by Kait Jagger
When next she woke she was on her stomach, head turned to one side, fist pressed into her chin. This time it was Stefan kneeling next to her, hand caressing her buttocks. He, ah… she felt warm and smooth and… slick where his fingers were reaching into her – finding her, stroking her. She made to roll over, but he held her in place, fingers delving further, entering her. And so it continued until she was panting for him, her ass undulating under his hand.
He mounted her from behind, nudging her knees apart with his, and bent his lips next to her ear. ‘The safe word is “Lerwick”, do you understand?’ She bit her lip and nodded, but he insisted, ‘Say it, Luna.’
‘The safe word is Lerwick,’ she repeated.
He placed his hands on her hips, then braced them on the mattress beside her. She felt his cock resting on her cleft. Then slowly insinuating itself into her, just its head. And then, just as she was becoming accustomed to it, he withdrew. Luna made a noise of protest, twisted her head back to look up at him and, seeing his hesitation, arched her back and said challengingly, ‘I didn’t say Lerwick.’
And so the night finished with something new, for Luna, Stefan walking the tightrope between self-restraint and dark, carnal pleasure till pleasure won out, and he groaned his release into the night sky.
*
The next morning found Luna and Dagmar at the kitchen table, Dagmar cradling an undrunk cup of tea in her hands, looking positively grey. Luna perched… carefully on the edge of her chair, drinking coffee.
There came the sound of footsteps descending the stairs and Stefan bounded into the kitchen, looking chipper and immaculate in his work clothes. Bending to kiss Luna, he stole a quick gulp of her coffee and looked at his watch.
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you day after tomorrow.’
Wincing slightly, Luna made to stand, but he put his hand on her shoulder, grinning, ‘No, you stay where you are,’ and leant down again, kissing her more thoroughly.
And then he was off, out into the hall just as Mika entered. Any tension from the night before apparently forgotten, Stefan said something to him in Swedish that Luna couldn’t quite follow, the cadence of which sounded a hell of a lot like look what the cat dragged in.
As Stefan’s car pulled away, Mika sauntered into the kitchen carrying a cardboard box.
‘I brought bacon sandwiches,’ he said, sitting down at the table.
It was too much for Dagmar, who stood hurriedly and ran for the bathroom.
‘Give me those,’ Luna said, reaching for the box like a ravenous wolf.
Luna spent the rest of the morning with Malcolm, working to seal the deal with the supermarket buyer before he flew back to Edinburgh, and in the afternoon she drove over to the building site to give a tour to the representative from the Scottish Tourist Board. When she got home, she made more tea and some toast with butter and brought them in to Dagmar, who remained prone in her bedroom. To no great surprise, her boss remembered little of the previous evening.
‘Did I dream it, or did you put me to bed last night?’ she asked, taking a sip of her tea, causing Luna to smile; it was probably just as well her memories were incomplete.
Mika, meanwhile, made himself scarce. He and his team were flying back to Stockholm the following morning and Luna suspected he was taking a last opportunity to hang out with them, Britta in particular, at the Fisherman’s Rest. She herself felt she’d seen more than enough of the place for one week, so she prepared a quiet dinner of cheese on toast and sat out on the picnic bench outside the cottage, enjoying the evening sun.
George wandered up at one point with the two dogs and she broke out a pack of chocolate fingers, munching companionably with him until Liv emerged, back into hausfrau mode in a handmade smock and head kerchief, to call him home, sparing nary a glance for her neighbour, which was fine with Luna.
Later that evening, as she sat cross-legged on her bed working on her laptop, her phone vibrated on the bedside table. Stefan.
‘Hi,’ she said softly.
‘Hey.’
A long, laden pause, followed by a purely perfunctory exchange about how their respective days had been (‘Fine’ seemed to be the consensus), followed by another long silence so full of sexual tension that Luna thought her phone was going to melt in her hand.
He told her, then, that he’d arranged for a car and driver to pick her up at Glasgow Airport on Friday afternoon, to take her to the hunting lodge where he would be waiting. When Luna demurred, saying she was sure she could make her own way to the lodge, Stefan simply said, ‘It’s arranged. I insist.’
