Damage (8 page)

Now, when she came back to Blunt’s end of the bar, he smiled and, briefly, his whole face lit up. “So tell me what it’s like growing up here,” he said. “I loved coming to this part of the world when I was a kid, but it never really felt like somewhere you could
live
. It was a holiday place, not a home place, you know what I mean?”

“Hard to say,” she said. “It’s what I’ve always known. It’s not all chocolate-box, you know.”

He laughed. “You say that, talking to me in a Cotswold stone, thatched English pub overlooking a perfect village green, with a village pond, surrounded by perfect cottages and country houses.”

Holly laughed too. “Okay,” she said. “It’s
mostly
chocolate-box, I’ll give you that.”

“So what are you studying?” he asked. “Your father said you were somehow managing to squeeze a degree in among all your jobs.”

She leaned with her elbows on the bar, hands clasped before her. “Graphic design,” she said. “A bit of fine art on the side.”

“Fine art? What do you do?”

“Oh, just watercolors, acrylics.”

“I’d like to see your work some time.”

“Oh I... It’s been so long since I’ve really done anything. I wouldn’t–”

“No, really. I’d like to.” Then: “Why haven’t you done anything lately?”

“No time. Too many jobs to do!” Self-doubt. Questioning her own ability. The usual...

“You should make time.”

Everything had become intense. She didn’t understand why, but there was that tension in the air between them, and suddenly she was conscious of how close they were across the bar, both of them leaning forward.

She broke away, picked up a glass and started polishing it.

She couldn’t remember the last time someone had shown an interest in what
she
did, or wanted. It was as if she’d forgotten how to think about her own needs and wishes. That had been a different her, the one who still had a healthy mother and whose father was in charge of his own life; the her who didn’t have to work all hours to make not even enough money to cover their bills and rent.

He was watching her, something different in his eyes.

Now, he said hesitantly, “I don’t know what it is.”

She expected him to say something more, but the silence grew.

She raised an eyebrow, questioningly.

“I don’t know what it is, or what you do,” he said. “But no matter how hard I resist – and believe me, my life would be so much easier without this kind of complication – I just can’t stop you getting through to me, captivating me, beguiling me.”

“So I’m a complication?”

He nodded. “The most utterly enchanting, beautiful complication I could imagine.”

And somehow, now, Holly was intensely aware of the space between them. She had never known anything like that sheer force of nature, drawing them together, relentlessly–

A sound to her left, a throat-clearing, time-to-interrupt-this kind of a sound, and Robert was there, looking pointedly at Holly as she turned towards him, and away from Blunt.

“Time we were closing up,” he said, in a voice that told her he was repeating words already spoken.

Somehow an entire evening had passed, and... and Nicholas Blunt was leaning back, looking away, and the moment was long, long gone.

But then Blunt glanced her way, and that intensity was still there in those pale eyes, and she realized the moment wasn’t gone at all, but merely suspended.

“I... Robert... Okay if I go now?”

Outside, there was a cold edge to the air. The sky was clear, the stars bright. A proper autumn evening.

She followed him out, knowing something was happening, about to happen, feeling almost like an observer of a scene already decreed by fate.

Soon they were out on the green, Blunt only a dark shape in the night, trees looming to the left, village pond to the right.

For a moment Holly thought he was not going to stop, that he was leading her somewhere – to the Hall, perhaps. Then he stopped, turned, and his face was a pale patch against the darkness.

“You’re in my head,” he said, surprising her with his words, as if he were protesting, complaining.

“Why?” she asked. “Why am I? Why me?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “But... but somehow you’ve broken through. I can’t shake you out of my head, and God I’ve tried.”

She recalled his words from earlier, when he had told her she was the most utterly enchanting, beautiful complication he could imagine.

She took a step closer.

“You don’t want this,” he said. “Really you don’t.” More contradiction. A moment of intense need and now... now he was fighting it, warning her away.

Another step, and they were facing each other, almost touching, as close as they had been across the bar.

