Breaking Joseph (22 page)

* * * *

I hadn’t been
in the office long next morning when an email landed in my in-box.
Two photographs were attached. One was of a huge bunch of
wildflowers wrapped in netting and paper. A bottle of Champagne
nestled beneath the green overspill. The second was of the card,
which read: Clemmie, thank you for letting me keep her. J.

Below the
pictures, Clemmie had written:

J, mmm? I like
him already. Slut x

Chapter 11

At the train
station, Dad greeted me with a warm hug.

It was a
gorgeous Saturday, better weather than we’d seen in weeks. Sun cut
through the smog of the station and painted everything in liquid
gold, including me. The debt was settled, I was no longer selling
myself to pay for it and my parents had no worries left in the
world. Charlotte’s step had more than a spring–it had the buoyant
bob of a victory march.

“Finally got
your contract, then.” Dad smiled proudly.

“Yep. Still
need to finish going through it but I’ll start in a few weeks, all
going well.” It was hot in the car and I fiddled with the
air-conditioning, waiting for him to scold me. It didn’t come.

“What will you
be doing?”

“I’m staying on
the corporate team. Dealing with acquisitions, tax issues, that
kind of thing. I know it sounds boring but it’s not–”

“You don’t have
to justify it to me, Leila. I’m just glad you’re happy.”

“You think it’s
boring, Dad.” I laughed.

“I’m sure it’s
riveting. It’s not wine making and it’s not an indigenous fern, but
there you go…”

I elbowed him
and he laughed heartily.

At home, Mum
had actually cooked. Of course, she’d ruined the chicken–nothing
had looked quite so dead before–so we took sandwiches out to the
garden instead.

I arranged a
blanket under my favourite tree and picked handfuls of lilacs to
sit in a pint glass. Dad cracked open a bottle of his elderflower
wine, Mum passed around plates of bread and cheese and we enjoyed
the sunshine together, just the three of us.

“I’m so pleased
New York went well for you,” Mum said. “We were worried after the
trouble with that boy.”

I shrugged,
swallowing a mouthful of Brie. “It’s okay, seriously. We’re talking
again. We’re friends…sort of.”

Mum eyed me
suspiciously. “Sort of?”

“Not like
that.”

“I’m sure she
knows what she’s doing, Bridge,” Dad said. “Anyway, we’re
celebrating. Here’s to Leila. After all her hard work, things are
coming together.”

“Here here,”
Mum called.

We clinked
glasses and drank deeply. I watched the pair of them as they snuck
secret, delighted little smiles. For so long, I’d tortured myself
about whether they knew how I’d earned the money, but it didn’t
matter anymore. Any of it.

Not that I
thought, in a million years, that they knew the truth. It was bad
enough that they were aware of Charlie.

We sat and
talked until late in the afternoon, until their holiday cottages
beckoned and there was work to be done. I helped Mum with all the
laundry and after an hour of folding crisp, white bed sheets, my
thoughts inevitably turned to Joseph and the linen we’d spoiled two
nights before. I wondered what my parents would make of him; I
wondered whether I’d get as far as introducing him at all.

Perhaps I
might.

In the evening,
I slipped back out to the garden to sit beneath the tree. I pulled
the glass of wilting lilacs into my lap, closed my eyes and let the
scent invade everything, and fell back on my hands just for the
stinging stretch along my back. As it conquered, I sighed and
tipped back my head. Sitting like this, I could be five, ten,
fifteen years old. This was the tree where no snakes lurked to
tempt me, no apple crashed from swollen branches to be crushed to
sticky pulp, and Adam lay still in his grave. The only two entities
here were me and my memories. They felt like the most important
things in the world.

I stayed there
until the twilight seeped in, its fingers dark and inky. The longer
I lay against the trunk, as I breathed in the sweet, summer scent
of the lilacs, I realized I didn’t need to be grown anew. Joseph
had asked for a word and I gave him what I thought was the key to
my every undoing, but these flowers had saved me. They reeled me in
and took me home. Like them, I bloomed. Blossomed.

To rescue this
place, I’d risked my career and my personal safety. I succumbed to
what I despised most about myself and found that it was not the
punishment I craved.

And it did not
matter. I was here, and I was happy.

