The Sex War

by Charlotte Lamb

  'Don't threaten me,' Lindsay said as firmly as she could. 'You're not frightening me.' She was lying, he was frightening her, but she was not going to admit that even if he had already realised it.

  'Then you're even more stupid than I thought,' Daniel muttered. 'You ought to be scared, you're very close to being strangled.' The long fingers flexed on her throat, making her even more aware of their power. 'Who did you think I was seeing? Or didn't that interest you?'

  'You had plenty of casual girl-friends before you met me,' Lindsay said with a pretence of cold indifference. 'You told me as much yourself, you never hid your past love life—I knew you used to pick girls up all the time, look at the way you picked me up. Old habits die hard, don't they say?'

  He said something she didn't hear, the words choked.

  'You can't deny it,' she persisted. 'I wasn't your usual type, was I? You went for more sophisticated ladies and your interest in them wasn't limited to giving them dinner or a night at the theatre. Well, go on—deny you slept with them!'

  'Why should I?' he said angrily. 'I was free, adult and normal—why shouldn't I go to bed with an attractive woman if she was willing? But that was before I married you, you aren't accusing me over the distant past. If you thought I was carrying on like that after we were married, why didn't you come out with it? Why hug it to yourself without a word?' He bent down towards her and she shrank, a hand up to keep him at bay. 'Unless, of course, you were looking for an excuse to leave me!'

  Her flush deepened. 'That's right, make a counter-accusation! I didn't need an excuse, you handed me a reason on a plate.'

  'I didn't do anything of the kind! There were no other women,' he said, and she smiled, angrily incredulous.

  'No?'

  'I'll make you believe me if I have to beat you black and blue,' he muttered, and took hold of her shoulders, twisting her forcibly while she struggled and kicked, until she was lying across his knees face down. She couldn't believe he meant it, she gave a gasping cry of shock as she felt his hand come down.

  'I wasn't unfaithful to you,' he snapped, and hit her hard. 'There wasn't anyone else.' He hit her again and she writhed furiously, throwing herself backwards, so that she slid off his lap and tumbled to the floor, her red hair spilling over the carpet. Daniel was on top of her a second later and she hit him, with all the force she could muster, across his face. He took hold of her wrists, anchoring her to the floor by his knees, and she heaved upwards, panting breathlessly, trying to wrench free. One hand broke from his clasp, she flailed at him with it, flinging herself sideways again. Their bodies rolled over and over in confused, violent struggling. Lindsay punched and kicked and felt Daniel's hands trying to hold her, the heavy weight of his body forced down on her.

  'Keep still, damn you,' he muttered, finally holding her down.

  Through tousled masses of hair her eyes glared up at him, and unbelievably he started to laugh.

  'You look like an old English sheepdog,' he said.

  'I bite like one, too,' she threatened, showing him her teeth.

  'I know, I've the toothmarks to prove it,' he said, and she reddened.

  'That's a lie—I didn't bite you.'

  He turned his head to one side, a finger touching his neck, and she saw the tiny mark in his skin and was taken aback, she couldn't remember doing it. 'What's that, then? A love bite?' he mocked, looking down at her, then his head swooped down and she caught her breath as she felt his mouth at her throat, his teeth gently nibbling her flesh. 'Tit for tat,' he whispered, then his lips pressed warmly, deeply, along the throbbing vein in her neck. 'You're crazy—there wasn't anyone else. Lindsay, believe me—there wasn't anyone. The last few months before you walked out, I was up to my ears in work. I didn't have time to eat or sleep, let alone go to bed with anyone else.'

  'Or me?' Lindsay asked bitterly, and he held her face between his hands, staring into her eyes.

  'You froze up on me, I didn't know why, did I? I was working flat out, all I knew was that suddenly I was getting cold looks from you, if I came near you, you went rigid and obviously didn't want to know.' He gave a rough sigh, his expression grim. 'We both leapt to conclusions. You decided I was sleeping around—I decided you'd either fallen out of love with me or were just plain frigid. Is that so surprising? Before we were married you jumped six feet in the air if I so much as tried to touch you,'

  'I wanted you to,' she muttered, her face uncertain and flushed. 'I wasn't frigid, I was just nervous.'

