Fifty Shades of Vey

Summary:

Fêted barrister Steven Vey QC is at the top of his game. He's used to getting what he wants, or buying it. And then there's Nicky. A rework of the opening scenes of The Guilty (1992), as played by Michael Kitchen and Caroline Catz.

Disclaimer:

The characters in this fiction are the property of Simon Burke. No infringement is intended.

Author's Notes:

Thanks to dancesabove, who polished this.

Fifty Shades of Vey

A whoop of triumph, and the denizens of court converge upon the winning counsel. Emerging from the scrum of insistent and congratulatory jostlings, Stephen Vey QC is ambushed by a kiss from his enthusiastic client. He smirks. The victory is undeserved, which makes it sweeter; but even the euphoria of stolen justice can't hold his interest for long. Already, his mercurial attention flits in search of fresh diversion. And in the absence of his next brief, the winsome little piece of skirt appended to his clerk's shirt tails captures his eye.

He grins and turns away. Mere office totty is a poor choice for the dipping of one's victory wick. Still, he feels the rush that is the after-buzz of triumph: that awkwardly priapic zing that sizzles through the system in the minutes and the hours after a well-won case, boosting one's natural self-congratulation to erotic heights. He sneers, faced with the age-old problem that there's never any willing outlet for the urge at home. Sarah Vey, a wife for whom all dalliance depends on diamonds, has never, in his presence, popped her cork without a costly bibelot to 'oil the wheels'.

Vey scowls and plucks the proffered paper from Cliff's podgy hand. "Where the hell were you?"

A stream of blustered mealy-mouthed excuses from his breathless clerk fall emptily upon his ear. Vey lifts an eyebrow, turns his back on Cliff.

"And who's the new appendage?"

"First day in Chambers, Mister Vey." Cliff jabs an ill-bred thumb over his shoulder, sensing with relief that this distraction lets him off the hook.

Just out of earshot in the well of court, the girl floats like a mirage, clad in tantalising 'look-but-shag-me-not'—the uniform of temps that barely scrapes past chambers dress rules: sober colours, semi-opaque dark hose, flats and scarcely-covered arse. The hair is soft, dark, lustrous, long, swept up and pinned into French pleat to expose a lovely neck. Damn.

"Name's Nic'la. Nicky," supplies Cliff. There's a spark of languid lust inside his boss's eye that might just save his skin.

"Sorry, Mr Vey, about the notes being late."

A wave of baleful bonhomie sweeps through his boss. "Well, happily for your bollocks, Cliff, these lines"—Vey taps the thin, typewritten sheet—"are set in stone." His eyes drift past his clerk and settle on the girl.

A flash of pushy-little-fresher eye-flirtation meets his hooded gaze. Well, well! He might just file that one away for later. Vey scans the courtroom, rolls his shoulders; feels the tension ease. On cue, the itching starts—the trappings of his office growing irksome, now the case is won. Off with the wig. His fingers dig with hedonistic glee into his scalp. Stop scratching, Stevie. Not in front of people! Wait till we get 'ome. This is the High Court, Mum. And when I scratch, the bastard head lice scatter.

Vey's chin lifts to grant his fingers purchase on the stiff cravat—he works to loose the vice around the vein that pulses in his neck. The subjugating collar. Off with that as well.

He glances up. And would you credit it? The sassy little piece is following his every move over a Mona Lisa smile that might've passed for shy, if not for glints of cock-tease sparking from those ink-well eyes. Pouts nicely, and her neck is a seduction in itself...

Vey's smirk forms round a smutty fantasy involving fast and hard over a desk. But who's he fooling? What he'll actually do is wind up at the club, with Chris Bouch hissing envious ribaldry inside his ear, then roll home early, bedroom credit in his pocket in the form of Sarah's necklace.

...

Ah, the best laid plans...

