‘Well, then,’ he said, when he returned. ‘I suppose I should let you get on. The water from the tap’s fine to drink, by the way. And you remember there’s no broadband? I mentioned that in the email.’
‘It’s fine. It’ll be good for me to get offline.’ She forced a smile.
‘They haven’t got the cables out to this side of the island,’ Mick explained, keen to make clear it was no failing on his part. ‘In the next year or so, they reckon, not that that’s much help to you. You can come and use ours up at the pub if you want to send emails and whatnot.’ He hesitated once more, running a hand over his thinning hair. ‘Like I said, our number’s there in the folder. Call us if you need anything, anytime. We’re only five miles away, I can be here in a jiffy if there’s a problem.’
‘I’ll try not to disturb you if I can possibly help it. I’m pretty self-sufficient.’ She was not sure if this was actually true. It was a long time since she had put it to the test, but it was important that Mick should believe it. All she wanted now was to find the bed and fall face down on it.
‘Aye, well, that’s good. But we’re here if you need us. I mean it – anytime at all. Day or night.’ He said it more emphatically this time, and his gaze darted away to the top of the stairs. At the front door he turned back, holding it half open so that moths hurled themselves towards the light, wings whirring. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow at noon. I hope you have a comfortable night.’
‘I’m sure I will.’ She almost had to push him physically out of the door. She stood on the threshold, a narrow fan of light spilling through on to the step in front of her, determinedly waving him off so she could be sure he was finally gone. He raised his hand as he reversed the Land Rover with a scattering of gravel, but in the white cone of the security light his expression was anxious, just as it had been in the hallway.
When the sound of the engine had died away, Zoe leaned her back against the inside of the front door and allowed herself to slump to the floor.
He’s a new landlord, she told herself; he’s bound to be nervous the day his first tenant arrives. It was sweet, she supposed, how concerned he and Kaye were about her well-being, their little thoughtful touches. She hoped they would ease up once she’d settled in, though; she was troubled by the way they kept referring to her as their ‘guest’ rather than their tenant. She hoped they wouldn’t feel compelled to take her under their wing while she was here, save her from being lonely. Sometimes it was hard to make people understand how much you desired solitude. Or deserved it.
There was a telephone on a console table at the side of the entrance hall. She briefly considered calling home, but decided she was too tired, too fuzzy with whisky to deal with the conversation. She had texted Dan from the airport to say she had landed safely; she would call tomorrow. Instead she pulled herself to her feet, switched off the downstairs lights and climbed the stairs. On the first landing, to the right, she found her cases propping open the door to a lit room; inside, a master bedroom furnished neatly in crisp white, slate grey and duck-egg blue, with a small en suite leading off it. She threw her jacket over a chair, pulled off her biker boots in the bathroom doorway, bent her mouth to the tap and gulped down cold water, then collapsed on to the bed, where she fell asleep, fully clothed. Outside, the security lights snapped off and the McBride house was folded into the darkness once more.
That night, Zoe dreamed.
She was stripped naked and laid across a low couch in the long gallery that ran the length of the house on the west side, facing the sea. Both arms were stretched above her head and pinioned so that she could not move them. Around her the room lay steeped in shadow, save for the pale shaft of moonlight that filtered through the tall windows, silvering the bare boards of the floor. Though she could not see them, she sensed someone else in the room, moving closer. Two hands, reaching out of the darkness, expertly began to trace slow patterns across her skin. Hot breath on her neck, whispering down across her shoulder. Her muscles tensed; her nipples stiffened and her hips rose as she felt herself swell and open. Despite the apparent helplessness of her position, she was not afraid; instead she felt an unfamiliar boldness, a pleasure and pride in her own body that made her want to arch her back, display herself for him. Somehow he knew her, this unknown lover; he understood how she needed to be touched, and she trusted him, the certainty of his hands, his mouth, anticipating her want and need. His breath brushed her cheek and she parted her lips for him but he had moved away without a kiss and she was powerless to pull him back. She could only wait for him to continue moving around her, over her, the ghost of lips on her breasts, the hands now clasped firmly around her waist with a sense of ownership. As his tongue finally made contact with her nipple she tried to cry out, the jolt of it so sweet and sudden, as if she had been wired to an electrode, a shockwave that juddered the length of her body and shot through her groin, but – as always in dreams – she could make no sound. His mouth closed over her breast and his teeth tightened and tugged, gently at first, but sharply enough to remind her that he could, if he chose, bring her pain as well as pleasure. She pushed her hips out towards him and one hand slid down over the curve of her buttock and between her legs as his mouth moved across the softness of her belly. Good, he whispered, inside her mind.
Zoe was aware of a level of lucidity within the dream, of existing in some liminal state between sleep and waking. But though she could direct the movements of her own body, as far as the restraints around her wrists allowed, she could not influence the shadowy lover who was deliberately withholding from her what he knew she wanted; slowly, softly, he skirted between her legs with his tongue, drawing out the torment. In one instant she would feel the heat of his breath right where she needed him, at the sharp pinpoint of her pleasure, before he moved away, licking the inside of her thigh or the smooth skin above her pubic bone, gently biting the jut of her pelvis or the soft curve of her waist while she tried pleading with him, begging him, though her words emerged soundless as she strained against the restraints binding her hands. When, finally, his tongue made stealthy contact with her most sensitive point and he slipped two fingers inside her, it felt like a concession, or a reward; her whole body was illuminated, shocked into vivid colour. One hand held her hips steady as the rhythm of his flickering tongue quickened and his fingers drove deep into her; bucking and grinding against him, she heard herself screaming, a wild, animal cry, as she felt the first spasm of muscle and the sudden hurtling, as if over the edge of a waterfall, the exquisite frustration of the desire to pull him into her and her inability to touch him at all. As the ripples of her orgasm rose over and over, she could already feel him slipping away, melting back into the shadows, and she cried out again to make him stay but her voice was stifled, stopped in her throat; her mouth worked noiselessly and she could not move her hands to reach him or claw him back.
She woke at her own mewling sounds, feeling disorientated and raw, blinking into the dark to find that she was indeed lying on a couch in the long gallery, her arms stretched above her head and crossed at the wrists. A draught from the curtainless windows stirred goosebumps over her naked skin and it took her a few moments to locate herself, to understand that she was no longer dreaming. How had she ended up here? She lowered her arms gingerly, as if afraid she might meet with some resistance; her shoulders ached and her fingers had grown numb from being held aloft. She had no recollection of leaving her bed, or having undressed herself, but the memory of the dream remained vivid, the imprint of him on her most tender parts. She looked down at herself, bewildered, as if her body was strange to her, no longer recognisable, feeling the heat of her desire sticky on the insides of her thigh. She slid a tentative finger between her legs and flinched at the coldness of her own touch; she was still engorged, still aroused. She pressed her finger harder and began to circle it; within moments she was rising to a crescendo and a ragged, gasping climax that was fierce and necessary but lacked all the wonder, the other-worldly magic of the dream lover’s caress. She stood in the room’s silent shadows, feeling flayed, exposed to the elements. And yet, how stunning! It had been as if something had possessed her, as if her desire were a slumbering beast buried so deep for so long that she had forgotten to notice