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Taggie had suspected this catering gig was a ploy from the start. She’d dutifully shown up, expecting to be pulled into an office and snogged senseless, looking at her reflection for a bit too long in the reflection of the front door windows before she’d rung the bell. Did she even want that? Seb was a thing of the past. Rupert was in public disgrace, but when was he not? She hadn’t seen Cameron slip a hand into his back pocket in weeks. The doorbell rang, and echoed throughout the house, sending the dogs into a great performance of skittering and barking behind the front door, until a deep voice called for them to get their shit together.
Rupert opened the door himself, in a pressed white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, bright-eyed and grinning. The house appeared to be empty, apart from the barrage of dogs who licked and sniffed and jumped at Taggie until she just got on the floor with them, letting Badger lick her face and trying to tune out the fondness of Rupert’s laugh in her periphery.
“Come on! Get off her, you beast!” Rupert had scooped up Mavis like a baby, accepting a few kisses before setting her back down, and insisting on pulling Taggie to her feet with both hands.
The strength of it made her falter a bit. It was easy to forget Rupert was an athlete, in those moments where she forgot about the naked tennis, and she wiped her hands on her jeans, staring at the floor, while her senses returned.
Rupert was just standing there, watching her, eyes soft, his mouth somewhere between gawking and a smile.
“Right! Um, the menu!”
She’d brought a notebook and pen, and she pulled them from her bag, following Rupert to the kitchen.
“I’ll get some tea on?” she offered, and gave Rupert no time to say no. It took her a few attempts to get the right cupboards for everything, but soon the kettle was on, and she was on tiptoes rummaging for tea, giving Rupert the best view Penscombe Court had to offer.
“I should’ve brought Gertrude,” she was saying, almost to herself, “I always worry she gets lonely. But she’s more of a people-dog, than a dog-dog, I think.”
Rupert waited until she turned around, until her wide-eyed stare caught on his face.
“She’s always welcome here. As are you.”
He stepped forwards, crowding her, and Taggie held her breath as she found herself dangerously close to the soft skin of his neck, the freshly-shaved plane of his jaw. All too soon it was over, and she realised Rupert had only gotten close to her to open a cupboard and retrieve a biscuit tin.
“Sorry, love,” he was saying, tossing the biscuits onto the counter with a frustrating air of indifference, “you were saying? About the menu?”
Taggie hummed, turning around to fuss with the tea bags in their cups. She furiously avoided looking at Rupert, or letting the blush on her cheeks show. He wanted her. She knew he did. And all that unworthiness stuff was behind him, now. Or at least, it was being transformed into a desperation to be good enough for her, to prove himself, that she found jaw-droppingly attractive.
“I mean, it’s your menu,” she murmured, “people normally just tell me what to cook. Or tell me who they want to impress, and I give them some options.”
“I don’t really care at all. What’s easiest for you?” Rupert asked, and finally the kettle finished boiling.
She shrugged.
“Doesn’t really matter. I don’t mind doing anything. I don’t exactly want to get a reputation for cheese on toast and spaghetti, anyway.”
Taggie made the tea as they spoke, taking the endless opportunities not to watch Rupert. He procured a teaspoon, grabbed the milk for her, opened the bin for the teabags, all while Taggie managed to avoid looking at him.
“So, we’re at a stalemate. Because I don’t care what we eat so long as you cook it, and you’re unwilling to give me a hint as to what you think I should ask for.”
He sensed a miscalculation, somewhere here. Taggie was so skittish around him. More skittish than she’d been in months, and in some way, he’s just made it worse. He carries the cups of tea to the lounge, leaving the biscuits to Taggie, and sits on the sofa opposite the fire, so she has no other seating choice than to join him in sinking down into the plush Louis XV.
He’d had it reupholstered recently, and he goes to make a comment on it, but Taggie’s staring into the unlit fire. The notebook is under her arm, unopened.
“Sorry, darling. I, uh, I just mean, I want you to pick for me.”
“I really thought you cared about food. You’re always giving bloody notes to Bas.”
“I do, I just trust your taste. You’ll have some fancy French thing up your sleeve, you always do.”
Taggie frowned. She wasn’t an educated chef. She could make all those things because she was a quick learner, and had a great intuition. Who did Rupert think she was?
“I’m not sure this is going to work, Rupert.”
She wanted to leave. It was all over her body language. Her glancing around, the tense of those thighs under her jeans, the way she was refusing to pick up her tea. Rupert felt something sickeningly close to panic rising up in his throat.
“Let’s go through this, then. It’s a dinner party, obviously. Next Thursday. A bunch of people from Venturer, some politician types, and a few well-timed comments from me about how well a more diversified BBC budget portfolio would suit small, independent companies like ourselves.”
Taggie relaxed, hands moving to grasp her knee. She frowned at the floor.
“So, that’s what, ten? Twelve?”
“Nine. Plus enough for your dinner, so ten.”
She ignored that comment, and instead opened her notebook, turning until she found a fresh page. It was tilted away from Rupert at such an extreme angle that he wondered if she had a bloody diary in there. Hopefully there was some absolute filth in it.
Taggie wrote slowly, and he watched curiously. Their tea was still steaming on the coffee table.
“And how many courses?” she asked, not looking up.
“I suppose three is traditional, and I’m sure I can’t be bothered to sit through any more than that. I’ve got a red wine I want to serve, to butter up the Minister for Culture, his wife’s family owns the vineyard, and only the red is remotely palatable.”
Taggie stumbled a little over the word, before she asked:
“Hor d’oeuvres?”
“Oh, god, yes. I suppose so. Half of them are coming from London, and the Venturer lot are all chronically late. Better have something to keep the rabble at bay.”
He’d never really considered the complexity of what Taggie did. Did he want hot or cold hor d'oeuvres? It mattered because they’d have to be served in batches if they were hot, and the smell would be more noticeable. How many types? What would be in season? Was anyone allergic to shellfish? He was exhausted just thinking about it. She’d be a damn good mistress of a big country estate. Rupert found his heart quickening at the thought, whether in shock or something else, he wasn’t sure.
“If we’re doing a starter, we’ll assume everyone’s sitting down for dinner, rather than a buffet?” she asked, and Rupert waved a hand dismissively, before catching himself and leaning forwards, paying attention.
