The split second that the door closed behind them and Grace heard the first clink of china, Vaughn pushed her up against the wall.
Usually he tried to show some restraint for the first few minutes of kissing and caressing, but this time he was fucking her mouth with his tongue, his skin feverish hot beneath Grace’s fingers. The warm glow from a job well done had gone, not to her head, but between her thighs, or maybe that was Vaughn’s hand sliding up her leg to press and knead.
Getting upstairs became an undignified stagger. Vaughn hauled Grace down the landing and through a door then pushed her down on his bed so enthusiastically that she bounced a couple of times, then lay there momentarily stunned as Vaughn pulled his shirt over his head without bothering to unbutton it.
‘How much did that dress cost me?’ he asked, voice muffled as he bent down to take off his shoes.
Grace didn’t like the sound of that. Talking about payment in kind was very tacky when they’d been thundering towards the kind of dirtybadwrong porno-sex that she’d remember on her deathbed.
‘Two thousand and change,’ she said, feeling that little hiss as the fire in her belly went out.
‘You’d better take it off then,’ Vaughn drawled. ‘Before it gets damaged.’
His eyes were all pupil and Grace scrambled to her knees and yanked at the zip. She could have slowed it down, drawn the moment out, but she wanted the dress off and Vaughn’s hands on her.
The Chanel dress was thrown into one of the far corners of the room as if it had been a ten-pound Primark number, but Grace didn’t care - which was a fashion first because Vaughn was on the bed, pushing her down again and pausing to kiss and suck at every piece of skin that distracted him along the way. Grace hadn’t even known that the area above her left knee was an erogenous zone.
She gasped every time Vaughn touched her until she wanted to scream because it was happening too fast. Or maybe it was happening too slowly? Vaughn made a pleased sound when Grace grabbed his hand and shoved it between her legs. ‘You’re ready?’ he muttered in surprise.
Grace didn’t answer, just sank her teeth into his shoulder in the universal language for, ‘Yes, now, don’t make me wait,’ and Vaughn must have understood because he was inside her in one sudden thrust.
It might have been when she wrapped her legs round his hips or scored a path down his back with her nails but Vaughn’s control upped and left. He surged into her harder and faster than before, hitting this perfect little spot that made Grace arch her back and swear that she’d just seen God.
And it was suddenly OK that it was messy and sweaty because sex was supposed to be. And when the sex was this good, the mess and sweat didn’t seem to matter so much.
Grace was drumming her heels against the small of Vaughn’s back when she realised that she was going to come. All she needed was one more lip-biting kiss, one more bruise blossoming because Vaughn had pinned her arms over her head, one more hungry rasp in her ear about how much he loved fucking her and she . . .
There was a groan and a quick jerk of Vaughn’s hips and apparently they were done. Move it along, nothing to see here.
Except Grace was still trying to remember how to breathe and had to be persuaded to unlock her legs and let Vaughn pull free. Just the feel of his still half-hard cock sliding slowly out of her, had Grace closing her eyes as another shudder of almost-there hit.
‘Are you all right?’ Vaughn asked solicitously, like he wasn’t some selfish wanker who’d just fucked her into the mattress and left her stranded. He’d done this many times before, with many other women, so how could he not know that Grace hadn’t reached the finishing line? ‘You look exhausted.’
‘I’m OK,’ Grace said flatly. Or it would have been flatly, if she wasn’t still panting like she was halfway through the London Marathon. ‘You go and have your shower and I’ll get on the cab thing.’
The proprietary stroke of her thigh was new, but the lack of orgasms was alas, getting very old.
Grace listened carefully for the shower then picked up where Vaughn had left off. It only took one stroke and all those delicious nerve-endings were thrumming insistently again because at least she knew how to get herself off. Grace’s fingers worked busily as the memories of the last fifteen minutes ricocheted through her brain’s pleasure centres. It was all there in glorious HDTV: Vaughn’s sweat-slicked skin skittering against hers, his ragged breaths, his cock driving into her . . . and Grace screwed her eyes tight shut and worked her hips a bit faster to get that good old orgasm thing going.
She wasn’t entirely sure when she registered the fact that the shower had stopped. Maybe it was the moment her eyes flickered open and she caught a glimpse of Vaughn standing in the doorway staring at her.
Every single millimetre of Grace was blushing. She knew that for certain because she was lying on Vaughn’s Frette bedlinen, stark naked. Her sticky hand was removed so she could curl into a ball and will herself to telepathically transport to another dimension.
‘Don’t stop,’ Vaughn said hoarsely, unbelievably, and the bed dipped as he sat down next to her. ‘You should have said that you hadn’t come. I’d have taken care of you.’
‘It’s no big deal,’ Grace mumbled, trying to press her face into the sheet but Vaughn’s hand was insistent on her hip as he forced her to turn over.
‘Look at me,’ he ordered, in that low, commanding tone that she was always too scared to ignore.
Grace’s eyelids fluttered open so she could watch Vaughn watching her. He didn’t look disgusted, repulsed or as if he was about to throw her and her sexual conflict out on to the street. He looked pretty horny actually. His eyes couldn’t decide whether they wanted to look at Grace’s nipples, which were standing to attention or her newly waxed snatch.
