by Kait Jagger
When she came back to herself and opened her eyes, he was lying beside her, watching her impassively. He knew better than to exult in her capitulation. She found she didn’t have the strength to close her thighs, where his hand still rested. Luna, for whom sex, even good sex, had previously been a little like a game of Operation, where things could go wrong very quickly, had never before experienced an orgasm brought about with so little concentration and effort on her own part. She was stunned by it, by him.
She shifted her left arm, the one closest to Stefan, and he immediately sat up, pinning the arm in place.
‘We aren’t finished yet,’ he said. She nodded and relaxed her palm, waiting for him to remove his clothes. But he didn’t. Instead, he bent down and kissed her stomach, then her hip bone, and then the hollow between the two. He pushed her thighs further apart and lay his head down between them.
Realising with panic his intention, Luna protested, ‘Stefan!’ digging her heels into the mattress to lever herself away from him. ‘It’s still too sensitive. I can’t.’
‘It’s not and you can,’ he said, before covering her with his mouth.
Her hips rocketed up off the mattress and he forced them back down with his hands. His tongue moved against her and she moaned, practically keened with the torture of it. Her thighs were shaking, jerking almost, with every stroke of his tongue.
And then, against her own will, she felt herself begin to quicken, the initial sensitivity giving way to…his mouth, warm and soft, surrounding her clitoris, his tongue, lapping her rhythmically. And then he himself made a noise, a drawn out ‘mmm’, and the deepness of his voice vibrated across her softness to her quivering core. She smelled the roses – realised that the sweat in her palms was heightening their perfume. She turned her head into the pillow, striving, desperate. And succumbed, sobbing her pleasure as he brought her to a second climax.
She opened her eyes again to see Stefan stripping off his jumper and unbuttoning his jeans. And, God help her, even after two orgasms in quick succession, when she saw his hardness, saw the tightness of his jaw as he strived to control himself, she moved her feet up the mattress, bending her knees and lifting her pelvis. Offering herself to him. Seeing this, Stefan quickly kicked off his jeans and lowered himself onto her.
He reared up and plunged himself once, twice into her, before cursing and withdrawing, quickly extracting a condom from his jeans pocket and rolling it over his shaft. And back in again, hips pumping against her. Luna strained to lift her head, stomach muscles tightening, and looked down to see his perfect buttocks moving up and down atop her. Turning her head towards his, she took his earlobe in her teeth, sucking it luxuriously. Then she lay back down and lifted her legs, wrapping them around him. Having been denied the use of her hands, she wanted him to know that she had other weapons in her arsenal. Focusing, she clenched herself around his cock and Stefan immediately froze.
‘Stop that,’ he gritted between his teeth. She looked up at him challengingly and clenched again. The muscles in his cheeks were drawn so tight his expression could be mistaken for agony. Or fury. Shaking his head at her, he withdrew himself completely, shuddering as he mastered himself, then reached for the pillow next to her. Untwining her legs from behind his back, he placed the pillow under her bottom. Then he placed both hands on her hips and positioned her, before slowly re-entering her. And…something about this new angle of her hips, the way the pillow tilted them upwards, bringing her mons into direct contact with Stefan as he patiently worked himself against her, pressing, insinuating.
‘I…’ Luna exclaimed softly. Christ, this wasn’t possible. She was, she was…coming again. And he was watching her, exulting now as he hadn’t dared to do earlier as she closed her eyes and surrendered to him. As if to prove a point, he waited until she’d finished quivering around him before he took his own release, slowly, slowly fucking her sated body till he came, plunging deep into her one last time till the tip of his cock reached her cervix, his teeth clenched in a rictus of ecstasy.
He collapsed on her then, their chests heaving together.
‘That, Luna,’ he said eventually against her ear, ‘is what I expect of you. I expect you to give yourself to me, in every way.’ He lifted himself off her and padded off to the loo, returning a few minutes later with a glass of water. Sitting cross-legged beside her on the bed, he lifted the first rose from her left palm and displayed it for her, perfect, unwrinkled. Then he reached for her right hand, still clenched above her head, and uncurled her fingers, lifting the sodden remains.