“Yes. Sit down. I was thinking Foie gras?”
He sensed an immediate error by the wrinkle of Taggie’s nose, and way she looked away from him, across the room to those imposing oil paintings which hadn’t changed since his childhood.
“Ah,” he rambled on, “the bleeding-heart-O’Hara’s are coming, so maybe no animal cruelty.”
In an act of charity, Taggie offered him an alternative.
“How about melba toast, pate, a summer salad?” she suggested.
“Perfect! In fact, that sounds delightful. I’ve never even liked foie gras. Makes me feel sick, just seeing it,” she knew he was lying, and he was delighted to see her laugh.
Taggie kept pausing, frowning as she wrote, and Rupert could tell the toll it was taking on her. Every time she got excited, had some brilliant idea, it would be undercut by the long moments spent writing it down.
“Right. Give that here. You be brilliant, I’ll keep the notes!”
Rupert swiped the notebook from her, despite her protest, and made a show of flipping to a new page, angling the notebook so she could see, as he wrote down all the details so far. He used his absolute neatest handwriting, and suddenly felt like a schoolboy, as he crossed out and went slowly, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He had a flash of embarrassment as he caught Taggie watching him, and quickly school his face. Bas had told him not to frown. Made him look old.
“Right! What’s next. We’ve done hor d'oeuvres, a starter, though now I think about it, we’ll need some veggie starter for that weirdo from Stroud…”
He wrote down ‘WEIRD VEG STARTER x1’ in the hopes it might make Taggie laugh at a later date. For now, she was lost in thought.
“Is the vegetarian important?” she asked.
“Hm?”
He had been busy drawing a broccoli in her notebook. It wasn’t going particularly well.
“Should we do the whole meal vegetarian?” Taggie asked.
Rupert looked up, eyes wide.
“Oh! Oh, god no. It would be catastrophic not to serve Markie something red and bloody. I’d never hear the end of it.”
“Right. Beef wellington then, and we’ll do a mushroom pie for the vegetarian. Sort of the same meal, so thoughtful, but Markie still gets his beef.”
“Brilliant idea!” he pointed the pen at her, then leant in so that she could see him writing, “points to Agatha O’Hara.”
Taggie watched the steadiness of his hands as they engulfed the pen, the elegant way his handwriting swirled. She’d noticed that Rupert was smaller here, in his own house. In The Priory he was everywhere, stooped in the kitchen, blocking her walk to the fridge, invading Taggie’s space and making her breath hitch as he sat in her father’s chair at the kitchen table. He always reaching the top shelf, always sprawling across armchairs, ducking to get through the front door. At Penscombe Court, with its high ceilings, its rococo and dozens of sofas and endless grounds, Rupert was returned to just being a man. Very tall and handsome, though he was.
“Seems like it does matter, then,” Taggie found herself muttering.
“What, love?”
“The menu. I thought you ‘didn’t give a shit’.”
He quite liked her impression of his posh drawl, and Rupert felt his face cracking, even as he sensed he was being caught out.
“Well. Yes, quite, I suppose. That’s why I wanted you. You know things like this.”
A beat passed, and he could sense Taggie deciding whether to engage with him. Whether to tolerate the distraction.
“You’d put Lady Monica Baddingham to shame.”
God, didn’t that sound good in the baritone of his voice. Taggie flushed, and brushed the stray hair out of her face, the only break from his eye contact.
“She hires me too, you know. Quite a lot. I actually think she’s very nice, despite her absolute prick of a husband.”
It was sometimes easy to forget she was Declan’s daughter, until she called Tony a prick. He swore there was even a trace of the accent, in the melody of the word prick.
“Hm. She knows you were born to be the lady of some grand old house.”
She blinked at him for a long moment, before ducking her head down. Fuck. He’d lost her.
“Dessert, then,” she insisted, pointedly ignoring the ache in her chest, the way he was blatantly staring at her. “Something chocolatey, if we’re doing red wine and beef, or we could break up the richness.”
“I’m always in favour of decadence.”
“So, dark chocolate parfait? And I’ll make a coulis, raspberry or – ”
“Don’t get all professional on me now, Agatha,” he interrupted her.
“Do you want me to cook a dinner for you or not?”
They were both shocked by how sharp her words came across, but Taggie bit her lip, resisting the urge to apologise. How could he? This was her passion, her livelihood, and it felt like he’d invited her over here just to tease her.
“Yes. Sorry. I was just…”
“You were just what?”
Rupert couldn’t answer. Just flirting. Just trying to stop picturing her making tea for them every morning, while he boxed her in against the cabinets? Just trying to convince her to marry him and wear one of the family diamonds, and have conversations like this every day? A lifetime of rambling to the cameras and flirting with every journalist in sight, of controlling the house from the backbench, and he couldn’t find a single answer for Taggie.
“You’re my client,” he told him, but this time it lacked conviction.
Rupert laughed, full-throated, and Taggie felt it in her chest.
“Am I now? God, and here I thought we were getting somewhere.”
Fuck. There were tears in her eyes. This was a mistake the whole thing was. The little mini parked so far to the edge of his drive it was like she was trying to hide it. His handwriting in her notebook. The stupid thing he did with the box of biscuits. Taggie was trying to cry, and it was breaking his heart.
“So what, you hired me to make me tea and flirt at me?”
“You made the tea,” he tried, but she frowned.
Right. Not helpful, Rupert. Do better.
“I’m sorry, okay. I thought you were having fun and you’re not…”
Taggie blinked, clearly desperate not to let him see her upset, but her eyes had already gone red, bloodshot, and he was panicking. Badger came to investigate, and he desperately resisted the urge to pull the lab into his lab and hug him for comfort.
“I should go –”
Rupert so desperately didn’t want that to happen, that he reached for Taggie’s wrist, almost grasped it before he pulled his hand back, dug his fingers into his thigh.
“God, why am I so useless when it comes to things that actually matter?” Rupert felt more anger in his chest than he had intended.
That irritation that came from a missed jump, a lame horse, a botched campaign speech, the fine line between self-improvement and self-destruction. She was blinking at him, eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide, and Rupert felt a surge of adrenaline plummet through his veins. A stumble on a difficult jump, and the ugly head of ingrained knowledge it had become so much more important to do well for the rest of the course. She was staring at him, but she wasn’t leaving. This could be won.
