‘Does that mean you think Edmund’s right?’ asked Lewis, slamming the driver’s door with what Noella considered unnecessary force.
‘Not Edmund particularly.’
‘The English then? Are you saying that the English have more sense than the rest of the civilised world when it comes to lying in the glare of the sun and frying themselves?’
Harriet looked at him in surprise. ‘No, of course not. I was simply explaining to Noella why it was that Edmund wasn’t covered from head to foot with protection.’
‘We must remember, Noella, that America was once a colony that belonged to this country,’ said Lewis, with barely suppressed irritation. ‘It’s strange, but I’ve noticed that no matter where the English choose to live, in later life they still maintain illusions of superiority based purely on the fact that they’re British!’
‘Look, what is this?’ asked Harriet. ‘I wasn’t talking about superiority, I know it’s stupid to sunbathe without protection. All I was saying was—’
‘They also stick together,’ interrupted Lewis. ‘And they have an uncanny ability to exclude other people from this elite British Club.’
Harriet couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and even Noella was taken aback by the anger in Lewis’s voice. ‘Hey, no big deal,’ she assured him. ‘If Edmund burns it’s his fault. Not that he will burn,’ she added. ‘He never does, worse luck!’
‘Personally I could do with a drink,’ said Lewis shortly, and he made his way into the house.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Noella.
Harriet shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Could it be that the famous Lewis James is feeling jealous?’
Harriet knew that Noella was right, but she laughed lightly and began to walk over to Edmund. ‘Hardly, he doesn’t know he’s got any reason to feel jealous.’
‘It’s what they call instinct, honey. I should watch your step if I were you. He’s gorgeous when he’s angry though, isn’t he?’
‘Not to me,’ said Harriet, furious with Lewis for behaving like that when he was the one who’d pushed her and Edmund together, and had urged her to follow her desires.
At the sound of the women’s voices Edmund sat up, stretched his arms above his head and then glanced at his watch. ‘You took your time.’
‘We had lunch in an incredible little pub,’ explained Noella, ‘and then Lewis brought us back via the scenic route.’
‘Actually I think he got lost,’ said Harriet tartly.
Edmund gave a short laugh. ‘Did he admit it?’
‘No,’ said Harriet, ‘but he isn’t a great one for admitting his mistakes.’
‘Lewis is in a bad mood,’ confided Noella, sitting on the arm of her husband’s lounger while Harriet sat on the grass.
Edmund reached down and stroked the top of Harriet’s head. ‘What’s he in a mood about? The film?’
‘In a way,’ said Harriet.
Edmund’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t respond. Instead he leant forward and cupped his hands round the back of Harriet’s head before very gently moving it from side to side. ‘Just relax into my hands,’ he murmured. ‘This is good for tension.’
‘I’m not tense,’ she protested, but she knew that she was. Lewis’s outburst had unsettled her more than she’d realised.
As Edmund rocked her head she felt her shoulders relax and her head seemed to become heavier and heavier as she gradually let his hands take its full weight. Once she was totally relaxed, he nodded at Noella who brushed the back of her hand softly up the outside of Harriet’s bare arm. Harriet knew that it was Noella’s hand and not Edmund’s, but surprisingly she didn’t mind. With her eyes closed and the soft warmth of the late afternoon sun shining down on her, it just felt wonderfully reassuring to have them both touching and soothing her in what seemed, at first, to be a totally non-sexual way.
Slowly, though, the sensations changed. Edmund let her head rest against his knees and used his hands to work at the bunched shoulder muscles, slipping his fingers gradually lower beneath the back of her sundress, while Noella’s hand moved higher to caress the flesh of her highly sensitive upper arm, tracing the outline of her cutaway sleeve.
Harriet felt her body begin to awaken. Her skin tingled and the sleepy languor that she’d been experiencing changed into a heightened awareness of her body, an awareness that brought with it a longing for some more intimate kind of contact.
