His face came nearer, and her fingers clutched nervously at his arms. His hands moved, sliding beneath her, one cupping the back of her head, the other holding her waist. Her lips felt dry, and yet somehow swollen. She swallowed nervously and then exhaled in shaky relief as she felt his lips move gently against her forehead, his breath warm on her skin.
His mouth was as delicate and gentle as a summer breeze as it teased her skin. She could feel the hard pad of his thumb, stroking against her jaw, and caressing the soft skin of her throat. He moved away from her a little, studying her flushed face, his mouth …
She shivered suddenly as she stared at his mouth, her hand lifting so that her fingers could touch it, her eyes looking wonderingly into his. When he drew the soft tips of her fingers into his mouth and gently sucked them, her wonder changed to stomach-jerking shock. The oddest of sensations burst into life inside her. Her breasts … She tore her eyes from his, dragging air into her compressed lungs as she looked down at her own body.
As though Luke knew everything she was feeling, he drew her into his arms, soothing her.
‘It’s all right … don’t worry …’
How had he known what had happened to her? She could feel herself shaking as he rocked her gently. Her whole body felt flushed and strange, her wide-eyed, half-frightened gaze meshing with his as he held her away from him.
‘Would you like me to stop?’
Would she? Could she endure to go all through this again with someone strange, someone who wouldn’t understand like Luke did? She shook her head in dogged determination, her voice husky and strained as she whispered, ‘No … No … I want you to go on.’
Trust replaced the fright in her eyes as she looked up at him. ‘I know you don’t really want to kiss me, Luke, but if you won’t teach me, how can I ever learn?’
‘The usual way,’ he told her drily, ‘by trial and error.’
‘But boys don’t like me.’
She felt the all-too-easy tears rise inside her again, and buried her head against Luke’s hard shoulder. His skin smelled faintly male and alien, and yet conversely the contact was also reassuring. She felt Luke move her and opened her eyes to find that his mouth was only a whisper away from her own. She could feel her lips trembling and she pressed them together firmly, trying to get the trembling to stop.
Suddenly panic seized her and she wanted to tell him that she had changed her mind, but it was already too late, his mouth was touching hers, his lips caressing the closed, tight line of hers. His mouth felt warm and soft, but firm, too, and she quivered beneath the sensations clamouring inside her. He was stroking her mouth with tiny, teasing kisses that made her lips swell and soften. When she felt his tongue run along their tightly closed outline she quivered visibly, curling her nails into his flesh.
‘Open your mouth, Gemma.’
His eyes stared into hers, mesmerising her, making her lips open so that he could …
Every reasoning faculty she possessed was suspended beneath the sensations rocking her. She had seen people kissing like this in films and on television, and privately she had always thought it faintly yucky, but now that she was experiencing it for herself … She clung to him eagerly, letting his mouth tutor hers, quivering in eager excitement when his tongue stroked hers. That same peculiar ache she had felt in her breasts before was back, and it seemed as though Luke knew about it, too, because he stopped kissing her, briefly, to take her more fully into his arms, so that her breasts were pressing against his chest. When he kissed her his whole body moved and it made her want to rub herself against him.
She had forgotten why she had asked him to kiss her; she had forgotten everything but the sweet surge of passion flooding through her body, her eyes dark and heavy with the force of it, her lips moist and swollen. She wanted him to kiss her again, and again, but suddenly his body was tensing and he was drawing away from her, his chest expanding and contracting rapidly as he drew in air.
‘Luke.’ She reached out to touch him but he moved away from her.
‘I think you’ve learned enough for one lesson.’ He was looking at her as though he was angry with her. ‘Although I warn you, if you react like that to every boy who kisses you, soneone’s going to have to pin a notice on you warning them that you’re under sixteen.’
It took a few seconds for his meaning to get through to her, but, when it did, she flushed blood-red, and stumbled clumsily to her feet. Suddenly everything seemed all wrong; the magic of those moments in his arms was spoiled and sullied, and she wanted to run from him and hide herself away. He was telling her that she had behaved wantonly. The reason for the tension she had felt in her body and her innocent desire to get as close to him as she possibly could suddenly became unpleasantly clear to her.
He saw the expressions chase one another across her face, and frowned. ‘Gemma …’
It was too late for him to apologise now. He had ruined everything between them; he had made her feel … dirty, she thought, choking, moving slowly back from him as he got up and came towards her, holding out his hand.
‘Gemma, listen to me.’
‘No.’ Her voice sounded strained and shocked. ‘I think I hate you, Luke,’ she said bitterly. ‘And I don’t want to see you ever again.’ She turned round and ran from him to where she had left Bess tethered before he could stop her, loud sobs tearing at her throat. She knew that he had followed her, and when she scrambled up on to Bess’s plump back he reached for her.
‘No … No, don’t touch me.’ She hit out at him wildly, tears streaming down her face. He had spoilt something that had been unbearably precious to her, something that her developing instincts told her was rare and special, and she couldn’t wait to get away from him.
Wisely he let her go, sensing that to try and talk to her in her present state of near hysteria would do no good at all.
By the time she was close to home, she had herself under proper control. She stopped once to scrub at her damp face with a grubby handkerchief, and luckily when she got back her mother was still out.
All the anticipation and excitement with which she had viewed the evening was gone. She prepared for it with a feeling of resignation rather than pleasure, and, irrationally, it was Luke she blamed for her change of heart. Luke had spoiled it all for her by being so nasty to her.
She couldn’t let herself think about those moments in his arms. Half of her wanted to pretend that they hadn’t really happened, because she knew, even if she didn’t want to admit it, that now that they had, they had changed everything between them, and she didn’t want things to change, she wanted them to go on being friends. But how could they be friends when she knew that secretly Luke despised her? He must despise her, mustn’t he? Girls didn’t go around asking people to kiss them, did they?
All through the rest of the afternoon she goaded herself with recriminations and contempt.
After dinner she and the boys went up to their rooms to change. Defiantly she decided that she might as well wear her jeans. It was, after all, a barn dance, and so what if everyone mistook her for a boy? She didn’t care.
She wasn’t allowed as yet to wear make-up, and she looked miserably at her reflection in the mirror once she was ready.
Her jeans were old and worn, the denim soft and faded. Used to her mother’s condemnation of her tall, slim body, she didn’t see the way the denim followed the long lines of her legs, and the smallness of her waist.
David banged on her door as he and Tom went downstairs, and knowing that she couldn’t delay any longer she hurriedly brushed her hair and went after them.
‘Gemma, you can’t go out looking like that! I thought you were going to wear a dress.’