St Matthew's Passion - By Sam Archer Page 0,17

a simple silver link securing the white shirt cuff at his wrist. From time to time she looked at his profile, a perfectly natural thing to do when he was talking, and marvelled at the cleanness of the lines of his face, the smooth straight nose, the wryly curving lips, the firm jaw with a dusting of night stubble. And every now and again he looked across at her in return, and his gaze pinned her to her seat and tightened her chest.

All too quickly the Jaguar reached the bohemian streets of Bayswater. She almost told him the wrong turn-off, wanting to prolong the journey by even a minute, but she bit her tongue. He pulled down the narrow mews and she pointed to the block of flats.

‘Here we are.’

‘Nice little street.’ He peered out the window, glancing around.

Melissa was suddenly gripped by a crazy notion. An idea so outrageous it could only have come from the wild region inside everyone that doesn’t care about rules or propriety or any of those civilised trappings.

What if I invite him in?

There could be no coyness about it. No ambiguously innocent enquiry if he’d like to “come in for coffee”. It was nearly two-thirty in the morning. He was a man, she was a woman, and there were feelings between them which she knew he was aware of as much as she was, even if they’d never come remotely close to discussing them or even referring to them. If she invited him in, and he accepted, they would both know exactly where things were going to lead.

It would force the issue out into the open, that was for sure. Put an end to this tension which, however giddying and perversely pleasurable, was quite frankly tearing her apart. If she asked him in and he accepted, their lives would change irreversibly. Her future, until a few weeks ago so mapped out, so dominated by a single goal, would at one stroke become a vast, frightening expanse of uncertainty.

And if he said no?

If he said no, her future would remain on track. She’d suffer humiliation, and horrified embarrassment, and a small part of her would wither and die and form a scar that would distort her soul a little.

Melissa had seconds to decide, every passing moment an eloquent statement in itself. The rush of physical sensation had become a torrent now. Fin sat watching her, the Jaguar’s engine idling. Had he leaned towards her a little or was she imagining it? Inadvertently she felt herself lean towards him. His face was close enough that his eyes, so grey and yet expressive, were flicking back and forth between hers. His mouth moved, the sensuous lips parting a fraction as if his breathing was deepening and he needed to inhale and exhale using more than his nose.

‘Hope you get some sleep,’ he murmured, raising his eyebrows.

The moment was gone, whipped away like a whisper into a hurricane, and Melissa was stammering her thanks and slamming the door and fumbling for her keys. When he didn’t immediately pull away she realised he was waiting to see her safely inside her flat, so she waved and walked to the entrance of the flats, trying to make it a saunter but feeling like a foal taking its first steps.

Her hand shook so much that it took her four attempts to push the key into the lock, and by the time she reached the warmth of her rooms the tremors had taken hold of her entire body so that she flopped on to her bed, fully clothed, weak and drained and in utter turmoil.

***

In Fin’s dream, she was before him, real in the sense that there was nothing hazy or insubstantial about her but ethereal in that he couldn’t touch her.

Melissa wore an evening dress, a shimmering blue number that bared her back and shoulders and sheathed her figure tightly and ended above her knees. Her blonde hair was piled artfully on top of her head and her lips and eyes were touched just lightly with makeup.

She moved in a slow dance in front of him, her huge eyes fixed on his, her limbs and hips shimmying to music only she could hear. He watched the slow pursing of her mouth, the liquid wink of light off moisture on the lower lip. His gaze travelled down the soft line of her throat to the hollow at its base, to her slim exposed shoulders and then further, over the swell of her