It's getting late, and seated in the sleek Mercedes parked outside her small North London flat is Nicky Lennon. Stephen Vey QC is at the wheel. They've killed a Mag of Pol Roger at Shuttleworth's, and both are suitably well-oiled. Vey knows he's in the hot seat. If he's breathalysed, he's liable to be forfeiting a lot more than his licence. A man whose name is in the frame for high court judge, Vey's ambitions ironically are no more complex at this minute than to get a hand on Nicky's thigh.

The street lamp glints off his cuff link as he slides the lever into park. He turns, and feeds his gaze upon the glossiness of unspoilt youth, eyes meandering down the smooth slope of her neck. His head feels suddenly unsafe on his shoulders. Vey's teetering on the brink of caring-not-one-jot, and if he's telegraphing lust, it's too late to dissemble.

After all, the barriers were lowered halfway through the second bottle, when Nicky asked him, "Are you married?" Not that he would have lied, but he didn't have to answer quite so thoroughly. The champagne made an honest man of him, so... Mwell. Sometimes I wonder. She's asleep when I leave in the morning and asleep when I get home. But is she sleeping? Vey's wife's not the type for duty sex or pity sex. These days he's on a rota—if he's lucky. Mostly he can whistle for it.

"Coffee?" Nicky asks him.

Coffee? From the lips of babes, no less. The invitation shocks him with its nonchalance. Makes him wonder if his luck has changed. But bottled honesty is coursing through his veins. He's damned if he'll pretend it's coffee that he's after.

"Nnno." he answers firmly. Then he adds, because the cabin feels like a confessional, "Prob'ly need one."

Nicky smiles at him, unfazed. "Well, you can make one for me."

And that's it. In one short instruction she's reversed their roles. She hasn't called him "Mister Vey" all evening. Not since that big-eyed, gushing "Thank you, Mister Vey" before she took his offer of a lift home. It hadn't been a tricky sale, en route, persuading her to stop off for a drink. Now they've progressed to "you" terms, having swapped a string of cautious, drink-fuelled intimacies of the variety that stumble and then tumble from loose lips in bars. Oblique complaints, ambitions, shrouded discontents that masquerade as measures of affinity.

Apparently, she isn't ready yet to let him go. Wants him upstairs playing coffee wallah.

Right you are, then, Nicky. Your rules. Up I come.

...

"S'that okay?" she watches as he takes a sip of instant, before settling against the wall, cradling a steaming mug against her chest.

Still in his overcoat, Vey winces. "Exquisite." He puts his mug aside, eyes fixed on Nicky's bust.

She leans back, and starts talking; talking to the ceiling—all philosophy and musings and deliciously unravelling wisps of updo. Vey drops his chin, stuffs hands inside his pockets, and treads small, soft steps to close the gap between them. You always was a crafty one, Stevie. He smirks, then swaggers like a naughty child and moves in for a kiss.

It's gentle: a soft smooch against her jawline, tasting satin skin that smells of bar room smoke and baby powder, and soon he'll have her. Soon, because he's played the game, observed the rules, and now it's time. The pussyfooting's over.

"I think the milk's off," Nicky stalls.

He plucks the mug—the token obstacle—away, and sets it down, then presses for a second kiss.

She turns her face aside, tense. "This isn't a great idea."

The false note ought to penetrate, but doesn't. "You're wrong," he tells her indulgently. "No flaws whatsoever."

"Mister Vey..." comes the soft protest.

"Wwwhat's wrong? Hmm?"

"You're married; you're drunk; you're my boss. I mean, take your pick."

Someone, somewhere might be ready to listen to the answer, but it isn't Vey. Vaguely, he comprehends that there are new rules—that he's meant to reassure her. So he presses with another kiss, hands still in pockets. Mister Vey? As if she hadn't brushed aside his "no" to coffee and required his kettle-boiling skills upstairs? And now she squirms, as if the evening hasn't changed the game? Perhaps then, if her boss is too risky a shag, she might consent to screw the lowly coffee-maker.

He makes the invitation. "Call me 'Steven'."

"I'd rather call you a cab."

Damn. She's folding in away from him and slipping out of the tiny space left between him and the wall. That's hard.

