She didn’t tell him she was back, at first, but stood at a distance, behind some brown greenery, watching him. His upper arms were tight and strong, and his back and shoulder blades flexed as he sheared. He hadn’t forgotten to put sunscreen on and his skin shone, taking on the beginnings of a tan. He could probably do with a haircut, she thought, watching him smooth it back when it fell in his face, but it wasn’t in a terrible state. Unlike those rosebushes.
He dropped the shears and picked up a water bottle from the grass, tipping his head back to let it splash all over his face and glug into his mouth.
She crept up behind him, but he heard the crackle of the grass and spun around, the bottle held in his hand like a weapon.
‘Oh.’ He relaxed his grip. ‘You’re back.’
‘You’re gardening.’
‘Why not? Weather like this, I didn’t want to be stuck in that attic. It’s not like anyone can see in here.’
‘No. I’m not complaining. The place needs a good going over. It’s been left to rot for too long.’
He smirked at that. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like, you know, secret gardens that need seeing to. Thought you were giving me a hint.’ He reached up to hold on to the branch of a low tree beside him, leaning into it, looking broad-chested, and slim-hipped, and ready to pounce.
‘You’ve got sex on the brain,’ she told him, pouting back at him, amazed at how quickly he could rev her libido from nought to sixty.
‘I’d rather have it on the grass,’ he said.
‘You’ll have to catch me first,’ she cried, running off into the tangle of weeds and thicket that must once have been a beautiful garden.
He lunged after her, causing her to shriek with exhilaration, and gave chase. A spirited pursuit took them into the four corners of the grounds, dashing through rotting gazebos and dodging around moss-covered fountains.
‘You might as well give in,’ he panted, as they circled a summerhouse whose white-painted wrought iron had peeled while the floor was eaten away by woodlice. ‘There’s no way you can get away from me.’
‘Oh dear, how awful,’ said Jenna, in parody of a distressed cartoon heroine. ‘Whatever shall become of me?’
‘I won’t be too hard on you if you give in now,’ he promised.
‘And if I don’t?’
‘If you don’t …’
He made a sudden pounce, sending her screaming into the wilderness again, but she had given him too much leeway now and he caught her in seconds.
They fell to the ground in a tangle.
The dry grasses tickled Jenna’s legs and she thought she’d sat on a thistle because something was prickling her bottom, but that was the least of her worries. On top of her, while she thrashed, and flailed, and giggled, and shrieked, was Jason, straddling her and holding her down by the arms.
‘Oh dear,’ he said, with undisguised relish. ‘Somebody’s in a bit of trouble here. Whatever is she going to do?’
‘Get off me, you git.’
‘Whatever is she going to get? I think she knows.’
Jenna tried to raise her knee, to shove him off, but there was no chance. Jason had been working, physically hard, over the last few days, with an obvious impact on his strength. He held her effortlessly, tickling her with a handful of grass stalks until she couldn’t bear it any longer.
He flipped her over on to her front, once his sadistic enjoyment of this was past its peak. She felt the hard, warm ground crush her breasts, the thistle now irritating her upper thigh below the hem of the crisp cotton shorts she wore.
‘Ouch,’ she hissed, and he paused in his kissing of the back of her neck.
‘What? I haven’t started yet.’
‘Something’s prickling my leg. And what do you mean, haven’t started? Started what?’
‘Wait and see,’ he said, reaching underneath her and plucking the thistle from the dry earth. That was better, at least.
His hands, now intent on pleasuring rather than tormenting her, lifted her vest and began to knead at her back and shoulders. They were still tense after her visit with his mother, and his touch brought out deep sighs of satisfaction as the knots unwound. He ground his hips over her as he worked, until she felt, quite unmistakably, his erection growing against her rounded backside. The gentle to-and-fro rocked her into a state of relaxed sensuality, heightened by the exhilaration of their earlier chasing game. She was caught, but she wanted to be, and now he was preparing her.
The thought was delightful.