‘Really, it’s OK. I don’t normally, like . . . I don’t . . . not from sex,’ Grace blurted out. ‘God! Will you stop staring at me?’
Vaughn ignored her heartfelt plea, and stroked a finger along Grace’s arm. ‘You seemed to be managing just fine by yourself,’ he commented, and he was smiling and she didn’t know why. ‘And I can’t help but feel responsible.’
Now really was not the time for his inappropriate humour. ‘Go away,’ Grace said. ‘If you care anything for me, you’ll stop talking and go back to the bathroom.’
Vaughn moved but it was only to shove Grace across the bed so he could lie down and rest his damp head against hers. ‘Show me what you do when you’re alone,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘So I’ll know for next time.’
But there wasn’t going to be a next time because Grace was joining a nunnery the next morning. ‘I can’t!’
‘Yes, you can,’ he said firmly, leaning over to bite the inside of Grace’s thigh at the same time that he took her hand and put it back where it had been, his fingers glancing over her clit so she had to force every muscle she had not to shiver. ‘Let me watch.’
Grace sighed because there was no way out, short of climbing over Vaughn, and he had a good four stone on her. She started moving her fingers cautiously until Vaughn took his hand away. She figured that she could do that for three minutes before she faked an orgasm, got dressed and went home to scrub her brain with bleach.
She couldn’t believe that she was letting Vaughn have a courtside seat while she prodded gingerly at her clit. There wasn’t a designer dress in the world that was worth this humiliation.
‘Do it properly,’ Vaughn suddenly snapped. ‘Or do you want me to do it for you?’
‘Shut up!’
But Vaughn didn’t shut up. He carried on talking, saying filthy little things in Grace’s ear until her fingers were rubbing frantically against her clit and she was lolling her head back against his shoulder.
‘You’re such a good girl, Grace, and you’re going to come, aren’t you? Because you want to and you really do deserve it . . .’
And that was all it took to have Grace arching for an eternity, a harsh little cry escaping as the world seemed to
stop for one split second and she was reduced to nothing but sensation.
But another second passed and she was Grace again. Vaughn stroked the hair back from her heated face. ‘How old are you again?’
He knew exactly how old she was, but Grace didn’t have the energy to call him on it. ‘Twenty-three. Why?’
‘Because I’d have thought you’d have grown out of these hang-ups by now. And I have to say, I think you’ve had some very selfish lovers - oof!’ Vaughn added when Grace elbowed him in the ribs as she strove to put as much distance between them as possible. And God, she really wanted to tug the quilt over herself too.
She settled for glaring ferociously. ‘Maybe I should have said something, but it’s not the kind of stuff that you can just bring up casually . . .’
‘I’m going to make a note in my BlackBerry.’ Vaughn cut right through her heated defence. ‘ “Make sure Grace comes every time we have sex”.’
And it was such a stupid-sweet thing to say that Grace got over herself for the time it took to giggle and flop back on the bed, because Vaughn had seen everything now, several times over and there was no point in false modesty. She reached out a hand so she could prod him in the ribs again. ‘Oh, whatever.’
‘Whatever is right,’ Vaughn murmured, and he lifted her hand so he could press a kiss to her knuckles. It was an oddly gallant gesture after what Grace had just done, what he’d just asked her to do, and Grace was touched by it. Tonight was all about firsts so she scooched up the bed so she could rest her head on Vaughn’s shoulder and let him wrap an arm around her pleasure-heavy body.
Grace was just getting into the cuddling and thinking that maybe a little kissing would be nice too when Vaughn started gently extracting himself from her limbs, which had gone all limpet-like. ‘You can shower in the guest room, if you like.’
chapter eighteen
The next morning, Grace was more relaxed than she’d been in weeks. It helped that there was a Facebook message from Lola thanking her for the night before and apologising . . . if I acted like an arsehole. I was seriously freaking out for most of the dinner, then we got lost again on the way back to the tube. Anyways, you, me and Laetitia should go out for a drink sometime.
It was a relief to know that Lola had seen the real Grace peeking through, and it fortified her for an emotionally draining lunch with Lily, who was steeling herself for a weekend visit to Godalming to tell her parents that they had to move up the wedding because their precious only daughter was in the family way. After that, there was the big biannual fashion and beauty brainstorm to suffer through.
Grace could feel her eyelids drooping as Kiki wittered on about the It bag and how rumours of its untimely demise were the work of dumpy features writers who could never get on a wait list. Courtney was surreptitiously messaging someone on her iPhone, Lily was hiding behind her bigass Alberta Ferretti shades and absent-mindedly stroking her stomach, and Posy was nodding her head in agreement with every single thing that Kiki said.
Grace looked down at her folder of ideas, which were uncharacteristically sparse. She didn’t have the free time any more to do test shoots, mooch around Shoreditch sourcing new designers or leaf through obscure fashion fanzines. Not that that was going to stop her.
‘Maybe we could do a special on the new accessories,’ she piped up, when Kiki finally had to stop to draw breath. ‘The new It shoes or sunglasses or those killer skinny patent-leather belts. Like, the It bag is dead, long live the It shoes or whatever.’