Maybe, maybe,
that could be enough.

* * * *

“It’s going to
be strange,” I told Joseph, “actually working in your office.”

“You already
work in my office.” He cast his towel away and swept the Sunday
papers off the bed with one arm.

“You know what
I mean.”

Blond hair
tickled my belly as he bobbed down between my thighs. He’d been in
the shower for ten minutes, and now he acknowledged that it was way
too long.

“I’ll have an
actual desk,” I went on, “and a caseload, and–” I broke off in a
yelp as his tongue parted my lower lips to seek the glistening
flesh inside.

“Go on,” he
mumbled.

“I…um…I mean,
I’ll get to work with you instead of just shadowing.” My hips rose,
my back arched. “And I can lump all the boring warranties onto your
next batch of innocent children…
ow
.”

He kissed my
inner lips, suckling and nipping as if he toyed with a kitten. Two
strong thumbs held me open so that I contracted with longing, so I
felt how empty I was. His tongue traced the entrance but never once
slipped inside, no matter how hard my hips sought to manipulate
him, and all the while he darted back to my clit, tracing it from
base to tip in the way he knew made me tremble and moan. I felt
myself gush in little surges and my muscles thrust down toward
those thumbs.
Please, please, inside me. Please
.

“You were
saying?” He breathed warm air all over me and then his thumbs slid
in very slowly.

I panted at
him. Couldn’t, wouldn’t talk.

Now he parted
me–all of me, this time–as he licked, and the sensation as my pussy
struggled to pull back in was delicious. My whole pelvis throbbed
with it. He had mapped me so expertly, this man, and now he went
exploring in the territory claimed as his.

He closed in
and I was full of his fingers, fucking them until he stretched me
out again. I loved the little rush of air inside as he spread me.
When I bounced on him, the fingers found my spot and I slid further
toward complete loss of control.

“Please.” I
tugged his hair in handfuls.

“Now, she
talks.” His voice sang into my flesh, made it quiver. He had that
lovely bemused tone, the one that crept out when he was in his
element and trying to pretend otherwise.

He let me come,
murmuring encouraging little words into my clit between licks. One
thumb sat atop it while the other pushed down inside to make me
gape. My thighs got wet as I worked for him, and he took his time
cleaning it up, his tongue dragging languorously. My hips rose and
fell as I flexed my sated muscles. Warm waves of pleasure still
permeated as I moved.

“What did I do
to deserve that?” I whimpered.

“It was the way
you were lying. Like an invitation.” He pinned me for a kiss and
took his time there, too. His patience knew no limits
sometimes.

Other
times…well.

I broke off as
his phone screeched on the bedside table.

“Ignore it.” He
swatted my hands away. His cock was thick between my thighs now,
and it probed where I was hot and slick. “Up on your hands and
knees.”

I had barely
composed myself before the phone began to ring a second time.
Joseph tutted and shoved it off the table. He drew light fingertips
along the wound on my back, now knitted together in scrappy lines
of pink, and spanked me firmly as he reached my buttocks. I arched
up into his hands with a little wiggle.

Then the phone
rang again.

“Oh, for fuck’s
sake,” he muttered.

“Switch it off,
then.”

He dove down to
fetch it, glanced at the screen and raised an eyebrow.
Sorry,
he mouthed, bringing the phone to his ear. “Lewis?
What can I do for you? No, no, it’s fine…” He sat cross-legged on
the floor and I fell forward onto the pillows. “Absolutely. No, not
until the end of the year, I suspect…really? I know. Fits in quite
nicely.”

I wrinkled my
nose and made my hand a camp, chattering little mouth.

Joseph poked
his tongue at me and gestured to the cock that still nudged above
his navel.

“That’d be
great. Let me know when you’re over.” He tugged at my ankle. “Yeah.
I’ll get in touch as soon as I’m ready.”

I landed on the
floor in a fit of childish sniggers and he guided me along by a
handful of hair. I sucked the underside of him in an upward stroke,
my mouth coming to rest at the head. His whole body jerked to
follow me and I heard him stifle a gasp.

