Becks is laughing so hard she has bent over. The men in yachting shoes are openly staring. Ivy huffs against my shoulder, and I feel her smile against my shirt.
CHAPTER 32
Oxblood
IVY
The leather under my thighs is cool through my creased and damp sundress. I am sun-cream-sticky and slightly out of breath from being carried out of a hotel by my husband in front of strangers.
Alistair is beside me on the seat. The afternoon light catches the side of his face. His tie is the color of bitter chocolate. His hand is on my thigh, just above the knee, and it is not in any hurry. When we don’t turn in the direction of his family home, I frown at him.
“Where are we going?”
“A party.”
“Whose?”
He turns his head to look at me. “Sarah and Matt's.”
The Aperol moves around in my body. The pool. Sarah's pretty mouth. Matt's thick cock. I feel a current in my clit. “What kind of party is it?”
“The kind we went to in Spain, with Madison.”
“They’re in London?”
“Apparently so.”
Sarah's small, feminine hands. Matt watching me from across the jet pool. Alistair watching me throughout. The pleasure of it, the strangeness.
“Are you in the mood for that?” he asks.
I’m drunk and reckless. I’m wet, and I feel like licking him all over. “I think I'm in the mood foreverythingtonight.”
“Isn’t that funny,” replies Alistair, a slow smile spreading. “So am I.”
“We're making a stop. I'm putting you in something new.”
“Alistair Ravenscroft. Are you taking me shopping after I have had a bottle and a half of champagne and way too much Aperol spritz?”
“I am.”
“Is this wise?”
“Probably not.”
I laugh and look down at myself, dress wrinkled, swimsuit damp, sun cream on my collarbone, the cut on my forehead, my hair messy and half-down.
The shop is small and pale and smells of roses. There are no rails. There is a long bench in cream velvet, two chairs, a table with a vase, and a door at the back. Whatever is for sale is not in the room.
A woman in sand-colored satin comes through from the back. Fifties, dark hair pinned up, the kind of expensive that is quiet about itself.
“Mr Ravenscroft.”
“Diana.”
“And this must be Mrs Ravenscroft. Welcome. I have a few things ready. Champagne while we work?”
“Yes,” says Alistair.