He's hard—and flailing, robbed of the soft body contact he's been pushing towards. She's gone, and instinct tugs him in pursuit, trailing behind her into the hall, treading an invisible straight line with the meticulous, exaggerated care of a tightrope walker. It's an attempt to show her that he isn't drunk, although her back's already turned.

"Nicky, Nicky..." It's a soft, insistent whisper at her ear. She stands, neck bent over her task, and dials. That short and sober-coloured frock is moulded fetchingly around her pretty arse. His hands reach out and settle on her hips to take the measure of the luscious curves he's not exactly stealing… if she'll just stop stringing him along.

She turns in his embrace. Accepts with an impatient sigh the kiss he plants against the crook of her neck; then eases him away.

"You wanted this," he explains. It comes out like a hurt reminder of a broken contract.

"Well, not any more." Her gaze from under the dark fringe of lashes is now unsettled and remote, and suddenly he sees she isn't playing by the simple rules they've followed up to now.

"Nicky, Nicky, Nicky..." his impatient but still gentle chant is close to pleading. And it's the irony of Stephen Vey QC, that all his pleas, so winning in the courtroom, should fall on deaf ears in the home.

At home, his women are aloof to pleas. Vey should have called his second daughter Tiffany for all the ritual jewellery it takes to woo his wife. When Sarah yields, it's with a kind of bored indulgence. Even the girls dish out the unabashed disdain they've seen their mother use against him. Thus, for all the front he puts up for the benefit of Bouch and other slimeballs at the club, Vey is a man who struggles to control the women in his life.

Or to impress them. Every one, Mum. Nine Grade Ones. I got 'em all.

'Well how 'bout that? I always knew that you was smart.' His mother reaches for the next shirt in the pile and spits to test the temperature of the iron.

The Head says I could win a place at Oxford.

Now she puts the iron down, squinting at him. 'YOU won't be going nowhere, Stevie, 'less you stop your muckin' round with Maddie Spears. You'll end up shiftin' pallets in a warehouse like your dad.' She gives a nod and turns back to her ironing. 'That Maddie's going to drag you down. There's going to be trouble. Think on that.'

He'd thought on that. He had. But, in defiance of his mother's warnings, carried on. He's never been that good at thinking when the fog of lust descends.

And now is no exception. The hand resting on the soft curve of Nicky's hip curls tight into a fist around the jersey fabric.

"C'mon..." One upwards yank, intended to manoeuvre her against him, and Vey has laid her bare up to the hip. He's fleetingly aware that there's no knicker line. And then he launches a renewed assault against her neck—one that isn't gentle.

He's feeding with determined greed when a fisted hammer blow lands on the right side his septum.

"What's up with you?" screams Nicky, as Vey reels sideways, clutching at his nose. "You didn't hear the 'no'?"

Slack-jawed under the shock of impact, Steven Vey's eyes pulse out of focus and then back again. He blinks back tears of pain. Two angry brown eyes glare at him through narrowed lids.

"Let go my wrist. You're hurting me."

He shakes his head, sways, stammers an apology, and looses her. The blood is pouring from his nose into the gap between his French cuff and his wrist.

Nicky staggers backwards, pushing down her dress, eyes wide with shock. "What the hell was that?"

Vey's staring at the floor, one hand pressed hard to stem the flow of blood coursing down one nostril, and the other flexing, useless, at his side. He draws his top lip in between his teeth and delves inside his pocket for a handkerchief. He has to push aside a narrow, oblong leather box.

Withdrawing the laundered linen square, he presses it against his nose, and chokes out, "Sorry. I'm, uh, sorry, Nicky." The hitch in his voice is down to more than just the blood he's swallowing.

"Yeah. I should think so, too," she hisses. "Forget your manners, did you?"

"I, um..."

Vey's brain is racing. After a moment, he shakes the useless hand to life and fetches out the leather box that's lying in his pocket. He doesn't meet her eye, but flicks the sprung case open with a practised thumb. The necklace glints under the hall light.

Nicky blinks, then stares. She's never seen a chunk of gold that big before.