  'Inhibited,' Daniel said drily.

  'Yes,' she said, because that was it in a nutshell. It had seemed so important then, the first time she would ever sleep with a man, it had looked like a unjumpable fence, she hadn't been able to make it. Angrily, she said: 'I wasn't very old, remember. It was the first time for me, and you scared me, you were so…' Expert, she thought; he had been too experienced, it undermined her, she felt gauche and stupid when she thought of all the other women he had had, the sexy, exciting, sophisticated women from his own world who knew precisely what they were doing and made love with an expertise which matched his own. Lindsay had blushed and stammered and felt awkward and clumsy.

  'I felt so boring,' she finished, and Daniel stared at her intently.

  'You were lovely,' he whispered. 'Young and shy and adorable—I was almost afraid to touch you, I wanted you so much I was afraid of scaring you.'

  'I was scaring myself,' she admitted. 'All the time—putting up barriers in my mind when what I really wanted to do was…'

  'What?' he asked as she broke off, and she lifted her head and kissed him with a raw, open passion she had never shown him before. She felt the barriers in her head go down with a crash and the floodwaters poured over them, her arms went round him and her hands touched him the way she had been longing to touch him, her palms pressing into his body, her fingertips caressing and exploring along his spine, his nape, his shoulders. Daniel's hands slid under her and lifted her, held her so close they became one. Her robe fell open, he looked down at the smooth pale flesh and she heard his breathing quicken.

  He stood up and the next second she was in his arms, carried close to him as he walked out of the room. He was looking at her every step of the way, he wasn't walking steadily, she felt him trembling and his deep chest heaved as if the air had no oxygen, he was snatching at every breath raggedly, while his eyes leapt over her naked body.

  She felt as if it would be the first time, she was shaking as though in terror; but it was not fear, it was desire turning her limbs to water, tearing at her until she ached with longing.

  Daniel put her down on the bed and began to pull off his clothes, his hands shaking. She watched, ice-cold suddenly with shock and piercing excitement, huddling in her robe to stop herself shivering. His body had a male power which her female instincts both recoiled from and were drawn towards, she couldn't stop looking at him, she was pale and at the same time feverish, her lips were dry, her breasts ached. She couldn't have spoken to save her life, and she didn't want him to speak, her whole being concentrated on a need to be part of him.

  He knelt on the bed in the darkness, his eyes moving with nerve-racking slowness over her. His hand parted her robe, and she allowed it, her own hand falling back on the bed, palm curled upward, and Daniel stared as if he had never seen her, his pupils dilated, darkening his eyes and he breathed with parted lips, audibly. Lindsay couldn't move, she lay trembling, while he looked from the hollowed pallor of her shoulders to her warm, rounded breasts where the nipples had firmed, their pink surrounded by a darker circle, then down over her midriff and the fiat, smooth stomach to her hips and slim thighs.

  He was looking at her deliberately, it was an act of possession as much as would be the lovemaking which would follow, and Lindsay looked at him in hungry exploration in the same way. When he put out his hand she tensed, watching. His fingers trailed softly where he chose to touch her, so light, so fleeting a contact, all the way down her body and a smothered gasp broke from her, she put
up an arm to pull him down to her, the long-deferred desire too fierce to be borne. As he came down on her she shook violently and moaned in satisfaction, her arms round him, holding him locked to her.

  Daniel lifted his head and caught her face in one hand, held it while he kissed her, but as if there was still anger somewhere in him it was not a gentle, tender kiss, it was a kiss of devouring intensity, bruising her mouth, forcing her head back against the pillow until her neck ached. She met it with fire, her lips clinging to his in burning response, and at last his mouth softened and warmed, he whispered: 'I love you, love you, you stupid little thing, there hasn't been anyone else; only you. I didn't want anyone else—I've tried to, but it didn't work, all I thought about was you.'

