‘You’ll be there for me? This is the first time...since I’ve been ill.’ She knew that shouldn’t matter, but the softness in Jon’s eyes told her that he understood.
‘I’ll be there with you all the way. I promise.’
She reached behind her, putting the citrine and the chain down on the cabinet beside the bed. When Jon kissed her, she didn’t miss it at all.
He finished undressing her, caressing her as he did so. Watching for each response until cause merged into effect and all she could feel was one delicious impulse of pleasure and wanting. She reached for the waistband of his trousers, unfastening it.
‘I want to touch you, now.’
* * *
Jon had known that Chloe might hesitate. Known that he must be gentle and watch for any sign of uncertainty on her part. But he hadn’t dreamed that she would speak so openly about how she felt, or that it would change their lovemaking so profoundly.
Because speaking about it had seemed to break every barrier. Every touch was met with a word or a sigh. She didn’t leave him to guess what she was feeling, she told him, and that empowered him.
When she touched him, it was like electricity running across his skin. Her finger, her tongue tracked delicate patterns of delight across his body, as slowly they pushed each other further.
‘Chloe... Chloe...’ If he’d known what to beg for he would have done it. His whole body was shaking, sweat trickling down his spine and adrenaline pumping through his veins. And when he touched her, he knew that she was at the same point of no return, where thought was banished and only feeling made any sense.
The curtains around the bed were closed on two sides, leaving only the side that faced the fireplace open. When he laid her down, candlelight glimmered across her body, and he traced the shadows with his fingers.
There was only one thing in the world that he needed to do now. He needed to make her come, as hard and as long as he could. From the way she was trembling in his arms, that wasn’t going to be all that difficult.
She accepted him inside her so generously. Holding him tight, making feel as if he really were a king. Jon gritted his teeth, loving the sight and sound of her pleasure and wanting to make it last. Almost afraid of the moment when she might lose control in his arms, and whether he could hold her tightly enough to reassure her.
But Chloe wasn’t afraid. She wound her legs around his waist, tilting her hips towards him, taking him deeper. He saw her eyes darken suddenly as the pupils dilated even further, and she moved against him. When he took up her rhythm, her body seemed to almost hum with pleasure.
The further he pushed her, the more she responded to him. The more she responded, the stronger he became. When she came, her body arching under his, it felt as if he was being dragged down with her in the massive undertow of her pleasure.
Then suddenly everything changed. He lost his bearings, knowing only that the point of no way back was some way behind him now. His self-control slipped away. Everything slipped away, and he didn’t even think to miss it because Chloe was there. When she smiled at him, her fingers digging into his back, he came so hard that he almost blacked out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHLOE WOKE, LUXURIATING in the feel of Jon’s body curled around hers. When she opened her eyes she found him propped up on the pillows, cradling her in his arms, his body bathed in candlelight.
‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘An hour. It’s still early.’ His eyes held all the promise of a long night that was still ahead of them.
‘Were you watching me?’ If she’d known, she would have kept her eyes closed for another couple of minutes just to feel herself under his gaze.
He smiled. ‘I’m taking my duties seriously.’
‘Your duties?’ She reached up, tracing her finger across his lips. ‘What duties?’
‘Oh, you know. All-purpose mascot. Lucky charm.’ He nodded towards the citrine, her gold chain curled around it on the dresser. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Better than just all right. My toes are still tingling.’
How quickly things changed. There were nights that she’d lain in bed, agonising about whether her toes were tingling or not. The power of suggestion was enough to set anyone’s toes tingling if you thought about it hard enough, but Chloe had been unable to ignore it. But all that had been driven into the past now by the delicious tingle that was the aftermath of his touch.
‘And that would be a good tingle?’
‘Yes. A very good one.’
He bent to kiss her. ‘I was thinking...’
‘Yes?’ She wanted to hear every last thing he was thinking. The warm curve of his lips told her that right now there wasn’t a bad thought in his head.
‘Seems a terrible shame to waste that bed upstairs. A glass of wine under the stars...’
‘It does, doesn’t it?’
* * *
The first time they’d make love had been a little uncertain, venturing onto new ground with all the excited tremor of discovery. With the second time came a sudden realisation that the first hadn’t been the kind of one-time experience that couldn’t be repeated. When they woke early, and Jon made love to her yet again, it was a return to that blissful place where only they existed. Lost in each other but knowing that his smile was the only compass she needed.
They were on the road a little later than they’d anticipated. He’d held her close in the bright glow of dawn. Breakfast in bed, hot chocolate and croissants, couldn’t be rushed when it was eaten with Jon, and neither could the steaming bathtub, big enough to take them both.
But the road beckoned. As Jon settled into the driver’s seat of his car, he quirked his lips downwards. She felt it too. Last night had been special, but they were leaving now.
‘Back to reality, then.’ He twisted the key in the ignition. ‘You know where we’re going?’
