The Sweet Caress (5 page)

‘A dress suit for you, an evening dress for me. You’re inviting me to a dinner party this evening. But I can think of reasons other than having nothing to wear to decline your invitation. Too many people, for example, too many curious eyes, too many questions lingering on their tongues,
which good manners demand they swallow,’ she told him.

‘Jessica, none of those reasons is good enough to deprive us from having an evening out together with company that I am sure you are more used to than not. Reclusiveness is admirable and very rewarding, I know because that’s a part of my nature I cultivate and enjoy, but not all the time. I’m not telling you to stop mourning for what you have lost or forgotten or given up, only to widen your new horizons and at the same time to taste the honey I can be quite sweet,’ he told her with a charming mixture of seriousness, flippancy, and sensuous seduction.

It was a cocktail Jessica could not resist. She took his hand in hers and raised it to her lips and kissed it. She could see that he felt the sexual current that passed between them as strongly as she did. And with it something profoundly loving rose between them from the depths of their souls.

Jessica felt incredibly happy as she let go of his hand to undo the silver ribbon tied round the box.

She lifted the lid and tissue paper rustled as she parted the sheets. She stopped to gaze into Luke’s eyes. They were mischievous, dark and so very sexy. She followed an impulse and placed her arms round his neck and kissed him on the lips. There was passion in that kiss, from both of them. Their lips parted and then she felt his hands move under her jumper to her naked breasts. With his thumbs Luke circled the nimbus round her already erect nipples and tweaked them, delighting in their size and how they reacted to his touch. His own urgency for her forced him to remove his hands and place them round her face.

‘I chose the dress I thought you would like,’ he said. ‘Cissie assured me you would not be disappointed.’

Jessica ran her fingers through her hair and shook it off her face, a gesture Luke had seen her do before. During the weeks since he had last seen her he had thought often about that characteristic hand and head movement. He found it
tantalising, something of her very own that had not been wiped away by loss of memory.

Jessica had barely managed to control the erotic desire that Luke had aroused in her. Because of him she felt truly alive once more. Because of him sex was once more something she could look forward to. She caressed his cheek with the palm of her hand and then gave all her attention to removing the tissue paper round his gift.

The dress was black silk velvet with the slimmest shoulder straps which seemed no more than heavy silk thread. The dress was cut straight to the floor with a hint of a train. Also in the box was a transparent silk gauze jacket woven to resemble the finest of spider webs in the most extraordinary dark and mysterious colour, aubergine. The dress had appeared on the Paris catwalk and had featured in various fashion magazines. It was a thing of rare beauty and remarkable craftsmanship. Cissie’s mother had bought it in Paris for the shop as the showpiece of her Christmas collection of couture clothes. In the bottom of the box was a pair of Maude Frisson aubergine high-heeled evening shoes.

‘You’ve thought of everything. How could you have known that I coveted this dress from the moment I saw it … and the shoes. I have always been quite mad about shoes,’ she told him. With the dress over her arm, a shoe in her hand, and pure delight on her face, she kissed him several times. This time the kisses were pure enthusiasm, appreciation, a hint of affection.

Luke knew better than to kill the moment by reminding Jessica that she had remembered something from her past – she had always loved shoes.

‘My hair, my face,’ she wailed.

‘Lovely hair,’ he commented as he took several strands of it in his hands to caress. ‘Marvellous face, but you know that.’

‘But I can make it better,’ she told him, placing the dress
and the shoes back in the box and leading him by the hand into the drawing room.

She offered him the wing chair nearest the fire where she had been sitting when he rang the doorbell. He shrugged out of his coat. She took it from him and with a wave at the drinks tray she said, ‘Make yourself comfortable. I will be as fast as I can. You won’t be disappointed.’

He liked her self-confidence, the teasing twinkle in her eyes, the happiness in her voice, which he had not heard before. ‘I never thought for a minute that I would,’ he told her.

