Unfurl: Chapter 10

Gen is saying something.

I liked her a lot, I think.

I zone her out, because my entire consciousness right now is fixated on four words towards the bottom of Belle Scott’s questionnaire.

Yes. Exactly this. Please.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking Christ.

I drag my hand down over my face and rub my jaw as I stare at her response to the postulant-slash-priest role play. I’m instantly hard. I’m so fucking hard I could drill a hole through the wall.

It’s the urgency in her words. The hunger. And the fucking please. The please that tells me she’d be as desperate for everything I’d give her in this scenario as I would be.

That she gets off on the exact same fucking stuff as I do.

Motherfucker.

It makes me want to drag her in here right now and put us both out of our misery. Forget the first session, the careful, respectful over-underwear exploration.

Let’s just get down to the good stuff, for fuck’s sake. My mind’s eye plays a crystal-clear vision of her lying on a bed, clear-skinned and glossy-haired, in some virginal, nun-like fucking shift that I’d shove up or tear off her in my hunger to get to the glorious body I know lies underneath.

To defile every fucking inch of her with my hands. My mouth.

My cock.

‘Jesus Christ, Rafe, put it away,’ Genevieve groans from afar.

I blink, and, looking up, see her gesturing at my boner. ‘What? Oh. Shut up. You’ve seen it before.’

Gen has done a lot more than see my dick, but I’m not concerned with that now, because my senses are drugged with thoughts of Belle in exactly the sorts of filthy scenarios I’ve been trying not to imagine. Until she showed up at my front door and pretty much begged to sign on the dotted line for Unfurl, at least.

‘If you can tamp the beast down for just a second, I’d like to chat to you about her,’ Genevieve is saying now. ‘I’m trying to tell you I liked her. She’s impressive.’

‘What? Yeah, she’s a lovely girl.’ A lovely girl who’s never been fucked, or even properly touched, if this questionnaire is correct, and yet appears to have an appetite for filth that I can one hundred percent get on board with.

Christ.

She was hot before. A knockout, even.

But now I’ve seen her reaction to the pleasures we’ve proposed to make available to her.

Yes. Exactly this. Please.

I mean, Jesus. I can never un-see that.

And I don’t want to.

I wonder what she was doing when she wrote that. I bet she was touching that sweet, virginal pussy. Rubbing it. Or using a vibrator?

No. Bet she’s too scaredy-cat to have one. Or if she has one, there’s no way she’s brought it to her parents’ flat.

I bet she was wet as fuck.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Callum snorts. ‘Lovely girl, my arse. For fuck’s sake, come over and talk to us if you have any blood flow left outside of your cock.’ His tone is smug and taunting. He’s one of my best and oldest friends, but he can be a total dick.

‘She’s delightful,’ Gen tells Callum, her voice steely. ‘May I remind you she’s allowed to be a thoroughly lovely young woman and still embrace her right to bring her every desire to life without shame? And may I also remind you that this is precisely why we founded this place? And Unfurl, in particular?’

‘Hey.’ He holds his hands up as I walk painfully over to the sofa and sit, throwing the iPad down next to me. ‘I get it. All I meant was that nothing about Rafe’s wood tells me he’s thinking she’s a “lovely girl”.’

‘All right.’ Gen glares at us both like we’re wayward school kids and she’s warning us to stay in line. ‘I, for one, am pleasantly surprised that she’s answered so honestly. From what you told me about her, Rafe, and from how skittish she was in our interview, I wasn’t sure she’d be able to put aside her inhibitions enough to get out of her own way. But there’s good stuff to work with here.’

‘Especially her priest kink,’ Callum says, a smirk playing over his obnoxiously good-looking features.

‘She was raised Catholic,’ I snap. ‘Of course she has a priest kink.’

‘Just like you,’ he observes.

Yeah.

Just like me.

For better or for worse, one of the legacy issues I was stuck with long after leaving Loyola was a fascination with priests. With the idea of being one in a sexual fantasy, obviously. Not of fucking one. They didn’t mess me up that badly.

The priest and nun thing is my favourite scenario to play. Well, one of them. It’s the lure of the forbidden. We’ve been taught that kink since the Book of Genesis, for fuck’s sake. It’s no great mystery. It’s also the attraction of imagining I’m a man brought to the brink by endless restraint. Repression. Denial of the pleasures of the flesh.

Stick all that in the unlikely scenario where I’m someone who actually practices celibacy, being faced with a young, innocent, untouched nun who’s nervous and aroused in equal measure? Who submits to me? And who is actually Belle under that nightgown?

Now that is a fucking tinderbox.

I turn to Gen before Callum can utter any other bullshit. ‘I’m her sponsor. I want in on the programme.’

She sighs and averts her eyes to the iPad on her lap, where she has a copy of Belle’s answers drawn up. We started Alchemy together, the three of us alongside our mate and Finance Director, Zach, but Genevieve is our moral north star, basically because she doesn’t have the liability of a dick affecting all her judgement calls.