There was a deathly silence, because the first rule of the biannual fashion and beauty brainstorm was that you didn’t speak until Kiki spoke to you. It was the second and third rule too. Grace cowered on her usual rickety chair, as she waited for Kiki to tear into her.
‘The advertising department would resign if we mention death and It bags in the same sentence,’ Kiki reminded Grace icily. She paused to glance down at her taupe-clad bosom as if she expected to see a garish fluorescent accessory nestling there, before giving the assembled throng a wintry smile. ‘Then again, they do love accessories. Courtney, can you get on that? And don’t use the in-house digital studio . . .’
Grace’s shoulders slumped. Plus ça fucking change.
‘. . . and have a bash at the copy, Gracie. Just extended sells for each spread and keep it cliché free, please. If I read “belt up” or “best foot forward”, I’ll fire you.’
Grace’s head shot up so fast that she bit her tongue and could only nod eagerly. It was the first piece of writing that Kiki had asked her to do in two years. Apart from making Grace draft emails to the Skirt staff to inform them that Kiki would be a guest judge on some tacky TV model show. ‘Sure th-thing,’ she stammered, beaming at Posy who’d just given her the thumbs-up.
But what made it the best day ever wasn’t Bunny then getting reamed out for mucking up Kiki’s soy latte order but the flat, square turquoise box that Ron from the postroom handed to Grace, two minutes after she got out of the meeting. ‘You have to sign for it,’ he grunted, eyes fixed firmly in the vicinity of Grace’s nipples.
Grace knew for an absolute fact that no one had ordered anything from Tiffany’s and suddenly any similarities between her and Holly Golightly didn’t seem to matter so much. She quickly untied the white ribbon, lifted the lid and scrabbled through tissue paper to unearth a tiara. A tacky plastic tiara that still had a Claire’s Accessories price tag on it.
‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said when Vaughn answered the phone. ‘You really shouldn’t have.’ She couldn’t hold back her gurgle of laughter.
Of course, Vaughn delivered the punch line, which just made Grace laugh even harder. ‘I offered to buy you a tiara and I’d hate you to think I wasn’t a man of my word.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ Grace giggled. ‘Really makes my highlights pop, thank you.’
‘I always send you flowers but a three-pound gag gift is the only time you phone to thank me and don’t send me a text message instead?’ Vaughn enquired idly. ‘Actually, I think this is the first time you’ve called.’
The flowers always put in an appearance each morning after a Vaughn night before, apart from the last couple of weeks when he’d been furious with her. Grace had asked Madeleine to stop sending them to the offices but to Montague Terrace instead, because the PR excuse was wearing thin. She divvied up the bouquets between Ilonka and Anita on the floor above her and poor Eileen on the ground floor, who always told Grace that no one had bought her flowers since her husband died. Grace kept every third bunch for herself and even if she knew the flowers were nothing more than a fake token for a fake relationship, it always lifted her heart a little to wake up and see her Murano vase crammed full of delicately shaded flowers that tried hard to give off a scent in the dankness of her flat. But she couldn’t tell Vaughn any of that so Grace decided to keep this light before it veered off down dark paths. ‘Well, fake plastic diamonds are a girl’s best friend. I thought that warranted a phone call.’
‘I’ll remember to buy you fake plastic diamonds more often then.’ They were flirting, which hadn’t happened before. It was a shame because Grace had a feeling that Vaughn could be an incorrigible flirt if he tried hard enough. ‘But actually I’m glad you called. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’
God, that sentence never led to anything other than tears and recriminations. Grace shoved the tiara under a pile of invoices. ‘Oh? What was that?’
‘Last night, when I was in the bathroom - the first time I was in the bathroom - I remembered that I needed to say something to you, but then you distracted me.’ Vaughn sounded wistful, as if the memory of how Grace had distracted him was a very pleasant one.
‘Hey, you did your fair share of distracting too,’ Grace pointed out, relief washing over her because he wouldn’t have brought that up if he’d been planning to terminate her contract. Probably.
‘I’m going to be away from London for a couple of weeks and I’m afraid I’m not going to ask you to
fly out on the weekends,’ he said, and it was enough to have Grace tensing up all over again. ‘I’m going to be constantly on the move; lots of loose ends to tie up before December.’
Grace was still holding herself very still because this was beginning to sound a lot like an official brush-off, even though she’d thought she’d rocked the dinner-party. ‘OK,’ she said hesitantly.
‘Madeleine will send you the itinerary for December. It’s not pretty. There’s a party or a dinner or a reception every night; sometimes two or three, just to give you fair warning. Though if you’re as charming as you were last night, then you’ll sail through.’
Vaughn wasn’t big with the compliments so when they did come, it meant more to Grace than all the bouquets he’d asked Madeleine to send. ‘Thank you, and I’m really sorry I was such a pain in the arse about organising the party. Look, I know it’s taking me a while to learn the ropes,’ Grace added, lowering her voice as she stood up and walked towards the cupboard because Bunny was hovering nearby, ‘but I’m trying, I really am.’