The Sweet Caress (6 page)

It took some moments for Jessica to calm herself, to stop her heart from racing, to gather her strength after such a forceful orgasm. She wanted to tell Luke how marvellous it was to feel his warm seed caressing her womb, what a joy it was to hold that most intimate source bursting with potential life within her. How it gave her a oneness with him that she revelled in and would never wash away. But she didn’t. Such talk might kill the moment for both of them. She and Luke were communicating way past mere words.

Chapter 4

It was several miles from Rose Cottage to the dean’s house where the dinner party and concert were being held. Luke wanted to tell Jessica about the evening ahead but he was still reeling with pleasure over his erotic interlude with her. He did not want to disturb the sexual euphoria that enveloped him. When he took his eyes from the road to look at Jessica sitting close beside him, her eyes closed, it was she who broke the silence.

‘Keep your eyes on the road, Luke. I have a confession to make and will find it easier if you’re not looking directly at me.’

Luke did as he was told. Jessica kissed him on the lips before she once more leaned against him and said, ‘I feel terribly sexy carrying your come inside me. I keep contracting my cunt, trying to suck you high up inside me. I don’t want to lose one drop of it. Have you any idea how sexy it is for a woman to walk around in the state I’m in now? How exciting it will be for me to sit at a dinner table of strangers, and in my imagination we’ll be fucking again during a perfect meal with perfectly mannered people. I’ll look across at you, our eyes will meet and you will give me a little sign that I’ll recognise, and I’ll come for us right there in front of all those strangers, your friends. I like the danger that someone at the table might discover I’m having orgasms over you, thinking of more sex with you.’

No woman that Luke had ever met had been so open about her erotic yearnings. Why, he wondered, didn’t she sound vulgar, crass? From the lips of any other woman her
words would have. Instead, he loved her more for her raunchiness and felt privileged to be part of it.

She continued, ‘Sex, all sorts of sex and erotica, are easy for me. I adore it and sense you do too, but before we go any further it’s best you know that love is a more difficult condition for me. In that I am more cautious, less free.’

Luke pulled the car over to the side of the road, leaving the headlights on and the motor running. He turned to face Jessica and roughly pulled her into his arms, kissing her passionately. She began to laugh and so did he.

‘You love me!’ she exclaimed.

‘From the first moment I saw you,’ he answered.

‘You’re sexually besotted with me!’

‘That’s true and we will peruse the erotic side of life together. But love? Until you are sure and come to me and tell me so, I’ll not chase after you for that. Stay free, look around, be sure it’s me you want to spend the rest of your life with. And when you are, I’ll marry you.’

‘It may take a long time, Luke.’

‘We’ll see,’ he replied.

He caressed her hair and kissed her again and slipped his hand between her legs. She was wet with sex, warm and slippery as satin. He stroked her and felt her sigh and come in a short but sweet orgasm. Removing his hand, he licked their lust from his fingers. ‘You’re the most thrillingly sexy woman I’ve ever met. And now we must really get on to dinner.’

‘And now I’m really looking forward to it. I’m ravenous.’

Fifteen minutes later Luke and Jessica were standing at the dean’s front door waiting for their ring of the bell to be answered. Jessica recognised once more that calm, cool exterior Luke covered his more wild and sexual soul with. It endeared him to her and she took his hand and held it in hers. The look that passed between them was intimate, each thinking about the lust she was carrying into academia.

The door was opened by a maid in a black uniform and a
white organza apron. The dean, a young widower, greeted them as they walked down the two steps into the drawing room. The room went quiet at their entrance.

Jessica Johnson’s presence alone was enough to excite the interest of the thirty people in the room but the appearance of the amnesia victim who worked in a dress shop and stacked supermarket shelves looking as if she had just stepped out of a glossy fashion magazine was quite another matter. But the hush lasted only a couple of minutes. The dean was the perfect host and took Jessica round to meet everyone, whisking her away whenever he sensed that an awkward question was about to be put to her. There were many well-dressed and beautiful women there, and several not so beautiful but interesting in that academic, blue stocking way that demands the long evening skirt, tartan or velvet, and the white blouse, the cameo brooch. The men were all in black ties and dress shirts. They were an intelligent and likeable bunch of New England, Ivy League academics, and Jessica warmed to them. The atmosphere was charming and warm rather than stuffy and academic.