“Taggie,” he reached for her hands, and she didn’t relax, but she let him hold her loosely closed fists in his palms, “I’m doing an absolutely appalling job at this.”
In her mercy, Taggie only raised her eyebrows. He could tell she was still on the verge of tears, but the immediate threat seemed to be over. The bigger threat, in fact, was the solid mass settling at the back of Rupert’s throat, the watering of his own eyes. He coughed, tried to blink it away. Between them, the notebook fell to the floor. Badger jammed his chin into Rupert’s thigh, and he ignored the dog.
“I don’t know how to make it clear to you that I think you’re absolutely astonishingly good at your job, and that I also hired you, as a happy coincidence, so I could see you alone again. And, admittedly, flirt with you.”
Taggie was looking at him with reproach, but she leant down slowly to pick up the notebook and pen, leaving one hand in his. He pulled her knuckle to his lips, held it there as he spoke, and he refused to crumble, to look away from her.
“I want dark chocolate parfait. Or mousse, if that’s easier. With the raspberry coulis, or that passionfruit one you made at Mousey’s Christmas party. It sounds divine, angel. Please, I’d love that. Maybe some white chocolate with it. I’ll pay you a thousand pounds a course, and I’ll get Mr Bodkin to drop you home at the end of it.”
“Rupert, my dad is literally coming to the party,” Taggie was monotone, less excited than he’d imagined at being offered six months’ wages for one party. Maybe they all paid that much, she was damn good.
“You know what he’s like. You’re probably best not to get in that car, actually. I insist you go with Mr Bodkin.”
“I’ll just drive him home.”
“You will not.”
She watched him for a moment, and then handed him the notebook, the pen. With it in his lap he was hunched over, and she waited while he found the right page again, dutifully not reading anything else in there.
“It might be hard to find passionfruit, sometimes Waitrose has it, but the market tends not to stock anything that exotic. I’ll try passionfruit, and make raspberry if that fails.”
“I can send Mrs Bodkin out, or Gerald – ”
Rupert shut up the moment that her glower told him that was the wrong thing to say. He murmured a sorry, and wrote everything down.
“How in god’s name do you spell coulis?” he murmured.
Taggie laughed, almost watery, and Rupert could’ve collapsed in relief as he joined in.
“Why on earth would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know! They’re your notes, how would you spell it?”
It absolutely floods Rupert’s heart that she doesn’t shrink away from him as they play out the game of trying to spell the stupid word. He realises halfway through he probably should’ve said sauce, but they’re having too much fun by then.
“Starts with a ‘c’,” Taggie says, making the sound of the letter rather than saying the name. Rupert takes the cue.
“u?”
He turns the page so they’re both looking the ‘cu’ he’s written the right way up.
“That doesn’t seem right,” she frowns, and Rupert agrees, but doesn’t really offer any helpful suggestion.
“I’d maybe put an ‘o’ in, but you’re the one who has to read this. Let’s just go phonetically.”
They end up choosing an ‘l’, an ‘a’, and a ‘y’, and the more Rupert thinks about it, the more he can’t see any way it isn’t spelled like that.
“Reckon that’s right?” Taggie’s pulling at her bottom lip, and it’s so endearing Rupert takes a moment to watch her before he answers.
“I’m honestly not sure a single letter of that is right,” he laughs, “stupid word anyway. Who invited the French?”
“Reckon it’s French?” Taggie frowned, her eyes were drifting over the rest of the page, and Rupert had no interest in ruining the mood. He snapped the notebook shut, and put it beside their tea.
“Sounds it,” he shrugged, “and it has a stupid spelling, so it must be.”
With that, it’s done. The recipe, the party. They talk over some details, Rupert reveals the doors are basically always unlocked and she can just walk in whenever she wants on the day of the party, and they finally sip at their tea. Rupert opens the biscuits, because he can tell Taggie wants one, and surprises himself by eating an extraordinary amount of shortbread and getting crumbs on his trousers and newly upholstered Louis XV.
“You’re way overpaying me, by the way,” she mentions, through a mouthful of biscuit, “but I sort of suspect it will make absolutely no difference to you.”
“None at all,” he says cheerily, and Taggie grins.
“Well then, thank you for paying Caitlin’s school fees.”
She makes as if to cheers him with her teacup, and Rupert only meets her half-heartedly, ghosting the cups against each other. Taggie’s got too much sense to actually let the bone china touch, but Rupert wouldn’t have cared. He sprawls back, one arm flung along the back of the sofa.
“I’d rather you spent it on a new car, I do worry about you, in that Mini.”
“I’ll keep borrowing dad’s car as long as I can get away with it,” she admits, “I wouldn’t know the first thing about servicing it.”
“No one knows anything about cars, Tag. You just pay someone to do it.”
She laughed. She’d seen him messing around in the engine bay of a tractor before, but Rupert seems serious.
“I’m not sure that’s true, unless you’re rich,” she glances sidelong at him, checking he’s not offended, “and I’m not smart enough–”
“Hardly anyone’s smart, darling. Look at the person who invented the spelling of coulis, or parfait, for that matter. It’s clearly completely incorrect.”
She doesn’t laugh like he’d hoped, but hums, and lets herself lie back against the sofa. His arm isn’t quite touching her, but it’s a close thing.
“I wish you wouldn’t worry about smart quite so much. Besides the fact you are, absolutely, incredibly clever, it hardly matters. Look at me.”
Taggie stares at him, deer in headlights.
“They sent me to Harrow. Best boarding school in the country, and an absolute waste. I can’t even order dinner without getting it wrong,” he’d gotten quiet, closer, and Taggie found herself leaning in closer.
“I thought Eton was the best boarding school in the country?”
Rupert gasped, and threw himself back as though wounded, peeking through the hands he’d plastered to his face as she laughed.
“God, Taggie, you do know how to tear a man down!”
“Isn’t it?” she asked quietly, a nervous smile fixed on her face.
She was worried about getting it wrong. They really had to break that habit.
“I suppose, if you only care about academics.”
“It’s a school,” she began, but Rupert interrupted, groaning.
“It’s these bloody socialist Irish parents of yours! Eton is more academic, but Harrow…” he paused for effect, leaning in as if to whisper, “is posher.”
