The Couple in the Dream Suite Read Free Page A

Are you?’
    ‘I?’
    ‘Do you like girls, Vera?’
    ‘No more than Dexter does. Would you like it if I did, Mr Yorke?’
    ‘Justin. And no, I would not like it if you did. In fact I’m very pleased to hear that you don’t.’
    His smile was wicked. That thing he was doing to her neck, touching, stroking, fluttering, whatever it was, that was wicked too. It was making her feel wicked, and she hadn’t felt wicked in a very long time. Vera smiled back. She reached up to touch him, finger tips straying over his temple, behind his ear, to rest lightly on the back of his neck. She felt him tense. She heard the faint intake of his breath, and that made her feel even more wicked. ‘How pleased?’ she asked, choosing to ignore his implied question.
    ‘About this much,’ he said.
    He kissed her. It wasn’t really a kiss. His lips merely grazed hers. Not even enough to make her worry about her lip rouge, though it was enough to make her heart jump into her throat, and to make her inhale just a little too sharply. Not much of a kiss, but enough to make her want more, which was something she hadn’t wanted in a long time. All this she thought, as his lips touched hers, as his fingers ruffled the sleek cap of her razor-cut hair, and then it was over, and she was left wondering if she’d imagined it. Not the kiss, but the effect.
    ‘I wouldn’t count that as so very pleased,’ Vera said with something like her usual coolness.
    ‘Really? But what else could I have done, within the bounds of decency?’
    His fingers were doing that thing again, on her shoulder this time. ‘Oh, if you’re going to worry about decency,’ Vera said, ‘you should have confined yourself to kissing my hand.’
    He took her hand. He lifted it to his mouth. His lips on her palm. His eyes, watching her as he kissed her, his tongue flicking over her skin. She wished her gown didn’t cling quite so much, for it gave her breathing away.
    ‘Decent enough for you?’ Justin asked her.
    It was the way he was looking at her that made her do it. Teasing. Taunting. Daring. It had nothing to do with the way his mouth and his tongue on her skin were making her feel, and everything to do with a simple need to get even. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, dragging her hand from his mouth, pulling his hand to her mouth. ‘You tell me.’
    She saw the surprise in his eyes. It was gratifying. Then she saw them change as she kissed his hand, exactly as he had kissed hers. Her mouth on his skin. Her tongue, on the pad of his thumb. Her eyes, watching his widen, darken, surprise giving way to desire. There was a callus at the base of his index finger. She softened her lips over it, then ran the tip of her tongue up his finger, taking the tip of it into her mouth. Sucking. Tasting. And all the time, watching, aware of the almost-forgotten twist of desire inside her, knowing she should stop, not wanting to, until he pulled his finger free, and pulled her towards him, and his lips closed on hers, and she opened to him with a sigh, because it turned out that was what she had wanted all along.
    A kiss. Lips and tongues and teeth. Not a gentle kiss, harsh, yet not harsh enough. She wanted to dig her nails into his shoulders. She wanted to hurt him for making her feel like this. She yanked herself away, making no attempt to disguise her breathing, looking over her shoulder, relieved to find that they were still, astonishingly, alone.
    ‘It’s a bit late to worry about the proprieties,’ Justin said, his own breathing satisfyingly ragged.
    ‘Dexter. The press. I would not want…’
    ‘A picture that compromised your little fairy story.’
    He was wiping his mouth, which was streaked with her lip rouge. Vera grabbed the handkerchief from him, and finished the task with unnecessary vigour. ‘It’s not like that.’
    He grabbed his handkerchief back and rammed it into his jacket pocket. ‘How is it then?’
    She was suddenly quite cold. ‘Oh, obviously it’s exactly