For one tense moment, as I perched with my legs wrapped around Will’s hips and his hands clasped beneath my bottom, holding me up, I thought he was going to stagger and fall with me on to the chaise longue.
‘Jesus, be careful,’ I hissed, still clinging to the open bottle by its expensive neck. ‘That’s Louis Quinze.’
But thank God for sinewy, strong, horny-handed sons of the soil, because Will recovered his balance and continued in the direction of the drawing-room door, grimly intent on getting me to the bedroom.
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said, nudging the door open with his toe and carrying me into the vast hall. ‘You’re the expert.’
He found the back stairs to the old servants’ quarters and plodded heroically across the parquet.
‘I hope you’re an expert too,’ I said, breathing hotly into his ear. ‘And not just when it comes to grounds maintenance.’
‘I’ve never had any complaints.’ He smirked and stopped to add another kiss to our already substantial tally. ‘All that digging comes in handy when you need to carry women upstairs and throw them on to beds.’
‘You’ve obviously dug a lot.’
‘Yeah.’
But once we reached the third flight of steps he had to stop talking and concentrate on the job in hand. On our arrival in his room, with its sloping ceiling and low beams, he was starting to feel the strain, beads of sweat shiny on his forehead.
It was clearly a relief to him when he was able to lower me on to his bed and stand straight, stretching his limbs and grimacing. I could have lived without the grimaces, but this at least gave me the opportunity to run my eyes with avid greed over his body.
Will spent all day, every day, in the open air and it showed, in his healthy tan and his solid build, his broad shoulders and densely packed thighs. He wasn’t my usual type at all – sturdy and studly where I usually went for wispy and fey – but two weeks cooped up in this place with no other company had worked its erotic magic on me and now I thirsted for him.
He fell to his knees on the mattress, towering over me, giving me the full roguish glint.
‘So now I’ve got you in my lair, Sarah …’ he whispered.
‘Your lair, eh? Your eyrie, high above the park.’
I propped myself on an elbow and put the wine bottle down on the bedside table.
‘Something like that.’ He put a hand on my collarbone and pushed me roughly back down.
‘You sound as if you’re the hunter and I’m your prey,’ I said, reaching out and grabbing his wrist. ‘But I’m not sure you’ve got it the right way around.’
He swung one leg around so that he straddled me and pinned me down with my wrists above my head.
‘I’m pretty sure I have,’ he said, leaning down low to rasp the words into my ear. ‘Aren’t you?’
Enjoying the feeling of restraint I twisted and turned and tried to buck him off me, knowing I wouldn’t succeed, not wanting to succeed, but wanting the resistance, the friction, the arousing sense of powerlessness it all led to.
He chuckled, understanding the game and its unspoken rules, and held me all the firmer.
‘No way, Sarah,’ he taunted, releasing one wrist and catching both in one hand, just to show me that he could. ‘Now I’ve got you where I want you, I’m not letting you go.’
‘You planned this, then?’
He shut me up with a kiss, a fierce stamp of his lips on mine. His free hand closed around the neckline of my shirt then undid the top three buttons.
‘Of course I did. I’ve been watching you. Ever since you came here.’
More buttons slid open, then Will’s rough palm was on my bare skin, beneath my bra cups, gliding over my ribs and stomach.
‘Nobody else to look at, is there?’ I whispered, but I was starting to lose the capacity for repartee, especially when his mouth descended on my neck, then the hollow of my throat, then my cleavage.
The heaving of my chest and my little moan of pleasure must have given him the clue that it would be safe to release my wrists. I colluded with him now instead of fighting him. We were working together in the pursuit of pleasure. And this was where things always became a little awkward for me.
I was so anxious to be ‘good in bed’ – to be active and passionate and skilled – that I lost all grip on what I was feeling myself.
Objectively I knew that he was sucking on my nipple and it should feel good – it did feel good – but the feeling good was layered beneath my own worries about what I was doing to make him feel good. A former lover had enjoyed it when I massaged the back of his neck at times like these. Would that be a good move? I tried it. He seemed to appreciate it. Or was I irritating him and he was just too polite to say so? Not that he could say much, with a mouthful of nipple. Oh, God. It was too difficult. I couldn’t disconnect, could never go with the flow. If only the flow would just come and take me, throw me up on its racing tide and carry me, swirling in white water, into the depths where real, unforced pleasure lay. I knew it existed. History showed that it was real. Why couldn’t it ever be real for me?
His head rose, his eyes peering at me from above my breasts.
‘Bloody bras,’ he muttered. ‘Whoever invented them wants shooting.’
He plucked at the underwires until I obligingly sat up and unhooked it myself. I looked down at my breasts, amazed at how much larger my nipples could grow, then turned my face back to Will when he cupped them and rubbed his thumbs around the sensitive nubs.
‘I hope it didn’t kill the moment too much,’ I said apologetically.
‘Sh, don’t be daft. The removal of the bra is a rite of passage. I’m used to it.’
‘I bet you are.’ I reached out for his T-shirt, pulling it out of his jeans waistband. He followed my cue and removed it himself, his arms stretching up away from an expanse of mouthwateringly taut chest above a flat abdomen, everything where it should be. His skin was golden and he had a tattoo on his right bicep, one of those Celtic knots encompassing the muscle.
‘I like your tattoo. Celtic blood?’
‘Nah. Everyone was having these done back then.’
He flexed his arm then pounced back down, his nose hovering millimetres above mine.
‘You don’t have any little surprises for me, then? Tattoos? Piercings?’ His fingers drifted over my nipples, my navel, towards my trousers, under the waist …
‘No, no,’ I gasped, before he came to land, palm-first, in my pubic bristles. Damn. Why had I not realised I was going to let him seduce me tonight? I squirmed, pulling my lower body away from his explorations. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Hey, hey.’ He held up his hand, his lower lip jutting a little. ‘It’s OK if you don’t want to –’
‘I do want to. It’s just … I didn’t wax.’
‘Oh God, do you think I care about that?’ He shook his head and set to unfastening my buttons. ‘You can perm it and dye it pink for all I care.’