by Jessica Ayre
He ruffled her hair and with his hand at the back of her neck gently turned her face up to his.
'I won't let you go off to New York or anywhere. I want you here with me, working with me. I've been trying to make that clear to you and you won't listen,' he whispered, and reached for her lips with such a mixture of force and sweetness that she felt her entire body melt into the returning of his kiss. They stayed clasped together for what, to Lynda, seemed an eternity.
Then gently he released her and drew away. 'I don't want to commit the crime of a casual daytime encounter,' he said, a hint of mischief in his voice.
Lynda suddenly felt cold, abandoned, and noting it, Paul drew her to him again. 'I want you very much,' he said huskily, 'and not casually, so let's save it. Let me show you something first.' He got up and drew her after him.
Lynda looked at him questioningly, her eyes, her skin still aflame from his touch. She followed him into the kitchen, not daring to try her voice.
'Will you offer me some coffee, before we set off?'
She nodded and as she warmed it, asked, 'Where are we going?' Her voice was tremulous and he put his arm around her.
'You'll see. It's a surprise.'
Paul led her out into the brightness of the day. She felt as if she were enveloped in a dream, not daring to move too much, to speak too much, lest it should vanish. As she relaxed into the car's plush seat, she suddenly remembered, 'I promised Tricia I'd go to the office and see to things.'
'There's nothing to see to,' he said brusquely. 'You're not going away, are you?'
She looked him full in the face, met the power of his eyes and shivered. 'No, I guess not,' she said softly, and reached to touch his hand to remind herself why.
They drove without speaking through the city and then on to a country road. Paul snapped a tape into the car radio and she recognised the longing, straining tones of Debussy. Little by little, the contours of the road grew familiar to her.
'I think we've been here before,' she commented.
He nodded, his eyes glowing. 'I'm very glad you remember.'
A narrow lane led them to a slope she recognised, and then a ramshackle manor house came into view.
'Why, it's your parents' house,' she said.
He chuckled as he pulled into a drive covered with weeds. 'My house now, or almost. Yours too, if you want to live here.' He stopped the car and took her hand.
'Me? With you?' She gasped the words gracelessly.
'Well, if you'll let me into it now and then for a casual night-time encounter,' Paul laughed.
She flushed.
'Will you, Lynda? Live with me?'
'Me?' Her voice was shrill with surprise. 'But what about Vanessa? You're engaged. I thought…'
He cut her off abruptly, his eyes dark, 'If you're going to be my wife, you really are going to have to stop believing what you read in the gutter press. I've told you before.'
Lynda winced.
'And what did you think?' He was angry now and he ran a long-fingered hand abruptly through his thick hair. 'You thought I could live all these years totally celibate, never having slept with anyone, simply waiting for you to come along?' He lit a cigarette took a long puff and then crushed it brutally in the ashtray.
She looked at him, the colour warm in her face, then ran her fingers along his cheek tracing the line of his lips. 'I'm sorry,' she said softly. 'I've been an idiot.'
He caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. 'Never mind, we've got time now, day and nighttime, to explain it to each other. If you'll marry such a tainted man, that is,' he added mischievously.
She breathed her yes almost inaudibly and met his lips firmly with a freshness that was full of promise.
He walked round to open her door and then taking her hand urged her into a run up to the heavily panelled front door of the house. He opened it with two large old-fashioned keys and then, as the door creaked open, Lynda found herself whisked off the ground, light as a feather in his muscular arms as he lifted her over the threshold.
'Practising for the real thing,' he drawled into her ear.
He set her down in the large wainscoted hall. They each took a breath, then made a face and burst out laughing.
'Not exactly roses, is it?' said Paul. 'But then it hasn't been lived in for a long time. We'll soon change that.'
Lynda followed him round the large well-proportioned rooms of the ground floor, then up a narrow secondary staircase which led into various levels of corridors and tiny rooms.
'It's like a maze,' she said. 'I'm quite lost.'
'That's the idea,' he grinned. 'You'll never find your way out.'
'And when I'm through with the changes, you'll never find your way in,' she parried.
He laughed and took her hand. 'It is a confusing place. It's because of all the additions made over the years. But look, come in here.'
The corridor seemed to have ended abruptly in front of a small latched door. Paul had to bend down to go in. 'My old room,' he said.
Surprisingly the small door opened on to a large attic room with sloping ceiling and windows on two sides which looked far out on to the green expanses.
'It's wonderful!' Lynda exclaimed, squeezing his hand. 'I'd love to work in here.'
'Depends what kind of work you mean,' he said, taking her into his arms and hugging her so hard she gasped.
'Not now,' she wriggled out of his arms, 'or I'll never see the rest of this house!'
A door opposite to the one they had come in by led them down three steps to what seemed a totally different house.