“Oh my god,” she laughed, “you’re insane. All of you people are insane.”
He shrugged, showed the palms of his hands, and made the colossal effort not to mention his Olympic medal.
“I just saw you eat a biscuit like an absolute animal. I’d say it was money wasted.”
“Couldn’t agree more, love. But y’know, there’s no other way to get into politics.”
“That’s disgraceful,” she was saying, but it was without bite.
Their tea was empty, the notebook was closed. Rupert was just trying to figure out some other ploy to get Taggie to stay regarding interior decorating or table design, then she did the hard work for him.
“So, you invited me over here to do… what?”
He blinked, his mind going blank, as Taggie fixed that blood stare on his face.
“To hire me for your dinner party,” she prompted, “and…”
Flirt. Oh, God. He’d told her that. Rupert replaced his arm on the back of the sofa, and fixed her with the kind of stare he’d normally reserve for a particularly egregious round of ‘trying-to-charm-a-magazine-interviewer-into-a-quickie. Best not to think of that now. Regardless, it wasn’t working. He was struggling with smoulder, and landing on pleading.
“Well now I’m worried you’re only interested because of my Harrow education,” he attempted, pretended to sound wounded, and Taggie rolled her eyes.
“One thing about posh people, is that they never shut up about it. I’m not sure anyone could’ve missed that.”
“Have I mentioned my showjumping medals?” he tried, and Taggie rolled her eyes again.
She was doing something curious with her hands, settling them in her lap, like she wasn’t sure what to do with them.
“Next you’ll be telling me you’re Minister for Sport,” she teased, and he pretended to wince.
“Not anymore, I’m afraid. Not even an MP. You’ll rather have to go after Gerald, and I’m afraid I’ve always had my doubts…”
“You brought me here to talk about the menu, and to…”
“Flirt,” he finished slowly, and God, the way Taggie was looking at him was absolute sin.
“I rather think you’re underdelivering, Mr Campbell-Black.”
“Well, I’m rarely accused of that.”
He pulled her forwards, until they were chest to chest, one hand firmly on the splay of her shoulder blades. He could feel the structure of her bra beneath her jumper, the press of her against him.
Taggie gasped as he pulled her forwards. She could feel him shift, the tense of his muscles chest, the five points of his hand in her back. His breath was hot on her face as he spoke.
“I want to know if you, Taggie O’Hara, are biting off more than you can chew.”
“Probably,” she whispered before she closed the gap between them, surging forward to kiss him with too much enthusiasm, so he let out a shocked exhale the moment their lips met.
She would never have believed anyone who said Rupert Campbell-Black tasted like anything as comforting as tea and biscuits, or that he shifted her in his lap so that she wasn’t twisted. Or that he broke from kissing her, dejected, because Badger was licking her ankle and she couldn’t stop giggling.
“Get out of it!” he grumbled, shoving at the solid bulk of the lab, prolonging the whole event to hear Taggie’s breathless laughter.
“Like father like son,” she murmured, and Rupert groaned, covering his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing she didn’t mind.
“That’s okay,” her hands found his face, and he let her pull him around, until she was in his lap again she could peck him.
Rupert groaned, reaching to hold her still, but she kept speaking.
“Still the second best kiss of my life.”
“Second best?” he complained, and then he remembered New Year’s, and kitchens and blue dresses and the way his whole world had come crashing down afterwards.
“Oh.”
“That’ll always be the best,” Taggie admitted softly, and he could’ve melted at the vulnerability of it, the way she bit her lip and let her eyes dart across his face like she’d said something wrong instead of something so sickeningly romantic he would be thinking about it at every inopportune moment for the rest of his life.
Rupert couldn’t think of anything to say. He wanted to kiss her again. It was the only thought in his head. Taggie ruined him, all that wit and charm and silvertongue, gone. Yet again, she saved him.
“Are the dogs allowed upstairs?” she asked, and he almost said yes, dumb as Seb, that ridiculous teenager who’d tried it on with her.
“Do you think we should get away from them?” he asked darkly, and Taggie squirmed.
“I mean, only if you want to, they’re – ”
Fuck, it had been a long time since he’d picked a woman up, but the squeal Taggie let out was more than worth it, and she hammered at his back as he pulled her into a bridal carry and made it up the stairs, admittedly bounding a bit less than he used to. When the shock of being carried had worn off, Taggie redirected her attention to his shirt buttons, and to peeling away the collar from his neck and mouthing at whatever skin she could get to.
“You’re making it a little difficult to walk, my darling,” he confessed, reaching the top of the stairs, and Taggie giggled.
Rupert deposited her on his bed, already feeling as though he was in a dream state. Giving a speech he had practiced a thousand times, riding his familiar warmup routine in front of a huge crowd. He knew sex. He knew Taggie. But he’d dreamed of this so many times, he was fighting to keep his concentration.
“Not bad,” Taggie panted, flushed at the exhilaration of it, as he pounced onto the mattress after her.
Already she was trying not to sprawl, to sit up, regain control, and he absolutely wasn’t standing for it. With two hands he held her ankles apart, knees splayed, and she whined in protest as he crawled over her, using his hips to keep her legs apart, one thigh sprawled out against hers, his forearms holding his weight off her chest.
Boxed in, staring up him with those big eyes, Rupert worried she was panicking. He wanted to be the only thing she could see, feel, hear. He pressed his lips to hers, and she responded with a moan that made Rupert achingly aware of his own body, of the erection he was crushing against the rapid rise and fall of Taggie’s stomach.
Perverse as it was, Rupert was proud of himself for how long he kissed her. Hands above her shoulders, hips barely moving, letting Taggie get what she needed until she was the one grinding up against him, reaching down, desperate to undo his slacks.
Rupert panted as she broke away, exchanging breath. Her lips were reddened, pupils wide. He stroked at her hair, obsessed with seeing it fanned out against his white sheets. He surged towards her again, and Taggie gave him a few more seconds, tongue fighting into her mouth, before she pulled away again.
“More, angel?” he asked.
She nodded mutely, and he chuckled darkly.
“I might need you to keep that clever mouth of yours going, give me more than a nod.”
He moved on, kissed along her neck, but Taggie had gone quiet. He readjusted his hips a little, pressed himself up on his forearms to look at her again.