‘So, a quantified success, I’d say,’ he observed neutrally, holding out the glass to her. Luna cautiously lowered her arms, sat up and accepted it, drinking it all and handing the glass back to him.
‘Room for improvement,’ he added helpfully as he reached over her to put it on the bedside table.
‘I’ll work on it,’ Luna replied waspishly, lifting her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. ‘Interesting…control issues you have there.’
‘Oh, you have no idea, Miss Gregory.’
Chapter Ten
‘It’s the sssneaking around I find intolerable, Augusta. You should have forewarned us about this, and it leads me to question what you’re playing at.’
When Luna returned from lunch on Wednesday afternoon, the Marchioness’s office door was ajar and she heard the sound of raised voices inside. Florian’s, first and loudest, followed by Isabelle’s. Come, Luna soon realised, to barrack Lady Wellstone for forcing Stefan upon them.
Luna used her best cat feet on the way to her desk, not wanting to alert them to her presence and find the door abruptly shut in her face.
‘Mummy, honestly,’ Isabelle was saying, sounding overwrought and emotional in a way that only Isabelle could. ‘I felt quite bullied by some of the questions he was asking. What right does he have to come and tell us how to run our business?’
Luna rolled her eyes and reminded herself to defend Stefan from this slander at her earliest opportunity. He had been anything but bullying in Isabelle’s shop. And, really, it was just like Florian and Isabelle to suck up to him at the party on Saturday night whilst simultaneously planning this clandestine rear action against him.
‘He has the right that I’ve given him,’ the Marchioness said. ‘I’ve asked him as a personal favour to take a good, hard look at Arborage’s portfolio—’
Florian interrupted her with a harsh laugh. ‘A favour? I daresay we’re paying for this “favour”. Does the board know how much money you’re burning through on outside consultants?’
Luna looked down to see that Regina had wandered out to her desk. Luna took her head in her hands and stroked it, smiling at her. You don’t like Florian any better than I do, do you, girl?
‘Of course they do, Fox.’ Luna could tell that Lady Wellstone was struggling to contain her irritation with her brother-in law. ‘Which you’d know if you ever bothered to attend our meetings. And, as to using consultants, there was no way a review of this scope and complexity could have been done internally. We don’t have the capability. And there are too many…vested interests.’ A note of asperity crept into her voice.
‘What about John? What does he think of this?’ Florian had chosen to ignore the Marchioness’s explanation and go straight for her Achilles’ heel. Luna felt the temperature in the room drop, could almost picture Lady Wellstone’s glacial hauteur as she replied, ‘In this, as in all things related to Arborage, John and I are of one mind.’
‘Yesss,’ Florian hissed. ‘Your mind.’
Luna was genuinely worried things were going to kick off in there until she heard Helen’s voice interject in a more reasonable tone, ‘Mum, it’s just that we’re concerned that Cousin Stefan may be looking at Arborage like a…factory, or a bank or something. But some of the less profitable parts of the estate, like the equestrian centre or Uncle Florian’s hunting business, are the sorts of traditional pursuits that make Arborage what it is.’
Lu
na was surprised Helen had gotten herself roped into this, though she knew she and Florian were close, Isabelle having always been her father’s favourite. But at least the elder sister’s argument took some heat out of the conversation. By the time the two sisters and Florian left shortly thereafter, they seemed to have reached an uneasy truce with the Marchioness.
Which didn’t stop Florian from leaning down uncomfortably close to Luna on his way out. ‘Eavesdropping, little Ice Princesss?’ he sneered, and she smelled liquor on his breath. Unfortunately, as was so often the case, she couldn’t think of an appropriately stinging response till after he’d sailed out of the room.
Trailed by Regina, Luna walked into the Marchioness’s office and raised her eyebrows.
‘Well,’ Lady Wellstone said, steepling her fingers. ‘That was interesting.’
