Harriet Read Online Free PDF

a record on the gramophone. It was a Mozart piano concerto.
        ‘You still look sad,’ said Simon.
        ‘I was thinking… about Chloe.’
        ‘Not worth it. She’s the most frightful scrubber. I only took her out a couple of times. She’s one of those girls like scrambled egg, amazingly easy to make, but impossible to get off the pan afterwards.’
        Harriet giggled.
        ‘That’s better,’ said Simon, ‘now come and sit on the sofa. No, next to me, not six feet away.’
        She was still trembling, but the excitement was beginning to take over. He picked up her hand and kissed it.
        ‘I thought you were terribly good in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,’ she said brightly.
        ‘I know I was,’ said Simon. ‘So we’ve exhausted that subject.’
        His hand on the back of the dark green velvet sofa was edging towards her hair, but he didn’t touch her. His timing was so good, he held off until she was in a panic that he was never going to. It was terribly hot in the room, she could feel the sweat trickling between her breasts.
        ‘You’re so pretty,’ he was saying in a low husky voice, and then he kissed her. At first she kept her arms clamped down by her side, but suddenly like the reflex action when one’s knee is tapped, they shot up and coiled themselves round Simon’s neck, and she was kissing him back with all he might, and his hands were on the move all over her bod: Hastily she pulled in her spare tyre.
        ‘I mustn’t.’
        ‘You must, you must.’
        ‘You’ll think I’m too easy.’
        ‘I don’t. I just think you’re overdressed, that’s all,’ and he took off her earrings and put them side by side on the table. Then took off her shoes, and took the telephone off the hook.
        She sat back waiting for an attack on another front. ‘You’ve got such a lovely body,’ he said, filling both their glasses.
        ‘One should really take lessons at prep school in undoing bras. Oh, I see; it does up at the front,’ he said a minute later.
        His hands were warm on her bare back. He kissed her eyes, her hair, her mouth; she’d never dreamed he’d be so tender.
        ‘No,’ she gasped, leaping up as his fingers edged inside her waistband.
        How could she explain she wouldn’t be easy like this, if she didn’t find him so overwhelmingly attractive?
        ‘Sweetheart, stop fighting it,’ he whispered. ‘I refuse to be put outside the bedroom every night, like flowers in a hospital.’
        Harriet gasped. ‘You’ve read Geoffrey’s letter!’
        ‘I picked it up in the snow. I’m glad he’s glad you’ve gone on the pill, but I’m even gladder.’
        ‘You shouldn’t read other people’s letters,’ she said furiously.
        ‘One must, just to find out all the nice things they’re saying about one. Tell me about Geoffrey. What does he do?’
        ‘He’s a marine biologist.’
        ‘Oh well, we can’t all be perfect.’
        ‘He’s clever,’ said Harriet defensively. ‘He’s just come down from Plymouth.’
        ‘One can’t come down from Plymouth. One can only go up,’ said Simon. He was attacking her waistband again.
        ‘It’s too soon,’ she muttered, ‘I don’t even know you.’
        ‘You talk too much,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard so much fuss about something that’s so nice.’ He started to pull off her sweater and she was enveloped in a fuzz of black wool. ‘It’s got buttons at the back,’ she squealed, as he nearly removed her ears.
        ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said, when she was finally freed, and he pulled her down on the floor beside him. The apple-wood of the logs mingled with a trace of his lavender aftershave, and the animal smell of the white fire rug which scratched against her back. She had no will power. It’s going to happen she thought in panic.
        Will it hurt?’
        ‘You’ll be so excited by the time I’ve got you revved up, you won’t feel a