Closer, page 5
I held her more tightly, said nothing. In that instant, we’d taken a big step: an openness, a vulnerability shared. I was scared myself. Scared of so much, but also scared of the responsibility – that she’d given me her heart, laid herself bare like this. I didn’t understand the strange tangle of emotions I was feeling.
And then I saw a truth I had never seen before. “I don’t either,” I told her. “I don’t let people close.”
All the affairs, all the hasty flings and one-night stands: I’d used them to keep people at arm’s length, not let them get close.
“Come on,” she said then, laughing and backing away, but also reaching for my hand and tangling her fingers through mine. “Let’s go and look at some old paintings.”
We were there for hours. Walking from gallery to gallery. Sitting on the wide benches, gazing at the art in silence while our thoughts were only for each other. Or that was the case with me, at least. I didn’t know what was in her head, and whenever I convinced myself it was probably regret that she’d agreed to meet I would glance across, meet her look, see that smile, and be reassured that whatever complex, tangled thoughts were in her head, regret was not among them.
She didn’t give much away, which was neither a surprise nor a disappointment. I respected her need to guard her privacy, and I relished the challenge of peeling away the layers.
Slowly, I learned that she had grown up in Oxford, her parents academics. An only child, with few attachments, she liked the freelance life because it allowed her to pick and choose her contracts and go off traveling in between. She’d just come back from a trip to St Petersburg, a place I’d never been; before that, she’d been to Istanbul. She liked reading, and crochet and knitting–
“Knitting?”
“Don’t mock! I’m good with a needle, what can I say? It’s very fashionable right now.”
–and her comments as we worked our way around the National Gallery betrayed a knowledge of, and insight into, classical art and history.
We stopped in the tea room for coffee. I held her chair for her as she sat, then went to the self-service area for the drinks. When I returned, she was smiling again – she had smiled a lot today.
“What?” I asked.
“You,” she said. “Just you. I like it.”
I didn’t understand, but still I loved the fact that I made her face light up like that.
Then she went on to explain: “You’re considerate and thoughtful. You’re a proper gent. Not in a forced or artificial way, but just because you’re a nice person. And then you get all awkward when someone says something nice about you, like that. It’s sweet.”
“‘Sweet’ and ‘nice’... I’m not sure those are the kinds of things a chap wants to hear about himself.” I was joking and teasing, because I wasn’t sure how much of her own comments were meant to tease.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I know all about your dark side. Your reputation.”
I looked at her closely, wondering just what she was implying. Had she been digging?
She laughed. “Don’t look so shocked. I Googled you. What’s a modern girl to do these days?”
“And that didn’t put you off?”
She shook her head. “It made you more intriguing,” she told me. “The stories. The women. The high life. It seemed such a contrast with how you are in person. The man I’ve read about would have done everything he could to get me into bed by now. Would probably have moved on to the next conquest already. It makes me wonder if maybe you don’t really like me.”
“Oh, I like you.” I swallowed. I’d never felt so nervous before a woman.
“I don’t know where you live, but my hotel’s not far. Maybe you can stop being such a gentleman for once?”
I nodded, all my words drained away.
I’d never known anyone like Cassie Deane.
She stood first, as I suddenly realized my own very physical dilemma. Stand now and, well, everything would be plain to the world.
She smiled. I think she knew.
“I need to powder my nose,” she said. “Shall I meet you out on the steps?”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned and headed away from me.
A short time later, I stood, and left the tea room.
She was waiting already. Smiling. Oh, she knew, all right.
She stepped into my arms, tipped her face up, and waited for me to kiss her.
I was hard again instantly, and there was no disguising it as we pressed together. Then she stepped back, laughing again, reaching to twine her fingers into mine to lead me back across central London to her Covent Garden hotel.
Her room was on the second floor, and we pressed together into the tiny elevator. Even as the doors closed, my hands had moved round to her back and we were kissing.
Her lips were soft, her every move hesitant, uncertain. I remembered her request – Be gentle with me – and drew back from the kiss, even though I wanted nothing more than to carry on exploring.
Her blue-green eyes fixed on me, the pupils wide in the gloom of the interior.
“You’re sure?” I asked, breathless.
“I told you, stop being the gentleman.” And this time she was the one who took the lead, whose soft lips found mine, whose tongue pressed and then drove deep.
I moved a hand to her side, felt that delicious arching of ribcage. The heel of my hand pressed against the side-swell of a breast, and she broke the kiss briefly to gasp.
I was hard again, so hard, and there was no need to disguise it now. I pressed against her, hardness against softness. She rolled her hips, using her body to explore my erection, to press and hold, to squeeze.
We tumbled out of the elevator, before the doors had fully opened.
Laughed as we barreled against the wall, and caught our balance, still clinging to each other. Then she reached down, hooked her fingers into my waistband, and led me along the narrow corridor with a sway of the hips and a toss of that sandy hair.
When we reached the door, she fumbled with the keycard and I moved in behind her, slipped my arms around her waist, pressed my face into her hair.
