The Pleasure Quartet (31 page)

‘It’s not until two,’ he said. ‘We have an hour. Not nearly long enough.’

He kissed me again, this time so forcefully that the weight of his body pushed me backwards and up against the wall. Our tongues met. He tasted of fresh coffee and mouthwash. His hands landed on my hips and he held me tightly, his thumbs drawing a line beneath the ridge of my pelvis.

‘Christ, Summer,’ he said, stepping back. ‘Have you been standing outside in the rain?’

I laughed. And grasped the hem of my dress, preparing to pull it over my head but he prevented me, placing his palms on my forearms.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me.’

Noah took my hand and led me to the bed. It was monstrous; an island of a thing that dominated the room, with a padded headboard covered in an oyster-coloured quilted fabric and a matching coverlet. To the left of the bed, opposite the door, the thick drapes were pulled back and revealed a view of the ocean, still murky after the recent downpour. The heavens had turned from grey to purple, the colour of an old bruise. Waves crashed against each other, stirring up a deep blue soup, white lines of froth billowing across the surface of the water halfway out to sea.

‘I love the weather here,’ I murmured. ‘So alive.’

He had the air-conditioning switched off and there was no sound in the room besides the hush of our breathing and the whirr of the fan that turned slowly over the bed, washing a draught over my skin.

A fluffy bathrobe, in the same muted silvery tone that permeated the rest of the décor, lay across the coverlet. He sat down next to it and I stood in front of him. He looked up at me, my hands still in his, palms turned up. His skin was so warm the contrast between his temperature and mine made me shiver.

The three-day shadow that had lined his jaw and the top of his mouth when we first met had thickened and now formed the beginnings of a beard. He hadn’t shaved for long enough that his stubble was soft to the touch, not prickly. His eyes were as dark as the sky outside had been, during the thick of the storm. He had a deep tan, much darker than mine although he hadn’t spent anywhere near as much time beneath a South American sun as I had. His brows were the same deep chocolate brown as the rest of his hair, and animated when he spoke. He lit up when he smiled.

Noah wore his emotions across his face. Watching him was a joy, his moods visibly changing in the turn of his lips, the arch of an eyebrow, the sharp intelligence in his eyes, the intensity of his gaze. Age lines had worn gentle furrows across his forehead, but he didn’t have that resigned, tired look of someone who has spent too long behind a computer. He could have passed for one of the whip-trim surfers who rose before the crowds did to dance across the breakers on Copacabana beach. A man of passions who saw the wisdom in indulging them.

The pads of his fingers traced a map along the skin of my inner wrist up to my elbow and down again.

He let go of my hands, took hold of the bottom of my dress and pulled it up. I wriggled, helping him shift the sodden fabric over my head.

Noah’s eyes ranged over my body. There was no judgement in his scrutiny, only lust, curiosity and kindness. He seemed to be drinking me in, as if he intended to memorise all of my perfections and flaws and replay them again later.

He reached forward and brushed over my skin, the flat of his hand, knuckles, and sometimes his fingertips caressing my breasts, my torso and down to my slit where he grazed across my lips with a feather-light touch before moving away again.

‘Oh,’ I said, softly.

‘You’re cold.’

He picked up the robe that lay next to him and wrapped it around my shoulders.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘Tell me why you were crying.’

How I wanted him to keep touching me. When he pulled his hand away, I felt bereft, as if my anchor had been cut and dropped into the sea.

‘Lie down,’ he told me, and tugged my wrist, motioning that I should join him on the bed.

Noah scooted backwards so his whole body was supported by the mattress and propped his head up onto his elbow. I did the same, and we lay facing each other, a few inches’ gap separating our bodies.

He lifted the soft towelling fabric that had slipped over my waist to cover my legs as if he were pulling back a curtain. Continued to explore the surface map of my body. My nipples had stiffened again. This time, the room temperature was not to blame.

I searched for the right words to answer his question. How could I possibly explain all the events of a lifetime, try to tell him who I was and what secrets I carried inside me? As if he were my confessor and I his supplicant. Even if we’d had all night, I could not have helped him understand. How could he, when I so often didn’t even understand myself?

