I get out of the shower and choose my underwear carefully: expensive, lace and net. The heat wave has not let up and it is so hot and humid I put my hair up and wear a white dress that leaves my back bare. I slip on strappy heels and for some reason, perhaps because I have never seen my lips look so plump and swollen, I paint my lips crimson. They dominate my face and make me think of the female monkeys whose butts turn bright red when they are in heat and ready to mate.

The doorbell rings at five minutes to seven.

I open the door and see emerald fire kindle in his eyes.

‘Jesus,’ he exclaims softly, and strokes my cheek with his knuckle. He is wearing a dark red shirt, two buttons undone, the red crystal chain visible when he moves, and black trousers with knife edge creases in them. His shoes are mahogany colored.

He looks like a gangster and leads me to a ridiculously souped-up Range Rover with massive wheels and a row of headlights on the top. I raise my eyebrows and he smiles, guileless as a child. ‘People expect gypsies to have such things. Get in. It’s fun.’

I seriously doubt him but as it happens it is fun and a laugh to be so high up.

He takes me to the fancy, oak-paneled, Michelin-starred restaurant Hibiscus. Wine bottles gleam from their silver buckets. Inside it doesn’t smell of food, but the perfume of Mayfair fat cats. The staff are discreet and faultless in their superlative attention. There are complimentary cocktails, small delicacies and copious amounts of sour bread. The menu is intriguing.

‘What will you have?’ I ask Jake.

‘The roasted suckling pig spread with warm Irish sea urchins.’

‘I’ve never had sea urchins before. Are they good?’

‘They are an acquired taste. They have a dirty, sexy flavor,’ he murmurs, his eyes dropping to my mouth.

There it is again, the sweet ache for him. I avoid his gaze. ‘I’m having the yellow fin tuna with roasted artichokes and Herefordshire pine tree foam.’

He makes a face. ‘Ugh… I can’t eat foam. It reminds me of cat sick.’

But it is not the foam, but the raw sea urchins on sweet potato that are sick making. I almost have to spit out the mineral-like concoction Jake slips into my mouth. He laughs at the expression on my face.

When Jake laughs he becomes a different person. He is no longer a hard-assed, cold-eyed criminal. Fancy that—he becomes stunning. I stare at him, surprised at how carefree, handsome, and young he suddenly seems. A voice full of disquiet whispers up my bare arms, tingling and raising the hairs, ‘You will fall for him… You will… You will.’

I shift in my chair, my appetite lost. Unease like a drop of castor oil slides down my throat.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks.

‘Nothing.’

It turns out that neither of us has much of an appetite after all. We skip dessert. No coffee. The little chocolate petits fours lie uneaten. Jake pays and we are back in the car. The night air is cool. It ruffles his hair. The music is loud, the beat insistent. I shift restlessly on the fragrant leather seat, my guts warm and tight.

When we get inside the sandstone foyer and into his elegant living room, Jake lights candles. I drape myself on a pristine white rug on the floor.

‘Want a drink?’

‘Nope.’

He walks over to the polished bar filled with downlights and pours himself a good measure of whiskey. He chucks it down his throat and goes to sit on a low white couch. It has claw feet. For a while he lies back and stares at me. I look up at him, unmoving. His eyes are shiny with the flames from the candles. His skin is dark and seems very beautiful, almost as if he is carved from wood. I think of the spicy scent of his cock. Of taking him in my mouth. My thighs part.

‘Come here,’ he orders softly.

I get onto my hands and knees and crawl toward him. Toward his erection, craving it. I rest my chin on the white couch between his spread legs. He releases my hair with gentle fingers and runs his hands through it. His hands move down my naked back and pull the small zipper down. My dress withers away.

‘We gypsies believe in faeries and faerie glamour. Humans are easy prey. Once they cast their glamour on a human he becomes bewitched. He never sees what is right in front of him. He wanders the world dazed in a tangle of lust. Like a junkie.’ He traces my jaw with his thumb. ‘You look like one. Your eyes. Are you faerie, Lily?’

I shake my head slowly, a weight in my heart.

‘It’s been a long night,’ he mutters, as he bends his head to claim my mouth. Our lips touch. His mouth demands total surrender. I accept the velvet hardness with a contented sigh. He’s right, it has been a long night. Too long. As if I am a slippery, limbless fish he puts his hands on the sides of my body and pulls my body up onto his lap. With his lips still attached to mine with allure, heat, and promise, my body is arranged on the couch and divested of its last scrap of covering.

He raises his head, his mouth crimson with my lipstick. ‘We didn’t use any protection last night,’ he observes.

‘I took care of it this morning,’ I whisper, looking deep into his eyes. They are as an ocean in a storm.

‘I haven’t come inside a woman since I was seventeen,’ he admits.

