Someone Like You (25 page)

Felix shot her an impressed look. ‘I had no idea you were an aficionado of the theatre, my love,’ he said.

Hannah smiled serenely. ‘Never underestimate me,’ she said in a mock severe voice.

The play was wonderfully clever and Hannah wasn’t sure if it was her heightened sense of pleasure that made it so thrilling for her, or the fact that Felix sat silently beside her, one hand wedged against her thigh, stroking her knee through the fabric of her long dress.

In the interval, they mingled with the other theatregoers, Felix leading her by the hand as they drifted from group to group, all comers hugging and kissing him delightedly. He was quite the star, she realized, as the fifth person threw their arms around Felix and congratulated him on the wonderful reviews he’d received for his last role. From the comments, she’d established that he’d had a small part in a British/Canadian production set in the 1800s. He was now filming a small-budget British film that was being made in Ireland and it appeared that at least half of the Irish acting fraternity were involved in some way.

‘Terrible tosh, but it pays the mortgage,’ sighed one elegant man in a velvet suit, who had a small role in the film.

‘Wouldn’t touch that sort of brainless rubbish!’ sniffed an actress, whom Felix whispered had been sent off after her first audition.

After lots of air-kissing and cries of ‘You must come to supper with us sometime soon, dear boy,’ Hannah and Felix made their way back to their seats for the second half.

‘Let’s make a speedy getaway when it’s over,’ he murmured into her ear, his breath caressing. ‘I want you all to myself and, if we hang around, we’ll have an entourage.’

After

the third curtain call, Felix whisked Hannah out of the theatre, into a taxi and across the river to the Trocadero, the traditional after-theatre restaurant and a famous haunt of actors.

Annexing a small table at the back, Felix ordered smoked salmon and champagne for both of them without even looking at the menu.

Hannah wasn’t sure what excited her more: the way this fabulous man was gazing at her hungrily, or the way he’d taken charge of everything. There was something so masterful about him, it gave her a frisson of erotic excitement to think about being in bed with him. Imagine how utterly in control he’d be then, that hard golden body driving into hers, naked skin on skin …

Soft bread rolls came. Felix buttered one thickly for her and fed her small bits, letting her savour the taste of butter melting into the feather-light roll. ‘It’s soft, liquid and delicious,’ he said. ‘That’s what it’s going to feel like when I make love to you, Hannah. Delicious, but-‘ he grinned wickedly - ‘not soft.’

Hannah gulped. This was all moving too fast, yet she couldn’t help herself: she wanted him too.

The champagne arrived. Felix never took his eyes off her as he drank from his glass. The liquid exploded in Hannah’s mouth, like exquisite pins and needles dancing across her tongue.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he said softly, reaching out with long fingers to touch her face. He traced the high cheekbones, trailed his fingers across her full, quivering lips, letting one finger slide languorously into her mouth. Instinctively, she sucked on it, holding him prisoner while her tongue ran over it, tasting the saltiness of his skin. As moments went, it was more erotic than any she’d ever shared with a man before, and they were in a restaurant! Lord only knew what it’d be like to be alone with him, without a phalanx of waiters and other diners as chaperones.

Felix’s wide mouth curved into a wicked smile, one that ignited something deep inside Hannah. Desire surged through her like a bursting dam. He pulled his finger out, then slid it into his own mouth as if tasting her. He put his head to one side consideringly. ‘Sweet,’ he pronounced.

‘Like you. Sweet…” his voice lowered an octave until it was the consistency of honey-covered gravel, ‘and ripe.’

Hannah breathed out raggedly.

A waiter appeared with two plates of smoked salmon.

Hannah wanted to grab Felix, tell the waiters to forget about the fish, and hightail it back to her flat where she’d show him exactly how sweet she was.

But Felix attacked his plate with the same fascination he’d shown when caressing her. ‘I’m so hungry,’ he growled, squeezing lemon on to his food with one hand and forking up slivers of smoked salmon with the other.

She watched him eat for a while, not hungry herself because desire had elbowed all other primary urges out of the way.

She loved the way his blond hair flopped over those hypnotic eyes and the way his huge mouth opened wide, white teeth gleaming as he consumed his meal. He was a man of passion, she thought wistfully, passionate about food, about love, about life and about sex.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked, looking at her untouched plate.

