Graham put her in his bed and made her a cup of tea, for which she was grateful. When he brought it to her, however, she grimaced at the taste.

"I just put in a splash of brandy," he explained. "For shock. You're white as a sheet. Drink up."
She nodded obediently and sipped at the tea until it was gone, and she did feel a little better after.

"I don't actually drink brandy very often," she told him. 

He'd pulled up a chair next to the bed like he was at a hospital. "That's not drinking, that's medicine," he corrected gently. "Now, are you hurt anywhere? Any bruises, scrapes? That asshole grabbed you pretty hard."

Cressida shook her head. "Only my knees, where I fell."

"Let's see."

Shyly, she raised her knees.

He sucked air through his teeth. "Yeah, you got some road rash for sure. Hold on a sec—" and he brought some cotton and peroxide from his bathroom. "This is going to sting a little, you ready?"

She nodded.

He dabbed at her knees with the peroxide soaked cotton, stopping every now and then to blow on them.

"There," he finally said, setting everything aside.

"Thank you so much, for everything," Cressida said. "I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't come along."

"I do," Graham answered darkly. "You really shouldn't walk around at night by yourself, you know?"

"How are your hands?" she asked, changing the subject. "I hope you didn't hurt them helping me."

He held them out and flexed his fingers. "They're fine. I hit him in the gut instead of his face, which was where I wanted to hit him."

"It's never happened to me before," Cressida told him. "It was so scary." Even though it had been a while, and in spite of the brandy, she began to tremble.

"Oh no, don't dwell on it, poor little thing—" and he gathered her into his body, getting into the bed with her.

His arms were like steel bands around her, hard and comforting, and Cressida rested her head on his chest, feeling the Saint Cecilia medal against her cheek. She continued to shake, even though she wasn't cold.

Graham felt terrible, and furious with her unknown attacker. "I should've hit him harder and more, I should've really hurt the motherfucker," he murmured against her hair. "I'm so, so sorry you had to go through that."

She felt light as a feather in his arms, slight and small. He rubbed her back and shoulders slowly, trying to calm her down. Eventually the shivering went away, though he continued to hold her.

"Cress?" His voice was soft.

No response.

Graham pulled his head away a little so he could see her face.

She was asleep, her lashes wet with tears.

Graham sighed, happy to be where he was with his warm bundle of girl. He pulled up the duvet with his foot and covered her before trying to get out from under her and lay her down.

He left her sleeping while he put away his groceries and got ready for bed. When he was ready, he looked at her and found that she hadn't twitched, and seemed to be in a deeper sleep than before.

He carefully got in bed, curling in behind her, but on top of the duvet. She snuggled into him in her sleep, pulling his arm around her waist from behind.

"Cress?"

All he got in return was a murmured susurration, a contented sound like a cat would make.

Graham sighed. This wasn't helping him. Not at all.

But she shouldn't be alone, should she? She'd suffered a real shock, a trauma, even.

What harm could one night do? Besides, all they were doing was sleeping.

Right?

He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, which lasted until the middle of the night, until he felt Cressida kissing him, her hands soft on his chest. When had he gotten under the duvet with her?

He kissed her back, her lips sweet in the darkness, and his hands moved to her front, to touch her lovely, small breasts through her blouse and bra. He rolled over on top of her, sliding his hand up her neck to grasp her head and kiss her, hard, hungrily.

"Cress. Cress."

"Graham," he heard her moan. "Oh Graham."

She wrapped her legs around him, squeezing his erection painfully, rolling her hips into his wanting body.

But when she began to unbutton her shirt he stopped her, buttoning up the two she'd managed to free.

"No, we can't, we can't," he murmured against her mouth as he continued to kiss her.

"Why not?"

"I told you, I can't give you that, and I don't want you to feel lied to."

"I won't feel lied to, I won't."

"But I'll feel like I lied to you," he answered miserably.

"Okay. Okay." She got out of bed. "Good night, Graham." And she was gone.

