the long years of solitude had practically neutered him , driving away all of his baser desires for the company of women , but finding one in such distress on his very doorstep , a pretty young thing so vulnerable , so powerless to refuse his advances , had awakened a monumental sleeping hunger inside him , and now the passing hours were marked with that delicious , rapacious appetite growing until it ached inside him , secure in the knowledge that it would be satisfied .