Читать книгу Ladies Who Love: An Erotica Collection - Elizabeth Coldwell - Страница 4

The old-fashioned bell on the door sounds as Lila lets herself in, its tinkle overlaying the distant drone of hairdryers and the gusting October wind from the street she’s gladly left behind her. Warmth rushes to meet her, welcoming her in as she loosens her scarf with relief.

There’s no one behind the reception desk, no sign of her, but as Lila shrugs off her coat onto the wrought-iron rack a woman calls, ‘Be right with you. Make yourself at home.’ Her voice is husky – hospitable, like the squashy sofa in the bow window, and unexpectedly dramatic, like the bowl of gaudily wrapped chocolates on the table with the magazines.

Lila breathes in the chemical tang of the lotions and potions, along with the fading perfumes of previous clients. She absorbs the pleasurable familiarity of a well-kept hair salon, revelling in the anything-is-possible moments before she’s seated in the chair. And she reaches for the chocolates, because, after all, she’s here to be indulgent.

Heels click on the varnished wood floor. Lila glances up from the frivolous trinity of Heat, Hello and Time Out to find that the woman who dared her to come is as striking as she remembers. Jeanne wears a scoop-necked black dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a hem that flirts with her dimpled knees. Her shoes are mint-green Mary Janes with a round wooden mid-heel, and she’s tied a matching scarf around her neck in a saucy side bow. The green is the right shade to turn her pale skin to peachy. And there’s lots of skin; so much of it, at that neckline, that it’s nearly, nearly enough to distract from the glorious cascade of her wavy red hair. The colours, her lushness, her magnetism, are such a contrast to the sterile hospital corridors where Lila’s spent most of this day that she has difficulty tearing her gaze away.

Just like when they first met, last week at a pub in Marylebone. Lila was there with some colleagues from University College Hospital. There’d been a chorus of greetings to an acquaintance of an acquaintance – Jeanne – who’d shifted her own G&T to their table.

Lila noticed her hair first. It was lit by fire from the autumn sun, and her hands itched to touch it. When Jeanne noticed that Lila’s hair was red too, though a more coppery shade, her polite smile turned mischievous. ‘I know exactly what I want to do with you,’ she said. ‘Come see me next week, same day and time.’

Lila’s pulse sped at the note of collusion in her voice. She automatically took the offered card and noticed gold-embossed shears in a top corner.

‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked. Their knees brushed under the table as people shifted seats around them. She let the contact linger.

‘A private consultation.’

Jeanne’s mouth curved in unmistakable invitation and Lila knew then that she would go, if only to feel the intensity of Jeanne’s attention on her skin like that again.

In the here and now, Lila’s anticipation flares into something fiercer and more immediate. I remember you, Jeanne’s look is promising. I have plans for you.

‘Hello,’ Jeanne welcomes her, the syllables as warm and bright as the salon itself. ‘You came.’

Not yet, Lila thinks, amused at her own lewdness, at her confidence about what’s going to happen here. She’s on edge, but pleasantly so. She’s sparring, enjoying herself; it’s been too long since she’s felt this instant connection.

‘Actually, I nearly didn’t make it,’ she jokes. ‘Not with the Conran Shop so near. There’s nothing I can afford there, but I always do like a good tease.’

Jeanne’s smile reveals the little gap between her front teeth that Lila had been thinking about for seven days. ‘I know,’ Jeanne replies, ‘exactly what you mean.’

Lila finds herself moving forward without conscious memory of standing up. Jeanne takes her hand, her shiny plum fingernails dragging slightly over Lila’s wrist before she releases her grip. Her face is faintly lined with laughter and about five years’ more Octobers than Lila. She’s beautiful – all beaming animation and expensive skin creams.

‘I see you’ve discovered my weakness.’ She arches a shapely brow at the pile of coloured foil discarded on the table before her blue eyes skim, blatant and interested, across Lila’s cream blouse and navy trousers. ‘My other temptation, I mean.’

Reaching into the bowl of chocolates, Jeanne drops a few into the pocket of her low-slung leather utility belt, next to all her scissors and combs. She peels back the wrapper on one and pops the chocolate into her red mouth. Lila watches Jeanne lick her lips, chasing sweetness, and she has the vivid sense memory of the rich texture of the chocolate fondant on her own tongue.