‘What are you up to?’ she asked sleepily.
‘Just getting you into the zone,’ he said.
‘What zone?’
‘The zone where I can do anything to you and you’ll love it.’
She was already there, but she didn’t want him to know that.
‘What do you mean by “anything”?’
‘I mean,’ he said, pressing his fingertips deep into her soft tissues until she moaned, ‘anything.’
She wriggled her bottom, as much as she could with it wedged between his thighs, as a little signal that his work was paying off.
He took the hint, reached underneath her and unbuttoned her waistband. Soon her shorts and knickers had been eased over her curves, baring her bottom to the mid-afternoon sun.
‘What about sunburn?’ she said nervously.
‘I thought you didn’t mind a red hot bum?’ said Jason slyly.
‘Not sunburn!’
‘Nah. You’re right. I’ll put you in the shade.’
He took her shorts all the way off, then pulled her upright. She let him lead her, feeling very sheepish at being naked from the waist down, beneath the shadow of one of the few flourishing things in that desiccated garden: a plane tree.
The grass beneath it was softer and sweeter. Jason patted her shoulder.
‘Get down on all fours, love,’ he said.
‘All fours?’
‘That’s right. Do you need a diagram?’
Slightly huffily, she dropped into the required position, her sheepishness blooming into full-blown shame at her exposed position.
Jason stood behind her, then crouched down and put a hand in the small of her back, forcing her spine down and her bottom up until she rested on her elbows.
‘That’s it. God, I wish I could paint you right now. Well, not right now, because there are other things I’d rather do, but in this position. Just like that – your skin and the way you’re completely open to me. I’d look at it for hours.’
‘I don’t think I could keep this position for that long, to be honest.’
‘No, I mean the painting. Well, or you. Both. But if you’re going to get tired, I’d better get down to it.’
She was about to ask what ‘it’ was, when her breath was taken away by the sound of him cracking his belt through its loops. She heard him walk up behind her and waited for the follow-up of the rustle of denim creeping down his long legs, but it didn’t come.
Instead, she whimpered in shock at the feel of cold, soft leather drifting over her back and bottom. He was dangling his belt over her, letting it glide and whisper across her skin until it tingled.
‘Feel that, babe? It’s for you. It’s coming for you. You need it.’
‘Oh,’ she moaned, fidgeting, every hair standing on end. ‘Are you going to …?’
‘What?’
‘Use it on me?’ she whispered.
He chuckled and she heard him crouch down behind her.
‘Is that what you want?’
She gasped, feeling the leather strip pressed between her legs, flat against her lips. He rubbed it up and down for a minute and she knew she was getting it thoroughly wet and shiny.
‘Hmm?’
She hadn’t answered him, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t tell him that she wanted that leather to fall on her bottom with a good, smart crack.
‘Aren’t you going to answer my question. Oh!’ His
exclamation came after he removed the belt from its juicy resting place. ‘This is soaking. Well, I guess I don’t need you to tell me any more than that, do I?’
The slick length of it was laid across both cheeks of her bottom and held there, leaving a little residue of her own wetness when he took it away.
Its next appearance was under her nose, held there by him, wrapped around his knuckles as he proffered it.
‘Give it a good sniff,’ he said, crouching in front of her. ‘Go on.’
She breathed in a lungful of its heavenly scent. If the leather itself had already been redolent of sex, now it was even more so.
‘Kiss it,’ he urged. ‘Kiss the strap.’
She placed her lips upon it. He pushed it right up against her mouth, twisting it gently, as she smooched it in a growing fever.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Kiss it harder. Worship it. Put your tongue on it. You know where it’s going next, don’t you?’
She moaned into the thick wad, which was now in her mouth, between her teeth.
Once it was licked into shiny wetness, he took it back, returned to her rear and then gave her what she craved – a long, hot bar of sting across her bottom. The noise it made was wonderful; much better than the flogger. But it hurt more than the flogger and she knew he hadn’t hit hard. It had only been a flick really.