Her breathing grew more shallow and Edmund, watching her from beneath lowered lids, had just started to move his hands round to the front of her dress when he saw Lewis coming across the grass to join them. Without hurrying, he changed position and by the time Lewis arrived, Edmund was once again cradling Harriet’s skull while Noella was sitting with her arm round her husband’s shoulders.
Feeling them withdrawing from her, Harriet opened her eyes and saw Lewis standing over her. He was blocking out the sun and suddenly she felt cold – cold and frightened. The fear was hard to define, but then she realised what it was; it was fear of losing him, and all the warmth he’d brought into her life.
‘How about a swim?’ suggested Lewis.
Harriet saw that he was already wearing his trunks. ‘I haven’t brought my costume,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and get it from the house.’
‘You don’t need a costume. I’m sure Edmund, being a true English gentleman, will close his eyes while you strip off if you’re feeling shy.’
Harriet didn’t know what to do, or what Lewis wanted her to do. She tried to read the expression in his eyes but it was impossible, and so she decided that since he’d placed her in this position she’d do whatever she wanted. To her surprise, what she wanted was to take off all her clothes in front of both Edmund and Noella and then swim in the cool water with Lewis while they watched.
‘I don’t mind if they don’t,’ she said with a smile and Lewis watched her stand up and unbutton her dress, easing it down over her naked breasts, before tugging it across her hips and then letting it fall to the grass and stepping out of it. Her pink bikini pants were removed just as rapidly and within seconds she was standing naked before them all.
Lewis glanced at Edmund to see how he was reacting, and was surprised by the look of naked hunger on the other man’s face. Clearly he’d been right about Edmund, he thought. He desired Harriet, and their sexual encounter last night appeared to have fuelled rather than lessened this desire. Surprisingly, considering how this would add to the interest of the plot, Lewis felt little satisfaction.
Noella, who personally found Harriet too slender for her taste but who appreciated a beautiful body on purely aesthetic grounds, was also less than delighted by the expression on Edmund’s face. It was more complex than lust and carried a suggestion of deeper emotions, although he was a man who normally kept his emotions very much to himself.
Harriet was astonished to find herself revelling in the attention. She could feel the tension between the two men, and sensed Noella’s anxiety as well as her interest, but any trace of shyness vanished the moment all her clothes were shed and she could hardly wait to enter the pool with Lewis while Edmund sat watching her, remembering the previous night.
Lewis got in the pool first and then stood waist deep in the water holding his arms up to his wife. Harriet looked back over her shoulder at Edmund, saw that he was still watching her intently, and jumped into the temporary safety of Lewis’s embrace.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ he whispered as they swam up the pool. ‘Did you expect to feel like this when you were with both of us?’
Harriet shook her head. ‘No, I thought I’d feel awkward or ashamed.’
He smiled with a look of satisfaction. ‘You see where forbidden desires can lead you. Tread water for a moment, I’m just taking my trunks off.’
Harriet did as he said and, while he was taking off his trunks and letting them fall to the bottom of the pool, she looked across at Edmund and Noella and waved cheerfully. ‘It’s lovely a
nd warm,’ she shouted.
‘I’m quite warm here,’ said Edmund dryly.
Harriet laughed. ‘You’re sure you don’t want to join us?’
Suddenly Lewis’s hands were hard on her waist. ‘Don’t even suggest it’ he said fiercely. ‘This is for us, and us alone. Wrap your legs round my waist now.’
Her legs lifted easily in the water and the upper half of her torso tilted back a little as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He then pushed her backwards through the water until she reached the edge of the pool, and once she had something solid behind her he put his hands over her shoulders until they were resting on the poolside, easing his body towards hers so that she could feel his erection nudging at her outer sex lips.
‘Touch your breasts,’ he whispered. ‘Make your nipples hard so that I can suck on them while I enter you.’
‘I can’t,’ said Harriet. ‘The other two will notice.’
‘No they won’t.’
‘They will!’
