Killer Heels (20 page)

She shivered, thinking of Jacob’s sexual magnetism, the way
he had been able to turn her on so effortlessly with just a few
words, a bare touch of her body.
I can’t possibly give Xavier anything more than a fuck right
now. Because I can’t stop thinking about Jacob.
Xavier had thrown the condom in the bin, washed his hands
at the rust-stained sink, and, drying them on an ancient tea
towel, came back to her, cupping her face with both his hands,
looking down at her. He pushed a strand of hair gently off her
cheek, and it reminded her, again, of Jacob, touching her hair,
telling her to cut it. Another shudder ran through her.
‘Coco,’ he said again. ‘You’re so beautiful. I’ve been wanting
to tell you for ages how beautiful you are.’
He bent to kiss her, his lips soft now; it was a sweet, loving
kiss, a caress, not the full-on, passionate, driven kisses of the
club, which had been an instant promise of sex. This kiss was
tender, and it felt wrong. Coco couldn’t bear it. The wrong
man, the wrong kisses. Ridiculous as it was, if she kissed him
back like this, she’d be leading him on. He might be one of
those guys who made love to you for a night, acted as if they
were falling for you hard, as if this was the start of something
amazing, and then dropped you like a stone the next day
when they’d got what they wanted. But somehow, Coco
didn’t think so.
I should leave right now, she thought. Get out of here while
I still can.
But instead, she wriggled forward, reached behind her and
unzipped the back of her dress, letting the expensive sequinned
Max Mara fall to the grungy floor of Xavier’s kitchen as if it
were a cheap rag, undoing her bra and letting that fall too. She
kicked her thong, finally, off her heel; she was naked now apart
from her shoes.
‘Jesus,’ Xavier said devoutly, his eyes eating up the sight of
her. His hands closed over her breasts, small enough now to fit
into his palm completely, and the sensation of his skin on hers
made her shiver and gasp. He bent to lap her nipples with his
tongue, and she moaned as they stiffened instantly, burying her
hands in his thick, heavy hair, pulling him even closer.
‘I want you to fuck me again,’ she said, bending her head to
his. ‘I want to suck your cock and have you fuck me again.’
She felt his whole body jerk at the words, knew that he was
getting hard, even though he’d come a bare ten minutes before.
‘Sound like a plan?’ she whispered into his hair.
‘Hell, yeah,’ he sighed against her breasts.
‘Where’s the bedroom?’
Xavier raised his head, his expression comically distressed.
‘Close your eyes, okay?’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Don’t look
at anything. I wasn’t expecting company, especially not a beautiful naked woman.’
But she had to peek, of course. She couldn’t help it. Especially
after, dragging her in his haste, he whacked her bare hip against
the jamb of the kitchen door; the paint was clearly flaking – she
felt it scrape and peel off against her as she hit into it. Opening
her eyes a little, she saw a small, messy living room, Ikea bookshelves teetering under the weight of art books, a sofa that
looked as if it had been rescued from a skip, game consoles lying
on the rickety coffee table. Floorboards creaked underfoot as
they wove through the piles of photography books on the floor,
through a doorway with no door, and tumbled onto a bed which
almost filled the entire room beyond.
‘I need to do it up,’ Xavier said apologetically, ‘but it’s all my
own. A one-bed. I don’t share with anyone.’
There was pride in his voice now, and Coco knew what he
meant. Xavier had his own sitting room, his own bedroom;
that was a huge deal here. She and Emily had managed to
find a small, two-seater sofa, what Americans called a loveseat, to squash in their kitchen next to the breakfast bar,
filling the space where stools should have been, so they could
pretend they had a sitting room; but they did have separate
bedrooms, which for New York, was a luxury. Style interns
and junior editors who didn’t come from moneyed families
were sharing one-bed apartments, taking it in turns to have
the bedroom, one month on, one month off, as the other one
slept on the sofabed – or just the sofa.
It had turned out that Emily’s family had history, pedigree,
and a crumbling old house, but barely any cashflow; Emily
would have to marry money if she wanted it, not being bright
enough to make it herself. She had no private allowance, no
extra income to help afford a nicer apartment; she had apologised to Coco profusely, which had been a source of great
amusement to Coco, who, being a down-to-earth Luton girl
with no expectation of any help from her family, hadn’t
assumed that Emily would have anything of the sort. Coco and
Emily had lucked into their place, though it was technically an
illegal sublet. And they were in a trendy area of Brooklyn, just
a ten-minute cab ride to Manhattan; other girls she knew were
miles out in Bed-Stuy, Forest Hills, Bay Ridge, hour-long journeys on the subway to get into the city.
‘Is that a door?’ she asked, staring at the wall beside the bed,
behind which was the stair landing. Then she noticed another
one on the far wall, blocked off by the bed. ‘Wait, two doors!’
‘The building used to be an SRO – single room occupancy,’
Xavier said, stretching out beside her.‘You know, single rooms
for working men, with a shared hotplate and bathroom. There
are two apartments each floor now, but they didn’t take the
doors away.’
He grimaced. ‘Cheap conversion. But hey!’ He stroked her
hair. ‘Not to boast too much or anything, but it’s rent-stabilised, and I’m fixing it up slowly. Did you see the kitchen
cabinets? I put those in a couple months ago. Ah, shit! I have a
gorgeous naked woman in my bed and I’m talking about
kitchen cabinets?’
He whacked himself theatrically on the head with his hand.
‘What a dork!’
Coco giggled, straddling him and unbuttoning his shirt. ‘It
wasn’t a dork who just fucked me so hard I saw stars,’ she said,
her eyes widening as she saw his firm pecs and taut six-pack.