‘Rafe.’

I know that tone. Gentle. Cautionary.

I shake my head. ‘Nope.’

‘You seem… taken with her.’

‘Gen. I’m not taken with her. I’m attracted to her, yeah. She’s gorgeous, and I’m not blind.’

If she’s thinking something crazy, like that I might get attached, she has no reason to think that. None at all. I never get attached.

Quite the opposite.

But there’s no fucking way I’m letting Belle go through this without my… stewardship. Without my being involved, so I can make sure she’s taken care of. In every way.

Callum looks from me to Gen. ‘Is she hot?’

‘Stunning,’ Gen tells him. She’s straight, but she can appreciate the female form as well as anyone.

‘Young?’

‘Twenty-two,’ I say through gritted teeth. Callum is extremely popular with Alchemy’s female members, but I feel a vibe for Belle that I’d rather think of as protective than territorial.

After all, this is about her, not me.

This is about making her brief journey through this programme as perfect for her as it can possibly be.

And that means paying as much attention to the security of the safety net as to the ability of her trapeze to let her soar as high as she’s willing to go.

‘Nice. I’ve got her covered.’

Callum actually rubs his hands on his thighs, and I glare at him in disgust.

‘You did not just do that.’

‘I’d like to point out that I’m not the one who’s got a boner over this girl.’

Gen raises a perfectly arched brow. ‘He’s right.’

‘It’s not her.’ I backtrack. ‘Look. Her responses took me by surprise, all right? It’s hot reading about what she likes. I won’t lie. But I’m the one who told her about the programme.’ I have no intention of mentioning that she found out about it all by herself. ‘And I have a similar background to her. I get where she’s coming from. She may have had the confidence to fill out the form properly, but you said it yourself, Gen. She’s skittish. She’s in a whole world of conflict, given all the bullshit she’s been fed since she was fuck knows how young. I think I can help her.’

Gen looks at me, as if by studying my face she’ll be able to judge whether my evolved or reptilian parts are driving me right now. Finally she nods.

‘Okay then. But Callum leads on the first session.’

I open my mouth to interrupt, but she puts a hand up. ‘No. You don’t want to scare her off, Rafe. She knows you—it could be intimidating for her. If she’s open to having more than one of you in there, I don’t see why you can’t help out.’ She glances down at the questionnaire results. ‘It seems she’s open to having a blindfold on, so it should be fine.

‘But let Callum take the lead, okay? We all know what a filthy mouth he has on him. Let him have Belle’s ear, and he’ll have her relaxed and eating out of the palm of his hand in no time. You can be a bit… intense. Save it for the dirty priest talk. That’s more up your street.’

My hands curl uselessly into fists. I’m not happy about her proposal, though I know she’s right.

Make no mistake about it.

I’ll be right there, and I’ll be watching Callum every step of the way.

‘Fine.’ I spit the word out and drag a hand down my face. ‘Anyone seen Zach today?’

There’s nothing like contemplating the death of your friend’s wife to magic away a boner. We laid Claire to rest a year ago, but Zach’s still in a state of shock, and I don’t blame him. One month from the pancreatic cancer diagnosis to death.

One fucking month.

It was like being hit by a freight train. For all of them. There was so little time for them to come to terms with her prognosis. For her to enjoy her final days. To get things in order for the kids. Except, having had a front-row seat to the nightmare that was Zach trying to juggle the parenting of terrified, shell-shocked kids to spending as much time with Claire in the hospice as possible makes me think maybe it was a good thing she went quickly.

I’m not sure he could have survived much more of that nightmarish twilight zone.

Since then, though, things have been brutal. Claire’s mum has spent a tonne of her time at Zach’s place, because it’s clear that the processing of kids, especially grieving kids, is a full-time job. After they were born, Claire worked from home as a bookkeeper, but she always prioritised the kids before any deadline. Her absence is a void that my poor mate and his kids’ grandparents can’t even begin to fill.

I still can’t believe it happened to him.

To them.

Yeah, Callum and I used to rip the piss out of Zach and Claire for being loved-up and boring as fuck. He’s the only FD of a sex club I know who’d never, ever partake of its perks. He hardly ever comes here at night. He’s always said he’s a big fan of the concept and not remotely interested in the reality.

But, in truth, they had it sorted. They were as madly in love when she got sick as they were when they got together on the graduate trainee programme at KPMG, straight out of uni.

They were the Happy Ever After, for fuck’s sake.

Supposed to be, anyway.

‘He’s coming in a bit later,’ Gen says. ‘It’s Stella’s class assembly this morning.’

I meet her eyes briefly. They reflect my exact thoughts.

It’s not fucking fair.

‘Got it,’ I say brusquely. I pull myself up off the sofa, all thoughts of gorgeous virgins and tempting postulants banished from my mind, all my blood flow restored to my head.

Jesus.

‘Don’t fuck it up with Belle when she comes in,’ I tell Callum, but my tone has lost its heat.