Indecent...Proposal. Jane O'Reilly
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But he doesn’t. I catch a nipple between my fingers and play with it, then I lift my breast to my mouth and tease it with my tongue. Despite all the champagne I’ve drunk, I feel suddenly very steady and in control, and I like it. Scott doesn’t look in control, though.
‘The door,’ I say again, watching as his hands clench into fists at his sides and his chest heaves as he sucks in air. I take another step towards him. I wonder what he will do if I get close enough for him to touch me. I wonder if I want him to touch me, and I’m surprised to discover that I definitely don’t not want him to. The thought of his hands on my flesh is astonishingly delicious, especially given the situation we’re in.
But before I can get that close, Scott does what I’ve been telling him to do. He swiftly turns away from me, slamming the door closed behind him. The bang makes me jump, makes my heart thump hard in my chest.
‘A friend of yours?’ The voice comes from behind me. Lucas. I’d almost forgotten he was there. I turn back to look at him.
‘Not exactly,’ I say. ‘More of a pain in the arse.’
‘More fool him,’ says Lucas, with a slow, easy smile. It’s the sort of smile that should undo me, that should have me taking him back to my place, but I can’t get the image of Scott Smithson out of my head. He looked devastatingly attractive, with his evening shirt fitting snugly across his shoulders, that dark hair and those light blue eyes. He always looks devastatingly attractive, and it has always made him all the more annoying, because I’d rather he didn’t have any positive qualities at all.
‘Thanks for the fuck,’ I say to Lucas, as I tug my dress back in place and then head for the door, kicking my skirts out of the way as they tangle with my heels. ‘It was fun.’
‘Any time,’ he says, tucking his hands into his pockets with the resignation of a man who knows he’s just been knocked back, but isn’t too hurt by it.
Then I open the door and stumble out into the corridor. To my left are the double doors that lead back to the reception. Music is filtering through the gap, the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing. What a cliché. In the other direction, I spy the broad shoulders and long strides of Scott Smithson. I’m slow in my heels, but I’m determined. ‘Scott!’ I yell. ‘Hang on a minute.’
I want to know what the hell just happened in there. I want to know why Scott, Mr Perfect, was looking at me like that. He thinks I’m a tart and I think he’s a bore. I never suspected he might want me. I never suspected that I might want him, either, and that’s what has me chasing him down now.
‘Scott!’ I yell again, and this time his shoulders stiffen inside his white shirt, their width highlighted by the black line of his braces. He stops. Then he turns around, slowly. ‘What do you want, Amber?’
‘I…’ I fumble for something to say. What do I want? Not sex, surely. I’ve just had sex. And I wouldn’t want it from him, anyway. Would I? That thought is so disturbing that I switch to the defensive. ‘You were looking at my tits,’ I say, using that word because I know that he’ll hate it, the big prude.
He turns his head to the side, his jaw set hard, as if he’s working to hold back a response that he doesn’t want to give me. Then he turns back to me, fixing those eyes on me, so stunningly pale in contrast to his midnight-black hair. ‘Why did you do it?’ he asks.
‘Why did I do what?’
‘Why did you take a man you barely know into a room and have sex with him?’
Because I just watched a man I was in love with get married to someone else. Because I wanted to feel something other than hurt, just for a few minutes. I plant my hands on my hips. ‘It might come as a shock to you, Scott, but some women like sex. I happen to be one of those women. I know you think we should be all prissy and virginal, but fortunately you don’t get to tell me how to behave.’
His hands go to his throat and start tugging at his tie. He pulls it loose, letting the ends fall flat against his shirt, then he unfastens his collar. The button below it is unfastened too. I see a flash of skin, a dark dusting of hair. A strange fluttering sensation starts up in the pit of my stomach.
‘But why him?’ he asks.
‘Why not him?’
‘Because he’s a stranger,’ he says. ‘Because you know nothing about him. You had no idea what he was going to do to you in that room.’
‘Trust me,’ I interrupt him. ‘I had a pretty good idea.’
‘No, you didn’t.’ He’s almost shouting now. He looks really, really angry. I stumble to the wall, lean against it, my legs suddenly unsteady. I bend down and unfasten my shoes then pull them off. When I glance back up at Scott, I realise my mistake. He’s tall and I’m not, and those extra four inches were making all the difference. ‘If you wanted sex, Amber, you should have asked someone you know. Someone you could trust. Not some man you’d only just met.’
‘Who should I have asked, then?’ I yell right back at him. ‘You?’
Silence drops. Scott’s chest heaves. He stands there; staring at me, then shoves his hands back in his pockets. ‘Yes,’ he says, his voice low. ‘Maybe you should have asked me.’
I go home shortly after that. I tried to dance, but I couldn’t. I tried to drink more champagne but I couldn’t do that either, and the thick slabs of wedding cake that had been laid out on all the tables just made me feel sick. Paul and Victoria disappeared shortly after I got back to the reception, after I’d left Scott standing in the corridor. I hadn’t said anything else to him. I had simply turned around and walked away, and he had let me.
Now it’s Monday, and I’m back at work. I’ve spent the morning dealing with paperwork and answerphone messages, and now I have to show some bloke around various flats in town. One of the things I like about working at the Estate Agents is that I’m not tied to my desk, but right now I’d give anything to be locked in the office with a cup of tea, browsing shoes on the internet.
Especially given that the bloke has turned out to be Lucas. I fix on a smile and try to be professional, but that lasts about five minutes. I don’t seem to have the energy to maintain it, especially not when he’s flattering me with that slow smile. It’s almost a relief to have some distraction from my constant thoughts of Scott.
‘So,’ Lucas says. ‘Got anything good to show me?’
‘That depends what you’re looking for.’ I unlock the door to flat number one, a first-floor two-bed in a new build complex behind the library. I push it open, and we walk into the smell of new carpets and fresh paint.
‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘But I’ll know it when I see it.’
‘A man who likes to keep his options open. I approve.’
I show him the living room, the kitchen. Everything is neutral and bland, completely inoffensive. There isn’t much furniture either, as the owners are abroad and most of it is in storage. ‘Nice,’ he says.
‘If by nice you mean boring, then I agree with you.’
Then we find ourselves in the bedroom, staring at an expanse of mattress. There aren’t any sheets, and the curtains are thin voile that does nothing to block out the light.
‘You know,’ Lucas says, ‘if you did have anything good to show me, this might be the time.’
I glance across at him. His hair is untidy, and he’s wearing a V-neck sweater with a striped shirt underneath. There’s a definite sexiness to him, a scruffy, I-don’t-give-a-damn edge. He’s a couple of years younger than me, I reckon. Eager. Easy. Perfect for my first post-Paul and Victoria fling. He’s practically drooling already, and I haven’t even started flirting with him yet, not really. I lower myself onto