Authors: Tess Stimson
‘Darling, you look perfect. Very grown-up.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely.’
This
was why he’d moved his family to Vermont, he thought as she shrugged happily into her warm grey wool coat. So that his fifteen-year-old daughter could grow up in a world of
chaperoned school dances and pretty dresses that accentuated her youthful beauty without sexualizing her in any way. So that his twelve-year-old son could cycle down to the corner shop for a pint
of milk without being abducted by some kind of pervert. Florence complained they lived in a backwater, but if by that she meant a town where you could still leave your back door unlocked all day,
where teenage boys shovelled snow from pensioners’ driveways and thought ‘hell’ was a swear word, then yes, he was happy to hold his hands up. His brother’s daughter was a
year younger than Florence, but when they’d visited London last summer, the girl had slouched into the room in a cropped top and denim hot pants with her arse hanging out, and had only opened
her mouth to swear. All the girls dressed like that these days, his brother had said weakly. Oliver had seen it himself every time he got on a tube – girls of thirteen and fourteen in tight
skirts and high heels, drinking and swearing and flashing their knickers. There was no way he was having
his
daughter grow up like that.
He dropped Florence at her high school, where the dance was being held, supervised by teachers and parent volunteers. No doubt savvy, streetwise London teenagers like his niece would laugh at
the demure dresses the Vermont girls were wearing, with their corsages and pretty headbands and flat ballet pumps; but he’d take a bet their fathers wouldn’t.
Harriet was home from work by the time he got back, holed up in her study.
‘You missed Florence,’ Oliver said, sticking his head round her door. ‘It was her prom tonight.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ she said irritably. ‘I was working.’
He raised an eyebrow in surprise at her tone. ‘I didn’t say you had. I think she’d have liked you to take her to her first prom, that’s all.’
‘Of course she wouldn’t. She’d much rather have you.’
There was nothing he could say to this, because they both knew it was true. Harriet was a good mother to all four of their children, but she’d never managed to connect with her daughter
the way she had with the boys. Florence had always gravitated towards her father, something that he knew grieved Harriet intensely. It had only got worse over the years, especially after
she’d been diagnosed with diabetes; for some reason she’d made her mother the scapegoat, resisting Harriet’s attempts to manage the illness, resenting every reminder of it. There
were times when Oliver wondered if Florence actually blamed her mother for the fact that she had it, however illogical that seemed.
‘D’you fancy going to Flatbread Pizza for dinner?’ he asked his wife now, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I forgot to take anything out of the freezer, and you know how much
the boys like it there.’
‘I don’t have time,’ she said without looking up. ‘You go if you want.’
‘You need to eat, Harriet.’
‘I’ll grab a sandwich or something later. I’ve got to get this finished tonight.’
He hesitated, then clicked the door shut behind him and crouched down beside her chair. ‘What is it, Harry?’ he asked gently. ‘I know you’re worried about the business,
but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? I haven’t seen you smile for weeks. Are you not feeling well? Is something wrong?’
She gestured towards the spreadsheet on the screen in front of her. ‘We’re weathering this recession better than most, but we’re getting to the point where we’ve got to
start making some tough decisions. I’m not happy about what’s going on in Manchester. I keep asking the North of England office to send me the accounts, and they keep stalling. And I
don’t think now is the time to expand into Connecticut—’
‘C’mon, Harriet,’ Oliver interrupted. ‘This is me you’re talking to. You’re not addressing the board. If you want to talk more about Manchester or
Connecticut, we can, but that’s not the problem here, is it?’
It was his gift, to be able to read people like an open book; no one more than his wife.
Harriet looked directly at him for the first time. She seemed tired and anxious, as she so often was these days since the recession had hit; but there was something new in her dark eyes,
something it took him a moment to identify.
Guilt.
She took a deep breath and he braced himself to deal with whatever she was about to throw his way. The business was going down the tubes. She’d put the house up as collateral. Whatever it
was, he knew they could deal with it. Together.
