Running Scarred (12 page)

“You haven’t done
anything.” His voice was agonized. “It’s just me. I can’t be near you. Last night, knowing you were lying in my bed, was nearly killing me. It’s just as well I spent most of the night loading that lorry.” He shook his head. “I can’t have you close to me Ellen, it’s too painful.” He swallowed noisily and the pulse in his throat started to pound.

Ellen creased her brow in confusion.

“I don’t understand Patrick. How do I hurt you? I wouldn’t hurt you ever.” She looked down at the floor, unable to bear looking into his eyes.

He risked putting his hand under her chin and lifting it gently. She had to understand how he felt. He couldn’t disguise it any longer. Her eyes met his.

“Don’t you see Ellen? Can’t you see how much these scars hurt me? They have ruined my life. Everything that I’d known before ended in less than a second. Everything. To have someone as beautiful as you see what I’ve become just makes it all so much worse.” He was whispering now and his whole body was very still.

She was confused for a few seconds and then she saw the smouldering in his eyes. It was as though a curtain had been swished away.
Her heart broke and she wanted to cry for him.

“But they’re only scars Patrick. They will fade. I don’t even notice them.” Her voice was cracking, her lips trembling. She sounded as desolate as he felt.

He glared down at her.
Was she mocking him?
A tidal wave of fury welled up in him.

“Fade! How the hell does having no leg fade? How do you get rid of burns like these?” His head came up and he was shouting now. “Every single morning I get up, look in the mirror and I pray, I pray so hard, that they’ll be gone, that it was all some sort of freaky nightmare, but there’s always this grotesque character staring back at me. Someone I don’t recognize, someone I don’t even know. It feels as though the real me doesn’t exist anymore. How the hell can you not notice scars like these? You’re just pretending they’re not there Ellen! They’ll never go and I can’t ignore them. Oh! I don’t care anymore. I just don’t care! Look at them, see for yourself how repulsive I am!” He was tugging his shirt from his waistband. He pulled at the buttons savagely and ripped the fabric from his shoulders. He stood naked to the waist, not looking at her,
breathing hard.

She looked up at his glorious body. His right shoulder and side were perfect. Tanned and firm and defined, ripples of hard muscle spreading from his neck, across his shoulder, over his chest and down onto his flat stomach.  

His left side was in tatters. The scars that covered this side of his face  just touched the corner of his mouth, then crept down over his neck. There were deep red hollows across his left shoulder and chunks of muscle missing from his arm and then a cruel spider’s web of lumpy marks trailing over his wide chest, fading slightly as they reached his waistline. She stepped closer to him and reached her hand up to touch his mutilated skin.

He moved fast and grabbed it before she could lay a finger on him.

“Don’t!” He snarled at her and her eyes flicked up to his face. She moved in closer, unafraid of him now, his hand still tightly over hers.

And then before he was able to stop her
she leaned in, laid her satin cheek gently on his bare chest and listened to his thundering heart.

“I don’t see the scars Pa
trick.” She whispered, her lips just touching his fevered skin. “I see only you. I want only you.” Her breath was moist and warm on his flesh.

He dropped her hand as if he’d been electrocuted and moved away quickly. His control was at breaking point.

“Don’t lie to me Ellen. I know the truth, I’m repulsive. You can’t want me, so don’t try and make me think you do. It hurts too much. My own wife left me as soon as she saw me like this, she was so appalled, so don’t tell me you see anything different.” His words were full of bitterness. He bent to pick up his shirt, but Ellen was there first. She grabbed it from the floor, flung it behind her and stood defiantly in front of him.

And then she tugged at the bottom of her t-shirt and lifted
it over her head. She threw it to land on top of his shirt.

He gasped and then groaned deeply as she put her hands behind her back and unclasped her bra.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her as the wisp of delicate material fell from her shoulders.

Her breasts were high and firm, her nipples rosy and tight against her milk white skin.

She stretched forwards, caught hold of his hand and brought it to her lips. Her kisses felt as soft as feathers against his skin. Then she placed his hand gently over her breast.

The feel of her soft, tender flesh within his palm finished him. He could hold back no longer. He pulled in a deep, ragged breath as he massaged her breast, letting his thumb stroke her tightening nipple.

“Why are you doing this to me? It’s hard enough for me to just be with you, without you doing this as well.” He gasped out the words.

She smiled gently and looked down at his
hand. She groaned as her nipple peaked against his skin. Then spoke breathlessly.

“Because now I know what this is all about.
At last. I want you Patrick. I wanted you from the moment you first spoke to me. It was no lie, and I know you want me too.”

She began to undo her jeans and he just stood there staring helplessly at her as they slithered to the floor. Then she stepped out of them and moved even closer to him. She reached out and began to unfasten his belt. She pushed his trousers past the cup on his leg, onto the floor, then she took his hand in hers and led him silently back to his bedroom.

They lay spent and gasping, the roar of his agon
ized release still ringing in her ears as the sheets tangled around them. Their perspiration was drying on their naked bodies. He was still on top of her, still deep inside her, and they were both still breathing hard.

Patrick pressed his forehead into her shoulder, barely able to comprehend what had just happened. It had been over in minutes, both too frantic with pent up desire to think about making it last. But it had been the most intense few minutes of his entire life. Her hair had come out of the clip again and he could feel it covering his face. He could hear the rapid thumping of her heart. He bent a little further and caught her nipple between his lips. It tightened instantly. He swirled his tongue over the hard bud and listened to Ellen moan in pleasure.