'The main living quarters,' Paul laughed. 'This is the newer part of the house.'
'It's enormous! What on earth shall we do with it all?' Lynda wailed as she suddenly found herself back in a room on the ground floor which she had already seen.
'It's to the drawing board for you, Miss Harrow… and of course, we could try filling it with a child or two.' He pulled her to him, pressing his hands to the base of her spine as he met her lips in a long kiss. Then, still holding her, he said huskily, 'Come on, there's one more thing to see.'
They walked out into unnaturally intense sunlight. Lynda blinked once or twice and then gave herself up to its brightness. Brimming over with joy, she watched Paul's lithe body through half-closed lids as he walked rapidly towards the car, opened its boot and brought out a bulky chequered blanket.
He took her hand and pulled her after him, half-running, half-stumbling down the slope through the tall grass into a copse of tall trees. Their laughter pierced the stillness.
'Welcome to my hideout,' said Paul, and led her through the dark shadows cast by the trees to a small sheltered clearing where the sun suddenly burst forth on a narrow glistening brook. Smooth pebbles shone at its base, the water rushing over them with a gentle murmuring.
Lynda stopped by its edge, letting the magic of the place penetrate her. 'It's wonderful,' she breathed. 'Not quite of this world.'
'That's what I used to pretend to myself when I was little,' he said, spreading the blanket out on the grass and drawing her down beside him.
He stroked her hair, letting his hand glide down her back, and as she thrilled to his touch, he pressed his lips to hers, urging her body to his. He searched her mouth with a burning ferocity. She could feel little flames licking her thighs, her stomach, her breasts, and she clung to him, letting her hands explore the tautness she had been so afraid of.
Paul pulled her up on him and raised her face above his, smoothing her cheeks, her lips, with the roughness of his fingers. Then he pulled the chain around her neck out on to her sweater.
'The ring's gone.' He looked at her questioningly. Then abruptly, 'So I was right—there was someone. When did you take it off? Who is he?' His brow furrowed as his eyes grew black with anger.
Lynda was dismayed by the barrage of questions, the sudden shift of mood. 'An old friend, a childhood friend. We thought that perhaps… but it was only friendship.'
He sat bolt
upright and took her roughly by the shoulders. 'Don't lie to me, Lynda Harrow!'
She moved out of his grasp, angry herself now.
'I'm not lying! I don't lie. And stop bullying me, you… you insufferable bully!' She stood up and began to walk away, the tears coming to her eyes with the hopelessness of it all. He caught her by the ankle and taking her hand pulled her down beside him.
'I'm sorry,' he stroked her hair again, whispering. 'I'm sorry, I just can't bear to share you with anyone, not even a memory. And I always seem to see you in the arms of other men. It's a little daunting.'
'Me?' She looked at him aghast.
'Yes, you, Lynda Harrow,' he said her name again in that particular way which had so discomfited her. 'In pubs, on dance floors, at dinners, in lifts— Robert, Rees, that French coxcomb—the list seems endless.'
Lynda laughed. 'I was just trying to run away from you and your Vanessas and Yvettes!' She looked at him tauntingly now, from beneath her dark lashes. 'When did you first notice me, then?'
'Oh, I don't know,' he met her tone, 'in the bath, I guess.'
The colour rose to her face and she lifted an arm to slap him, but he caught it and laughed. 'I noticed you from the first, Lynda Harrow. In Mr Dunlop's office, the day of that initial meeting. I said to myself: "That one, that one will be off with a man before the project's half under way." That's why I was so against it. And I was right, wasn't I?' He put his arm around her. 'I just got the man a little mixed up.'
She smiled at him. 'I was terrified of you.'
'And so you should be,' he glowered at her, and then broke into a laugh. 'But you have a funny way of showing it… Throwing clothes in my face, seducing our top client—well, in a manner of speaking,' he corrected as she gave him a black look, 'threatening to quit time and again. But it was the clothes that did it. When you threw them at me, I knew I'd had it. I was hooked. But I thought you'd still succumb to my charms in a less complicated manner,' he chuckled.
Lynda's face fell. 'If you don't want me to stay…'
He drew her to him, 'I'm just teasing. I want you very much. Too much.' His mouth pressed down on hers, imprinting his words on her lips and she opened to him, moaning softly as his body touched hers. He pulled the blanket round them and as he bared her skin to kiss her throat, her breasts, she could feel his urgency mingled with a new tenderness. Her skin thrilled to his touch, every pore alive to his caress, and she returned them now, heedlessly, letting his rhythm become hers. Through the throbbing of her pulse she heard a whisper in her ear—perhaps it was the rippling of the brook. 'Trust me, Lynda. Trust me.'
And as she opened her eyes to see his blue ones glowing on her, she caught herself saying with a surprising sureness, 'I do.'