So that was that.
*
‘He made you cry, Lou,’ Nancy said angrily.
It was Thursday evening and Luna’s round of phone calls to her friends to let them know she’d reunited with Stefan was going about as badly as she’d feared. There was Jem, who she called first and who, predictably, was hurt to discover how long Luna had kept this secret.
‘Since right after the party? Really?’ she asked, and Luna could practically hear the abacus in Jem’s mind clicking into action, totting up how many times she’d felt sorry for Stefan or worried about Luna since then. And what could Luna say in response except, sorry, I’m sorry?
And now more sorry, I’m sorry with Nancy, who felt that Luna had betrayed the sisterhood by even contemplating getting back together with Stefan. ‘You think I didn’t see him at that party, looking at you like he wanted to rip your clothes off?’ she yelled down the phone line. ‘I’m not stupid, Luna. But guarding you like a fucking dog in a manger, that’s not love.’
‘Nancy—’ Luna began.
‘It isn’t love,’ Nancy insisted, ‘it’s sexual obsession.’
And if Luna privately thought that Nancy protested too much, in part because she herself remained locked in a sexually obsessive relationship with her own on-again-off-again boyfriend, Robert, she didn’t say so. The phone call was already going badly enough; she didn’t want to bring the full wrath of Nan down on her head.
She decided, after that, to go for a run to clear her mind. The house was eerily quiet as she headed out a few minutes later, pausing to lock the door. For she was now alone again on Shetland, Dagmar having decided to catch the same flight as Mika and his team that morning. Luna came to the airport to see them off, feeling as though the Scandinavian contingent’s departure marked an abrupt ‘beginning of the end’ to her own sojourn here on Shetland.
Try as she might, she found she couldn’t stay angry with Mika, who made a point of pulling her aside at the airport and giving her his home address in Stockholm, as well as, rather touchingly, his mother’s phone number.
‘In case I ever decide to leave my phone on the kitchen table again,’ he said, eyes twinkling, ‘you can always ring my mother and she will find me.’
Luna jogged out through the yard, past Malcolm’s field, where lambs were lying together in clusters of two or three, exhausted from a day of play. As she picked up the pace, Nancy’s damning accusation echoed in her ears. ‘Sexual obsession.’
Up until recently, Luna would have laughed at this charge, but now? Things had been… different between her and Stefan on Tuesday night. She pictured him sitting on the leather chair in the front room, staring at his fists. Remembered his hand, pushing her face down onto the bed. And her body’s response, which had been immediate and unequivocal. He had taken nothing from her that she wasn’t prepared to give.
Steadily climbing the hill that overlooked Malcolm’s farm, ascending into a carpet of green heather yet to flower, Luna ran along a narrow, muddy path, pushing herself to go a little faster.
And it wasn’t just the physical things Stefan had done to her the other night; there had been a mental game going on as well. After the last time he took her that night, her body still singing its thanks for the punishment he’d meted out, Luna reached toward her gloves on the bedside table.
‘You won’t need those,’ he said. And when she wavered, hand hovering
above them, he shook his head and commanded, ‘Leave them.’ His expression brooking no dissent, silently compelling her to do as she was told. She slept the sleep of the dead for the rest of the night, waking to find no scratches on her chest. And wondered at what new power he wielded over her, that he controlled her body even when it was asleep.
It makes me want to punish you. To punish you, Luna.
To punish her. Not because of Mika and Dagmar; Luna didn’t for a second believe that Stefan was truly jealous of them. No, this was between him and her. It was clear to her now that no matter how much he claimed to understand her reasons for leaving him in January, the reality was that, for Stefan, two months’ separation had amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Punishment he was now returning.
Did the dark seam of power and lust and control opening up between them trouble her? Of course it did. Enough that she was prepared to talk to Stefan, to examine their behaviour more closely and put a stop to it?
No.
No.
No. She didn’t want it to stop.
