‘No?’
‘Just…you’re so beautifully dressed. It seems a shame to undress in the wrong order.’
‘Wrong order? You mean there are rules for Victorian striptease?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said with a giggle. ‘But surely it should be frock coat first, then collar and cuffs, and…so on.’
‘So on?’
‘I’m sure you can work it out.’
‘OK,’ he said, rising to his feet and standing in a louche, dandyish pose in front of me. ‘I’ll undress the way you want. And then I’ll undress you the way I want.’
‘Seems fair,’ I said.
Oh, to have had the nerve to film him on my phone. I thought about doing it all the way through, but I couldn’t quite summon up the nerve.
I had to make do with trying to burn the memories into my brain instead, in order to rerun the way he shrugged off his coat, unscrewed his cufflinks, wrenched off the lace collar – and all with his eyes fixed uncompromisingly on me.
My throat was dry by the time the top button came undone, revealing the rest of his neck and his Adam’s apple. At this rate, I’d require intravenous rehydration by the time he got to his trousers.
The white linen parted slowly, revealing his taut bare chest, then lean but well-muscled arms. He stood with one hand on a hip, twirling the shirt seductively, his mouth curved upwards on one side.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m half-naked. How about you?’
Boots and tight black trousers advanced towards me, matador-like. He threw away the shirt and pounced, his palms flat on either side of my legs, his forehead touching mine.
‘I suppose you’ll need some help,’ he said.
I nodded, my brow bone pushing at his as I did so.
‘Those killer heels first, then,’ he said, positioning himself at the foot of the bed to remove them. I winced and mewled as he released my hurt ankle, then laid it gently back on the bed.
‘Looks like a sprain,’ he remarked, frowning. ‘Nasty. Perhaps we shouldn’t…’
‘It’s OK,’ I said quickly. ‘There’s painkillers in my bedside drawer. I’ll take a couple.’
‘I like a broad who knows what she wants,’ he said in a cod-noir Noo Yoik drawl. ‘Especially when what she wants is me.’ He pulled off the other shoe, grinning broadly. ‘All right, Foxy. Arms up.’
The bra top was removed, leaving my fishnetted breasts exposed to his gaze. He made the most of it; in fact, his gaze wasn’t the only thing they were exposed to. His hands got their fair share too.
He pulled off my elbow-length, fingerless lace gloves, then got to work on my velvet skirt. I had to lie down while he pulled it along my legs, revealing the very pair of knickers Mia Culpa’s first blog post had inspired me to buy. Lace patterned hold-ups were the last item on the dressing-for-sex menu. He seemed to want to keep those on, running a hand along my thigh, tracing the curls and curves of the lace down to my knee and then back up to the garter.
‘Mm, nice,’ he said, bending and kissing the bare flesh between hold-up and knicker edge. ‘You should have come out dressed like this.’
‘Er, I’m not sure that would have been a good idea,’ I said, but my breath was jerking the words around. He had his hands on my bum while his mouth and tongue moved ever closer to the inner sanctum inside the knickers.
‘Why not?’ he said, raising his face for a moment. ‘I’d have laid you on the table in that booth and given you what-for right there and then.’
‘Yeah, that’s why,’ I said, but the image was tantalising enough to make me cringe with lust.
He shimmied up my body until his face hovered over mine, his hands on my breasts, the hardness inside his trousers parked between my thighs.
‘Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have loved it,’ he crooned, dropping lascivious, licking little kisses on my lips. ‘You could have pretended to be a Victorian whore in a dark alley, at the mercy of a vampire lord. Or something. That’s the sort of thing that turns you on, isn’t it?’
I pushed my tongue into his mouth and grabbed a fistful of his hair. We kissed savagely, our bodies writhing against each other. God, I needed that painkiller, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to stop this in order to get it.
‘You have no idea what turns me on,’ I whispered harshly, pushing his face away from mine.