Snowballs! Winter Fun on the Slopes, page 5
Pointing out their friend’s new choice of playmate to the others, Jenna couldn’t help but be a tiny bit – actually, more than a tiny bit – jealous of Bertie’s confidence and determination. It’d been obvious last night that Bertie had noticed the cool, seemingly impenetrable group of mega-rich Russians. And here she was, infiltrating them like an MI6 pro.
‘I don’t know why she bothered inviting all of us along, really,’ mumbled Jenna, to no one in particular. ‘I mean, Sally, you guys have never really got on, and I’m sure she looks at all of us with a certain amount of disdain.’
‘Hmm,’ agreed Sally, pausing to take a sip from another, new steaming glass of vin chaud. ‘She is a cold fish at times. Never worked out why she took against me suddenly halfway through uni, yet sort of frenemied me, if that’s the right word. Weird, sweetie, weird.’
‘It’s a fall back, isn’t it,’ said Angus matter-of-factly. ‘Of course there’s Max – she’s still, you know, into him,’ he glanced at Jenna, ‘and through him she’s kind of tied to the rest of us.’
‘Whereas it’s only Max she really wants tying to,’ interrupted Hugo with a rather unsubtle wink. ‘Though Angus, she’d probably let you into her coterie – that model girlfriend of yours must pass muster in Bertie’s book, don’t you think?’
‘I think you guys are probably the closest thing to real friends she has,’ Angus replied, looking over to Jenna.
‘That’s a bit sad, really. If she wasn’t so disgustingly rich and horribly pretty …’ Jenna raised an eyebrow as she spoke to show she wasn’t really being a total bitch, ‘I’d feel quite sorry for her. Proves you can have all the money in the world, but it doesn’t buy you friends.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ contradicted Sally. ‘We’re only here because she got us that gorgeous chalet for zilch and because we still remember the old Bertie who would be a good egg and have a giggle with us. Fine horsewoman too, wasn’t she, Hugo? Ever since she inherited that fortune it’s terribly changed her. As the pounds rolled in, the morals and manners rolled off. But I suppose when you’re mega rich you get used to having what you want and suddenly everyone wanting to be your “friend”.’ Sally made little quotation marks with her fingers. ‘Makes me a little glad really that we’re only moderately well off.’
‘Unspoilt by worldly wealth!’ agreed Jenna, who, earning far less than Sally and a fraction of Hugo’s banker’s salary, had to bite her lip slightly at Sally’s comparison.
‘Don’t worry, Jenksy, lunch is on us,’ bellowed Hugo as he fished around in his jacket pockets for his wallet.
‘Oh Hugo, you honestly don’t have to,’ Jenna said as she eyed his fingers pulling out only a couple of the many fifty-euro notes he had stashed in the folds of his wallet. Her words belied the fact that she really would very much like him to pay for her lunch.
‘Don’t you worry,’ Hugo luckily continued, ‘I know us mere tradesmen have to pay into the greater good that is the Arts …’ he pronounced this last word as if he were Olivier himself. ‘Besides, without you manning that little desk in your little gallery, how would I ever know when the next Hockney was about to come along? I’m relying on you to find us all grand investment pieces, Jenksy, so we can retire early and play golf.’
‘I promise, Hugo, that as soon as Hockney Junior comes knocking, you’ll be the first to know and you can thank me from the deck of your super yacht, but for now, ta muchly from me.’ She leaned over and gave Hugo a kiss on the cheek, much to his red-faced pleasure and an indulgent grin from Sally.
Bertie lowered her sunglasses down the bridge of her exquisitely sculpted nose – no one had realised she’d had it ‘done’ in Harley Street soon after her twenty-third birthday, which was surely a hallmark of an excellent surgeon – and peered over to where her friends were sitting. As she sipped champagne, delicately holding the glass as she sat ramrod straight with perfect posture, she watched Jenna and Sally joyfully delve into pasta and pints of beer – totally relaxed and laughing at Angus and Hugo and themselves. She pressed her glasses back into position and turned to face the powerful man next to her who had just slipped his hand onto her thigh.
‘You want to join your friends?’ He leaned over towards her, his thick Russian accent making it sound more like a threat than an offer.
‘No,’ replied Bertie, who couldn’t fail but notice there was one friend in particular missing from that group. ‘There’s nothing for me over there.’
9
The gentlest of flakes began to fall just as Jenna was nearing the end of what was, she thought, a rather long and arduous piste. The others had all bombed down it, carving snakes of snow into the soft powder, looking like pros. Sally had skied carefully, but fast, hoping the lagging Jenna would be able to keep up and follow her path, but Jenna had had to stop so many times to demist her goggles or catch her breath, that she’d lost Sally’s trail half a piste back and was veering around all over the place, trying to keep her balance on the steep bits and make the most of the fantastic powder. She was not a fan, however, of this falling snow business. Snow, she pondered, was all very well when it had fallen and had made these lovely-ish pistes and created a fairy-tale town, but this blizzarding nonsense? No. And how quickly it changed from being super sunny to horribly hazy! The mountains baffled her and delighted her in equal pleasure. With those thoughts occupying her enough to stop her from over-thinking her technique and route down she finally reached the bottom of the piste and her friends. Seeing them leaning over, resting on their poles or mucking around skiing backwards and throwing snow up into the air with the tips of their skis, made her feel both guilty for making them wait and jealous that she constantly missed out on these fun moments. Sure enough, as soon as she arrived, Hugo suggested they crack on.
