Just for the Rush

Shit. What was coming?

‘We could spend it together, if you want?’

‘If I want…’

‘I’m going away. I’ve got a cottage in the Lake District. It’s my haven. It’s entirely isolated. You could come, if you want?’

‘If I want?’ I repeated. Where was this going?

His eyebrows lifted. ‘Ivy, come on, you get it. You could spend Christmas here alone. Or we could go away together and spend Christmas having naughty sex and leave the world to get on with their happy families’ celebration.’

I should feel insulted, I should feel shocked. What I felt was nothing like that – I felt – tempted…

He stood up. ‘You fancy me. We’ve had chemistry going on since you started here. Admit it.’ He was standing close to me, arms at his sides, looking at me like he wanted to reach out and touch. I wanted to reach out and grab, I always had.

‘Give into it,’ he said, as though it was the most normal thing for him to come on to me and ask me to go away with him.

‘Oh. You‘re so tempting,’ I said sarcastically and turned my back on him, deliberately, to cross the room and fetch my coat. My heartbeat raced manically. God, my body would love to do that. Sex! Naughty sex! The wicked side of me, the girl on Santa’s bad list, wanted to ask how naughty? But I didn’t really need to ask; I’d seen the glint in his eyes that had implied very naughty. But he was my boss.

‘I can be more tempting.’ I heard him getting closer as he followed me to the coat racks.

His voice ran fingers across my innards like they were guitar strings.

After I’d taken my coat off the hook I turned and faced him. A part of me was terrified and it yelled, don’t be more tempting! While the wicked me, the bitch that had refused to marry Rick because he was boring, wanted to leap at Jack’s offer.

I smiled.

One eyebrow and one side of his lips lifted. ‘You are tempted. I knew you fancied me.’

‘I didn’t know you fancied me that much.’ I slipped my arms into the sleeves of my parka. It would be entirely reckless of me to say yes.

His hands lifted, saying, look at you. ‘Seriously, Ivy, you must know what you look like, who wouldn’t?’

‘That isn’t a compliment that’ll win me over.’

‘I’m saying you’re gorgeous.’ He stepped closer and then his hands gripped the edges of my coat. ‘And there is one thing I’ve always known about you, you were too good for Rick. That guy was never right for you.’

My tummy did pirouettes. ‘I am tempted.’ My answer was a broken, dry-mouthed whisper. He’d had me at ‘Rick was never right for you’.

He glanced up at the ceiling, his head tilting back. ‘Yes. Come on temptation.’ His gaze dropped back to me. ‘Actually, why don’t we scrap naughty sex and go for all-out nasty sex, a whole week of it.’

‘And what happens when we get back?’ I could hear the words in Rick’s voice. Don’t be crazy, Ivy, he’s your boss. I’d spent too many years listening to Rick’s cautions.

‘Nothing happens. We act like normal.’ He looked around. ‘I don’t see anyone here; who’s to know we went away together?’ Then he looked back at me. ‘It’ll be our secret.’

‘But you’re my boss—’

‘I’m not going to sack you if you have sex with me.’

‘Or you have sex with me. This is your suggestion.’ I’d only ever done it with Rick. Was that desperately sad? It felt sad, and I was one hundred per cent sure that doing it with Jack would be incomparable to doing it with Rick. My bad girl wanted to know what it would feel like.

His eyes glinted. He still had a hold on my coat. The expensive aftershave he wore filled the air around us.

I breathed in and ended up breathing in his out-breath, he was so close.

‘As far as I remember, sex takes two people. If we have sex we agree no one’s to blame, no one’s leading the other one. We’re doing it for a bit of fun because we have nothing better to do and we’ll come back feeling much better than if we’d sat at home pissed off with everyone else enjoying themselves.’

Naughty. Nasty. Sex. My heart thudded, adding a bass beat to the moment, and my tummy was wobbly like a jelly shot. This was what I’d turned Rick down for – to feel a rush like this – this pounding and excitement in my blood. ‘Yes okay. Alright.’ The words left my lips without any bidding from my brain.

‘You’re sure?’ He sounded surprised.

But I was up for this. This was what I’d thrown my life up in the air to feel. This feeling was the thing I’d craved. Excitement.