"Please..." Hoping he'll sound less nasal, Vey lifts the makeshift compress from his nose and reaches out the box towards her. "Don't ring for a taxi, Nicky. This... is yours... if you..."

Two pairs of startled eyes lock, and his meaning jolts across at her. A single beat, and then she smacks the box aside. He flinches as the tears of indignation spring in Nicky's eyes.

"Seriously? What do you take me for? You think this buys you into bed?"

Vey reapplies the handkerchief and squints. His puzzlement is genuine. Why not? It's always worked with Sarah. But now, seeing this girl's appalled look, he snaps the box shut and hastily re-pockets it.

Nicky's glare fades as she studies him. All of his cocky poise is gone. Frankly, he looks a sight: blood smeared under his nose, along the crease of his French cuff, staining the expensive broadcloth of his shirt front. Against the odds, her indignation is refashioned into curiosity.

"You always carry jewellery in your pocket on the off-chance?"

"Nnot..." He shakes his head; can't bring himself to look at her. "I, um—a present for my wife." And there inside the hallway, Steven Vey QC shrinks visibly inside his coat.

Nicky's unsure why, but a current of compassion starts, then slowly wells inside her. When all's said and done—hair, face, physique—he's easy on the eye. And now he isn't acting like a slimy octopus, all puffed up with himself and grabby, well he's... Steven Vey looks lost. As Nicky watches, all his arrogance evaporates, leaving behind the remnants of a man.

"Honestly." She rolls her eyes. "All right. I get it. Actually, no, I don't. First day. I want to hang on to my job, don't I? It's not a big, important job like yours. But it's a job. And p'raps this is my stupid fault for wanting glitz thrown in. And p'raps..." she looks askance. "All RIGHT. Perhaps I wanted just a taste of what I saw in court today. The glamour." Nicky steps back, smooths her skirt. "Got drunk on the attention, didn't I? Well shame on me."

He reaches out to her. "No, it's my faul—"

She smacks his hand away. "Oh, yeah. And shame on YOU. You don't get off that lightly, Mister Vey." She turns and sashays off towards the kitchen, calling back, "This time, you'll drink the coffee or you're out." Then (almost-but-not-quite under her breath), "That's not to say you're not out, anyway."

He wonders if that's all.

"I'll get an ice-pack for your nose. Serve you right if you get frostbite."

Vey rubs his cheek. What exactly's happening here, he isn't sure, but either way he's nowhere near so perky in the trousers. Chastened, certainly, yet still intrigued, he obediently follows Nicky to the kitchen, where he doffs his overcoat and jacket and stands while Nicky slaps an ice-pack, wrapped inside a dishtowel, none too gently on his nose.

When the bleeding's stopped, they seat themselves on either side of the small table, and eye-to-eye, nurse two mugs recharged with caffeine.

The girl's a picture: calm, composed, and hardly seeming angry now. With the table in between them, they're almost comfortable. He runs a hand through nervous curls and wonders what there's left to say. He's been an idiot, and nearly slid them both into the mire.

"So, um," he opens tentatively, trying a small smile, "coffee's growing on me."

"My flatmate's due back soon," she tells him evenly. "You're still drunk, still married, and you're still my boss, so actually,"—her intonation brightens—"actually, the idea's still no better than it was before. Plus, now," she gives him a frank look, "you're in my bad books."

One sentence, and the same old obstacles are in the way. He tries a pitch for levity. "Well... hardly drunk at all now, since you smacked me into touch. My name's Steven and I'm a reformed alcoholic."

That raises a small smile from Nicky, and he feels the mood lift slightly.

Across from him, she stretches like a cat, rolling her head to ease the tension in her shoulders. Then she props her elbows on the table, makes a cradle for her chin, and says, "That necklace. Show it me again."

Exhaling through pursed lips, he slides the box across to her. Nicky traces the gold rope with a pink-varnished fingernail; then looks up. "What do you even call one of these?"

Vey clears his throat.

"A collier."

"Well, it's a lovely piece,"—her lips form round the word—"this col-lee-ay. Your victory present to your missus?"

"Yep, um..." He runs a finger shakily along one eyebrow.

