She was hypnotised, transfixed, listening to that voice, that husky, familiar, beloved voice, aware of the track of those caressing fingers. Her body had hungered for the remembered touch for so long.
Johnny groaned. ‘I can’t believe we’re here together, here, in this house, in this room. Has time stopped? Did time ever move at all? Did I dream everything that’s happened since the last time we were here together? Maybe we’ve been here, in this room, all that time – and everything else was the dream, and this was real.’
She turned her face up, yearning; their mouths met. She ran her arms round his neck and her body moved closer, closer. Desire took over and she was helpless to fight it, didn’t even want to; she wanted only the satisfaction of this terrible need, which had been frustrated for so long. She knew Johnny felt exactly the same. Her body knew everything about Johnny. He might have been away for eight years, but now they were together again their blood spoke, their flesh melted together.
They didn’t talk any more.
It had the measured movements of a ritual, a dance for two; they slowly sank down on to the rug, in front of the fire, as they had the first time they made love here, and undressed each other slowly, touching, kissing, exploring.
As she felt his hard flesh enter her, she cried out in as much pain as pleasure, and he paused, looking down at her.
‘Did I hurt you, darling?’ he asked as he had asked that first time, his voice surprised, shaky.
‘No, it’s just so … Oh, Johnny, Johnny, I need you, so much.’
‘There must have been other men since …’
‘No,’ she admitted huskily, ‘I couldn’t, never, I didn’t want anyone else but you.’
He looked down into her eyes as if he couldn’t believe what she had said.
‘Nobody at all?’
She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t forget you, Johnny.’
He kissed her, groaning. ‘Annie, Annie.’ Slowly he began to move inside her while their mouths clung; she moved with him, her knees clasping him, her arms holding him tightly so that they were one body moving to one driving rhythm which quickened and deepened to a climax so shattering that Annie actually lost consciousness for a second or two, and came back to awareness to hear herself making wild, animal sounds as her body slowly shuddered to rest.
As she slackened, a sadness came down over her, and she gave a sob, began to cry, her face buried on his shoulder.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ he asked, trying to look at her, but she burrowed into him, refusing to let him see her face.
‘There’s something I must tell you, Johnny, don’t be angry with me, please don’t be angry, I was so unhappy because you’d gone away and left me, I couldn’t fight them.’
His hand gently stroked her tumbled hair, he held her closer, their bodies still entwined. ‘Sshh. Don’t cry. I’d never be angry with you, Annie, I love you too much.’
She moistened her lips and plunged. ‘Johnny, when you went away, I was … I was … going to have a baby.’
She felt his body tense, heard the intake of his breath, and hurried on, her words tumbling out feverishly, desperate to confess to him and get it over with, because she couldn’t bear to lie to him, especially after making love like that. Once they had known everything about each other, she wanted to be that way again with him, op
en and innocent and utterly truthful. ‘But you vanished and I was scared,’ she said with a smothered sob. ‘And my mother was so angry with me, and you didn’t come back, and Derek Fenn wanted me in his TV series … and … they made me do it, Johnny. They made me … get rid of my baby.’
She heard him swearing, his face against her hair, his swift breathing stirring the pale strands on her temples.
She was afraid to look at him. ‘I’m sorry, Johnny, I should have been stronger, I should have fought them, but I was alone, and scared,’ she whispered, trembling. ‘If I’d known you would be back one day I wouldn’t have listened, but I thought you had left me for good. They argued and argued with me, and I was so tired and miserable I finally said, “Oh, alright, yes,” and then they rushed me off to this clinic before I could change my mind. I was in and out in two days, and that was when I had a nervous breakdown. I just went to pieces for weeks after that. I stayed in bed and cried and cried.’
Johnny didn’t move or say a word, but she felt his pain, and his anger, in the tension of the warm body lying against her, in the stiffening of his shoulder and arm, the muscles tight and hard with a desire to strike someone.
Billy Grenaby had the ratings in front of him. ‘Still climbing. Well, a few points up. That’s fine, even a couple of points is good if it’s going in the right direction.’ He leaned back, his spatulate hands on the leather-topped desk which was the centre of the huge room on the top floor of the Midland TV production company building down by the river. From the huge windows on two sides of the room you got amazing views: the grey, crowded waterway of the Thames, the city roofscape, the towers and church spires. When the sun was bright, Venetian blinds filtered the light, but today they were rolled up, showing the wintry mother-of-pearl sky.
Billy’s eyes skewered Harriet. ‘Now, what’s this I hear … you’ve got problems?’
Harriet looked diplomatically blank. She wasn’t answering until she knew precisely what he was talking about.
‘Actor problems,’ Billy expanded, his eye commanding her.
She muttered, ‘Well, you know, Mike’s drinking … late half the time, quarrels with Annie, doesn’t know his words, can’t concentrate.’
Billy looked down at the long sheets of computer print-out in front of him and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. ‘I’ll have him to lunch, talk to him, sort him out. He’s an arrogant SOB, but never forget, he’s a star, no getting away from it. He’s got the charisma, Harriet. He and Annie both; they’re the show’s biggest pull.’ He glanced at Sean. ‘I think we should heat up their scenes even more. The ratings soar every time they have one of those spats on screen. Good stuff. But you still aren’t going far enough. Sex and violence, gets ’em every time. I think it’s time they actually did it on screen, don’t you?’