She licked a little trail downwards to beneath his earlobe, the tip of her tongue pointed and probing. His breath hitched.
‘Besides, you’re anything but chaste, Mr Flint. Virginity doesn’t equal chastity. Everyone knows you like to watch.’
He panicked at that and tried to rear up, but Julia pressed her hands hard on his shoulders and pinched, her nails digging into the black cloth of his shirt.
‘Shh, don’t, darling. Don’t resist it, don’t deny it.’
‘What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?’
‘I’m giving you what you need, for the pleasure of it. Because I want you, Adam. Very badly indeed.’
‘Nobody ever wants me.’
‘You try to repel them, with all your gloom and your talk of sin and your whiff of sulphur. Not literally, I mean. You smell rather nice. But you know what I mean. If you’d let that go, you’d be fending them off.’
She kissed the spot that her tongue-tip had recently bathed, then moved her lips down his neck. Tiny frissons unknotted his stomach and hardened his cock. Evie and the sports cupboard seemed very far away.
‘You think I’m attractive.’
‘Aw, bless you, fishing for compliments. You are attractive. Those lovely scared eyes, that flawless skin. Long limbs like a colt. Do you work out?’
‘No. I walk a lot.’
‘And you abstain from all pleasure. I suppose it keeps you fit and toned, if nothing else.’
‘All flesh is grass.’
She laughed and gave his neck a playful lick.
‘Negative,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the taste of grass.’
Events were a long way out of his control. How had he lost his grasp on his morality, his certainties, his entire philosophy of life so easily? Was it the pervasive taint of Saxonhurst, or was he simply weak? He had worked so hard, all his life, at avoiding weakness, all for this – his toil and labour washed away by the easy blandishments of these Saxonhurst women.
‘So you aren’t going to tell me about Evie?’
‘I’m not in the mood for telling. I’m in the mood for showing. Let it all out. Let all the bad feelings go, my love, so I can fill you up with the good ones. Let me help you.’
Her kisses on his neck grew more forceful, the vibrations they sent through him full-blooded, irresistible. His code of ethics was a balloon, floating up through the top of his head and up and away, far away, out of reach.
‘Come to bed.’
‘Julia, please, no.’ He tried to stand but his legs didn’t want to support his weight.
She gave his shoulders a final squeeze and hurried around to face him, pushing herself between his clenched legs and kneeling on the edge of the sofa there. Hooking one arm around the back of his neck, she yanked him into a kiss even fiercer than the one at the seaside, accepting nothing but full surrender until he fought back even harder, using his tongue, using his hands to envelop her, bringing her close until her trimly-skirted pubis ground against the bulge in his trousers.
She forced him to accept that he wanted and needed this contact, this connection, this liberation. Kissing as if it would save his life, he pressed his palm against her silk shirt, feeling the outline of a nipple poking through from inside its lace confines. She was excited, she desired him. The roar of power this knowledge sent straight to his head drove him to further exploration. He tugged her shirt from the waistband of her skirt and pushed his hand up inside, over her flat stomach and her protuberant ribs, up to her bra cups. The lace crackled and grazed against his skin. He closed his fingers over the little mounds, testing them for resistance, shape, texture. They felt every bit as satisfying as he’d imagined they would, in his off-guard moments.
She purred into his mouth, rotating her hips against his pelvis.
He delved inside a bra cup and rolled the gorgeously firm, round nipple he found there between his fingers, gently at first, then harder as her moans seemed to request.
‘Oh God,’ she gasped, breaking off from the scouring excavations of their tongues, ‘you’ve got the touch.’
‘Really?’ He was more flattered than he could say.
‘Really. But this isn’t about me.’
She set herself to loosening his clerical collar and reaching behind him to undo his buttons. He sat almost immobile, watching her at work, fascinated by the twin flushes in her usually pale cheeks, the sheen of her brow, the unaccustomed sparkle in her eyes. She looked astonishingly pretty and, oh God, why had the word fuckable popped into his head? Was it even a word?