He lay in the bed that still smelled of her, utterly frustrated. But he'd been through this before, and there were so many good reasons not to it.

She might get hurt.

And so might he.

He rolled over to sleep, but all he got was a whiff of Cressida from the pillow where her head had lain.

He finally took himself in his hand and jerked off, imagining Cressida, happy and willing, sitting astride him wearing nothing at all.

He wasn't particularly satisfied, but at least he wasn't in pain anymore.

He poured himself a whiskey, then another, and another before he was finally able to go to sleep.

Upstairs, Cressida put on her pajamas and got in bed, trying to forget what had just transpired downstairs. He wanted her, that was obvious, but how could she convince him that she was okay with whatever he was willing to give her?

She fell asleep just before dawn, and therefore slept well past her usual time. Luckily, she didn't have class.

She took her morning tea out to the garden, where it looked like Mikey had already come and gone, based on the clippings that were waiting to be swept up.

She sat down and was shortly joined by Graham, who clutched a mug of coffee as though his life depended on it.

"Morning."

"Good morning."

Seeing him brought back memories of the night before, with all its lovely promise, and Cressida was stirred, seeing him looking so good in his T-shirt and shorts. His legs were muscular and tan, and she wondered why. It wasn't as though piano was hard on the legs, was it?

"Look, we need to talk," Graham began, taking a long drink of his coffee first.

"Okay."

"We can't—we can't keep doing stuff like last night. I can't—"

"Yes, I know, you can't, you can't, you can't!"

He looked at her, surprised by her vituperative tone.

"I've tried to explain to you how it is with me, but you keep doing things, coming on to me—"

"What?" Cressida sat straight up in her chair. "I came on to you?"

Graham shrugged uneasily.

"Right," Cressida continued. "I arranged to be attacked on the street so you could rescue me and bring me back here. Then I made you put me in your bed so you could get in with me. That's rich."

"I'm not talking about all that, and you know it! I'm talking about what came after, the—the—making out."

"Right, because you didn't like that part at all. You weren't fighting me off very much at all, Buster, and you know it!"

"All I'm saying is that if our positions were reversed, and you'd told me over and over that you didn't want to be involved but I woke you up in the night by kissing you like that, well, it would be questionable at best, wouldn't it?"

That stopped Cressida in her tracks, but only for a moment.

"So you're telling me that you felt violated, assaulted?"

"No, no, I'm just saying—" he stopped, stymied by his inability to communicate.

"Fuck, I don't know what I'm saying."

"No, I don't think you do. You can't tell me you don't want to and then kiss me back like that in your own bed, Graham."

Graham sighed, running his hand through his hair. His head was aching fit to split, and now he was having this blazing fight—

"You know what? Forget it, I'm sorry I even brought it up."

"Me too."

They sat in silence with their drinks, the peace of the morning spoiled.

"Will you still come with me? To the thing at Prof's?"

Cressida sighed. "Yes, I'll still go with you to the thing at your Prof's."

"Wonderful. Thank you." I'll meet you at 6:30, okay?"

"Okay."

Graham went in after that, and the piano started. He did his usual crazy medley of warm ups, then, when Cressida was expecting to hear the Rachmaninov, instead he went into a couple of pieces that Cressida was familiar with but had never heard him play before. She was pretty sure one of them was called The Moonlight Sonata. The other one was just a pounding, moody piece that she'd heard somewhere. She wondered why he was playing them?

Cressida dressed for the evening with care. Her fight with him notwithstanding, she wanted to do Graham credit, and didn't want anyone to think less of him because he brought a substandard date.

She chose a pretty spaghetti strap dress with daisies all over it that came to just above her knee, and strappy sandals that gave her a good three inches in height, so she wouldn't look like such a child. She put her hair up in an elegant chignon, but left a few short tendrils out to frame her face, and made up her face and eyes with great care.

She heard Graham's door close and grabbed her sweater and bag before heading out.