The Harder They Fall by Doreen Owens Malek Page A

or the right, to stroke it back into place.
    “I fell asleep reading,” she answered, holding up the book.
    “Poetry?” he said archly.
    “Yours,” she replied, thumbing to the flyleaf and displaying his name written there.
    “I must have done that during one of my possessive periods,” he said. “Martin was always taking my stuff.” He folded his arms combatively. “Are you surprised that I read poetry? Or are you surprised that I can read?”
    “Not at all, to both questions,” she said lightly, putting the book aside.
    He slumped next to her on the couch. “I’ve been drinking,” he said almost belligerently, and smiled.
    That was obvious, but he was not drunk—just clearly relaxed enough to lose his inhibitions. Warning bells went off in Helene’s brain; without his customary control he would be dangerous indeed. She rose smoothly and stepped into her discarded slippers.
    “Good night,” she said.
    “Wait a minute, where are you going?” he asked, waving her back into her seat. “Don’t you want to know why I’ve been going out every night? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
    “I have assumed the obvious, that you want to avoid me,” she said evenly.
    “Bingo,” he responded. “Correctomundo, right the first time. But do you know why I want to avoid you?”
    “Chris, is it really necessary to do this?” she asked, pained and a little frightened. Where was this leading?
    “Certainly, certainly. Know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Don’t you remember that one?”
    Helene waited.
    “I have wanted to avoid you because I have a secret, a secret very difficult to keep in your presence.” He got up and helped himself to the bottle of Scotch on the sideboard, splashing a liberal dose of the amber liquid into a glass.
    “Chris, don’t drink any more,” Helene said quietly.
    “Oh, but I must. How else do I keep my secret, especially with you sitting there in that most fetching outfit?”
    Helene glanced down at her cotton nightgown, as plain and practical as a nun’s. What did he mean? She glanced up at him again, her expression guarded.
    He wagged his finger at her. “You’re humoring me, I can tell by that look of sainted patience on your face. Have I ever told you how much I hate that look?”
    “You wouldn’t have to see it if you’d let me go to bed,” she pointed out reasonably.
    “Bed,” he said. “Now there’s a subject of interest, actually in line with my first topic, one and the same, in fact.”
    Helene sighed. Booze certainly made him loquacious. Which was worse, his sober silences or this?
    “Haven’t guessed my secret?” he said, sipping. “Not a clue? Then I’ll tell you. It’s mundane, not original, very old I’m afraid. Biblical. Now what do you think of that?”
    Helene was frozen in place.
    “Don’t know what I’m talking about, Miss Innocence?” he said, examining her with those unsettling eyes, the same color as the liquor he held in his hand.
    But she did know what he was talking about. After three weeks of listening for his footfall, straining to catch the sound of his voice, fingering one of his discarded shirts cast over a chair, she knew all too well.
    “I know,” she whispered.
    His sneer vanished and he thrust his glass onto the top of the television set. He was beside her in two strides and had seized her bare upper arms, holding her in a viselike grip.
    “Please, Chris, you’re hurting me,” she gasped, twisting futilely in his grasp.
    “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said gruffly, and then his mouth was on hers—hot, searching, the way she had dreamed of it since the first day she’d met him. For several seconds she was stunned, and then her arms crept up around his neck, her fingers sinking into the wealth of hair at his nape and her body molding itself to his.
    When he saw that she was not fighting him and he felt her response, he moaned against her mouth and the sound turned her limbs to water. She clutched