Lingering Shadows. Penny Jordan

aware that he was almost shivering with the intensity of what he was feeling. He closed his eyes, trying to blot out her image, trying to deny his need to reach out to her, to touch her face, to explore its delicacy, to see if the full smoothness of her lips felt as soft and silken as it looked. They reminded him of the petals of a poppy, vulnerable, rich, drawing the eye and enticing the touch, but all too easily bruised if treated too roughly.

      He gave another deep shudder, his body racked by the physical torment of his desire, by the emotional impact of his reaction to her. He felt somehow awed, and humbled, his mind a jumble of conflicting sensations and needs. He had an unfamiliar urge to throw himself at her feet, to tell her she was the most perfect, the most beautiful human being he had ever seen. He wanted to hold her, to cherish her, to tell her how much she moved him and in how many ways, and he wanted also to crush her body beneath his own, to enter her and possess her and hear her cry out with the same elemental, savage urge that pulsed through him.

      That he should feel this way made him both elated and ashamed.

      Saul’s father was a very moral man, and, despite what Saul had observed happening in the world around him, a part of him retained his father’s earliest teachings: that women were to be cherished and revered, protected and treated with tenderness and care. It confused him now that he should experience both that tenderness and at the same time an alien and very sharp physical desire that he could only translate in his own mind as somehow pagan and dangerous.

      When he opened his eyes, trying dizzily to clear his mind, she had gone. The curtains were still drawn back, fluttering slightly in the breeze.

      She had, he realised, opened the window. Had she seen him … watching her? A dark red tide of guilt and embarrassment burned his skin. He turned to his work, resolutely keeping his back to the house.

      Half an hour passed, longer, but he still could not relax, his muscles taut and stressed.

      He heard the back door open but he dared not turn round. The grass muffled the sound of her approach, but he still knew that she was there, even before he heard the slow seduction of her voice saying, ‘Hi. You must be Saul. I’m Angelica.’

      He had to turn round. He couldn’t ignore her. She was tall, but nowhere near his own height. Her body was now clothed in jeans and a dark grey baggy sweater with a neckline that left her collarbone exposed and with it the graceful, delicate curve of her shoulder and throat.

      She was close enough for him to catch her scent. He could feel the heat searing his body, the ache of wanting. She smiled at him, perfectly composed, perfectly at ease.

      She had long, slanting hazel eyes … cat’s eyes, and close to her mouth was just as full, just as enticing as it had seemed at a distance. Her skin was matt and smooth, her nails, when she lifted her hand to push the tumble of her hair off her face, free of lacquer and yet somehow glossy and attractive.

      He had a shocking second’s vision of them lying against his skin, digging into it, the kind of vision he had never had in his life, and with the heat of embarrassment that poured through his body came a sharp sense of surprise that he who had never experienced such a thing should know so clearly and so unequivocally how it would feel to have the fierce rake of her nails against his flesh, the passionate twisting of her body beneath his own.

      ‘I’m just having a drink. Want one?’

      The casual words focused his attention on reality, although he couldn’t quite bring himself to look directly into her eyes, just in case she was laughing at him. Instead he looked round as though somehow expecting to see the usual glass of juice materialising out of thin air. He was thirsty, he recognised, his throat raw and dry. He nodded, still unable to trust his voice.

      ‘Come on, then.’ She turned back towards the house, plainly expecting him to follow her.

      He dug the spade into the earth and did so.

      He had been inside the house before on many occasions, but this time it felt different … almost as though in some way he was trespassing … or walking into danger. He felt the hairs on his arms lift as he paused on the threshold of the kitchen to remove his boots.

      His socks were old heavy-duty ones he wore when he was working. There was a hole in one toe and he blushed furiously as he saw it. He couldn’t imagine her ever wearing anything with holes in it … ever looking less than the picture of immaculate perfection she presented now. When his sister wore jeans they looked like jeans. On this girl … And that sweater …

      He felt himself go hot as into his mind slipped a mental image of his tugging it down over her shoulder to expose her flesh to the exploration of his mouth. He imagined her winding her arms around his neck, pressing herself up against him, making small excited noises of pleasure in his ear.

      ‘Coffee do, or would you prefer something stronger? Always supposing you’re old enough to drink it.’

      Her words brought him back to reality. He swung round and then flushed as he saw the way she was looking at him. ‘Coffee will do fine,’ he told her thickly.

      He watched, fascinated, as she lit herself a cigarette. He had never been able to understand why anyone should want to poison themselves with nicotine, but now, watching as she perched on the edge of the kitchen table, supporting her weight with one slender hand, arching her back so that her breasts were clearly outlined beneath her sweater, he suddenly wished that he too was a smoker; that he could go up to her and lean close to her as he lit his cigarette from hers.

      ‘Coffee’s over there,’ she told him, gesturing towards the filter machine but not making any attempt to help him. ‘Help yourself.’

      He moved awkwardly across the kitchen, conscious of his mud-stained jeans, his holey socks, the sweat drying on his body in the warmth of the room.

      ‘Not much to say for yourself, have you?’ she commented mockingly. ‘Will you be working here all week?’

      He nodded, his body tensing as he saw the way her nipples were pushing against the wool of her sweater.

      Feverishly febrile images tormented his senses. Mentally he pictured her naked body as he had seen it earlier. Beneath her sweater she was naked now. He knew it. He ached to go over to her, to reach out and touch her, not in lust but with all the aching emotion, all the weakening need, all the unexpected reverence for the perfection of her body that he could feel tormenting him, sweeping aside all that he had previously thought he believed about sex.

      Within three days they were lovers. Angelica was the one who initiated their intimacy, laughing at his hesitancy, his shyness and his inexperience, and then suddenly heart-stoppingly ceasing to laugh at him when she touched his naked body, stroking it with her fingertips, and then with her soft open mouth, doing to him unimaginable, unbearable things that made him forget his inexperience and his hesitancy as he took hold of her and possessed her, making her cry out with sharp pleasure.

      By the end of the week it was as though he had known her all his life, as though she had always been a part of him. Each time, he tried to find some new way to please her, to show her how much he loved her.

      She had no inhibitions, knew no boundaries, and if at first he was semi-shocked by her lack of hesitation or shyness, that shock quickly disappeared under the expert ministrations of her hands and her mouth.

      One afternoon when it was unexpectedly mild she insisted on making love outside, in the wild, overgrown section of the garden out of sight of the house.

      Afterwards she smiled languorously, showing her teeth like a stalking cat as she whispered to him, ‘Mm … very D.H. Lawrence, but I think I prefer doing it inside, and there are still some things we haven’t tried.’

      As he held her close, wanting to prolong the intimacy they were sharing, she leaned towards him, telling him explicitly what she would like to do.

      It still had the power to shock him, this almost aggressive sexuality she possessed, but he was too besotted with her to question why he should want to recoil from any evidence that this was not her first experience of sexual pleasure. He knew that