He let go of me. I’d expected him to kiss me. But then it wasn’t romance he was offering.

‘I promise you, you won’t regret it.’

‘You…’ A nervous laugh escaped my throat. ‘You’re so full of yourself.’

His hands suddenly pressed either side of my head, his long fingers sliding into my hair. Then he did kiss me. It was hard and dominating. Nothing like the soft, gentle way that Rick kissed.

Oh, no, she’s absolutely right. I cheated. Loads.

I hadn’t ever admitted it, not even to myself in my head, but I’d wanted him to kiss me since I’d started here two years ago even though I’d been with Rick. Maybe I’d even have loved it if, at the end of my interview, he’d have pinned me up against a wall, kissed me, and whispered into my mouth, ‘You got the job.’ But there had been Rick at home and I wouldn’t have cheated. I’d never have let it happen before.

I cheated. Loads… Jack would have, and the whole idea of that made my tummy backflip when it should be turning in disgust. Maybe I’d dumped Rick not so much because he was too nice, but because I was too bad. Maybe all my family and friends were right to be on Team Rick.

When Jack’s lips lifted off mine, I rose on to my toes and captured his bottom lip with a nip. I was up for this. I wanted to be the sort of person who played. I wanted to try it. There was a rush inside me, inspired by the risk of who he was, and what he was – even though he denied it, if this went wrong, he employed me. But Jack would not even think of stuff like that, he thrived on risk. I wanted to think like him. I was up for a seven-night stand of naughty, nasty, sex.

He smiled then let go of my hand. ‘There’s one thing we need to make a deal on before we go,’ he said as he turned and walked back to pick up his coat, before looking at me again. ‘Let’s not mention the C word, I’m really not up for that this year.’

He meant Christmas. I laughed. ‘Deal. Me neither. We’ll make every day a normal day. ‘

He grinned as he slipped on his coat.

I should feel scared. All I felt was excited. This rush was amazing.

He held my hand, which wasn’t intimate because he’d put his suede gloves on, and then he led me out of the office, setting the alarm with his free hand before closing the door.

When we were in the lift, his free hand gripped the back of my neck and he kissed me again. The heat in my blood whizzed up to the four-chilli symbol temperature, as his tongue touched the seam of my lips. I opened my mouth. What was the point of playing shy when we’d agreed on sex already?

The way he kissed was purposeful, adamant and domineering. I pushed my tongue into his mouth. I was not going to let him be the boss of me in this.

When the doors opened he pulled away.

‘There is one thing I want to make a deal on before we go,’ I said. ‘You’re not my boss now, from this moment, until the 2nd of January. I’m giving you notice and you can re-employ me then.’

‘Deal,’ he breathed.

This was crazy.

‘Where do you live? I’ll drive you back, then I’ll pick you up at six-thirty and we’ll go up north tonight, okay?’

‘Yeah, okay.’

Jack

Six months before – in June

I shut the door to my office. This weekend was going to be different. Not the same old clubs and same people. I was journeying into the past.

‘Good luck with the reunion, Jack.’

‘Thanks, Em, enjoy your weekend.’

Em and I had shared a house through the last two years of university and now we shared a business. We were polar opposites but the two of us together were the perfect blend for success. I was the insanity and ideas and she was the voice of reason and a planning genius.

Ivy, one of the women who worked for us, was leaning on my personal assistant’s desk as I walked towards the door, telling Tina something, and her bottom was prominently aimed in my direction. She was wearing her chequered trousers; the ones that exaggerated her curves and made my groin heavy with longing.

‘Bye, Jack.’ Tina lifted a hand in parting.

Ivy straightened and turned around. She had the most amazing eyes. They were a lavender colour, purple-grey, and she dyed her hair a quirky pale mauve to match them. It made the colour of her eyes a dozen times deeper.

My diaphragm shoved all the air out of my lungs every time I looked at Ivy and those eyes. She was tall and slender but she had curves in all the places a woman should and a face that looked like something an artist would paint. Plus she had the purest ivory-white skin. Who kept their skin white these days? None of the girls I knew, but Ivy shied away from the sun and fake tan and kept her skin pure.

