“Well, I certainly hope so.”

“I’m sure you do. But hope is one thing, certainty is another.” Her hand left my arm and brushed against my crotch so lightly it might have been by accident. “If we spend time over dinner and then bed doesn’t work out, I will be disappointed and you will be embarrassed. We could avoid that.”

“We could?” I still had much to learn about Casey; at this juncture I was simply bemused.

She looked around. “Is there somewhere here more - more private?”

“Only my office.”

“Are you closed? No more viewers expected?”

“Yes. I mean, we are closed. I can close the inner blind on the door.”

“Good. Do that and then show me your office.”

It was a small room at the back of the gallery, spare and functional with room for little more than a desk, a leather chair and a pair of file cabinets. Fortunately, I like a tidy operation so the desk was clear of clutter. How fortunate that was, I was about to discover.

Casey closed the door and leaned against it, surveying me. “I would like you to kiss me,” she said, “but that will have to wait. I don’t want to have to repair my face before we go out. Do you mind if we skip the preliminaries?”

If this was seduction, it was far from subtle. In any other woman it would probably have been off-puttingly brazen, but there was a smile in Casey’s eyes that hinted at something else - a deeply feminine sexuality few men could have resisted. I certainly couldn’t. I said, “Perhaps it would be best - just for now - if you took the lead.”

They were the last words spoken for a while. With a swift movement, Casey opened a fastening at the side of her skirt and let it fall to the ground. She retrieved it and folded it carefully on the chair behind the desk. When she turned to face me, my gaze descended from the elegant lace top and pearl choker to the garter belt, the black French knickers, the white thighs, the black stockings, the small feet that kicked off her high heels. I was still gorging my eyes when she dropped to one knee in front of me, opened my zip and felt for my cock. Extracting it from my boxers wasn’t easy: I was already fully erect. That didn’t deter her from manipulating it so that she could slide her hand along the underside of the shaft, pointing the circumcised head towards her open mouth. Presumably mindful of her lipstick, she wasn’t intending to take me in. Instead, her tongue snaked out and flicked beneath my knob. Her hand cradled my balls as she began to lick. This was different from full fellatio; it was exquisite testing and teasing, promising so much but never