Lewis stared at her. ‘Does that really bother you? Wouldn’t you like Edmund to see us making love? Doesn’t the thought of him having to watch me possess you, when that’s what he wants to do, excite you?’
It did. Already, without even touching herself, Harriet’s nipples were hardening and she was twisting her lower body in the water, wriggling with rising desire. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, her pupils dilating with desire.
‘Touch them then, roll them between your fingers and pull on them very gently, the way you like me to.’
Harriet’s excitement was so great now that she could hardly breathe and her fingers moved quickly to her breasts, clearly visible above the waterline. As she pinched at the rigid pink tips, flickers of sexual excitement darted through her and she felt a heaviness between her thighs that was accentuated by the feeling of the water against her vulva.
Lewis’s dark eyes seemed to turn black as he watched her, and once her nipples were standing out in rigid peaks, he lowered his head and began to suck on each of them in turn while Harriet squirmed helplessly in the water longing for his penis, that was now brushing against her thigh, to penetrate her.
From his seat by the poolside, Edmund watched in total silence. Noella was leaning forward, her excitement undisguised, but Edmund remained externally impassive. Inside it was another story. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so aroused and so helpless. Harriet was Lewis’s wife, and as such they could make love wherever they chose, whereas he had to sit and wait for another opportunity to have that glorious body straining beneath his ministrations.
Harriet was enjoying herself too, he knew that. Enjoying both the physical sensations Lewis was arousing and the knowledge that Edmund was watching. He didn’t have to watch, he could easily turn away or return to the house, but it was impossible. He needed to sit and see it through, and as Lewis’s movements in the pool caused the water to lap against the sides, Edmund knew that he’d get his revenge. Next time he was with Harriet he’d make her pay, pay in the most deliciously exciting way, for putting him through this torture.
When Lewis finally entered her, Harriet gave a tiny gasp at the force of his initial thrust. Then he was rotating his hips, brushing against the most sensitive part of her vagina just inside the entrance, and she felt her muscles tightening inexorably as her climax approached.
Lewis felt her internal muscles start to spasm around him, and he nipped lightly at the soft skin at the top of her breast as the tingling at the tip of his penis extended down the shaft and his body bunched itself in readiness for release.
Harriet was about to come, he knew that from the way her head had gone back and the tendons of her neck were taut with tension. Quickly he changed his rhythm, thrusting harder and deeper in order to increase his own stimulation. All the time, Harriet’s body felt as though it was expanding until at last the pleasure spread through her entire body, making even her hands and feet tingle in the final moments of ecstasy.
Lewis came only a few seconds after her, his hips pumping in the water, and as he shuddered violently he let go of the poolside and gripped Harriet’s body tightly, pulling her against him and staring directly into her eyes until he was finally spent.
Trembling violently Harriet clung to him, resting her head against his shoulder as she recovered, while Edmund and Noella continued to watch. Looking over his wife’s head, Lewis caught Edmund’s eye and for a moment the two men stared at each other. Then, surprisingly, Edmund smiled one of his rare smiles before getting to his feet and walking back to the house. The smile should have comforted Lewis, but it didn’t.
Now that the excitement of the moment was over, Harriet felt embarrassed and she was relieved to see that Edmund had gone. Climbing out of the pool, she let Lewis wrap her in a towel and then rub her dry while Noella pulled her lounger into a shaded area and closed her eyes.
‘Nice?’ asked Lewis with a grin.
Harriet sighed. ‘Very nice. Lewis, I don’t need anyone but you.’
‘I’m sure if you tell Edmund that, he’ll accept it. I don’t imagine he’s ever forced his attentions on a woman.’
‘I can’t,’ admitted Harriet after a pause.
Lewis’s hands slowed on the towel. ‘Why not?’
‘I want to know more.’
‘More about what?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know how to explain this, but Edmund gives the impression that he knows things other people don’t, things that I want to know about as well.’
‘Dangerous things?’ enquired Lewis.
‘Perhaps.’