She dragged his shirt-tails out of the waistband of his trousers. Eagerly, he lifted his hips as she pulled down his boxers,
his cock, hard again, springing free, bouncing up towards her as
she leaned over it, taking him into her mouth, sucking him like
a lollipop, too excited to go slowly, to use any clever tricks or
techniques. She licked and tugged and stroked him, hard, feeling him respond, seeing that he didn’t want to take it slow any
more than she did; the harder she worked him, the more he
groaned and thrust his hips up at her, showing her how much
he loved it. His hands wove into her hair, and finally, reluctantly, slid to her shoulders, pushing her away.
‘I don’t want to come yet,’ he muttered, barely able to
speak. ‘I came too fast last time. I want this to be all about
you . . .’
It was dark in the tiny room, the bed right next to the
window that gave onto the airshaft at the centre of the building. The sounds of the Lower East Side flooded over them,
shouts, honking horns, screams of laughter, people smoking on
the sidewalks, yelling at each other, music from the many bars
that filled the area competing, jazz and rock and R&B beats
rising up into the night. The sounds Xavier and Coco made as
they fucked blended in, barely any words, just urgent moans,
gasps of pleasure, involuntary grunts and cries, and the frantic
creaking and groans of the bedsprings below them. Still tipsy,
still overwhelmed by the excitement of the day, her meeting
with Jacob, the unexpected, amazing connection with Xavier,
Coco let herself go completely.
They wound round each other, sweat slipping over their
limbs, only the light from the windows of others up late filtering in through the airshaft for illumination. By the time she
ended up sitting in Xavier’s lap, his feet propped on the floor
for traction, rocking her back and forward, her back arching so
she could feel every inch of him as he slid in and out of her, she
was completely beyond words, had come so many times that
she wasn’t even sure she could come again, but completely lost
in sensation. She arched even more, and her newly-strong,
Pilates-toned thighs sent her further than she’d meant, back
off the bed; Xavier shot forward to grab her, stop her from
flying into the wall beyond, into the locked old door with its
bolts and bars, and he tumbled off balance too. Half-in, halfout of her, they crashed onto the rug beside the bed. Coco
managed to twist, to get her hands under her to break her fall,
and though she landed awkwardly, the rug was thick and the
worst that happened was an ‘Oof!’ of expelled breath as they
landed in a tangle of limbs.
‘Are you okay?’ Xavier gasped, as she said simultaneously,
‘Don’t stop – don’t stop.’
He was so close he needed no extra reassurance; on hands
and knees, she thrust back against him as he pushed fully into
her, hard and fast, and she heard herself cry out every time he
plunged into her, faster and faster, losing all his own control
now after maintaining it for so long, coming in a long stream
of heat that flooded through her. He slammed one arm into
the wall for balance, to stop his entire weight collapsing on top
of her, lean muscle knotting with the effort, his hips throbbing
against her bottom as he came.
Coco’s knees hurt, her back ached from arching so much.
She was utterly spent. Xavier eventually hauled himself to his
feet, reaching down to help her up, back onto the bed.
‘I’m just going to clean up,’ he said, kissing her shoulder.
‘Then I’ll come back and we’ll cuddle.’
In the distance, Coco heard water running in the bathroom.
Far away, beyond the ebbing rush of hormones that were
flooding through every nerve-ending, drugging her into a state
of total relaxation, she knew she needed to use the loo, but she
couldn’t move. Beside, getting up and going to the bathroom
with Xavier in there, being naked, post-sex with him, was so
intimate, in a boyfriend/girlfriend way. She didn’t want to do
that yet. Maybe not ever.
I did really need a fuck. Or three, she thought, her mouth
curving into an exhausted, satisfied smile. And that was a really
good one.
But as she heard Xavier padding back from the bathroom,
as she managed, with the last little shred of energy she had left,
to roll over towards the window, giving him room to lie down,
she had to admit something to herself. It had been an amazing
night. Probably the best sex she’d ever had.
And every so often – well, maybe a little more than that –
when Xavier had been behind her, when she couldn’t see his
face, she had pictured, not his long, smooth limbs, his hairless
chest, but Jacob Dupleix’s stocky body, his hands on her, his
hairy, thick arms. His face, watching her as he moved her as he
chose. His voice, telling her what to do . . .
‘Wow!’ Xavier flopped into bed beside her. He had splashed
water over himself to cool down, and his skin, beaded with
wet drops, was deliciously fresh. He kissed her and their bodies
naturally spooned, Coco turning away from him, towards the
window. The night air was light on her bare skin, Xavier warm
behind her, his now-soft penis and balls cosily pressed against
her bottom.
‘That was wonderful,’ he said sleepily, pressing a kiss on her
shoulder.‘Just wonderful.’
‘Mm,’ Coco murmured back, already half-asleep.
Xavier is perfect boyfriend material, she thought. My age,
with a good job, his own place in the city . . . Then she remembered something she had thought before.
Xavier’s a boy. But
Jacob’s a man.
A shiver ran through her as she thought of Jacob. Xavier,
misunderstanding, thinking she was cold, threw an arm over
her waist, pulling her closer to him, warming her up.
I’ll have to sneak out before he wakes up. It’ll be too cosy, too
couple-y, if we get up, have breakfast, go into work together. And I
can’t be a couple with Xavier. I should let him down now, before
things go any further.
And so, despite the incredible sex she’d just had, despite the
fact that every muscle in her body was deliciously relaxed,
Coco fell asleep feeling horribly guilty.

