The Make

not on your own. Are you?’

‘No,’ she said, but the tears were slipping down her cheeks now, making tracks through the hectic splodges of blusher she’d applied. ‘Sorry,’ she gasped.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Harry, and pulled out a clean white hankie and dabbed gently at her face.

At which point Jackie Sullivan – the cougar! What a joke – put her head against the front of his dinner jacket and sobbed her heart out. As she cried she made a high-pitched whining sound, like a beaten puppy. It pulled at his heart to hear it.

They never got to go to her black-tie do. Harry paid off the taxi and they spent the evening in her drawing room, talking about her late husband, her daughter who worked out in Hong Kong, and her lonely, lonely life. And later, when she asked if he would go up to bed with her, just to hold her, that was all, Harry said yes, of course.

And later still, just as dawn was breaking, Harry felt her hand sneaking over to delve inside his Calvins – he’d kept them on last night, not wishing to embarrass her by flaunting his nude body when she had been so careful to keep on her bra and pants. He lay still, surprised and extremely turned on, as she clutched and stroked at his tumescent cock; he had his usual waking-up erection; it felt enormous and her hand on it felt very good indeed.

‘Goodness,’ she murmured. ‘So big. Would you . . .?’ she asked, guiding his hands to her neat little breasts beneath her lacy bra. He could feel that her nipples were hard.

Oh yes. Harry found that he certainly would. He unclipped her bra with practised ease, pulling it off. Rolled her nipples around between thumb and forefinger, kissed and fondled them. He pulled off her pants and stroked her bush, then rolled over on to her, eased her thighs open. He found the ready opening and pushed gently in. She gasped. He could barely see her in the cool dawn light, they were just shadows heaving beneath the covers, and that was fine; this was just anonymous sex. He pumped hard at her, enjoying the usual hot sensations, and she clung to him without a whimper.

Then Harry remembered that he wasn’t wearing a condom – could a forty-year-old woman get pregnant? He thought it was possible, so when he felt his climax coming he slipped out of her, groaning with pleasure as he spilled his seed out over her belly.

Sex with an older woman wasn’t a problem after all. He gave her a long, shuddering orgasm and she cried again, but afterwards she seemed more relaxed. They lay in each other’s arms until it was time for him to go.

Chapter 5

‘So what was she like? The Cougar?’ George was hunched over the computer in his bedroom, bashing keys and staring at the screen the afternoon after Harry’s ‘date’ with Jackie Sullivan.

Harry put down fifty pounds beside George’s keyboard and threw himself back on George’s bed, thinking about Jackie, how sweet she’d been, how small and shivery with nerves. And then, when he’d left, how embarrassed – avoiding his gaze, paying him and ushering him out into the dawn like a guilty secret. Which he knew he was. Of course he was. He’d escorted her nowhere. She’d literally just paid him for a chat and for sex. Still . . . Jackie Sullivan had brought out something protective in Harry, something he’d never before suspected was in his personality.

Of course he’d had women before. Plenty of them. He had the height and film-star looks. He was a snappy dresser and he knew exactly what suited him best. He favoured tight black slim-fit jeans, boots, black or white shirts – all of which flattered his pale skin, emphasized his grey eyes and made the best of his upright bearing and the auburn hair that fell in thick glossy waves on to his broad shoulders. Harry had a unique style, and it drew in the women like a magnet.

‘She was okay.’ He shrugged.

George stopped typing, pocketed the fifty and turned his bulky form in the swivel chair to smirk at Harry. ‘What do you mean, okay? You didn’t . . .?’ He made a gesture with his arm.

‘No. I didn’t,’ lied Harry. He was surprised to find that he didn’t want to even suggest to George, let alone talk about, the fact that he had bedded Jackie. Usually they gave each other blow-by-blow accounts of their conquests, but this . . . this was different. The poor little bitch was vulnerable, still in a state of mourning over her dead husband. He suspected she’d acted totally out of character last night, and it had mortified her. Harry didn’t want to turn her pain into sordid entertainment.

‘Well, why the hell not?’ demanded George with a grin. ‘Look at you, boy. Mega babe-attractor. Thought she’d eat you and spit out the bits.’

‘Look, we went out, she paid me, end of.’

George gave Harry a long, thoughtful look. ‘Ohhhh . . . kay,’ he said finally. ‘Anyway, we got mail. Two new ladies, one for you, one for me. Not cougars.’

Thank God, thought Harry. He couldn’t take another night like the last one. George had promised him that escorting girls would be straightforward fun with the occasional fuck thrown in: that was the deal and he was happy with it. He didn’t actually want to start liking any of them.

‘You got one too?’ Glad of this new diversion, Harry adopted a teasing tone. ‘Likes a bit of rough, does she?’

‘Listen, I scrub up,’ said George. ‘Mine’s a banker. Hasn’t got time for boyfriends and so needs an escort to her firm’s pre-Christmas bash.’

‘Bet she hasn’t had it in years, poor cow. And you’re just the man to put that right . . .’ Harry squinted at George. ‘Have you been entirely straight with me, bro? Is this job in fact less about eating out at five-star establishments, and more about jumping around between the sheets with desperate women? Is this job in fact going to be more about fucking than finger buffets?’

‘Yep,’ said George. All right, he didn’t relish the job like Harry seemed to. In fact, it worried him. Did he have a low sex drive or something? He was never, ever going to discuss it with anyone, that was for sure. Especially not Harry.

‘That’s what I like to hear. So who’s mine?’

George pressed ‘Print’. The machine whirred and a sheet of paper emerged. He handed it to Harry.

‘Laura Dixon,’ Harry read aloud. ‘Fashion designer, twenty-eight years old. Oh, and a pic.’

He looked at the photo. Long, straight-brown hair, a tanned, high-cheekboned face and serious dark eyes. Brunettes, blondes, whatever – he was game for anything.

‘Hey, this could turn out to be fun, sensei,’ said Harry.

‘Grasshopper, you’re learning,’ said George with a wink.

Chapter 6

‘D’you know, you’ve been great,’ slurred Jemma Houghton, staggering slightly and having to cling to the front of George’s jacket as they left her office party.

Yeah, I have. Above and beyond the call of duty, thought George.

Fuck me, could this woman drink. She was pretty – blonde and rake-thin and very sexily turned out in a white mini-dress and little else. She’d told him the drill when they’d been heading over in the cab in which he’d collected her from her posh waterside apartment near Southwark Bridge. He was her new boyfriend, Michael. She’d been pretending she had been dating Michael for months and she wasn’t going to turn up to a works do without him and have to admit that she was a saddo who’d been telling porkies all this time. So he was Michael for this evening, right?

‘Right,’ said George.

‘And you’re in property. Developing and stuff,’ she’d told him.

‘There still money in that?’ he asked, curious. He thought the bottom had dropped out of the property market and buy-to-let was dead. Not that he would ever be troubled by it one way or the other; he doubted he would ever