As she catches Lila staring, Jeanne walks to the door and turns both the latch and the sign to CLOSED. She jangles the tools in her belt, still smiling. ‘Ready?’

The exposed brick walls of the salon are lined with tall, modern mirrors framed in gold. Lila watches their cascading reflections within them as Jeanne helps her on with a black cloak.

Once comfortably settled on the stylish leather chair, Lila keeps her eyes fixed on Jeanne’s neck scarf. She traces the subtle pattern of the fabric up and down in its looping figure eight until these curves lead her to track the others on her stylist’s body. The lush spread of her breasts, for instance, held firmly in place from the front but spreading decadently under the dress at the side-view, as though her lingerie can’t quite contain them. Then on to rounded hips, shaped by the girdle of the leather belt and swaying as Jeanne moves in preparation behind her.

Jeanne murmurs, ‘Your hair is beautiful.’

Lila’s rush of pleasure at the compliment is intensified by the sudden sensation of fingertips grazing her temples. She nearly moans in approval at the lingering touch before Jeanne cards her hands through Lila’s straight hair, pulling long strands through splayed fingers. The rolling motion of it is lazy, haphazard – almost like Jeanne’s distracted by the colour, the texture – before settling into tugs too deliberate, too evenly timed, to be anything but by design.

Her eyelids feel heavy from the delights of this petting. They drift shut of their own accord, but she fights to open them, wanting to see Jeanne’s expression as she assesses Lila’s assets. Jeanne’s reflection is studying her, her full lips parted just enough to show a hint of pink tongue. In the mirror she can see flashes of Jeanne’s nails and the way Lila’s own hair seems brighter in contrast as it skims over the polish. When Jeanne steps away, assessment over, Lila feels the sudden lack of contact acutely.

‘Join me in the back?’

There’s laughing invitation from Jeanne, just like there was at the pub. Lila feels like she’s pressed up against the glass of that Conran Shop, looking in at all the expensive pretty things out of reach. Yet here she can walk right in and take what she wants. It’s an intoxicating feeling.

In the back of the salon there’s a spiral staircase leading up to a mezzanine, and a row of chairs slouching low before curving sinks. To Lila’s over-sensitized skin, reclining into one feels like an embrace.

‘How much will we be doing today?’ Jeanne asks formally, her hands resting on Lila’s shoulders.

It’s a question about cut; it’s a question about whatever Lila wants it to be.

‘I think,’ Lila says, ‘I’ll leave myself in your capable hands. I’ve heard that you would know exactly what to do with me.’

A low laugh that’s part triumph, part promise. ‘In that case, we have a new conditioner that I think you’ll love,’ Jeanne teases. ‘Mint and rosemary. The scent’s divine.’

God, her voice. She makes it sound like she’s never seen anything so fascinating as Lila’s hair. It makes Lila want to know what Jeanne will think of the rest of her, whether she’ll get that husky note when considering Lila’s breasts, or her bum. Will her touch there be this expert, too?

Mental note, Lila thinks, as Jeanne lifts the gauzy curtain veiling the back of the room and disappears to find the supplies: Do not let this gorgeous woman talk you into hundreds of pounds’ worth of product. Though she can’t fool herself. If Jeanne gives her that smile again, even at half the wattage, she’ll be styling putty in this woman’s hands and her nurse’s salary be damned.

‘Lie down for me.’

Lila responds instantly to the note of command in Jeanne’s voice, her thoughts trailing off into one long arch of her back and tip of her head. Jeanne rubs a thumb down her throat in a long, rewarding caress before she begins to shampoo her without further comment.

Jeanne’s hair falls in a warm curtain, smelling sweetly of woody spices and the alcohol tang of hairspray. Lila inhales deeply as Jeanne bends over her task.

‘You like being touched.’

It’s all too easy to simply moan in agreement. The water splashing the back of Lila’s neck feels cooler against her suddenly flushed skin.

‘Occasionally my clients fall asleep when I wash their hair,’ Jeanne murmurs.

Lila’s unsurprised, what with the stroking of strong fingers, the pounding of the water, and the soporific heat. But it’s nearly impossible to imagine that she could sleep in this situation – on the contrary, every part of her is singing from proximity, from being the focus of this woman’s careful attentions.