‘I’ve done so many things,’ I answered him. ‘Terrible things.’

‘And so many terrible things have been done to you.’

His touch skittered across my jaw. He rested his index finger for a moment on my lower lip.

‘Things that I wanted,’ I insisted.

‘I don’t think that’s always been true.’

‘I suppose that depends on how you look at it. If you could see into my mind . . . my thoughts. The things that I dream about.’

I was convinced that if he really knew me, he would want me no longer.

‘We all have our shadows, Summer,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.’ He smiled at his own joke. ‘Besides, your shadows are what I want. I want all of you. The dark parts as well as the light. One day, you can tell me everything. Lay bare whatever it is that you think is so terrible.’

I closed my eyes. Tried to blank out the whirring of my thoughts and concentrate on the pressure of his fingertips that now lingered on the curve of my buttocks. My body shifted on the mattress as he moved, redistributing his weight. His hair tickled my breasts. One of his hands moved down to my upper thigh, pushed it down onto the bed, rolling me onto my back. The firm denim of his jeans and crisp cotton of his T-shirt scraped over my torso as he crawled down my body. His lips followed the pattern of his retreat, pressing a path down to my groin.

I realised what he was doing and froze. Threaded my hands through his hair and tugged, gently pulling him back up towards me.

‘I want to see you,’ he said, ‘all of you.’

He took hold of my other leg and pushed it down. I was spread open, my inner thighs trapped in the vice of his grip.

Dominik had done this to me, I recalled. In the dim shadow of his study, he had examined me beneath the fierce glare of his desk lamp.

At first, Noah didn’t touch me. Just looked.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he said.

I felt utterly bare. There was a transgression inherent in the act, the most intimate parts of me on display to him in the broad light of day, without the presence of any distraction at all in the form of music, alcohol, or the usual swift fumblings of lust. This was slow and deliberate.

He lowered his head to my delta and began to lick.

‘Oh, god,’ I breathed.

The flick of his tongue turned the desire that was slowly simmering inside me into a full tide of lust. My muscles tightened and I squirmed as he lapped at my clitoris. He pinned my legs down in response, ignoring my attempts to escape the sensitivity that the firm point of his tongue had aroused.

His explorations continued for an age. I was writhing, grabbing his head, the cushions, the coverlet, anything to try to quell the orgasm that I teetered on the brink of before it tore me apart.

I wanted to feel him.

He was on his haunches, bent over me. I wriggled my foot beneath him, brushing against his cock through his jeans. He was hard, and large. I shifted, trying to turn myself around so that I could unbuckle his trousers and take him into my mouth.

He lifted his head. Clamped his hands even tighter around my thighs.

‘Don’t move.’

I lay still, at least as still as I could, as he continued his explorations.

‘I want you inside me,’ I told him.

Had I brought any condoms? I tried to remember whether I still had some in my purse, still zipped into the pocket from the trip to Recife with Raoul. Would Noah have any nearby? I felt a piercing, and totally illogical, I knew, burst of jealousy, imagining him with another woman, and then an even more irrational burst of arousal at the image of him fucking someone else. It wasn’t a fantasy that I was by any means certain I wanted to occur in real life, but right then the idea of it made my pulse quicken and my skin heat. I could feel a red-hot flush travelling from my chest up to my face, which had no doubt turned a blotched shade of pink.

‘I don’t care,’ he said.

‘Please,’ I breathed.

‘I like it when you beg. But the answer is still no. I want to taste you. And feel you come in my mouth.’

He drove his tongue through the valley of my slit, circled my nub, used the flat of his teeth to apply just the right degree of pressure to my folds. A low hum of pleasure emitted from his throat. Noah was groaning.

We were interrupted by the shrill ring of his room’s phone. He ignored it. An automatic message played, and then the sound of the concierge. ‘Mr Ballard, your taxi has arrived. Your driver is waiting at reception.’

Noah was immovable.

I tugged his hair.

‘Noah, your flight.’

He slipped two fingers inside me.

‘Ohhh, fuck . . .’

I drove my hips onto his hand.

He collected my juices.

Inserted a lubricated finger up my arse.

