‘What are you up to?’ she asked sleepily.
‘Just getting you into the zone,’ he said.
‘What zone?’
‘The zone where I can do anything to you and you’ll love it.’
She was already there, but she didn’t want him to know that.
‘What do you mean by “anything”?’
‘I mean,’ he said, pressing his fingertips deep into her soft tissues until she moaned, ‘anything.’
She wriggled her bottom, as much as she could with it wedged between his thighs, as a little signal that his work was paying off.
He took the hint, reached underneath her and unbuttoned her waistband. Soon her shorts and knickers had been eased over her curves, baring her bottom to the mid-afternoon sun.
‘What about sunburn?’ she said nervously.
‘I thought you didn’t mind a red hot bum?’ said Jason slyly.
‘Not sunburn!’
‘Nah. You’re right. I’ll put you in the shade.’
He took her shorts all the way off, then pulled her upright. She let him lead her, feeling very sheepish at being naked from the waist down, beneath the shadow of one of the few flourishing things in that desiccated garden: a plane tree.
The grass beneath it was softer and sweeter. Jason patted her shoulder.
‘Get down on all fours, love,’ he said.
‘All fours?’
‘That’s right. Do you need a diagram?’
Slightly huffily, she dropped into the required position, her sheepishness blooming into full-blown shame at her exposed position.
Jason stood behind her, then crouched down and put a hand in the small of her back, forcing her spine down and her bottom up until she rested on her elbows.
‘That’s it. God, I wish I could paint you right now. Well, not right now, because there are other things I’d rather do, but in this position. Just like that – your skin and the way you’re completely open to me. I’d look at it for hours.’
‘I don’t think I could keep this position for that long, to be honest.’
‘No, I mean the painting. Well, or you. Both. But if you’re going to get tired, I’d better get down to it.’
She was about to ask what ‘it’ was, when her breath was taken away by the sound of him cracking his belt through its loops. She heard him walk up behind her and waited for the follow-up of the rustle of denim creeping down his long legs, but it didn’t come.
Instead, she whimpered in shock at the feel of cold, soft leather drifting over her back and bottom. He was dangling his belt over her, letting it glide and whisper across her skin until it tingled.
‘Feel that, babe? It’s for you. It’s coming for you. You need it.’
‘Oh,’ she moaned, fidgeting, every hair standing on end. ‘Are you going to …?’
‘What?’
‘Use it on me?’ she whispered.
He chuckled and she heard him crouch down behind her.