“You don’t want me. I’m damaged goods. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t–”

His lips were hard when she kissed him, pinched shut, his jaw smooth, with just the faintest fuzz of stubble.

Those eyes... For a moment he was like a frightened rabbit, frozen in the headlights.

Then something changed. His arms went around her, and his body was against her, tipping her off-balance so that he had to take her weight in his arms, stopping her from toppling like a skittle.

His kiss was hard and deep, and then somehow his leg was between hers, his thigh pressing, and she was suddenly aware of a heat in her belly, a tightness, conscious of every small sensation as he pressed against her.

His mouth moved down her chin, and then he took a handful of her hair and pulled her head roughly back so that he could drag his teeth down her throat, sending a whole new range of sensations coursing through her body. His hands... one on her ass, one on the back of her neck. She felt like an instrument he was playing.

Somehow she came to be standing against a tree, its bark sharp and rough through her thin coat.

She should resist. She didn’t know if she was ready for this, if it was a thing that she wanted or just something that was beyond her control.

His hands were on her breasts now, and then working down, fingers sliding inside the waistband of her jeans, his other hand finding the buttons, freeing them one by one.

“Nicholas... I...”

That hand stealing down further, burying itself deep between her legs, cupping her, fingers pressing up against her softness, his strength lifting her so that her weight was on her toes, the tree, and that cupping, caressing hand.

He took her in his arms then, and lifted her off the ground altogether, before kneeling and placing her on a bed of fallen leaves at the foot of the tree.

He pulled her sneakers and socks off, then slid her black skinnies down until he could pull them clear.

Kneeling between her legs, he paused, and she felt that tension between them drawing tight, stretching out. Then, slowly, he lowered himself until his mouth was on the flat of her belly, those lips that had been hard now incredibly soft and tender as he kissed her there, and then worked down, kissing her through the delicate lace of her underwear, finding that sensitive nub and pressing hard, his tongue rolling from side to side and sending intense waves of pleasure through her body.

His hands found the waistband of her panties now, and pulled them down across her hips, her thighs, and clear.

He paused, so close that she could feel his warm breath on her bareness. Then he lowered himself again. His mouth found the hood of skin that covered her clitoris and his tongue slipped into the fold, drawing tight circles around that point.

She felt the pressure of his mouth against her lips down there, grinding against her, then parting them. Fingers sliding inside. One at first, then more.

She was so wet for him! So hot!

Above her, the branches of the tree formed an abstract, dark pattern against the starlit autumn sky, and somewhere in the distance a dog barked, and Holly just lay there, twisting and writhing in response to her lover’s touch.

“Now...” she managed to gasp, as she felt a head of pressure growing deep in her belly.

He paused, his head raised slightly.

“Now!”

He lifted himself, settling back on his heels to undo his belt.

He stood, then, and kicked his boots off.

She watched as he slid the black jeans down his thighs, revealing tight shorts – black like his jeans.

When he pulled his shorts down, his manhood sprang out, hard and long, and involuntarily Holly’s hands went down and covered herself, pressing and squeezing.

He dropped to his knees, and now she could crane forwards and take him in her hands.

One hand cradled his balls, and the other curled around his shaft, so that the head rested in her palm, slick with his juices. She started to pull, twisting her wrist as she did so, before pushing back down his length with a fist clenched tightly around him.

He lowered himself, pushing forward, his thighs against hers, the swollen head of his manhood nuzzling against her opening.

She held him there, rubbing him back and forth so that he dipped between her labia and then swept up to slide across her clit and up the narrow strip of hair across her mound, then back down again, over and over.

That tightness in her belly... She was so close. She could just carry on like this, but then–

He reached down, enclosed her hand that held him, guided it downwards, and then he was slipping in between her lips, finding her opening and sliding, oh so slowly, in.

She’d never known anything like this, the way he filled her and kept on pushing, filling her more and more.

Tommy – he had just been a boy. But Nicholas Blunt...

