Caress

by Marina Anderson

  There was a moment’s silence at the other end of the line. Clearly David hadn’t expected her to tell him the truth. “And that made you miss me more?” he asked.

  “Yes, it did.”

  “How much do you miss me?”

  Grace wished she wasn’t so tired. She felt she needed to be more alert to cope with the conversation, but her brain wouldn’t function properly. “A lot,” she said.

  “Then touch yourself for me.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “David, I’m half-asleep, I…”

  “Darling, I want to think of you touching yourself.”

  Even though she was half-asleep she noticed that he didn’t sound aroused or excited, it was more as though he was determined to remind her that she was his.

  “This isn’t the Dining Club,” she pointed out. “I don’t have to do what you want.”

  His voice softened and deepened, and she felt a flicker of excitement. “I know that, and if you don’t want to do it then that’s fine. I wish I was with you and could touch you myself. I’d begin by running my fingers along the insides of your arms and the backs of your knees. Then I’d kiss the sides of your neck, before moving lower to lick your nipples as they hardened. Are they hardening now, as I talk? Tell me the truth, Gracie,” he urged her.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Excellent. Now let your fingers stray over your stomach, moving slowly down to where you’re starting to ache and feel heavy. That is happening, isn’t it?”

  She could hardly answer she was so aroused as she obeyed his instructions. “It is,” she said at last, feeling a heavy pulse beating between her thighs.

  “Press the palm of your right hand over your pubic bone, and let your fingers part your sex lips,” he urged her. “Isn’t that good?”

  She heard herself make an incoherent sound and then whimpered with pleasure at the blissful feelings the pressure of her palm was causing her. Her skin seemed too tight for her body, and she was damp with desire.

  “Tell me how wet you feel,” he said, his voice like velvet now.

  “I’m very wet,” she said breathlessly, letting her fingers slip and slide over the throbbing area around her clitoris.

  “How wet?”

  “Very wet,” she admitted, her voice little more than a whisper.

  “And you like the way you feel?”

  “Yes, yes!” She could hardly wait for his next instruction.

  “Good girl,” he murmured. “You’re wonderfully easy to arouse these days. I can’t wait for our next weekend at the Club. You get back to sleep now, my darling. It was selfish of me to phone you at this hour.” With that, he put down the phone, leaving her unbelievably aroused, soaking wet between her thighs and with the sound of a dead phone line in her ears. She wanted to weep with frustration.

  So that had been his way of punishing her, she thought to herself. The call was a punishment for chatting to Andrew, and perhaps for taking him back to her apartment, since it was possible that somehow he knew that as well. Now she was fully awake, aroused and alone again. Yet, despite what he’d done she felt elated. For the first time he’d shown that he was capable of jealousy, which in her mind could only mean one thing. That he was falling in love with her.

  Chapter Two

  It was the day before Grace’s final trial at the Dining Club, and she’d spent six hours in a small, airless room with Fran interviewing possible lead actresses for Fran’s play.

  “That was the last of them,” she said with relief, stretching her arms above her head and tilting back her chair. “I still think the one who played Hermione at the King’s Head will be best. The fact that she’ll be playing David Tennant’s love interest in a TV series only weeks before we open is good too.”

  “Yes, definitely bums on seats if viewers like her,” agreed Fran.

  “So you’re happy if we go with her?” asked Grace, glancing at her watch.

  “Very happy; are you in a hurry to go somewhere? I thought we’d have a coffee down the road and chat a bit more. It’s too early for a drink, more’s the pity.”

  “I’m out for a meal tonight, I don’t really have time,” apologized Grace.

  “With David?”

  “Yes of course, who else?”

  “I wondered about the hunk from the pub.”

  “Fran, he’s not for me. He’s good-looking, fun and I like him, but I’m in love with David. You know that!”

  “Good,” said Fran with a grin. “Give me the address of the Club then.”

  Grace looked at her in total shock. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I say; if you don’t want him, I’ll have him! Where’s the Club?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” protested Grace weakly.

  “Why the hell not? Is it some kind of posh gym that you have to be invited to join? If so, and if it’s expensive, you’re being robbed because you don’t look any different from the days when your idea of exercise was stumbling to the tube station early in the morning!”

  Relief washed over Grace. She realized how stupid she must have sounded, but for a moment she’d thought that somehow Fran had heard about the Dining Club. “You do have to be invited,” she said quickly. “It’s only a small gym and membership is limited.”

  “So how did you get in?”

  Grace’s mind raced. “David has a stake in it,” she replied.

  “Well fancy that! I bet he’s got a finger in more pies than Little Jack Horner ever ate. You must be mad going out with someone like that. Do you do weights or cardiovascular stuff? I remember even yoga made you put your back out!” she added, laughing at the memory.

  “I really only use the swimming pool, that helps my back,” said Grace, thinking that she should be the one writing plays if she could invent things this quickly.

  “Damn, I really fancied him. Maybe you could sound him out about me? On second thoughts though, don’t. He fancies you, so that wouldn’t help me at all.”

  Grace gathered up her notes and slung her bag over her shoulder. “I’ve got to go. We’re out to dinner tonight and then away for the weekend. Let’s meet on Monday and we can talk about Sandra Fisher a bit more before we actually contact her agent.”

