Silver

When he placed it against his body and she realised why she tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her.

‘Stop that,’ he told her curtly. ‘You’re going to have to do far more than touch a man with such shrinking reluctance if you’re going to play the seductress.’

She had known, of course, only somehow, contemplating the intimacies she would have to endure, the skills she would have to learn, hadn’t seemed quite the same as it did now, with her hand forced to lie against the hard pulse that betrayed his arousal.

‘Now,’ he told her quietly as he released her hand, ‘having got this far, we might as well make full use of what you’ve achieved. To arouse a man is easy,’ he told her, ignoring her angry muttered protest. Easy, was it? She didn’t think so. ‘To sustain that arousal, and then to turn mere arousal into desire, and desire into obsession, is something else. So you’ve aroused your victim, shown him that you’re capable of exciting his desire. Now you’ve got to show him how much you want that desire. You’ve got to flatter him into thinking he’s the only man to arouse you to that intensity of desire…’

‘Can’t I just tell him that?’ Silver demanded truculently.

‘You can… and in fact you should, but not at this stage; we’ll get round to that later. For now you just concentrate on convincing him that he’s the ultimate in macho virility.’

He waited for a few seconds, and then said crisply, ‘Think, Silver. You’ve got what you wanted. He’s aroused but he’s vulnerable; the true seductress knows that men don’t like feeling vulnerable. Now you’ve got to restore his pride. You’ve got to convince him that you’re vulnerable. Think,’ he reiterated impatiently. ‘Think of what you’d want him to do if you did actually want him.’

His words rang warning bells in her brain.

‘I’m the one seducing him, not the other way round,’ she reminded him coldly.

‘Yes, and one of the most effective means of seduction is to appear seduced oneself. It’s a simple, basic precept. You arouse him; you pretend to be aroused in turn; you apologise and tell him that you don’t normally react like that. His ego loves the flattery, and immediately, because of your apparent desire for him, you become more desirable to him.

‘I presume you don’t know how to simulate desire. Hence your truculence? It isn’t that difficult…’ His voice was extremely dry. ‘All you have to do is to kiss me as you were doing before…’ She was glad he couldn’t see her face.

‘While you’re doing it, you can take hold of my hand and put it on your breast, or, if I’m already touching you there, you can press yourself against me and make some pretty little moaning sounds. If you can manage to tremble as well, that’s even better. If I don’t take the hint then and start undressing you, you can whisper in my ear how much you’d like to have my mouth against your breast. Think you can manage any of that?’

The question trapped her. She wanted to hurl a denial at him, and yet she sensed that he was deliberately testing her… seeing how serious, how committed she was to the course she had chosen. If she backed out now, she would only have it all to go through again with someone else. At least Jake couldn’t see her. At least he was clinical and detached from her… even in his arousal.

She thought of all the answers she could give him and opted for the one that was honest.

‘I don’t know,’ she told him.

‘Well, shall we see if we can find out?’

She paused, nodded, and then realised that he couldn’t see her and said brusquely, ‘Yes.’

‘Right, then, let’s give it a try.’

She was becoming more adept at summoning up her will-power and focusing her concentration. Perhaps the enforced constant repetition had something to do with it as well, she reflected, acknowledging as she moved towards him how familiar the sensation of Jake’s body against her own had become.

She kissed him as he had told her to, telling herself it was only like climbing a mountain, or skiing down a dangerous slope. It was only another goal she had to reach. She moved, surprised by how easily her muscles slipped into the provocative rhythm, flesh against flesh, muscle against muscle, her softness against his hardness, part and counterpart, two skilfully designed components that, once put together… and then she realised that the reason her body was moving so easily and fluently was that Jake’s was moving with it, helping her… encouraging her.

It was the first time he had done anything other than remain like solid stone, and she felt the same thrill she had that day on the ski-slopes: that surge of knowledge that she would win, that nothing could stand in her way.

Jake was helping her, not so much in accolade to her burgeoning skill, but in a silent acknowledgement that she would succeed… a subtle carrot dangled after the painful sting of the stick.

He broke the kiss and said against her mouth, ‘Stop daydreaming, Silver… My hand, remember?’

She had been so carried away by her own euphoria that she had forgotten. And now her mood was broken. Her body tensed. She felt awkward and uncertain, but she knew that Jake wouldn’t allow her to back out. If she flunked it this time he would make her go over it again and again until she got it, just as he had done earlier, and so she made her body relax, trying to envisage it as fluid satin as she had done before, trying to imagine it as settling smoothly over Jake’s body, remembering that it was her task to arouse him as she closed her eyes and kissed him, curling her fingers round his wrist as she lifted his hand to her breast.

