by Julie Miller
Still, he had to remember he was the protector here, not her. “He’s got no right to treat you that way.”
“He thinks because I am a woman, because I come from another country, that I am too stupid to know what he is doing. He does not believe I have the courage to defy him.”
Defy? Bryce didn’t like the sound of that. That was his job. “Maybe you’d best not—”
“I will show him.” She was hugging herself again, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to dispel excess energy or warm herself. His own hands itched to do that for her, but he suspected keeping his distance right now would do a lot more to calm her than touching her would. “I am smarter than he knows. I bring the prisoners extra food and inventory the supplies so he does not know they are missing. I have found out secrets about this island.”
“What secrets?”
“There is a body buried here. On the western shore at the edge of the grass. One of the soldiers.”
The kid they’d executed two weeks ago. Hell, she’d seen that?
“I wondered what happened to him. I saw him the night he was…murdered. Damn.” Bryce squeezed his eyes shut, unable and unwilling to forget the ominous crack of a single gunshot and the sight of that lifeless body being videotaped by a laughing cameraman.
The subtle scents of yeast and shampoo teased his nose just before he felt a tug on his shirt. Bryce blinked his eyes open to find Tasiya straightening the open placket. About a size too small, the shirt wouldn’t button without rubbing the cloth across the cuts on his back, so he’d let it hang open.
But that didn’t stop her from tucking it together and smoothing it across his skin. What? Did she think he was gonna catch cold now? It wasn’t a hug or a smile, but her matter-of-fact attentions eased some of the pain and anger inside him. “I would think your army would want to punish Mr. Fowler for that.”
“They’d love to kick his ass.” So would he. “Honey, you gotta watch talkin’ back to Boone Fowler. Don’t give him any excuse to hurt you.”
Bryce shivered, whether from the stroke of her fingers or the realization that he’d just crossed a very dangerous line, he couldn’t tell. Honey? Where the hell had that come from? But Tasiya didn’t seem to notice. Maybe she didn’t understand the significance of the word—or what her gentle touches were doing to his efforts to keep his distance from her.
Her hands were on his neck now, straightening his collar. “Do not worry. My rebellion is silent. I know my place. A woman cannot speak out against a man. My word would not be good in court. But I will—”
“Your place?” He wrapped his fingers around her wrists and pulled her hands away. Touching her soft skin sent him one step farther across that line, but Bryce wasn’t paying attention to the warning signals. “Where does Fowler get off treatin’ you like some kind of second-class citizen? Why couldn’t you testify in court?”
She shrugged as if she’d uttered something that was common knowledge and he was a dolt for not knowing it. “I am a woman.”
“Men and women have equal rights here in the United States. Your word’s as good as any man’s. A damn sight better than Fowler’s, I’m guessin’.” A new understanding dawned. “That why you don’t always look me in the eye? ’Cause I’m a man and you’re a woman?”
Automatically her dark eyes shuttered and her gaze dropped to the middle of his chest. She pulled her hands away and held herself in a subservient posture that busted at that soft spot inside him. “Should I not be so bold with you?”
“Hey.” He nudged her beneath the chin, splaying his tanned, roughened fingers against her paler, velvety skin, finally touching her the way he’d wanted to. Her eyes glittered like polished mahogany when he tilted her face up to his, and the night air warmed up a good ten degrees between them. “I know I ain’t handsome, but I like a person to look me in the face when they talk to me.”
“Your face isn’t…” Her forehead crinkled in mute apology and the right words tried to form on her lips. Oh, no, woman. Don’t tell me it ain’t ugly. A lie now would spoil the tenuous bond he felt with her. “You have very beautiful eyes. The color reminds me of the mountains and the robust winters in my homeland. I feel…safe…when I look into your eyes.”
Though the words were a little too poetic for his taste, her soft, melodic voice sounded genuine. She hadn’t called him handsome, hadn’t said anything remotely provocative. But Bryce felt the admission deep beneath the scars that had hardened him inside and out.
“Thanks.” He pressed a chaste kiss to that frown mark on her forehead, resting his lips there for a moment until he felt the tension in her relax. Then he pulled away. “That might be the best compliment I ever had.”