Nicky sits back; slides the box towards him with a sigh. "Put it away, then. Don't want my sticky fingers all over it before you hand it over to Missus Vey."

He looks up sharply. "Nicky... if you want this... well... I did offer."

Nicky snorts. "Do me a favour. Not deluded. Want my job, and want some prospects, but I only want what's fair." She grasps the table's edge, leaning across into his space. "If we do this, can you behave yourself? Are you going to be fair to me? Not going to find my work unsatisfactory tomorrow, are you? Is Cliff gonna be standing at my desk with my P45? Because, if so..."

Vey pushes down his lower lip, giving a single, almost-grave, bow of his head. "Both adults here."

Nicky scrutinises him unhurriedly. Dark curls; eyes crinkled at the sides under—it must be said—brows tinged with worry, now the arrogance has melted; pleasantly formed mouth, marred, sometimes—but not now—by a sardonic cast. The nose distinctive, if not finely chiselled, with the creases to the mouth that lend character to the face. Men in their forties can be a girl's undoing, Nicky muses. The philtrum: delicate, glazed with a sheen of perspiration; the shoulders broad; the figure trim. She thinks he's probably quite powerful underneath his shirt, and all the signals he's been sending indicate that he's not seeing all the action between the sheets that he should.

When it comes down to it, neither is Nicky. It's been a nun's life for the last three months since she and Tanya came up to London.

Vey hasn't touched the jewellery box, and so she snaps it shut and jabs it with a fingertip. "Put it away inside your coat, eh? Don't want to feel that in your trousers when, you know..."

He glances up, and sees her lip curl faintly—she's playing with him now. Right. Damping down a smirk, he tucks the box inside the jacket hanging on the chairback, then walks around the table and cups his hand under her elbow to encourage her to rise. No words are spoken, but in the next second they're against the wall where they began. No coffee mugs between them this time, but a lot of eager Steven Vey.

He's heavily against her, tiptoeing a soft trail of lustful lips along the satin of her jawline that ends with a kiss and a sigh her ear. This time she lifts her chin, surrendering him access. Her hands press greedily into his buttocks, pushing him against her.

"That's nice," he mumbles, "but I don't need help..." He grinds against her.

With slow determination, he removes her hands and interleaves his fingers with hers, guiding, sliding them above her head and pinning them against the wall. It's getting heated now: his mouth meshes with hers, his tongue invades the moist lips, parting them. She tastes delightfully of coffee and the merest hint of strawberry lip gloss, and he's utterly beyond the coveting and into taking. Somewhere in the intellect-dulled mist of passion, Steven Vey's brain registers that he's about to have the best shag of his adult life.

Nicky's breasts are flattened with the pressure of his body crushing into hers, and she's trying to imagine how his weight will feel when they achieve the horizontal. The tempo of the kissing quickens, and it's looking likely that he'll have her there, against the wall, if something doesn't alter soon.

The fuss of hands dissolves her updo, sending mahogany locks tumbling around her shoulders.

For Nicky, things feel very satisfactory. Vey kisses tenderly, insistently, and with a surety of touch that tallies with the studious exactitude she's fantasised about from clever, older men.

But then things change. Vey steps back; bites his lip. Her hair down in a straight-fringed blunt cut, Nicky looks about sixteen, which doesn't make him feel much happier about his earlier transgression.

"Look, I've been ungentlemanly," he glances up at her under lowered brows. "You sure you want this, Nicky?"

In reply she sinks her hands into his curls and pastes her lips back onto his.

"Ohnoyoudon't," she tells him, when they pull apart a moment later. "All this back-and-forth is doing my head in."

"It's just..." He fiddles with his cuff. "I've no idea what happened earlier..."

"Come on." She tugs his hand and leads him from the kitchen. "Enough post mortems."

...

