by Penny Jordan
Gingerly kneeling down in the only space she could find in the piles of stuff heaped all over the loft floor, Abbie started moving things out of the way so that she could get to the boxes of bits and pieces she knew were stored up there, and which she intended to hand on to her friend for her car-booting sorties.
As she did so she knocked over a pile of children’s books. She paused to straighten them up, her eyes misting unexpectedly with tears as she recognised Cathy’s first proper reading books.
How well she remembered the thrill of wonder and excitement she had felt when Cathy read her first proper word, her first full sentence. How proud she had been, how sure that her daughter was the cleverest, prettiest little girl there ever was, how humbled by the knowledge that she had given birth to this special, magical little person—the same special, magical, perfect child who had refused to eat her supper and later thrown a tantrum in the supermarket of blush-making proportions!
Abbie’s smile faded as she also remembered how it had felt to have no one to share the special moments with, to have to wait until she could telephone her parents to tell them of Cathy’s wondrous achievement.
Firmly she resisted the temptation to indulge in nostalgia. She was a busy career woman with a full diary and very little time; the daydreamer who went soft-eyed and emotional over every small incident in her life had been firmly suppressed and controlled. Another Abbie had had to develop and take shape. An Abbie whom people respected and sometimes even found slightly formidable, an Abbie who had learned to deal with life and all its small and manifold problems by and for herself… An Abbie who could and would, if necessary, fight like a tigress to protect her child, an Abbie who had no need of sentiment or regrets about the past, and who had certainly no need for a man in her life to mistrust her and hurt her.
She crawled across the floor to where she thought the boxes were stored, cursing as the dust made her cough and then cursing again and trying to ignore the ominous pattering and scuffling sounds she could hear in the rafters above her. Birds, that was all…nothing to worry about.
She reached the boxes and pulled the first one out, reaching for the one behind it. Only it wouldn’t move; it appeared to be wedged against something. Gritting her teeth, Abbie felt behind it and then froze as her fingers curled round a piece of net fabric.
She knew immediately what it was, but, even though caution warned her to leave well alone and ignore it, for some reason she didn’t.
Instead… Instead, her fingers trembled as she tugged harder on the fabric, clenching her teeth as she heard it rip slightly and the balled-up grey-white bundle of fabric finally came free of the small space she had jammed it into.
Once it had been pristine white, the tiny crystals sewn onto it glittering just as much as the diamonds in her engagement ring as she’d pirouetted around the fitting room, turning this way and that, her face flushed a delicate, happy pink as she waited for her mother to admire it.
She had been a fairy-tale bride, or so the report in the local paper had said, her wedding dress every little girl’s dream and most big girls’ as well—at least in those days. She had felt like a princess—a queen—as she’d walked proudly down the aisle on her father’s arm. And when Sam had finally raised her veil after the vicar had married them, and she had seen the look in his eyes, she had felt as if…as though… She had felt immortal, she remembered. Adored, cherished…loved… And it had never even occurred to her that there might come a day when she would feel any different, when Sam wouldn’t continue to look at her with that mixture of adoration and desire.
How naive she had been… How…how stupid.
Her mother, her parents, had tried to warn her that she was rushing into marriage, that she and Sam barely knew one another, but she wouldn’t listen to them. They were old; they had forgotten what it was like to be in love, how it felt to be wanted, to want to be with that one special person so much that you actually hurt when they weren’t there.
She and Sam had met by accident…literally… She had been riding her bicycle illegally through a part of the university campus which was prohibited to students, taking a short cut to a lecture.
At first when she had cannoned into Sam, almost running him down, she had assumed he was a fellow student—although she hadn’t recognised him from her own political history course—albeit rather older than her. And, whilst she had laughed and flushed as she’d apologised, her embarrassment had been caused not by the fact that she had nearly run him down, and certainly not by the fact that she was doing something prohibited, but by the way he had made her feel, by the way her body and her emotions were already reacting to him, by the sudden rush of sensation flooding her mind and her body.
She had later admitted to him that if he had taken her there and then, in the middle of the quadrangle on the short, sweet grass, she doubted that she would have made any move to stop him. That was the kind of effect he had had on her, even though at the time she had still been a virgin and her experience of the opposite sex had been limited to Lloyd’s chastely explorative kisses and attempts at a bit of mild petting.
When she had discovered that Sam was not, as she had assumed, a fellow student, but a newly appointed junior classics lecturer, who had just completed his doctorate at Harvard, she had been completely mortified and shocked.
He had read her a mild lecture about riding her bicycle through a prohibited area and then sent her on her way, and she had not expected to see him again.
Only two days later he had turned up at her lodgings, carrying a book which had fallen out of the basket of her bike. She could remember how embarrassed she had been about the fact that he had discovered her almost in tears over a newspaper story she had been reading.
The article had been accompanied by heart-and conscience-rending photographs of grave-eyed starving children in the Third World, which had made Abbie exclaim passionately to Sam, once he had discovered the reason for her tears, that she could never bring a child into a world where so many, many children were so desperately in need.
‘I expect you think I’m being over-emotional, don’t you?’ she had asked him self-consciously when she had herself back under control, but he had shaken his head.