ictoria was getting fat. Horribly, revoltingly fat. Slumping
into the limo seat, she was all too aware that her stomach
was beginning to fill out; if she didn’t suck it in tightly, it
protruded fractionally into what was without question a
tiny roll above her lap. That morning, staring at herself after
her shower, she had angled the three full-length mirrors of
her bathroom to see herself, mercilessly, from every angle,
something she had been avoiding for the last couple of
weeks. And yes, her stomach was no longer concave, which
had been a great source of pride to her; it had a perceptible
swell to it.

Her breasts were definitely fuller, too. She had barely ever
needed to wear a bra before the pregnancy, only for certain
clothes that required a particular silhouette, but now she was
beginning to feel uncomfortable if she didn’t have support for
them every day. Instinctively, she’d raised her hands to cup
them, not because she liked the feel of them larger – God
forbid! – but because they felt heavy, and she was terrified that
they would start to sag if she didn’t protect them against the
tug of gravity.

She was sure her bottom was beginning to spread, too. Still
holding her breasts, she’d swivelled, staring into two mirrors at
once to get a view of it. By anyone’s standards, it was tiny, and
relatively flat; fashionable as it might be nowadays to have a
round, projecting bottom, Victoria had always been grateful
that hers was as minimal as her breasts. It made wearing clothes
so much easier; nothing to interfere with the line or the cut.
But what if her arse was going to widen out? She’d stood there,
horrified at the mere idea.
Oh God, a flat, wide arse! The worst
of all worlds – the classic Sloane girl’s bum, flat as a pancake and
big as the fucking moon!

Well, if that happens I am definitely having lipo, she thought.
No question. I don’t care if I can’t sit down for weeks and have
to stand up at my bloody desk all day. I’ll get a damn lectern
and work off that. I am not tolerating a wide arse.