She could feel him everywhere, with every inch of her flesh. His chest hair rasped harshly against the softness of her breasts, arousing them until they burned with longing. The hardness of his stomach and abdomen pressed into hers while the thrusting strength of his thighs crushed her hips and legs. He was still wearing his trousers, but Amanda could feel grinding against her the hot, bulging outline of the part of him that made him a man. She had seen that part only on a baby boy whom she had diapered at Sister Agnes’s instruction, and then she had hastily averted her eyes. But her memory of that small, innocent maleness bore no resemblance to the feel of this huge thing that importuned her so insistently. She trembled as it pressed boldly against her; her hands clutched at his shoulders and then ran with increasing need over his back. She was intensely curious about him, about the look of him, the feel of him; her fingers were unsteady as they explored first the muscular breadth of his shoulders, marveling at the smooth hardness of his skin, and then traced gently over the outline of the scars on his back.
This was Matt, her Matt, who was disfigured so, and the small flaw in his physical perfection touched her to the heart. The words she had said a few moments ago, words she had not known were in her mind, came back to her: she loved him. Never in her life had she felt anything like the intensity of the emotion that shook her as she stroked his broad, scarred back.
He was kissing her throat, his mouth hot against her skin while his hands cupped her breasts. Amanda stiffened, first with shock and then with something perilously close to ecstasy, as she felt his mouth leave her throat to nuzzle at her breast. The feel of his unshaven jaw abrading her softness as he brushed his face back and forth against her nipples caused a moan to rise unbidden from her throat. Amanda heard the wanton little sound as if from a distance, wondering vaguely where it had come from until she realized to her horror that it had come from her own throat. And continued to come. She couldn’t seem to stop the animalistic little cries no matter how hard she tried. Then his lips closed gently over her left nipple and she stopped trying as her body went wild under his hands.
If she had been aware of anything except the intensity of her own pleasure, Amanda would have wanted to die of shame at the way her body writhed and twisted beneath Matt’s hands and mouth. He stroked her, first her silken belly and then her thighs, as his mouth continued to tease and torment her nipples. He moved from one breast to the other, first suckling and then catching the nipple between hard white teeth and biting down gently until her nails dug deep into his shoulders and she cried out his name. He shuddered as he felt her pleasure, and his mouth slid down from her breasts to trail burning kisses over her flat stomach, stopping momentarily to explore her navel with his tongue, before moving on down her abdomen to the place where her thighs joined. Amanda quivered with shock as she felt his mouth nuzzling her there, and her eyes flew open as she tried to squirm away from him. She was not yet so completely depraved as not to realize that the way he was kissing her now was wrong; he had to stop … But his hands were holding her in place, not letting her move away from him, and the pressure of his mouth against that place where no one had ever touched her before was doing funny things to her insides.
“Relax, Amanda,” he murmured in a low, thick voice, “and let me kiss you.”
Still she lay stiffly beneath him, resisting the nibbling little kisses he was pressing up the inside of her thighs. Her hands were in his hair, but gradually they stopped trying to pull him away. Instead they rested quietly, the fingers tensely entwined in the thick strands. She wasn’t resisting anymore, but she was no longer responding as she had, either. Matt’s hands slid down her sides to cup her hips, holding her loosely but making no effort to force her to do anything.
“Amanda.” His voice was hoarse with passion. Amanda looked down and met his eyes as he lifted his head so that he could look up at her. He was half lying, half kneeling astride her legs, and the contrast between his black hair and swarthy skin and the pearly glimmer of her stomach and thighs made her catch her breath. “You trust me, don’t you?”
Amanda thought about that for an instant, then nodded hesitantly. She did trust him: more, she loved him.
