The Pleasure Principle

An education

When it comes to sex, shy Verity is as awkward as a virgin. So imagine her horror and shame when her ex reveals her inadequacies to the internet? To prove that she’s not frigid, as claimed, she’ll sleep with the very next man she sees!

So when her boss, Cal Bailey, a man completely confident in his own irresistibility, invites her to one of his legendary parties Verity leaps at the chance. She gets Cal right where she wants him but at the crucial moment her insecurities take over, leaving Cal confused and her frustrated!

Verity, convinced she can’t do it, is set for rejection again but Cal is as skilled as he is desirable, and he’s determined to turn Verity’s pain into her ultimate pleasure…

The Pleasure Principle

Jane O’Reilly

www.CarinaUK.com

Jane O’Reilly started writing as an antidote to kids’ TV when her youngest child was a baby. Her first novel was set in her old school and involved a ghost and lots of death. It’s unpublished, which is probably for the best. Then she wrote a romance, and that, as they say, was that. She lives near London with her husband and two children. Find her at www.janeoreilly.com, on Twitter as @janeoreilly and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/janeoreillyauthor

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Author Bio

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Endpages

Copyright

Chapter One

I don’t know quite how it happened, I honestly don’t. All I wanted was a little privacy, a little space so I could have a bit of a meltdown after my boyfriend wrote a detailed essay about our sex life on the aptly named ratemyshag.com. He gave me two stars. One of those was for keeping the lights off.

So there I was, sobbing my rage into a used tissue in the back office, when Cal Bailey walked in and caught me and I discovered that there was something even more humiliating than having my lack of sexual skills described on the internet for the whole world to see, and that was having someone I work for knowing about it.

‘Oh,’ he said, as I dissolved into another crying fit and he stared at my laptop screen. ‘Fuck.’

The irony of it wasn’t lost on me. ‘If only I could,’ I said.

He looked at me, just looked. ‘I’m having a party at mine tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come?’

The irony of that wasn’t lost on me either. I laughed into my wreck of a tissue, then I realised he was serious. He scribbled his address on a piece of paper and put it on the desk, next to a crystal vase filled with sweet peas, and then he left. I spent the next twenty-four hours talking myself in and out of it.

And then my page on ratemyshag.com reached 248 comments, and I decided enough was enough. Before I could change my mind, I changed my dress and brushed my hair and went to Cal’s house. You see, his parties have a reputation. And in some tangled part of my brain, that tempted me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, wondering what it would be like. Wondering if there was, in fact, a fundamental difference between me and other women. I wanted to know what it was. I needed to know. And I thought that maybe, if I went to the party, I might be able to find out.

I made it inside his front door before I lost my nerve. I stood there, clutching my bag, feeling like a complete outsider, wondering what I was doing. The courage I’d had deserted me, draining away like sand through a sieve. To my left was a sprawling living room, with big squashy sofas and a lovely rug, full of people talking, drinking, mingling, nothing more. A couple of them noticed me, then turned their gazes away. I felt so foolish, so clumsy, so unwelcome. What had I been thinking? No-one really has sex parties at their house. They’re just a story invented by dirty old men, the kind who have moustaches and read Penthouse.

I should have left then. The front door was right behind me. But for some reason, something to do with embarrassment and panic, I didn’t. Instead, I opened the door to my right and darted through it.

Which is how I found myself here, trapped in a room watching two people going at it on the sofa. And by two people, I mean two girls, though they aren’t really girls, more like grown women. And by going at it, I mean kissing. They’re just kissing, I tell myself, as I press back against the wall, back into the shadows. Just kissing. Even if one of them is sat on a man’s lap, and that man has his hand inside her blouse.

You’re intruding on a private moment, Verity. You should leave.

But I can’t seem to make myself move. Like a deer caught in the headlights, I can’t do anything but stand there and stare. And then the door eases open, and someone else comes in. I drop my gaze to the floor, try and press myself even further back into the corner, as if I can hide there. As if I can hide anywhere. I hold my breath, but my heart is thumping so hard I swear everyone in the room can hear it.

Then I sneak a glance at whoever just came in. Oh, god. Oh my god.

It’s Cal.

He’s leaning back against the wall with his sleeves pulled up to his forearms and his dirty blond hair hanging over his forehead and a bottle of beer in his hand. He keeps swigging on it, watching the people on the sofa as if this is perfectly normal, as if he does this sort of thing all the time. Which based on the evidence, he does.