I’d have put her in front of the camera in one of our adverts but I had a feeling if I did that I’d never see her again; some modelling agency would pick her up and steal her away. And the thought of not having Ivy around to look at, and get my kicks over in the day, was gut wrenching.

But my kicks were all safe and innocent – she was with someone – and she was not the sort of girl to go anywhere near me when I had a wife. Plus Em would kill me if I tried it. And anyway I wouldn’t; Ivy was a nice girl. Too nice to treat like a throw-away.

‘Have a good weekend, Jack.’ She smiled at me.

I smiled too. ‘See you on Monday – have a good one.’

Nice, and someone else’s or not, though, every time she looked at me her eyes told me she fancied me too.

When I rode the lift downstairs I stared at myself in the mirror, looking into my eyes. I didn’t like who I saw in the mirror any more. I was getting bored of me. This school reunion had made me do a lot of reflecting on the boy I’d been and the man I’d become.

I changed into my leathers in the toilets on the basement floor, then lifted my hand to the security guy when I walked out.

This used to be the part of the week I looked forward to most. Friday night. Spending the money I’d earned, showing it off to win girls.

I preferred being at work now.

I shoved my clothes and the shoes I’d taken off into the pannier on my motorbike. Then I straddled the machine, revved the engine and gloried in the roar and vibration between my legs. I rode it out of the car park with a good feeling about going to do something different this weekend.

It was a warm night. The sky was pure blue. I dodged through the traffic, weaving in and out, avoiding the queues, unless I saw a police car and then I waited and queued with the rest, my feet on the floor as the engine rumbled between my thighs.

I loved the bike. I loved the anonymity of being behind a helmet and the freedom of speed. But it was getting out of the city on it that was the best. Then I could speed, especially in the middle of the night when hardly anyone else was around.

Riding the bike absorbed my thoughts and my mind needed to be absorbed in something else when I was heading home to my wife. Tonight I hoped Sharon would be out.

I used the word ‘wife’ loosely. My marriage wasn’t really a marriage; it was more like regular sex for the investment of half my income, the cost of a penthouse and every other thing Sharon wanted.

When the lift opened on to the top floor I owned, I sighed as I walked over to put the key in the lock. I hated coming home. I came home because this was where I lived, but the place didn’t feel like a home.

I turned the key and opened the door. ‘Sharon!’ I called out her name because I never knew what I was walking into and I wanted to give her the chance to stop if necessary.

I unzipped my leather suit and left my helmet on a chest by the door.

There was nothing wrong with the apartment. The place was amazing. It would be perfect if it didn’t house Sharon.

A part of me sulked all the time over the fact that Sharon had ruined this place for me.

I’d got myself tangled up in something stupid with her; every room in this place was tainted by it and I didn’t know how to untangle myself from the mess I’d made.

The place was a massive open space with three walls of glass. There was a Jacuzzi in the bathroom and a pool on the roof outside that had a view across London through another glass wall when you swam. I’d thought the place was ‘us’, me and Sharon, when I’d bought it. A wild place for a wild couple, who loved to live without limits. We had orgies up here and took drugs that made the skyline and the world distorted. We lived life to the extreme – on top of the world. Riding the world like the world was a motorbike, to be raced and dodged through the stationary and slow traffic.

I still loved the place, despite it not being homely. But I didn’t love Sharon any more. I probably never had and I didn’t like the way we lived any more. I think I’d just been in lust with Sharon in the beginning and excited by the way she lived – so fast and far on the outside of normal.

The life I led with Sharon ran parallel to everything else. It had felt like unleashing the true me in the beginning. The rebellious, fast-living, independent, unboundaried me. But if this was the real me, why didn’t I like it, or myself, any more?

Maybe I’d always known this wasn’t right for me because I’d never told my friends about it, not from school, not from my climbing club, uni, work or anywhere.

‘In here!’ Sharon shouted from the bedroom. I hoped this wasn’t going to be another gift. She knew my interest was waning and so she’d started trying everything she could to keep me in the game with her.

I didn’t want to play.

