The Sex War

'Yes,' she said, because that was it in a nutshell. It had seemed so important then, the first time she would ever sleep with a man, it had looked like a unjumpable fence, she hadn't been able to make it. Angrily, she said: 'I wasn't very old, remember. It was the first time for me, and you scared me, you were so…' Expert, she thought; he had been too experienced, it undermined her, she felt gauche and stupid when she thought of all the other women he had had, the sexy, exciting, sophisticated women from his own world who knew precisely what they were doing and made love with an expertise which matched his own. Lindsay had blushed and stammered and felt awkward and clumsy.

'I felt so boring,' she finished, and Daniel stared at her intently.

'You were lovely,' he whispered. 'Young and shy and adorable—I was almost afraid to touch you, I wanted you so much I was afraid of scaring you.'

'I was scaring myself,' she admitted. 'All the time—putting up barriers in my mind when what I really wanted to do was…'

'What?' he asked as she broke off, and she lifted her head and kissed him with a raw, open passion she had never shown him before. She felt the barriers in her head go down with a crash and the floodwaters poured over them, her arms went round him and her hands touched him the way she had been longing to touch him, her palms pressing into his body, her fingertips caressing and exploring along his spine, his nape, his shoulders. Daniel's hands slid under her and lifted her, held her so close they became one. Her robe fell open, he looked down at the smooth pale flesh and she heard his breathing quicken.

He stood up and the next second she was in his arms, carried close to him as he walked out of the room. He was looking at her every step of the way, he wasn't walking steadily, she felt him trembling and his deep chest heaved as if the air had no oxygen, he was snatching at every breath raggedly, while his eyes leapt over her naked body.

She felt as if it would be the first time, she was shaking as though in terror; but it was not fear, it was desire turning her limbs to water, tearing at her until she ached with longing.

Daniel put her down on the bed and began to pull off his clothes, his hands shaking. She watched, ice-cold suddenly with shock and piercing excitement, huddling in her robe to stop herself shivering. His body had a male power which her female instincts both recoiled from and were drawn towards, she couldn't stop looking at him, she was pale and at the same time feverish, her lips were dry, her breasts ached. She couldn't have spoken to save her life, and she didn't want him to speak, her whole being concentrated on a need to be part of him.

He knelt on the bed in the darkness, his eyes moving with nerve-racking slowness over her. His hand parted her robe, and she allowed it, her own hand falling back on the bed, palm curled upward, and Daniel stared as if he had never seen her, his pupils dilated, darkening his eyes and he breathed with parted lips, audibly. Lindsay couldn't move, she lay trembling, while he looked from the hollowed pallor of her shoulders to her warm, rounded breasts where the nipples had firmed, their pink surrounded by a darker circle, then down over her midriff and the fiat, smooth stomach to her hips and slim thighs.

He was looking at her deliberately, it was an act of possession as much as would be the lovemaking which would follow, and Lindsay looked at him in hungry exploration in the same way. When he put out his hand she tensed, watching. His fingers trailed softly where he chose to touch her, so light, so fleeting a contact, all the way down her body and a smothered gasp broke from her, she put

up an arm to pull him down to her, the long-deferred desire too fierce to be borne. As he came down on her she shook violently and moaned in satisfaction, her arms round him, holding him locked to her.

Daniel lifted his head and caught her face in one hand, held it while he kissed her, but as if there was still anger somewhere in him it was not a gentle, tender kiss, it was a kiss of devouring intensity, bruising her mouth, forcing her head back against the pillow until her neck ached. She met it with fire, her lips clinging to his in burning response, and at last his mouth softened and warmed, he whispered: 'I love you, love you, you stupid little thing, there hasn't been anyone else; only you. I didn't want anyone else—I've tried to, but it didn't work, all I thought about was you.'

There was too much she wanted to say. I'm sorry, I've been stupid, I believe you, I love you, I'm such a fool.

She didn't say it, she said over and over again: 'I want you, I want you…'

'Oh,' Daniel muttered hoarsely as her body moved against him,, her hands touching his shoulders, his chest, his strong thighs.

'I love you,' she said a second later on a wild moan of pleasure as he entered her. 'Daniel, oh, Daniel!'

.Words couldn't make the bridge on which they had to cross to become one being, their flesh melted and dissolved together, she felt the hair on the back of her neck prickling, her spine arching to meet the hardness of his body, and there were no inhibitions, no barriers left, because her fear had gone, taking them with it. She no longer feared other women, or her own inexperience and nervous shyness. Desire burnt them all out, both her own and his—she felt the agonising need in him as he took her, his breathing tortured by moans of intense pleasure. He had always been too strong, too sure of himself. Now he was neither; he was, like her, a human being drowning in sheer need, for the first time she felt they were on the same level, equal, moving together to the same goal.

No longer aware of what she was doing, she held him, her fingers digging into his back, her nails in his flesh, and Daniel groaned as though the pain delighted him, the urgent thrust of his body hurting and exciting her in turn.

She felt, herself opening, the warm, receptive clamouring of her body engulfing him; the intensity rose to an unbearable peak, her deafened ears beat with her own cries, she did not hear the cries he gave, she moaned with closed eyes like someone dying and almost blacked out, her heart, brain, lungs seeming to cease their functions for an instant of tithe that seemed to stretch for ever.

Daniel's face was buried between her breasts when she began to think again. He was hot, flushed, trembling violently. Darling, darling,' he kept saying, but his voice was low and hoarse, she only just heard him.

She put a trembling hand on his hair, it was damp with perspiration and clung to her fingers. 'I love you,' she said, stroking it, and he turned his head on her body, his lips brushing her skin.

'Do you believe…' he began, and she put a finger on his lips.

'I love you,' she said again, what else mattered? She had never understood the words before, she had mouthed them without knowing what she said, now she did, nobody in the world had ever said them or understood them as she did how. They were elastic, they contained whole dictionaries of meanings, when you loved you trusted, believed, accepted everything. She had wanted Daniel to prove himself, his love, she had greedily asked for all of him without giving all of herself; bargaining like a market stallholder, beating him down, when if she had really loved him she would have given to the end of the world without asking in return. She had set boundaries on her love and walled herself up inside them, now they had been smashed down and how she felt had washed over the whole world. She held the world in her arms when she held him. She was no part of him—she was him, and he was her, there were no divisions, no rights or claims between them, they were one being.

'I was crazy about you from the minute I saw you,' he said in a husky voice, kissing the finger muffling his words.

'I was too young,' she said. 'I didn't understand love. I do, now.'

'You. do,' he agreed, and laughed. 'Oh yes, you do! I thought I was flying!'

There was that gentle mockery in his voice, and she smiled in the darkness, a hand running down his back and fingering the little indentations in his flesh where she had dug her nails into him without realising what she was doing. 'Daniel!' she exclaimed. 'Did I do these? I'm sorry, did I hurt you…'

'Mmm,' he said, kissing the little valley between her breasts. 'I loved it.'

'Wicked,' she said, laughing. 'That will teach you to blackmail people!'

He sighed, his body shifting so that he lay more easily against her, their bare legs entangled, his head still on her breasts but his weight not lying heavily on her. Lindsay felt him glancing up at her, his lashes flicking back.