‘That should add to the film’s box office appeal,’ he said with what appeared to be satisfaction. When Harriet shivered he resumed his brisk towelling of her body.
‘It isn’t love,’ she murmured.
‘No, of course not,’ said Lewis, handing her the discarded dress. ‘I never thought that it would be, at least not yet.’
Harriet looked at him in dismay. ‘You can’t believe it will turn into love?’
‘Why can’t I?’
‘Well, if you did you wouldn’t risk playing the game, would you?’
‘I’m not playing a game, I’m writing a film,’ he said patiently.
‘And you’re willing to risk me falling in love with Edmund?’ Her voice was rising and in the distance Noella stirred.
‘I can’t control your feelings Harriet. If you’re going to fall in love with someone else it might as well be now than later on in our marriage.’
‘I don’t want to love him!’ she said angrily.
‘Good, then I’m sure you won’t. Personally I’d say that Edmund would be very hard to love, since love is essentially a two way thing and he doesn’t seem to me to be capable of loving a woman back.’
‘That’s all right then,’ said Harriet.
‘I want to know exactly what he does to you,’ Lewis murmured as he rolled up the wet towel. ‘I want you to tell me all the details every time.’
‘And if I won’t?’
‘I’ll find out in other ways,’ was all he would say, but Harriet guessed that, just as he had for Dark Secret, he’d use concealed cameras.
‘You might have to use other ways,’ she retorted. ‘I don’t think I want to talk to you about what we do.’
‘Fine.’
‘Time for a bath, I think,’ said Noella, getting out of her chair and strolling towards them. ‘You both look very serious. Not a lover’s tiff surely? Not after such a nice swim together!’
‘We’re just tired,’ said Harriet shortly, and she went into the house ahead of the other two.
‘What are you playing at, Lewis?’ asked Noella.
He smiled at her, and once again she wished that she was more his type, because she knew that he’d be the most incredible lover. ‘I’m not playing at anything,’ he said innocently. ‘I’m merely having a quiet honeymoon.’
‘You’re never quiet, and this is the strangest honeymoon I’ve ever heard of,’ she said briskly. ‘No, you’r
e up to something. I just can’t work out what it is.’
‘Don’t try, Noella, you’d be wasting your time.’
‘You mean I’m not bright enough to work it out?’
Lewis shook his head. ‘I mean there’s nothing to know.’
‘I know when someone’s lying to me!’ she laughed. ‘Hey, there’s Oliver. I’ll go and have a word with him and then run that bath I mentioned. Care to share it with me?’
‘I’ll take a rain check!’ laughed Lewis.
Harriet, feeling surprisingly low considering the episode in the pool, walked into the drawing room, sat down in one of the armchairs and gave a small sigh.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Edmund.
Harriet jumped. She hadn’t seen him hidden in the depths of the other chair. ‘Nothing, I’m tired that’s all.’
‘I didn’t like watching you and Lewis in the pool,’ said Edmund quietly. ‘In fact, I positively disliked it.’
‘You didn’t have to watch.’
Edmund smiled to himself. ‘But you wanted me to watch, Harriet. Isn’t that true?’
‘It didn’t matter to me,’ she lied.
‘When we’re next together, I’m afraid I shall have to make you pay for what you did to me,’ he murmured.
A tingle of excitement ran up Harriet’s spine but before she could reply Lewis and Noella joined them and she was left to think about what he’d said. She knew that he hadn’t been joking because he wasn’t the kind of man who made jokes, and after Noella’s warning she wondered if perhaps she would be wiser not to carry on their affair. Wiser certainly, but if she didn’t carry on then she’d never learn what it was she wanted to learn: the extent to which Edmund took his women in the course of making love to them.
Chapter Six
* * *
THEY WERE JUST finishing their meal that evening when the front doorbell rang. ‘It must be Ella!’ exclaimed Harriet, starting to rise from her chair.
‘I’ll go,’ said Lewis. ‘You haven’t finished the famous shepherds’ pie yet. Is there any over for your friend if she’s hungry?’
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