‘Thanks,’ he said into her ear. ‘That means more to me than I can tell you.’
She raised her chin and met his eye.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I trust you. I believe everything you’ve told me. I know the world’s against you, but it’ll have to be against me, too, because I’m on your side.’
She stood with her head against his shoulder, his hand in her hair, his cheek on the crown of her head, for a long time. It seemed neither of them wanted to break the embrace.
‘So,’ he said finally, unlocking them from their impasse with a pat on her bottom and a kiss on her forehead. ‘What do you want to try first?’
‘You mean—?’
‘In bed. Is there anything you’re curious about? Any little experiments you’d like me to take you through?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, with the dizzy feeling of being surrounded by shelves and shelves of sweetie jars, and no idea what to choose. ‘Aren’t you the expert? With your friends who worked in sex shops and all that?’
‘I’ve tried most things,’ he admitted with a cocky little smirk. ‘You’re in safe hands with me, love. And when I say safe, I mean …’
‘Hard!’ she exclaimed, thinking back to the spanking.
They both laughed.
‘All right. You want me to take the lead? That seems appropriate.’
He pondered for a while, tapping his fingers against his lips as he did so, while Jenna tried very hard not to prance about like a cat on hot bricks, desperate to know what was going through his dirty mind.
‘OK,’ he said eventually. ‘Here’s a mission for you. Get yourself to the sex shop in Trentham. Buy yourself a vibrator and some bondage cuffs – any kind, I don’t mind. Make ’em comfortable. Oh, and a flogger. Nothing fierce, just a suede one.’
‘I …’ She stood, staring, too many responses flying about in her mind for one to step forward.
‘Go on, then.’
‘But can’t I order them? Online?’
‘Well, you could, but then they wouldn’t get here till tomorrow earliest, would they?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And besides, I want you to go to the shop. I want you to take those things up to the counter, out and proud, baby.’
‘But they’ll all know who I am,’ Jenna wailed. ‘I can’t. I’ll die of embarrassment.’
‘Don’t be a div, Jen. Everybody buys sex toys now. Nobody’s going to judge you. Much,’ he said, with a little chuckly cough.
‘But have you thought of what the gossip will be, beyond my being a kinky perv? They’ll wonder who I’m doing it with. It could get in the papers, Jay.’
He shrugged. ‘They aren’t going to see you with me, are they? Not like we’ll get papped going into nightclubs or owt.’
‘I can’t,’ she said again, after a moment’s pause.
‘Listen, Jen. Don’t think of it as a request. Think of it as an order.’
His voice was hard now, and he took a firm hold of her elbow, leaning down to her. She felt that fatal thrill, the weakness, the flutter.
‘What if I refuse?’ she whispered.
‘I think you know.’
Time had slowed, everything around her was blurry and wonderlandish.