Red Grow the Roses (3 page)

‘Sorry about that.'

‘Why be sorry?' He took her arm and slipped his hand in hers. ‘Now I get to enjoy the undiluted pleasure of your company.'

Sophie's pulse jumped, and she felt her sex clench in anticipation.

He led her into the churchyard, under the black shadows of the trees, and took her not to the front porch but around the north side of the building. The gravestone slabs had long been cleared away but a few table-tombs remained, and there in near-darkness he backed her up against a cold gritstone box and kissed her, harder this time.

Harder, deeper, hungrier.

Sophie slid her arms around his neck and ground her thighs against his, feeling for the telltale bulge of his erection. And oh yes, there it was – his cock hardening in response to her heat, her softness, her willingness. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her to sit on the tomb-top, and she opened her legs so he could stand between them, pressing up against her. Her skirt rode up, stretched tight across the very tops of her thighs. He took her left breast and squeezed it to the rhythm of his kisses, making her groan into his mouth. The sound seemed to galvanise him and he trapped her nipple between forefinger and thumb, twisting it until she squeaked again.

She'd never fucked in a churchyard before, she thought. It was exciting, in an old-fashioned way. His cock had clear definition now under the fabric of his trousers, and he was pressing right up against the mound of her sex, and she wondered if he'd realised yet she wasn't wearing any knickers or whether his own clothing had fooled him. She wrapped her legs about his muscular ass. Her head started to swim; he seemed to have no intention of coming up for air.

Gasping, she broke from his lips. He laughed low in his throat.

‘God, girl: you're hot, aren't you?'

‘Uh-huh.' She was seething with heat. She nibbled at his lips, finding them by feeling his face, and heard the hiss of breath between his teeth. He abandoned her breasts to push both hands up her smooth thighs, questing all the way to the top, finding the rucked-up skirt and then her soft, shaven, plump-lipped sex, a fashionable landing strip of hair the only veil to its nakedness. His thumbs plunged into the wet, twin divers, and she writhed with pleasure.

‘Oh, let me guess what you want,' he whispered. It made her giggle.

‘I'll give you three guesses.'

‘Really? One,' he growled, massaging her clit with both thumbs. She arched her back, speechless. ‘Two,' he continued, parting the folds of her sex and opening her wide with those thumbs, then working the rest of his fingers into the hot oil she was leaking, getting them good and slick, opening her up. ‘Three,' he concluded, entering her with three fingers at once, his right wrist locked like a weapon, the muscles of his forearm tense as he pushed those fingers in deep, right past all those thick knuckles until he was holding her by her pussy, his thumb in possession of her clit – then out, then in again. His fingers were blunt and determined and brooked no refusal. Sophie jerked her hips and squealed and writhed, raking his skin with her nails. He pinned her with his other arm, pulling her hard against him. ‘Did I guess right?'

‘Mm,' she nodded frantically, her lips bruising themselves on his hard jaw. She wanted his cock even more, but his fingers certainly had the right idea.

‘Then guess what I want, love.'

‘You want to fuck me,' she whispered.

He chuckled – that dark low rumble again, deep in his throat. Lingeringly he withdrew his hand, enjoying her little whimper of loss. ‘Let's go see my friend,' he whispered, confounding her.

‘What? Now?'

‘We walked all this way.'

‘Oh … can't we … first …'

‘Don't be impatient. Everything comes to those who wait, love.' He tickled her clit teasingly, then slipped from her embrace, secure in the knowledge that she would follow. Sophie slid off the stone feeling like there was a hollow void inside her, and sure that Ben was getting off on her discomfort. She tugged her skirt back down over her thighs and brushed specks of lichen off her behind. She couldn't care less about Ben's friend or his artwork now, to be honest, but she wanted his cock so badly she would have followed him almost anywhere.

‘Ready?' He took her hand and led her off, surefooted even in the darkness. He led her to a small door in the north wall, one so low he had to stoop under the arch. It was unlocked, and a light burned in the room beyond.

Sophie knew almost nothing about church architecture; she was expecting them to emerge into the main body of the building among the pews. She'd expected gloom and age. She wasn't expecting a small room full of shelves and cupboards, or a set of unpainted plywood stairs that took them up into the roofspace. There was a strong smell of new plaster and paint.

‘I knew you were lying,' she said, trying to be sparky, as Ben led her up. Her thighs felt sticky.

