Passion (23 page)

She had turned off all the lights in the room except the swag lamp that hung above the small round table where she
sat rubbing expensive-smelling lotion on her legs. Had she simply disliked the bright glare of so many lights? Did she, like
him, prefer to watch TV in near-darkness? Had she not taken a moment to consider the scene she had set and placed herself
in?

It was damned erotic. A darkened room. A single milky glass-enclosed light bulb casting its softening glow directly on her.
The chill that came from the air conditioner, which hadn’t yet dispersed the fragrant, steamy dampness drifting out through
the open bathroom door. Her wet hair combed straight back from her face. Her legs glistening with sweet-scented lotion. Her
cotton shirt, too big, too loose, too revealing by far. The slow, soothing, sensual movements of her hands on her legs.

As she bent to reach her ankle, the tank top dipped forward. It was a man’s shirt, scooped low at the neck, cut deep at the
arms, not meant to be worn by a woman, at least not without something snug-fitting underneath… and Teryl wasn’t wearing anything
at all under it. The gaping fabric beneath her left arm presented him with a tantalizing glimpse of her breast, rounded and
full, and her nipple, small, soft, nearly flat. The last time he’d seen her breasts—jeez, only three nights ago—they had been
swollen and her nipples had been as hard as his cock was getting right now. He had sucked them hard, had bitten them, once
with enough force to make her gasp. He had made her whimper and writhe and plead in a husky, wordless voice for more, and
he had given it to her, had given her everything that he’d had to give.

But she had given him so much more. The welcome of her body. The satisfaction of her release. The comfort of being so deep
and snug inside her. His own release. A few hours’ peace.

Sweet damnation, he wanted it again. He wanted
her
again. He wanted to touch her, hold her, kiss her. He wanted to fuck her, really fuck her, hard and fast, wanted to come
inside her, to fill her until she couldn’t take one drop more, and then he wanted to do it again, only different this time.
Slower. Gentler. Longer.

He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to make love with her. Sweet,
sweet
damnation.

Finishing with her legs, she sat back in the chair and the shirt fell back into a semblance of modest attire. Rubbing the
residue of leftover lotion into her hands, she looked across the room at him. If she noticed his erection—hell, how could
she
not
notice when he felt as if his balls just might explode?—she gave no sign of it. She just gave him a cool, distant look and
in an equally cool, distant voice said, “Close the door, please.”

He reached blindly behind him, shoved it shut, and twisted the lock. He didn’t move away from it, though. He simply stood
there, forcing himself to breathe deeply, trying not to think about how damned horny he was or what sweet pleasure he could
find in her body. He tried not to think about how impossible his need was, about seducing or coaxing or pleading or raping.

When he thought he could safely move closer, he did so, turning his suitcase on its side, opening it and taking out the damned
coil of cord. Teryl was still rubbing her hands together when he turned toward her. The instant she saw what he held, though,
she froze. All that cool distance disappeared from her expression and was replaced by raw panic. Somehow she had convinced
herself that it wouldn’t happen again. It was denial, he supposed, a common enough response to something she feared as intensely
as she feared this. To something she hated as fiercely, as desperately, as he hated this.

“No.” The word was thin, a plea with no more substance than a puff of air, but it echoed through his soul.

“I’m sorry, Teryl.”

She found her voice then, along with her anger. “You can’t do this to me again. I won’t let you.”

“I have to.” He reached for her hands, but she jerked away. “Please, Teryl… You don’t have to lie down. Come over here and
sit on the floor beside the bed. You can watch television. It won’t hurt. I’ll make you comfortable.”

“
Comfortable
?” she shrieked. “With my hands
tied
to the bed?”

“Don’t make this any harder than it already is,” he pleaded, reaching for her again. This time she scrambled away, shoving
the chair back, struggling to her feet. There was a wild animal look in her eyes, panic and pure terror, as she searched for
an avenue of escape. There was none. She had backed herself into a corner. To get away, she would have to climb over the chair
and table or go through him, and he was taller, stronger, faster, and outweighed her by seventy pounds. She was trapped, he
acknowledged regretfully.