  Fran looked at her thoughtfully. “You’re obsessed with David, aren’t you? I’ve never known you like this before. Is he really hot in bed? Sometimes those cool, controlled types can be dynamite when they let themselves go.”

  Grace didn’t answer.

  “You’re actually blushing!” laughed Fran. “I bet I was right the first time, when I said I’d heard he was into some pretty extreme stuff. You are a dark horse,” she added. “Who’d have guessed it? Now if it was me, no one would be surprised, but you!”

  “You’re talking rubbish,” said Grace. “You’re just fishing, but I’m not biting! My private life is staying private. I might as well tell the Town Crier as tell you anything!”

  “See you Monday then, and you can just say hi to Andrew for me when you next have time for a leisurely swim at your posh gym.”

  “Will do!” promised Grace, dashing out of the door and into the gloom of a wet Friday afternoon in London.

  * * *

  “You didn’t eat much, darling. Are you nervous about the weekend?” asked David, watching Grace push her almost untouched plate of food away from her.

  “A bit,” she confessed. “I think I’m also too tired to eat. We were auditioning almost all day. I’ll need an early night,” she added.

  “Sounds good to me,” he said with a grin as the waitress cleared their table. “Shall we spend tonight at my place and then pick up what you need for the weekend tomorrow morning?”

  After what Andrew had told her, Grace knew that he was deliberately hoping to tire her, so that when she arrived at the Dining Club and had to face a two-day trial she would struggle. She wanted to ask him why he felt the need to make it extra difficult for her, and if he wanted her to succeed or fail, but she couldn’t. Th
at would mean admitting Andrew had broken the rules and told her about the weekend in advance, and she didn’t want to get him into trouble. The realization troubled her, niggling away at the back of her mind and unsettling her.

  “I don’t think I could cope with sex tonight and the weekend,” she protested.

  “We’ll just hold each other and sleep then,” said David.

  She glanced across the table at him. He was wearing a dark blue shirt, open at the neck, and light gray trousers. The blue of the shirt emphasized the blue of his eyes, and just looking at him made her stomach tighten with desire.

  “I don’t know if I could manage that,” she admitted.

  He smiled. “You mean I have to sleep alone because you can’t control yourself? That’s not kind of you! We haven’t seen each other much this month, and it’s not exactly private at the Dining Club.”

  Grace wanted him as much as he seemed to want her, and she couldn’t keep refusing, because he was bound to become suspicious if she did. Anyway, to her shame she was finding it difficult to control her need for him.

  “All right, but I will need some beauty sleep,” she said firmly.

  “Of course, that’s a promise.”

  All the way back to his flat he kept touching her lightly on the knee, telling her how much he wanted her. Her excitement grew as he told her what he wanted to do to her, and how he’d touch her. Then, the moment they were in the front door he pulled her to him and started kissing her, his hands expertly removing her top and bra, so that he could lower his head and let his tongue roam over her naked breasts.

  Her nipples grew so tight they were painful, and she could hear the sound of her own breathing, ragged and fast. Pushing her up against the wall, he unzipped her jeans, and his tongue played over her stomach as he pulled them down round her ankles, along with her bikini pants.

  Grace slipped off her shoes so that he could lift her off the floor, freeing her legs. He was moving so fast, so urgently, that she could feel her orgasm starting to build. Pausing only to tear off his own clothes, David drew her into the bedroom then fell backwards onto the bed, pulling the now naked Grace on top of him. His right arm reached round behind her, pushing her up his body until she was straddling his face.

  With his head buried deep between her thighs he let his tongue tease and tantalize her, and she fell forward so that her hands were flat on the bed each side of his head, supporting the weight of her upper body.

  She was frantic now, moaning and crying out as the pleasure grew and grew. Still his tongue teased her, flicking around her swollen, aching clitoris before thrusting deep inside her for a few seconds, then returning to the clitoris again.

  Every time she felt she was about to come he would change what his tongue was doing, and the breaks in rhythm meant that she remained balanced on the edge of her orgasm for what seemed like an eternity. Then, as her cries grew more frantic he drew her clitoris into his mouth, sucking gently on the mass of nerve endings while at the same time slipping a finger between her buttocks and caressing the paper-thin skin around her second opening.

  As her climax exploded, the pleasure spread through every inch of her body and then she screamed with delight. Without pausing, he rolled her onto her back, hooked her legs over his shoulders and thrust himself deeply inside her.

  The last tingles of her long-delayed climax were still dying away as he moved in and out of her, his movements slow and steady at first but then quickening. She felt the sparks of pleasure reigniting and once more her muscles contracted in a spasm that was so intense it was almost painful.

  Her back arched off the bed as she climaxed for the second time. Now his hands gripped her hips, and he continued to move in and out of her, rotating his own hips until he found her G-spot. To her surprise she realized that her body was tightening once more, the heavy pressure building deep within her belly until, with a groan of pleasure mixed with despair, she was shaken by another intense orgasm.

  She heard herself cry out, and then heard David gasp loudly as finally he allowed his own pleasure to spill, and she felt him shuddering above her, until finally he too was still.

