The Deep End. AM Hartnett

objections?’

      ‘I have you right where I want you.’

      ‘This is very odd, Jacques.’ She brushed her palm across the hump of her ass and twisted her face towards the balcony. ‘Something tells me you didn’t get me out of the office because you wanted me to be more comfortable.’

      ‘Just go slowly for now.’

      Draping one arm over the back of the sofa to take her weight, she ran her hand from her ass to her abdomen, and kept it out of his sight as she crooked her middle finger over her clit.

      ‘Slowly.’

      He delivered his seductive command in a whisper, eliciting a shiver from her as she thought of hearing that accented baritone urging ‘slowly’ as he did just now, as he pressed his lips to her ear’s shell, hands on her shoulders and fingers gripping harder, his body hot and demanding against her back.

      She closed her eyes and lost herself in her imagination. In none of these wicked little episodes of fantasy could she conjure up his face. He was always in hiding, or behind her, sometimes slipping something over her eyes to keep her blind. It was vexing and stirring all at once, and even when frustration nipped at her she gave herself over to it.

      ‘Don’t you want to know what I’m thinking?’

      Her breath hitched on her last word as her touch evoked an ecstatic, throbbing ribbon around her clit.

      ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he told her. ‘It’s not so hard to read you. You tell me everything I need to know by the way you hold your pose.’

      ‘Tell me,’ she said, more of a chant than a plea.

      ‘You’re thinking of how you’d offer yourself up to me like you are now. You’ve got this silly little notion in your head that you might bring me to my knees this way, that I’d bow and follow your fingers through that wet gash, that eventually you’d be able to rest your head against the seat and let me finish you off.’

      She slipped her fingers lower, not only to give him a glimpse of the tips slipping into her cunt but to gather the wetness there.

      ‘Tell me why I’m wrong.’

      She adjusted her pose in anticipation, lowering her head and lifting her ass so that he could see her smear the shining juices through her swollen lips.

      ‘You tell me.’

      It was uncanny how quickly this storytelling came with Taureau. Grace had always been what some would consider masculine in her arousal: dirty movies and dirty talk, kisses seeking a tongue from the start while she made her demands with her hands. It was always about the pulsing, breathless end and how she could get to it as quickly and furiously as possible.

      With Taureau, she relished the wait, and relished the sanctions he imposed upon her. These scenarios flowed through her like music, and in return she sang for him.

      ‘Oh, if you had me like this, I’d still offer myself up to you,’ she said. ‘You’d give, too, wouldn’t you? For all your words, you’d give me just enough. You’d stand over me and watch the goose bumps rise on my hands and arms, and watch me get wetter and wetter just from having you where you are. You’d watch me play with myself, like this …’

      She cranked her arm and used all four fingers to rub through her slick labia.

      Slowly.

      The word was unspoken, but the fact that she heard it nonetheless was a testament to how her psyche was getting used to absorbing his commands. She slowed down, forcing herself just to tease even though she still needed to go fast and hard.

      ‘Finally, you’d tell me you’ve seen enough, and put your hands on me: on my hips, my ass, or in my hair. It doesn’t matter except that you’re holding me when you start to fuck me.’ She used her fingers in her pussy once more, then held her breath and listened. She heard nothing, no static, no breathing, no tell-tale sounds to indicate that he had his cock out. ‘Jacques?’

      ‘It’s time to turn around, Grace.’

      His voice carried that flint that signalled the change, and the animal inside Grace was tamed and lowered its gaze as she pushed away from the sofa.

      ‘Yes, Mr Taureau.’ She spoke the words as if bowing before a ruler. She went onto her ass and shifted, looking for the angle that would best suit him from his vantage point on the balcony.

      ‘Do you see it?’ Taureau asked breathily.

      Grace paused. ‘See what?’

      ‘Look at the camera. Now, above. Straight above, I believe.’

      She looked towards the urn, then up, and narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t … oh. Oh, my.’

      The scene was blurred by the doors and the glass partition surrounding the balcony, but she saw it all right: a man and a woman in their living room in the building just across the courtyard. They didn’t quite stand before their window, but close enough. They were in a sordid profile: the man leaning against a chair, boxers around his thighs, and the woman completely naked and on her knees in front of him.

      ‘Did you hire them?’ Grace asked absently, riveted by the movement of the woman’s head as she sucked the man’s cock deeper.

      ‘I didn’t have to. Apparently they put on this little show every Saturday night. I was alerted to it by a man I had staying in the apartment for a month. They’re a fairly normal couple, two kids. They bundle the kids up and the father leaves with them, including the family Pomeranian, and then he takes them away somewhere. While he’s gone, she gets dressed for dinner. He returns and they go out. When they come home, they enjoy their kid-free time like this. I didn’t even see it for myself until last weekend. I have another camera on the opposite side of the planter.’

      ‘I thought you said you didn’t like to intrude on families.’

      ‘Families, no, and I only tuned in long enough to confirm what I was told. Once they’re alone, it’s not so much of an intrusion. You’ll see.’ His tone was rich with amusement. ‘I thought you might like to have a little show of your own for tonight.’

      ‘I …’

      She didn’t know what to say. It did give her an odd creep across her bare shoulders to watch from afar as the woman used her lips and hand to milk the man’s cock, but she got the sense that there was little intimacy to the act.