Neighbourhood Watch by Lisette Ashton Page A

asked eagerly.
    Megan squirmed uncomfortably on her seat.
    Her hostility towards the Graftons had disappeared when she realised she had misjudged them. The letter she had received had not been intended as a proposition and, as the three of them laughed at her silliness, she had found it easy to like the couple and feel relaxed in their company. Admittedly Rhona was more tactile than Megan was used to in her women friends. Her reassuring fingers continually touched Megan’s hand, arm or shoulder. Charlie, too, had been studying her with an obvious sexual interest, but he was a handsome and authoritative man and three glasses of wine had made it easier to endure his attention.
    Yet now, with them both eager to know the answer to this question, Megan could feel the atmosphere in the room changing again. Whereas before it had been cool and relaxed, now the air vibrated with the hum of sexual tension. She was aware that both Rhona and Charlie desired her and, riding high on the suggestion of their lust, she could feel her own arousal growing. After what seemed like an age, Megan found her voice.
    ‘Yeah. I was thinking about it.’
    ‘I bet you’d have priced yourself beyond what we could afford,’ Charlie said with a grin. Without asking he replenished her glass. If she hadn’t been rolling a cigarette Megan would have placed a protective hand over her drink and prevented him. But by the time she was able to say, ‘No more, thank you,’ a fourth glass of the potent white wine was waiting for her.
    ‘Don’t be so parsimonious,’ Rhona chastised her husband. She placed a reassuring hand on Megan’s arm and said, ‘He can be a cheap shit at times. You’re a very attractive girl. I bet you’d have named a price that
I
wouldn’t think was too high.’
    Megan finished rolling her cigarette and tucked it in the corner of her mouth. The shape was bizarre: her hands had been too unsteady to form a proper tube and the result looked like a lollipop stick designed by Salvador Dali. She hesitated before lighting it, sure most of it would incinerate as soon as she touched a flame to its end.
    ‘How much would you have asked?’ Charlie enquired.
    ‘Does it matter? Isn’t it a moot point now?’
    ‘It’s a moot point,’ Rhona agreed. ‘But it would be interesting to know.’
    Taking a deep breath, Megan wondered whether she should admit her plan. Deciding it would be rude to deny them the information, she laughed nervously and said , ‘I’d come here with the idea of haggling. I was going to wait to hear how much you offered, and then insist I wanted double the amount. I came here prepared to screw you physically
and
financially.’
    Rhona chuckled enthusiastically and clutched Megan’s arm. ‘You are so much a girl after my own heart.’
    ‘You don’t have a heart,’ Charlie grunted.
    ‘I might not have a heart,’ Rhona agreed, ‘but I’m not a cheap shit and I can post letters through the right doors.’
    Charlie turned his attention away from his wife and studied Megan. ‘So,’ he began slowly, ‘if I’d offered you five hundred pounds to play with Rhona and me for the night, you’d have demanded a grand? Is that what you’re saying?’
    Megan considered this and nodded. ‘Yeah. I might have settled on a grand.’
    ‘A grand,’ Rhona reflected. The hand on Megan’s arm gripped tight. ‘What would you have done for a grand?’
    Megan blushed. She was about to explain that she hadn’t given much thought to what she was likely to do, but that wasn’t entirely true. Before she could wave the question away, or try to divert the subject to something less embarrassing, Rhona was pressing her face close to Megan’s cheek and whispering in her ear.
    ‘What would you have done?’ she breathed.
    The question, caressing the lower lobe of her ear and kissing the side of her neck, fired a sultry warmth in Megan’s loins. Deciding honesty was probably the best way to respond, Megan turned her face to