I don’t, though. I once accidentally clicked on a porn site when I was looking up something on my laptop, and I was so shocked that I dropped the damn thing on the floor. It’s never been right since. So I can’t be in here right now, because the chances of me breaking something are increasing by the second, and Cal has a really nice house. I mean really nice. It’s like something out of a style magazine. I know he brings clients here sometimes, to give them an idea of what The Full Package can do for their home. Cal owns it, together with Tasha and Ethan. They handle the architectural side of it, and the building work. I deal with interior design.

I guess I’ve got an eye for beautiful things, which is why this house appeals. And Cal. He’s so very beautiful. And he knows about my page on ratemyshag.com. And he caught me in here. Blood rushes to my face and I clutch my bag tighter, desperately wishing that I could make myself invisible.

I can’t, of course, so I move on to the next thing on my list. I desperately wish that I could make myself stop watching. But I can’t seem to do that either. One of the girls is pretty, with softly curling red hair and pale skin, but the other one is nothing short of beautiful. She has sharply cut blonde hair, and the sort of face that you usually see in women’s fashion magazines. She’s sort of fleshy, but it looks wonderful, and the way the man she is sat on is looking at her makes something inside me curl up and hurt.

My ex-boyfriend never looked at me that way.

Bastard.

I must make some sort of sound, even though I don’t intend to, because I sense Cal move. Shit. Be quiet, Verity. For fuck’s sake, be quiet. I press a hand over my mouth, as if I can hold the sound in, even as I feel another burst of it swelling inside me. Oh god. Oh god. Even though he invited me here, even though I came here wanting to see…this, the reality of it is almost too much for me.

The blonde woman is unfastening the redhead’s dress. She’s doing it slowly, following the line of the zipper with her mouth, as the man caresses her. His hands are still inside her blouse, but it’s clear that he’s watching her every move. It’s also clear, when he takes one of those hands out of her blouse and unfastens his trousers and pulls out his cock, that it’s turning him on, and that I am about to witness something I never imagined, except maybe in the odd out of control dream. I think…I think I’m about to watch them have sex. Actual sex. And I should leave, I know I should, before Cal moves any closer, but I can’t seem to get my feet to move.

Because I want to see them have sex. I want to see it. I want to watch him move her legs apart and slide his cock inside her. The redhead says something I can’t hear over the thundering of blood in my ears, then she pulls off her dress. The blonde leans forward, licks at an exposed nipple, and I think I make another sound, a louder one, because Cal turns his head.

And then he moves closer. Oh god, he’s moving closer. And the blonde is moving, too. In a minute, she’s going to have her head between the other woman’s legs, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if that happens. It’s not that I’m into girls, but I’m trapped in here and I can’t stop looking and everything is so Technicolor and real, and I can hear the rustle of fabric and their muttered conversation, as the tall lamp at the end of the sofa bathes them in a soft, golden glow.

I’m not good at sex, and these three clearly are, and they’re so uninhibited, and the whole scene is so sexy. I don’t know how to do what they’re doing, but they make it look easy. The blonde woman has her knees on the sofa now, and the man is pushing at her skirt. He moves it higher, revealing the tops of her stockings, and the black stripes of her suspenders. Sexy underwear. Just another thing I don’t know how to do.

I can’t stop looking. Not even when Cal moves right alongside me. Not even when he leans his long, elegant length against the wall by my side, or when he says ‘Hello, Verity,’ and offers me his beer.

I shake my head, fold my arms, make myself look at the carpet. I can’t breathe. God, I hope I don’t faint.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ he asks me.

What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Yes doesn’t seem accurate, and yet oddly, neither does no. If I could get some words to come out of my mouth, I suspect they’d be I have no fucking clue. I glance at the door, but it seems so far away, too far away. I lift a hand to my mouth and bite down on my fingernail. I mustn’t look. He mustn’t know that I want to look. Shit, I really want to look. I mustn’t. I can’t.

Cal stares at me for a bit longer, and then he shakes his head and turns his attention back to the scene playing out on the sofa. I risk a sideways glance at him, and then I discreetly slide my gaze back to the three of them. The blonde has her skirt up around her waist now, revealing the luscious curve of her bum. The man is stroking her between her legs, and even in this dim light I can see how wet she is, the flesh of her pussy all plump and glossy. He has his other hand on his cock, and she has her face between the redhead’s thighs. Her shoulders are blocking the rest of the scene, but I can imagine it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Cal smiling. ‘What’s so funny?’ I snap at him, finding the voice I thought I had lost.

‘Nothing,’ he says.

