Chapter One

      There was snow on the lawn and on the window ledges. Looking out from the drawing room, I imagined myself standing in the driveway, looking up at the house. It must resemble an old-fashioned Christmas card: holly wreath on the bright red front door and all.

      In the distance, I saw Jasper appear from the pine copse over to the left of the driveway. He dragged behind him a netted fir tree, pulling a trail through the snow, covering his tracks. The tree was easily as big as Jasper was, probably bigger. But nothing stopped Jasper when he put his mind to something. He’d drag a tree the size of Big Ben’s clock tower if the mood took him.

      I put my hand to my throat, feeling again the delicate silver chain with its key lock. I’d repeated the gesture countless times since he’d given it to me, a few weeks before at his mother’s house. Collaring. It was a formal thing, he told me, a commitment – lacking the legal clout of marriage, but with every vestige of the emotional significance.

      Now that I wore this elegant little version of a collar, I belonged to Jasper lock, stock and barrel. The lock bit was particularly appropriate, I thought, twisting a fingernail in the tiny keyhole.

      He saw me at the window and stopped to take a rest. I could see the steam coming from his mouth as he took panting breaths. He lifted a gloved hand to wave and I waved back.

      I moved away from the window, ran into the hall and pulled open the handsome, wide front door.

      ‘Do you want a hand?’ I called from the porch.

      ‘No, love,’ he called back. ‘Get back inside and keep warm. You’re not exactly dressed for backwoodsman duties.’

      True enough. I had forgotten, until a blast of frigid north wind struck my thighs, that I was wearing nothing but a basque and stockings, a light silky robe covering my shoulders.

      This was the way, when Jasper and I had no reason to leave the spacious environs of his house. Our house, I mentally corrected myself, still unable to accept my status as co-resident there.

      The museum where I worked had closed for Christmas and Jasper had little to do but kick his heels and wait for a call about funding for his next feature film. There was a bit of online ordering for festive fare to do but, besides that, our time was our own. Consequently, I spent the days either dressing for sex, having sex or cleaning myself up after sex. I was as brightly lit as the festive displays around the village and in the town centre. I felt permanently charged up, ready to spill white heat from my skin the minute Jasper gave me one of his looks.

      I skipped back inside the house, but kept the door open for Jasper to enter with the tree. High-heeled marabou mules weren’t the best footwear for finding a planter tub from the back yard, but I managed to drag one in from the cobbles and manhandle it up through the kitchen and into the hall. Where would the tree stand to its best advantage? By the staircase, I thought, and I put the tub there in readiness.

      A few minutes later, Jasper was in the hall and the tree lay on its side on the black and white tiles, dripping melting snow into a puddle around it.

      ‘That’s a big one,’ I commented.

      ‘As the actress said to the bishop,’ he deadpanned, before meeting my eye with a familiar wicked glint.

      ‘Do you think this tub will be big enough to hold it?’

      ‘You know, I’m giving serious thought to that kinky Carry On film you mentioned that time. You’re practically writing the script now.’

      ‘You’ve just got filth on the brain.’

      ‘And in my bed.’ He winked and lunged over to scoop me into his arms for a long and icy-wet kiss.

      The wool of his long dark coat was rimed with thin shards of ice that ran into my skin and the light silk of my underwear, making me shiver and squirm in his grasp. I knew he would have no intention of releasing me, though, especially when he wound his scarf around my shoulder blades, pulling me in even tighter. His tongue, shockingly warm after the chill of his lips, pushed into my mouth, signalling his possession