They're in her bed—a big double bed with chintzy covers that to all appearances have come through an explosion. Small heaps of clothes are strewn across the bedroom. The bedside lampshade's knocked askew. Nicky, panda-eyed, lies mooning over her dishevelled lover, sprawled face-up beside her. She takes a moment to reflect on how his face has changed in the short time they've known each other: the sardonic smirk inside the courtroom has transitioned to the simple, sweet repose that comes with sexual satiety. A stripped-down Steven Vey, curls at all angles, and those sandy lashes... longer than a man should have the luck to own; and in the hour or so they've been between the sheets, his beard has surely grown.

Her finger strokes the scratchy shadow of his stubbled cheek, but he's so out of it, the soft touch doesn't rouse him. So she lifts the duvet for a little peek at what she's had. And actually, the thing surprises her. It's not so much diminished in repose. Some men she's had are apt to shrink to champignon proportions, but this is not the case with Vey. There's still the healthy remnant of a prize to wrap her hand around. And so she does, and fails to quash a snigger.

"Mister Vey. Hung like a thoroughbred."

He stirs into a stretch that, with the flexing of his shoulders, nearly takes up the whole bed. "Now you notice?"

Nicky creeps across his chest and pastes herself against his torso, fingers stalking up his chest. "Stee-ven...?"

There's no mistaking the request. Dimly, Steven Vey's aware that if they go again, he'll have to spin a tale back home, but somehow that seems less important than it should be in the current circumstance.

He props himself on one arm and surveys the soft-smudged eyes and easy, sunny smile. She's beautiful. So what's it worth? What's it wwworth? An eyeblink, and he's back before the bench weaving the tissue of his closing argument. Here, where there's no jury to impress—only himself—he knows that you can't kid a kidder.

"C'm'ere."

She feels strong arms enfold and anchor her in place against his chest. Unlike the drunken grab of earlier in the hall, this time all threat is gone. This time, there's just the sexual frisson that oils the wheels.

Vey rolls, and Nicky's on her back, legs parting underneath his weight, eyes narrowed into what could pass for slits of menace, if not for the slight twitch of mischief round his mouth that gives the game away.

"I could've had you in the hall, you know," he growls, lips teasing at the soft skin by her ear.

"Perhaps you could've, if I hadn't smacked your hormones into Kingdom come." She gives him that pert look she wore inside the courtroom. "By the way, how is the nosebleed?"

"Ssso kind of you to ask. It's stopped." The bloodied shirt is going to be tricky to explain at home. "You're not as helpless as you look. Where did you learn that, ah, manoeuvre?"

"Girl needs her weapons."

"Come on. Where?"

"Self-defence class. Tan's gym—my flatmate's gym... What time is it?" She cranes her neck to read the clock, but Vey has her wrists pinned, and he's enjoying it too much to let go.

"Will she come in here?"

"Not if I leave a note in the kitchen." Nicky grins up at him, fingers wiggling playfully in his grip.

He sighs, rolls off onto his back, and lets her up; then watches with a rampant interest that he can't disguise as Nicky skips out of the bedroom in the buff. He can't recall the last time he's felt lust like this without the baggage. Already in his head are plans to rent a flat near Holborn, somewhere within easy reach of chambers for the lunchtime trysts—or early evening interludes—or late night "preparation sessions" for those urgent, urgent cases...

Naked Nicky gallops back into the room bearing the guilty evidence of his coat and jacket, and dives under the sheets. "Brrr! Better. Shoved our coffee cups in the dishwasher!" Snuggling in against him, she considers for a moment, then leaps out of bed again to jam a chair under the doorknob. "That should do it."

Vey smirks. "Changed your tune since 'this is not a good idea'. Now you're covering for me?"

She's back under the covers, cuddling close for body warmth. With her head resting on the fuzz of his chest, Nicky finds herself in pole position to examine the inside of one slightly bloody nostril. "We're both wiser, aren't we?" She reaches up to stroke his nose, but he captures her wrist once again.

"Fingers to yourself. It's still sore."

He removes her hand. Released, she trails it downwards and encircles his upright interest.

"Aw. I'll swab it out with cotton wool before you go."

He breathes in sharply. "Thattt...'ll be a fascinating operation."