‘Tell me if it’s too hot.’

All of it’s hot, but Lila has no plans to complain. Jeanne’s hands keep up their excellent work. Her knuckles scrub vigorously across Lila’s scalp, rubbing all thought from her mind. Everything goes deliciously blurry again and resistance is impossible against the onslaught of endorphins. She coasts on it, listening to the water and Jeanne’s soft murmurs of approval, until she’s dimly aware that her hair is being gathered into a towel. She’s tingling, from root to tip, feeling cool and hot all at once. Her hair feels nice, too.

Unsteadily, she follows Jeanne up to the mezzanine over the main floor, clinging to the rail of the spiral staircase. In contrast, Jeanne moves confidently as she fetches Lila a glass of water and settles her into another leather chair.

Lila has never paid much attention to her hair. She wears it long from habit, keeping it out of the way on shift with a ponytail. It’s always been easy to manage, being poker-straight and thick. And, most importantly, in the right light it’s got enough gold in it for her to have avoided the worst of the schoolyard catcalls. Beyond summertime highlights and a few experimental fringes, she’s never been particularly adventurous.

All that is swiftly changing, however. Jeanne pins up thick shanks of hair, choosing her starting point and tickling the lobe of Lila’s ear with the edge of the comb as she brushes out more strands. There’s something riveting about the dangerous possibilities offered by the glinting scissors she reaches for next.

‘Trust me,’ Jeanne urges, and the blades flash.

Lila feels the tension-release of the metal through her hair an instant before the strands fall away. She stares dumbly at them, at the way they’ve fallen in disarray along the heavy cloth of the cape. Then she catches sight of herself in the mirror.

‘Short,’ she manages.

Jeanne’s naughty grin is unrepentant. ‘Take it like a good girl,’ she counters, and snips again. And again, until the sudden nerves in Lila’s tummy flutter in time to the staccato clicks. She can feel the cool metal against the back of her neck, blending with the brush of Jeanne’s working hands. It’s too early to see where this is going other than ohmygod short, yet she already feels exposed.

‘When was the last time you had a proper cut?’ Jeanne’s razor-sharp scissors snip. Lila’s locks yield, slanting to the floor as the bold cut takes shape.

‘Too long,’ she breathes, adrenaline transforming nerves into something dirtier.

Jeanne’s breasts brush the side of Lila’s skull as she sways close. ‘Then I hope you’re enjoying yourself.’

God, yes.

It’s exhilarating, being a captive audience to her own seduction. The massive mirrors in front of her, around them, reveal everything in glorious, overwhelming detail. Lila grows drunk on it – the sexy woman, the stylish room, the titillation of watching herself. Lila’s lips are reddened. Parted. Her eyes widen, pupils dilating as she takes in every detail. And her hands …

At first she’s content with gripping the edges of her chair, her nails digging into the leather every time Jeanne’s careful touches nearly drive her to moan aloud. But her pussy is tingling – wet and very interested – and without conscious decision she’s spreading her thighs underneath the protective black cape. She’s hidden there, right in plain view, and the contradiction is thrilling. It’s no effort at all to sneak her right hand down between her thighs to thumb open the buttons of her trousers.

Jeanne sets her scissors aside to pick up the hairdryer. Out of sight, Lila’s fingers curl around the mound of her lace-covered pussy, feeling how she’s already dampened her knickers. She toys with the elastic, teasing carefully. A rush of moisture sends her slouching lower in her seat, sighing.

There’s a pause, and the heat dips away from her for a moment. Their eyes meet in the mirror, sky-blue on Lila’s brown. Jeanne lets out a breathy little sound. When the dryer comes back, Lila bites her lip … and lets her fingers slide underneath her knickers. They glide, feather-light, across her bare clit.

‘You enjoy it.’ Jeanne strokes her index finger across one earlobe, drawing a shudder. Lila’s own fingers skid, pressing to relieve the wanting. ‘These rituals. Being tended.’

The lace is slick now. She wants to touch herself properly, skin on skin. She wants to think about Jeanne tending to her, but now Jeanne’s flicking off the dryer and lowering it away. In the abrupt silence, she can hear the pounding of her heart in time to the insistent throbbing between her legs.