She gave a wry smile. ‘Not really. You’ve taken my appetite away.’

Felix pulled her plate towards him and attacked that too. Hannah finished the champagne in her glass and poured more for both of them.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ she breathed.

With most people, that was a difficult request. With an actor, as Hannah was to discover, it was an invitation to declaim a speech as familiar to them as their face in the mirror each morning. Felix loved to talk about himself.

Eating hungrily and drinking big gulps of the champagne, he told her about his career and his hopes. Hannah, trying to keep up with him as far as the champagne was concerned, was enthralled.

He glossed over his youth and family. ‘I don’t talk about it,’ he said, dark eyes soulful as he gazed at hers. But he was happy to discuss everything else. At thirty-seven, he was finally on the edge of huge success. It had been a hard climb, he said, telling her about his stint in an ill-fated British soap and his first film role where his few minutes on screen had ended up on the cutting-room floor. But everything was about to change. A sitcom he had a small part in was growing in popularity and he was suddenly inundated with calls from casting agents. His time had come, Felix said proudly.

It was a life lived in the fast lane, full of parties, premieres, carousing and being one of the beautiful people.

But what Felix really wanted, Hannah felt instinctively, was security. He was like her, she knew it. Something in his past had tainted him and made him yearn for a safe haven he’d never had before. She could provide it for him.

The entourage arrived anyway, blowing kisses across banquettes in the Trocadero, waving at friends and waving even more animatedly at enemies.

‘We wondered where you two sneaked off to,’ said the man in the velvet suit accusingly.

‘Privacy is important to me,’ Felix replied blandly.

The entourage sniffed and surveyed the tables beside Felix and Hannah.

‘Sit somewhere else,’ he said rudely. ‘We want to be alone.’

Normally, she’d have hated that sort of rudeness, but it was different with Felix. He was so impossibly handsome and talented that people were drawn to him and the only way to get rid of them was to be brusque.

They’d talked their throats hoarse and the second bottle was nearly empty when the waiter came with complimentary Sambuccas.

‘I couldn’t,’ giggled Hannah, eyeing the small flaming glass of liqueur. ‘I’m drunk already. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I had any more.’

There was an evil glint in Felix’s dark eyes. ‘Can’t you?’

he said.

He’d been lounging back in his chair, regarding her possessively as he ran his long fingers around the rim of his glass. Now he pulled his chair forward. She jumped slightly as she felt one of his hands on her thighs under the table, sliding and pushing her long dress up her legs.

Even in her intoxicated state, Hannah tried to stop him.

There were other people around, someone might see.

‘Someone might see you,’ she said, scandalized.

‘So what?’ he enquired, one eyebrow raised sardonically.

‘Let them watch.’

Hannah looked shocked.

‘They can’t see,’ he assured her. ‘There’s a tablecloth hiding us.’

His hand finally pushed her dress up and with one long arm straining, his fingers moved up the silky skin of her thigh covered only by sheer tights. Hannah quivered as his fingers stroked her skin, only halfway up her thigh and yet, if his fingers slid even a centimetre further up, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from crying out. She couldn’t control the erotic feeling that rushed through her.

It was like being hooked up to a machine with electrodes delivering unimaginable pleasure to her erogenous zones.

His hand crept further up.

‘Next time we go out, you’ll have to wear stockings,’

Felix murmured. She gasped out loud and then, just as suddenly, his hand was gone. ‘Let’s go,’ he said roughly.

He kissed her in the taxi home, nothing more. Just luscious kisses which melted her insides as his tongue explored hers. Hannah could feel her heart beating like a metronome as she led him up the stairs to her front door.

She fumbled with her bunch of keys and giggled quietly at her own stupidity. Felix didn’t giggle. Finally, she managed to insert the correct key in the door and pushed.

‘It’s not Buckingham Palace …’ she began to say as she dropped her handbag on the hall table. She never got any further with her comments.