‘How’s that?’ he asked. ‘More painful when it’s wet, I’m told.’
‘Sore,’ she said, but she put all the satisfaction she felt into her voice. ‘But good. Really good.’
‘Want more?’
‘Please.’
‘Well, since you ask so nicely …’
The second stroke was stronger, a solid rectangle along the lower curve of her cheeks. She felt it sink in, then felt the hard smack of the third above it.
‘Keep that bum high,’ warned Jason, flicking at her thighs with the V-tongued end of the belt. ‘Up as high as you can. No slacking.’
She gritted her teeth in her efforts to maintain her position. She wanted to feel more, wanted the heat to grow and spread through her body. She cried out with each stroke, but pushed her bottom up to show that she wasn’t crying out in distress.
‘Oh, you’re so right for this,’ he said, after the sixth or seventh. ‘You’re a fucking natural. Tell me when to stop.’
The leather scorched through her, and she took stroke after stroke, wanting more, even when he became more heavy-handed and cruel. She was in a kind of delirium, fascinated to know how hot and sore she was capable of feeling before it became unbearable. The answer, it seemed, was ‘very’, for she only called a halt after more than two dozen heavy strokes, once her skin felt tight and so sensitive the mere tap of a finger would make her wince.
He dropped the belt on to her bottom, from where it glided off into the grass, as if it had a life of its own.
She was still puffing out as if she’d run the length of town when Jason took off his jeans, dropped to his knees behind her and took a hold of her hips.
‘You’re bright red, babe. So hot. I’ve got to have you.’
He eased his hard erection underneath her and let it soak in her juices for a few moments before flexing back and lining himself up.
She was more than ready for him and she let out a deep ‘ah’ of welcome when he pushed into her at a stroke.
There, under the shade of the plane tree, he kept at her with a jackhammer pace, tightening her stomach until she was ready to let go again and surge into orgasm. But he made sure he kept her on that edge for as long as he wanted, pumping backwards and forwards until their skins were sheened with sweat and her bottom stung more than ever. The sting made it all brighter and fiercer and more intense, though, when her climax was finally allowed to burst through.
She plucked two handfuls of clover from the grass, the remnants clinging to her palms.
Jason’s breathing took on a quality she recognised, a chaotic, laboured sound that meant he was close to his own moment of ecstasy. She pushed back against him, tightening her muscles to squeeze every iota of orgasm out of him.
He gripped her shoulder and thrust madly, in a kind of seizure, then fell on top of her, slack with the effort of it all.
‘God,’ he slurred, after a moment. ‘S’too hot for all this. Think we should get a drink.’
She gloried in the way the kitchen bench made her skin feel raw and tender when she sat to drain her glass of water. Jason kissed her ear and asked if she’d rather stand, or get a cushion.
‘You’re a brute,’ she said, but dreamily, happily.
‘Only for you,’ he said, getting up for another glassful.
‘I feel special.’ She laughed, a punctured, exhausted laugh, then her phone rang.
‘Ah, dunno who that is,’ she said, disliking this encroachment on their kinky version of domestic bliss. ‘Better check.’
She went out to the hall where her bag hung with the phone inside.
Oh God. It was Mia.
Casting a guilty glance back at the kitchen, she hurried into the drawing room and shut the door behind her. She hadn’t expected to hear from her until well into the evening. The landlord had been wrong when he’d said she wouldn’t surface until six.
‘Hello, Jenna Myatt.’
‘It is you. Fuck me, thought Tommy was having me on.’
‘Sorry, is this …?’
‘Mia. Mia Tarbuck. You came to the pub earlier? About the karaoke?’
Her voice was soft and a little bit fluffy, like a Bledburn Marilyn Monroe.
‘That’s right. I’m after some quotes. Thinking of hiring one for the Gala.’
‘What Gala?’
‘The Bledburn Gala. I want to get it going again.’