He pushed deep inside her until his pubic bone ground against her clit and his balls pressed against her ass. He held himself there for long seconds, so that all she felt was that pressure against her and the sensation of being so utterly filled, and then, just as slowly, he started to pull back.

The next thrust was harder, swifter, and the next, and then he was pumping hard in and out of her, and she started to cry aloud because she’d never been had like this before and she didn’t know how he could keep going so hard and fast against her, inside her.

Slowing finally, his hands slipped inside her top, pushing it up, finding her breasts, expertly freeing the bra and sliding it up so that she was exposed for him.

A hard pinch on one nipple, just as his lips closed around the other, and still he thrust hard inside her.

Rolling one nipple between thumb and forefinger, he worked the other with teeth, tongue, lips, sucking and biting, so that her whole body was alive with sensation.

That heat...

That tightness...

A sudden blossoming in her belly and it felt as if every muscle in her body tightened as one.

She pushed up against him, her legs clamped around his waist, holding him there, deep inside her as climax swept over her and through her. Holding him deep, until slowly, slowly, the tightenings diminished, and the pulsing and throbbing of pleasure through her body subsided.

He paused for a moment as she slumped against him, and then, slowly, he started to thrust again. Filling her and then withdrawing almost his entire length, each thrust matched by a soft, involuntary grunt.

He was close. She could tell that from the look in his eyes alone.

He started to thrust harder and faster, now, his balls slapping against her with each deep thrust.

And all the time, those eyes, remained locked on hers.

Then – so close! – he held himself deep, his shaft throbbing inside her as he paused right on the edge of orgasm. Finally he cried out and heaved his body, withdrawing at the last moment and thrusting again, this time with the length of his manhood gliding flat against her mound and belly, his balls against her pussy. On the second thrust a jet of semen spat up between them, sealing them belly to belly with wet, sticky heat. A second spurt seeped between them as he pressed against her, his cock growing soft, still twitching. A final spurt, and he was spent.

They lay like that for some time, joined wetly, breathing hard, and then, finally, he pulled himself away, rocking back onto his heels.

Without a word, he pulled his t-shirt over his head and used it to wipe her clean, before drying himself, too. Then he stood, pulled his jeans up, and put his leather jacket on over his bare torso.

He reached a hand out to help her stand.

“You’d better get dressed,” he said. “Get yourself covered up.”

“And then?”

Was this it? He’d had her, used her, and now would he discard her, just as he had with all his other ‘tarts’?

Those eyes, those cool gray eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how this goes, okay? I really don’t know how this goes from here.”

He walked her home across the green.

At first they were silent. She didn’t know whether to take his arm, she didn’t know what to say. Odd to feel so awkward after such intimacy.

They were within sight of the cottage before the silence was broken.

“So...” he said, then paused. “So here you are. I...”

He kissed her, and suddenly the lack of words meant nothing. He may be clumsily inarticulate when he tried to talk, but when his lips met hers he was a poet.

Such a delicate touch at first, their lips barely touching as he gazed into her eyes, and then the pressure increased, almost imperceptibly at first, until somehow he was pressing, grinding his mouth against hers, opening her with his darting, twisting tongue. A flash, of intense, animal passion, and then... so delicate once more, so tender.

When he stopped, and pulled a little away, she was grateful that he still held her in his arms because her legs were like jelly.

“I... you’ll call?” she said, her breathing ragged.

“I will.”

She turned and approached the cottage, fumbling for her key and then for the lock. When she looked back before stepping inside, he was no more than a dark figure heading back across the green and then gone.

§

“Is that what he said? Talk about smooth-talking bastards...”

It was late that night, some time around midnight, and Holly lay on her bed in just a t-shirt, her room lit by a night sky heavy with stars. She was wide awake, her senses wired as if she’d been mainlining coffee all evening. Finding it hard to settle, she’d tried to read, tried to watch TV, and ended up catching up on Facebook when she noticed that Ruby was still online and posting.