10. Marlowe
CHAPTER 10
Marlowe
I can already tell Brendan is not a man who’s used to asking twice, just as I can tell that wasn’t really a suggestion.
It was a charming, casually delivered order.
And, to be honest, I’m so nervous, so out of my depth after years and years of deliberately not flirting, that following orders is about all I’m good for.
I give him what I hope is a vaguely coquettish smile and stand, holding onto my wineglass for dear life.
This excellent Chablis is my liferaft this evening.
He grins back, a sign that I’ve just passed my first test, and stands up to join me, shrugging off his blazer as he does and giving me the opportunity to check him out properly.
He really is disgustingly attractive, and it feels beyond surreal to be here in this opulent, glass-fronted prison with him.
The space is generous, but he’s so big, so sure of himself, that he dominates it.
I couldn’t be more hyper-aware than I am that it’s just us in here.
His white shirt is crisp, the unbuttoned collar showing a vee of tanned skin and a smattering of dark hair.
It skims broad shoulders and a taut-looking chest and a flat stomach.
When he twists to chuck his jacket on the sofa, I get a shot of a firm, nicely rounded arse.
He’s such a gratifying specimen of the male form that I simultaneously want to giggle and vomit.
Still, he gave me an order.
So follow it I do.
I move towards the front of the room in a manner I hope could be termed sashaying.
These heels definitely cause my hips to sway more than usual.
As I go, I’m conscious of the sight I must make.
Of the skimpiness of my dress, the expanse of bare leg.
I really need him to like what he sees, though his I can’t wait to touch you comment was encouraging.
On the other side of the tinted glass unfolds a scene that I know is totally normal for a Thursday night in places like this yet seems as alien as if I’d landed on Mars.
It’s not just the money or the decadence, but the sheer hedonism of it.
The concept of folks working all day only to want to go out and socialise even more, to drink and dance and network like they don’t have a care or an expense in the world, is categorically beyond my frame of reference.
For God’s sake, do none of these people have a Netflix show to get home to?
Brendan is undoubtedly one of these people.
This is his world.
I can tell.
His footsteps sound on the polished black floor, then stop.
I turn to look at him.
He has one hand around his drink and the other fiddling with something in his pocket.
Otherwise, he’s still, taking me in.
I hesitate, unsure what to do.
Should I go to him?
‘As you were. Please.’
I turn back towards the glass, holding my breath until he announces his presence behind me as a solid wall of heat.
He’s not touching me, yet I can feel the warmth emanating from his body.
Then his hand comes to rest on my hip and he dips his mouth to my ear.
‘I should have told you as soon as you walked in. You are stunning this evening.’
His voice is a gruff whisper, his breath hot against my jaw.
The foreignness of it, the heady uncertainty, makes me shiver.
I can’t yet tell if tonight will be one giant out-of-body experience or a giant in-my-body experience.
Maybe it’ll be a bit of both.
‘Thank you.’
His hand slides upwards, cupping my waist. It feels both reassuring and ominous.
‘So you want to do this.’
‘I do,’ I say with a certainty I don’t feel.
‘What’s your safeword?
’
‘I—uh—is it okay if I just say stop if I need you to?’
‘Of course it is. I’m not a monster.
A woman says stop, I stop.
’ He turns his lips and whispers into my ear.
‘She screams don’t stop , I keep going.
Okay?’
I nod fervently, even if the mere concept of screaming at a man not to stop is downright surreal.
I am not that woman.
Never have been.
‘Good.’ He slides his cold, condensation-laced highball down my upper arm, and I shiver.
‘Now, what do you like?’
I suppose this is part of his tonight is for you pitch.
But honestly, it’s the least helpful question he could have asked me.
I could give him a comprehensive list of my favourite tropes, microtropes, and bookish kinks, but he’s asking what I like in my real, honest-to-God sex life, and that’s a problem.
I can get myself from nought to sixty like nobody’s business, but I’ve never come with another person in the room.
My first boyfriend, who I met when working in a restaurant after I finished Sixth Form, had no clue what he was doing, bless him.
And with Joe, it was—I don’t know.
It felt good—I had certain sensations as well as a whole lot of emotions—but it was usually just blow jobs or straight sex, and I just can’t come like that.
What I liked with him was the intimacy.
The attention. The praise.
The experience of being worshipped, and the look on his face as he fell apart.
I particularly enjoyed it when he got stern and professorial with me—after all, that was what had attracted me to him in the first place—but it didn’t culminate in any actual orgasms for me.
I can’t exactly tell a man who’s already forked out twenty-five grand for the privilege of fucking me tonight that I like intimacy, can I?
So I tell him the truth.
‘I don’t know, really.
’
He laughs softly and drags his beard across my jaw.
It’s a soft rasp, and it feels good.
‘Going to make me work for it, I see. I can respect that. Well, I’ll tell you what I like.
I like good girls who do what I say and stand nice and still while they let me play with them.
Can you do that?’
God, why is that so menacingly, astoundingly attractive?
‘Yes,’ I stammer. ‘Of course.’
‘Excellent. I think we’re going to get along just fine, Marlowe.
’
He straightens up, inhaling my hair in a way that’s not remotely tender but rather proprietary.
