Then, ever so quickly, he grabbed her hand. Her nerve endings tingled. She couldn’t believe what he was doing – here, right in front of everyone. She felt an electric charge in her synapses. A hot flush started radiating through her torso. The silk of her dress started sticking to her back. She turned away, hoping Jarvis hadn’t noticed her hand becoming hot and slippery, and started to walk towards the house. She trailed her arm behind her, motioning for Jarvis to follow.
They entered by the concealed side door everyone forgot about and went upstairs. Jarvis said he wanted to see the bedroom he used to stay in when he came to visit over school exeats and university holidays, but they both knew it was a ruse. Serena’s heart thumped with each stair they took and it thumped with each step down the long Denby corridors. The room was well proportioned, with a four-poster bed upholstered in a faded green–pink chintz. A dressing table stood in one corner, complete with a brush and comb set, the silver speckled. It was musty and stale in there, as though the dust had stayed put since the room had last been occupied.
‘God, the memories,’ Jarvis said, in that same throaty rasp. He closed the door. Serena, unsure of what to do, leaned against the windowsill, her silhouette backlit by the fading afternoon sun. He came across to her, as she had known he would. He rested his hands on either side of her face and then bent to kiss her. The kiss was both powerful and possessive – his tongue seemed to fill her mouth completely. She drew back, her hand on his chest to push him away but he came for her again. Another drowning kiss.
‘Jarvis,’ she said, as soon as she’d disentangled herself. ‘We shouldn’t.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m so fucking desperate for you. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, Serena. Look. Feel this.’
He took her hand and placed it on his swollen cock. It had been so long since someone had wanted her this much.
‘This is what you do to me.’
He pulled her up from the windowsill and manhandled her roughly to the bed where he climbed on top of her, kissing her neck, her shoulder, her breasts. With one hand, he ripped at her tights and plunged his fingers into her.
‘You’re so wet, you little minx,’ he said. And she was. She stared at him, overwhelmed by his primal physicality. It was different from all the sex she’d had before, which had been polite, almost deferential. Jarvis was claiming her and she couldn’t help but get wetter and wetter as he fucked her with his fingers, sliding them in and out roughly until she came unexpectedly, crying out with the release of it.
He grinned, pleased with himself. He raised his fingers to his mouth and sucked them. She thought she might come again just watching him do that.
‘You,’ he said, kissing her collarbone to punctuate each word, ‘are. Totally. Fucking. Delicious.’
He was gentler now and she was relieved the frenzy had dissipated. She began to notice his fag breath and the un-popped pimple underneath his right nostril. She felt strange about what had happened. It wasn’t the cheating – there’d been enough of that on Ben’s part to make the moral argument that she was entitled to this portion of pleasure. It was that it was Jarvis, of all people. Ben’s closest friend. It was crazy. But at the same time, she had wanted so badly to give in to her desire, had wanted to get her own back, right here in the Fitzmaurice family seat. They’d taken her for granted – all of them – and she felt an addictive tug of power when she thought of what she’d just done.
She wanted more of it. Which was why, when Jarvis texted a few days later and said he’d booked a hotel room and why didn’t she meet him there, she had agreed. She had checked the joint diary and seen that Ben was visiting an offshore windfarm during the day, ahead of the charity gala in the evening. Serena would be free to catch thetrain to London, pay a quick visit to her shaman to realign her chakras, and then get a cab to the hotel.
In the cab, her phone vibrates. A text from Jarvis.
‘R u here yet?’
‘Nearly.’
He responds with a thumbs-up emoji.
The cab pulls up outside a Georgian building in Mayfair. It’s not a hotel she has heard of but there’s a Union Jack hanging from a flagpole above the awning and a uniformed doorman, which is a good sign. The reception floor is chequered black and white marble and she is directed to what the hotel staff call ‘the Green Bar’ at the back of the building. It is a cramped room, with green carpet, green velvet seats and painted green walls.
‘Gosh,’ Serena says, as the receptionist guides her in. ‘Well, it certainly lives up to its name.’
Jarvis is sitting in a tucked-away green velvet booth, his reddish hair even more pronounced against the backdrop. As Serena slides into the banquette, she notices he’s already ordered her a glass of champagne. That was thoughtful and, she thinks approvingly, rather masterful. Like many women of her generation, Serena is constantly caught between wanting men to respect her and wanting them to tell her what she wants.
‘Hello,’ she says. She gives him her best smile and is satisfied to watch him respond. He licks his lips and reaches across the table to take her hand. His palm is clammy. She refuses to notice, even though it’s one of her turn-offs. What did Cressida call it? ‘The ick.’ Too many hours spent watchingLove Island, Serena thinks, her mind meandering to thong bikinis and spray tans.
‘I missed you,’ Jarvis is saying. He has a half-drunk negroni in front of him, a single large ice cube touching the edges of the glass.
‘Oh come now, it’s only been a few days,’ she says, although she’s pleased.
Serena removes her hand and fiddles with her earring – one of the diamond studs Ben gave her for Christmas. Jarvis downs the rest of hisdrink and signals to the waiter for another round. Serena has barely touched her champagne.
‘I keep thinking of …’ she starts, then stops.
‘Yes?’
He doesn’t look at her.
‘The bedroom. At Denby.’
She lowers her voice, even though no one else is in the bar. He smiles.
‘I can’t stop fucking thinking about it,’ Jarvis says, leaning into her now, so close that their foreheads are almost touching. ‘Your tight, wet pussy.’
