‘With great difficulty and very, very slowly.’
‘I don’t understand it. You’re tiny,’ he said, and he had to be a little bit in love with her to think that because it was colossally untrue. ‘Your head doesn’t look abnormally large either.’
Ellie scowled. ‘My head is perfectly in proportion, thank you very much.’
‘Hmm.’ David sat gingerly down on the edge of the bed as if he suspected it might suddenly swallow him up. ‘We could use gravity. Could you stand on your head if I got you a cushion and helped prop you up?’
‘It’s definitely worth a try,’ she agreed, but Esme’s gold satin cushions were too slippery for Ellie’s head to get purchase on, and her movements were so impeded that she had to lie flat on her back while David grabbed her legs and tried to hoist her up one hundred and eighty degrees, and by then she was giggling too hard to cooperate. Mostly from embarrassment when her ivory lace briefs came into sight but also because the more she giggled, the more annoyed David got, which just made her giggle even more.
‘This is never going to work,’ David said in disgust, after the tenth attempt to pull her legs flush with the wall. ‘You might try to take this seriously.’
‘I am,’ Ellie snorted from where she was leaning up against the wall. She blew out a few times to try to get herself under control. ‘I think you’re on to something with the gravity thing, but maybe we don’t need quite so much gravity.’
‘You might have a point,’ David said and he peered over the half-wall off the mezzanine to the floor below. ‘OK. I have an idea.’
Ten minutes later, Ellie was in a modified Downward Dog pose on a Paul Follot-designed art-deco coffee table (fortunately it was a very sturdy coffee table), a silk scarf tied over her hair, the dress over her head so she was flashing her goodies, not that she cared about that any more, as David slowly worked the collar over her fat head, while she coached him.
‘Little tugs, little tugs, little tugs,’ she exhorted. It was a lot like delivering a baby. ‘Gently, gently. Stop! Stop! My ears!’
He carefully tucked her ears under the scarf. ‘Take a few deep breaths and let’s go again.’
‘All right! Let’s do this!’
They did it. Lots and lots and lots of little tugs, then the collar eased over the widest part of Ellie’s head. She tensed her arms as David worked the dress down them, the silk scraping her skin because she didn’t have upper arms the width of a cotton bud like Esme. Once he’d reached her elbows, Ellie took over. She kneeled back on her haunches to free herself from her prison of gold silk, knife-edged pleats. She didn’t even care that she was in her bra and pants.
David was on his knees in front of her, when he suddenly collapsed backwards and lay on the floor in the foetal position. ‘Oh God!’
‘What? What’s the matter?’ She was at his side in an instant, fingers closing round his wrist to check his pulse because all their exertions might have brought on a cardiac episode. Well, that and the marathon training in intense summer heat. ‘Your pulse feels fine. Do you have a pain in your chest?’
‘Stop!’ David wheezed. He didn’t sound at all well, then his arm suddenly shot out and pulled her on top of him and Ellie realised that he was laughing. Or she hoped he was laughing because tears were streaming down his face and now that she was sprawled across him, she could feel him shaking. ‘I have never had to work so hard to get a girl undressed.’ His choked laughter eased to a chuckle. ‘I had a whole seduction routine planned.’
‘Really?’ Ellie couldn’t hide her disappointment. ‘We could pretend the last half-hour never happened. You could go out into the hall and we could start over.’
‘We could,’ David agreed, a hand reaching up to slip her bra strap off her shoulder. ‘But that wouldn’t be a very effective use of our time.’
It was just one small, almost inconsequential gesture. Baring her shoulder, even though she was already on top of him and starting to squirm a little because she could feel his hard-on pressing urgently against her belly even through the fine-weight wool of his suit trousers, felt as shocking as if he’d just stripped her naked on the concourse of the Gare du Nord.
The light, teasing mood had abruptly shifted to something darker, more charged, and it frightened Ellie a little. Maybe it was too soon for this. David hadn’t even been here an hour and already they were horizontal and she was in her underwear and he hadn’t even loosened his tie. ‘But we haven’t even said hello to each other,’ she reminded him, playing for time because a few short hours ago she was convinced they’d never see each other again and now here they were. ‘It wouldn’t take long to say hello.’