“Then open your legs for me, and let me love you properly.” Despite the husky overtones, his voice was cajoling. Amanda shivered at the image his words conjured up, but when his hands slid down between her thighs she let him part them and settle himself between them. Her nails dug deep into his scalp as she felt him press first gentle kisses and then hot lingering ones against the quivering softness of her. As he found each sensitive spot with his tongue, her heart began to pound so hard that she thought she must die from it. Instinctively she tried to squeeze her thighs shut, but he was fixed firmly between them now and she only succeeded in imprinting the feel of his rough cheeks against the silky skin of her inner thighs. Tugging at his hair, writhing in frantic protest against the sensations he was arousing in her, she tried her best to make him stop, but he would not. And then she didn’t want him to. Her body responded with a will of its own, arching itself against him, shivering and pulsating and clutching him to her with hands and legs.
“Sweet Jesus.” He was lifting himself away from her, his hands shaking as they moved to the buckle of his belt. “I know this is probably going too fast for you, but I can’t wait any longer. I’ll try not to hurt you.”
Amanda was in such a daze that his words barely penetrated. She lay as he had left her on the bed, her legs parted, her breasts quivering, and watched him fumble with the fastening of his trousers and then kick them aside as they fell down his legs. She had just a brief glimpse of his nakedness, of the white bandage adorning his hips; just enough of a look at him to register vaguely that he was as hairy lower down as he was on top and that that thing was really as huge as it had felt. Then he was on the bed beside her, his arms sliding around her, his mouth crushing hers as his knees slid between her thighs. She no longer had any thought of denying him. She was drunk with passion, scarcely aware of where she was or who she was or anything else except the feel of his big body against her much smaller one. She felt the rasp of his body hair against her breasts and belly and thighs, and trembled; she felt the hardness of his shoulders under her hands, the sinewy strength of his thighs between hers, the shaking passion of his mouth on her own, and wanted to die from sheer bliss. Never had she experienced anything like it, or even dreamed it existed. Never had anything felt so wonderful.
Something hard and hot probed insistently at the softness between her thighs. It managed to wedge itself a little way inside, and Amanda squirmed, trying to escape it. It was annoying to be distracted in such a way when she was trying to concentrate on an elusive, pleasurable something that she sensed was almost within her reach. The thing poked at her again, harder this time, and Amanda had to arch her back to escape it. She knew Matt wasn’t hurting her deliberately, but he was ruining the dazzling glow that his lovemaking had engendered in her. In fact, with that thing prodding her, she was barely able to enjoy the pleasure he was giving her with his hands and mouth … She had to tell him, or their lovemaking would be quite spoiled.
“Matt,” she began breathlessly as his mouth fastened on the pulse at the base of her throat while his hands closed over her breasts. Not knowing quite how to put her problem into words, she moved her hips so that he would be able to feel what he was doing to her. To her amazement, the simple sideways movement made him gasp, and his hands tightened painfully on her breasts. Amanda’s own hands flew to his wrists, seeking to ease the crushing pressure; she had opened her mouth to protest again when he surged against her with a groan. The thing that had been prodding and poking at her impaled her now, tearing through her flesh to embed itself deep inside her. The pain was so unexpected that Amanda screamed. Matt’s mouth on hers swallowed the agonized cry, but he could not have mistaken the frantic squirming of her body beneath his as she fought to get away from him.
“You’re
hurting
me,” she cried into his mouth as she tore at his hair. But if he in fact heard, he ignored her, pinning her beneath him with the sheer weight of his body and pulling her head back with his hand in her hair as he took her mouth in deep kisses that should have drugged her pain but didn’t. Then, when the first terrible pain began to recede and she was able to relax a little, he moved, thrusting into her again with a force that brought tears to her eyes.
“Let me
go,
Matt.” She was beating against his shoulders with her fists as he thrust into her again and again. He did not slacken his movements, but he did reach up and capture her hands and force them down beside her head on the pillow. When she turned her head away from his kisses, he buried his face in her throat without altering by so much as a heartbeat the hard, driving rhythm of his movements.