Jessica hurried from the room. It was instinctive, this feeling she had that he knew she was living a lie but had no intention of calling her on it, now or ever. That in itself made her aware of how unusual a man Luke was, and how very interested he was in her. But did his feelings go deep enough never to pry into her past? Only time would tell.

Luke poured himself two fingers of Scotch and walked around the room. He was astounded at what he was seeing. Like everyone else in town he knew about Rose Cottage but he had not had the least idea of the treasures inside it. The room was warm and welcoming with an air of perfect elegance. Clearly it had been lovingly put together by someone well used to the finest things in life and how to live with them, a cultured person who was not over-awed by priceless objects, in the same way that Jessica had not been over-awed or embarrassed by his gift to her.

Luke had not a doubt in his mind that Jessica was responsible for the interior of the drawing room, indeed for the whole of Rose Cottage. It added to the mystery of Jessica Johnson. As he stood there in that room with a glowing fire in the hearth, his drink in a Lalique tumbler etched with the entwined figures of a man and woman, he understood how complex was the life of the woman he had so rashly fallen in love with. And he knew instinctively he must accept her
with grace and never try to dominate or change her if he was to win her to his side for ever.

He picked up several of the books lying on tables around the room and thumbed through them, went through a stack of CDs on the table and chose the opera
Manon Lescaut
. He figured out the sophisticated sound system, and Puccini’s music filled the room. Luke turned the volume down and the voices like seductive whispers spoke to him as he wandered through the room picking up the occasional artefact: an ivory figure, yellowed with the centuries, of a reclining woman, her silken robes falling open to reveal a single breast of exquisite beauty; a circle of jade intricately carved in geometric patterns; an ebony box inlaid with mother-of-pearl and rose-cut diamonds. He scooped up a handful of potpourri from the most perfect Han period celadon bowl and let the petals run through his fingers.

To live like this in such refined splendour and wait on tables at Wiggin’s Tavern as he had seen her doing one evening, to hear of how she was stacking shelves for a few pennies at the supermarket – it was ludicrous. Was she doing penance for something? Was it some sort of therapy? Getting back to basics, humbling herself, in order to seek a level from which to rise? Was this her version of a Betty Ford Clinic retreat? He knew she had to work to earn money, until the cash in her handbag was checked out. Yet he could not but help feel that this was secondary. What came first was to heal herself from he knew not what, and not to find herself. In his heart he was certain she knew exactly who and what she was, where she had been and where she was going. And that, for Luke Greenfield, was seductive, qualities to build a love affair on.

He refilled his glass and sat not in the wing chair but on the eighteenth-century settee where he had another view of the room and where he would see Jessica the moment she appeared. The town was rife with gossip about her and that was what he was thinking about while he waited for her to
dress. She had made many acquaintances but no friends, with the exception of Cissie and Bridget Copley. She had declined all invitations and when not working or shopping for food or cycling round the town, she remained locked away in Rose Cottage, inviting no one and quite obviously happy with her own company.

Jessica heard the music from the upstairs landing as she was about to come down the stairs. She was amused, cautious in her delight, that Luke had made himself so comfortable in her house. She liked him, wanted him in a carnal way and enjoyed his presence here, but she was fearful of getting too close to him too soon. A sexual and casual relationship was appealing, but anything deeper, rewarding and desirable though it might be, could threaten her new found freedom from the tyranny of love.

She had only taken a few steps down the stairs when she stopped. ‘Oh no,’ she chided herself. ‘Remember, you left the baggage of the past behind you and that included love gone wrong.’ With renewed resolve to do away with the past, she banished all negative thoughts, although not caution, about love in the future. Nothing whatsoever from her past would be allowed to interfere with her happiness.

Luke rose from the chair as soon as he saw Jessica standing in the doorway. The light behind her made her blonde hair shimmer and outlined her figure, a silhouette of utter female sensuality. She wore her evening dress with a confidence and style that made it quite obvious she was accustomed to being looked at and admired. He was amused to think of the hand-me-downs she usually wore. If she thought she was hiding her real self behind them, she was fooling herself but certainly not him.