  There was too much she wanted to say. I'm sorry, I've been stupid, I believe you, I love you, I'm such a fool.

  She didn't say it, she said over and over again: 'I want you, I want you…'

  'Oh,' Daniel muttered hoarsely as her body moved against him,, her hands touching his shoulders, his chest, his strong thighs.

  'I love you,' she said a second later on a wild moan of pleasure as he entered her. 'Daniel, oh, Daniel!'

  .Words couldn't make the bridge on which they had to cross to become one being, their flesh melted and dissolved together, she felt the hair on the back of her neck prickling, her spine arching to meet the hardness of his body, and there were no inhibitions, no barriers left, because her fear had gone, taking them with it. She no longer feared other women, or her own inexperience and nervous shyness. Desire burnt them all out, both her own and his—she felt the agonising need in him as he took her, his breathing tortured by moans of intense pleasure. He had always been too strong, too sure of himself. Now he was neither; he was, like her, a human being drowning in sheer need, for the first time she felt they were on the same level, equal, moving together to the same goal.

  No longer aware of what she was doing, she held him, her fingers digging into his back, her nails in his flesh, and Daniel groaned as though the pain delighted him, the urgent thrust of his body hurting and exciting her in turn.

  She felt, herself opening, the warm, receptive clamouring of her body engulfing him; the intensity rose to an unbearable peak, her deafened ears beat with her own cries, she did not hear the cries he gave, she moaned with closed eyes like someone dying and almost blacked out, her heart, brain, lungs seeming to cease their functions for an instant of tithe that seemed to stretch for ever.

  Daniel's face was buried between her breasts when she began to think again. He was hot, flushed, trembling violently. Darling, darling,' he kept saying, but his voice was low and hoarse, she only just heard him.

  She put a trembling hand on his hair, it was damp with perspiration and clung to her fingers. 'I love you,' she said, stroking it, and he turned his head on her body, his lips brushing her skin.

  'Do you believe…' he began, and she put a finger on his lips.

  'I love you,' she said again, what else mattered? She had never understood the words before, she had mouthed them without knowing what she said, now she did, nobody in the world had ever said them or understood them as she did how. They were elastic, they contained whole dictionaries of meanings, when you loved you trusted, believed, accepted everything. She had wanted Daniel to prove himself, his love, she had greedily asked for all of him without giving all of herself; bargaining like a market stallholder, beating him down, when if she had really loved him she would have given to the end of the world without asking in return. She had set boundaries on her love and walled herself up inside them, now they had been smashed down and how she felt had washed over the whole world. She held the world in her arms when she held him. She was no part of him—she was him, and he was her, there were no divisions, no rights or claims between them, they were one being.

  'I was crazy about you from the minute I saw you,' he said in a husky voice, kissing the finger muffling his words.

  'I was too young,' she said. 'I didn't understand love. I do, now.'

  'You. do,' he agreed, and laughed. 'Oh yes, you do! I thought I was flying!'

  There was that gentle mockery in his voice, and she smiled in the darkness, a hand running down his back and fingering the little indentations in his flesh where she had dug her nails into him without realising what she was doing. 'Daniel!' she exclaimed. 'Did I do these? I'm sorry, did I hurt you…'

  'Mmm,' he said, kissing the little valley between her breasts. 'I loved it.'

  'Wicked,' she said, laughing. 'That will teach you to blackmail people!'

  He sighed, his body shifting so that he lay more easily against her, their bare legs entangled, his head still on her breasts but his weight not lying heavily on her. Lindsay felt him glancing up at her, his lashes flicking back.

  'It seemed an irresistible opportunity,' he said wryly. 'I knew how much Stephen meant to you, you've always been very close, I figured you wouldn't be able to turn my offer down and I wanted you back at any price. When I saw you again, I knew I had to have you back, even if you hated me for it. You were lovely when you were five years younger, but now you're gorgeous.' His hand ran down her body from breast to thigh. 'Your figure was never this good before, you've rounded out beautifully. I couldn't take my eyes off you,'

  'Or your hands,' Lindsay said in teasing dryness.

