‘Shut up!’ The savage whisper drilled out. ‘I don’t want to hear it, any of it. Just shut up! Shut up and get out. While you can.’
‘Get out where? There’s nowhere to go,’ said Julia, taut with fear and expectation. ‘All the roads are closed and there’s a flood just outside the door. Neither of us can leave, we’re both trapped. Why can’t we make the best of it? Are you scared you won’t match up to the twins? Worried about your Oedipus complex? Did nasty daddy turn you into a passive little mummy’s boy? God, Hugh—!
The terrified cry was wrenched from her trembling lips as the mortally wounded bear rounded on her, raising enormous fists, massive body swaying, shaking, straining against the fatally weakened bonds of self-control. His expression was murderous, the veins in his temples standing out under the translucent skin, marking the slow, savage pulse of his rage. All Julia’s instincts screamed at her to run, but she ignored them. Love. Trust. Hugh was teetering on the brink, as he had that day by the pool. This time her shove was utterly deliberate.
She caught one huge, shaking iron fist in her puny hand and wrenched it to her jaw.
‘You want me to take it back? Make me! Go on, make me. Hit me, Hugh! Punish me. Make me say I’m sorry!’
She heard his tortured, inarticulate groan, felt the pressure of his knuckles hard against the frail bones of her face, felt all the crushing power of him, the blind, brutal strength.
‘Go on, hit me. You know you want to. It’ll make you feel good. Feel strong. Feel in control. That’s what you want isn’t it? Hit me, Hugh! Show me what a real man you are!’
He broke loose, swinging at her with a harsh, tearing sound, throwing the whole weight of his body behind the crunching blow. Julia half-sobbed, closing her eyes; waiting, dying, not believing.
She felt the shock of the violent airwaves and opened her eyes as his fist grazed her cheek and buried itself with a splintering crash into the wood panel behind her head.
‘No … no.’ With a grunting, anguished moan Hugh struck again, despairingly, ‘Oh God!’ He stared sickly at the bleeding fist, an alien appendage, and the raw, splintered panelling.
‘No.’ His voice sank to a bloodless whisper of defeat, as if all his mighty strength had collapsed inwards on itself. The great head fell back, his eyes fanned shut against drawn cheeks and Julia was horrified by the glinting run of moisture along the roots of the long, dark lashes.
‘No, no …’ she echoed his moaning litany, putting her arms around the large, shockingly weak body, cradling it close to her warmth. She felt the depth of his despair in the racking shudders and tried to soothe him with her love. ‘No, darling, never. You’ll never, never hurt me. Love or hate. Never, not even in your blackest rage. We all know that you’re incapable of it, those of us who love you. I’m so sorry, so sorry, I had to say those awful, ugly things. But I had to, darling, I had to show you … you’re so stubborn, you would never have believed me …’
Slowly, painfully, his shudders eased and like an old man Hugh leaned stiffly away from her, far enough to see her tear-streaked cheeks, the pleading blue eyes. He blinked, and swore as the realisation came to him.
‘You …?’ He swallowed. ‘You … did that on purpose?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she confirmed his dazed uncertainty. ‘But you do see why, don’t you?’
‘You … took a risk.’
Her face illuminated with a gentle smile. ‘I trusted you.’
The grey irises turned smoky as he stared down at her. ‘On purpose,’ he repeated softly. ‘Yes … I do see. On purpose? as if he still didn’t quite believe it.
Julia waited, her heart thumping madly, schooling herself to patience and gasped as he reached out a casual hand and wrapped it around her throat, tightly enough to make the blood thrum unpleasantly in her head. ‘Those things you said … about your lovers …’
‘Lies. All lies,’ croaked Julia.
‘Lies.’ He drew out the repetition delicately. ‘My God! On purpose. I wanted to kill you. I should kill you.’ His fingers flexed in the soft skin of her neck and she brought her own hands up to tug at them helplessly, trying to guess what was going on in that complex brain.
‘But since you’ve just proved me constitutionally incapable of killing …’ he dragged her towards him, ‘… perhaps there’s another way I can give you a little taste of death.’
‘What…?’ Julia’s knees sagged at the way he looked down at her body. There was a light in his eyes she had never seen before, a strange, unholy gleam.
‘That’s what they call it—a little death.’ He reached down and loosened the voluminous robe, swiftly reaching behind her to pull it off before she had time to react. He still held her by the neck and the combination of helplessness and the startling realisation of what he intended to do sent a surge of confused excitement through Julia. Instinctively her hands came up to shield her unprotected body and he laughed, a relaxed, knowing laugh that stole away the last of her breath.
‘Don’t bother, Julia. Befo
re I’m through I’m going to know every inch of you,’ adding, to make her blush furiously; ‘both inside and out.’
He kissed her possessively, removing his hand from her throat as her lips parted readily under his. He kissed her until there was no part of her mouth he had not sensuously explored. His large hands moved over her body, cupping and massaging her breasts with firm deliberation before sinking to her belly, and beyond, his fingers imitating the invasive stroke of his tongue in her mouth.
The flood outside was nothing to the seething waves of pleasure that flooded through Julia as she allowed Hugh the freedom of her body. He seemed without inhibition, as though he had shed the dry, constricting skin of his previous existence to emerge renewed and invigorated. Julia gloried in the return of his strength and power, arching as his hands found the naked skin of her back, tracing the sensitive curve of her spine urging her closer to his restless thighs.
Kissing, caressing, feeding hungrily on her soft flesh, Hugh’s impatience was a seduction in itself, more arousing than all his previous expertise. He pulled off his clothes and threw them down, pushing Julia eagerly on to the floor in front of the dying fire, roughly entwining his body with hers, moving against her with a passionate urgency that consumed her with heat. The harsh-soft carpet beneath her and the heavy satin body above her provided her skin with a sensuous contrast that made her cry out with delight.
‘So ripe, so ready,’ he muttered, biting the smooth shoulders and breasts, then kissing the tiny, stinging pinpoints of pain, soothing them with his tongue, only to use his teeth again to skilfully heighten the sensations that were building … building, inside her body. He slid between her legs, one hand resting on the pulsing warmth of her left breast, lifting his head briefly, asking thickly: ‘Am I going too fast for you?’