Seduction (2 page)

Then our conversation was interrupted by the driver. ‘You are married?' he asked, looking at us in his rear-view mirror.

‘Yes,' said Marcus without hesitation, laying his hand just above my knee and squeezing proprietorially. I was so surprised I couldn't react.

‘Ah. How many children?'

‘None yet.' Marcus didn't remove his hand. ‘We only married this year. And you – how many children do you have?' The conversation spun away onto the driver's family and Marcus
seemed entirely happy exchanging gossip, making up on the spot the occasional detail about our family life, while I tried not to swallow my tongue. All the time Marcus kept his hand on my thigh, his fingers warm through my cotton skirt. Only when the subject was exhausted did he sit back, casting me a conspiratorial smile.

I stared out of the window after that, disquieted by his behaviour – and by my reaction to it. The touch of his hand had sent a bolt of heat through my body and my sex was suffused with an uncomfortable warmth. But I didn't have long to worry about it, because we turned off the main road and down into a wind-scoured valley, tooting our horn as we pressed through a flock of goats, and finally reached a fenced-off collection of ruined walls beneath a cluster of cafés and souvenir stalls. There wasn't any time to worry as we ran the gauntlet of traders, paid for entry and finally slipped into the calm of the archaeological site.

‘All right?' asked Marcus as we tramped down the concrete path.

I stopped. ‘That was a bit presumptuous of you back then. About us being married.'

He looked amused. ‘Would you rather be known as the sort of woman who's willing to share a taxi with two men she
isn't
related to?'

‘Oh, I get why you did it, just . . .'

‘Of course,' he added, not quite keeping a straight face, ‘you are exactly that sort of woman.'

‘Hey! That doesn't mean –'

‘Of course it doesn't. I know that. Just because you'll let a strange man sit next to you and talk to you, doesn't mean you'll fuck him just because he wants it. You might fuck him if
you
wanted it, but that's the nuance that doesn't translate very easily: female choice.'

I bit my lip, taken aback. He held my eye. ‘That was the
subject of my thesis at university,' I said, feeling oddly at sea. ‘“Female Choice in Victorian Fiction”.'

‘Really?' His eyebrows rose appreciatively. ‘There you are, then. You know what I'm talking about.'

‘Yes . . .'

He held out a photo-guide he'd bought at the ticket office. He hadn't asked if I wanted it. ‘Go for it, Astrid. We can take as long as you like.'

Accepting the book, it occurred to me that I hadn't challenged his assertion:
you might fuck him if you wanted it
. By then it was a bit too late.

We wandered around the place together, unhurried. It wasn't a big site, though it had a marketplace and a temple dedicated to Jupiter, a small theatre, some large houses designated vaguely as ‘official residences' and a few
in situ
mosaics. I was just pleased to be out exploring. Some of the buildings had been partially restored and the head-high walls cast the only patches of shade. While I was examining the mosaics Marcus wandered off to poke around in some semi-roofed cellars. I decided the artwork depicted Leda and the Swan, though it was very worn. When I'd taken enough photos I had a look down a well shaft and then went to find Marcus again.

He was standing with his back to the shady side of a wall, his Panama hat in his hand, fanning himself lazily. He smiled as he saw me approach, then tilted his head, inspecting my shoulders. ‘You've caught the sun, Astrid.'

I made a noise of dismay, reaching automatically for the tube of sunblock in my bag. I burn easily; it's something that comes with the carrot-coloured hair and the freckles and blue eyes.

‘Let me do that.' He took the tube from my hand.

‘Ah – I'm not sure that's a good idea.'

His smile was utterly disarming. ‘Hey; we're a married couple, remember?'

‘I don't think even married couples are supposed to touch each other in public.'

‘Well.' He made a show of glancing around. ‘Nobody's looking at the moment. Turn around and I'll do the back of your neck.'

I gave in. My neck and shoulders were already tight with the first inklings of sunburn. Marcus gathered my bobbed hair in his hand to bare the nape of my neck then squirted out blobs of sunblock. I bowed my head obediently, wishing my insides wouldn't squirm like that. The tug on my hair was subtly suggestive of erotic violence. The cream was deliciously cool and his fingers gentle, working in slow patient strokes to smear it over my shoulders and up to my hairline. It felt lovely. Rhys was always swift and businesslike when he did it; this was irreproachably gentle, but the effect on me was far less innocent. I pressed my lips together so as not to make any noise.

