Sean shook his head. “They can do that better from the skidmarks and what was left at the scene,” he said. “There has to be another reason.”
“Yeah,” I said, raising an excuse for a smile. “Damned if I know what it is, though.”
Sean had slanted back into the corner of the sofa and turned half to face me while I spoke. When he leaned forwards and reached for his drink my eyes automatically followed the movement, then skittered guiltily away. I took a gulp of my own whiskey and nearly choked as the spirit responded to this blatant lack of respect by biting me in the throat.
I felt Sean’s hand smoothing my back while I coughed and spluttered and that only made things worse. It drove all the reservations I’d ever had about him clean out of my mind and replaced them with vivid recollections of what we’d shared.
The coughing fit eased at last and I found I could draw in breath again without drowning. Only now I was drowning in a different way. Drowning in sensation and need. His fingers feathered at the back of my neck, drifting up into my hairline. An infinitely gentle caress designed to soothe rather than inflame.
It made no difference. I wanted him with a howling, raging intensity that was threatening to launch itself out of my chest and devour us both.
I turned my head slightly to meet Sean’s gaze, almost afraid of what I might see there. If there’d been nothing then I might have been able to get a grip on my emotions. As it was, I saw only my own ferocious hunger reflected in his face, in his eyes.
“Sean—” I murmured a warning. Unheeded.
Slowly he reeled me in, keeping our eyes locked, totally single-minded in his pursuit. It still seemed to take forever to close the gap between us.
Then, when I was too close to escape, his mouth came down hard on mine and my mind and body exploded simultaneously, triumphant, ecstatic.
Before I knew it, Sean shifted his balance and bore me back against the cushions of the sofa. His hand was under my shirt, sliding up my ribcage to close possessively over my breast. My temperature rocketed as my pulse soared, senses screaming. I tore my mouth free.
“Jesus!” I gasped.
My sight was gone, focus blurring, vision tunnelling out until all I could see was Sean’s face above me. And all I could feel was the glide of his hands and the beat and the weight of his body over mine.
I don’t know precisely when it all changed. One moment I was oblivious to everything except Sean and the effect he was having. The next there was only a gaping black hole of panic.
The taste of the whiskey on his tongue was the start of it, sending uneasy ripples through my mind. Then one of his hands moved back to the nape of my neck and his fingers must have flexed slightly, little more than a muscle spasm. The sudden tightening of his grip sparked a memory that shattered through the haze of lust like a fist through glass.
Passion decompressed, whipping out through the cracks to leave me icy and shivering. It was suddenly dark and cold enough to see their breath grunting out like cattle as the four of them brutally set about softening me up for what was to come. They’d been drinking, too, and I could still remember the taint of it on their voices. I could feel the wet gravel grating beneath my back, rough hands snatching at my body, ripping at my clothes, lifting me . . .
Eyes wild and totally blind, I began to thrash, twisting and bucking in a pure visceral response. I was dimly aware of a gap opening up and I lunged for it. Everything I’d ever learned kaleidoscoped through my mind and bypassed logical thought to translate straight into action, so fast that afterwards I had no idea of exactly what I’d done.
“Charlie!”
The voice was urgent but calm, if a little croaky.
I blinked a couple of times. The bitter cold receded, leaching away the pain and the fear, sliding them off into my subconscious.
I came back to myself and found Sean was lying flat on the living room floor with me kneeling over him. My fists were bunched in his shirt, forearms crossed so I had one elbow wedged onto his throat. The low table was knocked on its side next to us and what was left of the bottle of Jim Beam was emptying steadily into the pattern on the carpet, making quiet glugging noises. Away in the kitchen, the dogs were barking like crazy.
“Charlie,” Sean said again, his voice soft. Not easy to speak when someone’s half-throttling you. He had his hands open at shoulder height, submissive, not making any attempt to touch or provoke me. “It’s OK,” he murmured, like he was talking down someone on a high ledge. “It’s all OK. Come on, talk to me, Charlie. Who am I?”
Utterly mortified, I released my grip without speaking, tried to rise and discovered that my legs wouldn’t support me. I managed it on the second attempt and staggered to the sofa, sinking down onto it with my head in my hands.
“Oh God,” I said, shaken and ashamed. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what—”
“I do.”
I looked up at him then. A mouse was forming on his cheekbone. There would be a bruise there tomorrow that I didn’t remember causing. But I knew I had.
Sean sat up and leaned over to right the leaking whiskey bottle and put it out of harm’s way. One of the glasses had smashed, too, leaving gleefully glittering shards across the floor.
“You’re afraid of me,” he said quietly.