But then she glanced away, turned back to her computer, and he knew that whatever she’d been about to say, the moment had passed.
‘It’s been a tough month,’ she said, clicking on her keyboard. ‘Even with insurance covering eighty per cent of Florence’s hospital costs, we’re still out of
pocket by several thousand dollars.’
‘We’ll find it,’ Oliver said automatically.
He leaned in to kiss her. She tilted her cheek sideways towards him, but didn’t take her eyes from her screen. Oliver inhaled the coconut scent of her hair, the smell of her skin, warm
beneath his lips, and suddenly, instantly, he was hard.
Gently, he lifted her fine brown hair from the nape of her neck and kissed it. She didn’t respond, but her fingers had stopped moving across the keyboard. His lips moved down the knobs of
her vertebrae from her hairline to the edge of her cashmere sweater, and he sensed, rather than felt, a tiny shiver ripple through her. Slowly his kisses moved along her shoulder, his teeth edging
her sweater away to expose her skin. Still she hadn’t turned towards him, but her head tilted slightly back against his chest; not an invitation, but not rejection either.
He stroked the outside of her arms as he continued to kiss her shoulders, the tips of his fingers brushing lightly against the swell of her small, high breasts. He repeated the motion, this time
his hands moving fractionally inwards, finding her breasts more surely. Again they passed across her body, and this time, her nipples hardened beneath his touch and he heard her breath hitch.
‘Oliver,’ she murmured, stopping his hand with her own.
‘Relax,’ he whispered in her ear.
His palms swept across her belly – flatter than ever, even after four children – and then down over her toned thighs, feeling the warmth of her whippet-slim body through her
jeans.
‘Oliver, I’m in the middle of something,’ she protested.
He smiled. ‘So am I.’
He stroked the inside of her thighs. She pressed her legs together, and he didn’t force the issue, merely continuing to stroke her from her knees to her groin with the tips of his fingers,
gently, back and forth, back and forth, all the time kissing her neck, nuzzling her shoulder, and after a few moments her legs relaxed and parted again, enough for him to stroke upwards to the
centre of her.
Again, the catch of breath in her throat, the signal that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He swivelled her office chair towards him and sank to his knees in front of her. She started to
tangle her hands in his thick blond hair, to pull him upright towards her, wanting to kiss him properly, but gently he pressed her arms back against the chair. He eased her sweater upwards and
buried his face in her belly. Her skin was even softer than the cashmere sweater, scented with the subtle perfume of the gardenia body lotion she favoured. His erection pressed uncomfortably
against his zip as he slipped his fingers beneath her cotton bra, thumbing her right nipple, his breath warm against her belly as he kissed her there.
‘Please, Oliver. Not . . . not now. I can’t.’
‘Tell me you want me to stop.’
He’d found the waistband of her jeans now, was deftly unbuckling the exquisite Mexican belt he’d bought her for her last birthday, finding his way beneath the harsh denim to the
velvety skin beneath.
‘There are things we need to talk about . . .’
‘I still don’t hear you telling me to stop.’
His fingers had worked beneath her cotton knickers now, probing through the whorls of silky dark hair to the moist acorn of her clitoris. She gasped, her back arching, and this time when she
twined her hands in his hair, he let her.
‘The boys . . .’ she breathed.
‘Will be fine.’
‘They might come in.’
‘Not until they’ve learned to pick the lock.’
His erection was painful now, and he stood to unbuckle his own belt, kicking off his shoes and tugging off his socks before letting his trousers fall to the floor. He tugged at his wife’s
jeans, lifting her bottom off the chair so that he could pull them down her legs, taking her driving shoes with them.
‘Oliver – really – there’s something we have to . . . ohhh.’
For he had hooked his thumbs into the sides of her knickers, peeling them away, and buried his tongue in the slippery wet warmth of her, parting her labia with his fingers and teasing her with
quick, darting licks. She tasted slightly tangy, as she always did, his favourite taste in the world. Her clitoris swelled beneath his attention, and he gentled his tongue, barely feathering across
it. Her breath was coming faster now, and he raised his head, kneeling so that he could reach her breasts, pulling off her sweater and unfastening her bra with the ease of long practice. His hand
had replaced his tongue between her legs, two fingers sliding either side of her clitoris without actually touching it, driving her ever closer to orgasm.