He’s lying, I know he is. I’m tired of being lied to by men. Like my ex, who let me think everything between us was fine, as he secretly plastered our sex life all over the internet. For weeks, I endured the looks from his friends, comments I didn’t really understand, until finally one of them took me aside and told me what was going on.

‘I’m not a prude,’ I whisper, though it comes out far louder than I intended. Fortunately, the trio on the sofa are too engrossed in what they’re doing to notice, or if they do notice, they don’t care. God, I wish I could be like that, could just not care, but at the moment I can barely have an orgasm when there’s only me in the room, never mind anyone else. Even before the whole ‘my girlfriend is so frigid she makes the Arctic look warm’ internet disaster, it was hit and miss. And more miss than hit, if I’m honest.

‘I’m sure you’re not,’ he replies.

‘I’m not!’ Okay, that was a bit too loud. The man is looking in our direction. The blonde, well, she’s too busy. The redhead has her eyes closed, her back arching as she digs her fingers into the sofa and makes a sound. And oh, that sound. It seems to work right through me.

‘Then shut up and enjoy the show,’ Cal says.

‘I…’ I start, and then I stop. If I’m going to convince him that I’m not a prude, that I’m totally okay with this, I’m going to have to act as if I don’t care. I want to be completely comfortable with all this. I want to be able to lean against the wall and drink beer and watch the three of them fuck, because that’s what they’re doing now, fucking. The man is on his knees behind the blonde, her bare bum pressed tight against him. I almost convince myself that they’re pretending, like actors do in films, but then he pulls back, and no, definitely not pretending. He pauses for a moment, his cock half out of her, and the sound I make this time is so loud I know everyone in the room can hear it.

I’m not okay with this. I’m not okay at all. I feel all shaky and strange, and there’s the fiercest throb between my legs, and my mouth is dry. My pulse is kicking hard, too hard, and I’m having thoughts about Cal.

Inappropriate thoughts.

The man tightens his hold on the blonde’s hips, and then he starts to do her hard and deep, slow enough that we get a good view, but roughly enough to make her lift her head and say something that sounds like ‘Oh, god, Scott.’

And Cal is still looking at me. And somewhere between the fucking, and Cal, and my thoughts, it all gets too much for me. I can’t stand here while he laughs at me, while they all laugh at me, because I’m not that comfortable with sex and every time I try it I get it wrong. I am different to other women. There’s no point denying it. I just have to accept it. But god, it makes me feel like something is breaking inside me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, as I shove my way past him on legs that feel like they’re made of rubber.

He catches my arm. ‘What for?’

His eyes are dark, so very dark, so very amused, and I decide that now would be a good time to die. But I don’t. I just keep right on living, right on through the humiliation. Why did I come here? Why did I think it would be a good idea? I’ve ended up more embarrassed, not less.

So I drop my gaze, and when I tug my arm free from his grip, he lets go. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, only this time I don’t know whether I’m saying it to him or to myself. And then I rush out of the room, out into the bright glare of the party, and stumble my way towards the front door.

Chapter Two

The gravelled driveway crunches beneath my feet as I make my way along it, clutching the sides of my jacket together with one hand. I don’t really understand what just happened in there, apart from the fact that Cal’s infamous sex parties aren’t rumour, they’re true. He was so comfortable with it, so confident, able to stand there and watch and enjoy it. Me, I ran away.

I’m still not sure how I feel about what I saw. I’m not sure how I want to feel about it. I should feel shocked and disgusted, I know, but hard as I try, I can’t seem to make myself. I have an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach, one I’m trying not to examine too closely, because if I do I suspect I might discover that it’s regret.

I stumble a little on the gravel, but right myself before I can fall. More people are making their way along the street towards the house. I can hear their inebriated voices, the laughter that’s a shade too loud, and I drop my gaze in that way cats do, like they can make themselves invisible if they don’t look at you. Given the way this evening is going, I shouldn’t be surprised when they stop. When one of them calls to me. ‘Verity!’

Fantastic. Just fantastic. What better way to end this than by running into my ex? ‘Hello, Will,’ I say. And that’s all I say. I don’t say any of the things that are swirling round in my head, like thanks for ruining my life, you bastard, or trash anyone else online lately?

‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.

‘What?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought a party at Cal Bailey’s house was your sort of thing,’ he smirks. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t have thought you’d get an invite. Is that why you’re leaving so early? Did you get kicked out?’

He’s so smug, standing there in his rugby shirt and on-trend jeans, making me feel even more hideous. I’m desperate to say something cutting, but I can’t seem to find the words.

But someone else does. And that someone is Cal. He moves in beside me, close to me, close enough for me to catch the faintest trace of his aftershave. ‘Hello, Will,’ he says.

