‘Lie down and I’ll do your back for you,’ he said drily. ‘You can’t do it for yourself, can you? And the sun is hot; you don’t want to ruin your holiday by getting sunburn—it could be painful, especially as you have such
lovely English skin, like strawberries and cream, all pink and white.’
She blushed at the compliment and laughed, but protested. ‘I’ve got to go and change, to go to the police station.’
‘There’s plenty of time yet. You particularly need to protect the back of your neck and your shoulders from the sun; you can get sunstroke just walking about here—you don’t even need to be sunbathing. Lie down on your stomach.’
He slid off the mattress he was sitting on and knelt by her side. She looked up into his eyes and the world tilted—sky and sea and yellow sands whirling. Dizzy, she obeyed him and lay down, closing her eyes, falling into soft, velvety darkness, the world’s wild spinning gradually slowing.
All her other senses began operating with amazing clarity, frightening intensity. Her ears were as sensitive as those of a bat in a cave, picking up the singing of the waves, the laughter of children, the cry of gulls overhead, but, even more sharply, hearing the sound of his quick breathing, the trickle of lotion into his palm as he tipped the bottle upside-down on his hand, the rustle of his hair against his face as he bent over her. She almost felt that she could hear the sound of his heart beating, the blood circulating through his body.
She felt her breathing catch as he pushed her dark hair up from her nape. Cool fingertips touched the delicate pale skin left exposed. Her pulses leapt. He slid his fingers down her neck, along her shoulder-blades; she shuddered with pleasure. He pushed down the thin straps of her demure, one-piece black swimsuit and smoothed lotion where they had lain. His touch was both soothing and hypnotic; she felt her pulses slowing, and around them the sounds of the beach seemed to fade into the distance. Eyes shut, she drifted into a state where the rhythmic movement of his hands dominated her.
And then she felt her tight-fitting swimsuit being pulled downwards. She woke up in a hurry and tried to stop the top peeling off, but too late—her breasts were already bared. Giving a cry of dismay, she put her hands over them, angrily glaring at him over her shoulder.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I haven’t done some parts of your back which are half covered, and I don’t want to get lotion on your swimsuit.’
‘That’s quite enough!’
‘There’s no sense in half doing a job.’
He began working lotion into her spine, into the soft cushions of flesh on either side of the indentation, his splayed hands kneading and moulding. She was tense for a moment and he felt it, murmured softly, ‘Relax!’
She ignored him, but what he was doing was so insidiously enjoyable that gradually she slackened, began to drift back into a sensuous trance. Pleasure broke in rainbows in her head—glittering and radiant, dazzling her. It was so long since a man had touched her intimately. She had slept cold and alone all this time, and the sensual contact was both exciting and disturbing. She was trembling in response, hardly able to breathe, deeply conscious of every lightest touch. He was kneeling very close to her, his sandy naked legs brushing hers, his hands strong and possessive, his body moving in a driving rhythm which was a reflection of the act of love and made her blood run faster, desire ache, hot and deep inside her.
Her eyes shut tight, she was helpless, lost. If they had been alone in a room instead of being here, on a crowded beach, he could have turned her over and taken her then, and she knew she would have surrendered without a struggle.
I want him! she thought, and that in itself was shattering, because her husband had been the only man in her life until now, the only man she had ever slept with, the only man she had ever loved.
She didn’t know how to deal with these new feelings. This deep clamouring in her body was entirely new to her. She had never before looked at a man and thought, I want him! She had loved Rob, had slept with him every night of their married lives and enjoyed sex with him— but this was very different.
She had been so young when she’d married Rob, and by the time she’d reached her sexual peak their love-making had been more of a ritual than an earth-shattering experience. Their love had become quiet and gentle; there had been no room in it for the sort of wild tremors shaking her now. It disturbed her to admit it, even to herself, but the truth was that Rob had never been a fiercely passionate man. He would have been shocked if she had shown him this side of herself.
I didn’t know it existed! she thought, still stunned by these discoveries about herself. I never knew I could feel this way. Forty years old and I never knew myself.
Gil moved his hands in a smooth, rippling motion and her mouth went dry with desire. Oh, God! she thought, eyes closed, swallowing. I want to feel his hands moving like that all over me. I wanted to—
She stopped the thought, appalled. What is happening to me? I must be going crazy. Maybe it’s because of the years alone since Rob died. Maybe the need for love has built up inside me day by day, without me realising it. She felt it then; it was all there under the surface, this terrible need, a feeling so hot that she was burning, so deep that it was as if she had been stabbed and was bleeding to death.
There they were, on a public beach, surrounded by other people—she could hear their voices, their feet scattering sand as they ran—people sunbathing, reading, sleeping, playing beach games, swimming, and she felt naked, exposed; she felt that anyone who looked at her must see what was going on inside her.
Her face was dark red, her heart beating twice as fast as was safe; she was terrified.
Don’t panic, don’t panic! she hurriedly reassured herself. Nobody will have looked twice. People on a beach take very little interest in each other.
To convince herself of that, she opened her eyes and focused on the people in her line of vision, and noticed that some of the women were topless—and there were lots of people rubbing suntan oil into themselves—their children, their lovers. Of course. It was perfectly normal behaviour. How else did anyone manage to get their backs oiled?
A child ran past calling loudly, ‘Maman! Maman, j’ai faim!’
Gil gave a sharp start, as though he too had been in a trance and had woken up. His hands lifted. He stood up, took a tissue from the box of them she had got out of her beach bag, and slowly wiped his hands clean.
Still lying on her stomach, Bianca hurriedly pulled her swimsuit up, slipping the straps back over her oiled shoulders with shaky fingers. She was very flushed, breathing rapidly; she felt as if she had come up too fast from the bottom of the ocean and had bubbles of air in her blood.
‘I’m going for a swim before we have to leave for the police station,’ Gil said huskily.
‘I’ll sunbathe for a while.’ She felt his brooding stare on her but stayed on her stomach, avoiding the need to meet his eyes.