“Thanks, Lewis.
A pleasure. Yeah, you too.” The phone fell clumsily to the carpet
and now both hands gripped my shoulders, egging me on. He filled my
throat with the ease of a key in an oiled lock, a moan escaping his
lips as he glimpsed the promise behind the door. It wouldn’t be
long.

I loved the
quiet that descended when I sucked a man. He slid in and out
noiselessly, the only sound his escaping breath. When he grew
close, when those first groans and curses split the air…it made me
wet, that moment. I longed for something to tighten around and my
hips rocked with the rest of me. I punctuated his gasps with
encouraging whimpers so he knew my effort was strenuous, that I
wanted this as much as him.

The sight of
Joseph stretched back on one arm, his other still guiding me–it was
enough to send me over the edge before him, almost. And the angry
pink cut along his hip-bone–the one seamed with butterfly stitches
his doctor friend had quietly applied–was a kiss to my eyelids. So
wrong, so brutal. So pretty. His flesh gone to L.

I tasted it
just before he broke. It was like he had too much to contain. When
the flood came, it hit the back of my mouth in prickles and only
his slowing gave me room to swallow.

I crawled up
his limp body and peered up from the crook of his arm. “What was
that phone call about?”

“Christ. Give
me a minute.” He laughed, ruffling my hair.

I blew stray
curls from my eyes and rubbed my thighs together, still aching
pleasantly from watching him come. “Is it a minute now?”

He gave a
great, mocking sigh. “No. And it’s none of your business,
either.”

“Highly unfair.
You know my worst secret. I should know one of yours.”

“The
implication that I have worse secrets notwithstanding, it was a
business call, Leila. I wasn’t ordering in heroin and child
porn.”

“So why have
you gone all cagey all of a sudden, hmm?” I poked him in the ribs
with a knowing grin.

He exhaled,
silent for a moment; he was considering, perhaps. Then he rolled
onto his side so he could catch my eye. “Look. If I tell you this,
it’s important you don’t share it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” I
did a little salute, though my belly twisted with it–he was going
to New York after all. Oh God.

“The other
day,” he began, “when you said I was bored. You were right.”

“Okay.” Lying
bastard. I knew it.

“Don’t look so
venomous.” He laughed, wriggling closer. “It’s nothing to worry
about. In New York…I made a couple of contacts–”

“You’re moving,
aren’t you?” I insisted. “You said you weren’t–”

“I’m not! I’ve
been thinking of leaving Bach and Dagier, Leila. Starting my own
practice.”

“Oh.” I flushed
from my own stupidity. “That’s…well that’s great.”

“It is. It’s
also expensive, and risky. But Daniel Lewis might just have a
contract for me.”

“Wow.” I
blinked up at him as it all sank in. “So…so when?”

“Not for a good
six months. I’ve had a look at a few offices and I have a lot of
paperwork to sort. If Lewis comes through, though, I’ll be handing
my notice in soon.” He stroked my cheek. “You’ll have a new boss
before the year is out, but I promise you I’m not going
anywhere.”

The kiss that
followed was warm and balmy, and when my own phone buzzed, I rolled
over to read the text.

“It’s Poppy.” I
scowled. “She wants to meet for dinner later.”

“I didn’t think
you socialized with her much.”

“I don’t. She
keeps asking, though.”

“Maybe she
wants to talk to you about something? I’d be avoiding her too,
but…might as well get it out of the way.”

“I don’t know.”
I sighed. “I was thinking of just staying in bed with you,
anyway.”

“Can’t.” He
smirked. “I’ve got plans.”

“Oh? When were
you planning on kicking me out?” I feigned a pout and he kissed me
again, teasing any malice away with the tip of his tongue.

“I’m going out
with Abi. Sadie lets me borrow her for a night whenever she’s in
town.”

“Are you going
cruising for chicks?” I giggled.

“Probably.”

“Can I come
watch?”

He started to
laugh again. “Do you want to see what happens when I go out with
Abi?”

“Go on,
then.”

A little video
was summoned to the screen of his phone. I gazed over his shoulder
as Abi, clutching a cocktail and definitely worse for wear,
staggered in front of a sequined backdrop, grabbed a microphone and
began to croon along to the music. “I love myself,” she crooned, “I
want you to looove me…”

“Oh no. You
arse. Is that the awful sushi place on Grantham?”