She was to come to his Larkshire house at midnight that evening and ring when she got to the gates. Not a please or thank you: what had she unleashed? To ward off evil, she’d put on her lucky pants, white lycra but with snazzy lace panels, which she’d worn every time she won on Wilkie.
It was a viciously cold night. The stars glittered as though Olivia had scattered Shade’s diamonds over the sky. Shade’s house, lowering, dark, four-square, like him, loomed up at the end of a long drive.
Shade himself let her into a vast hall with a glossy oak floor and serious pictures. Amber recognized a Lowry and a mournful Landseer hound rather like Alban, alternating with glassy-eyed stags and bisons’ heads. Shade, resplendent in black evening trousers and a frilled cream shirt, wore even more scent than she did. His dinner jacket and black tie hung over the chair. The central heating was stifling, even a bra was too hot.
Shade had just flown down from London. Immediately he boasted of the ministers and bankers with whom he’s been dining, indicating, as he poured her a glass of Krug, that a peer-age was imminent.
He’d taken her into the drawing room to show off more serious pictures on wallpaper covered in glittering humming-birds.
‘Cool paper,’ murmured Amber.
‘Should be at ten thousand a roll.’
‘And that’s Degas,’ said Amber, admiring an oil of jockeys and horses circling at the start.
‘I’ve got another Degas in the Lear.’
‘Shame if it crashed.’
‘It’s insured. Bring your drink upstairs.’
‘Am I worth ten thousand a roll?’ asked Amber.
‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’
Shade’s bedroom – Amber wondered if it were Olivia’s too – was even more stifling, an approaching storm indicated by the matching thunder-blue curtains, window seats and wallpaper. A massive stretch of sheepskin rug covered the floor. A vast bed, with a leather headboard, hung with straps was the only furniture.
Shade stood in the doorway staring at her. He was definitely attractive in a repulsive sort of way – well over six foot with dark olive skin and wide but not heavy shoulders. His eyes, large, black-coffee-coloured to keep you awake at night, with heavy lids and the thickest black lashes, had already stripped off her clothes. His smile was all-knowing, predatory, a panther selecting a plump gazelle. His unbuttoned shirt showed the slight reddening of a recent chest wax.
‘You’re well fit for a geriatric,’ taunted Amber.
‘You’re too young to need the lights dimmed,’ quipped Shade, pressing a button and flooding the room with Romeo and Juliet.
‘Oh lovely.’ Amber sang along for a minute, remembering with a stab of anguish singing with Rafiq to an accompaniment of stamping horses on long journeys. What the hell was she doing here?
‘A ride for a ride,’ Shade reminded her.
‘Then you ought to play the Post Horn Gallop instead of Tchaikovsky.’
‘And you ought to be in the parade ring. You’ve always disturbed me, you spoilt, upmarket bitch. Get your kit off.’
As Amber pulled off her pale grey jersey dress and unhooked her bra, Shade breathed a little faster and ran big, warm, pudgy hands over her very high, springy breasts.
‘I must be worth a monkey each way,’ mocked Amber to hide her sudden excitement, as Shade tugged her roughly into his arms, then kissed her surprisingly expertly, big tongue tickling her lips, sucking then gently exploring, then stabbing her mouth.
Then as he ripped off her lucky pants, sliding equally expert fingers into the sticky cavern between her legs, she cried out with pleasure, adding, ‘Oh, lucky Olivia.’
As Shade drew away, she thought he was going to hit her. ‘Shut up about Olivia,’ he said sharply. ‘I said get your kit off.’
As she sat back on the bed, Shade took off his clothes. He was magnificent stripped. He must live in the gym.
‘A picture of muscle and good health that caught every eye in the paddock,’ mocked Amber. Leaping up, she took a couple of turns round the room, cantering, tossing her long gold mane and calling out, ‘Mount please, jockeys, let’s go down to post.’
Goodness, that glass of Krug on an empty stomach had unhinged her.
‘And that’s some post,’ she added, seizing his penis, which soared higher than his navel, then running her tongue round the knob. ‘Are you going up the inner?’
‘Stop making stupid jokes,’ snarled Shade.
Grabbing her, he chucked her on the bed and without preamble thrust his penis deep inside her, back and forth until