Reflection (The Chrysalis Series) (10 page)

‘Hey yourself.’ She smiled at him and noticed how his eyes took a long, leisurely stroll down her body.

She flushed a bit and hated her pale skin for the fact that it showed. She was in a simple, pale gold sun dress with spaghetti straps which meant she had enough skin showing that he would see her reaction to his obvious perusal.

For his part, he looked as fine as always in jeans and sleek black T-shirt. This was in the days before baggy jeans and his fit him nicely. His T-shirt was tucked in, showing off both his nice behind and the expensive leather belt he was wearing.

‘I’m glad to see you,’ he said. ‘You busy? I’ve been hoping to run into you.’

‘Really?’ She gave him a flirtatious smile. ‘Why’s that?’

‘I’ve been hoping to change your mind about going out with me?
Alien
³
came out and I’d like to take you with me to see it.’

She chuckled. ‘You might get me to go to the movies with you, I love the movies, but it’d be dutch and not for some horror alien movie. I told you, I’m not interested in dating anyone right now.’

He grinned and she felt a shiver deep in her belly.

‘I know. Tell you what, why don’t you come in and hang out with me for a while? We can look at what’s playing and I can work on changing your mind.’

She glanced at her watch. It was only five o’clock and her study group wasn’t scheduled to meet until six.

She shrugged. ‘OK, but I have to leave pretty soon. I have a study group.’

‘No problem.’ He stepped aside and waved her into his room.

It was pretty standard for a college dorm room except there was a computer, which was still rare in that day and time, and he had a single – no roommate. That was even rarer, since most kids couldn’t afford the rates that went with singles.

There were no chairs in the room other than his desk chair, which was piled high with clothes and books, so she sat on the bed. He grabbed the local paper off his desk and came and sat next to her. Rifling through it, he found the movie listings and handed them to her.

‘If you aren’t interest in a sci-fi, there’s that Tom Cruise movie,
A Few Good Men
.’

‘I could do that.’ She grinned. ‘I like a good legal drama.’

‘Well, that’s good. I’m going to be a lawyer, you know.’

‘Yes, you told me.’

He moved and set the newspaper back on the desk before walking over to a little mini-fridge in the corner.

‘Want a Coke or something to drink?’

As hot as she was feeling being in such close proximity to him, a soda sounded like a good idea. Maybe it would cool her down.

‘Sure, Coke is fine.’

He pulled a couple of plastic cups from a cupboard and added ice and soda to both before handing one to her. She drank deeply, enjoying the bite of the carbonation as it burned down her throat. He smiled at her, a grin of mischief and intent that had her insides warming. He made her feel really sexy and when he sat down again he was touching her.

She thought to put a bit of space between them, but there was really nowhere to go. The pillows on his bed were on her other side and she didn’t want to seem rude.

She could smell his cologne, a light, citrus scent, and her skin pebbled a bit in awareness of him. It’s really too bad I’m not in the market, she thought, he’s so fine.

‘Did you hear me?’ He was looking at her with those ice green eyes and she was embarrassed that he’d caught her wool-gathering, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate.

‘No, sorry.’ She smiled. ‘My mind wandered.’

‘I asked why you won’t go out with me.’ He leaned closer and put his hand on her knee, caressing her leg with light strokes.

She pulled her legs a little closer together, but that did nothing to deter him.

‘I told you before. I don’t have time for dating. My classes are really tough. This is my senior year and I have a lot riding on my grades.’

‘So you said, but I still think you could go out on a date or two with me. It doesn’t have to be anything serious.’ He began to lean into her. ‘You know you like me. Especially the way you danced with me and let me kiss you.’

She leaned back, trying to put some more distance between them, but it was like her body didn’t want to cooperate. She was beginning to feel lethargic and exhausted. A sense of danger began to squeeze her chest.

When she spoke, her words sounded distant and slurred. It was as if she were no longer fully present inside her body. ‘I was tipsy that night or I would never have kissed you. I’m no tease.’

‘Yeah, right,’ he said, right before he gripped her neck and pushed her down roughly and began kissing her.

