Page 24 of Duplicity

I snort at that, but it turns into a groan, because he’s sliding his fingers out and then back in in a fashion that’s as entitled as it is leisurely, his thumb swirling over my clit with not nearly enough pressure.

‘Just found my new favourite fidget toy,’ he tells me. ‘Zoom meetings will never be the same again.’ With that proclamation, he tilts his head to one side, licks his lips so salaciously it’s positively illegal, and leans in to taste me, pulling his fingers outenough to hold me open for him. I mouth a silentholy fuckand screw my eyes shut, because the feeling of him using his mouth on me is sinful and shameful and depraved and so perfectly, disgustingly good that I will actually die if I have to watch it.

I’ve never done this—never had this done to me. I didn’t let Pete, my first boyfriend, go there, and Joe never offered. Honestly, I didn’t have a problem with that. If it was frustrating enough failing to come when he played with me, it would have been mortifying beyond belief to let him go to work with his mouth and not produce an orgasm.

But from the low grunts Brendan makes in the back of his throat as his tongue circles in on my clit with the precision of The Jackal wielding a sniper rifle, he doesn’t seem to be finding it hard work.

Except—oof—closing my eyes and giving in to the fire igniting between my legs while balancing on one four-inch heel isnotadvisable because I promptly wobble and almost fall over.

‘Fuck,’ he says, emerging from eating me to grab me around the waist. ‘Change of plan.’ He unhooks my leg and, rising, throws me over his shoulder. I squeal in surprise as he gets to his feet and carries me, fireman’s-lift style, across the room before laying me on my back on the sofa quickly enough that dizziness reels through me.

When my head has righted itself, I find him standing beside me—althoughtowering over mewould be more accurate—and looking awfully pleased with himself as he unbuttons his shirt. I’m sprawled on the cool pleather of the sofa, self-consciousness and apprehension warring with arousal and curiosity, and I can say with confidence that the sight of Brendan Sullivan undressing himself for me has the see-saw swinging in favour of the latter far more rapidly than is decent.

He undresses like I suspect he does a lot of things—hurriedly. He’s not putting on a show here, but his smug grin tells me he’s not finding my facial expression as ambivalent as I’d hoped.

It’s been a long, long time since I saw a man naked, and I’ve never seen a man likethisnaked. Of my two previous partners, Pete was a still-skinny eighteen-year-old, and Joe had the untoned, if lean, build of an academic.

Brendan doesnotlook like an academic.

He looks, as he makes quick work of the buttons down the front of his shirt and battles impatiently with his cufflinks, like a man with far too much energy to burn in the gym. With his crisp white shirt hanging open, the playboy tan is in evidence. He rips the shirt off his shoulders and tosses it impatiently to the floor, giving me my first proper view of a masterpiece of male physicality.

His PT should feel veryproud of this masterpiece.

There’s a smattering of soft-looking dark hair on his chest that continues down over his flat stomach. His forearms are exactly the kind I tend to ogle on Instagram: not scarily corded but taut and tanned and hairy. His shoulders, as I already knew, are fucking huge, his pecs defined. He’s perfectly in proportion, built without being too beefy, and I suspect I’m staring like he’s an exotic creature in a zoo.

‘Why on earth does a guy like you have to pay for sex?’ I wonder aloud, raising myself up onto my elbows for a better look. His ensuing laugh is tinged with self-consciousness.

‘Convenience. Dependability.’ He wrestles his belt from its buckle and yanks his trousers open.Holy fuck. ‘Kink, I suppose. It’s hot to think of you being my little office fuck toy, baby. But mainly convenience. I don’t want to have to go out on the pull or take women out for dinner or have to deal with them falling in love with me and fucking stalking me.’

He kicks his shoes off, pushing his trousers down and stepping out of them. As he tugs off his socks, he looks up at me and finds me shamelessly perving over the sight of tanned, muscular thighs and what looks like a four-seater car parked in his stretchy black boxer briefs. The waistband says Chanel.

Of course it does.

‘You’re not going to fall in love with me and stalk me, are you?’

I manage, by the skin of my teeth, to avoid an eye roll. The last thing I need in my life as a single mother to a child with a chronic health condition is to fall for a vapid, charming playboy like this guy. Seriously. ‘I am not. You’re perfectly safe.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ He shoves his boxer briefs down and Jesus fucking Christ, I have bitten off more than I can chew, because that’s not a dick.

It’s a monster.

Even Athena would struggle to accommodate that thing. It’s insane. Physiologically indecent. Red and angry and leaking precum. He palms it lasciviously and inhales sharply through his teeth.

‘How’s my sales pitch working?’ he asks me with a grin that tells me he caught me ogling. His dick may be intimidating as hell, but he’s so ridiculous that I’m relaxing despite myself.

‘It’s… effective,’ I tell him. ‘Well-practised, clearly.’

His smile turns self-deprecating. ‘It’s nowhere near over yet. Now, where were we?’

He crawls onto the sofa, which is wide enough that the designers must have intended it to accommodate lots of shagging, and I lower myself fully onto my back so he can range over me. He’s a big, dark, hairy bear, and despite his grin, a thrill ofsomethingcourses through me.

This guy could eat me for dinner. And he probably will.

I don’t answer what seems like a rhetorical question, but I do open my legs wider as he slides down my body, kissing my nipples and my stomach as he goes.

He was right earlier. It’s far easier to think of this as a random hookup, a “slutty first date”, than a transactional precursor to an even more transactional working relationship. Right now, I need to remember that I’m not a mother driven by terrified determination but a woman in her twenties, sprawled out naked in a fancy nightclub and in the—very competent—hands of one of London’s most gorgeous and eligible bachelors.

Lean into that,I urge myself.Look at him! He’s heaven! And he wants to eat you! Just let him!

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