‘No, I don’t,’ he’d told her sombrely. ‘As a matter of fact…’
He had never finished what he had been about to say because one of Abbie’s fellow lodgers had returned, bounding into her room to request Abbie’s assistance in the search for a borrowed book she had misplaced.
Sam had refused her offer of a cup of coffee, but it had been close to the beginning of the summer recess at the time, and to her astonishment, two weeks later, when she was lying in the garden of her parents’ home sunbathing, he had turned up and invited her out.
He had explained later that he hadn’t felt he was in a position to ask her out before, bearing in mind the fact that she was a student and he a lecturer. When he had explained that he’d felt uncomfortable about being thought of as the kind of lecturer who took advantage of his position to coerce young female students into sexual relationships with him, she had fallen even more deeply in love with him. He was so straightforward, so honest, so moral… Too moral on occasions…like the time he had refused to take her back to his rooms with him and make love to her.
‘You don’t want me,’ she’d accused him tearfully.
In reply he had taken hold of her hand and placed it on his body. The strength and size of his erection beneath her hand had both shocked and excited her, and when he had seen the way her face flushed and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes he had laughed and then sighed, gently lifting her hand away as he’d told her softly, ‘You see, it’s too soon and you’re—’
‘Don’t you dare tell me I’m too young,’ she had interrupted him passionately. ‘I’m twenty… almost…’
‘And I’m twenty-six…almost,’ he had told her.
‘That’s only a difference of six years,’ she had protested.
‘You’re a virgin s
till, and I’m not,’ he had told her implacably. ‘You’re still playing in the shallows, whereas I—’
‘I can learn. You can teach me…’ she had told him fiercely. ‘You…’
He had closed his eyes then and taken her in his arms.
‘Oh, God, don’t tempt me like that,’ he had whispered to her, and his voice had been shaking—not with laughter, as she had first suspected, but with a mixture of emotions so potentially awesome and mind-blowing that she had trembled with excitement merely to think about them.
She had trembled as well when he had kissed her properly the first time, and for many, many times after that.
But it hadn’t just been sex…desire between them…
Abbie closed her eyes as the still painful memories engulfed her.
The first time Sam had kissed her properly had been on their second date. She had happened to mention that she wanted to go and see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was being performed traditionally at Stratford, not intending to hint and certainly not expecting him to offer to take her there. The play had simply been extremely well reviewed and she had semi-hoped that her parents might offer to take her as a special treat.
When Sam had rung and said that he had got two tickets, and asked if she would like to go with him, she had been too breathless with excitement at the thought of seeing him again to co-ordinate her thoughts and ask any kind of logical or practical questions. So when he had arrived to collect her, fortunately a little early, dressed in all the formal elegance of a dinner suit, her mouth had parted in a soft ‘oh’ of surprised shock whilst her eyes had registered her shy but very wholehearted and feminine approval of his sensually male elegance.
‘I thought we could go somewhere and have some supper after the play,’ he had suggested, as much to her parents as to her, Abbie had recognised, watching as her mother beamed her approval and her father coughed and muttered something about being sure he could trust Sam to get her home at a decent time.
Fortunately, long, floaty cotton dresses had been ‘in’ that year, and worn for everything from casual pub drinks to far more formal affairs. Hers had been new, the soft mixture of greens setting off her fair skin and blonde hair and matching her eyes quite spectacularly—or so the sales girl in the shop had told her. It had had a little high round neck, with cut-away sleeves and a keyhole cut out at the back, the soft cotton falling into a floaty A-line skirt.
The pretty white silk wrap her mother had rushed upstairs to lend her had given the dress a more formal and elegant air, and Abbie remembered how she had blushed to the tips of her ears and curled her toes in her shoes as she’d felt her body’s dangerous reaction to the way Sam had glanced oh, so briefly at her body, in such a way that it made her feel sure that he knew just how, beneath the thin cotton of her dress, her breasts were bare, her nipples tightening and pushing wantonly against the fine fabric…
It was over an hour’s drive to Stratford, and for the first half of the journey Abbie had sat in blissful silence, too excited and overwhelmed by Sam’s presence to make any attempt at conversation.
Later, she had managed to relax enough to comment that it had been a lovely day, and Sam had replied, equally gravely, that, yes, it had and that the rest of the week promised to be equally fine. Had she been sunbathing? he had asked her casually.
‘Yes,’ she had agreed, adding that she had to be rather careful about going out in the sun because her skin was very fair and sensitive. She would never, she had admitted ruefully, have the wonderful golden tan that other girls seemed to get so easily and which was so fashionable.
They had been on a quiet stretch of road at the time, and Sam had turned his head and looked gravely at her before reducing the car’s speed and reaching out to gently run his fingertips the full length of her bare arm. It was a gesture that had had her trembling with pleasure even before he had encircled her wrist and lifted it to his lips to caress the sensitive area where her pulse thudded visibly just beneath the surface.
‘Your skin, like you, is perfect as it is,’ he had told her huskily, and as his gaze had once again moved briefly to her breasts she had had a shockingly vivid mental image of his dark head bent over their nakedness whilst his mouth suckled first one sensitive tip and then the other.
