Breaking Leila (13 page)

“The club.” He
gestured about with a brownie. “They have a lot of youth teams…as
you can see.”

I nodded. “So.
This wedding. I was going to book the train for–”

“I’ll
drive.”

I frowned. “Are
you sure? Because I don’t mind sorting the train or the hotel–”

“We don’t need
a hotel. We can stay at my place.”

“You have a
place down there?

“My dad’s
cottage.”

“Oh…your farm.”
I smiled. “Seriously, I don’t mind paying for a hotel. It’d
be–”

“Ridiculously
awkward, considering that we aren’t together.”

I chewed my
bottom lip, deflated. “Are you done finishing my sentences?”

He balled a
napkin in his fist. “Sorry. I just…I was going home this weekend
anyway, and I’d like to show you where I’m from.”

I could have
quite happily punched him. One moment he said he liked me, and the
next, behaved like we were begrudgingly handcuffed together. Which
one did he really think it was?

“Thank you.” I
set the plate down beside us on the floor. I wasn’t in the mood for
any more sugar. Besides, they had no flapjack. Travesty.

“Do I need to
bring a suit?” he asked. “As well as the sequined codpiece,
obviously.”

“Yes and yes.”
I tried to laugh, but it wasn’t quite happening. “Remember a
suitably homosexual tie.”

“And what would
one of those look like?”

“Floral,
usually.”

He frowned.

“Don’t tell me
you don’t own one,” I teased.

“Oh, I do. I’m
just wondering what else in my wardrobe is classed as gay.”

His blunt words burrowed in at the nape of my neck,
and...ugh. Thank God for a curtain of straight, shiny hair to hide
behind. I didn’t know why I took what he said so personally, why I
cared about the way he had said
 
we aren’t
together
.

Greg and Eton
appeared at our sides.

“Time for your
forfeit, Matthew,” said Greg with glee.

“Forfeit?” I
asked.

Matt clicked
his tongue against his teeth. “I may have lost a wager or two.”

“And?”

“The Brownies
are going to pay to pelt him with water balloons,” Eton chuckled.
“Everyone is, actually.”

“You kept that
one quiet.”

“I also appear
to have forgotten my change of clothes,” he groaned.

Greg nudged me.
“I think I’d forget too, coming out with you,” he said coyly.

I toyed with
the undone buttons on my cardigan, trying to think of an
appropriately un-slutty response. Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“Leave her
alone, you tosser.” Eton tugged him away. “She’s going to be
mortified enough walking home with swamp-tastic.”

“Seriously,”
Greg went on as he was dragged away, “if you and Matthew ever have
a tiff, I am your willing shoulder!”

“Ignore him.”
Matt got to his feet. “Are you coming to bask in my
humiliation?”

“I haven’t had
a better offer all evening.”

He pulled me up by the hand, making sure I landed a safe
distance away. We binned the leftover cake and headed over to the
aptly-dubbed
 
Soak a Solicitor
 
corner.

I lingered at
the edge of the burgeoning crowd as his friends sat him in the
middle of a large paddling pool and decked the wall behind in
rubber sheeting. A stack of flaccid, brightly coloured water
balloons sat in crates at the side. Already, Johnny ushered
children with cheeky grins into a jagged queue.

“Roll up, roll
up!” he yelled, stretching out his arms. “Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, Mr Matthew Gordon awaits your best shot. He’s
currently working in tax law,” he added, summoning wry laughter
from the adults.

Matt held up his hands in surrender and the first balloon
burst on his shoulder with a wet
 
smack
. His friends made the loud, manly croons of sympathy that
one normally hears at a sports match.

I edged back to
let more spectators through.

“Leila?”

A familiar
voice.

I spun on my
lack-of-heel and half of me plunged into heat.

“
Charlie
.”
My mouth went dry. I gestured idly to his armful of children’s
coats. “What are you doing here?”

“My wife’s boys
play here,” he said, trying very hard not to smile at me. “I could
ask the same of you.”

I pointed to an
already soaked Matt. “I work with him.”

“Oh, I see.” He tugged me to the edge of the hall by the
sleeve. “Are you
 
with
 
him?”

