The Mill House (39 page)

Having dragged three suitcases out from under the eaves, she was returning for the last, when her foot kicked against something hard. She looked down, but in the dim light couldn't quite make out what it was. It certainly hadn't been there before, or she'd have noticed it, so it must have been jammed under one of the suitcases and worked itself free en route to the hatch. Stooping to pick it up, she tilted it towards the dim overhead bulb and saw that it was a large metal cash box, which, judging by its weight, contained something, though a good shake produced no sound of coins. She tried opening it, but the lid wouldn't budge, and despite being rusted, the hinges seemed pretty solid too.

Wondering if the key Shannon had found might fit, she set it down on top of an old sewing machine and went back for the one remaining case.

'Hello! Is anyone up there?' a voice called out from downstairs.

Immediately recognising it as Rico's, she felt a jolt of surprise. 'I'm in the attic,' she called back.

Seconds later she heard his footsteps on the stairs and frowned, for she'd been about to go down and join him, but since she could do with his help, it probably made more sense for him to come up.

'Hi,' he said, arriving at the foot of the ladder.

'Hi,' she responded, hoping she didn't look too ghoulish or bat-like, gazing down at him from this shadowy above.

'Can I do something to help?'

'Yes, as a matter of fact you can,' she answered, making ready to pass him the first case. 'They aren't especially heavy, but they're awkward to carry down on my own.'

'It is no problem,' he assured her, climbing the first few rungs to take it. 'Where would you like me to put it?'

'In the sitting room will be fine. I can go through them in there. Careful, there's a rotating rung at the bottom.'

Avoiding it, he stepped down to the floor and deposited the case next door, and by the time he came back she was ready with the second one. Once the cases were dealt with, she passed down the cash box, but before he could take it she felt it slipping from her hands. 'Oh my God, look out,' she gasped, as it plunged towards him.

He ducked. It missed and went crashing to the ground.

'Are you OK?' she cried.

He was laughing. 'I'm fine,' he answered, going to pick it up.

'Are you sure?'

'Sure.' He turned it over in his hands, checking to see what it was.

'Is it broken?' she asked. 'Did it come open?'

'It doesn't look like it,' he answered. 'It is very rusted.' He shook it. 'Do you know what is in here?'

'No idea. I've only just found it.'

'Is there a key?'

'Unless it's one Shannon found the other day I'll have to bring a torch up here to look,' she replied.

Shrugging, he put the box on the pine chest next to him, and held the ladder steady as she started to descend.

Aware of coming at him from the most unflattering angle, she tried to avoid the comedy and focus on why he might be here, because she hadn't been expecting him, and he presumably knew where Shannon was, so maybe he'd come to say he couldn't make it for dinner ... She hoped it wasn't that, because it would devastate poor Shannon. Although, it could be for the best, since he really was too old for her, and she was almost bound to end up with a broken heart. Maybe he had a message from Fen, or had just popped in on the off chance she might need help ... There was so much going round in her head that she totally forgot about the bottom rung and as her foot went

down on it, it rolled and she staggered and the next thing she knew she was falling against him.

'Oh gosh, I'm sorry,' she gasped.

He steadied her, hands under her elbows, chest

on her back. 'Are you OK?' he asked.

'Yes. Fine.'

He didn't let go, and unable to believe she was doing it, she stayed where she was. She could hear him breathing, smell the masculine scent of him mingled with horses and fresh air. Her breath locked inside her as her senses began to swirl.

Still neither of them moved. Then his hands slipped round in front of her and he began to rub her waist and her breasts. She wasn't allowing herself to think, or move, or do anything except feel his hands. His mouth touched her neck, and she turned so weak with longing that her head fell back on his shoulder. She would stop him in a moment, she would have to, but it had been so long since she'd felt like this ...

He was murmuring in Italian, still rubbing her breasts, and his mouth was so gentle, yet insistent, and as he began raising her top she merely lifted her arms to let him remove it completely. Then he was unfastening her bra, and the need to feel his hands on her skin was so intense that she still didn't stop him. He peeled the bra away and she gasped as he scooped her breasts in his hands. Her nipples were so aroused that they were throbbing between his fingers, and she wanted more and more - but only of this, no more than this ...

Her tracksuit bottoms slid down easily to her thighs, exposing her completely to his hands, and the sensations pulsing through her became so

commanding that she could do nothing but give in to them. He was easing her trousers on down to her ankles, and as she stepped out of them he turned her to face him. She thought of Josh and Sylvia, of how they'd betrayed her, then she looked down at Rico's tousled dark head, as he pushed his tongue between her legs.

'Oh my God,' she choked, putting her hands against the wall to steady herself. The suddenness of the sensations was too powerful, she had been so long without them that she was helpless to control them - and she was almost afraid to breathe in case any movement snatched them away.

Then he was standing up, and resting his hands on her waist as he gazed into her eyes.

'We can't do this,' she mumbled, but even as she said it she was allowing his mouth to come to hers. Then she was helping him to take off his own clothes and moving to him as he wrapped her in his arms. The feel of his skin against hers was so erotic that she had to have more, and as they lay down on the bed she opened her legs to take him.

As he began to move in and out of her she became so dazed by the pleasure that she was barely even aware of gripping her legs around him and urging him to go faster and harder. In some disconnected part of herself she could still hardly believe it was happening, but she was too immersed in their mounting passion to care, or even to wonder why there was no creeping coldness of fear coming in to stop her. There was only the need for more and yet more. He was pumping her so hard now that the bed was slamming

against the wall. She grabbed the rail overhead, and urged him on and on. She could feel a climax beginning to build, and nothing in her wanted him to stop. She was so close to the ultimate release, he was taking her there, this stranger, this boy, and as she looked up into his face she felt such a surge of emotion that tears burned in her eyes.

