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He groaned as his body reached its goal and shuddered against hers. She felt bruised, not merely by his physical possession of her, but by her own anger and disappointment. She lay silent and unmoving, until at last he rolled away from her, and lay, his face buried in the pillow, his breathing harsh and uneven.
She took a breath of her own. In a small voice, icy with distaste, she said, ‘Is that—that—what all the fuss is about?’
Malory lifted himself on to one elbow, and looked down at her, his face guarded. He said, ‘Not exactly…’
‘I’m delighted to hear it,‘ she said. ’Otherwise, the human race would have died out centuries ago.‘
There was a pause, then he said quietly, ‘I know it’s no excuse, but when you touched me like that, my control just—snapped…’
‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘Then it’s all my fault.’
‘It’s not a question of fault—although I should have realised earlier from your reaction how totally innocent you were.’ He touched her face gently with his hand. ‘Darling, I did try to warn you that there’s no such thing as instant bliss.’
‘So you did,’ she said, bitterly sarcastic. ‘What a fool I was not to heed your warning.’ She turned her head away, rejecting his touch.
His mouth hardened. He said, too evenly, ‘I’m sorry the earth didn’t move for you, my sweet. Perhaps you’ll be more lucky next time.‘
He threw back the covers and got out of bed, reaching down to pick up his discarded clothes from the floor.
She said in a low, shaking voice, ‘There isn’t going to be any next time.‘
For a moment, he stood in silence, then he took the covers she was holding defensively, and ripped them from her clutch. Ashamed and angry, she cried out, trying to shield herself with her hands while his glance raked mercilessly down her naked body.
He said softly, almost menacingly, ‘Oh, yes, there bloody well is.’ He tossed the sheet back over her, and walked away into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
She lay, watching the closed door with a kind of shocked disbelief, then slowly her stunned body began to tremble.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The rain dashed itself against the window as if it was trying to break into the house, and Amanda shuddered, trying to punch the sofa cushions into a more comfortable shape. The desolation of the weather matched her own mood perfectly.
I must have been insane, she thought wretchedly. Completely and utterly mad. And now I’ve ruined everything.
She had fled to the sanctuary of her own room, locking herself in just in case Malory felt inclined to justify his threat by following her there, and inhimself on her again. But she’d been left strictly undisturbed, and had curled up into a miserable ball on her bed, crying until she had no more tears left. And when the storm of weeping had ended and she was calm again, she’d found she was able to think more clearly about what had happened.
There was no doubt that the whole episode had been an unmitigated disaster from every point of view, but she was no longer so inclined to heap all the blame for that on Malory.
She had never joined in the girl-talk confidences about sex at the flat, partly because she had felt that her love for Nigel was too precious and sacrosanct, but mainly because she’d had nothing to contribute but the depth of her own ignorance. Yet she hadn’t been able to avoid overhearing some of the exchanges, and she could remember hearing Maggie or Fiona relating some horror story about her own ‘first time’ and how it had ‘hurt like hell’.
Amanda recalled thinking smugly how different it would be for Nigel and herself. And so it might have been, she told herself defensively, with love to smooth the way.
But she didn’t love Malory, and he didn’t care for her, although she supposed that for him, and any man, a transient physical attraction was enough, and she knew he found her beautiful because he’d said so,
Amanda groaned. It had been total folly to fling herself at him like that, and she still couldn’t fully understand how or why it had happened. I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time, she thought wretchedly.
But that wasn’t sufficient reason to turn the terms of their marriage upside down. In some paradoxical way, it was probably Malory’s cool acceptance of those terms, his ability to distance himself, which had sparked off the powerful, inexplicable attraction which had built in her over the past weeks.
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, she told herself, but her heart hadn’t been involved—merely her hormones. And she’d discovered too late that that wasn’t sufficient, and never could be. Which was why Malory had to be made to understand that this afternoon had been an aberration, not to be repeated.