She gives him a firm, friendly squeeze. "This bit of you's not sore. Not yet, at any rate." If anybody's sore, it's her from the sheer size of him. She clenches, to dispel the pleasant ache, and adds, "I meant your nose, you berk."

Steven Vey hasn't been called a berk since school. He's been called worse, though. Maddie threw some interesting epithets his way, then cut him off without a prayer. He could have made more effort, he supposed, to find out what her problem was the night she stood there in the streaming rain and hurled abuse his way. But Oxford beckoned. It's a new life, Stevie. Jealous—that's her trouble. Sees you doing better for yourself. You shackle yourself now and you'll regret it.

And so he'd walked away. It wasn't difficult. New challenges, new friends at university. All his peers—every one of them who'd had a girl at home—had seen things break down in the first year. So he'd always felt he'd saved himself the trouble.

Now he presses kisses to the luscious, sleek dark hair, and flips her on her back. She feels his firm arousal hard against her belly.

"Mmm. Do I ever have to go?" he asks. "Damn. Don't answer that."

"Not before you've come," she giggles. "Come again."

His hands card through her hair. It separates like heavy strands of silk. Their gaze holds, and her dark eyes bore into his own, as if she's mining his intentions. A pang of guilt strikes. "Nicky, um, I should've worn protection first time round. Are you... do you take…?"

A slight toss of the head. "I'm safe. Last thing I want is bumps in my career. My brilliant career," she moans, "stuck in a dingy office doing dirty work for Cliff."

Vey grins, then shrugs. "Well, dirty work is normal in the practice of the law. NO chambers is a glamour factory."

"Except for you."

"You want my job, as well?" He smirks, raising an eyebrow at her cheek.

"Cliff's job, and your body."

"Nicky... Nicky... Nicky..." Now his lips are on a single-minded quest. They find and lock onto her nipple in the dark nest of its areola, and he suckles there. The silken sable of her hair transports his fancy to a tropic, redolent of Polynesian spice, and home of sloe-eyed, ebony-haired beauties whose surface innocence belies a strength imbued with wile and ancient wisdom.

The image of this girl who's captured all his fantasies.

As he devours her now, feasts greedily upon her flesh and thrusts against her with a driven hunger, his mind floats on a warm and windy sea, tossed in the ebb and swell of passion. Steven Vey's in good old-fashioned lust.

Nicky wriggles in encouragement, oblivious to his fantasy, but blissfully attuned to his attentions.

"It's yours," he mouths against her breast. "Belongs around your neck, not hers." It's an admission that he's wasted in his marriage, and Nicky hears the faint beginnings of a claim.

She strokes his hair. The curls spring energetically beneath her touch. "I'll wear it for you. Till you want it back."

Vey can't imagine that he'll want it back. Au contraire, he's intent on further shows of generosity—bestowing favours in between the sheets, but not precluding later field trips to the Burlington Arcade for baubles. With Nicky, he predicts his gifts will be rewards, not bribes.

She holds her breath as he applies himself to pleasing her. Already, from their first encounter, there's a congruence about the way they fit together: he's large, thick, and uncut, and she's elastic and accommodating. As she opens up to him, it feels at once as urgent as a fighting breath and as natural as sleep.

There's play involved, some pinning of her wrists beside her ears. He seems to like her in a helpless attitude, although in actuality, once he's inside her, she can press and stroke him with her inner walls—soft flesh sheathing solid flesh; and Nicky's gentle undulations, cosseting his hardness, guiding and conducting all his counter movements, are the simple force that keep control. The frantic tumble of their first impatient joining yields now to a tender, slow, compelling, serious liaison. It surprises her. And yet she might have known the longing hidden in his desperation to possess.

"Steven!" she gasps, then checks herself—they're trying to be quiet after all. And from him comes barely a sound, sunk in the mission of completion, his face buried in her neck one minute and the next, pulled back, eyes burning into hers with scorching, silent signals of possession, thrusting where their bodies join, breaths shallow and impelling.

