The Englishman (57 page)

Suddenly he stops.

“Don’t do that…”

He lets go of my thigh and steps back from me. In a flash of shame and disappointment I take my hands off him. The anguish of finding myself rejected is so intense that tears shoot into my eyes. The moment seems to stretch out forever, but it can only have been a couple of seconds during which he looks down at me. Then he takes my hand and leads me over to the sofa.

“Giles—” I have no idea what to say. It’s just that I feel that I ought to say something. “We cannot go on doing this! It’s crazy!”

“It drives me crazy that I can’t touch you. And you’ll have to resist me harder if you really want me to stop.”

He kisses me again, slowly and deeply. Already his mouth is familiar, the way the tip of his tongue runs along the sensitive corners of my mouth, the way his lips soften against mine. Oh, the delight of a man who knows how to kiss! Both his hands clasp my butt again and drag my hips against his, and I’m no longer kidding myself. If he wants to fuck me here, now, in his office, I won’t stop him.

He pushes the low table to one side with his shin and sinks onto the sofa, pulling me with him. I try to sit demurely with my feet on the floor, but he hooks his arm underneath my knees and lifts me right onto his lap, my legs along the length of the seat. The dim light from the Christmas festoon shines onto him, and my heart skips a beat. He looks radiant. I smooth the silver hair back from his forehead and marvel at the look of happiness on his face. Incredible as it may sound, he is as delighted with me as I am with him. We kiss and kiss; his hand slides up from my waist to my breast. With his thumb he chafes the hardening tip until I gasp.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he whispers against my mouth. “But as you’re wearing those stockings…”

Then his hand is on my silken knee, caressing my thighs with a mixture of delight and confidence that is absolutely irresistible. Again his fingers glide across the lacy border between silk and skin, only this time they’re doing so on the inside of my leg, which is a dozen times more sensitive than the outside. For a while that’s where they remain, traveling along the lace edge from thigh to thigh.

“You’re not angry with me anymore?”

His fingers tighten on my flesh. “Don’t ask me that.”

“Giles, please…”

“I wish I could take you in the middle of Library Square,” he says, and I can hear his hurt in the hoarseness of his voice. “At midday, on a hot day in summer. So I could see your face, and the whole world could see your face, when you come for me!”

The back of his index finger runs over my lower lip, and I catch it between my teeth, bite and release.

“I don’t
come for you
, you arrogant male!”

“Yes, you do.” His fingertip returns to the danger zone on my lower lip, and I nibble at the pad of flesh, but gently. “I know very well that I can’t
make
you come.” He is watching my mouth, his eyes glistening. “If you’re willing, I can help. That’s all.”

His wry statement makes me laugh; I don’t know whether he is being coy or candid. “Mommy’s little helper.”

His eyes shoot up to mine. For a second or two he looks almost shocked; then his features soften.

“Kiss me again,” he whispers, and there is now a catch in his voice that tells me as much as the state of his cock that playtime is over. I kiss him without hesitation, and as our tongues meet, his fingers slip inside my panties and he finds me. My entire consciousness gathers in the pool of sensation between my legs; my whole self is at his fingertips as they inch across the fleshy mound and descend into the moist curls of hair. For perhaps a quarter of a minute he sits motionless, cupping me in his warm, large hand. Then one finger, the whole length of it, dips between the swollen, exquisitely sensitive lips. My hips pick up the rhythm and move against his hand.

“Like that?” he asks huskily.

“Y-Yes…” I cling to his body, lost in the waves of agonizing pleasure as his fingers stroke me with exactly the right pace and pressure.

“Lift your skirt.”

With my free hand, the one not wrapped around his neck, I hitch my dress up. The white shirt cuff and the dark cloth of his jacket mirror the pale skin of my thighs gleaming above each stocking top. I’ve spread my legs as far as my panties allow to give the gentle, skillful hand as much scope as possible. His golden cufflink flashes in the light shining in from the windows, and when he rubs his knuckles against the sopping flesh, his fingers glisten with moisture.

“This is the most erotic thing I have done in my entire life.” His voice is thick with passion, but also something else, something that sounds like awe. I look up to see whether I can have heard that right. My heart beats high in my throat, and it’s not just arousal. He looks at me, and we’re both so serious that I can hardly breathe.

“Keep moving,” he whispers.

I look down to watch my hips buck slowly against his hand, and so I see him adjust the angle of his wrist. Before my brain can process the significance of that movement, my body has already registered it as the ignition of thousands of nerve ends. His middle finger pushes deeply and effortlessly into me. I arch myself against him and bite on the cry of pleasure that is choking me. I feel him slip out and instinctively reach down and grab his wrist to make him stay with me.

“Up!” His hand is on my ass and he lifts me up to pull the damp bit of lace over my buttocks and down my legs. I kick and struggle until I can free one foot, and at once he spreads my legs wide, adds another finger to the first, and fucks me with them—hard and deep. Even if I tried, I couldn’t keep silent. All I can do is to stifle my moans against the side of his face. My face, my whole body, feels feverish; I’m breaking into a hot sweat, and the determined career girl that still lurks somewhere in my mind asserts herself one last time in feeble protest.