The guest of honour was one of America’s favourite conductors who was at the college for a three-day seminar. With him he had brought a Stradivarius viola and violin. A famous young Chinese woman was to play the violin and a French protégé the viola.

Jessica noticed that the women in the room gravitated towards Luke. It struck her anew how very attractive he was, and she wondered how many hearts he had broken. She saw the way he looked at Mai Liu, the violinist, and understood at once that he had a penchant for very young and talented pretty girls. She was neither surprised nor jealous, merely aware.

Since she and Luke were the last to arrive, it was only a short time before the party was called into dinner. As Jessica walked into the dining room on his arm, she whispered, ‘You have a taste for very young girls like Mai Liu.’

‘I certainly did until I met you,’ he whispered back.

‘Do you really mean that?’ she asked.

‘Hand on heart,’ he replied.

‘Well, you just prove that to me later, this evening, in your bed, at your house,’ she demanded provocatively.

‘If you will promise to come to orgasm at my command all through this evening, at the table, during the concert, as long as we are here in this house, whenever I raise my right hand and rub my chin.’

‘I’ll say one thing for you, Luke, you know better than most how to play with me. I promise.’

The guests were seated at one long table. Jessica was opposite Luke, and seated on her right was a Chinese scholar, Tom Salinger, who taught at Wesson College. On her left was Jamie Dunwoody, Rose Cottage’s banker. Tom Salinger appeared to be more interested in Mai Liu than Jessica, which suited her although she was fascinated by the conversation he was having with the attractive violinist. Jamie tried to keep his end up by talking to both Jessica and the woman on his left but it was not easy for him. Jessica was charming but aloof, more silent than most at the table. She was distracted by the seductive game she was playing with Luke. His glances across the table to her were frequent, they teased her into a highly aroused sexual state. He was filled with glee to know that he was controlling her pleasure from across the table in the midst of dinner.

As the pudding was being served, she overheard Tom Salinger say something quite incorrect to Mai Liu. Without thought she corrected him in perfect Mandarin Chinese. Only after she had spoken did Jessica realise how much she had exposed herself.

Tom Salinger was astounded that she should be so fluent in Mandarin and spoke it with a perfect educated accent. ‘I had no idea you could speak Mandarin,’ he said in the language that he loved and had fascinated him all his life.

‘Neither did I, until I did,’ a good cover-up for no more questions about that fact, she thought.

‘Then you’ve stumbled on another clue that might jog your memory. It can’t be easy for you living without your yesterdays, not knowing —’ He stopped abruptly, aware that he was doing the one thing that his host had asked him not to do, make the amnesia victim, Jessica Johnson, uncomfortable about her condition. Tom gazed into Jessica’s eyes, suddenly aware of her acute sexuality. He might favour Oriental women, but in this intriguing lady, with her perfect Mandarin, he felt he would find the adventurous sex he craved.

As Jessica returned his gaze, they recognised in each other a mutual lust for exotic sex and erotic passion; a sexual liaison between them seemed fated.

Luke watched Jessica and Tom. It was obvious to him by her body language and the way her eyes shone with excitement that she was more than a little interested in Tom. Yet she was sensitive enough to his own feelings to distract herself from Tom, if only for a few seconds, and glance across the table at him. Luke willed her to come and she did. He could tell by the flush of colour that came to her cheeks, that quick fluttering of her eyelids. Their game was still on. Luke threw back his head and laughed aloud, delighted that she was still his, could and did come on his command. Jessica discreetly kissed the tips of her fingers and blew the kiss across the table to Luke then turned back to her seduction of Tom Salinger.

Tom raised Jessica’s hand off her lap, lowered his head, and kissed her fingers. He whispered in Chinese, ‘Do you always come on command? How delightful! I don’t suppose there is a woman in the room who realises and hardly a man who doesn’t.’

Jessica smiled knowingly but kept silent. Mai Liu leaned forward and talked across Tom Salinger to Jessica. The three were deep in conversation about a poem that Tom
was going to translate when Jessica realised they had caught the attention of everyone at the table. Jessica switched at once to English. She had no real anxiety about revealing she could speak the language, in fact it only added to the fun of the evening, but she did not want to make herself too conspicuous. She excused herself from the table and went into the library where she stood by the fire and watched the flames leaping. That was where Luke found her.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked as he stepped up close to her and took her hand.