  She felt him laughing. 'Or my hands,' he admitted without apparent shame. 'And when I kissed you I knew you were responding. I started to hope you still felt something, too. When I realised Stephen was in real trouble, I thought I'd use it to get you back. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on between you and Aston Hill.' He watched her sideways. 'I didn't think it meant much but I didn't like having him around. He was in love with you, wasn't he?'

  'Poor Aston,' she said, frowning. 'Don't talk about him, it isn't fair to him.' She liked Aston far too much to discuss him with Daniel; Aston would hate that, it would be a betrayal of him, and Lindsay would hate to add insult to the injury she had done him.

  'He didn't hide it,' Daniel told her. 'That night I bumped into him at the nightclub, he looked at me as if he'd like to kill me. I knew you must have told him something, I wasn't sure what, and I was afraid he might have hurt you, he seemed a very angry man and angry men get violent. That's why I rang—I'd have come round myself if I hadn't been with those Swedish guys.'

  'Aston isn't the type to hit a woman,' Lindsay said, and Daniel grimaced.

  'Not like me, you mean?'

  'I shan't be able to sit down tomorrow,' she accused ,but with a smile.

  Daniel put a hand to his shoulder. 'I'm pretty black and blue, myself. You're a very violent lady.' He paused. 'If I hadn't turned up again, would you have married him?'

  'Hypothetical questions are a waste, of time,' Lindsay said.

  'Would you?' Daniel pressed flatly, and she sighed.

  'I don't know. I was never in love with him.'

  He was quiet for a moment, then he said: 'I'm lucky I came back when I did. Another year and I reckon you'd have been married to him.'

  'I didn't love him,' she insisted, and he nodded.

  'Maybe not—you might have married him, all the same, and then all three of us would have been as miserable as sin.' He lifted his head, moving, and kissed her mouth possessively. 'Because you're mine and always have been, and sooner or later we would have met up again and once we saw each other we wouldn't have been able to stay apart. Hill may be as sick as death at the moment, bur sooner or later he'll realise it was inevitable.'

  'You were quite ruthless in the way you used Stephen against me, though,' Lindsay told him. 'That wasn't very nice, Daniel.'

  'Lindsay, bailing Stephen out is a stupid undertaking, believe me—financially, I need my head examined. It will take years before his firm shows a profit—if it ever does. My accountants smile politely, but they look at me as if I'd gone mad. If they didn't know Stephen was your brother, they'd probably have me in a straitjacket by now. The accounts speak for themselves.'

>   'It was still completely immoral to blackmail me!'

  'I'd have committed murder to get you back,' he told her. 'A little blackmail seemed mild by comparison with what I wanted to do to Hill when I saw you kiss him at Stephen's house.' He looked at her, eyes glinting in the darkness. 'I love you,' he said, and she was silenced, the emotion in his voice held its own message, then he yawned and she began to laugh helplessly. 'Sorry,' he said. I'm used up, totally dead.' He yawned again widely and she pulled the covers over them, her arm cradling his head.

  'Go to sleep then,' she said, feeling the warm, heavy weight of his body relaxing against her. This was how she had always wanted it; Daniel was hers, he belonged to her, and she belonged to him, but she had always been afraid of exposing herself by admitting the depth of her love because she could not have borne it if he left her once he knew. It would be different now. She was older, more sure of herself, more aware of what love meant. If there were problems ahead she would stand and face them, not run away, as she had before. If she had told him what was on her mind instead of walking away with her head in the air, they would never have parted. They hadn't known enough about each other, they hadn't talked enough, been honest enough. They had to learn so much, but they had already learnt the only vital thing—they loved each other.

  Daniel was breathing in the regular rhythm of sleep, his naked body warm and slack in her arms, vulnerable, human, given up to her for safe keeping through the night. Lindsay let her own eyes close, a faint smile lingering along her mouth, and slowly drifted into sleep.

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