Hilary Bonner - When the Dead Cry Out

She let out a small cry, part pleasure, part surprise. This was not what she had expected at all. Cooper was mild-mannered and funny, a gentle family man — although she tried not to think about that. This was not how she had thought he would be.

He had come at her like an animal. And she found that she rather liked it. She was immensely excited by him. His hands were tight around her bum, his fingers digging into her. As he used his tongue on her he made small grunting noses. He was eager. The word that came to mind was rather an old-fashioned one. He was rampant.

She started to move with him. She was a woman who liked the niceties of lovemaking, she did not fantasies about sex in dark alleyways or forbidden places where lovers might be discovered in embarrassingly compromising situations. That was not Karen’s way at all. She liked warm comfortable beds and, to be honest, warm comfortable men. Her liaison with Cooper seemed to be turning out to involve neither.

He was handling her quite roughly. Something inside was beginning to turn over. Then he bit her. Not hard, but enough to drive her wild. She started to scream then. She couldn’t believe it, but she was screaming. She could feel the climax building up inside her.

He pulled away from her again then, quite abruptly. She groaned in disbelief, slumped against the door. Then he reached up, caught hold of her hands and pulled her to the floor beside him. She half-fell down there, her legs hobbled by the mess of her trousers and knickers which were now wrapped around her ankles. There was a ripping sound as he tore them off her with one hand, then with the other he pushed her legs open. Somehow or other he had already managed to remove the clothing from the lower part of his body. With a low animal moan he threw himself forward onto her and entered her straight away.

The sensation was extraordinary from the start. Every nerve end felt raw. He clamped his mouth on hers as he began to move in her. She could smell and taste her own juices spread all over his face. She found it unbelievably sexy. He was an aggressive eager lover. She was aroused to the point of bursting. The climax when it came was more than great pleasure, it was an overwhelming relief. She knew she was screaming again as she moved beneath him, her legs wrapped around his neck. She couldn’t help it. And she couldn’t stop. Not for anything. If the chief constable had walked in, she wouldn’t have been able to stop. If a fire had broken out, escape would have had to be delayed until she had finished. It had been a long time. Such a long time. Her body was crying out for release.

Great waves of pleasure swept over her, died away, then returned. It was the ultimate orgasm. She couldn’t remember experiencing one like it.

Then just as her waves finally started to fade away to nothing she felt it begin to happen for him, too. His movements became more and more urgent. She was totally aware of his body exploding inside her.

Afterwards, they lay in a sweat-drenched heap, their clothes and limbs in a tangle, their breath coming in short sharp gasps for several minutes before either of them spoke.

It was Cooper who uttered the first memorable words.

“I’m really sorry, boss,” he said.

Karen burst out laughing. Straight away and without preamble, much the same way as the sex had been between them, really.

“Phil, I just do not believe you,” she spluttered. “You’ve just fucked me rigid, gone at me like some wild animal, and at the end of it you’ve said sorry and called me boss.”

He started to laugh, too. Then he touched her face lightly with one hand.

“Do you have a bed here?” he asked, his voice still light with the laughter.

“Oh, yes,” she replied.

“And do you think you might like to take me to it?”

“Yes, I rather think I would.”

“Good.” He kissed her very gently on the lips and drew away at once.

“I want to hold you close to me, Karen,” he said, and there was an urgency about him just as great as the sexual urgency had been earlier, but of a very different sort.

“I want to hold you so much.”

Before they could climb into bed they had to turf off a disgruntled Sophie who was already lying spreadeagled on top of the duvet, waiting patiently for her mistress to finish whatever it was she had been doing in the hall.

“Love me, love my cat,” muttered Karen.

“My pleasure,” Cooper responded. He stayed until almost three in the morning. And as she watched him prepare to leave, a great sadness overwhelmed her. She was suddenly starkly aware that she was embarking on the age-old routine again. An affair with a married man who sneaked away from wife and work to be with her, and then in the early hours sneaked away from her, dressing in the dark, averting his eyes, trying to avoid the reality of his behaviour.

They had made love once more, and that time it had been exactly that, real lovemaking, slow, gentle and intense, quite unlike that first desperate animal fuck. But mostly he had held her, very close and very gently, just as he had said he wanted to. And she had held him back. She had clung to him.

She tried not to show what she was thinking as she watched him tuck his shirt into his trousers, fasten his tie and pull on his jacket, but she knew that she was afraid. She was somehow quite sure that this would not turn out to be a one-off fuck, another one-night stand. It had been too special. For her, anyway. She studied him as carefully as she could in the dimly illuminated room, which was lit only by the moon shining in through the windows. She couldn’t see his face properly. Maybe for him it was just a bit on the side, a bit of fun. How could she tell? She knew him as a copper, as a workmate, as a drinking companion. She didn’t know him in this way at all, not as a lover, as a man who could be a bull one minute and the gentlest, most cuddly of creatures the next.

He walked towards her then, sat on the bed, leaned over her and touched her hair. It was a full moon out over the bay and the light from it was shining directly onto the bed. She could see his eyes quite clearly as he came close to her, but she wasn’t sure at all what she could see in them. It couldn’t be love, not yet, and half of her hoped that it wasn’t. She could imagine all too vividly the trouble that lay ahead of them.

She realized that it wasn’t going to stop her, though. Nothing could. If Cooper wanted to see her again, to continue with whatever it was that they had started, there was absolutely no chance of her finding the strength to turn him away.

“You have no idea how much I want to stay with you,” he said softly.

Well, she had heard that before. But this time she believed the man who was telling her. Believed him absolutely. She did not reply. His next words surprised her, though.

“Will you sleep?”

She nodded, touched that he gave a damn. “I expect so. I should.”

She stretched her limbs, pushed her neck and shoulders deep into the pillows. Her body felt wonderfully relaxed, sated, fulfilled. It was her mind which was racing, which might keep her awake, remembering the pleasure, fretting about what it could lead to.

“Yes, but it’s not just that, is it? It’s what’s going on in your head.”

She was amazed. Could he read her thoughts? He smiled down at her, and his eyes were full of caring and concern. Her heart flipped. She hadn’t known anything like this, not in all her life. She really hadn’t, and she might as well admit it, to herself even if to nobody else.

“Shall I put you to sleep?”

“What?” She laughed again. He could make her do that so easily. It was uncanny. “What do you think I am?” she asked. “A sick dog that needs putting out of its misery?”