The Silver Chain (40 page)

I smile and go to sit on the bed. This is like treacle flowing over me, this new Gustav with the fierce face and the soft words. ‘You’re talking about parkour, then. You’re a
traceur
.’

He takes off the other thick glove. Stretches his long white fingers. Clicks each knuckle thoughtfully. So no weapon, but he could easily have been out wringing the necks of foxes. Or burglars. When is he going to come and sit beside me, here on the bed? I press my knees together, bone against bone to stop me leaping at him.

‘How do you know about free running?’

I examine my fingernails. ‘I’ve given it a go, as a matter of fact. In Paris. I fell in with a group of free runners near Notre Dame and climbed up onto a roof with them. I came to a sticky end, unfortunately. I nearly broke my elbow.’

‘Horses, rooftops. You little urchin. You should take better care of yourself.’ He goes to sit on the white rocking chair in the corner. ‘And you should close these curtains, Serena. Anyone with climbing equipment and evil intent could have seen you. I could have been up to no good.’

‘Promises, promises.’ I smooth my hands up and down the goosebumps on my arms. ‘Maybe I want you to get up to no good.’

‘This is my house, Serena. You could have been courting real trouble disporting yourself like that for all the world to see.’

I feel reckless and tired. ‘So. How did you really get up onto my balcony?’

‘I am serious about the free running. I’ll show you one day. But I’m too rusty to risk it just now. Which is why I climbed up the fire escape. God knows but I have to think of health and safety in a house this size, with you lot leeching off me day and night.’

He unzips one of his heavy biker boots. Then the other.
Honey, I’m home.

He sits back in the chair and stares at me. I follow his lazy gaze down my body. My negligee has fallen back down to cover my legs with reasonable modesty, but where it clings the dampness is clearly visible.

‘What am I going to do with you? A half-naked Serena pleasuring herself without me. Though even the thought of that makes me horny. You are wilful, rebellious, disobedient–’

‘And bestselling. Didn’t you know? We’ve only got four more pictures to go.’

I kneel down in front of him and pull his boots off. Throw them with a thumping clatter across the room. He grips the arms of the chair tightly. Very slowly I start to peel off his socks, too.

‘A tough week, Gustav?’

He laughs. ‘A tough month, if you must know. It’s this damned woman I’ve met. She’s wearing me to a husk.’

I get up abruptly and walk to the bedside table. Pour out some more wine and hand it to him. He holds it up to the light, smiles at me, and then drinks it. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like a ruffian.

He looks beautiful sitting on the chair in my bedroom. The stoniness in his features softening despite his best efforts. A flush of colour in his lean cheeks. His hair long and glossy, the blackness of his eyes deepened by his burglar’s clothes.

‘Can I take a photograph to remember you by? The moonlight suits you. Makes you look younger somehow. It must be your natural lighting.’ I lift my camera, all my movements very slow, as if he might vault back over the balcony at any moment.

He remains in the chair, rocking very slightly and holding the glass of red wine. This is me at my best. Stepping round the room, stepping round him, framing and clicking. Trapping him forever in my little glass window.

‘What do you mean, remember me by?’

‘Well, the show’s nearly sold out. Technically I’ll be free to come and go as I please.’

He picks up the brush I’ve just been playing with and strokes it under his nose. Heat surges through me, through my body, up into my face. He can smell me on the bristles.

‘Your heart won’t let you.’

I remain standing, but I’m cold now. ‘We’ve fulfilled most of the clauses of the agreement in principle. And I’m grateful for your faith in me, the gallery, and the room here, and your contacts and your help.’

‘You have no idea.’

He leans forward and takes my wrist. There’s a new silver chain, glinting in the moonlight. He hooks it onto my bracelet. I’m hooked onto him. He tugs hard on the chain and as I stumble towards him he scoops me up into his arms and carries me out of the room, down the stairs, past pre-Raphaelite Rapunzel, then he kicks open the double doors of his own room.

This is like falling through the looking glass. I haven’t changed or gone crazy, like Alice. This isn’t a nightmare, or even a dream. I’m still Serena Folkes, the girl in the nightie who has this terrible addiction. But in this moment Gustav has carried me into my new life.

