The Hidden Years. PENNY JORDAN
her awareness of his arousal, his hands moving rapidly over her back and buttocks, his own body moving urgently against hers as he sought to impress its sexual message, its need on her still innocent flesh.
When his hand slid up to cover her breast and discovered that beneath her dull sensible jumper she was naked, he told her approvingly, ‘Good girl,’ and then whispered thickly in her ear, ‘I ought to reward you for being so thoughtful, oughtn’t I? What would you like, sweetheart—what would you like me to do?’
Her mind registered the thickening of his voice and sent sharp warning signals darting through her body, so that when she squirmed in his arms it was more with apprehension than excitement, but Kit was in no mood to be patient with her. He had lain awake far too long last night with his body aching and his temper on edge to waste time this morning. He wanted her and he intended to have her.
Fighting against her apprehension, Lizzie reminded herself that this was what she wanted; that only last night she had lain in bed and thrilled to the memory of Kit caressing her breasts as he was doing now, first with his hands, and then with his mouth, and yet she still cried out with pain when he savaged their tender crests with his teeth, wanting to beg him to stop, to protest that he was hurting her, but afraid of doing so in case she angered him, in case it proved that there was something wrong with her, that she was somehow lacking as a woman. There was nothing wrong with her, she told herself despairingly, but the doubt persisted and grew, locking her muscles, and making her feel tense and uncomfortable.
Kit undressed her quickly, roughly almost, she thought, trying not to flinch when his hands almost bruised her sensitive skin, closing her mind to the hesitant but instinctive knowledge that told her that this was not the way it should be, that in some way she was being cheated.
Dark, shadowy thoughts, doubts and fears chased one another across her mind. By Aunt Vi’s standards what she was doing was totally unforgivable…wrong… Her own emotions, so at war with her physical inhibitions, confused her. She shivered, and Kit, sensing her withdrawal from him, cursed under his breath and demanded abruptly, ‘What is it, what’s wrong?’
Lizzie looked nervously at him. He was frowning at her and she shivered again, but her doubts, her fears couldn’t be suppressed.
‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ she told him huskily, ‘it isn’t right. I…’
Not bothering to hide his irritation, Kit took hold of her. He was not having her back out on him now. He wanted her too much, ached for her too much.
‘It isn’t wrong, sweetheart,’ he insisted, kissing her. ‘How can it be wrong when we love one another…when we have so little time together? You do love me, don’t you?’ he demanded caressingly.
‘Yes…yes…I love you.’ At least she was sure about that.
‘Then let me love you, sweetheart. Let me have these memories of you to take with me when I’m up there fighting for this country… for us…’
He had used the words so many times before that even to his own ears they sounded like a meaningless repetition of emotions he did not feel, but they were new to Lizzie, new and a frightening reminder of the reality of the war…and as Kit saw the thoughts and feelings reflected so clearly in her eyes he kissed her again and whispered against her ear, ‘Let me love you…let me show you…’ His voice thickened with excitement as he felt the tremor of emotion go through her body, and, taking advantage of her fear for him, he quickly removed the rest of her clothes.
No other human being had seen her completely naked since she had been sent to live with Aunt Vi, and she blushed hotly as Kit looked at her. Did he find her beautiful, desirable, or had she disappointed him? She wasn’t voluptuous with an hour-glass figure, but small with a narrow waist and hips and slender legs. Would he, who was so much bigger, so much heavier, so very different from her, find her too thin, too unfeminine? She blushed again and made a small embarrassed sound of protest in her throat as she tried to conceal herself from him, but he wouldn’t let her, laughing at her as he took hold of her hands and held them behind her back.
She wasn’t sure she liked being held like that; as though…as though she were his prisoner and as though he enjoyed holding her captive.
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, old girl,’ he told her thickly as he watched her, and she couldn’t find the words to tell him that his careless scrutiny of her, his whole attitude towards her somehow cheapened their love, cheapened her! She had better not try to back out on him now, Kit thought resentfully. He watched her narrowly as he touched her.
Lizzie tried not to tremble. Without yesterday’s sun it was cold in the summer-house, and she tried to tell herself that it was for this reason that she felt so chilled, so nervous. She couldn’t possibly be nervous of Kit, could she? After all, she loved him and he loved her. So why was she finding the movement of his hands against her skin unnerving rather than arousing; why was her strongest emotion of fear…fear of angering and irritating him?
She tensed a little as Kit pushed her down on to the floor, her eyes wide with apprehension as he covered her body with the heavy weight of his own.
As she watched him he leavered himself away from her, fumbling with the waistband of his uniform trousers, but, instead of removing them and along with them the rest of his clothes, he simply unbuttoned them and then lowered his whole weight against her, pinning her down on the dusty floor, pushing apart her legs.
She did her best to accommodate him as he positioned himself between her thighs, confused by her own inability to communicate to him her tension and afraid of revealing to him her lack of desire.
The floor beneath her was hard and uncomfortable and she flinched as he pushed fiercely into her body and then repeated the jarring movement, cursing under his breath as he met with resistance.
‘Relax, can’t you?’ he muttered as he held her down beneath him.
Her body’s resistance both excited and irritated him, making him both want to drive hard against it, and impatient to be rid of the barrier of her virginity. She was far too tense, far too on edge.
He told her as much, angry with her for spoiling his pleasure, and when he thrust hard into her again Lizzie bit down on her bottom lip, terrified of letting him see how uncomfortable she was. She had heard, of course, that sometimes the first time it could hurt, but she had never imagined it would be like this…never imagined that her body would feel so tense and dry.
‘You should have been a bloody nun,’ Kit growled at her as he finally forced his way past her tense muscles.
He wasn’t even looking at her any more, Lizzie realised as she winced beneath the cruelty of his words and the burden of knowing that she had failed him, that she had failed herself… that as a woman she was in some way lacking.
Although she knew that what was happening should be giving her pleasure, instead she was filled with pain and confusion, both physically and emotionally, so that the harsh sound of Kit’s breathing, the fierce movement of his body within her own, seemed distant and apart from her. She was acutely conscious of them being not, as she had imagined, one perfect whole brought together by the intimacy of their lovemaking, but two very separate individuals.
The physical pain of his possession might have gone, but she was left with a deeper and far more hurtful emotional pain, so that when he finally collapsed on top of her, breathing erratically, she felt no relief, no pleasure, nothing other than a deep welling coldness and a searing sense of panic. She had disappointed him, failed him…she was not somehow a real woman, a sexual woman.
She could see the condemnation in his eyes, feel it in the way he refused to look at her as he moved away from her and kept his back to her as he fastened his trousers.
She was shivering now, her body stiff with cold.
‘Come on, sweetheart, you’d better get dressed. I’ve got to go and see old Edward again before I leave…’
Her hands shook as she dressed herself. She felt numb inside, her