She lay back reluctantly, shivering slightly, willing herself to go to sleep. So he didn’t want her. He’d already tried to make that clear, and she’d been an adolescent fool to ignore it, hoping against hope that her heart was right and her common sense was wrong.
Well, she’d just had a salutary lesson. He was in his own room, he had no interest in her, and the night loomed ahead, long and endless.
She closed her eyes, trying to will herself back to sleep, when she thought she heard a movement by the bed. Before she could reach to turn on the light something loomed over her, something huge and dark and dangerous. Lightning split the sky, illuminating the room, but the creature looming over her seemed huge, faceless, as his hands latched tightly around her neck, pressing, pressing tightly.
She fought, kicking out, her hands beating at his iron strong arms. She couldn’t make a sound as the breath was slowly squeezed out of her. She scratched at him in desperate fury, kicking.
The lamp beside the bed toppled over with a resounding crash, and he cursed, a muffled obscenity, in a voice eerily familiar.
And that suddenly she was free, the death-dealing hands had left her, and she was alone in the room, in the darkness, gasping for breath.
She struggled out of bed and turned on the light. Whoever had been in the room had knocked over a chair when he made his escape, and the door to the hallway stood gaping open. She held herself motionless, listening for the sound of escape, but there was nothing but the sound of the storm outside, covering any retreat. And then the thunder crashed again, shaking the ancient stone foundations of the old house, and she let out a shriek of terror, dropped the blanket and ran from her room straight into Patrick’s.
She headed blindly for the bed, throwing herself into his arms, sobbing desperately. “Someone just tried to kill me,” she said in a hoarse, raw voice. “He came into my room and tried to strangle me!”
He was already sitting up, trying to disengage himself from her panicked, clutching arms. He switched on the light and stared at her in disbelief. “That’s impossible,” he said flatly, doubting blue narrowed against the sudden light. “You must have had a nightmare.”
“I didn’t, I swear I didn’t!” she cried, hysteria and something else shattering her tenuous control. “Someone came into my room and tried to kill me. Can’t you hear it in my voice—I can barely talk. It’s true, I swear it! You can go and see for yourself—he knocked over the furniture as he escaped.”
“Why did he run? You’re hardly formidable enough to fight him off. Why didn’t he just finish the job?” Patrick asked flatly.
She stared up at him, pain and fear subsiding into shock. “I don’t know,” she said numbly.
“You must admit you don’t have much of a record for truth telling,” he said.
She started to pull away from him, but his hands suddenly tightened on her arms, as if he regretted his harshness. “If you’re afraid of the storm, Molly, you just have to say so.”
“I’m not...” She started to deny it, but another flash of lightning sparked through the room, followed by a crash of thunder, and she jerked, clutching at him more tightly.
A tentative hand reached out and smoothed her tumbled hair. “I think you must have dreamed it, Molly,” he said, more gently now. “Thunderstorms always affect you that way.”
“Why won’t you believe me?” she demanded hoarsely.
He sighed, and with surprising tenderness reached down and pulled her into the bed beside him. He leaned over and turned out the light. “Lie down and go to sleep, Molly,” he said patiently, slipping down under the covers, for all the world as if that was exactly what he intended to do himself.
In the meantime Molly was making some interesting discoveries. In the first place, Patrick slept naked, and the feel of his warm, smooth skin next to hers was having a predictable effect. She wanted to move closer, to press herself against him, to breathe in the feel and the scent of him.
It was also becoming apparent that she was having the same effect on him.
Lightning lit up the room for a moment, and she shivered and drew closer to the warmth of his body. The thunder followed a moment later, and she could barely resist hiding her head. Tentatively she put her face against his shoulder. His arm came around her waist, almost by its own volition, and he pulled her closer as she snuggled against him, the warm, lean hardness of his body. He put his hand under her chin, moving her head up, and his lips tasted hers. With a sigh of pure abandonment she put her arms around his neck and moved closer still.
She couldn’t have imagined it could be any better, but amazingly it was. His mouth was soft on hers, tasting, demanding, his hands exploring her body with a tenderness she would never have expected from a man of his temper and passions. He slid the night gown from her, pulling it up slowly until it came free, and then it was as if he’d finally given himself free rein.
He was everywhere on her body, hands and mouth, tasting, touching, arousing her to a fever pitch she hadn’t imagined possible. And when he entered her this time she clung to him, sobbing lightly, wanting more and more of him. She felt she would die if he left her; this sweet, soft dream should go on forever, when he suddenly turned rougher, exciting her in ways she hadn’t even known existed, and her fingernails raked his back as she held him, straining with a passion as savage and dark as his own.
And when it was over, when she fell back, panting and warm in her dazed completeness, she still held on to him, determined not to let him leave her, not to let him shut her out.
She fell asleep in his arms, his body wrapped tightly with hers.
Sixteen
When Molly awoke the next morning he had already left the bed, and she lay calm and contented beneath the covers, watching the sun grow brighter and stronger, waiting for her husband to return. She had almost drifted back into a blissful sleep when the door opened and he came back in, dressed only in his faded blue jeans, his long black curls dripping from the shower onto his strong shoulders. His eyes slid over her lying in his bed, for all the world as if she belonged there, and the same old expression of distrust filled his dark blue gaze.
She couldn’t stand it. Without thinking she slipped out of bed and ran across the room to him. Throwing her arms around his neck, she pressed her warm, naked body against his. “Don’t look that way, Patrick,” she pleaded, with tear-filled eyes. “Whatever I’ve done, whatever way I’ve hurt you—that’s in the past. I can’t change it, I can’t even remember it.” Reluctantly his dark blue eyes met her intense gaze. “All I can do is love you, Patrick,” she said in a quieter tone of voice. “I know that I always have. And I just wish you could accept that and try to trust me. Just a little bit.”
“Molly, this is hopeless,” he said wearily. But his hands had reached up and caught her arms, holding her against him, his long fingers stroking her skin. “We have too many strikes against us, not the least of which is I’m of a different generation.”
“You’re ten years older, for heaven’s sake!” she snapped, seriously annoyed. “That hardly makes you Methuselah. If you try really hard you should be able to come up with a better excuse than that.”
