Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [65]
“Dione, stop it!” he yelled. “Damn it, talk to me! Were you raped?”
“Yes!” she screamed, a sob tearing out of her throat. “Yes, yes, yes! Damn you! I didn’t want to remember! Can’t you understand that? It kills me to remember!” Another tearing, aching sob wrenched its way out of her chest, but she wasn’t crying. Her eyes were dry, burning, yet still her chest heaved convulsively and the awful sounds, like someone choking on a pain too large to be swallowed, continued.
Blake’s head fell back and he ground his teeth in a primal snarl, his neck corded with the rage that surged through him. His muscles trembled with the need to vent his fury physically, but a despairing whimper from the woman in his arms made him realize the need to control himself, to calm her. He held her and stroked her, sliding his palms down her body and feeling the marvelous tone of her sleek muscles even through the fabric of her gown. His lips nuzzled into her hair, moved on to discover the softness of her eyelids, the satin stretch of skin over her exotic cheekbones, the intoxicating bloom of her soft, generous mouth. He whispered to her, crooned endearments, reassured her with broken phrases that told her how lovely she was, how much he wanted her. He promised her with his words and his body that he wouldn’t hurt her, reminding her over and over of the hour not long past when she’d trusted him enough to let him make love to her. The memory of that joining burned over his skin, but his need for her could wait. Her needs came first, the needs of a woman who had known too much pain.
Gradually she calmed; gradually she reached out to him, by slow degrees curling her arms around his muscular back. She was tired, so worn out from the emotional strain of the night that she was limp against him, but he had to know, so he said again, “Tell me about it.”
“Blake, no,” she moaned, turning her head weakly away from him. “I can’t….”
“You can; you have to. Was that why you got divorced? Couldn’t your husband handle what had happened to you?” His questions fell on her like rocks, bruising her, and she flinched in his arms. He caught her chin and turned it back to him so he could read the nuances of her expression. “What kind of bastard was he, to turn his back on you when you needed him most? Did he think it was your fault?”
A high, strained peal of laughter escaped her, and she shut it off abruptly by clapping her hand over her mouth, afraid of the rising hysteria in her. “He…oh, this is funny! He didn’t have any trouble handling what happened to me! He did it. My husband was the one who raped me!”
Blake went rigid, stunned both by her words and the way she began to laugh, gasping shrieks of laughter that again she shut off, visibly clenching herself in an effort to regain control. She attained it, but she used all of the inner strength she possessed, and as she lay in his arms she could feel the emotion draining away from her, leaving her heavy, spent…
“Tell me,” he insisted, his voice so hoarse that she didn’t recognize it.
Her heartbeat had changed from a frantic sledgehammer pounding to a ponderous rhythm; dimly she wondered at it, but what did it really matter? What did anything really matter? She’d had all she could bear tonight….
“Dione,” he prodded.
“I don’t know why I married him,” she said dully. “I don’t think I ever loved him. But he was handsome and he had money, something I’d never had. He dazzled me with it. He bought me things, took me places, told me how much he loved me. I think that was it; he told me that he loved me. No one had ever told me that before, you see. But I was still standoffish with him, and Scott couldn’t stand that. I don’t think anyone had ever said no to him before. So he married me.”
Blake waited a moment for her to resume, and when she didn’t he jostled her lightly. “Go on.”
Her eyelids lifted slowly. She stared at him with half-veiled