As he felt her start to shudder, he stood and picked her up, carrying her to the thick plaited rug in front of her study fireplace. Shedding the last of his clothes, he covered her naked body
with his own, his erection digging into her belly.
She squirmed away from him. ‘I can’t, Oliver. Not until we talk.’
He pulled her back towards him. ‘We are talking,’ he breathed. ‘This is how we talk.’
She was so wet for him, so warm and welcoming. He slithered back between her thighs, his mouth once more on her clitoris, his arms reaching upwards so that he could thumb her nipples again,
knowing what she needed, what she wanted. Her response was instant. He tasted her arousal, felt her bucking beneath him. It was true, what he’d said: this was how they talked. It always had
been.
He had no idea how many lovers she’d had before they met, and he’d never asked. His own experience was modest by most standards, he knew; his tally had stood at just four when he met
Harriet, even though he’d been twenty-seven years old. The elder of two boys, brought up by loving parents in comfortable middle-class affluence, he’d never felt it necessary to prove
himself by his conquests. Women weren’t trophies to him. None of the four women who’d preceded Harriet had been serious contenders for the post of Mrs Lockwood, but he’d treated
each relationship with respect; it said much for his charm and good nature that even after gently easing himself out of the various romances – for he had been the instigator in all four
break-ups – he’d still remained on good terms with them all.
But the instant Harriet had walked into his office, all nervous energy and huge grey eyes and fierce determination, he’d known that here, finally, was a woman with whom he could spend the
rest of his life.
He’d also realized very quickly that it was going to be hard to breach the defensive walls she’d erected around herself; very hard indeed.
Their first date had proved him right. She’d thrown up more barricades than the Kremlin during the Cold War. Outwardly confident and – after a few drinks – more than a little
sexually aggressive, she’d kept her feelings walled off, unreachable. He’d known that if he was to win her, he was going to have to box very clever indeed. Which was why, even though he
had a hard-on the size of Nelson’s Column, he’d turned down her invitation back to her flat at the end of that first night.
And again the second.
And the third.
It had taken all his resolve and self-control (and he practically had blisters on his right hand); but when on their fourth date she’d rather plaintively asked him ‘Don’t you
want
to go to bed with me?’, he’d known his strategy was working.
And when they did finally sleep together, more than two months after they’d met, she’d given herself to him body
and
soul. The sex had been extraordinary, beyond anything
either of them had ever experienced. It was as if each knew what the other wanted before they themselves knew. He’d asked her to marry him the next morning, but really it had almost seemed
redundant. How could you find the person who completed you so utterly and
not
marry them?
Even now, after sixteen years and four children, the bedroom was where they restored themselves to each other. It was how they communicated, made up, healed and soothed one another. The one
place where they could never lie.
He pushed himself up on his forearms now and looked at his wife, more beautiful to him than she had ever been. His erection probed firmly between her thighs, slick with her arousal. He’d
never known a woman to ejaculate when she came before, but Harriet did, and it drove him crazy with lust. He coated himself in her juices, sliding his cock either side of her clitoris, describing
lazy figures-of-eight, holding back from entering her as long as he was able.
Finally he could stand it no more and thrust his length inside her. But for once, her legs didn’t open in warm welcome. Instead, she clamped her thighs together, forcing him out of
her.
He hesitated, confused. She wanted him; he knew it, he could feel it,
smell
it. If she was trying to prolong his pleasure, it wasn’t going to work; he was so hard, he knew he
couldn’t last much longer. Gently, he eased himself back into her, but again she pulled away, forcing him out.
‘Harry, please,’ he breathed. ‘Don’t make me wait any longer.’
Suddenly she wriggled backwards and sat up. ‘No,’ she panted.
‘No?’
‘I told you, I
can’t.’