‘Cal.’ Will grins at him, and that grin makes me feel sick. ‘I heard you’re throwing a party tonight.’

‘Nope,’ Cal replies. ‘Not tonight.’

I stare up at him in disbelief. All the lights in the house are on and music is blaring through the open front door.

I see Will look up at the house. His brow creases, his mouth opening as if he wants to say something, but he isn’t quite sure what. ‘Sounds like a party,’ he says. There’s an odd tone of desperation in his voice, as he shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocks back on his heels.

‘Just having a few friends over for drinks,’ Cal says. ‘Nothing major. I’d invite you in, but we’re keeping it low-key, you know.’

‘Yeah,’ Will replies. ‘Sure.’

Then he looks at me. I feel every muscle in my body go tense, feel the ring of steel that forms around my head every time I so much as think about what he did start to tighten. And all the while, Cal is stood next to me, smelling all spicy and masculine, and knowing too much. God, this is humiliating. ‘Right,’ I say, my voice all squeaky. ‘I’ll just be going then.’

‘I’ll walk you home,’ Cal says. He slings an arm over my shoulders. A heavy, strong arm that pulls me close into his body, which is both hot and hard, though his jumper is beautifully soft and clearly cashmere. ‘See you around, Will.’

The movement of his big body propels me forward. When I stumble, he moves his arm from my shoulders to my waist, keeping me upright, keeping me going. I can feel Will’s gaze burning into my back.

When we reach the end of the street, I swallow down the lump in my throat and force myself to speak. ‘You don’t have to walk me home,’ I manage. I can’t be near him, not right now. Not when my head is such a mess of emotions, and my mind keeps playing that scene back at the house over and over. Not when it’s putting me and Cal on that sofa, doing unspeakable things to each other as strangers watch from the shadows.

‘I know,’ he says. ‘But I’m going to anyway.’

‘Really,’ I tell him. ‘It’s fine. I don’t live far.’

‘I could do with the fresh air,’ he replies.

‘What about your guests?’

‘I think they can manage to get drunk and fuck without me.’

I don’t know what to say to that. I mean seriously. Is there a response? Maybe there is, if you’re one of those sophisticated, witty women, the kind that lives the Cosmo lifestyle and wears Louboutin’s and has a special drawer just for sex toys. But I’m not one of those women, not even close. I’m the kind who wears brogues and vintage dresses because Topshop scares the hell out of me. I’m the kind who has sex under the covers with the lights off and then lies there afterwards, wondering why she can’t enjoy it.

We walk on in the dark until we reach my front door. I fumble in my bag for my keys, find them right at the bottom, buried under all the detritus, the chewing gum wrappers and lip balm and pens. ‘So,’ I say brightly, nervously. ‘This is me. Thanks for walking me home.’

I turn, try to put the key in the lock, but my hands are shaking and I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. I feel like the air is pushing down on me, like the world is closing in, like I’m standing on the edge of a major disaster. One wrong step and I’ll tumble into it, head first.

Cal is stood right behind me, and I have to get rid of him, but I can’t even get the bloody key in the door. I can feel hot tears pricking at the back of my eyes, and I blink hard and fast, trying to hold them in. I want to enjoy sex, I think to myself. I want to enjoy it, like those women back at his house. But I don’t know how.

‘Here,’ Cal says, reaching past me. ‘Let me.’ He takes my key, slides it easily into the lock, turns it.

‘Thanks,’ I say, as I reach for the handle, but his hand is there first. He doesn’t open the door, though.

‘Verity, wait a minute.’

Then his hand is on my shoulder, and he’s turning me round, and I don’t even try to stop him. God, he’s got good hair. And great shoulders. And his mouth is all sort of soft, and I really want to kiss it. And if I hadn’t been given two stars on ratemyshag.com, maybe I would.

‘I have to go,’ I say, fumbling behind me for the door handle.

‘Will is a dick,’ he says. ‘You know that, right? Everything he put on that website was complete crap.’

I stop fumbling as my stomach goes into freefall and my face burns with the humiliation. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I tell him. I want the whole thing to just disappear. I wish I could take the past month and completely undo it.

‘Just tell me one thing,’ Cal says. ‘Is it true?’

‘Is what true?’

‘Is it true that he never made you come?’

I laugh, then. ‘I don’t know what you were reading, but it clearly wasn’t the same thing as me.’

‘So he did make you come?’

‘Are you deliberately trying to embarrass me? Is that what this is?’

