way with a movie star?

“If that’s what you want. I wouldn’t want to presume—”

“I was just checking.” She reached out and fake-punched me on the shoulder. “Can’t be too careful. So many perverts about, you know?”

I could well imagine.

“Look.” She glanced at the door behind me. “If Zara turns on her CCTV and sees us talking out here, me not making sure you get to your car… D’you see what I mean?”

“Right, yes.”

She waited for me to walk past her as I headed to my car. I got in, closed the door, and looked at her through the side window. She lifted a hand, waggled her fingers, and damn, my stomach rolled again. She was so natural, so unlike the other women I met these days. So real. Normal.

She turned and walked to her own car, a black SUV with giant wheels and silver trim. After unlocking it, she hauled herself up into the cab, looking too small to be driving it. I started my car and waited for her to fire hers up and reverse, then drive to the car park entrance. I nosed up behind her, anxious about losing sight of her on the journey. If I did, I knew I’d return to Sexy as Hell and see if the receptionist would give me Julie’s address. She wouldn’t, of that I had no doubt, but I’d give it a go anyway.

I didn’t want to miss the opportunity of being with this woman.

As we drove, the streets went past in a blur. I didn’t take any notice of where she was going, just knew I had to follow, had to spend some quality time with her. She called to me somehow, a silent call that twisted my heart and had me wanting to know every little thing about her. It had been quite a while since I’d felt like this. My relationships had been meaningless, empty liaisons that left me feeling hollow and used. No one seemed interested in knowing
me
, just hanging off my arm at glamorous parties. I’d begun to think genuine women didn’t exist.

And then one night I’d come here after I’d heard about it on the grapevine. A discreet club that catered to people who liked things a bit out of the ordinary. I hadn’t expected to find a woman who enjoyed being flogged and, despite knowing, when I’d come here for the first time, that I was about to witness such a thing, I’d convinced myself it would be one of those stupid shows where the flogger acted it out and wasn’t really flogging herself at all.

How wrong I’d been. Julie was the real deal, and I could only hope she wanted to see me again after tonight. That she’d want me to flog her. And she’d asked that, back in the showroom. Asked if I could flog her hard, just as she liked it.

I nodded, knowing I could. I’d do my best to give her what she needed.

If she asked me for it again, that was. When she’d said what she had in the showroom, it might well have just been something, anything for her to say.

Her brake lights pulled me out of my thoughts.

She swerved left then turned down a side road, parking up outside a block of apartments. They were set back from the road on an expanse of well-manicured grass surrounded by a semi-circle of streetlamps. She clearly wasn’t short of a penny or two, and it made me wonder what she did for a living when she wasn’t flogging herself in front of men.

I hoped to find out.

Just as I hoped she’d ask me to flay her, mark her, and cry out my name as she came.

I flicked off my headlights and was relieved to see Mason had found one of the free residents’ guest spaces for his sleek silver Porsche to slot into. Talk about conspicuous, though. Even in Chelsea his top-of-the-range model stood out like a nipple-tasselled tart in a monastery.

Once outside, standing just to the right of a lamppost and beside a neatly trimmed laurel bush, I waited for him to lock up and approach me. His confident swagger, the broad set of his shoulders, and the purposefulness of his strides reminded me of his character in the last movie he’d starred in. But he wasn’t in character tonight. There was no script, no plot line, and certainly no predictable ending. Now we were going freestyle, making it up, following the winding path fate had cobbled for us.

Because what did he really want? I was up for sating many of his needs to tell the truth, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t beyond curious as to his motives. Why had he chosen me out of all the beauties he could have around the globe? I was risky for sure—he saw me as a sex-worker of all things, he didn’t know the rest. Not to mention I was hardly a super-model, not in anyone’s eyes. The scandal, too, the gossip—my God, he was putting his neck on the line by being here tonight.

But that was
his
problem, or so I told myself as I glanced upwards at the tall building arcing around us, just to make sure there were no flicking curtains, no curious eyes.

Of course, there weren’t. It was late. Who would be interested in two people heading back to a flat to…?

“Hey, nice place,” he said, his voice cutting through the darkness and seeming to wrap around me.

“Yeah, I like it.” I stepped forward, holding my door key at the ready.

“You been here long?” he asked.

“A few years.”

“Chelsea’s popular these days.”

“Seems that way.” I knew he’d be wondering how I could afford a place like this. But maybe not, perhaps he’d reached that point of being so rich that money wasn’t on his radar anymore. He just wanted something so he bought it, be it a pint of milk or a multi-million-pound pad.

“So where are you going to next with work?” I asked, opening the communal door. “You said you were going away for a while.”