“You’re thinking about something,” he told her.
Taggie couldn’t meet his eye, she was looking at the swirl of the coving, the plaster ceiling above him. He knew Tag, and she certainly wasn’t the type to lie back and think of England.
“Tell me,” he asked.
Everything was quiet now. Still. Energy discharged, it was just them. Fully clothed, above the covers.
“I don’t want to ruin this…”
“What, Angel?” he whispered.
“I feel like I should tell you. I find it, uh, really hard. To orgasm, I mean. It takes ages and I don’t want you to think you’re not doing it right… or if that’s not fun for you…”
She wouldn’t look at him, embarrassment choking her throat, and it was breaking his heart. Rupert deflated above her, all the stress leaving his body, and he tried to suppress a laugh from his relief.
“Oh, darling. I was so worried it was, I don’t know, literally anything else,” he told her, “can you look at me?”
He wasn’t happy about it, but Taggie managed to look at him, her cheeks burning red.
“You say you find it difficult, does that mean you have come before?”
She nodded, bit her lip. Made him want to cry. She was making Rupert feel ancient, and protective, and his thighs were cramping to keep from pressing his erection too hard into her lower stomach.
“Did Seb make you come?” he murmured it against her jaw, trying to bring back that white hot arousal he knew was just beneath the surface. Beneath her fear.
“He didn’t try,” she said, and as Rupert tensed, she rushed to correct herself, “as in, we never did anything. We kissed, um, but that was really it. He offered to finger me up I didn’t really fancy it, at the time.”
Rupert couldn’t help snorting, and Taggie laughed too, muted as it was.
“But you have–”
“Yes! Yeah, once. Wait, how do you know?”
Whether it was Caitlin or Lizzie or Maud she had to kill, she’d do it later. Now, Taggie was focussed back on him, on the vast blackness of his pupils, dilated in the gauzy daylight of the bedroom.
“Did he make you come, angel?”
She squirmed, Rupert could feel it with his whole body. He knew the answer, she could tell.
“No.”
“Did he eat you out?”
She was red, squirming, and Rupert would bet Penscombe Court that if he reached down to check she was absolutely liquid.
“Tag?” he asked, delighting in her deep, desperate breath, the rise of her chest under him.
“No,” she admitted, and Rupert grit his teeth to avoid moaning.
“So you did it yourself?”
“I think so,” she told him, face burning, but she was watching him.
“You think so,” he drawled, and he looked away.
He kissed her, quick, affirming, and when he pulled away she stared up at him.
“Tell me what you did,” Rupert knew he was begging, but he didn’t care. His muscles were shaking, and it was the only thing keeping him grounded.
“I, um, touched myself, I think that’s when – ”
“Where do you touch yourself?” Rupert interrupted, and Taggie blinked, mouth slightly open.
“In the shower, sometimes, or the bath. Normally at night, when everyone’s out, or asleep.”
“Where do you touch yourself?” Rupert tried to be kind, not to laugh, but when Taggie snorted he realised he’d been had.
“For god’s sake!” he groaned, and she freed a hand to stroke his hair, caressed a cheekbone with her thumb.
“I mostly rub my clit, and sometimes I fuck myself with the handle of my hairbrush.”
Rupert was going to die. He’d been warned by his doctor over and over again about the drugs and the alcohol and the strenuous exercise and now he was going to die. He groaned, buried his face in Taggie’s neck, and desperately hoped she wasn’t rolling her hips into him on purpose.
“And where the fuck, angel, did you learn the word clit.”
“Mum’s filthy books, mostly, like Lizzie’s –”
He almost roared, pulled both hands to cup her ribs and shoved his face against her chest and cleavage. Taggie felt it in her lungs when he spoke.
“I love her to death but I am begging you not to say Lizzie’s name during foreplay,” Rupert ground out
“Is this foreplay?”
“Yes. Now please tell me how you touch yourself, if you’d be so kind,” Rupert couldn’t believe how patient Taggie was. How turned on he was. It was the longest he’d ever been rock hard without doing something about it.
“That’s it, really. On my back, sometimes standing in the shower, I tried the water jet once because Caitlin said it was in Cosmo, but it was too painful – ”
“You’re killing me, Tag.”
“Sorry,” she said it so sincerely Rupert was worried, but when he looked up her eyes were thick with lust, carefree laughter caught in her jaw.
When was the last time he’d laughed this much during sex?
“No one ever gives you any time to your fucking self, I’d be amazed if you can relax at all,” he murmured against her sternum, and she hummed.
Rupert meant it so much, so sincerely, that it was torture to keep the venom from his voice.
“Yeah, well, whenever I want to fuck myself, I end up with a house full of Venturer people, discussing your misdeeds.”
Rupert was in an exquisite kind of agony. One flick of her hand, a few thrusts against her soft stomach, and he could’ve finished right there. But this wasn’t the time to be selfish. Christ, if Taggie spent another moment convinced she was bad at orgasms he’d be beside himself. This was pivotal.
“So back to our thesis, you’re worried about… finding it difficult to orgasm?”
She hummed, and Rupert felt embarrassingly close to his own climax, to the point the whole thing bordered on obscenely unfair. With all the strength he possessed he pulled himself up, looked down at her. She seemed so much more confident, so much more in control, that Rupert could look her in the eye without her flinching away or blushing.
“I just don’t want you to… worry. If it takes too long.”
She was teasing him now. The whole thing had shifted. Tag had seen right through him, and she was using it for her own benefit. It was working, Rupert was in pieces.
“Fuck, Agatha,” he breathed, “who do you think I am?”
It was vain, and ridiculous, but he reached for her hand and pulled it between their bodies, until it was firmly across the plane of his abs. Admittedly, there had been points in his life where they’d been more pronounced, but Rupert’s naked body was yet to disappoint anyone yet.
“Do I feel like a man with stamina problems to you?”
She murmured into his neck, and he pulled away from her, until she had to look at him. Her face was so flushed, he might have mistaken for someone who’d already had a very nice time in his bed.
“What was that, angel?”
“No.”
“I should bloody well hope so. Apart from those biscuits we ate – but I’ve never minded much when you fatten me up.”
She laughed, and so did he.
“It’s not funny. You’ll ruin me. I used to be a sex symbol, you know. All thrown away, because I can’t stop eating your parfait with coulis.”
