‘What are you doing?’
‘I am going to cure your headache.’
‘Honestly, just some Nurofen will be good.’
‘Close your eyes.’
‘You’re not going to touch my ear again, are you?’
He smiled to himself and then he placed his fingertips at either side of her neck. OK, he hadn’t really thought this through. Touching the curve below her jaw, how soft her skinwas, how that was sending prickles across the back of his own neck. He steeled himself. ‘Are your eyes closed?’
‘Is it a pre-requisite?’
‘Well, you should know that I was able to get you across a table last night, so I can also make you close your eyes if you’d like to do it that way.’
‘Wow,’ Orla said. ‘Is that what they call a slightly veiled threat? OK, I’ll close them.’
He inhaled slowly and then pressed his index finger and thumb lightly on her trapezius muscles. He focussed, keeping his breathing even and then gradually applied a little more pressure.
‘Ow,’ Orla said.
‘Shh.’
‘Did you shush me?’
‘Does it really hurt?’ Jacques asked. ‘Or does it just feel different?’
Who was this man? And how was he managing to do all these weird things with her? Weird and ever sosensual. Sensual had been out of her dictionary for so long she’d started to wonder if Susie Dent had banished it. Did his touch really hurt? No. It was intense, but oh-so tingly and pleasurable in all the right ways. And the tension in the base of her skull was definitely lessening.
‘This room is the most personal room in your house,’ she remarked.
‘Orla, you’re meant to have your eyes closed.’
‘They are. I can recall things I’ve seen no more than three minutes ago.’
‘What do you mean “personal”?’
‘There are things in here. Things you use.’
‘There are things I use in the rest of the house.’
‘That everybody has. A table. Chairs. That bloody coffee machine.’ She carried on. ‘You made this room what it is. With things you use because of what you like to do when you’re not doing whatever everyone else does. Still no photos though.’
‘Are photos important to you?’
She hadn’t expected that question but she was ready. ‘They obviously aren’t important to you.’
‘Photos are just memories on paper,’ he answered.
‘And what? You don’t like to look at them?’
‘Perhaps I don’t need images hanging behind glass to remember.’
She had never thought of it that way.
‘Let me ask you something,’ Jacques continued. ‘When you interview someone for your magazine, do you always need all your notes to make the article?’
‘What do you mean?’