‘OK. Let me do your face.'

I turned, flustered, as he let my hair fall back into place. ‘I can do that.'

‘Shush. Close your eyes or it'll sting.' He squirted little white pearls of suncream onto his fingertips, then stuffed the tube out of the way into his jeans. I stood, feeling horribly conflicted, as he dabbed the cream on my face. Then I closed my eyes. He stroked all over my face, both hands moving in symmetry, up to my forehead, thumbs down the line of my nose, massaging across my cheekbones. I felt all the breath go out of me. There was absolutely no mistaking it this time; this was a caress he was giving. His fingers stroked under the line of my jaw and I trembled with the effort of holding still. Then he just cupped my face. I opened my eyes slowly.

‘You've got wonderful freckles,' he murmured, his eyes shining.

Slowly I pulled from his hands, trying to remember to breathe. ‘Ah . . .'

‘Shall we go sit in the shade? There's a wall at the back of the theatre and we'll be able to catch any breeze coming up the valley.'

‘I'm a bit warm,' I admitted faintly, wondering if he would have kissed me if I'd kept my eyes closed. Wondering if I dared want him to.

We went and found his patch of shade, and sat side by side on the bare rock step, looking down the valley at the dried riverbed. All the trees looked dead. Two small boys were trudging after their goats in the mid-distance. We sipped our bottled water. I glanced sideways at Marcus, who was sitting with one leg bent up, his wrist resting on his knee, his bottle swinging from his hand. There was a faint, distant smile on his lips as he gazed out over the land, which provoked me. ‘What are you thinking about?' I asked.

He answered without hurry and without looking at me. ‘I'm thinking about which part of you I'd like to fuck first, if we got the chance.'

‘Oh.' I couldn't find it in me to be shocked; we'd crossed a threshold of understanding some minutes back.

‘I'm sorry.' He cast me an amused, sideways look. ‘Would you prefer “make love” to “fuck”?'

‘I prefer “fuck”.'

‘I thought you would.'

‘It's not going to happen, though.'

‘If you say so.'

‘I'm married. You know that.'

‘I sure do.'

There was a silence. ‘Which part would you pick?' I asked.

He looked at me properly then, obviously pleased, and said, ‘You won't find out by asking.' He straightened up. ‘Shall we go get something to eat?'

There was a café out at the main entrance. By now it was the full blaze of noon and we were desperate for shade, so we went
inside instead of taking an exterior table. There were a few other customers but it was so dark after the daylight glare that I could hardly see. Marcus led me right to the back of the room where the tables were unoccupied and we sat on a cushioned bench against the wall. There was an open window to my side, covered by a rattan blind, so we had a bit of a breeze without having to suffer the sunlight. A waiter came over as we were looking at the menu, and Marcus ordered a cup of coffee and a tea.

‘Excuse me!' I protested. ‘You didn't actually ask me!'

‘Did you want a coffee?' he said, clearly not believing that I did. He was right too; I couldn't cope with the thick black stuff they served in tiny cups.

‘I wanted a cold drink!'

He called out to the retreating waiter, ordering a couple of
limons
.

‘Hoi! You did it again!' I didn't know whether to laugh or be annoyed by his overweening confidence.

‘You'll like it. They just liquidise a whole lemon with icing sugar and water – very refreshing. And I asked him to make sure it was bottled water.'

‘That's not the point, Marcus,' I hissed. ‘You should have asked. Female choice, remember?'

He crooked an eyebrow. ‘You're right; choice is powerful. But surrendering the power to choose . . . that's powerful too.'

‘What?'

‘It's another order of power altogether.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘I'll show you.' His teeth gleamed in the dimness. When he spoke again his voice was lowered. ‘Lift your skirt up.'

I stared at him, my heart beginning to thump.

‘Lift your skirt,' he repeated, leaning in ever so slightly. ‘I want to see your thighs.'

I looked down at my legs. Sunlight shining through the little
hexagonal holes in the blind lay in bright specks all over my white skirt.

‘Show me.'