Charles had never touched her body, and she had learned why. He had found her too repulsive. Just for a second she saw herself as she had been then: ungainly, overweight, insecure, and painfully shy.

She was none of these things now. She had a body now that was sleek and streamlined, her flesh smooth and silky.

She now had the kind of body that any man would want to touch.

As she registered the contact of Jake’s hand on her body, long, lean fingers splayed out across her satin pyjama jacket, radiating heat through the fabric and on to her skin, she wondered if she would ever totally manage to vanquish the past and the woman she had been then.

Against her ear Jake’s voice warned, ‘Remember, you’re supposed to want this. You’re supposed to be making me feel I’m driving you wild.’

Driving her wild. He was—wild with anger and tension and insecurity and a dozen or more other negative emotions she thought she had already put behind her.

There was no pressure in the touch of his hand, no more intimacy or awareness than if he had simply been touching her arm to help her across a street.

But she was aware of him; aware of the heat and alienness of him where his hand covered her; aware of the softness of her own body, of the curve of her breasts and the sensitivity of her nipples where the satin touched them.

She shuddered as she felt Jake’s chest expand with impatience.

‘Don’t think about me,’ he commanded her harshly, withdrawing his hand. ‘Don’t think about me… don’t think about anyone; think only of yourself, of what you’re projecting… of what you want to achieve. You’re so goal-orientated; think of this as a goal you have to achieve, let your senses monitor the degree of your success or lack of it… Let them tell you how the man touching you is feeling. Desire is a very sensitive emotion; only by understanding that will you be able to truly control and manipulate a man’s sexual reaction to you.’

Silver had stopped listening to him; he was pressing her too hard, demanding too much of her too soon, and she thought she knew the reason why. He was so anxious to be rid of her and get his money that he was trying to set a pace it was impossible for her to match.

‘Listen to me, damn you!’ he swore at her suddenly.

Suddenly her control snapped.

‘I’m not like you,’ she told him angrily. ‘I’m not so used to casual sexual intimacy that it doesn’t matter to me who…’

She gasped with pain as his fingers bit deeply into the soft flesh of her upper arms.

‘You know nothing about me,’ he told her tersely. ‘Nothing. If you’ve changed your mind and want to bring this whole thing to an end, then say so, and stop trying to manufacture an excuse.’ His mouth twisted and he released her, adding unexpectedly, ‘And, for your information, I do not use and never have used sex indiscriminately. Nor have I ever used it as a weapon,’ he told her devastatingly. ‘What is it you really want from this man, Silver? You told Annie you wanted revenge—–’

Her mouth tightening, Silver interrupted angrily, ‘She had no right to tell you that.’

‘She was concerned about you. Annie’s like that. She can’t stop herself from caring, from becoming involved. A human weakness I doubt you’d understand.’

Almost she told him, and then she stopped herself just in time, sensing the cleverly baited trap. It would be madness to allow this man to know too much about her… to witness her vulnerabilities.

‘Why?’ he probed, ignoring her tension. ‘Why all this…?’ His hand touched her face fleetingly.

‘I have my reasons,’ she told him freezingly.

‘A woman spurned,’ he mocked. ‘What really motivates you, do you know? Anger… hatred… love…?’

Silver shuddered, the fine hairs on her arms rising warningly. He was too aware, too sensitive in some way to her most private thoughts and feelings. It was almost as though he himself knew what it was to be driven… to be possessed… obsessed almost. And as for that last softly spoken challenge… Please God she no longer felt any love for Charles. Hatred, anger, yes… she needed them just as much as she needed her driving hunger for retribution…

‘What is it exactly you hope to achieve?’ Jake pressed, and then added, ‘Oh, I know what your physical goal is, but what satisfaction do you expect to gain from achieving it?’

Silver almost wished she hadn’t allowed him to see that shudder of sensation which had made him take his hands from her body. In its own way this was an almost equally painful form of torture—this probing into her mind, her feelings. Physically, at least most of the time, she could hide her reactions from him, but mentally, emotionally… he was far too good at finding her weak points and playing on them.

Holding up her head, she said coolly, ‘The Chinese have a saying: “There is nothing so amusing as to see an enemy fall from a high roof.” I intend to make sure Charles falls from a very high roof indeed.’