Hurriedly she had looked away from him, half afraid that if he looked into her eyes he might actually read her thoughts.
The intensity of her own desire for him was still something she had not wholly come to terms with. By mutual consent she and Lloyd had agreed that, whilst they wanted to remain friends, friends was all they wanted to be; they still went out together occasionally, and they still enjoyed one another’s company, but she had needed no proof that she had made the right decision in admitting to herself that, much as she liked Lloyd as a person, for them to have become lovers would have trapped them both in a relationship which could never go anywhere. She had found that out in the way she felt about Sam. Nothing had prepared her for physically reacting so intensely to a man, or her own growing emotional dependence on him.
She was already half afraid that she was in danger of falling in love with him. What else could explain her immediate and overwhelming attraction to him?
It had been a perfect summer’s evening, the air sweet and balmy, the feel of Sam’s dinner-suited arm against her bare skin as he helped her with her wrap and they walked away from the car towards the theatre deliciously exciting and sensual.
Very much aware of the interested and appreciative looks Sam was attracting from the female halves of other couples heading in the direction of the theatre, Abbie had felt proud and elated that he had chosen her as his date, as well as just a little bit wary that some other woman might try to take him away from her. He was, after all, a very compellingly attractive and male man: tall, broad-shouldered, with just a hint of muscle beneath his well-tailored suit, his dark hair thick and shiny, his eyes a bright, laughing blue and not cold at all, but rich and warm and full of silent messages she was half afraid to interpret.
The discovery that he had booked a private box for them had made Abbie stare at him in stunned delight.
‘I’ve ordered us some champagne,’ Sam whispered to her as they were shown to their seats. ‘I hope you like it…’
‘I love it,’ Abbie fibbed, not wanting to admit that the only time she had really tasted it was at weddings, and then only the odd half-glass.
Her parents had been rather uneasy at first when, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she had got herself a job working in a local hotel serving at the tables in the restaurant, but Abbie had insisted that she wanted the independence of feeling she was contributing towards her own upkeep, even though she knew they were more than willing, as well as able, to support her through university.
Once she had left home for university she had not told them at first that she had got herself a part-time job working in a small local pub, sensing that they would be concerned.
They knew now, though, but knew also that Abbie still avoided drinking alcohol herself. It was too expensive for one thing, and for another she didn’t seem to have much of a head for it. But she would rather have died than confess to Sam that the champagne with which he had filled her glass just before the curtain went up tasted far too dry to her uneducated palate, and was already making her head swim slightly.
During the interval he took hold of her hand and asked her if she was enjoying herself and then added semi-harshly, ‘I shouldn’t be doing this. You do realise that, don’t you?’
She wasn’t really sure what he meant until he explained.
‘You weren’t meant to arrive in my life like this, not now… It’s too soon and I’m not prepared, although how the hell can anyone ever be prepared for…? You’re such a baby still,’ he groaned as he removed the champagne glass from her trembling hand and took her in his arms. ‘And the last thing I need is the kind of havoc that falling in love with you is going to cause in my life.
‘I had everything so care
fully planned,’ he whispered against her lips as he caressed them gently with his own mouth, teasing them with light, delicate butterfly kisses which for some reason caused a dark flush to run up under his own skin, and his grip on her wrists as he held her away from his body tightened so much that it almost hurt.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ he whispered remorsefully to her as he raised each wrist to his mouth in turn and kissed it gently. ‘It’s all your fault that I’m feeling like this…behaving like this,’ he told her rawly. ‘I’ve always thought of myself as sensible and level-headed, too cautious and logical to get involved in… You’ve made me realise that I hardly knew myself at all.’
‘You can’t be in love with me,’ she had protested shakily, but her eyes had given away her real feelings and she had seen the way his own reflected that knowledge.
‘No, I can’t, can I…?’ he drawled self-derogatorily. ‘After all, I hardly know you…you hardly know me, and we haven’t even been to bed together yet… How can I possibly be in love…?’
As she looked at him, her inhibitions relaxed by the cocktail of the champagne she had drunk and her own emotions, she told him bravely, ‘I…I haven’t been to bed with anyone. But…but I know I want to go to bed with you, Sam… I want it to be you who… I want it to be you,’ she had finished in a soft, quavery little voice, and that was when he had kissed her properly for the first time in the darkened shadows of their box. Kissed her with his arms wrapped tightly around her, his body pressed against hers as his hands caressed her, his mouth hard and hot on hers, his tongue stroking her lips, coaxing them apart whilst she shivered with emotion and arousal, willing to give him anything, everything, if only he never took his mouth away from hers again.
She couldn’t remember sitting through the rest of the play, but they must have done, and she couldn’t remember much about the meal they’d had afterwards either. All she could remember was how much she had wanted to be alone with Sam, how much she had ached and yearned for him; how she had felt as he’d gently coaxed her to eat some of the dessert she had ordered and then felt unable to eat, lifting the spoon to her mouth, watching her whilst her lips parted and her face flooded with colour as her body and her senses recognised the sensuality, the sexuality of what he was doing, even whilst mentally she was still a stranger to such intense intimacy.