“Excuse me?” Taggie teased, and Rupert’s jaw dropped.
When was the last time he’d blushed?
It was probably around Taggie, he realised.
“God, how have we still got our clothes on,” she laughed, reaching for her own jumper, and Rupert stopped her, forehead to her chest once again.
He was about to say some bullshit about patience, but Taggie pulled his head up – gently – but the curls of his fringe.
“Aren’t you meant to be good at sex?”
“Fucking hell – ”
Taggie had to have been sent to him as some kind of cosmic intervention. Punishment, surely, for the way she was laughing at him as he slid his hands under her jumper and t-shirt, and made an absolute hash of pulling them over her head. It was hardly seductive, as she laughed, and threw her own bra on the floor, and sat up to work on his shirt without a shred of concern for the fact she was now topless in his bed and Rupert was still reeling.
They were down to jeans and slacks, and Taggie made quick work of both, until it was Rupert’s rather unfortunate underwear situation, and a pair of lacy red bikini-cut panties which did not suggest Taggie had come here today and been seduced. Quite the other way around.
“Wear these everyday, do you?”
Taggie shrugged, and lay back on her elbows, surprised that Rupert wasn’t taking them off.
“Never know when a client might take my fancy.”
Rupert panted, a huge shuddering breath, and failed to laugh.
“What was it you wanted me to eat?” he asked instead.
She groaned, leant her head back, and Rupert was terribly disappointed in himself that he hadn’t explored her breasts yet. Christ, he was already planning it. He could palm at them as he kissed her, use to pinching fingers to make her nipples rise, thumb at the marks her bra had left on the swell of them, knead and grab until her hands covered his, begging them to move down. He’d come back to it, during a refractory period, perhaps.
“Don’t make me say it,” Taggie was murmuring, “besides, that was your turn of phrase–”
Rupert was on poor form. He had to regain some control of the situation. Taggie yelped as he let himself fall backwards off the bed, catching himself on his hands so that his knees touched the floor and he could pull her closer by the thighs, attaching his mouth to her soaked underwear mid-squeak.
To his relief, she said nothing, arching back into the mattress and letting out little whimpers with every laboured exhale.
“Is this what you had in mind, love?” Rupert’s words were so muffled, as he refused to stop working his jaw against her.
She started to reply, just as he scraped his teeth across her underwear, and Taggie gave a sob.
“Sorry, I’ll ask again,” he murmured, and repeated his trick just as soon as she began to speak, soothing the shock by suctioning onto the area around her clit.
“You bastard,” Taggie panted.
When Rupert detached she whimpered, tried to pull her legs closed around him, but Rupert wouldn’t allow it. He returned, suckled for a few more moments, and relished in the taste of her, adding the point of his tongue, and when she was about to give a full throated moan, he pulled back to speak, feeling the tense of her thighs around his shoulders.
“Feels good, though?” he asked.
“Take them off,” she begged, “and never do that biting thing again.”
“You like the biting thing,” Rupert pointed out, but he was already hooking two fingers into each side of her underwear, tugging them down her legs and throwing them so they’d land ever-so-perfectly on his headboard. His side of the bed, naturally.
“Do you want me to eat you, angel?”
“Yes, god. Please.”
There was no restraint left as Taggie squirmed, now fully naked on his expensive cotton sheets. Rupert discretely palmed himself over his boxers, out of her view, and tried not to hiss at how badly he needed relief.
One look from Taggie, peering down her body at him curiously, was enough to change his mind. He wrapped both hands into the sensitive join between her thighs and pelvis, both thumbs pressing either side of her pubic bone. Rupert circled for just a moment, distracting her, before he finally tasted her from the source. He’d known she was sodden. He could smell it, feel it on her underwear, but the first lap he took from her slit was like nectar, like honey, smeared across his face and he found himself desperately lapping for more. He had to close his eyes, had to steel himself, before he remembered how to properly pleasure a woman.
“Fucking hell,” she was saying above him, panting, really.
“Okay, angel?”
“Mhm,” she replied affirmative, “fuck.”
She was pulsing. She must have felt so empty, Rupert didn’t think before he slid his middle finger inside her, thick and at the last minute he twisted it, so that he could croon towards himself, feel the bumps and luscious softness inside her, until she shuddered out a moan and he found exactly what he needed.
“Ready, gorgeous?” he murmured, bracing himself as much as Tag.
“Ready?” she asked, but he was already slipping his tongue up, through her folds, until he found her clit.
It was hard, and eager for him, and Rupert laved it with his tongue in gentle sweeps until he felt her buck and throw one hand up to cover her eyes. He grinned against her, and heard her sob out a laugh. He slipped his ring finger inside of her, and felt her gasp more than he heard it, looking up to see Taggie reaching for his pillow, holding it over her face with desperate hands.
He worked harder, kitten licked, until she moaned through gritted teeth and arced until his fingers in her and on her had to keep her in place, and each pump of his fingers was greeted by her feet shifting on the bed around him.
Finally, he slurped at her clit, the start of intermittent pressure, and Taggie let out a sob.
Each time Rupert took a panting breath, she mewled her disappointment until he was breathing through his nose and only breaking away to speak. He laved her with his tongue, and she groaned sliding one hand down her body with a pinch at her nipple, before she pushed hard into her own stomach, then slid her fingers into his hair.
“Such a good girl,” he praised, and she clenched around him.
Even Taggie seemed surprised, as her cunt grasped his fingers and Rupert powered through, curling his middle and ring fingers, fighting against the urge to explore this newfound gift, desperate to give her all he could, suckling on her clit. She pulled his hair too hard, and he detached from her with a groan, and blew cool breath on her clit as a warning, and before she could even complain Rupert returned to his work. The sound of Rupert’s bedroom was outrageous, he was moaning against each breath he took, desperate to return to his task, and Tag’s slick pussy made each desperate pull of his fingers echo slickly wetly around the high ceilings, off the sash windows.
“You’re fucking ruining me Tag,” he whined, coming up for air, and then, “I’m so proud of you. Fuck – good girl.”
Rupert kept desperately mouthing at her clit, pumping his fingers, and he felt Taggie contract around him, but then she was grabbing him, by the hair, by the shoulders, until the weight of his torso was on top of her as she writhed and sobbed, pushing at the pillow until Rupert shoved it away for her.
