Savage Courtship

‘It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.’

‘No, no...’ She was almost sobbing as she writhed beneath his thighs, torn by the devastating conflict of desire against doubt. ‘It hurts—’

‘I know.’ He kissed her, misunderstanding, holding her tightly and groaning as his body was racked by a long shudder. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for us to go so far... Here, let me at least do this for you...’

She felt his hand on her bare belly, the tug on the snap of her jeans, the metallic slide of her zip, and then the long, skilful fingers were brushing through the soft thicket between her legs, finding her secret source, touching her where she was hot and damp, sliding inside with a shocking ease that sent a piercingly erotic thrill of terror shafting to her brain. She wanted it all in that instant—the pleasure, the ramming pain, the brutal, bleeding emptiness...

‘No!’ She went rigid and blackness came swirling in on her, the way it had that other time when the agony had been so intense that s

he had momentarily passed out, but this time she fought it, determined not to give in, not to be completely helpless. The darkness swirled hot and suffocating, clinging around her eyes and nose and mouth until suddenly it dissolved with an icy shock.

Her eyes flew wide and she found herself staring up at Benedict, who was kneeling over her on the rug, bathing her face and neck with a napkin dripping with champagne.

‘What a dreadful waste,’ she croaked automatically as she saw him clumsily slop another splash of vintage bubbly into the napkin and she gasped as he applied its wet chill to her throat.

‘It’s not going to be wasted, believe me.’ He lifted the napkin and shocked her by applying his mouth to her foaming skin, lapping it dry with delicate, rasping strokes of his tongue. ‘There. Happy? Now tell me who the hell Julian is!’

‘Julian...?’ The colour that had leached from her face flooded back.

‘The man you seem to have got me mixed up with just now. The bastard whom you begged not to hurt you.’

She tried to struggle upright, pulling her cardigan over her bare breasts. ‘I’m sorry—’

He pushed her flat again with an implacable hand. ‘So am I. I want to know what he did to you. Did he rape you?’

‘I...n-no.’

His mouth thinned at her uncertainty, his blue eyes glowing with ruthless intent. ‘We’re not leaving here until you tell me, Vanessa. I’m not going to be made to pay for someone else’s crimes. Who is bloody Julian?’

She held his gaze, just. ‘A man I used to know. In England.’

‘Were you in love with him?’

Her eyes fluttered away from his. ‘No! Yes—I don’t know—’

‘This isn’t multiple choice. Which was it?’

He was angry, but she had the sense to know that it wasn’t with her. She looked back at him pleadingly. ‘Please, let me do up my cardigan first...’

For an awful moment she thought he was going to refuse, his eyes growing hungry again as they roved over her flushed, well-loved breasts, but then he muttered something violent under his breath and swivelled to rake through the debris of the picnic and find his glasses. He put them on and watched broodingly as she fumbled first with the fastenings of her bra and jeans and then started on the tiny buttons of her cardigan. When it was evident that her shaking fingers were tackling a task that was temporarily beyond their capability he took over with an impatient growl, making her painfully aware that her nipples were still stiff and throbbing from his mouth. When he had finished he caught her chin in his hand.

‘Now, Vanessa. Talk.’

He was brooking no refusal and after the devastating intimacy they had just shared her resistance was wretchedly weak.

‘Julian was the son of the man I was butler for in London,’ she said wearily. ‘He liked a challenge and I was naïve and stupid enough to present him with one. It was my first really independent job and I had no family or friends in London and the whole situation was pretty nerve-racking—Egon St Clair and his wife were going through a fairly spectacular marriage break-up and their two grown-up daughters and Julian used to turn up at the house every now and then and contribute to the shouting matches.’

She pulled herself out of his grasp and sat back, trying not to notice that Benedict’s casual elegance was now sexily rumpled, the coffee-stained fabric of his trousers stretched tautly across his thighs, the sleeves of his sweater pushed up to reveal the dark hair on his arms and the steel watch glinting on his strong wrist. ‘So when Julian suddenly started plying me with attention I was grateful for his kindness, and flattered...he was thirty, rich, handsome and sophisticated—what insignificant nineteen-year-old wouldn’t have been impressed? And he presented this image of himself, you see, as a tortured romantic, a misunderstood poor little rich boy who secretly longed to have his rakish life redeemed by the love of a good, plain woman. Like an idiot I fell for it. But all he wanted was a one night stand, a chance to flex his ego...’ All her wretched humiliation was in her voice and in the bitter smile that bracketed her wide mouth as she looked unflinchingly at Benedict. ‘So you see, it wasn’t rape because I went with him willingly.’

‘But you changed your mind somewhere along the line, didn’t you?’ he said shrewdly. ‘Vanessa, if he forced you at any point, it was rape.’

Her mouth twisted in a painful attempt to be honest. ‘I told you, I wanted to... I tried to enjoy it but he—I just couldn’t seem to—’ She broke off and shrugged miserably, looking out to the white-capped sea. ‘I don’t wonder he got furious in the end.’

‘Did he hit you?’ he asked in a peculiarly clipped monotone.

‘Oh, no, nothing like that. He was very strong; he just held me down while he—he—’ She shuddered, her eyes hauntingly dark. ‘I—I was badly bruised, that’s all,’ she ended up lamely, cringing away from the memory of the clinical details. ‘And I was sick for a couple of days...’ To recover just in time for the fresh storm to break over her unsuspecting head.

Benedict was too acute an interpreter of the language to miss the glaring subtext. ‘He was your first, wasn’t he?’ he said ferociously. ‘Your first lover and the selfish bastard botched it!’