‘What?' He frowned back at her.

‘About the vampire thing. You wouldn't be able to walk on consecrated ground.'

He turned away again. ‘This was deconsecrated in the nineteen-nineties.'

They came out into a big white space – almost the whole of the interior of the church roof – illuminated by a few floor lamps. Every surface was painted white. There were pale human figures dotted about the place, on dustsheet islands spattered in paint, but none of them moved. Only one was animate: a slim figure crouching over and dabbing at one of the sculptures with a brush.

‘Hello, Naylor.'

The young man stood. He moved with great fluidity and, though Sophie's spike heels made a terrible racket on the wooden floor, his bare ones made no sound at all. He was standing in front of them almost before Sophie, transfixed by his grace, had grasped that he was moving at all.

‘Ben. Hi.' He smiled at Sophie, not even bothering to hide the fact he was checking out her tits, her hips, her legs. ‘You're a pretty one.'

‘Sophie,' she said weakly.

He was breathtaking. Slight, not tall, with sharp cheekbones and slanted, narrow eyes that turned out to be a wild pale green when they caught the light. A full lower lip gave him an incongruous pout. He was startlingly pale. Black hair flopped over those eyes, partly veiling the finely angled brows but not the wicked glint beneath them. There was a grace about his narrow hips and wiry limbs that seemed almost dangerous, as if he were poised in readiness for something. Something swift and ruthless, she thought; something never regretted. He looked younger than Ben and considerably more slender, but there was nothing weak about him at all. He folded his arms, having looked her over.

‘I can smell pussy,' he said, gazing into her eyes, the corner of his mouth hooked in a smile.

‘Yeah … it's all over my hands, I'm afraid,' Ben answered, as she started and flushed.

‘You been taking her out for a trial lap, you dirty beggar?'

‘Just warming the engine.'

‘Huh. You want a beer, Sophie?'

The abrupt switches in conversation stunned her a little, and she barely managed to nod and squeak an affirmation. Ben had been right: she did like Naylor. He looked like bad news – but wasn't that always more fun in a man? She had a clear idea where this was going, she thought, and she didn't object – but a little Dutch courage wouldn't hurt. She'd never been with two guys at once. It excited her a lot more than the thought of her and Netta and Ben. It scared her quite a lot more too.

Naylor retreated to a cool-box that stood near one wall, near a pile of dustsheets. She watched as he groped inside for three bottles of beer, then prised the caps off against the angle of the lid with three casual flicks.

‘Sophie works at an art gallery,' said Ben.

‘Is that so?'

‘Just Yardley's,' she answered, her voice husky.

‘What do you think of my stuff, then?' he asked, indicating the sculptures with a twist of his head.

Politely she turned to look them over. A standing figure nearby appeared to be a resin cast of a naked woman, her skin the stippled grey of poplar bark, her nipples black knots. But her eyes were only holes and from behind she was hollow, the bark curled and flaked at the edge, her insides cobwebbed. Sophie swallowed. How was she supposed to judge real art? Yardley's didn't cater to the high-concept end of the market, just to people who liked a nice picture and wanted something that would match the wallpaper. Sophie worked selling the products of conveyor-belt artists. There was the one who painted nice autumnal landscapes, and the one who did portraits of cheeky 1930s urchins, and the one who did the red canal perspectives … Nothing like this. What did she know?

She moved to the next sculpture, a heap of reclining naked women. Their skin had the texture of sand and their sleeping faces were peaceful and beautiful – but once again they were hollow, this time from the ribs to the hips, their abdomens smooth white concavities.

‘It's good,' she said. ‘Powerful.'

‘You think?' Naylor was at her shoulder, though she hadn't heard him approach. She turned a little abruptly, and he slipped a cold bottle into her hand. ‘Cheers.'

‘Cheers.' He was standing unsettlingly close, almost touching her.

Naylor tilted his own bottle to his mouth. Sophie glanced at the label, but it was some Continental brew she'd never heard of. She took a sip of her beer, all too aware that both men were taking a very personal interest in watching the neck of the bottle ease between her lips. She felt self-conscious: she'd never been the focus of such undisguised greed. She normally was the sort of girl that men could take or leave; rarely without some sort of masculine action in her life, yet never the centre of any drama. Procrastinating, she glanced away at the room again.

