Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [194]
‘No,’ she begged.
‘Tighter,’ he groaned. ‘Faster. I love you. Faster.’
The little bed was jiggling. His breath was harsh in her ear and his contorted, red-faced desire made him a stranger to her. She felt sullied and insulted, and as something hot gushed over her hand she was downright disgusted.
But when he was gone and she was alone, she found herself remembering it, and it filled the pit of her stomach – and lower – with excitement. To think she could make him feel like that. She felt powerful and sexy, dangerous and adult, and she wanted to do it again. With a lurch of fear she wondered if she was officially in a state of mortal sin. If she died now would she be condemned to spend all eternity burning in the flames? Though her logical side insisted that hellfire was just a load of superstitious nonsense, her emotional response was one of anxiety and fear. You never knew. What if it was true?
She could have gone to confession and got absolution and been in the clear if she did drop dead unexpectedly. But she knew the priest would tell her to stop doing those things with Lorcan, maybe even to stop seeing him altogether.
And she couldn’t do that. She was utterly addicted to what they did on her bed and it was inconceivable not to see him. So, trying not to see how far her standards had slipped, she decided that because they loved each other, it neutralized the question of mortal sin. She’d always told herself that no matter what else she did with him, she’d never Go All The Way. After all, even Tara hadn’t Gone All The Way! But over the weeks Lorcan eroded Katherine’s resistance to the stage where every time they lay on the bed, he had his jeans around his knees, her panties were mid-thigh, and he was allowed to place the tip of his erection against her entrance.
‘We’ll never go further than this, will we?’ she whispered.
‘Never,’ he whispered back.
But sometimes he’d jab against her and it flooded them both with such powerfully sweet sensations that he’d jab it a bit more.
‘But you won’t put it in,’ she’d whisper.
‘I won’t put it in,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll just kind of move it like… that. Is that nice?’
She nodded. It was the most beautiful feeling she’d ever had. And, so long as they didn’t actually go any further, she was all right.
‘Is it OK if I just move it a bit?’ Lorcan murmured.
‘Well, all right, so long as you don’t put it in.’
‘I won’t put it in.’
After a while Katherine said, in low alarm, ‘I think you might be putting it in.’
‘I’m not,’ he said hoarsely, his hips making small, frantic movements. ‘It’s on the outside, and I’m just kind of moving…’
But his hip movements became bigger and tougher and faster, and to Katherine’s horror just as a full, packed-tight sensation plunged into her, she heard Lorcan say triumphantly, ‘Now it’s in!’
She cried afterwards and he held her in his arms, stroking her hair, saying over and over, ‘It’ll be all right, baby, it’ll be all right.’
She turned a tear-stained face to him. ‘We’re never doing it again,’ she said sullenly. ‘Don’t think you’ll convince me because you won’t. This is the wrongest thing I’ve ever done. If I died now I’d go straight to Hell.’
But they did it again. Another one-off. Then they did it again. But when Lorcan made noises about getting her ‘sorted out’, she snapped that there was no need because they’d never be doing it again.
Of course they did. Not because Lorcan threatened to break it off with her if she wouldn’t play. He didn’t have to. Her own treacherous body was the most persuasive factor – she just couldn’t resist him.
And what consoled her, in her hours of shame and self-disgust, was the thought that he loved her. Once they were married it would make everything all right, retrospectively validate it, as it were.
Not that marriage had actually been mentioned, but it was implied. By the look in his eyes every time he saw her, by the warmth in his voice when he told her he loved her.
75
It was Benjy who spoke, shattering