He throws me playfully onto the huge bed which is pushed up against the enormous windows and then goes to stand by the wall opposite. An oblong of light edges in from the landing, but apart from that the room is in darkness.

A tiny spotlight pings on to illuminate a framed picture.

‘You asked me why I went to Milan. I carried this all the way out there from London and then decided to frame it properly. I was going to give it to you in Switzerland.’

It’s the sketch he did of me at the private view, small but perfectly formed. It’s been set in the centre of a wide pale green mount and a beautiful silver frame. Instinctively I glance round the room, up at the ceiling. The other walls are totally blank.

‘That was the first drawing I’d done for five years.’ He gestures round the room before coming to sit beside me on the bed. ‘Maybe one day your face will fill all these other spaces.’

‘Just one picture’s enough, Gustav.’

I nod quietly, my heart banging in my chest. He switches the light off again and he’s right here beside me. We’re in his room, on his bed. All I can do is sit as prettily as I can in my sheath of silk, try to ignore my nipples pricking up with the cold, the dampness seeping still between my thighs.

‘I think I’m falling for you, Serena.’

He winds his fingers through my hair, tugging me towards him. I let him pull me closer. My stomach clenches with terrified excitement. The heat is beating off him. His eyes smoulder with lust, not anger. His mouth splits into a grin, gradually, as if it is out of practice. All at once he pushes me back onto the bed, my wrists trapped easily in his hands as he snaps the silver chain onto the bed post.

‘You don’t need to tie me. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Old habits.’

‘Tell me more about the woman who’s wearing you out.’ I jingle the silver chain playfully, throw my arms back over my head.

He chuckles, and runs his fingers down the inside of my arms where they’re outstretched, making them tingle. ‘I wasn’t aware I was missing anything or anyone in my life, but I realise I was. There’s a big hole sculpted for her when she’s ready to fit. She’s impossible. Beautiful, talented, wilful, rough round the edges. Slippery, like an eel. And much younger than me.’

He makes the silver chain tighter around my wrist. The little bite in my wrist thrills me.

‘Is she your prisoner?’

‘I just want to make sure she never runs away again.’

I wriggle and lie back. The lamb to his slaughter. Little Red Riding Hood. He tugs off his jumper and shirt. I see his arms, sculpted and muscular, and at last I see his torso. Naked. His chest is broad enough to sleep on, tapering to that slim waist and sexy hips, just a strong line of black hair running from his solar plexus over his smooth, flat stomach, wandering like a tease down into his jeans. Skin so pale and vulnerable yet warm and muscular from climbing onto balconies and carrying country wenches down stairs.

He opens his arms, inviting my admiration like a showman, then he falls back onto the bed, runs his fingers greedily over me again as if he’s just discovered me under the Christmas tree, over my skin, down over the negligee, over my breasts, lingers over my nipples till they harden in response, then his hands move on down along my thighs.

‘And she has this amazing hair. Long, and lustrous, like Rapunzel.’

His lips are in my hair, running across my cheek. My mouth meets his, so warm, such a lovely fit, his body so warm, too, heavy as he continues to stroke me.

Our tongues curl round each other, more suggestively than before, then his mouth moves away down my throat. His fingers pull the negligee aside, baring my breasts, and he kisses them too, reverently and softly. My nipples are instantly burning for him. I can’t help it. I moan and arch my back towards him. I’ve waited for this forever, it seems.

And there it is, oh God, his tongue, flicking across my nipples, circling them, his lips nibbling briefly on each sore point before his mouth travels on downwards. I can’t do anything. My hands are tied above my head with the silver chain. It feels so good, lying here helplessly like this, unable to do anything, direct him, guide him, pleasure him even, other than lie here and be the feast he will enjoy again and again.

‘Please, Gustav. Fuck me. I can’t wait any longer.’

I open my legs and stretch them on either side of him. Pause. Don’t want to scare him off. Then wrap them round the back of him and pull him close to me. He glances up at me, his mouth wet from kissing, then he walks his knees back up between my thighs, so pale in the moonlight. He strokes me again, down my throat, over my breasts, down over my stomach. I hold my breath. His touch is so tender.

‘Enough with the talking.’