‘Is that one of yours?' she asked, peering at something a bit different: two large wooden boards mounted on a wall that part-divided the roof-space. They were covered in black and gilt lettering that was hard to decipher.

Naylor snorted. ‘Nah. Fixtures and fittings, doll. This was a church, remember.'

‘Oh. Yeah.' She could make out some of the words now: Thou shalt not …

‘The Ten Commandments. Not that anyone takes any bleeding notice of any of them these days. “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” eh? “Thou shalt not covet.” The country would fall apart.'

‘There's still one left,' said Ben, stepping in closer and running his fingers down Sophie's spine. ‘“Thou shalt not kill.”'

Naylor sniggered. ‘Yeah, well. Our Good Shepherd is still keen on that one, that's true.' He jerked his head. ‘You like the beer, dollface? Is it to your taste?'

Sophie opened her mouth but didn't manage to reply, because on the word ‘taste' he dipped his hand beneath the hem of her skirt and touched the neck of his bottle to the juncture of her thighs. The glass was chilly and she staggered a little; instantly Ben was behind her, steadying her – and making sure she couldn't retreat. Sophie's mouth went to an O shape as round as the mouth of the bottle that was pressing the mound of her sex – and then nudging to the split there, and the swollen petals that were so puffy with arousal. For a moment she resisted his entry and then Ben slipped his arms round her from behind, cupping her breasts and tipping her weight back against him, and at the same time Naylor changed angle and thrust the bottle between her thighs and then up, into the furrow of her pussy, sliding the bottle-mouth back and forth, cold and frictionless as only lubricated glass can be.

Sophie gasped. She felt the little round mouth embrace her clit momentarily, like a kiss. Then it dived back again, into her molten flesh and then – changing angle again – up into the wet clench of her hole. He ran the bottle up into her all the way to its shoulders, watching her face all the time. Then he pulled it out. Milky streaks patterned the brown glass. He licked the bottle, swirling his tongue right around the rim, and sucked the glass.

‘Only two things taste better than beer,' said he softly. ‘And one of them's hot wet cunt.' He took her own bottle out of her limp hand. Sophie sagged back into Ben's embrace as he pinched and played with both her nipples through the thin layers of her clothes. She could feel his hardening cock, crushed against the soft jut of her bum and struggling to rise.

‘Nice tits, love,' he breathed in her ear.

‘You're up for this, aren't you?' Naylor asked, dipping the neck of his bottle into the cleft of her cleavage and rubbing the glass suggestively from swell to swell of her breasts. His lips were parted and shiny. ‘You're game for it, I can tell.'

‘Mm,' she whimpered, nodding.

‘Told you you'd get everything you wanted, love,' Ben said hoarsely. ‘Everything and more.' He nuzzled at her ear and took the lobe between his lips, nipping softly.

‘Ben …'

Her head seemed to swim. Naylor had set the beers aside and was stripping off his clothes now. He shed his T-shirt and kicked his trousers off, revealing a slim smooth body, the only visible hair a black nest at his crotch that climbed in a narrow line to his navel. His beautiful smooth cock was already stiffly erect and nodding in the free air: it had a slight curve back toward his stomach and looked almost out of proportion to his delicate frame, so engorged was it. He stroked it like it was a hunting-dog waiting to be unleashed, as he stalked back to her and looked down into her face.

‘This is what you were hoping for, wasn't it, doll?' he asked, taking her hand and rubbing it over his cock. It seemed to pulse against her, its sticky mouth kissing her palm. ‘A bit of fun?'

Sophie nodded.

‘It's going to get a bit messy.' His gaze lifted to Ben over her shoulder. ‘Clothes off, I guess.'

They stripped her of everything: the purse hanging from her shoulder, the cherry-coloured dress from the boutique she couldn't really afford on her wage, the lacy bra she'd bought only last week. All but her high-heeled shoes. Everything was tossed aside in a heap. Her boobs bounced free as Ben whipped the bra off and her nipples stiffened in the cool air of the church. She didn't seem to be required to do anything but accept their hands and the liberties they took groping her as they pulled at her clothes, playing with her tits and ass and pussy, pinching slyly between caresses until she squirmed. Ben pushed her into Naylor's grasp as he wrenched off his own clothes, clearly impatient now. She caught a flash of his body, golden fuzz marching up his stomach and down his legs, before another shove landed her back in his embrace. He caught her wrists and pulled them to the small of her back, guiding her hands to the vertical staff of his cock.