The Pleasures of Winter (40 page)
When she came through, Jack was holding her, stroking her trembling body back to awareness. Her ass was on fire, the rest of her felt punch-drunk. She smiled lazily at him as he stroked her hair away from her face.
‘I missed you so much, Abbie. Losing you tore the heart out of me.’
His thumb traced a path along her mouth. ‘What if I were just Jack Winter, actor? No private jets. No limos at the airport. Just you and me together. Could you cope with that?’
Abbie held her breath. He wasn’t joking. This was a Jack that she hadn’t met before: he was nervous. ‘Let me up and I’ll think about it.’
Jack released her reluctantly. She crossed the room and picked her dress off the floor. The green silk shimmered in the light of the dressing room. She eased it over her head and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was flushed from the spanking. Her eyes sparkled. She looked like a woman in love.
‘For how long?’ he asked. ‘How long do you need to think about it?’
It wasn’t fair to torture him, but Jack had tormented her plenty over the past few months. She walked to the door and he got up and followed. Abbie reached towards the lock and he covered her hand with his, preventing her from turning the key.
She looked over her shoulder into his blue eyes.
‘For as long as it takes you to kiss me.’
Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.
We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books
The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.
Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy.We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.
So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
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First published 2012
Copyright © Eileen Gormley and Caroline McCall, 2012
The moral right of the copyright holders has been asserted
Cover photograph: Shutterstock
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-84-488308-0