And so was he. Trapped into doing things he despised. Things he would never forgive.

For the third time, he reached for her, catching her wrist, using his hold to pull her to him. She fought every step, scratching
at his hand with her free hand, her nails scraping hard across it, tearing off skin, drawing blood. He didn’t flinch, didn’t
relent, but dragged her the few feet to the foot of her bed. There it was a simple matter of using his greater strength to
put her in a sitting position on the floor, of kneeling astride her to keep her from wriggling away while he formed the cord
into a slip knot, of trying desperately, vainly, to shut out her helpless, breathless sobs of terror.

When he attempted to maneuver the wrist he held behind her back, she fought him, twisting her fingers around, clutching a
handful of his shirt. “P-please, John,” she whispered, her voice quavering, her muscles quivering. “Please don’t do this.
I’ll do whatever you want, anything you want. I’ll sleep with you, I’ll give you the best blow job you ever had, I’ll—I’ll
do anything you like, anything kinky. Just please,
please,
don’t tie me up again.”

He stared down at her, every muscle in his body going taut. “Jesus, Teryl, don’t,” he demanded. He begged. He was having a
hard enough time dealing with what he wanted but couldn’t—shouldn’t—have. If she offered it to him, offered him what he needed
so damned badly that he hurt with it, offered it voluntarily in exchange for freedom from the restraints… How the hell could
he find the character to turn her down? He wasn’t a strong man. He wasn’t an honorable man. He was just a weak bastard who’d
lived alone so long that an hour’s intimacy with her just might be worth sacrificing
whatever little bit of self-respect had survived the last few days.

All too aware of her effect on him, she brought her free hand to his chest, then slid it lower, over his belt, past the snap
on his jeans, straight down the zipper to his crotch. She stroked him, and his cock twitched, making him bite his lip on a
groan.

“Please, John,” she whispered, the tremble gone from her voice but the desperation still painfully, shamefully there. “Let
me make love to you. Let me undress you so I can touch you, so I can kiss you. Please…”

She stroked him again, rubbing hard through the denim that separated them, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he groaned
again. If she kept touching him like that, kept talking like that, he was going to come, all right.

He’d never wanted
any
woman this way.

Slowly, one finger at a time, he released his grip on her wrist. His hand was trembling. So was hers. Raising both hands,
he cupped her face, bent forward, and hesitantly touched his mouth to hers. She opened to him immediately, accepting his kiss,
accepting his tongue. Lower, she was opening his jeans pretty damned quickly, too, not fumbling over the belt, the snap, or
the zipper. The mere touch of her hand, soft and cool, on his belly stirred an ache that threatened to never end.

Now his tongue was in her mouth, and her hand was in his jeans, closing around his erection, lifting it for easier access,
caressing it. He was so damned close to coming, so pathetically, needfully close to emptying into her hand.

And it was wrong, so wrong. He could spend the rest of the damned night screwing her right there on the floor, and when they
were done, she would hate him. He would hate himself, and, worst of all,
she
would hate herself.

She would be so ashamed.

It would be
his
fault,
his
shame, but
she
would feel the guilt. She would blame herself.

With a good deal more decency than he’d thought he possessed, he ended the kiss, drew her hands away, and awkwardly zipped
his jeans. For a moment she remained
motionless—eyes closed, lips parted, hands resting limply at her sides where he’d laid them—then he slipped the vinyl-coated
wire around one wrist, and her eyes flew open. She didn’t bargain, didn’t plead. She simply looked at him with a steady gaze
that spoke eloquently of anguish and fear, a gaze that wordlessly accused him.

Feeling the weight of his guilt all too strongly, he pushed ahead anyway. He guided her hands behind her back, slid the cord
over the free one, looped it around both wrists, then tied the ends to the metal foot of the bed. Sliding his fingers between
the flexible cord and the soft skin on the inside of her wrists, he made sure it wasn’t too tight, made certain she couldn’t
work her way free but wouldn’t suffer any real discomfort.

When that was done, he cradled her face in his palms again. “I’m sorry.”