A half hour later, dripping with sweat, she sat down on a stile and waited till her breathing returned to normal, then pulled her phone out of the front pocket of her hoody.
‘Babe!’ Kayla answered after three rings.
‘Hey, babe, how’re you doing?’
‘Good, good. Just on my way to the theatre.’
‘Everything okay with you? With the show?’
‘Yeah,’ Kayla said, then enquired lightly, ‘What about you?’
‘I, um, phoned to let you know that I—’
‘—got back together with Stefan two months ago?’ Kayla finished for her.
‘Ah, you’ve heard.’
‘You think New York’s answer to Emmeline Pankhurst didn’t get straight on the phone to me, bitching about how you’ve set the women’s movement back by a thousand years?’ Kayla asked. Luna sighed and braced herself to begin the ‘sorry, I’m sorry’ game again, but her friend just laughed and said, ‘Look, you don’t need to make any excuses to me. All I want to hear is that he makes you happy.’
‘He does,’ Luna said adamantly. Then, voice softening, ‘I love him, Kay.’
‘Well, that’s good enough for me.’
Chapter Fifteen
The Wellstone family’s estate on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, which had the rather grand Gaelic name Maisterbel, but which the family referred to simply as ‘the Lodge’, had indeed started life in the mid-nineteenth century as a simple hunting lodge. Inspired by the holiday travels of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to the Scottish Highlands and their subsequent purchase of Balmoral, the Wellstone family decided to follow the monarch’s lead and buy land in Scotland. Photos from the time show a rather simple but charming granite house on the site where the current house sat.
In 1872, however, the then Marquess of Lionsbridge, who fancied himself an architect in addition to being a fanatical hunter, undertook a massive building project, essentially obliterating the old structure and replacing it with a much larger mock-Tudor edifice. A fifteen-year labour of love that obsessed the Marquess to the point that he ended up virtually relocating to Scotland, spending little or no time at Arborage, to his wife and family’s dismay.
Surrounded, as it was, by 4,500 acres of forest with views over the loch and Aughengavin Burn beyond, it was an idyllic spot, but Luna’s memories of her sole visit to it the previous winter were tainted. She had been compelled to come here by Florian Wellstone, ostensibly to support him administratively during the Marchioness’s leave of absence. In reality, Florian had ground her under his heel, forcing her to perform ever more humiliating duties and portraying her as his concubine to his Russian lender, Viktor Putinov, and his entourage.
Florian’s voice came back to haunt her as her driver pulled off onto the three-mile gravel approach to the lodge – ‘Please try your best to be charming, Luna.’ She could picture him, leering at her as they drove down this same track in January. ‘I’m sure a human heart beats somewhere underneath all that ice.’
At least the weather was better now, she thought to herself, with only a few scattered clouds scuttling across the wide open Highland sky. The track drew level with a small river that intersected the estate and Luna’s eye was drawn by what appeared to be threads of gold sailing through the air. She looked closer, then said, ‘Can you drop me off here, please?’
Exiting the Bentley, she hefted her backpack onto her shoulders and walked down to the river, where two men stood surrounded by rapidly flowing water up to their thighs, fly fishing rods in hand.
‘Hey! Luna!’ shouted Gus Walsh, Arborage’s diminutive, balding Scottish estate manager, who promptly waded in her direction. His companion stayed put, lowering his rod and reeling in his line.
Luna leant as far as she dared out over the water, exchanging a precarious hug and kiss with Gus. ‘Salmon?’ she asked, nodding toward his rod.
‘Aye. No luck yet, though,’ Gus laughed. They continued talking for a few minutes, her briefly filling him in on her sojourn in Shetland, Gus pointing out some improvements that had recently been made to the fishing course. As he gestured in the direction of a new clubhouse currently being constructed a quarter of a mile upriver, Luna covertly glanced at his companion.
He was a certifiable knee-trembler, this man, dressed as he was in waders and braces, with a torso-hugging long-sleeved thermal shirt underneath, his dark blond hair shining in the sunlight. Fishing gear, running clothes, jodhpurs… was there no end to the sporting apparel Stefan Lundgren looked hot in?
