Caro reappeared with some open boxes trailing fountains of tissue paper.
‘These are the ones you were looking at, I think,’ she said. ‘Our changing room is just at the very back of the shop, behind that shelf of bondage harnesses.’
Hearing the words ‘bondage harnesses’ coming from the rather school-mistressy lips of Caro made Jenna want to giggle, but she restrained herself.
‘Thank you,’ she said, grateful that Caro had not mentioned her fame or made any appearance of recognising her at all. Perhaps she didn’t. Strange thought.
The changing room had silk-lined walls, soft lighting and a beautiful oval pier glass in which to study one’s gussied-up body.
Jason entered behind Jenna and put his hands on her shoulders, reaching down to unbutton her blouse from the top.
Jenna watched his progress in the mirror, watched his strong, sure hands work at the buttons, watched her skin emerge from the cream silk shell.
He slid the shirt off her, revealing her skin, subtly sheened from the expensive moisturiser she used. She watched him bury his nose in her neck and breathe her in, ending the inhalation with a low groan of desire.
She felt his fingers at the fastening of her trousers now, and then they crumpled down, sliding past her thighs and knees to heap at her ankles.
She stepped out of them, along with her shoes, and looked at herself, framed by Jason’s arms, in her pretty but unexciting pale pink lace underset.
‘You look so prim and proper,’ said Jason with a smirk. ‘But I think we’re about to change all that.’
He unhooked Jenna’s bra and made a meal of removing it, but he didn’t try to touch or cup her breasts, which surprised her.
Apparently he picked up on this, because he said, ‘I’m not going to get too carried away too soon. I want to see you in these little numbers first.’
‘Are you really going to get a bespoke paddle made by that guy?’ she asked, her mind still half on the telephone conversation.
‘If he’s up for it. Why not?’
‘It’s just . . . It seems so . . . The potential for him to go to the press.’
‘Oh, Jen, don’t be paranoid. He won’t if we ask him not to. And it’d look bad on him. Might affect his business if his clients feel he can’t keep a secret.’
‘I suppose so. I don’t have to go, do I?’
‘Of course you do! I’m not going alone. Get those knickers off – her outside’ll be thinking we’re shagging in here if we don’t get a move on.’
She looked at herself, naked in the mirror, with Jason at her shoulder. She barely recognised herself. It wasn’t that her body or face had changed, though her hair was less styled and her make-up barely there, compared with her days of LA glory. No, there was something in her eye – a vulnerability, maybe, or an uncertainty – that made her look younger. Every day she spent with Jason seemed to bring a new challenge, a new thing to learn about herself. She seemed to be reassessing her entire self, and the meaning of her life.
No wonder she looked a bit scared.
When was the last time she had given control to another person?
Never.
And now, here was Jason, making decisions over her head, getting her to do things she had never dreamed of doing. Would she have done these things for Deano? She really wasn’t sure.
‘OK,’ she said, trying to strike a confident note. ‘This is me. Dress me up.’
Jason took the flirty lilac and apricot silk set first. The knickers were relatively tame in the front, with their scanty triangle of lilac silk surrounded by pale apricot lace, but at the back they were almost non-existent; just a pair of elastic straps on either side, travelling diagonally up her bottom cheeks from the crevice between her thighs. Essentially, they were crotchless and would provide no barrier at all to even the least assertive of lovers. And Jason was far from being that.
‘Whoa, baby,’ he said appreciatively. ‘This is what I like to see. Knickers that aren’t really knickers. You can wear them any time you like.’
She posed in them, making the adhesive hygiene strips inside rustle.
‘And the bra,’ prompted Jason, handing it over.
The matching bra had peephole slits over the nipples that could be tied shut with two little flaps of lilac silk ribbon. Jenna knotted them shut, feeling the delicious naughtiness of it so that her nipples hardened and brushed the material. Oh God, it was turning her on. She couldn’t possibly walk about with this thing on underneath her normal clothes – she’d be permanently hot and bothered, not to mention feeling the backlessness of the knickers at the same time.