Chloe reached forward, taking the folded map from the glove compartment. She knew exactly where they were going.
* * *
The cabin could only be reached by walking through the woods. No roads, no other buildings. Just the sound of their feet on the mud path and a flock of geese, squabbling on the lake.
‘How on earth did you find this place?’ Chloe hadn’t said where they were staying tonight, and Jon hadn’t asked, but her air of excited anticipation had told him she had something up her sleeve. When they’d drawn up at the farmhouse he’d thought that this would be an idyllic place to spend the night, but the place they were actually headed to was beyond all his expectations.
‘We came to stay here for three weeks one summer when I was a child. Marie-Christine and I were the same age and we made friends. We’ve kept in touch ever since.’ The young woman who’d welcomed them had greeted Chloe with a hug and a kiss, and they’d linked arms, talking together as the three of them walked past the stable block, converted for holiday lets, and across the fields to the edge of the wood.
‘They don’t advertise the cabin for let. It’s just for friends and family.’ I gave Marie-Christine a call and she said we could have it for tonight. It was a piece of luck.’
‘It’s fantastic. I didn’t think you could find anywhere quite as special as the chateau, but you proved me wrong.’ In truth, anywhere that Chloe allowed him to lie next to her was special.
‘I thought about what you said—about pacing myself.’
He put his arm around her shoulders, feeling the soft rhythm of her body against his. ‘And this is you pacing yourself? Give me a call when you decide to go into overdrive.’
She chuckled. ‘I love this place. Holds a lot of happy memories.’
‘Your father brought you here, but he never took you to his home?’ They only had another hundred miles to drive tomorrow before they reached the village where Hannah was staying.
‘But Hannah wants to know where he came from?’
‘I want to know too. I used to think about it a lot after my parents died but life kind of took over. There was Hannah to look after and my studies and then I became ill. It all became swallowed up.’
‘But now Hannah and you have some time to explore.’
‘Maybe. I hope so.’ She opened the door of the cabin. One large room served as a kitchen, dining room and sitting room. ‘It’s just this room and two bedrooms. There’s no electricity and you have to pump whatever water you need.’
‘And you cook outside on the barbeque?’ He gestured towards the large double barbeque built under the eaves of the cabin.
‘Yes. Or if it’s raining, we can go to the farmhouse.’
‘Or get some bread and cheese. Fresh fruit and a bottle of wine...’ He put their bags down on the floor, folding his arms around her shoulders. ‘Just the two of us.’
‘That sounds so good.’ Her fingers traced fire across his chest, bringing back exquisite memories of last night and the promise of another, just as explosively sweet.
‘So...’ She glanced at the two doors at the far end of the main room. ‘Which bedroom are we going to start with?’
* * *
They’d travelled three hundred miles in three days. And Chloe felt as if she’d stepped away from her life, surfacing from all the worries and pain that had submerged her and finally taking a deep breath. Perhaps the first since her parents had died.
If she’d made this journey on her own she would have covered the distance, but she would have brought along most of the old familiar baggage. But with Jon that was impossible. It wasn’t just the sex, which left her unable to think about anything other than his touch and the urgent need to keep breathing, just so she could feel it again. It was him. Sitting with him in the car, feeling the miles roll by. Eating with him. Talking with him, when there was nothing much to say but they both wanted to hear the other’s voice.
And now, driving through the village that spread lazily across the landscape, as if it were basking in the afternoon sun, she felt like a child, pressing her face against the car window, anxious to see everything. In truth, it was unremarkable, not particularly pretty but not completely ugly either. If it had been any other place she would have let it just slip by, but she gazed at every shop in the main street, each café, everyone who walked along the pavement, because any one of them over about fifty might have known her father.
‘That woman...’ She indicated a woman with a baby buggy outside the small supermarket, whose mid-brown hair was about the same colour as her own. ‘She could be a second or third cousin, for all I know.’
He left her to her speculations. Wondering if her father had climbed the old chestnut tree in the village square. Whether he’d gone to the café, which looked as if it had been there for ever, with his parents. Her grandparents, the ones who looked like strangers in the photographs.
‘Did your father have brothers and sisters?’
‘No, he was an only child. His mother died just before my parents married.’
‘And his father?’
‘Apparently he left her. I don’t know why, Dad never used to talk about him. He wasn’t from around here.’
‘And your parents met here?’
‘Yes. My mother was doing a gap year before going to art college. She ended up here for a couple of nights on the way somewhere else, and met my father. She decided to stay a week and then...that was it, really. When she came back to England my dad came with her, and after that they always lived there, although they both loved France and came back here as often as they could. Not here, though. I wish I knew why.’
‘There might not be any particular reason. I don’t go back to my home town all that much.’
‘There’s a reason for that, isn’t there?’ The bitterness of his divorce. The way his family had chosen to support his ex-wife and not him.
