“Oh, I don’t care what men think, Jeremy dear. Apart from the powerful gay ones who dictate the direction of fashion. I know all you testosterone-charged boys want to fuck me. That’s irrelevant, though. I don’t want to be fucked. I want to shine. I want to shine like a star.”
Jeremy found that he had no coherent reply to this. He found Laura’s nakedly expressed ambition disturbing and alluring in equal measure. Exquisite beauty and calculating coldness were an exotically potent mix and he simply licked his lips and pushed a hand through his hair.
“I’m sure you will,” he said eventually. “Quite sure.”
“And you’ll help me, won’t you?” she beseeched, perching next to him on the cold cream cushions.
“If I can.”
“If you can? Oh, I’m disappointed.” Laura pouted, moving her knee closer to Jeremy’s in its light chino cotton.
“I’ll talk to the editor about that feature. I have a friend at Larging It magazine.”
“Larging It? Not my style, Jeremy. Grazia would be better.”
“I’ll email round the crowd from college. I’m sure some of them must be doing something useful.”
“Thank you.”
The knees bumped, lightly but meaningfully, as if glasses had been clinked.
“So…” Jeremy began, greatly daring, hoping that this gambit wouldn’t result in the flinging of dry martini and the wettening of a good shirt. “If you don’t want to be fucked…why were you fucking Rocky Anderson?”
For a second, the possibility of murder crackled in the air. Then, with an artificially light laugh, Laura turned to fully face Jeremy and said, “Because he was begging for it.”
“Begging for it?”
“Yes. Dirty little slut, strutting around in all that black leather, trying to get all the girls into bed with him. He needed a woman who wasn’t going to lie down and roll over for him. There’s only one woman who could give him that. And besides, he was so gorgeously rough. The absolute opposite of all those perfumed hair-gelled Henries Daddy is always trying to pair me off with. I could smell him, Jeremy, and he smelled of man. Pure man. Mmmm.”
Laura’s hand rubbed her knee, then a bloodred fingernail trailed up the seam of her skirt from hem to midthigh.
“He got me so hot and bothered,” she whispered. “He’d try to take control, and then I’d fight him, and it turned him on even more. We fought like cat and dog, Jeremy, hissing, spitting, clawing fights that ended up in bed every time. I suppose it was doomed, though, right from the start. Two control freaks are a bad combination. And I do simply have to be in control, you know.”
“I see that.” Jeremy was afraid to move, his hair no longer floppy but frozen in appalled, thrilled stasis.
Laura broke the tension with a long, tinkling laugh, leaning back and subjecting Jeremy to mocking scrutiny. “Oh, look at you,” she gasped. “You look like one of those men in wildlife documentaries, trying to find the right moment to grab the poisonous snake by the neck. Poor Jeremy. I don’t bite, you know.” She put a hand on his knee. “Okay, I lied. I do bite. But only in a nice way.”
Jeremy threw back his head, exposing a long, stubble-dark neck.
“Bite me,
” he whispered.
“I’ve been wanting to all night.”
He put his glass down hastily and let her yank him forward by his loosened tie until their mouths met and converged in a kiss that Laura seemed determined to treat as a battle.
Laura loved those fighting kisses, and this was one of the best. She wanted to capture and conquer his tongue, his teeth, the insides of his cheeks—she wanted dominion over the throat that brought forth his speech. She flung the little helpless sighs that came up from his chest right back down, pushing them back with her determined tongue. She nibbled at his lower lip, snagging it with sure teeth before biting down, holding his shoulders steady to preempt the escape attempt that always followed this move. She enjoyed the way his head shook, and the strangled sounds of objection that emerged into her mouth, and his complete inability to dislodge her. Poor Jeremy, she thought indulgently. What has your inquisitive little nose got you into, eh? Taking eventual pity, she released him and watched him wipe his mouth and press against the now swollen lower lip with indignant fingers.
“Christ, Laura, are you a vampire? I’m not into pain, you know.”
“Not even a little bit?” she coaxed, stroking the bitten flesh. “I thought you might be. Oh well. Never mind. Lie down and let me kiss it better.”
“You will just…kiss, right?” Jeremy was wary but seemingly compelled to obey, flattening his spine against the couch and removing his spectacles.
“I will make you feel so good, Jeremy. So good.” She bent over him, a ravenous goddess intent on her prey, and straddled his hips, her skirt riding well up to reveal taut golden thighs. Her lips descended on his neck, tasting warm, salt flesh so tempting that she had to lick it. Tiny nibbles rose in a winding path to his ear, and Laura groaned at the spasms and shivers that his body transmitted. He was clay in her skilled hands; she could mould him with sex. He would be hers, a pet journalist, to use as and when she wished. What could be more useful or ornamental than that? When she pushed her tongue with blunt force at the spot beneath his earlobe, he cried out and she chuckled, chewing and sucking for good measure. His erection bumped and brushed her thighs, straining against the restrictive cotton trousers, bursting for release.
Not yet, you impatient boy.