17. Darcy

Ithought being bathed in radiant sunlight while I danced for a single man would be confronting, but maybe I misjudged. Between the heavy blinds and the thick glass that wipes out the thrum of the London traffic a few floors below us, Max's cavernous flat has transformed into a curiously intimate space.

It's just me, the music… and him.

He's manspread across the centre of the huge sofa, holding his crystal tumbler in place on his thigh with one hand, the other arm flung across the back of the cushions. A king in his castle, entitled and handsome and seeking entertainment. I'm the dancer in the music box, fated to dance and dance until the king has had enough—except the king is in here with me, and the air is thick with the weight of his expectation.

Twenty grand buys you high expectations indeed.

I close my eyes, and I begin to sway, and I take the feelings of vulnerability and exposure that having Max's attention on me provokes, and I bite down on them. I allow them to ramp up my heart rate, to scatter goosebumps along my skin.

This isn't defencelessness. It's power. This man wants me. Badly. He has eyes only for me. He's come home early from work so he can feast his eyes on the alchemy I conjure with nothing but my body. Those blue eyes of his glitter in the dim light; they stay trained on me as he raises his glass to his lips and drinks.

He doesn't want to miss a second.

The playlist segues into one of my favourite pieces, a sexy beat over soaring strings and the unmistakable whimpers of a woman's orgasm building. It charges the air further, charges me, because I know there's no way Max can hear this and see what I'm doing and not think only of sex, of how I might sound beneath him, of whether my whimpers would be just like that, throaty and achy and needy. Of whether my body would undulate around his cock in precisely the same way that it's undulating around thin air right now as I writhe and rock and twist.

The answer, of course, is that it would. I may be classically trained, but I left my ballet days behind many moons ago and happily pursued a kind of dancing that fitted my curves and sang to my soul. Now, the way I move is the way I have sex, and the music I move to is the soundtrack of that sex.

The poor guy doesn't stand a chance around me, just as I don't stand a chance around him. And for all I've acted coy over this evening's little ‘proposition', I'm well aware there's only one way tonight will end.

It's impossible to imagine any other outcome, and I've made peace with that far more than I've made peace with the idea of taking Max's money.

I turn around and close my eyes, and despite both of those things, the heat of his gaze sears into my arse as it sways in front of him.

I don't know how long I dance for him like this. Ten minutes? Twenty? Thirty? It's soulful and unchoreographed. It's a precise combination of how I imagine he wants me to move and how he makes me feel. I haven't touched him—he didn't ask me to agree to a lap dance—but that makes no difference to him, because, when I turn around and look at him again, it's clear he's been growing more and more agitated.

He drains his drink and sets the tumbler on the cushion beside him. He spreads his legs further. Shifts forward and runs his fingers through his hair as he groans, low and male. The tent in those sexy grey sweatpants is quite the sight, but his eyes don't leave my body. Not for one second. And mine don't leave his face again.

Still the music pulses on.

Still I dance, lithe and barefoot and moving on instinct, the laser focus of his attention the headiest drug I've ever, ever experienced.

Finally, he breaks the silence between us. ‘Darcy. Fuck.'

I smile, as mysteriously as I can, and hold my arms above my head, giving him the perfect view of my tits swaying.

‘Fuck,' he says again. ‘Turn around. Bend over.'

Yes.The command is another hit to my bloodstream.

‘Yes, sir,' I say, spinning on my heel so I'm facing the wall of blinds. I spread my feet and hinge at the hips, lowering myself down, down, till I'm cuffing my ankles with my fingers and giving him the perfect view of my pussy. It's throbbing and wet, and the faint rub of the bodystocking against it is the most delicious form of torture.

His words from the wedding dance through my mind, over and over.

You look like you were created to take my cock in every single perfect hole in your spectacular body.

They were the best kind of menacing when he said them, but damn, if what's unspoken in that gaze of his isn't a million times more.

I truly believe Taylor Swift was staring deep into the abyss of the attention-seeking whore that is my soul when she wrote Mirrorball. Whatever version of myself someone wants up there on stage, they'll get. However far I have to contort myself, I'll do it.

And in this lavish, soulless apartment, I'm barefoot and stripped back and effectively naked for Max. I'm just me, with a sultry soundtrack and a few sparkles. No pole. No cage. No props. I may be the one folded over like a piece of paper, but I'm betting he topples like a fucking house of cards.

‘God, that's good,' he says hoarsely. I open my eyes to see upside-down Max push himself off the sofa. He stops where he is, rooted to the spot.

‘Tell me you're as turned on as I am,' he growls. ‘Because, from over here, your cunt looks wet.'

‘I'm turned on,' I pant, the blood rushing to my head in this position. His eyes on me are the only aphrodisiac I need. ‘You've been looking at me like you can't decide whether to eat me or fuck me first.'

He lets out a humourless laugh. ‘That's exactly right. And I don't know if you'll let me do either. But I want to do both. Over and over.'

I pause—because this is the point of no return—and sigh. The exhalation has me hinging forward even more.

Who am I kidding? The point of no return was when I texted him from Green Park this morning.

‘You can do whatever you want to me,' I tell him. ‘I want it all.'