Jeanne cups her palm around her nape, squeezing gently. Lila gasps, tilting her head back immediately to deepen the touch. Jeanne indulges her with a few final strokes, then releases the lock on the chair and spins it around, so Lila’s facing into the main room. After the intimacy of being trapped between Jeanne’s warm body and her own reflection, the open space is jarring.

Jeanne holds up a small hand-mirror. When Lila doesn’t move, still punch-drunk, she prompts, ‘Give me your hand.’ It’s not a request.

Underneath the cape, Lila’s right hand is slippery with her own arousal. With her left, she reaches for the mirror, trying to muster attention from her lust-crazed mind.

Her new haircut is short; cropped into a slanting little bob that flirts with her jaw and gives her cheekbones she’s never noticed before. She looks sassy. She looks sexy. ‘I love it,’ Lila breathes. But even more, Lila loves that she’s been colluding with this woman – a virtual stranger – to objectify her own body. She sets the mirror aside. ‘Thank you.’

‘Thank you for indulging me.’ Jeanne leans very close, like they might kiss. Instead, she flips aside the cape and stares down at Lila’s lap, at the flush across her thighs and the white-knuckled pressure of her thumb still pressing beneath her knickers.

The cape drops to the floor. Jeanne folds herself after it, crouching down before her. Lila gasps when Jeanne’s fingers finish opening her trousers. She’s built straight up and down rather than with Jeanne’s luscious curves, and it’s the work of moments for Jeanne to ease the fabric down over her hips and away.

‘You’re –’ there’s a little crack in the word, a tremor from Jeanne that lets Lila know she’s not alone in this ‘– even more stunning than I thought you’d be.’

Jeanne tilts fully into Lila’s space, blue eyes intent and darkened by sex. She surges forward to take her mouth and the touch of lips on lips is messy, chaotic and incredible. Jeanne tastes like chocolate. Her lashes flutter and close, and they’re cuts of amber over the shadowed cream skin beneath her eyes. There are faint freckles too. Lila notices them in the hazy moment before the sensations from the soft tongue stroking into her mouth smudge out all other thought.

The kiss goes on – wet and slippery, all-absorbing – until Lila becomes dimly aware that Jeanne is sliding her shears up, up, up her splayed thigh. She jerks away from the kiss as she feels the blunt outer edge of the blade furrowing her skin as it goes.

Jeanne asks, ‘How much do you like your knickers?’

Lila is barely breathing from excitement. Across the room, the ornate mirrors reflect her desire back at her, amplifying it a thousand times. ‘Do it. Please.’

The blades open, slicing through the lace; Jeanne moves with exquisite care to do the same to the other side.

Lila spreads her legs as wide as she can as Jeanne yanks the knickers free. Setting the shears aside, she rubs her fingertips across the path of the blades until Lila’s sense-memory is overwhelmed by the new stimulation. There are little work calluses on her hands and they catch against Lila’s smoother skin. Heavy waves of her red hair frame her face. She’s unbearably hot and, for Lila, the rush of completely giving herself over to this woman is dizzying.

‘Come here, that’s it.’ Jeanne urges Lila’s legs up, encouraging her ankles to droop across her shoulders so that she’s revealed to her liking.

Lila knows her own body well. She knows what she will look like to Jeanne, with her plump pussy dusted with coppery curls and her eager clit already flushed with blood and peeping from its hood. From this angle, she can see Jeanne absorbing all this new knowledge. Learning her. Lila was drawn to her competence from the start, loved the way it radiated from her and turned to blatant sexual energy between them. Now she’s on fire with wanting more.

‘I’m going to lick you. I want to taste you. Let me?’ Jeanne’s tongue darts out over her lips.

Lila whines, already anticipating the feel of it. ‘Don’t tease …’

In simple answer, Jeanne opens her luscious mouth against her.

Lila’s hips judder in shock but Jeanne holds her steady, curling her fingers into the flesh of her bum to keep her right where she’s wanted. Her tongue curls, too, sliding across already slick flesh before fully exploring Lila’s exposed folds. It’s overstimulation of the best kind, amplifying her need into an inarticulate shout that echoes in the empty salon.

Jeanne draws back, her mouth glistening and amused. ‘What if people come in and hear you?’

Lila lets her head fall back against the edge of the chair. Her eyes flutter shut as the edge of a fingernail tickles before her inner thigh is soothed by a damp kiss. ‘I’ll tell them I really recommend that shampoo.’