He had never felt
emotions like this in his whole life. He lay there, bathed in a glow of complete satisfaction, in a wave of glory so intense he wanted to shout for joy. He felt her move slightly under his weight and he lifted his head to look at her beautiful face.

Her fabulous eyes were closed, her long lashes almost touching her flushed cheeks, and a small, satisfied smile was playing about the corners of her perfect lips. She looked as content as he felt.

“Ellen?” He whispered, checking. “Are you okay?”

The smile became wider. She nodded and stretched slightly and then grimaced.

“Sorry.” She opened her eyes. “Can you just move your leg?” He lifted his hip slightly and she gasped as the silicone cup pulled away from her skin.

He looked down in horror as he saw where the moulding of his prosthetic limb had grazed her inner thigh.

“God damn this thing!” He spoke bitterly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I’ve not done anything like this since before it happened.” He struggled to get up, but she held onto his shoulders, forcing him to be still.

“No, stay here.
Now that I have you, I don’t want you to move. We’ll just have to remember to take it off next time.” She let her fingers trail lazily through his hair.

He lay back down again and sighed deeply.

“So there is going to be a next time then?” He could hardly bear to ask.

She pulled in an indignant breath and glared at him.

“I should bloody well hope so! After all the misunderstanding and effort it’s taken to get you, I should hope there will be quite a few next times.” She smiled into his hair.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? I was driving myself mad avoiding you. I thought you would be repulsed by me.” He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

Her hair tumbled about her shoulders as she shook her head.

“Why? I never once gave you any reason to make you think I might find you unattractive. I fell in love with you before I even saw you, the night you rescued me. I sat up the whole night while my fiancé puked his guts up, just wanting to smell you again. I sat with your coat around me the whole night long.”

He grunted.

“So that’s why it was covered with your scent. I thought you might have sprayed it to get rid of the smell of the wood smoke. I nearly came and asked for it back. I followed you after I’d sent you in
the right direction. I was telling myself it was to make sure you didn’t go the wrong way down the road, but it wasn’t that really. I just wanted to keep looking at you.” He smiled sheepishly up at her.

She laughed.

“That’s nothing. I thought I was going to go mad with you being so close to me when you were showing me the Chateau. And when we nearly kissed, you suddenly hesitated. I was so angry with Anton. If he hadn’t kicked that stone at the crucial moment everything might have been different. I thought afterwards, when you nearly fell and seemed so furious, that I was wrong about the way you were feeling, that you didn’t like me at all.”

He pulled her down to him again and pressed his lips gently to hers
, savouring the taste of her before he replied.

“No, I was trying very hard not to take you on that filthy floor. I never wanted anything so much in my whole life. It was taking every bit of my self-control just to keep my hands off you. I had to stand in a cold shower for over an hour when I got back here. When you came here yesterday, I thought I was going to attack you. I had to get you away from me. I thought I was losing it completely. The last few months have been sheer hell.”

She breathed out slowly.

“And I thought I was making my feelings clear. I thought you would see what I was feeling. I felt so different, so new and I was so glad to be away
from Justin.”

Patrick suddenly froze beside her, remembering her fiancé’s visit. His tone was hard.

“But you still have Justin. I showed him up here not long after you bought the place if you remember.” He pushed himself out of her arms. “Hang on. Oh! I get it now. I know what’s really going on here!”

She grabbed him back, clutching his shoulders hard as she spoke desperately, knowing exactly what was going through his mind.

“I broke it off with him after I first met you, and then I had to tell him again the next morning as soon as he was sober enough to listen to me. I can’t believe I put up with him for so long. It took me over three years to realize what a self-centered idiot he is. I tried to tell you when you came up to the Chateau the day you directed him, but you wouldn’t listen. You walked off. Hey! What’s the matter?” She asked as he wrenched himself away from her. She sat up and pulled the duvet around her.

Patrick flopped back ont
o his side of the bed. He wiped his hand across his face, thinking hard.

“You broke it off that first night?
Really? I don’t believe you. You can’t possibly have thought like that about me after one chance meeting. You hadn’t even seen me. You can’t fall in love with a smell.” He closed his eyes again, breathing hard as he tried to overpower his temper that was threatening to rage out of control.

She spoke gently, moving closer to him again.

“I didn’t need to see you to know I was in love with you. If Anton hadn’t been there that day when you showed me the Chateau, you wouldn’t have stood a chance. And yesterday, well, if it hadn’t been such a long, stressful day and if I hadn’t had to get that blasted lorry loaded, I might have tried a bit harder.” She ran her fingertips along the scars on his face.

He snatched at her hand, pulling
it away from his tattered skin. He opened his eyes, suddenly even more furious.

He growled out his words.

“Stop it Ellen. You’re just saying these things. I know the truth! This is all just some elaborate plan to get me out of your hair. Did you and your fiancé cook this scenario up when he came to visit you? Is this what you argued over? Did he convince you that having sex with me would swing my vote?” He sat up quickly and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He took a few deep breaths and tried to calm his racing, breaking heart. “Look it’s okay. I get it now. You just used me, but don’t worry, I’m not holding you to anything. This was just a one off, okay. You don’t have to lie to me about your fiancé anymore.” He began dragging a pair of jeans over his legs.

Ellen sat stunned for a second, not knowing
whether to be more angry than upset. Then she saw the agonized look on his face. She could almost feel his pain.

Her voice cracked.

“Patrick! Don’t say that. I’m not using you and I’m not trying to trick you or lie to you either. Why do you think I wouldn’t tell you the truth?” She was scrabbling to get out of the bed after him.