Janine Ashbless - Red Grow the Roses

‘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?’