‘I suppose there is.’ His brow creased, and it seemed that Jon didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Where did Hannah say to go?’
‘Through the village.’ Hannah had told them that she would be away from the village for a day or so but back on Saturday, and that she’d book two rooms for them at the boarding house where she was staying.
They found the place, a neat, whitewashed house at the older and prettier end of the village. Chloe followed Jon inside, watching as he used a mixture of signs and broken French to indicate that he wanted one double room, not two singles. Chloe didn’t step in. It was nice that he’d just done it, without having to refer to her at all. That there was no longer any question about whether they were together.
Their room was quiet and unremarkable. Pale walls and pale fabrics, with dark wooden furniture that didn’t quite match but went well enough together. Jon put their bags down on the bed and Chloe stared at them, sitting together. It was almost as if she’d brought someone home to introduce him to her parents, and she half expected them to burst through the door, her mother taking her to one side to put her father’s glowering disapproval over booking just one room into a gentler, more persuasive form.
But she was a grown up now. She’d managed for ten years alone, and her parents would surely have respected whatever decision she made about sleeping arrangements.
‘Would you like to go and look around the village?’ He planted his hands on the deep window sill, looking out of the window. ‘There’s a church over there, we could take a stroll in that direction.’
‘Could we...? Would you mind if we waited for Hannah? Knowing her, she’s likely to have a full itinerary of my father’s every move, right from when he was born to when he left here. When she gets a bee in her bonnet she gets very single-minded.’
‘And you don’t want to take a little look yourself first?’ His easygoing smile said that it really didn’t matter one way or the other.
‘I think I’d like Hannah to show me. You know, I’ve realised that most of the things she knows about Mum and Dad are from when she was young, or what James and I have told her. She’s never had anything that she can tell us.’
He nodded. ‘That sounds like a nice idea. And, of course, if Hannah’s telling the story, then it might give you more of a clue about what she’s really doing here.’
‘Yes. I thought that too.’ She walked over to the window, laying one hand on his shoulder, and he turned and kissed her. Strong and yet so gentle. There for her, giving her his thoughts on things, without telling her what to do.
‘Thank you, Jon.’
‘What for?’ He chuckled suddenly, hugging her tight. ‘On second thoughts, I’ll be expecting very full recompense. For all these things you seem to think I’ve done.’
‘And what would that be?’ She traced her finger across his lips. She had a good idea, and it would be her pleasure.
‘I think... Maybe we take a walk in the garden. Have a cup of tea. Then we can come back here and you can take your dress off. As slowly as you like.’
‘And then?’ Chloe could dispense with the cup of tea.
‘We take a shower. Go out and find some dinner.’
‘Aren’t you missing something?’ She flipped the top button of his shirt open and he kissed her again. This time harder, a first step on the road that would take them into each other’s arms.
‘Probably.’ His smile turned wolfish. No one smiled like that at the thought of a walk in the garden and a cup of tea. ‘Want to take me through it? In detail?’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JON WASN’T SURE that his body could take much more of this. In the months after his marriage had ende
d and, if the truth be told, for some while before it had ended he’d been unable to work up any enthusiasm for sex. He’d been going through the motions with Helen, hoping that things would get better, and that she wasn’t feeling quite so empty inside as he was, but when they’d split up it had been almost a relief that the physical side of things was now at an end.
Since then, there had been a couple of affairs. Consenting adults, no strings, that kind of thing. Where both parties knew exactly what they were doing, and how it was going to end. But although he and Chloe had both gone into this with their eyes open, and it wasn’t such a different arrangement, it felt as if it were spinning wildly out of control.
And the thing was, he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t help wanting her, every minute of the day. Not just her touch but her sweetness and her strength. Her unpredictability, the times she was wrong, and the times she was right. The way that they seemed so different in so many ways but that together they somehow managed to fit perfectly.
And that wasn’t the worst of it. Frequent sex—he could handle that. The kind of sex that didn’t feel that burning heat, or sweat, or ragged, incoherent cries were incongruous and should be avoided—he could most definitely handle that. But lying in her arms in the soft darkness, knowing that he’d been broken, was different. Watching one tear trickle from the corner of Chloe’s eye, knowing that it wasn’t joy or pain but a sign that she had given herself as completely as he had... That was entirely different.
It would cool. Everything cooled at some point and he and Chloe were so different that the cracks would appear soon enough. When Hannah arrived, they would have something else to think about, rather than just the road and each other.
He sat with her on a bench in the bus station, feeling the warm pressure of her body leaning against his. If this was the beginning of the end, it was partly a relief, wholly regrettable, but it was the way things were and he couldn’t fight it.
‘She said...’ Chloe watched as a bus drew up in one of the bays, the doors opening and people starting to get out. ‘There must be another bus coming at this time. That can’t be the one.’
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