Ever since I’d had the invite to go back to my old school I’d been evaluating my life and nothing fitted. I’d been ambitious as a kid and Em and I had the business, and I had my investment properties and ten times more than I could have expected to achieve at my age – except that it all tasted sour because I’d never been ambitious for this empty fucking marriage. This was not how I’d seen myself. This was not where I wanted to be five years from now.

Sharon was on her own in the bedroom, in her underwear – just old-fashioned suspenders and stockings. Maybe she hoped I’d be motivated to react to her nudity before I left. I wasn’t. I started stripping off my leather suit. After I’d released my arms, it hung from my waist

‘What time are you going out?’ she asked.

‘As soon as I’m showered and ready.’ I removed my boots and took the leather suit off my legs. Then straightened and stripped off my t-shirt.

‘Is it okay if I ask some people over?’

By ‘some people’ she meant her friends – I used that term loosely too – and a mix of strangers, who’d take cocaine that I’d pay for and drink booze that I’d pay for. Then they’d come in here, into my bedroom and have sex on my bed, a twisting puzzle of tangled bodies. Or maybe not in here, maybe in the Jacuzzi or in the living room, or in the pool… ‘Do what you want.’

I left my clothes in a pile on the floor for the cleaner to pick up, then went to have a shower.

I washed my hair and let the water teem over my head, tipping up my face, then I sighed. I spat out the water that had run into my mouth and turned to face the wall. Fuck. The thought of tangled bodies and long legs wrapping around me and the tongues and mouths that would be all over me, if I stayed here, did still turn me on. With one hand flat on the cold marble slab lining the back wall, and the water running over my head and down my back, I took my dick in my hand.

The images in my mind had made me hard.

I gripped it with anger, because I really didn’t want to be like this. Then I shut my eyes and let thoughts of sex wash over me with the water.

Sharon would be willing to murder me if she knew I’d rather wank than have sex with her. She thought I was going to pick someone up at the reunion party. I had no intention of doing that. The girls I’d been at school with were not like Sharon.

But maybe that was why I’d been so absorbed by Sharon when this had started.

I groaned when the orgasm rattled through my bones. My head fell forward and I took another breath.

That would keep me going without sex until I got back.

I washed off the marble in front of me, then washed the soap off my body and turned off the shower.

When I looked at the guy in the mirror to shave, I still didn’t like him.

I walked back into the bedroom with a towel hanging low on my hips and droplets of water still on my skin. Sharon looked up at me from where she sat before a mirror painting on her lipgloss. She’d put a robe on. She turned around on the stool. ‘We could mess around before you go, if you come over here.’

‘No thanks. It’s a long drive. I’m going to be late already.’

I found a shirt and trousers out of the wardrobe and got dressed. She watched me, but she didn’t say anything else.

I picked out a dark-blue, thin tie just to break up the white of my shirt, but I left the tie loose, the top button of my shirt undone so the collar was open. Then I rolled up my sleeves. It was too hot to put a jacket on.

Tonight we were meeting for a drink in the hotel, then tomorrow the school were holding a formal dinner. I’d packed this morning when Sharon was asleep, so at least I didn’t have to do that with her watching me, like I was a panther she was trying to work out how to trap.

Two nights away. Two nights to look at my life and think about where I wanted it to be in another five years. I needed to work out what my end game was.

I turned and looked at Sharon. She uncrossed her legs, with her back arched, so her breasts looked good. She never said, don’t you fancy me any more? But the words were in her eyes all the time lately.

Yes, I did fancy her still. I’d have to be blind not to; she had an amazing body. I could still get hard for her and enjoy every minute of sex with her. But emotionally – she did nothing for me.

I walked over and gripped the back of her neck, pressed my lips on hers for an instant, then wiped the gloss off my lips with the back of my hand. ‘See you on Sunday. Have a good time.’

Her eyes, which some people called green, but were really hazel, stared at me. Ivy’s lavender eyes came to mind. She was the only woman I’d ever seen with really distinctive eyes. I’d never seen anyone else with lavender-grey eyes.

‘You have a good time too. Don’t shag anyone I wouldn’t.’

