Page 13 of Forbidden

Her moans reach fever-pitch; she explodes and I chase after her, spilling into her with a guttural cry, an angry, hoarse admonition against the circumstances that make this forbidden.

I collapse on her, my body heavy against her sweet softness, and then I roll onto my back, bringing her with me, not ready to break our connection yet.

She puts her head on my chest and her breathing is deep and rushed, her pulse frantic.

‘Did you know I was coming to Paris?’

I’m still for a moment, my heart lodging in my chest.

Be calm. She doesn’t know.

‘Yes.’

She seems to digest this for a moment. ‘You weren’t going to try to see me?’

Oh, I saw her all right. I saw her in a way that is safe and allowable. But that’s not what she means. She means like this.

‘No.’

I hear the tiny catch of breath in her throat and close my eyes against her pain. Pain was inevitable here, from the moment I weakened in New York. Only by resisting her did I make us safe from that.

‘So if I hadn’t come here…?’

‘You did.’

I shrug a little, as though it doesn’t matter, and lift my hands to her arse, curving them around her flesh, pressing my fingers into her lightly. Possessively.

I have no idea yet how tenuous my possession of her really is…

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SHE IS VERY GRACEFUL. Before she became a prodigal violinist she was on track to be a ballerina. Her body seems to be made of music and grace, so that when she stretches away from me, lifting herself up to a sitting position and then standing, it is as though she is one-woman show, a symphony in motion, a swan-like performance.

I stare at her, my heart grinding in my chest as she turns around slowly, her back to me. Her body is familiar to me—as familiar as my own. I know every dip and curve…all her marks.

I did my best not to look when we were growing up. To ignore the way my eyes would be dragged to her of their own accord. But once she moved in with me in New York she was eighteen, and I seemed to lose my will-power completely.

I couldn’t stop fucking looking. Staring, more like. Staring while she practised her violin, staring while she read on the sofa, staring while she swam in the infinity pool, and all the time I was learning her body so I could superimpose it into my fantasies.

But now her body has changed.

Her body has altered—and at my hand.

Her arse cheeks are red, glowing from the paddle I administered to her.

I sit up straig

hter, my pulse accelerating.

‘Astra?’

Her eyes float to mine slowly, and there is something in them I don’t comprehend. There is a strength, but that isn’t new—Astra is the strongest woman I know. This is something different. Something I can’t fathom.

‘Yes, Manning?’ Words like steel. An irrational sense of unease grips me. I push it aside.

‘Shower with me.’

*

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