The Heir - Catherine Coulter [53]
He realized at that moment that he couldn’t force her—no, he couldn’t rape her and that’s what it would be—rape. He strode over to his dressing table, dipped his fingers into a pot of cream and returned to her. She was lying there on her back, her eyes disbelieving and shocked.
“Don’t move.” To make sure, he held his palm flat on her belly. She struggled a moment, then stilled.
She watched his finger, coated with cream, come down toward her. Then she felt that finger, coated with that cream pushing against her. Even as she struggled, trying to break his hold on her hands, she felt his finger shove inside her, moving deeper and deeper still. God, she hated it. He was alien to her, his finger a punishment. The barn? What was this about the barn?
“Justin, please, stop this, please. Don’t hurt me. None of what you believe is true. There was no barn. I barely tolerate the comte. Why—” She screamed, a pitiful sound really, high and thin. His finger was gone. Now, his sex was inside her, shoving deeper and deeper. He paused an instant, grasped her hands, and jerked them over her head. With an almost tender motion he pulled the tangled strands of hair from her eyes.
“God, I cannot believe that you have done this to me.” He pushed deep, the cream easing his way, but it wasn’t enough. The pain ripped through her. She was sobbing, feeling herself choke on her own tears, and when he paused just a moment in his mad thrusting, arrested by her maidenhead, he stared at her, sudden shock and uncertainty in his eyes.
“Justin,” she whispered, “no.” Her body bowed with pain, her soul empty of anything she knew or understood.
He growled deep in his throat, released her hands and dug his fingers into her hips, jerking her upward. He tore through her maidenhead and drove hard to her womb.
It was over quickly. He was panting hard over her until suddenly he froze and she felt his seed deep inside her. A man’s release. He was over her, his head bowed, his strong arms trembling as he held himself above her. A man was inside her. Justin was inside her. Her husband had forced her, had hurt her, because he believed she and the comte were lovers.
Arabella was drained of fight, of courage. She’d told him it wasn’t true, but he hadn’t believed her. The pain lessened a bit as he pulled slowly out of her, for his seed eased his way. Still, it hurt and she moaned, hating herself for it, but unable to hold it close in her throat.
He wondered if he could stand, but he managed to. His fury was exhausted. She was staring up at him. She looked devastated. No, surely that wasn’t right. Had she expected to fool him? Well, she had, damn her. She’d been a virgin. He’d not expected that. He met her eyes, saw the pain in them, the awful awareness of what he’d done to her, and for an instant, he doubted.
She had been a virgin. She’d told him she and the comte weren’t lovers.
But then, clearly in his mind’s eye, he saw the comte coming out of the barn, his swaggering stride as meaningful as a man’s crow of victory. And then she had come out of the barn, disheveled, tumbled, yes, tumbled, the look of a woman who had been made love to, thoroughly and with great enjoyment. It hardened his soul against her. She was perfidious. She had betrayed him, then lied to him. He began to turn away from her, still not saying a word, but then looked down at her. Her legs were sprawled. Her virgin’s blood and his seed mixed with the white cream were on her thighs and on the bedcovers. He didn’t like himself at that moment. He had never hurt a woman in his life, never. He’d been an animal. But no, no. He’d been justified. He hadn’t hurt her overly, he’d merely taken her as a man had to take a woman to consummate the marriage. He’d been fast, gotten it over with quickly. He’d used cream. He hadn’t raped her. He would have been justified had he raped her, but he hadn’t, no, he’d merely gotten it done with.
She’d lied to him.
He grabbed