His lips ground against hers in painful demand for entry. She opened her mouth to protest and he took that opportunity to shove his tongue in deep.

She tried to fight him off, but her body wasn’t listening to her. The room spun and she was lost to blackness.

She surfaced briefly to Trent kneeling between her legs; he’d opened the bodice of her dress and was playing with her breasts. Tweaking and pulling at her nipples before sucking them into his mouth. Her body responded to the stimulation, filling her with a horrified pleasure. Some distant speck in her mind told her she should be fighting. She willed her arms, her legs, anything to move but nothing connected. Even as she railed internally, the blackness sucked her back in.

When she surfaced again, her hands were tied over her head and something was inside her mouth. She was naked. Trent was standing over her a belt in his hands. He lashed out with the belt, striking the sensitive skin of her breasts and inner thighs with each lash. The initial blows hurt and she wanted to scream through the gag, but they faded into a sting that flooded her body and reminded her of when Doug, her first boyfriend, had tied her up and spanked her. She felt her body responding to this abuse and cried out against this betrayal. Surely she couldn’t enjoy this assault? That thought sent her again into darkness.

The next and final time she came to awareness, Trent was inside her. He was grunting and pumping himself roughly inside her while slapping at her breasts. She felt the sensations take her even as her shocked brain screamed out against this final betrayal. Her body clenched and tightened convulsively and Trent became savage in his invasion before finally moaning as he spilled his seed into her core and collapsed on top of her.

She went completely numb. This time, when the blackness took her, she hoped she didn’t wake up.

Hot tears streamed down her face, soaking into Connor’s shirt. Somewhere during her tale, he’d pulled her into his arms. She’d been so caught up in the memories, she hadn’t even noticed. His hand was warm where he stroked her back and he was murmuring nonsense words of comfort to her. Embarrassed by her loss of control, Bridget pushed up and swiped at her face.

‘I need to clean up.’ Without waiting for his acknowledgment, she escaped to the bathroom. She rinsed her burning eyes with cool water, continuing to splash her face until she felt able to face him.

This was the true reckoning. Now, he’d see how she’d allowed herself to give in to depravity and it was brought back on her to show her that she should never have allowed it to happen to begin with.

‘You’re a big girl, Bridget,’ she said to her reflection. ‘You can handle whatever he has to say.’

In truth, she wasn’t so sure who she was trying to convince. She’d never told anyone the full story of her rape. Sometimes, she wasn’t even sure she could call it rape, since she’d responded to him. The bastard had made her come. Remembered horror flooded her, making her light-headed, and she had to steady herself against the sink.

‘Pull it together,’ she admonished her reflection. ‘You’ve been above reproach since then. You never give into your weakness. Don’t start now.’

Feeling like she was about to face the firing squad, she turned the knob and went to confront Connor.

He didn’t know what pissed him off more. That the bastard who’d raped her had obviously used some kind of drug to lower her inhibitions, thereby robbing her of her very real right to anger. Or the fact that a woman as intelligent as Bridget was letting him get away with it.

He comprehended the association she’d drawn, but she was wrong. Plain and simple.

He still hadn’t quite formulated how to tell her what he was thinking when she came back from the bathroom. She looked like a drowned kitten. Her hair was damp around the edges and curling, her make-up gone from the obvious washing she’d given her face. She was adorable and it made him all the madder at her for letting herself believe something so incredibly asinine.

She sat as far from him as the couch would allow and that pissed him off too. Did she think he was going to attack her or rail at her or something? No, that wasn’t it. She thought he was going to judge her. His anger lessened but didn’t completely die out at that realisation.

‘Let me get this straight.’ His tone was sharper than he’d have liked and she flinched in response. ‘You think that because you enjoyed being tied up and spanked, you were punished for it because your rapist tied you up and whipped you and your body responded to the stimulation. And – I’m guessing here – you think that because those acts were committed in an act of violation there is a correlation with your relationship with your first boyfriend.’

She didn’t answer, only nodded. He blew out an exasperated sigh. People really did over-complicate their lives. Especially when it came to sex.

