He was like a different person, grim and annoyed. One worthy of respect.

I dropped my eyes and found that I was looking at his midriff. His white T-shirt had worked its way free of his waistband and I could see his flat, tanned stomach and the line of black hair that led down to his…

Quickly, my heart beating fast, I looked up again and met his eyes. He glanced down, at where I’d just been looking, then held my gaze again. We stared at each other in silence. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Then suddenly lust just exploded within me.

In an instant, Luke ceased to be a figure of fun. I didn’t give a damn about his unfashionable haircut or his stupid clothes. Everything about him, including his tight trousers and, more importantly, their contents, had become inexplicably and unbearably sexy. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to drag him away from the Rickshaw Rooms. I wanted him to throw me in a taxi and tear my clothes off. I wanted him to fling me on a bed and fuck me.

He must have felt the same because, although I don’t know who made the first move, one moment we were staring angrily at each other and the next his mouth was on mine. For a second cool and gentle, then hot and sweet and hard.

My head swam with shock and pleasure. Christ, was I glad I had come tonight! His arms were around me and underneath the hair at the back of my neck, his fingers on the sensitive skin sent desire racing through me. I slid my arms around his waist and pulled his body close to me. With a shock I realized that the hard thing against my stomach was his erection. I soared as I realized that I wasn’t imagining this. He fancied me as much as I fancied him. This was real.

He pulled my hair and tilted my head back. It hurt and I loved it. He scraped his stubble along my face and bit the side of my mouth. I nearly fainted.

‘You sexy bitch,’ he murmured into my ear, and I nearly fainted again. I felt like a sexy bitch. Powerful and desirable.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get your bag, we’re leaving.’

We didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I was vaguely aware of the rest of the Real Men and Brigit staring in astonishment at us, but I didn’t give a damn.

This kind of thing didn’t happen to me, I thought in confusion, this kind of uncontrollable lust. Or at least it wasn’t usually reciprocated.

We got a taxi immediately and as soon as we were in, he pushed me flat on my back onto the seat and slid his hands up under my top. I wasn’t wearing a bra and when he put his hands on them, my nipples were already rock hard. He pinched them between his thumb and finger and two shocks of pleasure zipped through me.

‘Jesus,’ I croaked.

‘Rachel, you’re beautiful,’ he whispered.

Frantically I pulled my skirt up and forced his groin down on top of mine. Through my knickers I could feel his erection. I put my hands on his bum and pressed him down into me, so hard it hurt. Delicious pain.

‘I have to have him in me,’ I thought.

Feverishly I put my hands under his T-shirt to touch his skin, then I put my hands back on his bum because I couldn’t bear to not feel it.

In a daze I realized the taxi had stopped and I thought the driver was telling us to get out because of our terrible antics. But we had actually arrived at Luke’s apartment. I should have known better. A New York taxi driver doesn’t care what you do, so long as he gets paid and tipped. You can murder someone in the back of the cab for all he cares, just so long as you don’t get blood on the seats.

I can hardly remember getting into his apartment. All I know is that, holding hands, we ran up the four flights of stairs because we couldn’t bear to wait for the lift. We went straight to his bedroom and he kicked the door shut behind him, a gesture that I found unbearably sexy. Although I was so filled with desire for him by then that he could have done anything, he could have thrown up, and I would have found it sexy.

Then he shoved me onto the bed and in seconds all his clothes were off. They were nearly off anyway. His big, sexy man’s buckle on his leather belt was already open and so were the top two buttons of his leather trousers. I supposed I must have done this in the taxi, although I barely remembered doing so.

Without his clothes he was beautiful.

I went to take off my clothes but he stopped me. First he pulled up my top so that my breasts rolled free, but he didn’t take it off. Grinning, he knelt on my arms so that I couldn’t move. He played with my nipples, running the slick tip of his erection over them, the slightest touch sending me twitching with desire.

‘Now,’ I said.

‘Now what?’ he asked innocently.

‘Now can we do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘You know,’ I begged, as I arched against him.

‘Say, please.’ He smiled evilly.

‘Please, you bastard!’

So he tore off my clothes. As soon as he entered me, I started to come. And come and come. It went on for ever, I’d never known anything like it. I held onto his shoulders, paralysed, as my body contracted with waves of pleasure. And then his breathing became hoarser and more ragged and he groaned and started to come. ‘Oh Rachel,’ he panted, his fingers tangled in my hair. ‘Oh Rachel!’

Then all was silence. He lay on top of me, goosepimples prickling his skin, his head in the curve of my neck.

Finally he sat up on his elbows and stared into my face for a very long time. Then he smiled, a wide, beautiful, almost beatific smile. ‘Rachel, babe,’ he said, ‘I think I love you.’

7

‘That’s it, that’s the Cloisters.’ Dad slowed down the car (which was rather hard as he had driven the entire way from Dublin at about twenty miles an hour, much to Helen’s disgust) and pointed into a valley. Helen and I clambered for a look. As we gazed silently across bleak winter countryside at the big, grey, Gothic house below, I noticed that I had a knot in my stomach.

‘Janey, it looks just like a laughing house.’ Helen sounded impressed.

Frankly, I was slightly alarmed. Did it really need to look so much like an asylum? The house looked scary enough but, to make matters worse, it was totally surrounded by a high stone wall and dense, dark evergreens. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see bats circling its turrets against a backdrop of a full moon, even though it was eleven o’clock on a Friday morning and it hadn’t any turrets.

‘The Cloisters,’ I murmured, trying to hide my anxiety with a flip remark, ‘where I finally meet my Nemesis.’