‘Oh, so cool. I wish they hadn’t stopped having those. I was too young to go to any.’ There was a sound, of gruff voices, in the background. ‘Shut up, Nicker. I’m talking. Sorry. Annoying flatmates, don’t you hate them?’
This made Jenna’s hackles rise on behalf of the flatmate they had shared – Jason.
‘I don’t have any, so I can’t really comment,’ she said.
‘No, of course, you’re all on your own at the Hall. Doesn’t it get lonely there? I mean, it’s a bit creepy. Haunted and all that.’
‘No ghosts, so far,’ said Jenna briskly, though her thoughts returned to the knocking noises and the message underneath the wallpaper. ‘Listen, can we meet and discuss quotes? I don’t like doing business over the phone.’
‘Well, I can email you,’ the girl said doubtfully.
‘No, I like face-to-face. Where can we meet? Tomorrow, preferably?’
‘I could come to you, at the Hall.’
‘No, best not. Do you know Sanderson’s, on Mill Street? I’ll buy you lunch.’
‘Really? Sanderson’s is …’
‘It’s just a glorified sandwich shop, Mia. Meet me there at one.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’
Jenna felt a little sad at the wonder in her voice, as if a little café that put a rocket salad on the side of its plates was Le Manoir. She remembered being that girl, and the awkwardness she had felt in ‘proper’ restaurants and glitzy hotels. I don’t belong here.
Deano, of course, had taken to it like a duck to water.
‘Who was that?’ asked Jason when she returned to the kitchen to find him soaking some couscous, ready for dinner. He understood couscous, now, though on first acquaintance he had simply stared at it and asked if it was edible.
‘Ah, nobody. Business. About the talent show.’
She had small bruises on her bottom the next day and, when she got into the car, she shifted about on the leather seat, enjoying the feeling and the memories it evoked.
‘Why was I afraid to explore this side of me?’ she asked herself, not for the first time. She concluded, then as before, that she had been scared of what people would think of her. It was the story of her life. Always hiding behind other people and their star qualities, until LA had force
d her into the spotlight with Talent Team. Her discomfort and anxieties about being a public figure had been, if she was honest with herself, part of what had led to the break-up with Deano. She’d become tense, snappy, defensive.
God, she had so needed to find a Jason.
But, now, she needed to let him out of deep cover. They couldn’t live this way forever, much as it seemed like a fairytale for the moment.
She was early to Sanderson’s, wanting to see Mia walk in and find out if she would recognise her. She would be younger than Jenna, probably prettier.
The girl who walked in at ten past one, still yawning and bleary-eyed, was pretty but unkempt. Her hair, dyed with henna, was scraped hastily back in a tight ponytail and she’d applied a lot of eyeliner quite clumsily so that she looked as if she’d been punched. Her skin was recognisably that of somebody who slept too little and partied too hard. Jenna had seen it countless times on her clients, Deano’s friends, Deano himself … Baggy trackpants covered her lower half, but her layers of thin vests showed off some glorious tattoos. One of them, at least, looked as if it had been designed by Jason. His style was immediately recognisable in any format, a thought that made Jenna’s heart beat faster, because it surely meant that he was as good as she hoped he was.
‘Jenna?’ she said, stopping in front of her. ‘They said you looked different on TV. You do, a bit.’
‘It’s the make-up,’ said Jenna. ‘And the elaborate hairstyles. Take a seat.’
Mia sat down and slung an embroidered denim bag on the chair back.
‘I’m starving. Haven’t eaten since yesterday teatime.’
‘I’m going to order the alfalfa and sesame salad,’ said Jenna, handing the menu over.
‘The Alf who? Do they do a bacon cob?’
Jenna smiled, thinking it had been at least fifteen years since she’d spoken of cobs – the local dialect word for a bread roll.
‘I think they do a pancetta and sunblush tomato flatbread,’ she said. ‘Sort of distantly related to a bacon cob.’
‘I’ll have that, then. And a Red Bull.’
‘Late night?’
‘Yeah.’ She yawned but didn’t elaborate.
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