‘That’s bullshit. You’re being incredibly stupid to buy into the idea.’

Shock replaced trepidation in her face and she flushed angrily.

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because context is everything. That’s why. Think about justifiable homicide. If you were to walk up to a stranger, point a gun at them and shoot, assuming you were in no danger of losing your own life, you’d be committing murder. Take that same stranger, turn the tables so now he’s assaulting you and you shoot him, every court in the land will say it was justifiable because it was self-defence. One thing remains the same though, the stranger is now dead. It’s context that matters. One is justified, the other is not.

‘In your case, there is nothing wrong with a bit of kink to spice up sex. And, when two people do it together –
consenting
to it – it can be a great way to explore sensuality and sex together. When one person doesn’t consent, all bets are off.’

She drew a breath to speak but he was determined to finish and held up a hand. Reluctantly, she relaxed.

‘Bridg, I’d love to tie you up and believe me, my dick gets hard at the notion of spanking your pretty little ass and then fucking you nice and rough. You see, pain and pleasure, they go hand in hand.’

She began to protest. Again, he held up a hand to stop her.

‘Hear me out before you protest.’

She sighed, but relaxed back and waited.

‘When pain is used strategically, endorphins are released and it actually heightens pleasure. It sounds like your first guy – what was his name anyway?’

‘Doug,’ she supplied.

‘OK, Doug, he understood this. Now, Trent, the dickhead, just wanted to hurt you. That you’d already had a pleasurable experience that involved pain and bondage is why you responded the way you did. Plus he obviously gave you a date rape drug to lower your inhibitions.’

‘They didn’t find any evidence of one when I went to the hospital.’ She didn’t look at him.

‘Doesn’t matter. Both roofies and GHB metabolise too quickly. Physical evidence is rarely found.’ At her sharp glance he shrugged and said, ‘What? I watched a
Dateline
episode about it once.’

‘How can you be so certain that it isn’t depraved?’

‘Because I don’t believe we are set up to fail as human beings. Simple as that. I want to do the things to you that you say wanting to have done is a depraved act. I don’t think I’m depraved at all. I think I like to push the boundaries of sensual exploration and that – for me, anyway – involves pain. The key is to find someone with reciprocal desires. I’ve never forced anyone who didn’t want to experience it to go through it. I’m very capable of living without it, but strategic pain gives pleasure a dimension and depth unlike any I’ve experienced.

‘What your rapist did to you was perverted and depraved because he took an act that is intimate and sensual and turned into a violation of your will, body and psyche. That he did it in a way that lowered your inhibitions, and robbed you of a very real need to rage and be angry at his violation, is even worse.

‘You’ve internalised this, Bridget. You’re carrying all this on your shoulders when he was wrong. Not you. You need to put blame where it lies, on your rapist, not on you sharing a desire that hundreds of other people in this world share – including me.’

She was silent for a long time. He could see the wheels turning in her head and he wanted to argue more, try to force her to see things differently, but he knew he couldn’t do that. She would have to come to the understanding on her own.

Finally, she turned to him, saying, ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about.’

Her face was unreadable and she wasn’t making him feel altogether comfortable, but it was better than outright rejection.

‘That’s all I can ask for.’ He gathered up the dishes from the apple pie and put them into the sink. She followed him, bringing her wineglass and setting it on the counter.

He wanted her to stay with him tonight. He didn’t want her to leave, and allow distance to grow. This was important. They were on opposite sides of an argument right now and he didn’t want to give her the opportunity to twist this into an excuse to stop seeing him.

Taking the plunge, he said, ‘Stay here with me, Bridget. I don’t want you to go.’

‘I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.’ She bit her bottom lip, something he’d begun to realise meant indecision for her.

‘Look, I feel as if we just had a really hard conversation and I don’t want you to leave. I won’t try anything; I’d just really like to sleep with you in my arms. I’d like to wake up with you.’

‘I can’t.’ She looked unhappy. ‘I have to take care of Daisy. I can’t leave her by herself overnight.’