  Rolling off her he then pulled her against his damp, sweat-soaked body. “You were wonderful, my darling,” he murmured, “absolutely wonderful. Now you’d better get that beauty sleep I promised you.”

  As her breathing slowed and her sated body lay limply on the sheets, Grace was keenly aware that although it had been some of the best sex they’d ever had, David had got his way. Her body would definitely be tired when they arrived at the Dining Club the following morning.

  * * *

  By ten the next morning they’d already called in at Grace’s apartment and were on their way. Waiting at some traffic lights, David saw that Grace was almost half-asleep beside him, and felt a fleeting moment of guilt about what had happened the previous night.

  He’d known full well that what he was doing wasn’t fair on her, but hadn’t been able to stop himself. When he’d learned that she and Andrew had met at the King’s Head, and that Andrew had gone back to the flat with her, he’d experienced a moment of jealous fury that was totally new to him. Even though she’d been open and honest about it when he’d phoned her, the jealousy had lingered all the following day, distracting him from his work, and he hadn’t liked it. Possessing her last night had been both a primitive need to reaffirm that she was his, and also a punishment for her, because of what he knew was waiting for her at the Club.

  If jealousy was the price of love, then that was another reason for trying to avoid it, he thought to himself, yet Grace already meant too much to him. Somehow she’d found her way under his skin and into his heart, and he’d never felt so vulnerable before. The only way he could stop their relationship now was if she failed this weekend. Then he would have to walk away, but he was torn between his need for her and his fear of how his life would be changed once he admitted his love.

  If she succeeded this weekend, he would then have to tell her about table five, because that was in the rules. Normally no one was interested in table five, but he knew her well enough to be fairly certain that now, after all she’d seen and done at the Dining Club, she would be interested, because of Amber, who hadn’t managed to hide her determination to make Grace fail.

  That inability to conceal her feelings had almost certainly allowed Grace to realize the full extent of the other woman’s importance to him. His feelings for Amber were nothing like his feelings for Grace, but he liked the security of knowing that with her running the Dining Club he would never be sexually bored.

  If Grace should succeed in both the trials then David’s life would change radically, and he didn’t know how he’d cope with that. He’d always liked the sheer animal magnetism and wonderful perversity that Amber brought to the sexual challenges at the Dining Club, as well as their occasional private moments, and didn’t believe that any one woman was capable of being all things to him. There had been times during the last week when he’d faced the fact that perhaps he couldn’t ever fall in love in the way that other men did, yet he didn’t want that either. If Grace failed this weekend he wouldn’t have to keep turning the problem over and over in his mind, which might well be the best solution, and not impossible to arrange.

  “Each man kills the thing he loves,” he murmured to himself.

  “Oscar Wilde,” said Grace sleepily.

  “What?”

  “Oscar Wilde wrote that. He said the coward does it with a kiss.”

  “Did he indeed,” said David, wondering why she’d quoted that particular line. “We’re nearly there now, darling. How do you feel?”

  “Still nervous, but sad in a way too. I think I’ve become addicted to the Club, although I might change my mind after tonight I suppose.”

  David stopped the car at the gate at the end of the road and waited for the man to let them through. “Actually, this trial is in two parts. It begins after lunch and then concludes tonight,” he explained. “Obviously
as it’s the last one it’s more complicated.”

  “And more difficult?”

  “Well yes, of course.”

  “It’s spread over two sessions in one day and yet last night you…”

  “I got carried away,” he said apologetically. “Here we go,” he said, and eased the car down the road and into the drive of the Dining Club. Once parked, he turned, and took hold of Grace’s hands. Whatever happened, whatever he decided to do as the weekend progressed, he wanted her to understand the depth of his feelings at this moment, and he knew that she needed to hear it too.

  “I really want you to succeed, darling. I know you may be doubting that now, but I do. Success for you this weekend will make me happier than I’ve ever been in my life before.

  “Also, if you succeed then I can tell you about table five, and table five is very special to me.”

  “Does table five involve another trial?” she asked nervously. “I thought that there were only four.”

  He felt another twinge of guilt. “Only if you choose; it’s an option that’s rarely offered and has never yet been taken up.”

  “Why?”

  “Sweetheart, I can’t tell you yet. Just remember, if you succeed this weekend I’ll be happier than I’ve ever been in my life before. That’s all you need to think about over the next two days. Whatever happens, however difficult it is, think of us and remember that’s why you’re doing it, for us and our future.”

  With that he leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips, just as Oscar Wilde’s coward had done.

  Chapter Three

  Sitting on the end of the bed watching David unpack, Grace wondered what lay ahead of her and if she would ever return to the Dining Club after this weekend. For the moment she was pushing all thoughts of table five to the back of her mind. This weekend was what she’d always thought of as the top trial.

  She remembered the woman who’d hoped to marry her lover, and how she’d failed. So many sensual struggles had already taken place, and yet two more sessions of pleasure mixed with frustration or pain still lay ahead of her. Two more tests of her ability to control her own sensuality, a sensuality that had been honed and heightened by the three trials she’d already passed.