‘Hello. That’s enough talking,’ David said shortly, and when she opened her mouth to protest at his unnecessarily harsh tone, he rolled them over and quietened her with a kiss.
She’d been here before: weighted down by David’s body, wrists held because he liked to be in control, but as soon as Ellie struggled, his hands fell away. Then she could put her hands on him again, because they belonged there, and the feel of his closely cropped hair rubbing against her palm, the muscles that bunched under her hand as she stroked his back, felt familiar and safe. At the same time he felt shocking and new, especially the faint scrape of his stubble against her face as they kissed, the wet clash of their tongues, his leg worming its way between her thighs so she had something hard to wriggle against.
With his hands free, David was able to slip down the other bra strap and Ellie could have stopped touching him long enough to reach around and undo the clasp, but she never wanted to stop touching him, and when he pushed up the cups of her bra it wasn’t a good look, but Ellie didn’t much care.
‘You see, if we went with your plan and rewound to saying hello, you’d probably be making me a cup of tea right about now, when all I want to do is this …’ David lowered his head and sucked one hard, aching nipple into his mouth. Ellie had to bite back a gasp so she wouldn’t distract him from his endeavours. ‘And you wouldn’t be getting wet. You are wet, aren’t you, Ellie?’
Oh God, it was always the quiet ones. And if she hadn’t been wet, just hearing his voice all dark and treacly asking her if she was would have taken care of it.
Ellie stared up at David. It was the best he’d ever looked. A hectic glitter in his eyes, a flush on his cheeks and a half-smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. Ellie had often seen him looking so self-assured that it seemed like arrogance and was intensely annoying, but right now, in this context, it took her breath away.
Maybe that’s why she sounded so husky when she said, ‘And you’re getting hard.’ To prove her point all she had to do was to twist a little and she could feel him against her inner thigh. ‘It can’t be comfortable.’
‘I’ve been hard ever since we flipped your dress over your head, because I have to agree with the papers, your arse is truly incomparable, and yes, I’m feeling a little … constricted,’ he admitted. ‘Could you help me with that?’
‘I could,’ Ellie agreed, though it was a little odd that he’d studied the tabloid pictures of her bottom and formed an opinion about it. She thought about David checking her out when she’d been his guestage, surreptitiously, so she never knew. It should have been creepy, but actually the thought was quite hot. Him sitting on his uncomfortable sofa with his best poker face on but maybe licking his lips and his eyes darkening as she was putting something away in the fridge. He was licking his bottom lip now as she reached between them to fumble with the button on his trousers. It seemed like for ever until she was able to slide her hand into his shorts.
He felt so good, big and hard, and Ellie was aching for the want of him. She looked down the small space between their two bodies just to get a glimpse of her fingers wrapped round his cock, to see and imagine what it would feel like pressing into her or against her tongue, as she tasted him. Oh, the things they could do …
David was looking down too and when she finally tore her eyes away, he lowered his head and
kissed her. Ellie could feel his dick quicken in her grip and she was kissing him back just as hungrily until she pulled free.
‘You need to take your clothes off,’ she gasped indignantly. She wanted to ping away his shirt buttons with busy hands but couldn’t bear to let go of his cock. She also suspected he hadn’t brought a change of clothes so she could hardly rip the shirt he was wearing to shreds. ‘You’ve still got your tie on! It’s ridiculous!’
‘Sorry,’ David murmured, stealing another kiss, then nuzzling her neck. ‘You’re going to have to let go if you want me to get undressed.’
‘I know. I am,’ Ellie said, making no move to do anything of the sort until David prised away her fingers one by one from his cock. Then he took away his hardness and his heat so she wanted to cry from the loss, but it was only so he could sit up and toe off his shoes, not even undoing the laces, which must have been a first, and yanking off his socks before he attacked his tie with the same vigour. He did carefully unbutton his shirt, which made Ellie smile as she worked the clasp on her bra, pulled it off and wished her breasts would burst forth in sensual abandon.