The table shielded me partially from the rest of the restaurant. I put my hands on the fabric and began to gather it slowly, revealing my knees. Why not? I asked myself. They were knees, that was all.

‘Good. Now, all the way.'

Very slowly I pulled the skirt right up, almost to my crotch. I wasn't showing him anything he couldn't see on a poolside, I reasoned, but it wasn't the reasoning part of my mind that was in charge. The light-spots on my pale thighs were blinding white.

‘Very good. Well done.' His voice sounded thicker. ‘Now, do you feel that?'

I felt something all right: my knickers were full of heat and wetness, my clit was pulsing, and my entire lower body felt heavy and swollen. Marcus put out a hand very carefully and stroked his fingertips up my thigh. I bit my lip.

‘You don't believe this is powerful? See what you've done to me.'

Very tentatively, not looking at him and trying not to move my upper arm in an incriminating manner, I stretched my fingers out to touch the fabric of his trousers. I found it tented. A foray discovered the thick ridge of his erection, as hard as bone, straining up against the cloth. Staring across the room with my mouth dry and my panties awash, I felt dizzy and dissociated, helpless under the tide of my arousal.

Then the waiter reappeared from behind the bar, bearing a tray of drinks. With one smooth movement Marcus tugged my skirt into place and I withdrew my hand. I let him order lunch without demurral. My sex was so wet I was certain I'd be leaving a damp patch on the cushions.

During the meal, and the ride back to town afterwards, we spoke very little. What was there to say, after all? It wasn't as
if anything could happen. I wasn't going to let him fuck me out here in public and I wasn't going to conduct an affair under my husband's nose back at the hotel. The whole thing was an impossible fantasy. Marcus seemed quietly content anyway. I wasn't feeling calm at all, because it was the first time since my wedding that a casual interest in a man other than Rhys had hardened to serious temptation. I was glad there would be no opportunity to really mess things up. Well, a part of me was glad. The other part spent the whole journey back watching him furtively and imagining what might happen if he pulled up my skirt right there in the back of the taxi and ran his hand up the inside of my thigh to my sopping gusset and then pulled me into his embrace, while our driver watched us in the rear-view mirror with horror and delight.

Back at the hotel, Marcus walked me to my apartment. I think he was talking about visiting the Wadi Rum at this point, but I wasn't really listening to him, just to the thump of my heart and the surge of my blood. I wasn't going to ask him in, I told myself. I was going to let him go on the doorstep.

But the door was locked and no one answered my knock. I nearly swore then; I was so unsettled by my inner struggle. ‘He's still out on the boat,' I groaned. ‘Oh God.'

‘You can come over to my room while you're waiting.'

I rolled my eyes, trying to hide how rattled I was by the suggestion. ‘No. I need a shower. Oh, it's so damn hot . . . And my swimming costume is inside so I can't use the pool . . .'

He shrugged. ‘Use my shower.'

‘That's . . . a really bad idea,' I said with feeling.

He laughed. ‘I promise I won't join you unless you ask me. You trust me, don't you?'

I lifted my eyebrows without answering. It wasn't him I mistrusted: oddly, I felt as if I knew him well enough, as if I'd known him for years. In fact it had been less than twenty-four hours.

‘Aha.' He looked both abashed and slyly flattered. ‘Well, you could always lock the door, you know. And if you don't want a shower I've still got air-con and room service.'

In the end I went with him to his apartment, which was the same style as ours, with a double bed and kitchen area and a sitting room. I did use his shower, and one of his pristine fluffy towels. I did bolt the bathroom door in fact, but very quietly, so as not to be insulting. And as I stood under the wonderful tepid downpour I kept an eye on the handle, wondering if he'd try it. The thing never twitched, and though I did think I heard his voice at one point, it was so faint it couldn't have been meant for me.

Towelling myself down, I felt considerably better for my wash but no less precarious in my virtue. I could just open the bathroom door, I told myself. I could walk out there naked and he'd take one look and throw me onto the bed and fuck my wet hole. I wondered what his cock would look like. He'd be circumcised, I assumed, being American. I wondered how big it would be. I wondered whether he liked to go on top or beneath, and pictured him gripping my ankles and pushing them back and wide as his big stiff cock pounded into my cunt. He'd go for the difficult, gymnastic positions, I thought.