Free Seven Scarlet Tales by Justine Elyot

to?’
    ‘I told you, I don’t pay for sex,’ he said, his voice very low, almost a whisper. ‘Here.’
    He sat down beside her and spoke into her ear.
    ‘I’m a policeman. I can’t pay you for sex.’
    ‘But,’ she whispered back, ‘do you want it?’
    He looked astonished and he jerked back, reading her face intently.
    ‘What? Are you offering?’
    ‘Oh, I mean. It doesn’t matter. But I thought you might want to.’
    ‘Poppy, you don’t have to fuck any man who asks you, you know.’
    ‘I know. I know that.’ Tears rushed forwards, threatening to spill.
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘Yes. Just because I let men spank me doesn’t mean I give it up to anyone and everyone. Do you really think I would?’
    ‘No. Not now. But in a few years, you know, maybe that will change.’
    ‘I’m not planning to do this for years. Only until I get my degree and a good job.’
    Bruno looked towards the bathroom door.
    ‘She thinks we are going to fuck. And if we just sit here, all quiet, she will think it is strange.’
    ‘So?’ Poppy was confused. Now it sounded as if Bruno was going to shag her just to keep Emma off the scent. Wasn’t that worse than doing it because they felt like it?
    ‘We will play the role, as we did earlier. Do you mind if I take off my clothes?’
    He didn’t wait for Poppy’s answer but stood and began unbuttoning his shirt straight away. Poppy watched in stunned fascination as her strange new companion’s chest was revealed, buff and tanned above a classic six-pack abdomen.
    ‘Perhaps if you just take off your dress,’ he suggested. ‘I don’t ask for more.’
    Poppy quickly wriggled out of it. Even though she wasn’t showing him anything he hadn’t already seen, she felt coy and embarrassed at letting him see her knickers.
    ‘OK.’ He had taken off his trousers and stood in just boxers, preening a little as if expecting her to gasp and faint. ‘Are you OK? Let’s get into bed.’ He raised his voice, for Emma’s benefit. ‘I want to fuck that sweet little pussy, baby.’
    Poppy covered her mouth with her hands, but he winked and pulled her under the duvet with him.
    ‘I don’t mean it,’ he whispered. ‘We just hold each other, yes, and make some noise. Make the mattress, what do you say?’
    ‘Creak? Squeak?’ Poppy bounced her bottom and heard the springs groan rewardingly.
    ‘That’s it,’ he said, putting an arm around her. ‘Lie down.’
    Poppy was reminded of earlier in the evening, when she had thought the spanking felt too much like role-play to be sexy. How was it, then, that this blatant role-playing felt horribly, dangerously erotic? Something inside her was wrongly wired, she theorised, a blue strand where a red should be, and vice versa.
    Lying pressed against Bruno, breathing him in, feeling his strength and hardness, made her want to wrap herself tight around him and open up her legs. He smelled of older-man authority and responsibility and it intoxicated her. Screw the bad boys, what could be sexier than a good man who wanted to do right by you?
    ‘Hey,’ he whispered, rolling over a little so that he held her down underneath him. ‘You are playing this a bit too well, you know?’
    His mouth was an inch from hers, his hair falling over his brow and tickling her. Their pelvises were in alignment. Only a double layer of cotton kept their genitals apart.
    ‘Kiss me,’ she begged, almost silently.
    ‘You want me to?’ He sounded amazed, and it turned her on even more.
    She nodded. ‘I like you.’
    ‘I shouldn’t.’
    ‘Please.’
    She raised her head a fraction, bringing their lips together. If he was reluctant, he didn’t show it. He gave in to her, so easily and sweetly, as if it could only happen this one way.
    How right it seemed. They shared a connection Poppy wasn’t sure she’d experienced before. She gave herself up to him in rapt surrender, letting her body fall free. They rolled around all over the bed, rumpling the sheets, making the