Not that David seemed to mind – he gave both Ellie and her breasts an appreciative glance – but as she hooked her fingers into the waistband of her briefs, he shook his head. ‘Leave something for me to take off,’ he said, as he kicked off his trousers, then coaxed Ellie back into his arms.
She was already rubbing up against him, tugging on his bite-able bottom lip with her teeth as his hands slid down to cup her arse, and then they were rolling this way and that on the hard wooden floor. It was undignified, and Elle winced when she banged her elbow, but they came to a gentle stop underneath the Philippe Starck table. David wedged his thigh between hers and he lowered his head to draw heavily on her breast with his diabolical mouth, one hand teasing and tugging at her other nipple. Ellie thought she might come just from that.
‘I’m not usually this easy,’ Ellie heard herself suddenly announce. She didn’t even know why she was saying it because normally she was all about owning her sexuality, never apologising for it, but she couldn’t bear to think that David might still think there was some tiny semblance of truth to the stories he must have read as he was admiring how her arse looked in a bikini.
He looked up from her breasts, which were damp and swollen from his attentions. ‘Really?’ He quirked an eyebrow upwards. ‘I am.’
‘I bet you’re not,’ she said with a giggle.
‘Well, only very occasionally, but mostly I wanted to make you smile.’ He rubbed his mouth against hers. ‘You were looking a little lost. Is this too much?’
‘No, no …’
‘Because I didn’t come here for this … well, I hoped …’ He kissed her; an almost chaste peck on the lips if his tongue hadn’t darted out for a quick foray, then he was actually putting some distance between them. Ellie pouted as he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow so they weren’t skin to skin any more. ‘I was going to woo you. Would you rather be wooed?’
‘Not right now, no!’ She’d never heard herself sound so desperate. ‘You can woo me later. Wooing is not what I need at this precise moment.’
‘Do you need this?’ David was already tugging at her briefs, shifting slightly so he could rest his hand, heavy and warm, between her legs. ‘It feels like you need this.’
‘That’s exactly what I need,’ Ellie confirmed, tilting her hips in an invitation that he couldn’t miss.
‘I have a theory that if I touch you like this, all the muscles in your thighs will begin to quiver,’ he drawled, circling her clit with the tip of his finger, and Ellie arched even closer towards him.
‘Don’t tease,’ she gasped as his finger speeded up. ‘Nobody likes a tease.’
‘I want you to like me lots and lots,’ David said, then he slowly pushed two fingers into the soaked heat of her pussy and smiled when Ellie moaned. ‘Or I want you to beg, I can’t decide which.’
Even when he was being playful there was an edge to him. Ellie liked both the playfulness and the edge, they tempered each other, but right then she could have done without either of them.
‘I’m not begging,’ she hissed mutinously, clamping down hard on his fingers when he tried to drag them away. She was going to cry if he didn’t get inside her. ‘Why should I beg you to fuck me, when you want it as much as I do?’
It was his turn to moan and whimper because she had her hand clasped round the warm, thick length of his cock again and wasn’t planning to let go any time soon.
‘I’m in charge here,’ David insisted, but maybe that would have been more convincing if he wasn’t gritting his teeth as Ellie stroked her palm against the wet head of his cock. ‘Just ask me nicely and I’ll fuck you.’
‘We don’t have to fuck,’ Ellie told him sweetly. She was only able to tease him because his fingers weren’t deep in her pussy any more but trailing up and down her leg. Then he sucked them into his mouth and hummed in approval.
‘You taste delicious,’ he said. Two could play at that game.
‘Oh, don’t you want to go all the way, then?’ Ellie asked, eyes widening in faux surprise. ‘OK, if you prefer, there’s this little thing that I do with my tongue …’
David didn’t say anything, but his nostrils flared and his jaw tensed, and Ellie was suddenly flat on her back again. ‘Condom?’ he ground out as though talking was causing him all kinds of pain.
‘It’s all right, I’m on the pill,’ Ellie said, and then neither of them said anything because he was shoving her legs up round her ears and sinking into her like he was coming home. It was too much. Too soon. Neither of them was ready for this.