Amanda stopped fighting, knowing that it was useless and that he would not release her until he had reached whatever goal he seemed to be striving for. Feeling his sweat drip down from his shoulders and chest onto her skin, hearing the impeded rasp of his breathing, seeing the dark flush that mottled his face as he surged over and in her, Amanda shuddered. When Susan had told of how her virginity had been taken from her, she had been too embarrassed to go into much detail. Amanda had imagined that the horror and pain her friend had described had been due to the fact that she had been forced into the act by strangers bent on degrading and defiling her. But now she herself had been hurt, although the pain was subsiding, and as Matt heaved and panted over her shrinking body Amanda felt degraded and defiled as well. If this repulsive act was what men and women did together, she wanted no part of it, she thought, biting her lip to keep an ignominious sob from bursting forth.
“Oh,
God,
Amanda.” He thrust into her so hard then that she feared he must split her in two, then held himself inside her while a long shudder racked him. Amanda moaned in shame; he seemed to like that because his hands released hers to close about her, hugging her tightly to him. Amanda lay unmoving beneath him, stiff with anger and revulsion. It was some little time before at last Matt eased himself away from her.
“Christ, I’m sorry.” Matt was lying beside her, leaning over her, his head propped on one hand while his other hand made a tentative gesture as though to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Amanda turned her face away from him, stonily regarding the wall, wishing with all the strength left in her that she could reach her night rail, a blanket, anything to shield her body from his eyes. Whereas before the thought of being naked with him had been oddly exciting, now it made her cringe.
“Amanda.” His voice was insistent; his hand was insistent, too, as it captured her chin and forced her to look at him. His eyes flickered as they took in her mouth swollen from his kisses and the tear stains on her cheeks.
“You hurt me.” The words were bitter, accusing.
Matt winced. “I know—I’m sorry.” He let go of her chin gently to brush away the tears that still dangled from her lashes. Amanda jerked her face away from him, and he dropped his hand. “I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world, Amanda. But—I lost control.”
“It was
horrible.
”
He flinched. “It’s always painful for a girl her first time, Amanda. But the next time, there won’t be any pain, I promise.”
“The
next
time.” An almost hysterical laugh burst from her throat. “There never will be a next time—I
hated
it.”
“And me?” The question was very quiet.
“What?”
“Before, you said you loved me. Have you changed your mind?”
Amanda stared up at him. He looked so big and dark, looming over her with the moon just touching his shoulder, making her shudderingly aware of his nakedness and strength, of the sinewy muscles of his shoulders and arms, of the thick black pelt that covered his chest and more—and of the thing that had done its best to rend her in two. It wasn’t quite as hard and angry-looking now, she noticed before she jerked her eyes away.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” To tell the truth, she didn’t know what she felt. At the time, she had been more certain of her love for him than she had ever been of anything in her life. But now—now she didn’t know. And she didn’t feel able to analyze her emotions at the moment.
“I see.” He levered himself off the bed, uncaring of his nakedness, and reached for his trousers.
“Where are you going?”
“To sleep somewhere else, as I would have done earlier. Only, if I remember correctly, you wouldn’t let me.” There was bitter mockery in his voice. Amanda sat up, folding her arms over her breasts and raising her knees to her chin in an instinctive gesture of modesty, and glared at him. Her reward was a scornful glance as he turned his attention to fastening his trousers.
“That’s an ungentlemanly thing to suggest.”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m stating the plain truth, and you know it. You’ve been wanting me to make love to you for days. Haven’t you heard the old saying about being careful what you wish for because you just might get it? Well, you wished for it—and you got it. I am not a monster who forced you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
“I didn’t want to—you
know
I didn’t. I
tried
to stop you.”
He was shrugging into his shirt, closing the buttons with one hand as his mouth curled derisively at her.
“Only when it was too late, Amanda. Don’t delude yourself. You were deliriously happy until the very end—until you decided that making love wasn’t pleasurable anymore and you wanted to stop. Next time I suggest you pick a partner as callow as yourself. He just might manage to oblige you.”
“Get
out
of here.” Hurt and disillusionment combined with outrage at his remarks to make her furious. Her voice shook as she hurled the words at him. If she’d had anything to throw, she would have thrown it. As it was, hampered by the need to keep her arms over her breasts, she could only kill him with her eyes.