‘Jake?’

One elegant dark eyebrow quirks upward.

‘No man has ever come inside me,’ I tell him.

His skin flushes with the triumphant red of a conqueror, and his eyes roam my body with the deep satisfaction of ownership. His gloriously strong hands cup my breasts possessively. He revels in the extraordinary fact that my body belongs to him. My nipples pebble and my spines arches. I gaze up at him with fascinated eyes.

He is breathing hard, his jaw is clenched, his cock is so hard it is straining against his pants. The memory of his smooth, naked muscles against my skin comes back as does the smell of his arousal—strong, smoky. Between my legs it feels wet and hot. I reach for his zipper. My hands are sure, fast. He is out in an instant. I watch him rise up over me and peel off his shirt, trousers, and underwear. His skin glows in the candlelight.

He bends to retrieve his trousers, his hands searching for the pocket. I know what he is looking for. I hear the crinkle of the condom foil and cover his hand. He looks at me.

‘Are you sure?’

I nod.

The trousers slip from his fingers. His large hand rests a moment on my stomach. I watch his manhood. Beautifully decorated with ink it stands proud and thick. His knees come between my legs. Slowly he tries to nudge the apple head into me, but I must be so sore and swollen from the night before because it feels as if I am being split asunder. I swallow my scream of pain, but my eyes widen and my mouth gapes open in a shocked O.

He freezes.

My flesh feels raw and ripped, but I grab his shoulder. ‘No. Don’t stop,’ I urge.

He retreats gently, but it scorches all the way out.

‘Sweet Lily. I couldn’t hurt you even if you asked,’ he breathes. The burning eases. It is relief but at a price.

He moves lower and puts that hot, wet mouth on my swollen, bruised sex. I sigh with pleasure. He licks gently, with great dedication. It soothes me. I feel bright and shiny again. My fingers dig into the lustrous black hair and pull his mouth harder onto me.

I come quick and hard and gasping, my spread thighs shaking uncontrollably. The pleasure is so intense it is agonizing.

I try to rise. He puts one finger on my breastbone. ‘Stay. You look good when you are open and ready to be taken.’

‘Take me in the ass.’

And in this way, inch by inch, slowly, carefully, painfully he goes where no other man has gone. No matter what happens after this, this is my gift to him.

Afterwards, I lie on his chest and listen to his heartbeat pulsing—slow, definite. A sheltering sound. He deserves more than I can give. Something tears at my heart. He deserves much more.

Can he feel the beat of my treacherous heart? I shouldn’t have begun this. Too late. I just never dreamed someone like him would ever want me. I feel suddenly so lonely it hurts. Aching tears swell my eyelids. I stamp them down. He explores my hair, curling it around his fingers. I open my eyelids and the tears run out and smear between our skin. His hand stills. He takes my chin between his thumb and his fingers and lifts my face up.

‘Why?’

I realize I want to make him feel good. I want to pretend a little while longer. ‘I’m just happy.’

He stares at me for a moment longer. He is about to speak again so I smile. So easy to execute. So disarming. Such a lie.

I trace the cross over his heart. ‘When did you do this?’

‘I was fifteen. I built it over time. It is made of seventy-seven scratches.’

I lift my head higher and look at him curiously. ‘What does it stand for?’

‘Matthew 18:21. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” My seventy-seven times are up, Lily. No more forgiveness for me. Only hell awaits.’

He doesn’t know but I already know his story. I think of him as a fifteen-year-old boy. Lanky with long muscles. Arrogant on the outside, but fragile and broken inside. Scarring his own skin, filling it with ink, counting his sins, and I suddenly feel so sad I want to weep.

Life is so strange. So unfair. What has a starving child in Africa done to deserve its fate? Or a gypsy child who has to take over a criminal enterprise at the age of fifteen? I think of my brother bringing me an abandoned bird’s nest with the broken shells still inside. Doing handstands on Brighton Pier. Sweet, clueless Luke. Making lumpy pancakes on a Sunday morning. A knot forms in my throat. I swallow it. My throat aches. I will not cry in front of him.

‘Why didn’t you stop at seventy-seven?’

‘Because I couldn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘The more money I made, the more entitled I felt.’

The child is gone now. The man is impenetrable. He fucks. He comes. He doesn’t feel. He leaves. And yet he is different with me. As I am different with him. I nod. Yes, money. It makes the world go around. All of us little puppets in its thrall.

‘I found you a job,’ he says softly.

I feel tired. ‘Yeah? Where?’

‘You’ll work in my organization.’

‘As a drug mule?’

His face is serious. ‘I have legitimate business ventures.’

‘What will I be doing?’

He shrugs. ‘Alicia, my PA, will tell you all about it.’

‘You mean you created a job for me.’

‘Lily, Lily,’ he whispers.