‘I…’ Luna cleared her throat, choosing her words carefully. ‘I just have to say that I have found Mr Lundgren to be in no way bullying.’
The Marchioness waved her hand as if to indicate, Of course. You know Isabelle.
‘They feel threatened,’ she said, then sighed. ‘These things are never easy, are they, Luna? You think you’re trying to do what’s best, which should be clear to everyone, but…remind me, when is Stefan due to make his presentation?’
‘A week on Friday. We have three members of the board here that day, remember.’
‘Yes, well, it can’t come soon enough. I’ll be glad to have this behind us.’
Privately, Luna feared that their problems would just be beginning once Stefan gave his findings, but she didn’t say as much. She knew, he’d told her in the wee small hours of Sunday night before she’d left the Dower House, that he was spending the beginning of the week in Scotland visiting some of Arborage’s holdings there. And though his tone had been neither here nor there when she asked whether he’d decided on the general thrust of his forthcoming presentation – he had, was all he would say – she was a good enough PA to sense his growing preoccupation as the project neared its conclusion. The Marchioness, too, could be very single-minded and Luna had learned to ride that wave, because she’d seen the results of her single-mindedness, and believed in them.
Of course, she wasn’t Stefan’s PA. But she found that some of her fealty to the Marchioness had leeched over onto him, partly because Lady Wellstone had so clearly staked her authority on the outcome of Stefan’s work, and partly because…well, Luna wanted him, him personally, to succeed.
She’d had an email from him earlier that day with his flight details from Edinburgh to Heathrow, nothing more. She liked the way he kept his emails all business. Seeing that his flight wasn’t due in till after 10pm, she’d phoned him, heart unexpectedly hammering at the newness of phoning him for personal reasons rather than professional. Somewhat to her relief, his mobile went straight to voicemail and she left a brief message saying that since he’d be getting back to the Dower House late, ‘and…’ she’d hesitated, ‘I’m sure you’ll be tired after your trip, so I’ll just see you tomorrow, okay? I hope things are going well in Scotland. I’ll…ah…I’ll see you soon.’ She’d winced as she rung off, hearing in replay the way her voice had deepened slightly at the end of the call. She sounded…besotted.
Her mobile buzzed minutes later, and her heart recommenced thumping when she saw S Lundgren in the caller ID.
She picked it up and said, ‘Hi,’ to the sound of a crackling line on the other end.
‘Sorry, Luna, the reception up here is terrible. I’m just driving back from Aberdeen.’
Luna smiled involuntarily and swivelled her chair away from the Marchioness’s open door.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Very well, very well. And you, Luna? Are you sitting at your desk right now, being very discreet?’
‘I am.’ There was a moment’s silence and she swore she felt him smiling on the other end of the line. She liked the image of that: the pair of them, 500 miles apart, smiling into their phones.
‘Look, I’m not getting back too late. I should be there by eleven. Come over.’ He paused. ‘Unless that’s too late for you.’
‘It’s not too late for me,’ Luna said, ringing off with a smile still on her face.
And here she was now, daydreaming about Stefan in front of the Marchioness. Not very discreet. Luna gave herself a little mental smack around the head, and made to exit her boss’s office.
‘Ah, and Luna, I need you to book flights for me to Venice this weekend.’
Luna tilted her head questioningly. ‘So soon?’ Her boss usually tried to space out these visits to Venice, waiting on her ‘lord and master’ only when circumstances absolutely required it.
‘It can’t be helped,’ was all the Marchioness said, and there was something, something about her tone. Luna wondered fleetingly if it had to do with Stefan’s work, but honestly, for all the earlier histrionics from Florian and Isabelle, Lady Wellstone seemed reasonably sanguine about that.
‘Okay, I’ll book a water taxi as well, and your usual hotel,’ Luna said, again preparing to return to her desk.
‘No,’ Lady Wellstone said. ‘I’ll stay at the palazzo this time.’
And Luna was left to wonder what was going on. As far as she knew, the Marchioness had never stayed at the palazzo, or at least not since her husband had taken up residence there thirteen years ago.