‘Hang on!’ Jenna panicked, glove only just off as she delved in her pocket for some more lip balm. ‘Let me get myself sorted – I’m really sorry I’m so slow …’
‘Take your time, sweetie,’ Sally interrupted her, realising that a tired and hungover Jenna could easily burst into tears with the slightest provocation. She glared back at Hugo, who had rolled his eyes.
‘I’m really sorry, guys. Look, why don’t you go on and I’ll just pootle at my own pace. No point holding you all up.’
‘Makes sense,’ Hugo mumbled, wary of another dirty look from Sally. Angus looked over at Jenna and she caught what she thought was a patronising glare. As soon as she met his eye though he smiled at her and flicked the tip of his ski in her direction, sending the snow on it flying towards her.
‘I’ll ski with you, Jenna,’ he said, and went on to describe some problem with his binding that was far too technical for Jenna to understand, but apparently required him to see someone down at ‘base camp’ as he put it.
‘If you don’t mind?’ Jenna was so relieved. Even as they’d been standing there the weather had got worse, with a slow mist descending from the summit of the mountain and the falling flakes now not so gentle and a little bit sharp as they dashed against her face and ungloved hands. It was agreed then, and Hugo and Sally took off, with Sally making Angus promise that he’d get Jenna down the mountain before she decided she’d never come on another ski trip again. With reassurances from both Angus and Jenna, they left. Angus then turned to her.
‘Ready, champ?’
‘Ready, Gus.’
As slowly as he could, he led her down the mountain. The pistes were busy in that languorous afternoon way, and Jenna was very aware that all her energy and focus was going on staying upright and trying to spot random icy patches in the otherwise perfect pistes, not looking out for zippy, arrogant skiers who would cut her up and throw her off balance with neither a wave nor an apology. Angus, though, looked out for her all the way down and made sure she got to the bottom of the lifts unscathed and in one piece. The town was buzzing with the bars open and skiers milling around and Jenna thought she might be just as happy curled up on one of the soft outdoor sofas under a heater with a vin chaud as she would be up on the slopes. She hinted as much to Angus and he chuckled.
‘Not one for actually doing the skiing bit of the ski holiday, are you, Jenks?’
‘Nah, I’m more here for the holiday bit.’ She looked up at him as he laughed at her. ‘Thanks, though, Gus, for seeing me down.’ She stood, looking at him.
‘No probs, Jenks.’ And at that he leaned down and gave her a very perfunctory kiss on the cheek. Slightly startled, she stood just sort of staring at him as he turned and headed back to the main cable car, joining the throng of afternoon skiers who were still piling up the mountain, despite the weather closing in. She watched until she saw the navy blue of his helmet disappear into the funicular building, then, with a deep sigh, Jenna turned around and headed back towards the chalet. It was only as she fiddled with her own skis, precariously balancing them both over one shoulder so that she could carry them, that she realised that Angus never did go and get his bindings checked.
Sally, meanwhile, was experiencing a totally different sort of afternoon.
‘Perhaps one or two good deeds from him,’ mused Sally, ‘would do it. And we could finally get Jenna to lose this ridiculous crush on Max …’
‘Whassat?’ mumbled Hugo, less interested in his friends’ love life than getting to the front of the cable car queue. If it had been Sally’s idea to let Jenna and Angus ski together to give her friend some ‘wake up and smell the Gus’ time, then Hugo’s motives might be said to be have been a little more selfish. Not only would Jenna have slowed them down (let’s face it, he thought, her past experience of skiing amounted to about fifty-four minutes of actual skiing time, even though she had been on about five ski trips), but also Hugo had decided it was high time his future wife had a bit of, well, him. Edging closer to the front of the queue, Hugo did a bit of mental arithmetic and worked out that although the relatively ‘commodious’ little bubble cars could take four people, the group in front could take the next one, leaving him and Sally to one all by themselves if they were lucky. Although there were a few tuts from those behind them in the queue, one little bubble car to themselves they did get and clattered their skis and poles into the corrugated metal holder just beside the rubber-edged sliding door and hopped up into the little pod-like cable car seconds before the doors closed behind them. Sally, completely unaware of Hugo’s tactics (one dropped ski and a bit of English bluster) to get the pod to themselves, started to relax into the seat, taking off her gloves and loosening her jacket by unzipping it a fraction. Using her newly freed hands to delve into her pocket for her lip balm, she noticed that Hugo, who by now had nestled himself rather snugly in next to her on the plastic bench seat of the pod, was using his freshly ungloved hands for something entirely different, undoing the zip down the front of her jacket more than just a ‘fraction’.
