Burning with Passion

The more he revealed of himself, the closer Caitlin felt to him. She didn’t want to resume an affair with him. Surely this idea of buying her a horse, as well as a property to put it on, meant more than that. Yet not once had he broached the subject of their future together in any concrete detail.

He had not asked her home with him to meet his mother. In that area, all forward progress was stalled.

‘What are you thinking, Caitlin?’ he asked.

‘These are the times that test women’s souls.’

‘And other things besides,’ David reminded her.

‘It’s not easy for me,’ she reminded him.

‘Nor me,’ he semi-growled.

She knew what he was thinking.

What was happening between them was at Caitlin’s insistence. It was all her fault. As soon as she changed her mind over artificial restraints on touching and feeling, life could return to normal. That was what David thought.

What David didn’t know was that Caitlin wasn’t going to change her mind. She remembered very clearly what had happened between them just after six o’clock on the morning of February the fourteenth. She didn’t want David to ever lose that recollection, either. If Caitlin needed to be held, kissed and cuddled, then held, kissed and cuddled she was going to be.

Nevertheless, she was less and less sure that enforced restraint would achieve this desirable end. She struggled against the temptation he stirred inside her from merely a heated flash of his eyes.

‘This is a procedural check,’ she told him, ‘on steadfastness, stick-at-ability, commitment, endurance, caring,...’

‘There are other things I would rather do,’ David said, sounding a little testy, ‘to demonstrate endurance, commitment, caring, stick-at-ability...’

‘You must see more in me than physical union,’ Caitlin interrupted archly. ‘After all, you promised me a list. A long list. You gave me to believe that I had a large number of attributes that you found quite attractive apart from...’

‘So true,’ David asserted, but without optimum vigour. ‘You must be aware, though, that you have a chemical reaction on me that makes my biology burn. I’m burning now,’ he protested. ‘I’m burning all the time. My biology is being incinerated. And I’m a reasonably young man. At this rate, I estimate there won’t be anything left of me by the year...’

‘Here’s an interesting place,’ Caitlin said in order to divert his attention from his burning.

David slowed the Ferrari down. He turned into the driveway.

‘Featherstone,’ she said. ‘Nice name. Clydesdale stud. We’d better go and have a look, David.’

David needed all the distraction she could give him.

‘What do we want with a Clydesdale stud?’ he grunted.

‘Satisfied curiosity,’ she replied.

‘Have I told you how beautiful you look today?’ David asked.

‘Eleven times,’ Caitlin soothed.

‘Maybe if you dressed yourself in something more ill-becoming,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t feel quite so teased, tantalised and severely tested.’

They were both wearing jeans, ordinary plain blue jeans. She had teamed hers with an embroidered peasant blouse which was quite pretty, but it hardly rated as the height of sexiness.

‘Do you want me to look like a scarecrow?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure what we’re achieving with all this restraint,’ David muttered.

The echo of her own doubts was disturbing. ‘You’re satisfying me,’ Caitlin told him.

‘Not the way I’d choose.’

With a little spurt on the accelerator that told Caitlin quite a lot about his frustration level, he drove the Ferrari up to the front door. Caitlin had no difficulty in interpreting that David’s patience was wearing thin. She sighed. Maybe there was nothing more to achieve.