The front door closed and suddenly Felix was wrapped around her, arms clinging to her, hands probing and trying to pull off her coat. Their mouths were meshed together, lips hard against lips, tongues entwining and twisting in passion. Felix managed to rip her coat off and he began to slide her dress up her thighs. In return, she’d dragged off his jacket and was pulling at his shirt, not caring that buttons were pinging as she pulled, rattling against the floor like hailstones as they fell.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he purred, golden head moving down towards her breasts, fingers burrowing under her dress.

Like exquisitely practised Riverdancers, they moved apart long enough to pull off her dress and his trousers. Suddenly remembering that she was wearing that male bugbear tights - Hannah wrenched them off and thanked some deity she was wearing decent silky black knickers even if her bra was a boring old white cotton one. What a pity she wasn’t dressed to thrill in her coral see-through net rig-out. So she ripped off the cotton bra and looked up to find Felix, clad only in striped boxer shorts, watching her.

His body was glorious: lean, rangy, golden and perfectly proportioned. She could see the outline of his erection straining against the fabric of his shorts. In one swift move, he’d grabbed her, lifted her up and carried her to the couch.

Then he lay down on top of her, grinding his body into hers in triumph, running his hands over her torso, fingers kneading her erect nipples roughly, burying his mouth passionately in her hair.

‘You’re so beautiful, so sexy, I knew that the moment I saw you,’ he said hoarsely.

If he was turned on to some unbelievable level, he’d met his match in Hannah. The sexuality she’d kept under wraps for so much of her life exploded from her, like a bored tiger that had been in captivity suddenly released into a jungle throbbing with life. Their lovemaking was frantic and fierce, not the gentle, sweet lovemaking Hannah had remembered with Harry. That had been placid and comforting: this was fierce, primal and wild. Felix jammed his mouth against hers, plundering her mouth, desperate to taste every part of her. In turn, she dug her nails into his back when he jammed himself inside her, shrieking with relief at finally having his body become a part of hers. Joined together, they moaned and panted, frantic for release and just as frantic for this incredible lovemaking not to end. A sheen of perspiration coating her naked body, Hannah clung to Felix, pulling him deeper with her arms and legs, wrapping her long legs around his waist until she exploded in a firecracker of orgasm that was savage, primitive and utterly blissful.

As if he’d been waiting for her, Felix groaned, his body stiffened and he came, moaning her name over and over again until he fell on to the couch beside her, dank with sweat and exhausted.

They lay coiled together like puppies and breathed deeply. Hannah felt as if every muscle had been stretched to its limit. Her body was suffused with the glorious afterglow of orgasm and yet she felt at peace, as if this wild thing was what she was born for. Or maybe, she thought, with a pang of sheer adoration, it was Felix she was born for.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it softly.

‘You’re wonderful,’ he said.

‘Look, who’s talking,’ joked Hannah. ‘I’m so exhausted, Felix. I’m going to fall asleep here.’

‘Bed,’ he announced, getting to his feet gracefully and holding a hand out to her.

The birds were singing some exultant song when Hannah woke the next morning with a dull throbbing in her head from too much champagne. She shifted in the bed and her arm touched Felix’s warm body. It hadn’t been a dream; she beamed with sheer joy. What was a hangover to this feeling of happiness?

Moving quietly so she wouldn’t wake him, Hannah padded naked and barefoot into the kitchen and swallowed two headache tablets with a glass of water. After another glass to slake her hangover thirst, she crept into the bathroom. Her hair was a wild bush around her head, tangled curls in all directions. Her make-up, which naturally hadn’t seen cotton wool or cleanser the night before, was in patchy scales under her eyes. Her mouth was bruised from a combination of fierce kissing and from Felix’s late-night stubble. All in all, the sort of face to normally make Hannah groan. Only, today, something shone out from behind the tiredness, the redness and the panda eyes: something delirious and fulfilled. Her eyes sparkled and her mouth refused to stop smiling. She was happy, in love! She beamed at her reflection. Love, love, love.

After restoring herself to some of her former glory and brushing her teeth until her gums hurt in case she had bad breath, Hannah slid back under the duvet and wriggled over until she was half-lying on top of him. He didn’t appear to wake up, yet one hand moved gently to cup her breast, idly caressing the nipple expertly until Hannah sighed loudly. Felix opened one eye.