Then Ellie felt something deep inside her heart unfurl and she was pulsing around the hard length of his cock.
David flung his head back. ‘God, you are the most impossible woman,’ he rasped, and he began to move. Went from still to fast and hard and deep in one pounding stroke and Ellie squeezed him tighter with her legs, her arms, her everything, screwed her eyes shut and took a leap, let herself freefall, because it felt new, but very right; the feeling of David on her, inside her, all around her.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Mad, brain-scrambling lust was one thing, but once it was over, wooden floors weren’t very comfortable to lie on, no matter how much Ellie wanted to savour the afterglow.
Besides, she knew how the rest of the scene would play out. She’d be unable to make eye contact and David would do that thing where he shut down all facial expressions and pared his conversation to only clipped monosyllables. She moved away from him because the floor was hard and his chest was too bony to make a good pillow, and also now that the passion wasn’t clouding her brain they both smelled kind of ripe. Slowly she managed to stagger to her feet.
David looked up at her from his recumbent position. She should have been mortified because she was naked, legs clamped together, and from where he was on the floor every lump and bump, freckle and mole was visible, but he didn’t look as if he found the sight of her repulsive. On the contrary, his eyes rested briefly on all Ellie’s main attractions, then travelled up to her face, which was rosy red, and he smiled like it was all good and as if, hard wooden floors notwithstanding, there was nowhere on earth he’d rather be.
His slow, lazy smile made Ellie get over her post-coital nerves and she was able to casually say, ‘I’m going to have a shower.’
‘Is it big enough for two?’ David asked. When Ellie said it was and that, unlike a lot of showers in Paris, it had superior water pressure, he asked if he could join her.
It wasn’t the kind of shower you could have sex in. There was nothing to grab onto and the floor wasn’t grippy, but they could kiss and lather each other up and Ellie could point out, rather drily given the circumstances, that her breasts probably needed a lot less attention from the bar of soap than other parts of her.
David snaked his hand between her legs. ‘Like this intriguing place?’
; Ellie wasn’t ready to go again so she twisted out of his grasp, warned him not to touch her hair with his hands because she didn’t know what effect almond soap would have on her straightening treatment, and sank to her knees.
David was hard as soon as Ellie dragged one soap-slicked finger along the big vein that ran down the underside of his cock and she was happy to alleviate his agony, because she was nice like that. She placed one sweet kiss on the head of his dick before she took him into her mouth.
She thought about drawing it out, teasing him as payback for the heinous way he’d behaved earlier, but he’d already started to moan and the grooved floor of the shower cubicle was agony on her knees. There was a thing that she did with her tongue but now she settled for hollowing out her cheeks and rewarding the way he said her name so desperately by cupping his balls.
He tasted clean, a little soapy. Then Ellie tasted him, salty and slightly bitter in her mouth, and she knew all his secrets but still wanted to know more. David’s hands fisted in her hair when she sucked him deep and it was hardly the time to tell him to cut it out, not when he was coming in her mouth with a startled cry.
Later, much later, Ellie dumped the ready-cooked chicken, a roughly sliced baguette and some cherry tomatoes on a huge platter and they sat cross-legged on the rug in the living room and ate dinner with their fingers. Then David kissed the red marks on her shins left from kneeling too long in the shower.
And later than that, as Ellie was standing at the kitchen sink doing the dishes and wondering when she was going to wake up because this had to be a dream, she heard David come up behind her, then he was the one dropping to his knees. ‘Don’t turn round,’ he said in that growly voice that thrilled and scared her in equal measure. She yelped when he pushed up the skirt of her pale grey maxi dress. ‘And for God’s sake, don’t break one of those glasses.’
The glasses were probably commissioned especially from Lalique so Ellie tried to keep very still as David’s hands firmly parted her thighs and his mouth licked across her clit. She just had time to place the glasses very gently on the draining rack, then she was gripping the side of the sink and grinding against his mouth as he sucked hard on her clit while his fingers twisted deliciously inside her. Suddenly she was coming, almost falling over from the ferocity of it, only the hard bite of his hands on her hips keeping her safe.