I gave her a crooked smile. ‘That leaves the field open, then. You’d shag everyone.’ She liked girls as well as guys. That had been one of the novel things about her, when I’d first met her – that she loved bringing other women to bed with us and she loved watching me fuck them as much as messing around with them herself.

She gave me a half-hearted laugh. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye.’ I walked out and grabbed my leather jacket off the hook by the door. Then picked up the keys to the Jag. I was going on an adventure. Stepping into the unknown. I probably felt as excited as most young guys felt when they were invited to join an orgy.

l was bored of orgies. They were full of self-centred, greedy people.

I was looking forward to going back to the simplicity of the life I’d led as a youth – with a heart-wrenching need. I wanted to be who I’d been then – the boy I used to look at in a mirror and like; the one who had dreams in his eyes. The person I’d been before I’d made my first million and had to fight off the parasites.

As I drove down there, I wondered what people would say if they knew how I lived. Some of the others had become involved with drugs too. I’d heard that. When you had money to waste and youth on your side it was too tempting. But some of them… most of them… would probably turn their backs on me if they knew everything about me – like my parents had. And my parents knew hardly anything.

Nostalgia hit me in the stomach with a punch when I drove into the small town where I’d gone to school. It was old-world. Dickensian. I’d spent years of my life here. This school had formed who I was; it had made me a stronger person and given me the confidence to believe in myself – and my belief had made me a millionaire by the age of twenty-two.

Loads of people here had money. It wouldn’t be exceptional turning up here as a rich man. But I would be one of the few who’d made it himself. Most people had trust funds; money given to them on a plate by mummy and daddy. Not that I hadn’t had that too; my parents’ initial investment had started me off, but I’d paid them back and I was still rolling in it. Advertising and my brain full of the weird and wonderful were my pots of gold. I had a skill for concepts and big corporations loved it, and I’d invested my profits in property.

I parked up around the back of the hotel, took a breath, then steeled myself to walk in there.

The guy at the reception desk signed me in, gave me my room key, said they’d take up my luggage, and then pointed me in the direction of the bar where everyone was meeting.

There were probably a hundred people in there; there would be three hundred plus tomorrow. I recognised a few faces.

‘Jack!’

Edward. He’d shouted from about ten feet away. He lifted a hand.

‘You made it,’ he said, when I got over to him. ‘It’s great to see you. I was looking out for you.’ He held my arm for an instant, pulling me into the group of people he’d been talking to. We’d been best friends at school – we’d kept in contact. He worked for a bank and sometimes I went over to Canary Wharf and met him for a drink after work. ‘This is Helen, my fiancée…’

‘Hi. Nice to meet you, Helen. Edward’s talked about you, and nothing else, every time we’ve met for the last year.’

The conversation they’d been involved in cracked up again. My hands slid into my trouser pockets as I stood there and listened.

I’d known you could bring partners; I’d never considered bringing Sharon. She’d have embarrassed me. She’d have tried to get into all the guys’ trousers and if she knew it made me uncomfortable she’d have been trying ten times harder. And if she’d succeeded with anyone, I’d have died if she’d expected me to share my bed with people I knew from school.

That was the thought that had made me start reflecting harder. If my life was not something I’d share with friends because my wife was embarrassing and the way I lived so bad it had to be a secret – what was I doing living like that?

Edward had never met Sharon. I’d been married for nearly three years.

When we were younger, maybe he’d have whacked me on the back in applause if I’d told him I was in an open relationship, which meant shagging anyone you wanted in any mix of people, anywhere and anytime. But we were meant to be grown up now; it was a very different thing to say it now.

It was weird. I lived a weird life.

I turned to the bar. I needed a drink to hold so I didn’t feel like a prick. The guy serving lifted an eyebrow at me to ask what I wanted. He was probably pissed off with the posh twits that must haunt this hotel all the time – people with more money than sense. ‘Champagne. A bottle. A good one.’ But you had to play the part if you had money. He showed me a list of the bottles they had. I picked one.

When he opened it, he gave me a taste. I nodded that it was okay, then he poured me a glass. ‘Put the bottle back in the chiller and keep it for me.’

‘Sure.’

When I turned back to the room I noticed someone I recognised in a way that was more than mental.

Victoria.

I knew her smell and her taste.