I hadn’t come back for my wallet, would you have looked at those photos on your own?’
I swallow. Hard. Mutually assured destruction, I remind myself. ‘Yes.’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Would you have touched yourself when you looked at them?’ His hand is creeping closer to his groin. His fingertips are close to the top of his thigh now, where the fabric of his trousers pulls tight.
‘Yes,’ I say, reaching for my camera, unable to take my eyes away from his hands and the bulge in his pants.
‘Tell me.’ His breathing is heavy again, his shoulders hunched in that way I now know means he’s aroused. ‘Tell me everything.’
‘I like to look at the pictures.’ I’m trembling. ‘I look at the pictures, and then I touch myself.’
His hand moves to his zipper and eases it down, revealing the plain white cotton of his underwear. The fabric stretched over the head of his cock is wet, and my pussy clenches at the sight of that dark little patch.
‘Where?’ he asks.
I lift my camera, switch it on, and take the first shot. Too close. I get to my feet, step away from the sofa, focus. ‘Between my legs.’
He eases the elastic of his boxers up over the head of his swollen cock, tucks it down under his balls, then takes himself in hand. ‘Say “pussy”,’ he orders me. ‘Or cunt, if you prefer.’
‘I…I can’t,’ I say, hating myself for it. I lift the camera, take another picture, hide behind the lens. God, he looks so incredible, sat there stroking himself. I zoom out, and this time I include all of him in the shot.
‘Why not?’ His hand glides over the head of his cock, which is slick with pre-come now. Then he lifts his fingers to his mouth and licks them, before putting that hand right back where it was before.
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘I just can’t.’ I step further away, but I keep taking pictures. So many pictures. Lewd, pornographic, beautiful pictures. If he thought the pictures with Amber were dangerous, they have nothing on these. These shots are career-ending.
And suddenly I realise that’s the point. He’s giving me something, here. Something I can use to destroy him if I want to. If I need to. We both fall into tense, erotic silence as he sits there and strokes himself, his gaze never leaving me as I take shot after shot.
I see him swallow, see his cock harden and swell even more. ‘Tell me what you want,’ he says. ‘What do you want, Ellie?’
So many things. ‘I want to…’ I want to fuck you, I think, but I don’t say it out loud, and then it’s too late.
Tom tenses in his seat, cups his balls in one hand as he wraps the other around the head of his cock and gives a sharp twist, and spills himself all over the floor.
‘So,’ Amber says. ‘Am I forgiven?’
I grip the phone a little tighter, stretch out my free hand and examine my cuticles. ‘I don’t know,’ I tell her truthfully. ‘Tom Hunt, of all people. Honestly, Amber. Why him?’
‘I was in the bank and he was there,’ she says. ‘I was feeling thoroughly hacked off and sorry for myself, and we got to talking, and I started wondering what he hides under that suit. He’s quite gorgeous, you know.’
Yes, I know. ‘I don’t see why you had to drag me in-to it,’ I say. ‘You know how important it is to me to keep that side of the business private.’
‘Oh, get real,’ she says. ‘You’ve photographed half the town doing things that would make a whore blush. Everyone knows.’
‘No, they don’t,’ I tell her sharply. ‘I’m extremely discreet.’
‘You told me.’
‘That’s different,’ I say. ‘I told you in confidence. It was supposed to be a secret.’
‘Well,’ she says, ‘now three people know it instead of two. Big deal. It’s hardly the end of the world. And I’m sick of people keeping secrets. Why can’t everyone just be honest?’
She’s pissed off with me now, I can tell. She thinks I’m dragging this out unnecessarily, and maybe I am, but the bottom line is that I told her something in confidence and she betrayed my trust and she did it so easily. And between showing Tom and Victoria that photo and then Tom making me come and then making himself come, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Yesterday morning, my life was calm and predictable. Today, it seems like anything is possible, and I don’t know how on earth to handle that. That’s why I’m on the phone to Amber, instead of printing out the three million shots of bridesmaids dressed in aubergine that I need to have ready by this afternoon. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think Tom Hunt is… Do you think he’s a bit odd?
‘Extremely,’ she says. ‘He’s also extremely fucking sexy. Are my pictures done yet? I know you said Wednesday, but I need them now. Apparently they’re having an engagement party next week. Catering, the works. I can’t bear it, Ellie. I just can’t.’ Her voice breaks. ‘I need those pictures.’
‘They’re not ready,’ I say, my heart giving an anxious little thump. ‘Look, I’ll have them ready for you tomorrow. I promise.’
‘Can I at least come round and look at them?’ She’s sobbing now. Her voice is rough and broken, and it claws at me. ‘Please? You can take a break for lunch, can’t you?’
I should come clean, I should tell her that I don’t have the picture, but I can’t. It’s ridiculous, I know. There are plenty of other good shots. But they’re good, not amazing, and she specifically asked for that one and I’m too embarrassed to tell her I don’t have it. Because she’ll ask me why not, and I’m not ready to answer that question. And I’ve let her down. She’d be disappointed in me, and I don’t think I’m ready to deal with that either. ‘It’s…it’s not a good time.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m up to my armpits in work,’ I tell her, which is sort of the truth. I am up to my armpits in work. I’m just not doing it. ‘I’m sorry, Amber. Really, I am.’
‘Shit.’ She chokes back another sob. Whoever this guy was, she was obviously into him more than she’d let on. I’ve never seen her like this before, so angry and desperate.
‘I’ll make sure they’re done for Wednesday, OK?’
‘You promise,’ she says.
‘I promise.’
That gives me three days to sort this out. I tell myself it’s long enough. I’ll think of something.
‘I have to admit,’ she says then, with a pained sort of laugh, ‘Tom Hunt surprised me. I mean, I always wondered, you know?’
I