“No.” Why did
it feel dishonest, saying that? It was the truth. I didn’t know
where to look, Charlie’s crinkle-cornered eyes, those familiarly
broad shoulders, square hands. I knew every inch of this man and
felt like the world could see it.

I had loved
every inch of him too, but he had never known.

“You look
lovely.” His breath rushed over my ear.

“So do you…I
mean…well. You know.”

“I know,
Leila.” His voice was so delightfully deep, so close…it awoke a
thousand memories.

Spring. Pale
green light poured through the window at the back of his Range
Rover. My dress bunched around my waist and Charlie lay naked,
sweat welding him to the upholstery. I writhed slowly in his lap,
luxuriating in the stretch of him, gasping loaded words into his
hair.

“You’ll be
finishing your training soon,” Charlie said. “Still with Bach and
Dagier?”

“Yes.” I
swallowed. “I like it there. They challenge me.”

“So they
should. They’d be idiots not to take you on.”

“They are.” I
nodded. Wanted him to be proud of me. “Taking me on, that is.”

“Congratulations.” He leaned in again. “Good girl.”

I laid on the
hotel bed, school skirt hitched up to show him how I wore nothing
underneath. Charlie trailed his tongue up the inside of my thigh
and spread my inner lips with his fingers so he could lick me. He
brought me to orgasm like his hands and mouth had been crafted for
it, then ordered me onto my hands and knees. With his cock slick
from the glue of me, he entered my ass for the first time. I
gripped the pillows, squealing, begging him to go slow. It hurt so
intensely but I loved it; I’d never been pulled so tight on him. A
few minutes later and I urged him on–faster, rougher…

“Thank you,” I
whispered. “What are you doing now? I…I’ve often wondered.”

“Exactly the
same as I did before. I’m just a well behaved husband in a bigger,
shittier city.” He chuckled.

A loud cheer
erupted as someone caught Matt right in the face. I bit my knuckles
in sympathy for him. He was already soaked.

“Well behaved,
hmm?” I made wide eyes at Charlie.

“I had long
enough to play, angel.”

I lay naked in
his lap, my back arched and ass pushed upward. The best part of
Charlie’s fist was stuffed into my pussy. There was a whoosh of
cold air as he brought his other hand down in a sharp spank. The
heat of the slap blossomed in my red cheek and spread to my
stretched lips, my puckered clit and quivering thighs.

“
Have you
had enough, little one?” he asked.

His fingers
curved inside me.

I cried
out.

“
Not yet.
More, please…”

Someone tugged
my hand, and I snapped back into the room. I shrieked when I
realized that it was Greg, dragging me toward the paddling
pool.

“What are you
doing?”

“You’re a
solicitor too, apparently!” he announced. “Look what we have here,
heh!”

I glanced
helplessly at Charlie, who shook his head in amusement. The crowd
swallowed me up and spat me out at the front, and Matt grinned pure
filth as Johnny and Greg manhandled me into the soggy pool.

“You don’t
understand,” I cried, “these aren’t even my clothes–”

The first
balloon burst against my thigh, soaking half my skirt. I screamed
like a girl–which I was, fortunately. I made a dash for the side
and then Matt tackled me in true rugby style, his sodden clothes
sticking to me.

“Oh no, you
don’t!” He laughed, pinning me down.

Amid the
cheers, a blubbery curtain of balloons fell upon us. Greg and Eton
were hurling them along with the kids. Arses.

“Cool them
off!” Johnny ordered, and the arsenal continued.

I was sorely
tempted to abuse my position beneath Matt and give him that punch,
but instead I found myself laughing and shivering, my face pressed
into his shoulder. It could have been worse–at least my cardigan
wasn’t white.

Still, the way
the wet knit clung to me left little to the imagination, and
judging by the bulge in his jeans, Matt had noticed. My stiff, cold
nipples poked through the thin wool–hardly good, clean family fun,
eh? I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Ladies and
gentlemen,” Johnny yelled, “let’s thank Matthew and Leila for being
such good sports!”

Another cheer
shook the rafters and a final balloon smacked Matt on the back of
the head. I grinned like my face had split when I saw, over his
shoulder, that Charlie had thrown it. Two small boys bounced and
laughed at his sides. It warmed me, seeing him so...content.