The climb is heated, wringing rivulets of moisture from their bodies. Finally he lets go with a single sob, collapsing into her, and his convulsions tip her from the brink of tension where she's held herself, tumbling into spasms of exploding colour on her retinas.

They're done. Spent. Sated. There are kisses to her face and wrist, and then a whispered 'thank you' as he rolls and folds her into him.

They sleep a while.

...

Later, alcohol asserts itself, and Nicky's peaceful dreams are fractured by the image of Cliff's porcine features looming large in her unconscious. The shock starts her awake, heart racing—Cliff oozing drunkenly around them in the bar at Shuttleworth's. And tomorrow in the office, there'll be smug insinuations to face down.

Brows knotted in displeasure, Nicky leafs through the outfits in her wardrobe. A longer skirt—her black, box-pleated, purchased for her grandma's funeral—is not the height of fashion, but it's going to be ideal to make an impact. And some heels; some finer stockings—black and sheer. And something classic up top. The collier would sit beautifully on the plain, unfussy background of a black, ribbed polo neck. Anyone who asks, she'll tell them it's a Monet necklet—no, a Ciro. Now she weaves slim fingers through Vey's sweat-soaked pubic hair, and scratches gently. Once. Twice. There's a pleasant stirring and a low, involuntary moan of pleasure.

She brings her lips against his ear. "Steven... what does a clerk of chambers do exactly?"

Stirring from slumber, Vey grasps for her hand and moves it to his rising interest. "Um. Caters to my every need?"

"Well, obviously, but..."

He turns sleepily towards her. She's wide-eyed, alert, fresh as a daisy. And clearly up for more. His "up" is wishful thinking. Nicky's youthful energy has wrung him dry. Slowly, he lifts an eyebrow. There's potential here. A clerk of chambers needs that kind of stamina. Also, they need the skills to handle clients, and to judge from how she's handled him all evening, Nicky is a natural. She'll be a valuable asset—both sides of the sheets.

His lips move lazily against her hair. "If you're serious, you'll have to study."

"I'm serious."

"Well, there are day-release courses I could get you on. But you'd have to be Cliff's junior until you learnt the ropes."

She pulls a face. "Won't that be a lark? He'll bloody love that if he knows we're bonking."

"Leave him to me."

Nicky rolls against his chest. "Whatever you say, Mister Vey."

The sound of a key in the front door breaks into their cosy intimacy.

"Hiya! I'm home!"

"It's Tan," she hisses. "Shhh. The note said I was turning in early."

They hear footsteps advancing down the hall—"Nicky, Love?"—then making for the kitchen. Soon there's the swoosh of a kettle being filled at the sink.

"Now what do we do?" he whispers.

"You'll have to stay here till she goes to bed. Won't be long on a work night."

"Christ knows what I'm going to tell Sarah."

"Tell her you had one over the eight, and slept it off in chambers."

"What if she rang?"

"Tell her the new girl forgot to release the forward on your phone. After all, you were in court all day—your calls were redirected."

He smiles in satisfaction; pulls her to him.

"You're devious, you know?"

She cuddles in. "Don't let this harmless exterior fool you."

Vey's hand moves to his still sore nose. "Learned that lesson the hard way."

"You're pretty devious, yourself. Cliff says your client wouldn't have had a prayer of getting damages without you. Says you're up for high court judge."

He smirks. "Cliff wants to mind his tongue."

"It's true, though?"

"Mmm," he offers coyly, stroking her arm. "It's probable the future Mr Justice Vey Kt. has had the pleasure of you."

"So I'm promoted from barrister's bit of skirt to juicy skeleton in judge's closet?"

The thought ought to appall him, but the feel of her lying in his arms is, strangely, one of unassailable security. "Y'might say that. I'm on the bench. You're in the closet."

"Fancy." Her voice assumes the stern tone of a court clerk. "Steven Vey. On two counts of adultery, how d'you plead?"

He leans in over her, eyes gleaming.

"Irredeemably, irrevocably guilty. Care to make it three?"

FIN

Author's Endnote

Well, that's it. Demon exorcised. Canon is corrected. Back to the much-neglected Foyle epic.