Redemption - Leon Uris [72]
“Oh you’re something, lad,” she gasped, “I mean, you’re something.” He was trying to break loose softly, get back from her. “No, no, no, no…” Her fingernails played down his back, striking him defenseless. She split his shirt open and her mouth licked the beautiful muscles of his neck and shoulders.
Conor sank to his knees….
Caroline loosened her grasp and hovered above him. “All right, Conor boy, go if you can. You’ve your princess now…feel me…I’m wet all over…. I’m bursting inside over and over and over just from the sight and the touch of you.”
Conor doubled over and shook. “What do you want from me, God!” he screamed.
Caroline fell to her knees before him, took his hands away from his eyes. He reached out softly and tried to close her blouse.
“You’re afraid!”
“I have little to lose, Caroline, but I’m afraid of the havoc we’ll wreak. If we cross this line we’re on a one-way path to hell. If it were you and me alone, I’d cross it. This could end up killing hundreds of people we don’t even know. What about your sons? Your father?”
“I don’t care what happens!”
“All we can be is in each other’s spirits, Caroline. See, the pity of us is that we are utterly star-crossed.”
“The most intense experiences of my life have been the births of my sons. I have had that intensity for you, just looking at you for three years. We’re not the first man and woman who have risked. To hell with what happens. I want you, man!”
“And you get everything you want!”
Caroline came to her feet. “Do I? Do I now? Do you believe my father’s arrangement with Roger and fourteen years of fidelity is what I wanted? Do you think that being the clay queen of the west is what I want? Oh yes, they let me play with my drapes and banquets and concerts to keep their dirty alliance alive, and I carry disgust deep in me for doing their bidding. Once, Conor…now…now…”
“You’re selfish, Caroline. It’s a lie that will never go away.”
“Conor.”
“Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?”
The lust had been scarred, tempered, and confusion and futility had set in. Conor made to the couch and slumped down, and she went to her knees and rested her head on his lap. He stroked her hair sweetly.
“This is more my fault than yours,” he said. “I wanted you to fall madly in love with me for all the wrong reasons. To inflict the most heinous pain on Roger Hubble and all his breed. But you see, Caroline, I failed because I have fallen desperately in love with you. Look up at me.”
She managed to.
“Funny part of it,” she whispered, “all I would have to do is throw a tantrum, only to establish I could get what I wanted, not that I particularly wanted it. You are the only man I’ve ever really wanted.”
“Thank God fantasy is perfection. Fantasy is pure. Reality between you and me spells disaster.”
As Conor stood and snapped his toolbox closed, she stood as well, unsnapped her skirt and made herself naked, then sank into a deep rug covered with silk pillows, beckoning him with her body. He looked upon her, this once, so it would be with him all his life, then he knelt beside her once more.
“It’s wrong,” he said firmly and covered her with a lap robe.
Caroline’s hand grabbed his arm.
“Conor,” she implored.
Firmly, surely, Conor released her grip.
“Get out, croppy boy!” she cried slapping his face and burying herself in the pillows.
He backed away and reached for the door.
“Conor!” she cried. “Don’t go!”
Caroline heard the door shut softly and looked up. He had left.
“Conor,” her voice screamed after him, “come back! Do you hear me! Conor! Damn you! Come back!”
26
The Century Turns
In full pregnancy Atty Fitzpatrick was as close to depicting “Mother Ireland” as a mortal could be. Carrying children in her womb and bearing them proved much simpler than juggling them on her hip at rallies, or rocking the cradle with the left hand while holding a script to read in the right.