Assessing. Then he’s taking my drink and setting both glasses down somewhere while I stay good-girl still, watching the beautiful people laughing and flirting beneath us, and feeling the bass of the music downstairs thump through my body, and wondering what Brendan’s next move will be.
H e slides both hands around my waist, then down, skimming my hips, smoothing over my bottom, my dress a flimsy barrier between us.
‘You know,’ he says from behind me, his hands moving over me, ‘when I was working my way up the ranks at the company, my dad made me do six months in each division. Sales was where I smashed it. I’m an excellent salesman, love, and I’m particularly good at closing deals.
But you might be the most fun I’ve had closing a deal in a very long time.
’
That makes me laugh.
He’s a charming fucker; I’ll give him that.
‘Knock yourself out.’
‘The plan is to knock you out and have a ball doing it. Put your hands on the glass.’
Oh God.
I do, and he drags his palms up my sides and over my rib cage.
Then he slides them over my breasts, cupping hard, and I gasp at the fierce physicality of his big hands on my body like this.
I may be horrifyingly rusty, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a mobile phone pressing against the base of my spine.
He’s crowding me, and it’s not awful.
I’ve come here tonight with one objective: to put on a good enough performance that I land this job.
Contrary to what Brendan said, I am most certainly the one auditioning here.
My goal is survival, not pleasure.
But if I can relax into this sufficiently, it’ll be far less of a challenge to pull off my performance.
So I force myself to lay my demons, my insecurities, my nerves aside and focus on the reality of the present moment.
And that reality is this: a very hot man is pressing his dick against me and fondling my boobs.
‘Given you won’t tell me what you like, I’ll have to pay close attention, won’t I?
’ he murmurs. ‘That sounded like a good gasp. How about this?’
This is deft fingers pinching and plucking at my nipples.
There’s a double layer of ruched fabric at the top of this dress, but no padding, and the feel of it is an instant shot of electricity to my core.
I’ve been blessed with extremely sensitive nipples, and they react to Brendan’s touch like two little whores as the pleasure of his pinches shoots through me.
I don’t even realise I’ve made a sound until he chuckles, low and pleased.
‘Bingo. You like that.’
‘Yeah.’ I feel shy even admitting it.
‘Yes, you do. That’s my girl.
Fuck, they’re hard.’
He ramps up his attentions, squeezing and plucking.
I let my eyes drift closed to more fully absorb the hits of sensation, my head dropping back against his shoulder.
With his head bent, his breath is warm on my jaw.
He releases one nipple and drags his palm down my front so he can snag the hem of my dress and burrow beneath it before cupping my pussy hard, his fingertips pressing right against my entrance.
If I thought having him touch my nipples was shocking, this is so much more: confronting and dirty and hot , especially because he’s still rolling my left nipple around as best he can through the fabric.
‘Legs wider,’ he grunts against my jaw, and I widen my stance, keeping my palms clamped to the glass for balance as his fingers flex against the scrap of lace that constitutes my underwear this evening.
‘So much to play with.’ His voice is more of a purr now.
‘I just bought a catamaran, but I can already tell you’re going to be a lot more fun, love.
I want to see it all.
’
The ominous threat has my heart rate ratcheting up, because fuck, this is really happening.
He releases my pussy, and I think he’s going to go for the concealed zip at the side of my dress, but he takes a step back and slides the slinky fabric up over my bottom until it’s completely bared to him.
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my lips together, because it’s so blatant , so shameful and excruciating and unseemly, being exposed like this to a man who’s paying terrifying amounts of money for the privilege.
But the deeply buried part of me that liked the way he grabbed me just now is also forging bravely to life, a tiny, tough seedling bursting into existence with little wisdom and even less heed for the dangers ahead, dangers that seem more imminent when he lets out an anguished, carnal groan.
‘Jesus fuck, love.’ He gives the slippery fabric an impatient push upwards, and then both his big hands are stroking and grabbing at my cheeks.
I can’t even imagine how I must look to him like this, skin and lace and heels on display for him, my hands braced against the glass.
He hooks one finger under the string of my thong and runs a calloused knuckle lightly down the cleft of my bottom, abandoning it before he gets too far south and letting the lace snap back into place.
His breath is audibly ragged.
‘I’ve wanted to do this since I saw you at the RA looking all cultured and classy and innocent in your floaty dress, and fucking look at you now.
The lovely Marlowe is all mine to play with.
You should know I’m this close to whipping out my dick and shooting my load all over your arse, but I won’t.
Because this is you auditioning me, so tonight, love, you come first, okay?
’
‘Okay,’ I agree breathlessly, grateful that he’s not hiring me for my dirty-talking skills.
Because I’ve got nothing.
What I do have in my High-Class Hooker arsenal is a couple of recent rewatches of When Harry Met Sally , just so I could nail the fake orgasm thing.
Except, the way this guy is manhandling me is making me think it won’t be very hard at all to sound convincing.
He’s most definitely pressing the right buttons, even if tonight’s pressure and stakes and nerves mean there is literally zero chance of my coming for real.
He lets my hem fall some of the way back down.
Then, in a couple of slick movements that tell me he’s had a lot of practice at this, he gathers up my hair and dumps it over one shoulder, slides both my straps down as far as he can with my hands like this, and finds the zip, yanking it all the way down so that my brace position is the only thing holding my little dress up.
Until, that is, he barks out his next order. ‘Turn around.’