*
Luna worked late in the office that night sorting out the Marchioness’s flights and other travel arrangements, then went to the staff kitchen for dinner. More of a cafeteria than a kitchen, it was hidden in the bowels of the west wing, a converted coal room with eight or so tables, all of which were currently empty.
Luna liked this time of the evening, when, she imagined, Arborage went back to being hers, the noise of the tourists and the staff gone, to be replaced by the creaks and whispers of the house settling itself down for another night.
As was her habit, Luna had brought along a book, which she was reading in a corner table as she consumed her bowl of soup. Her mobile buzzed and she picked it up to see Nan on the caller ID.
‘Well, hello there!’ she answered happily.
‘My roommate!’ Nancy Richards greeted her, getting straight to the point. ‘What are you doing on Friday night?’
Luna paused. ‘You tell me,’ she replied, eyes dancing.
‘Well, I’m coming to London, so I think what you’re doing is going out with me and getting completely pissed!’
‘Brilliant!’ Luna cried. ‘When do you get here? Why are you coming?’
‘I’m on a flight tomorrow night, get in at the crack of dawn on Friday, and then I’m straight off to meet some pesky clients.’
Nancy ran a small PR agency in New York, but she had many clients in London, being a long-time Anglophile ever since her university days when she’d made what to Luna seemed the incredibly brave decision to enrol at the University of Manchester. It was Nancy the American newcomer who’d guided Luna through those first, difficult months at uni, dragging her away from the library to parties, taking her to gigs in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and basically bringing Luna out of her firmly affixed shell.
‘I’ve already messaged Jem and Kayla and they’re going to meet me at my club at seven.’ Luna smiled at the mention of the private members club Nancy belonged to. They had spent a fair few drunken nights with her there in recent years since Nancy’s business had taken off.
‘Good stuff. I’ll be there.’ Luna thought for a moment and added, ‘Wait a minute, you’re still coming for Kayla’s preview night on the first, right?’
‘Uh, duh, yeah! I’m a mover and a shaker, baby. A little bit of jetlag ain’t nothing but a thang to me…’
Luna laughed, genuinely delighted to be talking with Nancy rather than just emailing her. She forgot, in written communication, how funny Nancy was, how much of that humour was wrapped up in her deadpan delivery and no nonsense, take no prisoners smoker’s voice. Though, as Nancy was always keen to point
out, ‘I don’t smoke, I just sound like I do.’
‘How are things going with you?’ Luna asked. ‘How’s Robert?’ Robert was Nancy’s on-off boyfriend, several years her senior, a freelance photographer with whom her roommate had enjoyed a stormy relationship over the past three years.
‘Oh, he’s alright. Pissing me off, really, but…how are things with Hot Swedish Totty?’
‘Fine,’ Luna said, smiling.
‘Hunh, “fine” – what does that mean, Lou?’ Ah, there it was, her university nickname. Luna’s heart swelled at the sound of it.
‘Um, it means fine. I’ll tell you more when I see you.’
‘The fuck you say! You’ll tell me now!’
And so she told her, an edited version at least, though Nancy was clearly annoyed by the lack of graphic sexual detail.
‘He’s good,’ was the best Luna could do.
‘Good,’ Nancy repeated.
‘Very good.’
‘Well, I mean, good in what way, exactly?’
‘I am not going to discuss that with you, not here,’ Luna laughed.
‘Where are you, anyway? The castle dungeons? It’s like you’re in an echo chamber or something,’ Nancy groused as Luna closed her book and clasped it to her, all thoughts of a quiet reading dinner forgotten.
Chapter Eleven
Two hours later, she was walking across the front lawn in the direction of the Dower House, a little spring in her step. It was overcast and windy; occasionally she could catch a glimpse of the moon as clouds scuttled past it. Maybe just a little bit spooky; a bit Halloweeny, as Nancy would say. Luna couldn’t remember the last time she’d walked across the grounds this late at night and she was just beginning to regret not bringing a torch when she heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the path in front of her. She saw the figure of a man approaching her, dim, amorphous.