“Are you
bastards going to just stand there, or get us some towels?” Matt
shouted.

“Matthew, there
are children!” Greg said in mock disapproval, his arms full of
towels and clothing. “Look, I found you some old kit. It’s sized
for kids. It’ll be especially amusing.”

Matt glared at
him as he helped me out of the pool.

We dripped and
squelched down a corridor, and into a small changing room. Greg
threw the bundle at us, winked and closed the door. It made a
rather unsavoury locking sound.

“He thinks he’s
being funny,” Matt groaned. He gestured to my sodden form. “I won’t
look, I promise.”

I glanced down
at my still-obvious nipples and flushed slightly. “Nothing you
haven’t seen already.”

He peeled off
his shirt and wrung it out over the sink. “At least I had the
foresight to take my shoes off.” He smirked.

“I didn’t know
I was about to be thrown head-first into the ring! You didn’t plan
that, did you?”

“I dunno. Is
wanking over the prospect the same as planning?”

“Matt!” I
whipped at his leg with a towel and he jumped away. “You’re a huge
head fuck, do you know that?”

“Oh?” He rubbed
his wet mop of hair with a towel. “Should I take that as a
compliment?”

I tipped the
water out of my shoes. “I don’t understand why you even asked me
here.”

He stepped out
of his jeans. His boxer shorts were relatively dry, damn it. “I
told you why. I wanted to show you that I can be just as good.
Better.”

“And what is
the point of that, exactly, if we’re going to pretend we’re only
friends?”

He looked me
squarely in the eye. “Isn’t that what you did to me, Leila? Showed
me everything I could have and then refused me?”

“
That’s
 
what this is about?” Charlotte
coiled, ready to throw a right hook. “Do you think I did any of
this deliberately? It was you who hired me, remember?”

“You could have
walked straight back out the door–”

“What, reject my boss
 
and
 
leave him in the knowledge
that I was prostituting on the side? The pair of you knew just the
position I’d be in as soon as I went in there. Don’t be such a
fucking hypocrite.” I sat on the bench. “We’re going in circles
here. Maybe we should just give up.”

He sank down
next to me, staring at his hands. “I’m trying.”

“Stop trying to
be such a model citizen and accept that you hired a whore,” I
muttered.

“But that’s not
what you are. Not anymore.” His voice was strained.

I stood up and
started to peel off my clothes. One by one, I dropped the soaked
garments on to the tiles: the cardigan, skirt, bra and knickers. I
was naked before him, flesh goose-pimpled in the chill. “Look at
me.”

His gaze rolled
slowly upward and his eyes misted over. “What are you doing,
babe?”

“I still look
the same as I did when you paid for me. Don’t I? I can’t hide
anything like this.”

He took my hand
then and kissed my damp fingers, closing his eyes and pushing his
cheek into my palm. “You taste the same, too.”

“I’ll always be the girl you fucked with your boss. You can
take me or leave me, bearing in mind that I am a
 
lot
 
more than that.”

“But you’re
his,” he said, still stroking my hand. “You can’t be with me until
he’s done with you.”

“I’m not anyone’s.”
 
Not yet.
 
I dropped on to my knees to
look at him. “But it’s just sex. Just…gratification and release. It
doesn’t take away from what I am. I won’t be leftovers.”

“How much
longer?”

“Two jobs.
Maybe a few weeks?”

“I don’t know
how much longer I can wait.”

I smiled
ruefully. “But you will? Wait, that is?”

“Yeah.” He
brought my hand down and squeezed it in both of his. “Wherever that
leaves us.”

“In a better
place than before, no doubt.” I got to my feet and started to dry
off.

“But Leila…all
this disappearing into his office. Him calling you. Whatever else
there is, I can’t deal with that.”

I ruffled his
wet hair. “Since I have a reason to stop, maybe I will.”

“You better.”
He took the towel from my hands and stood up to pat me dry. I
scooped my hair up off my neck as he rubbed down my shoulders,
breasts and thighs, taking his time. “I’m protecting my
investment,” he said playfully.