‘I just want to know. It’s not a difficult question, Verity. Either you came or you didn’t.’

‘I didn’t, okay?’ My whole body seems to have gone rigid, and I can’t seem to stop myself from shouting. ‘But it had nothing to do with him. He was fine. It was me. I’m completely useless in bed.’

‘I see,’ he says. ‘Well, I’ll have to do something about that.’

‘What do you mean, have to do something about it?’

‘Exactly what I said.’

I don’t really see him move, but suddenly he’s stood on the edge of my step. He’s so close to me in height, maybe half an inch shorter, but he’s strong and broad, and there’s nowhere for me to go except back against the front door. I grab for the handle again, but I can’t seem to find it. My fingers stumble over the gloss painted wood. ‘What do you think you’re going to do? I laugh again. It sounds dry and nervous. ‘Persuade me to go to bed with you and then show me it wasn’t me, it was him?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

He lifts up a hand, brushes the back of his knuckles over my cheek. The contact feels like an electric shock. My heart is pounding, and I make that sound again, the one I made back at his house when I saw those three people on the sofa. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I can’t,’ I whisper. ‘Not with him, not with you, not with anyone.’

‘Did Will tell you that?’

This is all getting to be too much for me now. He’s too near, and I am way too close to being persuaded. I want to be persuaded. And I want Cal to persuade me. But the thought of failing with him is more than I can bear. My hand finds the door handle behind me, and I pull it. ‘Never going to happen,’ I tell him. ‘So don’t even bother trying.’

I shove the door open, spin my way inside my house, and shut the door in his face. I stand there inside my little hallway, in the darkness, with a rock in my stomach and an ache between my thighs. I close my eyes. I want to scream, or cry, or break something, preferably against a delicate part of Will’s anatomy.

I’m so tired of hating myself. I’m so tired of feeling inadequate. And I’m frustrated. And I’m horny. And I think Cal Bailey just offered to have sex with me. I open the door. He is at the bottom of the steps, hands tucked in his pockets, moonlight glinting off his hair. ‘Persuade me,’ I say.

He turns, and my knees wobble just a bit. ‘What?’

‘Persuade me,’ I say again, before I lose my nerve for the second time. ‘Do whatever it is that you do to get women to go to bed with you.’

‘Usually I just show up,’ he says.

‘You’re going to have to try a bit harder than that, I’m afraid.’

‘How much harder?’

I think about closing the door. ‘A lot harder.’

‘What do you want, Verity?’

‘I want sex,’ I blurt out.

‘Is that all?’

I nod vigorously. Because suddenly, it is. I don’t want to be romanced, to be seduced. I don’t want to be fooled into thinking that someone cares when they don’t. I don’t want to think it’s anything more than it is. I just want to get rid of this hot ache between my thighs. I want some new memories, ones to paint over the ugly, heavy, sore ones that Will left behind.

‘OK then,’ he says. And then he’s climbing the steps to my front door, stepping into my hallway, closing the door behind him. ‘Where’s your bedroom?’

I point to the stairs without thinking, but I don’t move towards them. ‘Not there,’ I say. Not in my bed, with the lace and the scatter cushions and the pretty brass bedstead. It’s not the sort of room you have casual sex in. Plus I can’t remember if I left my underwear to dry on the radiator or not.

‘Then where?’

‘In here,’ I say. I grab his hand, pull him into the living room, towards the huge overstuffed armchair that I got cheap after someone got biro on it.

‘Slow down,’ he says.

But I can’t, I can’t. The ache between my thighs is too much, and I have to do this before I lose my nerve completely, before I collapse into a sobbing heap and cry all over his cashmere jumper. You see, the problem isn’t that Will rated me a two. It’s that I think he might be right. And if I think about that too much, I’ll never have sex with anyone ever again.

I push Cal back into the armchair. He collapses into it, sprawling back with his thighs wide and his big hands resting on the padded arms of the chair. My dress is loose and lets me straddle him without difficulty. His thighs are hard, warm, the white leather of the chair cold against my bare knees. I pull my bag off my body, toss it to the floor, then shove my hands between us and start tugging at his flies.

He catches my wrists. ‘Verity,’ he says softly. ‘What’s the rush?’

I tug my hands free, pull off my jacket, throw it in the general direction of my bag. I’m hot, so hot. ‘I just want this, that’s all,’ I say.

And then my fingers find his erection, and the room seems to tilt slightly on its axis. Surely that can’t be right. I open my hand over it, grope around the general area. I lean back, fumble open the zip, unfasten the waistband of his jeans and tug them out of the way.