JONATHON - Book 1 [Watty Awards 2012]

Chapter 2

Jonny caressed her trembling fingers. ‘You’re not in the convent now.’ he reminded softly.

‘Old habits die hard!’

He burst into rich, deep laughter.

‘How dare you!’ she raged at him, struggling to pull her hands free. He was weak, but not that weak. He held her fast.

‘Oh Bea, I’m not laughing at you….. your choice of words….. it was funny…… in the circumstances… don’t be angry with me….I’m not a well man….’ He played his trump card.

‘You’re….. you’re impossible!’

He chuckled at her frustration to come up with anything better. Her revelation both amazed him and explained her compassion, her unworldliness and her modesty. But he would not have taken her for a nun; she was unlike any nun he'd ever known. An idea amused him.

‘Oh but when I am a well man, when I am stronger….if you’ll allow me…I’ll show you what that is all about. I’m good, Bea. I am very, very good….’ he boasted.

‘You… you…...dare! How dare you! You arrogant….conceited…chauvinist…. lecher. Do you think every woman is going to jump into bed with you at the snap of your fingers! You think I’m yours for the taking do you? Is there anything you haven’t had? Oh yes, let me see…. A fifty-odd year old virgin ex-nun, that’d be a new experience even for you. Wouldn’t that make the headlines; wouldn’t that get you free lunches from here to Hollywood and back!’

Even through the streaming, shuddering tears she could see his pale face blanch whiter and with a fury that made her just a little afraid. He gripped her fingers tighter and she winced slightly. Immediately the pressure lessened.

‘I do not so presume.’ he informed her with his own peculiar old world formal idiom. ‘And I would not hurt you for the world’ he told her huskily. ‘I deserve harsh punishment for what I have done but I don’t believe I earned that from you. That was hard, Bea, that was very hard.’ And his voice near broke and the fury turned to disappointment in his bleak eyes and his beautiful full lips trembled and turned down.

‘I….I….’ she tried to say she was sorry but emotion overcame her and she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it.

‘I’m so cold’ he shivered and her lips on his skin confirmed it.

Silently she rose and reached under the other pillow and took out her nightdress. This she would make her penance. She turned her back to him and using all the modesty she could muster took off her clothes and slipped the long, old fashioned garment over her head. When she turned she saw that he was facing the wall and not her; that he had given her privacy and it moved her. Swiftly, before she could change her mind, she opened up the covers and slid in beside him.

‘Hold me?’ he asked turning to face her. ‘Please.’ he begged and she did.

A sigh of pure contentment escaped him and he relaxed completely. Bea found that much more difficult to achieve, but in an unbelievably short space of time he had grown warm and sleepy as a puppy and had drifted off into deep, healing slumber. Sleep evaded Bea for most of that long night; her thoughts and emotions in turmoil and the nagging worry of what other disruptions to her once peaceful if boring life she would have to contend with in the days and nights that followed. But Jonathon slept like a child, curved and cuddled into the warmth and protection of her body.

In the morning when she woke she was immediately aware of his hardness against her and she gasped aloud. His eyes flew open and he too was obviously immediately aware also. She drew back from him. He said nothing, merely raised one eyebrow but somehow managed to convey an innocence he could not have known since his second birthday. He was, after all, one of the world’s greatest actors.