Gus rattled on, oblivious to the shameless ogling going on next to him. And Stefan chose to ignore her at first, expertly casting out his line above the water, tempting passing fish with the promise of a tasty flying insect. But he felt her looking at him, Luna knew he did. And when he finally glanced her way, she locked eyes with him, communicating telepathically, You are the most beautiful man I know.
‘We’ve given staff up at the house the weekend off, like you asked,’ Gus was saying. Luna smiled and nodded absently, then left them to it, heading off down the track, which after a mile or so led to the white and black timbered lodge.
Entering the main hall, decorated with no less than five stags’ heads, assorted birds of prey and a massive bear rug on the floor, Luna found a note from the cook saying there was food in the fridge. She headed straight to the kitchen, suddenly starving, and helped herself to a plate of cold meats and cheeses, followed by a generous slice of homemade Victoria sponge.
Afterward, she wandered around the ground floor, walking past portraits of sundry Wellstones past, all either in the process of killing animals or posing with dead ones. She tried a few doors, some of which, like the drawing room, were locked, others opening onto disused rooms, draped in drop clothes. Approaching the parlour adjacent to the snooker room, scene of her humiliation under Florian, she heard his voice again, ringing out over the drone of his Russian guests.
‘Fetch me a whiskey, like a good girl.’
She pictured a bead of sweat running from his mottled brow down to his russet sideburn, his face moving closer to hers…
Suddenly tired of exploring, Luna carried her backpack up the stairs. Initially flummoxed as to which of the twelve bedrooms was theirs, she spotted Stefan’s leather bag in a large room overlooking the loch and approached the bed to find a note from him with a large arrow pointing right.
Your room is two doors down. I will be waiting for you in the drawing room at nine.
Luna consulted her watch. Only 5.30. He was going to make her wait more than three hours to see him? And, separate bedrooms? On the other hand, she reflected with a yawn as she made her way down the hall, she rather fancied a nap.
Her room was brighter than his, and homelier, with William Morris wallpaper and a gorgeous poppy-coloured quilted silk bedspread. It was also – Luna saw as she stepped inside, heart fluttering and legs beginning to shake under her – full of roses. A vase containing at least
two dozen on the bedside table, another atop the mantle, and another on the windowsill. The latter two were the blood red, furry kind he’d given her in the past, but the vase on the table was full of pink Arborage roses. How he’d gotten them up here looking so fresh and perfect she didn’t know.
She bent down to smell them and noticed that there was a sandalwood box on the bed. It was the size of a large case and was delicately engraved. She lifted the lid on it to find a beautiful and doubtless extremely expensive silk and velvet devoré robe. Blood red, like her roses. And… something else. Her knees wobbling now, Luna sat down on the bed.
She didn’t nap, in the end. Impossible to sleep. Instead, she took a long bath, exfoliating and moisturising herself. Then sat at the dressing table next to the bed and brushed her hair, twisting it up on top of her head and fixing it with a single tortoiseshell horn pin.
She considered her make-up for some time before deciding to wear almost none, applying only a dusting of translucent powder to her face and some tinted balm to her lips. No jewellery, either. Perfume she did apply; to her wrists, just behind her ears (number five on Stefan’s list of favourite Luna body parts, she had discovered), and along her bikini line, just at the start of her nether hair.
She stared at herself for some time afterward, the setting sun illuminating the side of her face.
And then reopened the box Stefan had left for her.
Luna approached the drawing room door from the main hall at exactly 9 o’clock, finding it unlocked. She entered into near darkness; the room was wood panelled throughout, its unlit chandelier swathed in cheesecloth and velvet curtains drawn. The only light came from a fire in the large stone fireplace at the far end of the room, in front of which sat a long, leather tufted Chesterfield.
Shutting the door behind her, Luna padded silently across the room toward the sofa, where Stefan sat. He was wearing dress trousers and a tailored white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his hair still damp from the shower, cheeks newly shaven… legs crossed in that rather fetching way of his, with one arm resting along the back of the Chesterfield.