Squashing her against the door, I pressed against the soft swell of her ass, everything urgent now.
I moved one hand to her breasts, found one, cupped and squeezed, felt the stiff nub of a nipple through the fabric of her top.
Moved the other hand down to the flat of her belly. Lower, drawing her back hard against me just as the lock clicked and the door burst open.
We stumbled forward, and I held her, one hand across her breasts and the other cupping her sex, pulling up against the soft mound through her thin linen trousers.
She twisted, turned, and we kissed again, mouths mashing painfully together, then slowing, more tender, as our hands explored.
I pulled at her top, felt the first tantalizing contact of fingers brushing against bare, smooth flesh.
She raised her arms and I pulled the top clear. As I reached round to unfasten her bra, her hands went down to my waistband, fumbling with buttons, zipper, tugging roughly down.
Gentleman? Nice and sweet? There was none of that now.
I jerked the bra clear, dipped my head, arching my spine so I could press my mouth against one breast. I sucked the nipple in between parted teeth and she cried out.
I thought for a moment that I’d been too rough, but no... I’d been just rough enough.
She buried her fingers into my hair, clamping me hard against her as my tongue drew firm circles around the stiffness of that nipple.
I felt the firm muscles of a thigh pressing against me. Started to roll my hips, pressing against her, our positioning contorted by need and hungry desire.
I started to flick the tip of my tongue rapidly, and her fingers tightened in my hair.
Clumsily, I took a shuffling step forward, supporting and guiding her as she clung to me.
Another.
Her legs came up against the edge of the bed and we both lost balance, laughing again.
I’d landed partly on top of her, and now I moved up to kiss her on the mouth again. My thigh pressed against her sex as she tugged at my clothes.
I could see in her wide eyes just how turned on she was, how close.
Slowly, I moved down again, dragging rough chin and open mouth along the line of her jaw, her neck, between the swell of her breasts.
My hands found buttons, a cord tie, a zipper.
I kissed her belly, the skin so smooth and taut. Dragged teeth across her so that she gasped and clutched at my head again.
Hooked fingers into the waistband, inside the elastic of her panties. Eased back, pulling, watching in awe as her body was revealed – the hard jut of her hips, the way the oblique muscles sculpted a landscape of contours that drew the eye down and inward to the mons pubis.
She was smooth, but for a finger-wide strip of hair a shade darker than that on her head.
I pulled her clothes down and clear, and already she had raised one leg, bent at the knee, falling sideways to open herself up to me. The position pulled the slit of her sex open, wet and pink before me.
I lowered my head and paused, not quite making contact.
Her hands found my head again, no time for delay, her need urgent.
She was soft and wet against me, that familiar salty, sharp tang. I pushed my mouth against her, my upper lip grinding against the hood of skin covering her clit as my tongue pushed between those wet folds and swept up, the tip flicking across hardness.
Her legs clamped around me, her back arching, thrusting her sex against me.
I’d known she was close, but not quite this close...
I pushed my tongue deep, my upper lip hard against her so that the thrust of her hips controlled that pressure, holding me against her just so.
She cried out, and I felt the flutter of inner muscles against my tongue as orgasm took her.
Fingers in my hair, palms against my skull, held me deep, held me hard, as those muscles continued their dance, and that almost anguished cry became a groan, became a sequence of heavy breaths, and then, finally, she slumped, and her fingers – slowly, reluctantly – disentangled themselves.
Some immeasurable time later, she pressed her palms to the sides of my head and drew me up the length of her body so we could kiss again.
My shirt was open from where she’d been pulling at it earlier, and now she eased it back over my shoulders and, together, we worked it free.
Her body against mine was the most beautiful thing I had ever felt. The smoothness of her skin, the way she breathed and moved, the softnesses and hardnesses of breasts, ribs, belly.
She pushed against me, and my hardness ground against her soft, wet sex.
Fingers at my waistband, parting and pushing. A fingertip sharp against the base of my shaft, making me gasp.
We kissed. Soft and tender, as her fingers worked, pushed deeper, parting around my manhood, turning and curling, easing me free from the confines of clothes pushed down.
Pressing me against softness, the soft, wet glide across her mound, side to side against her.
I drew back a little, let her guide me lower. Felt myself pushing against wetness, softness parting around the head of my shaft.
She raised her legs then, wrapping them around my waist and pulling me harder against her. I felt the firm, muscular resistance and then... parting, yielding, as I pushed inside her. Long, slow, all the way until I could push no deeper, the hardness of my pubic bone grinding against her soft sex.
Her legs clamped tight, holding me deep, motionless, so that I felt every tiny tremor inside her, every delicate twitch of muscles – had she climaxed again, so quickly? Later, when I had learned to read her better, I would recall this moment and know that she had. The almost surprised widening of the eyes, the arching of the spine, the way her lips parted just a fraction and she gave out a long sigh.
She put a hand in the center of my chest, gave that cheeky little smile again – so rude a smile, in this context, such a turn-on!
