“Nothing,” I say, in the same rough tone of voice. He pushes the door firmly into its frame. The noise seems deafening, as do his footsteps on the floor, because there is no other sound, except the singing of the wind in the hemisphere of the dome. And my hammering heart.
“Giles, it was Selena who did the graffiti! That must mean she’s—”
“Not interested.” He comes very close, till his flanks touch my knees where I’m sitting on the table top.
Incredibly, his fingers fasten on the top button of my blouse and undo it. There is no hesitation in his movement, although his male fingers are a little clumsy with the tiny plastic discs. Awkward, but not at all rough. Or hurried. I’m watching, going to pieces while I’m watching, as he undoes button after button, methodically and without haste or hesitation.
I stare down at his hands hovering over the open shirtfront, and although he has barely touched me, all the parts of my body capable of swelling are doing so. This is how the seamen on the Titanic must have felt, watching helplessly as bulkhead after bulkhead was inexorably flooded. Flooded, and going down fast.
But it’s no iceberg bringing me down. A slight tremor in his fingers betrays him, and it may be a sudden flagging of courage or a calculated move to pluck at the sinews of my restraint, but instead of sliding beneath the cotton fabric to touch bare skin, his hands slowly cup my breasts still hidden inside the blouse and bra. Miraculously, I manage to stay silent as a bolt of lust sizzles along the nerve strands connecting my breasts and my womb, only my breathing becomes faster as I watch his hands, slow and warm and firm, and my whole body relaxes against them.
I hear him sigh, his mouth very close to my ear. He seems to have been waiting for my body’s response, because now he parts the front halves of my blouse, pushes them apart with his fingertips almost negligently, and the tickling sensation is a delicious promise against my skin. I want to close my eyes and drift off in this wonderful erotic memory that I’m having, this memory of having sex with Giles Cleveland, but at the same time I’m mesmerized by the sight of his fingers gently squeezing my flesh. Up on my perch I am a little taller even than he; our foreheads are close enough to touch as we are looking down at his hands on my breasts, as if we were both spectators at an event that is happening without our volition.
Still I haven’t reached out for him. I need my hands to steady myself on my less than secure seat, and when he hooks his thumbs under the flimsy fabric and pushes it over my shoulders, gathers it behind my back in one large fist, my elbows are pinned to my side not only by my blouse but also by my astonishment. For a moment he holds me like this, a pinioned bundle of assistant professorship, my breasts pushed against his chest, which is of course securely encased in cotton and tweed, and I can tell the sight pleases him. He has not looked me in the eye once since he has entered the room.
So infinitely gentle before, then suddenly this force, and I hope and trust that we are only playing, because for a few breathless moments I cannot move a limb. If he is lowering his head to my neck to sink his teeth into my flesh till they draw blood, there is nothing I can do. The atavistic fear of the male flares up in me, instinctive and fierce, then his mouth touches the tender skin below my ear, and the sensation is so intense that I gasp with the shock of it, oblivious to whether it’s pain or pleasure he is giving me.
“That’s right,” he whispers, but I don’t know whether he’s enjoying my pleasure or my apprehension. With his mouth he explores the sensitive skin that covers the big artery in my throat, stops for a moment above the wildly pulsing area of flesh, and I tremble with sensation, I grope blindly for his hands, his wrists, to steady myself, my fingers inch into the sleeves of his jacket but I can’t feel much of his skin, he’s protected by his