“I’m…I’m getting you all wet!” I gasp, thinking of the pantaloons I’m sitting on, and his hand, covered up to the knuckles with the liquid evidence of my desire. He doesn’t even bother to answer that. His left arm, which had been clamping my shoulders to steady me in his onslaught, relaxes a little, but it’s only to vary the pace of his right hand between my legs. His arm around me tightens, and I sag against his shoulder and say goodbye to that earnest girl who wants to control everything. I don’t need her now, because Giles Cleveland is holding me, and he has everything under control…his mouth finds mine, and his tongue moves against mine with the same slow, languorous deliberation as his fingers, keeping me steady on a high plateau of arousal.

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

I arch my hips against his hand—that’s a rhetorical question if ever I heard one—but it’s no good, I need him to…

“…fuck me again!”

And I mean it. I don’t care that we’re in his office, with a huge party going on around us, I need him to unbutton his pantaloons and come into me. But he smiles, slowly, a little mockingly, and drives his fingers into me, with a deep and upward thrust that reduces me to a shuddering heap. I sink completely into a trance-like state; there is nothing in the world now except his mouth and his hand.

“Ah! Oh, no!” I sit up, shocked to the core. “Oh, my God! What—what was that?”

What that was—when he slowed down, when his fingers almost slipped out of me—was that I ejaculated. I felt a hot, unfamiliar kind of release—not in my womb at all, just a brief, soft sense of suddenly melting, and although I didn’t see anything, the soft, innocent sound of droplets of fluid sprinkling the leather upholstery between my legs echoes in my ears as loudly as so many gunshots.

“Oh, God, I’m-I’m so sorry! Did I just—this has never happened to me before, I swear!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment then.”

“No, I’m—oh, you’re laughing at me? How can you laugh? I didn’t know this was going to happen! Oh, look, you’re—oh, this is all wet—oh, my God!”

“Hush!” His grip tightens; he draws me close. “Hush!” he commands. “Stop flapping!” Again I feel his body quiver with laughter. “Hush, now!”

He’s leaving me no choice but to be still, but in his embrace I’m still heaving with shame, and probably with the sheer physiological shock of suspended…rapture.

“Breathe! Breathe out!”

I obey. I concentrate on exhaling, and I calm down. Suddenly I’m exhausted to the marrow of my bones and afraid that I really will fall asleep. If only I could stay like this for ever. Sleep, and forget that I’ve squirted all over Giles Cleveland’s office. And his sofa. And his Ashley-Wilkes frock coat.

“All right?” he asks.

Dumbly, I shake my head.

“Look at me.”

I shake my head again.

“Look at me!” He holds me away from himself, and I force myself to raise my eyes to his face. He looks so bright and young and happy that I have to swallow a sob rising in my throat. “You beautiful idiot!” he says lowly. “Do you really not know how incredibly sexy that was?”

“No! No, I do not!”

We are silent, and as my body cools off, inevitably, the implications of the situation become overpowering. We have done it again. Will we go on doing it till we are caught again? Why am I hell-bent on ruining my career and making myself notorious for lewd behavior on campus? It seems that this, as the Comte de Valmont puts it, is Beyond My Control.

“Would you like me to call you a cab now?” he asks, his voice completely neutral.

“Yes, please.”

Giles has himself and the situation completely under control.

I pull my cold, wet panties back on and fix my stockings. I catch him watching me, still with a look of utter fascination.

“They work.”

“Where’s my…coat?”

He holds my coat for me and I step away from him the moment my arms are in the sleeves. And so I slink out of his office, along the dimly lit corridors out to the waiting taxis. Hardly anyone is around now. I have no idea what time it is. I ask the driver; it’s half past eleven.

When the taxi turns into the dark lane that leads up to the farm, it starts snowing. Thick, white picture-book flakes float down from a black sky. They dot the windshield and melt, they settle on the black fields to my left and the naked trees to my right. The world blurs; I realize how close I am to tears. It’s so beautiful and calm and still, and I’m such a complete mess. This is what I need, the still, cool simplicity of snow in the woods. Instead, I have to catch a plane to New York City in seven hours.

Chapter 34

I S
HUT
O
FF
M
Y
S
ENSES
A
GAINST
T
HE
S
IGHT
, the feel, the smell of my underwear and hastily stuff it into the washing machine. The gown will have to be dry-cleaned. That’ll be a situation to rise above, the dry-cleaning lady’s face when she looks over my sex-stained party dress.

A quick shower, and the hot water on my face, in my hair, is a luxurious pleasure that I relish till it runs tepid. Then I quickly soap my armpits and reach between my legs to wash away the evidence of my stupidity, my weakness—and suddenly tears are running down my face. I don’t know how the tears can be even hotter than the water, but they are. Hot and bitter. I’m still so swollen, so sensitive; it feels like oil or syrup that doesn’t dissolve in water. My hand glides easily between the slippery folds, like his hand did, just now, when he held me.

I cup my hand over it like he did and cringe with anguish. It’s a gesture of such tenderness, such appreciation. His tenderness, my response, it’s all so easy, so straightforward, so clear, like the snowflakes in the night sky. And I’m wasting it all, out of cowardice.

“Mom, it’s Anna.”

“Anna! Yes, on the…on the sideboard, Sam! When does your flight get in tomorrow? Do you want us to come and pick you up?”

“No, Mom, I’m…I’m calling to say that I won’t be coming home tomorrow.”

Now I have a hundred percent of her attention.

“Not coming home? What are you saying? Are you ill?”

“No, I’m not ill. I’m all right. It’s just that I can’t leave right now.”