Love For An Enemy by Love For An Enemy

Author:Love For An Enemy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo Books
Published: 2017-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

9

Lucia muttered something in her sleep. He was about to ask her what she’d said before he realized she was still asleep – and that whatever she’d said had sounded like Italian. But he’d been dozing too, woken with an echo in his mind of her sharpish reaction to his question about Ettore Angelucci; had he been around, or in touch with her: she’d looked as if she’d thought she was being accused of something, had snapped: ‘No, of course not: forget Ettore! You did what you had to, Ned, let’s forget it!’ So the Italian sleep-talk he’d thought he heard could have been part of a confusion of dream and half-sleeping memory. But she was half Italian: it only mattered to him, he reminded himself, because he wanted her to be French, not Italian – which happened to be her own inclination too. So what the hell…

Fully awake now, knowing that in fact he wanted her exactly as she was. Exactly, incredibly… Recalling the pinnacles of very recent pleasure, luxuriating in their aftermath, this depth of relaxation, satisfaction but already – again – anticipation… In the white, shadowed room, evening drawing in, her body sprawled darkly across his – limp as a cat’s, but with a young cat’s quick instinct to defend itself, claws sheathed but there, all right. One window was partly open, but the air was still heavy with scent he’d bought this afternoon, on his way here, from a very pretty Greek girl in the Rue Fouad. It was called Je Reviens. Lucia had told him with her arms locked round his neck and her mouth against his: ‘You’d better, you. Damn well better – hear? Always…’ Better come back to her, she’d meant: je reviens… She’d known this scent, worn it before, had deftly unstoppered the bottle and was about to dab some behind her ears then thought better of it – waited until she was naked, then allowed him to scent her – all over, everywhere except behind her ears.

Her breath fanned his chest. He knew that however things turned out he’d never smell this scent without thinking of her. The evening air was turning cool, with the window open, but he didn’t want to wake her. Watching the light fade and imagining some time in the remote future when he’d be – perhaps – Admiral Sir Ned Mitcheson, and Elizabeth – Lady Mitcheson – might elect to wear Je Reviens: her grey-headed husband smelling it and muttering something like: ‘Very nice, dear’, but in his memory seeing this dark, sprawled body, or the wide, gold-brown eyes as they’d been a short while ago when she’d murmured – an hour ago, after they’d made love the second time, but by then in this imagined future it would be twenty or thirty years ago – ‘It was a long, long absence, this one, Ned.’

‘I know it was.’

‘It’s terrible – when I don’t know…’

‘Almost worth it, to get back. Is worth it, in fact. For this

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.