“Good girl,” he couldn’t say it enough, whispered right into her ear, just for her, “oh I know. I know gorgeous. You’re doing so well. Good girl–”
He’d kept one hand inside her, something for her to clamp down on, and as her breathing returned to normal he gave a couple of gentle pumps of his fingers. She moaned when he slipped out, wiping his fingers with wide, light swirls against her pussy lips, until he got too close to her swollen clit and she whimpered and pulled him away.
Even the air was sensitive against her clit, and Rupert shifted to let her close her legs, to curl up on her side. He pulled her closer, wrapping himself around her, letting them both ignore the hardness against her back. He forced his chin into the gap between her head and shoulder, and she pulled him in, panting.
“Hi, gorgeous. Welcome back.”
Taggie didn’t really speak, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“You should’ve let me keep going, could’ve tried for another one,” he teased.
Taggie’s eyes were wet, her face blotchy, like she’d been out in the arctic winter, pink and gorgeous and slick with sweat. She wouldn’t look at him, pulled her arms into herself. Rupert realised with distant horror that she was embarrassed, and he wouldn’t tolerate that for a moment.
“All that worry, and you did so well.”
“Hm?”
“Mhm,” he hummed against her.
The housekeeper always tucked the covers in too tightly, he’d complained before, and then felt like he was five years old. He reached over Taggie to tug the duvet free, and pulled it back across their bodies, letting her fidget until she was comfortable.
“Holy shit,” she murmured, and Rupert said nothing.
He lay there for a moment, waiting for her to come back, reflecting on the fact this might be the most difficult thing he’d ever done sexually. And Rupert had done some impressive things. Not because of her claims she found it hard to come, or because of any physicality, but just because he was so damn scared. Scared she’d hate him. Scared she’d regret it. Scared he’d let her down.
He took a deep breath. Taggie was fine again now, if embarrassed, and Rupert couldn’t help the shark-like grin he wore. This was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him.
“Sorry, I’m not sure what happened,” she began, but Rupert shushed her as kindly as he could manage.
“I knew you wouldn’t have a problem,” he told her gently, not wanting to make fun of her, “just a question of the right… partner. Someone taking the time you deserve. I hope one day you do too.”
“Thank you,” she said, and it was so sincere, that Rupert was lost for words, “I know you were… making me laugh, and stuff, so I’d be more relaxed. I appreciate it.”
“Hey, angel, none of that, it’s my genuine and utter pleasure. Besides, I think you mostly made yourself laugh.”
Taggie snorted, and detached from him, slipping onto her back and letting the duvet uncover her a little as she stretched out. Unselfconsciously, she slipped a hand between her legs, and felt how wet Rupert had left her. He watched as she spread herself with two fingers, touched her clit, slipped a finger inside herself to feel how he’d stretched her. It was, inexplicably, the most seductive thing Rupert had ever seen.
He couldn’t help it. He grabbed her wrist, pulled her fingers to his mouth, laved his tongue around them, desperate to taste her, to hear the groan she gave as he pulled his tongue up her entire palm, licking and sucking until she pulled away from him, pushing at his face like she was gently batting away a begging dog.
“Sorry, gorgeous, it’s just that everything you made it absolutely delicious.”
A bright pink flush rose up her face and chest, but nonetheless Taggie rolled her eyes, head flung back in an outrageously seductive tangle of reddish brown.
“You’re absolutely terrible,” she chided.
Rupert began to move, back down the bed so he was opposite her, and lying over her. He organised her hands so they were above her head, and gave her fingers just one more lick for good luck.
“Actually,” he said, and Taggie laughed as he ducked back down, to lick a slow, careful stripe up her opening, tongue plunging into her and the pressure lightening to the barest touch when he reached her clit.
“Sorry angel, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Taggie laughed, “god, sorry. I’m miles away. Like, hazy.”
“I trust that means I’ve done my job then,” Rupert was back to towering over her, kneeling, and he was palming at his boxers.
Taggie found her eyes caught on the wetness of them, grey darkening to black near the waistband, where the hard shape of his cock sat.
He set his knees inside hers, pulled one leg at the time up until her feet hooked around his back, and she had no choice but to curl up towards him.
“You’ve done an amazing job,” she told him, and twenty-four hours ago, Rupert wouldn’t have believed the pride which swelled in his chest as Taggie told him that.
For god’s sake. He truly couldn’t remember a single time before now when he’d been so desperate not to fuck up a sexual encounter.
“Angel, do you want to…” he trailed off. Like some teenager who couldn’t ask for what he wanted.
“Oh! Yes, please. Yes, Rupert – ”
“Lots of women don’t come during actual, y’know, this bit. We don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”
Taggie’s wide-eyed trust was too much. He was going to lose his mind. She didn’t seem to care in the least, reaching back for his discarded pillow, testing the feeling of it under her head.
“I want to feel you inside of me. It’s okay if I don’t… um, come.”
“Are you sure, angel? I won’t think any less of you, if we don’t do this today.”
“No, I do! I really want to. Besides, that looks, um, painful.”
She nodded down to his boxers, and sat up to start peeling them off him. Rupert let her, relishing in the feeling, hissing as her warm hand touched him, and then when it became too much he gently pushed her back down by the shoulders.
Rupert couldn’t believe the man he’d become. It was like an out of body experience as he crawled over her, and retrieved a condom.
He pulled her up by the hips, and Taggie leant back, watched him with curiosity.
“Are you okay like that?” she asked him, and Rupert could have cried.
“My back’s not quite gone yet.”
“Not what I meant,” she murmured, but Rupert was busying himself finding a way to get a hand free, and run it experimentally down her slit, then up to her clit. It was almost impossible to find friction, and her sensitivity against his slippery fingers made Taggie give a gorgeous spasm. She looked so beautiful, puffy, undone, that it was almost a shame to ruin it.
“Ready, darling?”
They’d lost momentum, in the time it had taken for him to put on the condom and to get Taggie ready, and he gave himself a few pumps under her curious watch. She blinked, and he repeated the question.
“Tag? Okay?”
“Yes,” she murmured, “please.”