‘Just fine.’

‘Good,’ was his only comment.

‘Luke, I’m having a lovely evening. I like your friends and the food was delicious, I’m looking forward to the concert and I’m very happy you seduced me into coming out with you.’

He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, ‘Can you come for me now, while we’re alone, so I can revel in your pleasure?’ he asked, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

She held his hands together in hers and pressed them to her lips. Jessica closed her eyes and relived the exquisite pleasure of being riven by him. She took a deep breath and sighed, opening her eyes as she came. That telltale flush of pink appeared on her cheeks and Luke was overcome with desire to take her then and there. Several minutes later they came together lying on a chaise covered with the guests coats’ in a large downstairs cloakroom. Then they joined the others who had by now gathered in the library for a musical experience they would never forget.

Luke saw her naked for the first time that night, in his bed, in his house. She was more perfect, more sensual than he had imagined any woman could be. Her body seemed to beckon a man to come and fulfil his dreams of sexual bliss. Yet there was something innocent in the youthful firmness
of flesh, the translucent skin as smooth as silk. She was like a work of art, with her mysteriously exotic face, her graceful neck, her smooth, gently sloping shoulders, and her full breasts that invited and tantalised. The firm torso and triangle of blonde hair between long, slender legs were a joy to behold. And shimmering from her superb nakedness was the erotic excitement of her total being, the intriguing and secretive sexual nature that was Jessica Johnson. Luke memorised every inch of her body, etched it in his mind so he could conjure it up at will to savour, to excite his love and lust for her before he lay down on the bed next to her and kissed her breasts, took her in his arms. After draping one of her legs over his hip in one slow and deliberate thrust, he took total possession of the woman he would love as no other ever again.

Luke listened to her whimpers as she achieved ecstasy with his every thrust, his every withdrawal. Sex and love came together for them several times through the night before they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms. And the next day they walked through the woods, and ate and slept in front of the fire. When it was time for Jessica to go home, she dressed as best she could be in his clothes and boots. As he dropped her off, she told him, ‘Luke, I need time and I need to be free. I want to see you, often, but with no strings attached. I know you understand that because you made it clear to me that you did. But do you really mean it? I hope so, for both our sakes.’

‘I’m only going to repeat this one more time. When you are ready to marry me, you come and tell me. I’ll not ask you again. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be there for you and courting you with all my heart and soul.’

‘And if you see me with other men?’ she asked.

‘I’ll do no more than you will when you see me with other women.’

‘And if I were to tell you that I think I’m falling in love with you?’

‘I would tell you to make sure of it, that’s why I’m giving you time.’

‘I’ve never met a man like you, Dr Luke Greenfield.’

‘No, I don’t suppose you have,’ he answered her.

The following day, Monday, was Jessica’s day at the Atwood Arcade. Cissie and her mother had been clever with their shop. It was in a cul-de-sac just off the quadrangle, and consisted of a series of small interlocking shops. The small eighteenth-century buildings lined both sides of a cobblestoned walk which was covered over with a leaded glass roof. There was a tea shop at the end which had round, white-painted iron tables and chairs set under weeping willow and palm trees, tall and slender, reaching for the sun through the canopy of glass during the warm spring and summer months. When the cold winds of November arrived, they were sent to a greenhouse and replaced with a silver birch and hardy spruce and pine trees which could be dressed for Christmas.

The shop windows of the arcade were small panes of glass and usually displayed just one handsome outfit, or handbag, or pair of shoes in each – teasers to draw the women in. The shops smelled of cedar and a hint of wood smoke from the open fires, an undertone to the scent of Paloma Picasso’s perfume which Cissie sprayed from an atomiser every morning as she walked through the rooms to check that they were in order and ready for business.

She was on her rounds through the rooms when Jessica arrived. ‘Well,’ said Cissie by way of greeting, ‘you might have come in a little earlier so you could tell me about Saturday night. You had no hint that Dr Greenfield was smitten enough to buy you
that
dress?’