The answering laugh turns to more kisses. More and more, until they all blend into one intimate, open-mouthed kiss. This onslaught of tongue and lips and suction ceases only when Jeanne needs to breathe; even then, she rubs her cheeks against Lila’s thighs, like she doesn’t want to stop touching her even through her heavy panting.

Come and saliva slick her pussy and thighs. Now there are delicate fingers pressing just inside her, making her desperate for more. Her clit feels stiff and huge. Jeanne is lavishing her attention on the nub, tickling it and teasing it with the tip of her tongue before sealing her mouth over it to suck. She backs off again only to repeat the entire process. It’s amazing, all of it; Lila’s finding it impossible to process, she’s blindingly aroused. Her thighs quiver as her hands tangle in the soft fall of Jeanne’s hair. She bucks, wanting more contact directly on, in, her pussy, but Jeanne doesn’t give it to her. She just keeps sucking at her clit with rhythmic bursts of pressure that send Lila thrashing and wild.

Lila fists Jeanne’s hair, yanking roughly. Jeanne ignores it. She sucks, and Lila surges over the cliff of her orgasm. Pleasure wracks her body. Jeanne’s tongue strokes roughly across her trembling pussy, coaxing more aftershocks, until Lila cries out.

‘Enough, enough –’

Jeanne pulls away and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Her expression is indulgent as she shifts off her knees and stands. ‘Mmm. Just relax for me for a moment.’

Lila bonelessly obeys, her legs falling without Jeanne to hold her up.

It’s only a matter of minutes, however, before Jeanne returns. If Lila’s feverish brain is expecting anything, it’s a towel and some clean-up. What she’s definitely not expecting is the heavy slap of the back of a hairbrush across her bare thigh. Rather than rattling her out of her post-orgasmic haze, the thrilling shock of it rockets her into desire once more again.

The brush bristles look like they will scratch against thin tender skin. She thinks for a strung-out moment that Jeanne will do it. She tenses.

‘Ease back, love. Not today.’

Lila stares at the hairclips that Jeanne has carelessly stowed on the low-cut collar of her dress. She looks at their clamping teeth then down at the erect nipples distorting her own blouse.

‘Next time?’

A low chuckle as Jeanne hitches Lila’s legs back up into position.

Lila’s so wet that the handle of the hairbrush – smooth, thick, tapered – slides inside her immediately. She clamps around it instinctively, so tight that Jeanne murmurs as she tries to stroke it deeper.

‘Shh. Let me fuck this into you.’ There’s a bead of perspiration on Jeanne’s temple and hectic colour high on her cheeks. ‘Give me the rest of your cream, because I know you have more for me.’

Jeanne’s fingers flex against the brush and Lila’s glassy stare is riveted to the movement. She imagines those capable fingers, stretching her. Curling inside her. Rubbing the spot, this spot, that the handle is grazing with blunt, clumsy strokes. She loosens, just enough for Jeanne to push further. Lila groans, head tossing back and forth.

‘Yes,’ she pleads.

‘Stop ruining your new hair.’ Jeanne’s laughing command is choked, the sound of it bitten off. Her left hand works quickly, pushing and pulling on the brush with rough momentum. She licks the fingers of her right and rubs them with equal speed across the shiny swell of her clit.

It feels so good to have the thick length inside her … all Jeanne.

This time her orgasm is effortless; it flows over her, leaving her instantly limp.

‘Oh, oh,’ she hears Jeanne groaning in sympathy. ‘Take more –’

She lets her body go, giving it all up to her. Her eyes open again to find Jeanne looking somewhere between satisfied and starving.

‘You were right,’ Lila says when she’s breathing evenly again. She lowers her shaky feet to the ground and urges Jeanne up into her lap. She grins at the other woman, holding her tightly. ‘You did know exactly what to do with me. How is that?’

‘We gingers need to stick together.’ Jeanne’s hair is dishevelled, as devil-red as her swollen lips.

Lila explores her own hair. It feels good. Light and immediately comfortable. ‘So … how often will I need a cut and, ah, blow?’

‘Often.’ Jeanne’s cat’s eyes gleam. ‘High-maintenance, that style.’

‘Good,’ Lila tells her, because it’s very good. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’