'Are you OK?' he whispered.

'Yes. Oh God, yes.'

In some vague other world the phone seemed to be ringing downstairs, but she barely heard it. She was almost there. He was taking her so close now... And then suddenly it began ...

'Oh my God!' she gasped, as the first waves broke so forcefully inside her she could hardly bear it. She raised her hips higher, needing to take him deeper, and the release kept on coming and coming. The power of it was so overwhelming that it reverberated like shocks through her entire body. She shuddered and convulsed, cried out and clung to him harder than ever. There was no coldness, no dark vacuum, or fear, no suffocating terror - there was only this, a raging torrent of sensation made so much more intense by having been stifled for so long. She wanted it to go on and on. She wanted to rejoice and cry, for it had been so easy, so clear of the shadows inside her. She felt free and euphoric delirious and triumphant. Then he was coming too, and she held him tight, urging him to let go, to give her everything he had.

Finally he collapsed over her and buried his face in her neck. She kept her arms around him and stroked his hair and his back. His skin was smooth, his muscles hard and taut. Her eyes were closed,

her breath still ragged, and her body weak from having been unlocked so suddenly and exquisitely. How had she managed this with him, when she couldn't with Josh? It made no sense, but for the moment it was enough that it had happened at all, there would be time later for the guilt and confusion.

The phone was ringing again, but she just went on holding him. Whoever it was could wait, because she wanted to lie here like this for a very long time, letting the dying throes of her climax pulse around him, as his mouth sought hers and kissed her so deeply and tenderly it brought tears to her eyes.

At last he rolled over onto his side and propped his head on one arm to gaze down at her. She smiled at his look of uncertainty, and reached up to touch his mouth.

He kissed her fingers and said, 'I want to make love to you since the first time I see you.'

Her heart responded to the pleasure of his words and she felt such an affection for him that she brought his mouth back to hers to kiss him.

'You look at me with your beautiful eyes,' he said, touching his fingers gently to her nipples, 'and then you stand there with your T-shirt and I can see you in a way that makes me want you so much. I want to kiss you and make your sadness go away.'

She frowned in surprise. 'My sadness?' Then she smiled as she realised he meant her father, and because of the last few minutes, she said, 'I think you've done that.'

He continued to gaze down at her, as though

drinking in every part of her, wanting to absorb himself in these moments, which was how she felt too, though she knew she should get dressed now and start trying to come to terms with what she'd done.

'I will do anything you want me to,' he said gruffly.

She regarded him curiously, not sure what he meant.

'I wish you to be mine, but I know this is not possible,' he explained. 'So if you want that I am your lover, or that I go away and never see you again...'

'Ssh,' she said, pressing her finger to his lips. 'This was wonderful, beautiful ...' Her eyes fluttered closed as he lowered his mouth to cover her words.

By the time he raised his head again they were both ready for more, and though her conscience was stirring, she made no protest as he rolled onto her, for if she could have one more climax, just one, to prove it wasn't a fluke ...

Though he wasn't as well endowed as Josh, and his physique was much slighter, he still felt good as he entered her, as did the rawness of his skill. Everything about him was different to Josh, in a way that made what they were doing feel unencumbered by intimacy and need, and she wondered if that was why she was able to let go. She had no fear of Rico leaving her, no dread of abandonment that prevented her from being able to trust.

As he started to move in and out of her she gave herself willingly to the mounting sensations,

moaning and closing her eyes, then opening them again and watching his face.

'Already you are mine. Rest with your dream a inside my dream,' he whispered softly.

She smiled.

'You know Pablo Neruda?' he asked.

She shook her head.

'I know no more in English,' he confessed.

'Tell me in Italian.'

'I know it in Spanish.'

As he started to recite, she lifted her hands to his face and pushed her fingers into his hair. He moved with the gentle rhythm of the words, watching her and filling her with their emotion. She wanted to understand them, but the sound of his voice, and the feel of his body, were enough. Then the poem ended and his mouth returned to hers.

Very soon she could feel herself becoming lost in the power of his movements. They were taking her relentlessly towards where she longed to go. It felt so sublime that she didn't want him to hurry, she wanted him to take her slowly, tantalisingly and with the same excruciating intensity that Josh could create as he carried her from one orgasm to the next, and to the next, never coming himself, always staying hard, never letting go until she could take no more ... She wanted that now. She wanted Josh, who knew her body even better than she knew it herself ...

She opened her eyes and looked up at Rico's face.

'Is this OK?' he asked.

She nodded, because it was, and she wouldn't

stop him, even though he was the wrong man. It made her wonder how Josh felt when he looked at Sylvia. Was she the wrong woman? But he kept going back for more, so did he make love to her as knowledgeably and skilfully as he did to his wife? Had Sylvia experienced the full power of his technique, the way he could tease a woman to madness, whilst taking her to oblivion? Had he allowed Sylvia to know the unsurpassable rapture he had given so readily and so often to his wife?

She moaned softly and let her head fall to one side. She needed to believe that he had no desire to understand Sylvia's body the way he did hers, that he used Sylvia only for sex and a quick, ultimate release, as she was doing now with Rico. She wanted to think of making love with Josh tomorrow night, of how they might finally end their physical estrangement. Hope and excitement stirred in her heart, and as she looked at the open door she was barely aware of who she was with now, for in her mind it was Josh, and that was all that mattered.