That look didn’t waver. “You bastard.” Her voice was quiet, empty of any real emotion. But her eyes weren’t empty. Her eyes
damned him.

Rising to his feet, he grabbed what he needed from his suitcase, went into the bathroom, closed the door, and leaned against
it. He felt a hundred years old, a hundred years dead. Some of his aches—like the bloody scratches on his hand or the hard-on
that not even Teryl’s loathing could diminish—were purely physical. Time—or a little dexterous handwork—would take care of
them. As for the rest of it…

There was no cure for the pain. For the weariness. For the shame or the dishonor, for the sorrow or the guilt. There was no
cure for the miserable man he had become. No cure but death. I’m sorry, he’d told Teryl, and he had meant it with every fiber
of his being. He was so damned sorry.

Maybe someday she would believe him.

But she wouldn’t forgive him.

Not ever.

Teryl stared at the television screen, but nothing she saw made sense; nothing she heard could penetrate the roar in her ears.
She hated this—hated this helpless, degrading feeling
and, worse, the fear. Oh, God, the fear. There was nothing worse, nothing more dreadful, than irrational fear. It wasn’t as
if this were a new and strange thing. It wasn’t as if, after tying her for a short time, then freeing her, the two previous
nights, John was going to leave her here all night this time. He wasn’t going to come back and assault her, wasn’t going to
rape her, wasn’t going to hurt her in any way. She had no reason to be afraid this time. All she had to do was sit quietly,
watch the rest of “Murder, She Wrote” and by the time it was over, John would be finished in the bathroom and she would be
free.

It was an inconvenience. A little bit of unpleasantness. An embarrassment.

But it wasn’t any reason for her heart to beat in her chest as if it might burst. It wasn’t any reason for her lungs to be
so tight that only the smallest of breaths could squeeze in. It wasn’t any reason for her palms to be damp, for sweat to be
trickling down her spine, for the muscles in her arms and legs to be trembling with such force.

Oh, God, she wanted to scream. Afraid to do that, afraid of losing what little control she still had, she wanted to cry. To
plead. To beg. But she’d already done that, hadn’t she? She had pleaded with John not to do this to her again. She had begged
him, had offered him anything, had behaved so disgustingly pathetically.

And he had turned her down.

He could have accepted her offer, then reneged. He could have done anything he wanted, could have debased her, used her, then
tied her anyway. There was nothing she could have done to stop him.

But he hadn’t. Because he’d known he would have to secure her to the bed anyway? Because somewhere inside him the decent,
nice, normal man he’d once been still somehow existed? Because he’d been too honest, too fair to take advantage of her when
he would still have to subject her to this fate?

Maybe his refusal had had nothing to do with decency, normalcy, or honesty. Maybe he simply hadn’t wanted her. Oh, sure, he’d
been hard; she’d seen it, had felt it, had
wrapped her fingers around the long, hot, solid flesh. But erections were involuntary responses to physical stimulation. An
erection simply meant that he’d been aroused, that his body had been ready to engage in sex.

It didn’t mean he wanted that sex to be with
her.

Not that she took his rejection personally, she hastened to assure herself. She wasn’t disappointed that he’d turned her down.
She knew herself well, knew that if he had accepted, if he had let her do the things she had volunteered to do, when it was
over, she would have been humiliated. She would have wanted to die.

Still, honesty forced her to admit that it would have been nice—in some odd, perverted sort of way, the cynic interjected—to
think that his lust had more to do with her as a woman and less to do with his long-term abstinence.

When the bathroom door opened, she stiffened. He came out and into her peripheral vision. Without actually looking at him,
she could see that he wore cutoffs and nothing else. If she risked a look at his face, she knew she would see that his hair
was wet, darkened by the water to a golden brown, and slicked back away from his face like hers.

But she didn’t take that risk. She simply stared harder at the television.

He tossed his dirty clothes on the table, set his shaving kit there, then reached for the jeans. He transferred something
from the jeans to the right-hand pocket of his cutoffs, something small enough to hide in his hand, and then at last he came
to her, crouching in front of her, reaching around without touching her to work loose the knots that held her.