He is leaning over me now. I know his face so well. The half close of his eyes as if the lids are too heavy, when he’s aroused. The pushing forward of his lower lip when he finally releases it, as if eager for a kiss.

‘I want to touch you all over, Gustav. Will you untie the silver chain? I promise I’m not going anywhere.’

He grins. ‘You can’t leave me, anyway. Not while I have some rather incriminating footage in my possession.’

‘Footage?’ I wriggle anxiously.

‘I have cameras in this house, remember? Mostly switched off, actually, but that night when I thrashed you with the little nun’s whip, it’s all on film. You wouldn’t leave without securing that, would you?’

I squeal and kick at him. ‘You bastard! Blackmailing me!’

‘You’re mine, young lady!’ He laughs, and slaps me, hard, on the bottom. ‘I can hold you to ransom for as long as I like!’

We wrestle, hard, my struggle getting weaker as he weighs me down with his hands. My head flops back at last, with one last yank at my shackles.

‘You like it, don’t you? Our silver chain? Being tied like this really turns you on.’

I lie there, waiting. He lowers himself slowly over me. Unzips his jeans. And there is my prize.

Dear God, I thought this moment would never come. It was hard and brutal the other night. We were both gripped by fury and fear. But tonight? Tonight I want the luxury of taking a good look. I’m rapidly becoming unable to live without it.

So. Stay still. Don’t break the spell. We’re facing each other this time. His fathomless eyes. His sensuous mouth. He’s going to do it this time like a lover. Gorgeous, powerful, weird, wonderful Gustav Levi.

In the window the moon has slipped sideways on its way towards morning, as if averting its eyes, or ceding us some privacy.

The weight of him on my legs pins me down. I hitch my hips invitingly, see his jaw tighten as he bends his face down to brush his mouth against mine.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ he murmurs hoarsely.

I pull him into me, my legs strong and determined, and at last, at last his stomach is going tight as he starts to push inside me, little by little, he’s so hard and hot. My body encloses him. My legs wrap around his hips and we tussle, he’s strong, resisting, I’m determined, pulling, my body wants him deep, deeper inside me but still he’s testing himself, testing me, holding back for as long as possible, and then we’re rocking and tilting together, the pillows soft against my back, my bottom lifted off the bed as he pulls me with him.

This is normal, hot sex. So normal. My man and me.

His dark head is steady above mine, eyes black coals burning. It’s the face that has been uppermost in my mind for the last month.

A thump and clatter down in the hall. So Dickson has found the key.

‘Ignore him, Gustav. I’m here. Look at me.’

Gustav settles into a kind of trance, still staring at me, his fingers stroking my sides as if he’s tuning a harp. Then he takes hold of my hips, lifts them easily towards his strong, lithe body. He starts moving again. He starts to push. He’s just inside me. I move with him. It’s all so natural.

Of course he’s focused. Gustav Levi doesn’t do anything by halves. He doesn’t alter his slow, sexy rhythm. We are moving together, in time with the heartbeat of the jazz music. My legs grip tighter as he pushes further, further, he fits so perfectly, I’m loving this so much, I want to moan and thrash, and pull him and kiss him and bite him.

But I don’t. Not tonight. I show him a woman who can remain silent and submissive.

I keep my eyes on him, take a good look before the moonlight slides away completely. He’s filled out, somehow, like a ravenous man who has finally eaten a square meal. There’s no spare flesh on him, his muscles are chiselled by some kind of workout he must be doing, but I like that he’s bigger, stronger, than when I first met him. His arms ripple and flex with new muscles.

I’m his square meal. His nourishment.

I must have moaned just then, because suddenly he shifts, leaning close. I arch my back again, I’m so impatient now. Does he want my yearning breasts?

To my astonishment he reaches above me and unclips the silver chain, releasing my wrists, spreads his hands under my bottom and flips me like a pancake up towards him. We are upright now, face to face, nose to nose, like medieval saints praying on a tomb. I am straddling his knees. I feel so young like this, so athletic and free. I love that he’s playing with me, experimenting with me. And I love that he is still fitted deep inside, angled right up to the hilt.

We pause for a moment, breathing fast into each other’s faces, taunting each other to see who will move first, testing ourselves to see who will crack and give in to this incredible moment.