‘Darling …?’ she started, a questioning though not too admonishing tone in her voice.
‘I just thought my gorgeous wife-to-be, now we’re alone, might like to warm my hands for me …’ As Hugo said this, his right hand – chilly or not – found its way through the undone zip of her jacket and around one of her rather wonderful breasts. Before Sally could say much else, he had used his other hand to cup the side of her face and brought her in for a long deep kiss. As their lips met, Sally felt her body become more and more electrified by her fiancé, his hands now holding her in the firm embrace that she so loved. Her pulse was quickening and she knew what Hugo had in mind and moments later, anyone skiing on the piste below, who happened to look up at that moment, would have seen two or three little brightly coloured pods gently making their ascent up to the next cable car station. The wind obviously caught them occasionally and the tension in the cables themselves gave rise to the odd vibration, but one car in particular was noticeably more ‘bouncy’ than the others. A really keen observer, who might have stopped to watch, their attention grabbed by the extra motion in the air, might also have been treated to the sight of Hugo’s naked arse, as he pulled down his salopettes ready to plunge his not inconsiderably sized member into his loving wife-to-be. Sally was flushed and exhilarated, having been thoroughly ravished by her fiancé in the ten minutes they knew they had between the cable car stations. Hugo, always the gent, had taken his time to get Sally to the very peak of climax, having slowly worked his kisses down from her now completely exposed breasts to her knicker line. Slowly undoing her fly, he tugged at her salopettes, inwardly chuckling to himself at her slight gasp as the chill of the plastic seat touched her bare skin. Without saying a word, though, he parted her legs and pulled her forward, nuzzling his way into her most private, and nerve-tinglingly sensitive, area. With his tongue darting in beside the white cotton of her knickers he brought her to a most excruciatingly wonderful peak – at that moment pulling back while he too rid himself of his ski wear so that he could cum inside her – finishing both their orgasms, with the resultant gasps and yells, just in time to reclothe themselves and rather red-facedly dismount from the bubble car as it pulled into the docking station.
‘Darling, I’m really quite impressed,’ whispered Sally as they lugged their skis and poles down the ramp from the cable car station and out onto the glistening white snow in bright sunlight above both the tree and cloud line.
‘I like to think I can still surprise you, Sals,’ Hugo said nonchalantly. ‘Wouldn’t like you to think that we’re too old and boring now.’
‘I said impressed, not surprised – something tells me you’ve been planning that little stunt in your head for a while.’ Sally looked over at him, her mock censure completely given away by the broadest of smiles.
‘Well, I suppose I did count the minutes to the last second when we first did that bubble this morning …’
‘Yes, I wondered what all that stop clocking was about. But darling, should I be proud, or worried, that we can both be so utterly fuckingly brilliantly satisfied in nine minutes forty-seven seconds?’
‘Efficiency, my love, efficiency. But I suppose best keep our saucy secret to ourselves.’
‘Oh, I will, darling, absolutely.’ And with that Sally lowered her goggles over her eyes and wrapped her ski pole leashes around her wrists, wondering to herself as she pushed off against the crisp, crunchy snow exactly how she was going to describe the whole sordid affair to Jenna.
Max paused on the side of the piste, waiting for Izzy to catch up. As he looked back up the mountain the familiar noise of the cable cars overhead caught his attention. His gaze followed the perpendicular height of one of the massive pylons, its monumental size making an impression on him for perhaps the first time. Something else was making an impression too – the sight of a rather large arse pressing against the full-length window of the sliding double doors. Good work, thought Max, mentally tipping his hat to whichever total legend was up there right now. It reminded him of his morning’s rumpy pumpy, so brutally interrupted by Bertie. If only she’d come flouncing into his room in such alluring undies when he wasn’t already doing the dirty with another hottie – or perhaps, if only she’d stayed … Surely it was basic economics to know that, when it comes to lovemaking, three was better than two. Izzy, who brought her skis round to a perfect parallel turn to stop right next to him, interrupted his internal dialogue.
‘Sorry, Max, I totally got caught chatting to Ginny – she’s having an absolute ball as she’s meant to be working in this super-swish chalet, but it’s been taken over by Russians for the fortnight and they brought, like, ALL their own staff, so she’s off the hook and having so much fun – it’s so unfair.’
Max, who did his best to feign interest in the ups and downs of chalet girl life, was a bit miffed that an ‘unfair down’ was being in a chalet with him. Especially as, after this morning’s intrusion on their lovemaking, not to mention the ‘services rendered’ the night before, twice, he had treated her to the most sumptuous brunch at the Château Marmotte, the slickest hotel in town. They’d found out from one of her Cheltenham chums, also seasonnairing and working on the reception at the hotel, that the penthouse was empty and begging to be seen to be believed. So they’d spent a very enjoyable few hours of total uninterrupted carnal bliss in the Jacuzzi bath, emperor-size bed, leopard-skin rug and outdoor hot tub – or sex pond as it was now christened.