Jessica could see delight in his eyes. Something about the admiring, sensual glances of men gave her a thrill that nothing else did, an excitement that set her free to explore her sensuality. Men had always given her an erotic stamp of approval and Luke was no exception. She fingered her hair
in that familiar gesture and shook her head so that her blonde tresses fell away from her face. Her laughter had the sound of tiny silver bells in it.

‘This dress calls for champagne,’ she said, ‘but unfortunately I have none in the house, so I will settle for a Pernod. Will you pour me one?’

‘A woman like you, Jessica, deserves nothing less than vintage champagne. You look outstandingly beautiful.’

Jessica gave him the most seductive of smiles and told him rather matter-of-factly, ‘I did tell you earlier that I could do better with my hair and my face.’

‘So you did.’ He went to the silver drinks tray and poured her a Pernod over a few cubes of ice and then added a modicum of water. Jessica held it up to the light. The colour was perfect; the strength was just the way she liked her Pernod.

Luke sat down on the settee next to her. It suddenly occurred to him that with Jessica there was no place for small talk. He felt too intensely about her for trivial chitchat, and there was no past to delve into with her.

They sat in silence, listening to the music, sipping their drinks. A warm glow of contentment caressed them, and there was, too, an erotic intensity building between them. Each of them revelled in it, in anticipation of what was to come. They were ripe for each other.

Jessica placed her nearly finished drink on the table. She rose from the settee and Luke was about to follow but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. She stood for a few minutes in front of him and Luke could feel the heat of her sexuality. He was aware of being more alive with lust than he had ever been with any other woman. He watched her move the diaphanous spider web silk jacket back off her shoulders. The thread-like straps of her evening dress tantalised for being all that held up the silk velvet covering her breasts.

Jessica was deeply touched by what she saw in his eyes.
Lust for her, yes, but something more than that, a deep, abiding love and adoration not just for her but what they might be together. She knew by the way he gave himself up to his desire to be with her, his ease in her presence, a sureness he emanated that it was right that they should be together without having to utter a word.

She stepped up to his knees and, never taking her eyes from his, she reached down and parted them sufficiently to step between them. ‘You do understand, this is not by way of a thank you. This is because I want you very much, now,’ she told him in a voice hungry with desire as she went down on her knees between his legs.

He reached out, took her hands in his and raised them to his lips and kissed them. She closed her eyes and sighed. Then she opened them, removed her hands from his and reached up to drop the silken thread straps from her shoulders. The bodice of her evening gown lay across her breasts which she extricated from beneath the silk. Round and high and firm with their erect nipples, she was a delectable sight.

Luke caressed her breasts and leaning forward sucked gently on her nipples. She shivered with excitement. She placed her hands on either side of his face and gently eased him away from her breasts. She kissed his lips, licked them and ordered him to lean back and relax as she undid his trousers.

He watched with wonder at the elegance with which she covered her breasts and slid her dress straps back on her shoulders, adjusted the luscious aubergine jacket so that it hung well and looked perfect, then caressed him with her hands and seduced him with her lips. With the warmth of her mouth, silky-soft and moist, clasping him so tightly, he quickly rose to the occasion, a handsome man in a dress suit, his rampant sex ready for her. How she adored the male member. Luke’s virility was thrilling to look at, marvellous to enjoy.

Before she rose from her knees, she pulled him forward and in a voice husky with lust she told him, ‘I don’t know where we’re heading beyond this, but I know we’re travelling along an erotic path that I find very exciting.’

She kissed him on the lips and he took over that kiss and filled it with such passion it made their hearts throb. Jessica held his hands in hers as she pulled away from his lips and stood up. She kissed his hands before she let them go and then raising her gown she straddled him with her nakedness and impaled herself upon his sex. Her bare feet were placed firmly on either side of him, resting on the settee. Jessica used her legs for leverage to ride Luke into orgasm. He held her by the waist and helped her to rise and fall upon him. They were magnificent in their lust for each other. They spoke to each other from the sexual depths of their beings. They came together and were for those few seconds adrift in space and time, lost in bliss.