‘No. Obviously I’m talking about it from my side. The dominant side.’
‘All right, then that leads us to another of my conditions.’ I crunched on the pickled onion. No kissing for me today – the vinegary little chap was my protection against any foolish rushing of blood to the head later.
He seemed to know what I was thinking, because he took the other half of the onion and bit into it himself. Damn. That neutralised the situation. Kissing might still happen. Especially if I didn’t stop staring at his long slender fingers as if hypnotised. What those fingers had done to me … what they still might do to me …
‘Well, you’ve had no booze, so what’s next?’ he said snippily. ‘No sex?’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ I said severely.
‘You’d sign up for the pain but not the pleasure? I can’t see how that would work.’
‘Wait, you’re getting ahead of yourself,’ I said. ‘My condition isn’t that.’
‘Good.’
So he expects us to have sex. I filed the thought for further discussion later. First I needed him to agree to my next little stipulation.
‘I want you to feel what you’re going to make me feel,’ I said.
His eyes widened.
‘I’m not with you.’
I took a breath.
‘When we were together – before – I hated myself for being with you.’
He blinked.
‘Did you?’
‘Of course I did. After everything you’d done to me when we were kids, I’d just fallen into your arms like some idiot in a Mills and Boon. I felt like I betrayed myself, over and over, every time I let you touch me.’
He contemplated a crust of bread in a stormy manner.
‘Look,’ he muttered, ‘this is old ground. I’ve apologised for the way I treated you when I was a boy. I apologise again. Unreservedly. All right?’
‘Not really,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t think it’ll ever be all right. But I’m telling you this because it’s relevant to what I’m going to ask of you.’
‘OK.’
‘Every time we get involved with each other, you hurt me,’ I said. ‘You hurt me when we played together as children. You hurt me when we had our … summer thing … And now you want to hurt me again.’
‘But this is different,’ he said eagerly. ‘This is a contract. A proposition. Not an affair of the heart or a messed-up thing like the bullying.’
‘I know, but I don’t want to spend the next five months in a state of acute self-loathing and paranoia. I’ve done that. I’m not doing it again. So before I let you hurt me, I want to hurt you.’
‘You mean literally?’
‘Yes, I mean literally. I want you to know how it feels to be hurt.’
‘I do know.’
‘By me.’
‘Ah.’
He sat back, chewing on a slice of tomato.
‘Revenge,’ he said, once it was gone. ‘You want revenge.’
‘No, that’s not what I mean. I want you to feel something like empathy. And I think it would help me to trust you – because on all those sites I surfed last night, the main thing everyone ended up banging on about was the importance of trust. Without it, there can’t be a D/s relationship, they say. And how can I trust you, given our history?’
‘You know, that’s a very fair point,’ he said. ‘Very fair. All right.’
He stood up, holding out a hand.
‘Take my body and use it as you will,’ he said with a flourish.
People must have heard us, and I felt like an idiot, glancing around to see how many eyes were levelled in our direction.
‘What, now?’ I said.
‘Why not? No time like the present. I’ve got the afternoon free – have you?’
‘I, uh.’ My mind was in no fit state to be fabricating pressing engagements. I had the only man I had ever loved standing right in front of me, looking more delicious than anything on the Trout’s menu, telling me I had carte blanche to do as I wanted with him. It was bound to knock me a bit off course.
‘Come on then. Or have you lost your nerve now? Did you only mention it to put me off and put an end to the whole scheme? Well, I’m calling your bluff. You have to put your money where your mouth is.’
‘Right. Put my money …’ I stood up, haltingly.
‘Though, I have to admit, I’d rather you put your mouth where my mouth is,’ he said, devilishly low.
He wasn’t playing fair. Seduction was not on the menu. It was strictly an arrangement, nothing more. Perhaps I should have some kind of contract drawn up. No cutting the skin, no plastic bags over heads, no thieving of hearts.
‘Don’t do that.’
‘What?’
‘Flirt. It isn’t fair. It’s unkind. And it creeps me out.’
Actually, it didn’t. But I thought it might stop him if I implied that I found his oh-so-charming attentions repellent.
He had the grace to look a bit crushed, and tossed his hair.
‘Are you going to sit there taking pot shots at me all day or are you going to come home with me and beat me into submission?’ he demanded.
‘You don’t want pudding then?’
He shook his head and slapped his stomach.
‘Bad for the waistline,’ he said. ‘Got to look the part if I’m going to be getting the old leather trousers out of the wardrobe.’
‘God, you aren’t, are you?’
He grew impatient of waiting for me to stand up and reached down for my hand, grabbed it and yanked me out of my chair.
‘To be honest,’ he said, once I was standing close enough for him to murmur into my ear, ‘I usually prefer a well-cut suit. But you’ll be wearing leather for me. And feeling it, too.’
Jesus. A flash of pure electrical sensation lit me up, starting at my crotch. This was really on the cards. A realisation of the danger I was in blared in my head like a siren. Run, Lucy, run.
But I didn’t run. I followed him to his car, leaving mine on the gravel.
The scaffolders were still at work on the east wing when we entered the Hall through the back-kitchen door.
‘Don’t want Fran to know I’m back,’ muttered Joss, leading the way through the hanging copper pots and pans and wooden worktops. ‘She’ll waylay me with a VAT registration form or something. I’m taking the afternoon off, as far as she’s concerned.’
‘Fran Woolley?’
‘You know her?’
‘Willingham isn’t exactly the metropolis, Joss, people do tend to know everyone in the village.’
‘Yeah, I suppose.’
‘Nearly thirty and still clueless about real life,