Rupert hesitated as she spread her legs, lay back, didn’t seem quite sure what to do with her hands. Caitlin had said she’d had sex before, with some university kid who’d been at Patrick’s 21st, but he had a sudden flash of fear that it might not have been true.
But then Taggie was saying it again.
“Please, Rupert.”
“You’re sure?”
“Is something wrong?” she worried her lip, and he couldn’t stand it. He leant forwards, kissed her, and pressed his forehead to hers as he lined himself up with Taggie’s cunt.
“Let’s go together, yeah Angel? I’ll go slowly. I swear. The tip…”
He was speaking into her mouth, and he could feel her gasp as he broached her, and Rupert wanted so desperately to see her face as he stretched her, see how she looked as a strangled whine escaped her throat, but every muscle in his body was tensed and he couldn’t move for fear everything might be ruined.
Rupert was about to check on her, to kiss her again, when Taggie whined, and used what little leverage she had to force him deeper, so he pushed himself into her, guiding her head backwards onto the pillow with one hand on her forehead and the other on the inside of her thigh.
“Good girl,” he realised he was murmuring into her ear, “oh my god, good girl. Do you feel good?”
“Hm? Tell me?”
Taggie couldn’t speak, she nodded fervently, and surged up to kiss Rupert. He laughed into her mouth.
She was pulsating around him, wet and soft and pliant and kind and he moved slowly to start with but after a second he began to plough into her, watching Tag take him with her head thrown back, occasionally grasping at her breast, or looking down to see him thrusting in and out of her, watching the slight movement of her stomach as he filled her.
Rupert tried to thumb at her clit but Tag brushed him away, replacing his hand with her own, making soft, delicate little circles until Rupert murmured that he was close, so close, and he’d almost pulled out before he had a muddled memory that a condom meant he didn’t have to, and thrust himself back inside as deep as poor little Taggie’s cervix before he clamped around her shoulders with both hands, and pressed his open mouth into her neck as he came, giving a few final, short humps before he stilled.
In the few short seconds it took Rupert to catch his breath, he felt Tag clenching around him, felt the rub of her hand against his inner thigh, her fingers working her clit in languid, gentle little circles and making her contract around him as he softened inside her.
“Tag?” he asked blearily, and she stopped her movements.
“Oh, sorry,” she murmured, but Rupert found her hand, made some half-hearted, exhausted attempt at mimicking what he’d been doing.
“Keep going, are you close?” he asked, and she picked back up, giving a hum.
“Just feels good.”
“Okay, angel,” he told her, and let himself drift, feeling the gentle rub of her fingers against him.
When Rupert woke up, Taggie was still there. He wasn’t inside her anymore, though he realised with a grimace the condom was still on him, wretched thing. She wasn’t playing with herself, she was just lying there, on her side, watching him.
He’d left toothmarks imprinted in her shoulder. She couldn’t have noticed yet, and he hoped they might fade before she caught sight of them. Or maybe he hoped they’d stay forever, for Seb and Bas and Declan to see so they could all fuck off and let him have her.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he tried, stretching his arms out above his head.
In truth, he was a little embarrassed. Falling asleep after sex was such an old thing to do.
“It’s only been about fifteen minutes,” she told him, and Rupert grimaced.
“No morning breath, then!”
He forced himself to roll over, walk into the en suite. Get that damn condom off. He wasn’t proud of the whore’s bath he took in his sink, but sometimes needs must.
He came back with a cloth and some lotion for Taggie. It wasn’t something he’d ever felt compelled to do before, but in a moment of madness, he saw the stuff and concluded that she would have sore muscles and he ought to rub them.
Taggie acquiesced, though had already cleaned herself up, and Rupert tried to be a gentleman as he worked over her shoulders, her lower back, her thighs and hips – it was the sort of thing they’d done at the stables a lot, before they all fucked each other.
When he ghosted his fingers over the toothmarks he felt a surge of pride, and felt Taggie laugh under him.
“You’re such an animal,” she teased, and Rupert chuckled to himself.
It occurred to him she wasn’t sure what happened now. Rupert had presumed they’d pretend to date for a few months, then she’d be Mrs Campbell-Black. Taggie was eyeing the floor, deciding whether to collect her clothes.
He wiped the lotion off his hands on his thighs, and clambered back onto the bed with her. It occurred to him she might be cold, but he was afraid to do anything to interrupt the moment.
“I do have a confession, Taggie,” he began, watching her tense, as he knew she would, “I have slightly put the horse before the cart here.”
“Oh?”
It broke his heart, a little, how she was determined to be relaxed, to keep her face open.
“Only, if I haven’t disappointed you – and I do believe sexual compatibility is incredibly important – it was far more my intention to take you on a date. Or two. Up to about a dozen, before I’ll propose. And you’ll have to move in, really as soon as possible but I understand if you want a tour of the grounds first, a few days to decide…”
“If this is some…” she began, before looking down at the floor, “are you making fun of me?”
He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to swaddle her in the duvet and never let her leave. He took one of her hands in his, and just held it.
“I have absolutely no idea what would possess you to think that, Angel.”
She blinked, and Rupert could see her thinking, about him, the house, the rumours, her bloody parents. He’d asked for too much. Rupert had always believed in bold gestures, but this was too far. He could tell, now. She looked at the hand he’d captured with his, and Rupert pulled her hand to his pounding chest, wondered if she could feel it through his skin.
Finally, she seemed to decide. Beamed up at him, hair a mess as it fell around her, her mascara pooling below her eyes.
“You’re not getting a discount on your catering,” she told him, and Rupert laughed, and laughed, and it wasn’t fully enough but he found himself wrapping Tag in his arms and pulling her into him and dragging them both under the covers.
She was laughing too, if a little more shocked, calling his name in shock when he pulled the duvet down around them even though it was only late afternoon and the sun was still high in the sky and they both had places to be.
“I’d have to hide the money in your coat for you to take it anyway,” he told her breathlessly, and Tag turned her head just enough that he could see her roll her eyes.
“Maybe I’ll accept payment in diamond form, from now on.”
Rupert didn’t even bother to laugh. He hooked a leg around her, pulled her as close as he could to him, wrapped a hand across her stomach, and put just that tiny bit of his bodyweight on her that he knew she liked.
“Good girl,” he whispered in her ear, and laughed as he felt her shudder, wrapped in his bare skin.