We tipped sideways, and I felt the long wet drag as my length almost pulled clear of her, and then she was straddling me, adjusting positions, sliding down around me again until I was as deep as I could possibly be.
She’d drawn her knees up at either side, forcing her into a more upright position. Arching her spine, she tipped her head back, and it was the most magnificent, beautiful sight imaginable, the stunning lines and curves of her body above me.
My hands moved to her hips, holding her tight against me as I rolled my pelvis, grinding against her and deep inside her. In answer, she started to rock her hips back and forward.
Such an intense set of sensations! I knew I couldn’t take much more of this. Started to consider slowing things down and starting again.
Then she dipped her head down to look at me, fixing me with those eyes.
She’d sensed it, my closeness. Already, we read each other so well.
She gave that smile, and I knew there was no return from here.
The roll of her hips became harder, faster.
She dipped her head lower, and that sandy blonde hair came down around our faces like a curtain, golden in the light slanting in through the window.
She pressed her mouth to mine, her breasts squashing against my chest, and I pushed, and held myself deep. I felt the surge, the rush, tipped my head to the side to cry out, and then my senses were swamped as climax stole over me.
I clung to her, pushed up inside her, felt that surging sensation again. Again.
Held her tight.
Felt myself softening inside her, every sensation transforming as I did so.
Pressed my face against hers, that curtain of hair clinging to my cheek.
I realized I never wanted to let her go.
We dozed, and woke, sometimes in synch and sometimes not. Once I woke and she was already awake, her head turned toward me, studying my features us if memorizing them for some impending test. I might have thought it oddly intense if I hadn’t already caught myself doing likewise earlier, enjoying the way the dim light spilling in from London’s night streets painted the contours and planes of her features.
We made love again, more slowly, more controlledly. Savoring every contact, every new sensation. Exploring the ways we fit. Learning to read all the little physical clues... when to pause, draw back, and when to push just a little harder.
I woke first in the morning, my brain taking a few long seconds to catch up with where I was, who I was with.
Images from the previous night came back to me in a rush.
I don’t think I’d ever felt simultaneously so happy, and so scared that already this thing may have peaked and, in the way of my relationships with women, the momentum that had pulled us together would just as readily pull us apart again.
I pushed myself up to rest on one elbow so I could enjoy the sight of Cassie in the golden morning light.
She lay on her front, a sheet pulled across her middle. Her skin was flawless, her physique athletic and finely toned in a way that could only be the result of long hours in the gym. Her hair hung down across her face like a veil, lending her a strange sense of privacy given how exposed the rest of her was.
That was when I spotted the scar on her shoulder, just inside the left shoulderblade. Small, round.
She was watching me, eyes half-open.
“How long have you been awake?” I asked her.
“Long enough.”
I reached for her back, ran fingers up to that scar.
“It looks like someone shot you,” I only half-joked. I’d never seen a scar like it.
“An old war wound,” she said.
My mind rushed to fill in the gaps of where she might have picked up such an injury. What secrets lay in her past? Had she been in the Army? Somehow that seemed unlikely, from what I knew of her. Had she got caught up in some awful tragedy? Innocent bystander in a shooting, perhaps?
Then she laughed. “I’m kidding,” she said. “It was an accident. Keyhole surgery to fix a broken shoulderblade after I fell off a horse.”
There was something in the way she said it – a sense, perhaps, that the explanation was too well-rehearsed and easy – that made me pause, and wonder if she was, indeed, covering up the truth of some past trauma she preferred not to talk about. And then she rolled onto her side to face me, and my breath was snatched away by the sight of her like that.
Call me shallow. Call me what you will. But when I saw her like that my mind emptied of everything else.
And when she glanced pointedly down and saw the effect the vision was having on me, when she gave that little smile, moved a hand to my chest and pushed me onto my back, well... I remembered how she’d been last night. I remembered how her fingers had buried themselves in my hair and guided my head. And so now, as her head moved down, I buried my fingers in her hair, guiding, steering, encouraging.
And when her mouth closed around the head of my manhood, all thoughts of that strange little scar and why this beguiling beauty might once have been shot had fled from my mind.
§
She waited to tell me she was going away until we were outside in the street. She was heading to a breakfast meeting with a client and it was still early, so I’d decided to walk back to my Chelsea home. It would take about an hour, but I’ve always loved the hustle and bustle of activity as the city comes to life and it would be a chance to reflect and to convince myself that the last twelve hours had not been some kind of dream.
“I have to be away for a while,” she said. “I fly out to Berlin this evening.”
I felt my heart sinking. But still, I was sure she would be back within days.
“How long for?”
“I... I don’t know. It’s open-ended. It depends on how tricky the client proves to be.” She gave that little, shy smile again, but this time it only served to tighten the knot in my belly. Was this how it went? Was I being dumped so quickly?
“You’ll call?” I asked, trying not to sound needy.
“I’ll try. But it can be tricky. In my line of work you have to throw yourself into it, twenty-four seven.”
“I understand.” I genuinely thought I did. While I had well and truly fallen, fast and hard, Cassie was keeping her options open.