“Yes, I’d prefer to stay in London but I’ve signed to do a Western. I’m going to the States.”

“A Western?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.

“Don’t look so shocked.” He grinned, his smile enough to light up the darkened corridor that led to my home. “I can wear a Stetson and spurs as well as the next guy.”

“Yeah, but can you ride a horse?”

“Had to learn for my very first leading role.” He shrugged as though it was nothing.

“Oh, yes, of course.” My mind went back to his first film, a historical, for which he’d won an Oscar.

I let us into my apartment, locked the door and applied the safety chain. The lights were on dim. I always left them like that.

“Please, go in, make yourself comfortable. I’ll put the kettle on.”

He moved past me, and I slipped into the kitchen with the woodsy scent of his aftershave still in my nostrils. I dumped my coat and bag on a chair and then lunged for the kettle. My actions were quick, fractious. A flush was travelling up my throat to my cheeks.

Mason Ward was here. In my home.
The
Mason Ward.

Shit.

What the hell was I doing? This wasn’t me. I never got silly and girly and in a tizz, not even for a moment.

I stilled, took a deep breath, let his scent fade and then turned on the faucet. I filled the kettle and put it back on its stand to boil.

“They’ve had to teach me something, though, in preparation for the Western…”

I pressed my hand to my sternum and spun. Mason was standing in the doorway, his eyebrows drawn together, and his right shoulder bunched against the frame.

“What?” I asked, realising that trying to slow my heart and get a grip was going to be pretty hard with him breathing the same air as me. “What did they teach you?”

One side of his mouth tipped upwards, in a crooked and devilishly sexy grin. He crossed one foot in front of the other, balanced the toe of his shoe on the tiled floor. “How to use a whip.”

I reached behind myself, gripped the kitchen counter, and looked at his hands. Big hands, with square-shaped knuckles and thick wrists coated in a thin covering of pale hair that just flirted with the backs of his hands.

“Oh, that’s…good.” I licked my lips and thought about those strong hands of his holding one of the implements I adored so much. “Like a lasso you mean?”

He laughed, stepped into the room and right up to me. By the time his face was so close to mine I could make out every pinprick of stubble on his chin, and saw that the humour had gone from his eyes.

“There’s a scene, about halfway through. I’m captured and beaten with a whip, a bullwhip. But my character overpowers the bad guy and uses the whip on him. The shots are close up. I’ve had to perfect my technique so that I don’t hold up filming. At a cost of several hundred thousand dollars a day, the director’s not going to be happy if I can’t brandish my tool.”

“Of course, yes, brandishing your…tool is important.”

He leaned closer, then closer still. His warm breath tickled my face as I stared at his lips. They were a little on the thin side, perhaps, but it was a mouth adored and fantasised about by millions of women worldwide. No doubt they thought about what they’d be like kissing them, sucking their nipples, eating out their pussies.

“Do you ever let anyone else flog you?” he whispered then licked his lips, leaving a moist sheen on them.

The kettle creaked and the familiar sound of the filament heating and stretching filled the kitchen.

“Why do you want to know?” I asked.

He reached for my hair with both hands and pushed it over my shoulders. His touch sent a quiver of awareness skittering over my body.

“Curious I suppose.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.” I swallowed tightly as he stroked his knuckles down my neck.

“Just as well I’m not a cat, then.” He smiled, and a dimple appeared on his right cheek. Then he kissed me.

It was the sort of kiss that was gentle and light. Lips ghosting over one another, barely touching. No tongues, just a sampling of texture and the testing out of willingness.

I was willing but I was also hesitant. It had been a long time since I’d been kissed so sweetly. Men usually presumed I liked everything hard and rough. This was new. Mason was a whole different kettle of fish to what I was used to.

I held my breath and gripped the kitchen counter tighter. I wondered if he’d pull me close, wrap those damn finely muscled arms around me, but he didn’t. Our bodies didn’t touch, other than our mouths.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back and frowning. “I should have asked you first if it was okay to kiss you.”

“Yes.” I licked my lips, pulled in his flavour. “You should have.”

The kettle rumbled some more and I turned, set about reaching for mugs and coffee.

“So when do you leave?” I asked.

“Not for another week, but until then I’m rushed off my feet with promotional stuff for the last movie and meetings in preparation for the next contracts my agent is working on.”

“All work and no play makes Mason a dull boy,” I said, reaching for the milk from the fridge.

“I’m playing right now.”

I set my gaze on him, saw the fun in his eyes, but also lust, desire, and the heated passion that had been there earlier, when he’d
wanked and watched me bring myself to orgasm.