A Savage Adoration

She had flushed with shame and pain then, but he hadn't let her look away, holding her chin with hard, hurting fingers as he said cruelly, 'Look at me, Christy. Go on… take a good look… your friend has told you what to look for. Do I look as though I want you phys

ically?'

She had wanted to get up and run away then, but shock and pain had held her rigidly where she stood, shivering like a rabbit before a hawk, totally unable to do anything other than stare blindly back into his savagely dark eyes.

When she couldn't turn her eyes in the direction of his body, he taunted with soft menace, 'If you won't look at me, perhaps you'd like to touch me instead. Just so that you know I'm not lying to you…'

She had shuddered deeply then, knowing that he had just destroyed her childish illusions, exposing her as what she was, and how she had hated the image of herself that he had held up to her gaze! She had turned away from him then, struggling to subdue the sob of terror and anguish that rose up in her throat.

He hadn't let her go, though; there had been more for her to endure. A lecture about the physical dangers she was courting : about the health risk of promiscuity, about the danger of rape and worse, and a reminder of how much her parents loved and trusted her and how shocked they would be if they knew what she had done. Worse still, he hadn't let her ride home on her bike, but had sent her upstairs to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her hair, and once she had done that he had waited until she had buttoned herself into her concealing cardigan and then had driven her home.

There was only eight years between them, but he had been as stern and forbidding as any Victorian parent, and when he had let her out of the car at the end of her parents' drive she had known that she would hate and loathe him for the rest of her life.

But not as much as she would hate herself, she reflected bitterly as she emerged from the past and came back to the present.

She had avoided Helen after that and had asked her parents if, instead of going back to school, she could attend college instead. They had agreed and found her comfortable digs in Newcastle, where in addition to her secretarial skills she had learned how to begin living with herself again.

It was as though those hectic weeks when Helen had been her friend had been some sort of sickness from which she had emerged with a revulsion for all that she had been and done. The very thought of meeting Dominic in those early days had been enough to make her feel physically ill, and if her parents thought it was curious that she never mentioned him, they kept it to themselves.

She sighed faintly. The snow was coming down more heavily now. It was time for her to return home. She glanced at her watch. Ten past three. Good, by the time she got back Dominic should have left. She knew she couldn't spend her entire life avoiding him, but discovering that he was back had been such a shock. She hadn't been ready for it. Now, having endured the catharsis of making herself relive the past, she should be stronger, more able to judge her teenage actions with tolerance and compassion. But she couldn't. That was the problem: she couldn't get over the feelings of shame and self-disgust that Dominic had given her; they still haunted and tainted her life like a disease that, although dormant, still possessed the power to return.

She hated Dominic because of the picture he had drawn of her and made her face. She hated the fact that he had witnessed her shame and humiliation. She hated him because he made her hate herself.

Sighing, she pulled the hood of her anorak up against the snow and started for home.

CHAPTER TWO

« ^ »

She almost made it. She was just treading down the lane, head bowed against the snow, when she heard the car, and instinctively began to move out of the middle of the lane, but the snow had made it treacherous and she slipped and lost her balance, going down with a bump that robbed her of breath and jarred her body.

Christy was distantly aware of the car stopping and a door slamming, but it wasn't until he came and lifted her out of the snow that she realised who her rescuer was.

'Dominic!'

Her body froze in instant recognition and panic. Eight years hadn't changed him at all, except to make him seem more formidable. That aura of leashed power that had once so excited and intrigued her was still there; the black hair was still as thick and dark as ever, the grey eyes as alert. He even had the same deep tan, while she…

As he hauled her to her feet, she grimaced inwardly, bitterly aware of her soaked jeans and ancient anorak. Why on earth hadn't she taken the trouble to put on some make-up and do her hair? She could feel it tangling untidily round her head, and surely she might have had the sense to put on one of the stunning ski-suits she had bought for last winter's skiing holiday with David and his family.

Oh God, if she had to face Dominic, why on earth couldn't it have been with all the armour she had learned to adopt in the last eight years instead of this, looking much as she had done as a teenager, instead of the sophisticated woman she had learned to become?

'Christy, are you OK?'

Incredibly, he sounded concerned as he brushed the snow off her face and, even more astounding, he was smiling at her, a smile she recognised from before those traumatic days when she had tried to turn the casual affection of an adult male towards the young daughter of his parents' friends into something more personal. As she looked into his concerned eyes it was almost as though that dreadful summer had never been. She caught her breath at the shock of it. Surely he couldn't have forgotten…

No, of course he hadn't, but perhaps he judged it more politic to pretend he had. She stiffened and pushed him away, her brusque, 'I'm fine, no thanks to you,' causing his smile to change to a frown. 'Do you always drive about without any thought for the safety of others?' she demanded tartly. 'Hardly the sort of behaviour one would expect in a member of the medical profession.'

His smile had faded completely now, to be replaced by a sharp-eyed scrutiny of her pale, set face.

'I was driving slowly enough to be able to stop, and hardly anyone ever uses this lane,' he pointed out calmly.

Christy knew that she was over-reacting, but it was the only way she could hold at bay her shock at seeing him. She had thought she had managed to avoid him, and it struck her now that she would have much preferred to face him again in the familiarity of her own home rather than out here like this, when she was at such a disadvantage. Again she cursed her own folly in being stupid enough to try and avoid him. Far better if she had stayed at home and greeted him in one of the elegantly expensive outfits she wore for work—outfits that said quite unmistakably that she was an adult.

His eyes monitored her pale face and shaky limbs, his forehead furrowing in a deep frown.

'Are you sure you're all right?' He reached out to help her, and instinctively she recoiled.

'Get in the car,' he told her, still watching her. 'I'll run you home. It won't take me a minute, and as your family doctor, I…'