‘Oh, fuck,’ I cried out. ‘I’m coming, Noah, I’m coming . . .’ It felt right to call his name, to hear the word pass my lips.

Noah shuddered, his desire obvious in every taut muscle in his body as he continued to grip my legs and hold me in place. I bucked and writhed against him and he kept lapping, and lapping.

‘Jesus Christ.’

I clutched the pillows, certain that I might tear through the silky fabric of the cases with my nails.

I came again. A smaller climax, the second time.

The spasms in my limbs gradually subsided. I lay there, spent. Utterly relaxed.

He lifted himself up, balancing his body over mine, and kissed me. His lips and tongue tasted of me, a sweet sea-salt tang.

‘Summer Zahova,’ he murmured, ‘I think I love you.’

‘I think I love you,’ I replied.

I wasn’t sure if we were joking.

‘But I have to go,’ he continued.

‘Christ, yes!’ I exclaimed. ‘Your cab . . .’

He wiped his face on the corner of the robe. Smiled at me broadly. Then flew off the bed and grabbed his case that was sitting open on the floor, already packed. He pulled out a white-collared dress shirt and threw it over to me. ‘So you have something dry to wear home,’ he said. ‘Room check-out is at two, so you can stay until then. Have a shower if you want to.’

He zipped his baggage shut and snapped the lock. A laptop bag was resting by the door, he slung it over his shoulder, then felt around in the side pocket and pulled out his passport, checking it was there.

I followed him to the door.

‘You have my number in London?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Call me. When you’re ready.’

He lifted my chin. Kissed me again.

And left.

9

Skin on Skin

Summer had been back in London for a fortnight before she finally decided to meet Noah again. She’d arrived at Heathrow in the early hours of a bleak, shadowy morning and called Lauralynn as she was waiting for her luggage to emerge on the carousel. Somehow Lauralynn had seemed anything but surprised to hear from her and greeted her with undisguised affection, immediately insisting that she take a cab to Belsize Park forthwith. Viggo was away recording in the south of France, where Lauralynn was due to join him in under forty-eight hours, but Summer was welcome to remain in their house for as long as she wished. Summer’s own flat had been rented out while she was away travelling and the tenants had a three-month notice period so the choice was either finding a hotel or staying with acquaintances. She’d suggested the former but Lauralynn stood her ground, and it had actually been something of a relief to Summer who felt terribly uneasy at the prospect of residing yet again in a lonely hotel room, with all the consequences it might entail, knowing her character and past inclinations.

The spare bedroom on the top floor of the house became hers again. It hadn’t changed much, bed piled high with cushions in every colour of the rainbow, high windows looking out over a panorama of red-tiled roofs and the taller branches of the sycamore trees outside fluttering in the directionless currents of the breeze.

Lauralynn was all ears, eager for news and more from Summer’s sojourn in South America and was as ever anything but judgemental, listening with rapt attention and an indulgent look of amusement on her face. If anyone knew the quirks of Summer’s nature by now it was Lauralynn, but she had never been one to take advantage of this knowledge, was a true friend and, when the occasion was right, an accomplished accomplice. The effects of the red-eye flight had soon taken a hold of Summer’s body and energy and she had retreated upstairs for an early first night back in London. Lauralynn’s embrace had been warm, almost motherly, and there was no hint of a suggestion that Summer come to her bed, as had sometimes happened on previous occasions.

‘I have to start packing soon anyway,’ Lauralynn had said. ‘There are quite a few things Viggo has asked me to fetch, in addition to my own, and I’m going to have to do some foraging in his drawers to locate them all.’

Summer had carried herself up the stairs and, once in the bedroom, realised she had left her suitcase down by the front door. She stripped naked and, too lazy to take a shower and clean away the journey between continents, crawled under the duvet and was asleep in a wink.

Left to her own devices all too rapidly after Lauralynn was picked up by a minicab and driven to Heathrow for her flight to Nice, Summer had decided to renew her sometimes complicated relationship with London before making contact with anyone else, even Susan and Noah. To seek peace in the exploration of a city that was as contradictory as she was, by turns barbaric and civilised, both elements sometimes operating together on the same street corner.