Bryce’s voice sounded deep and growly in his own ears. But he was standin’ a might too close to her clean smells and amused smile to retain much objectivity about where they were, who he was and what he had to do.
Right now Bryce wanted only one thing. And the drowsy sigh in Tasiya’s throat said that maybe she wanted it, too.
He slipped his hand beneath the ebony fall of hair behind her ear, cupping the back of her head and tangling himself in the silky weight of springy curls that caught around his fingers and teased his palm. The curious way she focused on his mouth made him hungry to taste her.
Go slow, he warned himself, dipping his head. Their eyes met for one hesitant moment, asking permission, granting it. And then he touched his lips to hers.
She was warm and soft and pliant beneath him.
And Bryce thought he’d gone to heaven.
It was just a little kiss at first. He was every bit as mindful of his size and scars and not wanting to frighten her as he’d been with that modest kiss to her forehead. He’d suspected she hadn’t had much experience—as controlled as her life had been, as old-world and ladylike as she behaved—why else would she even consider him a candidate to strike up a friendship with?
But then Tasiya inhaled a stuttered breath. Her lips parted and she braced her palms against the center of his chest.
“Kiss me like I was an American woman,” she murmured against his mouth, brushing her lips across his in a tiny sampler of kisses.
“Tasiya…honey…” He met each kiss with a grateful one of his own. He touched his tongue to the fullest part of her lip and traced the rim. She tasted so good. He’d bet she tasted even better along the smooth, damp warmth inside her mouth. He swallowed hard, reining in his desire. “In this country we’re equals, remember? If you want something, or you want me to stop, just say so.”
“Don’t stop.” She almost whimpered with the protest. “I don’t know how, but I want…more.”
She caught his bottom lip between hers and suckled, sending a jolt of pure energy straight to his groin. This was a woman who didn’t know how to kiss? If she ever figured out what she was doing, he’d be in serious trouble.
Bryce curled his left hand into a fist at his side to keep himself from grabbing her, plunging his tongue inside and taking everything she was offering. As far as he could tell, the woman was a natural talent. But if she was looking for a man to teach her the seductive intricacies and delights of kissing, then his normal bull-in-the-china-shop technique probably wouldn’t get the job done.
Yeah, he’d had sex. But cuddling? Kissing? Tender foreplay? They just weren’t in his dossier of experience with women.
And this one—strong and innocent and eager to explore—got into his blood and fired him up. He wanted more, too. Soon. Now. But he was too big, too strong, too damn lonesome for the physical acceptance she offered. He’d scare her off for sure if he gave in to the flashfire of hungry need that was burning him up from the inside out.
In his condition, slow should be about all he could do, right?
Slow, slow, sl—
“Bryce Martin,” she gasped. Her hot breath fanned across his cheek in an urgent plea. She moaned low in her throat, curled her fingers into his shirt, kneaded his skin and demanded he give her what she wanted. “Ple
ase.”
No slow.
Who was he kidding? He had to be the man he was.
Bryce tunneled all ten fingers into her hair, forcing her head back into the basket of his hands so he could plunder her mouth. He thrust his tongue inside, finding hers, touching the tip, twirling them together. He snatched up handfuls of that liquid midnight hair and let the heavy tendrils sweep across his bare forearms, teasing him with dozens and dozens of tiny caresses.
He wanted to feel that hair brushing his naked chest. He wanted to see it fanned across a pristine white pillow while he went down on top of her.
“Tasiya.” He groaned her name into the silk at her temple, fighting for a deep breath to erase the images of sex and Tasiya and explosive heat that consumed him. He kissed her again, unable to resist her seeking lips.
She wanted more? He wanted everything.
He slid his fingers down through the length of her hair and discovered the silk didn’t end until he reached her waist. He splayed his fingers at the small of her back and tried to pull her closer. “Touch me.”
Wherever, however she wanted. He needed her to be feeling at least half of this crazy madness that was steaming out of his ears.
But her hands and arms were wedged between them, keeping them apart. Her fingers tangled in the canvas of his shirt, pulling it across a gash near his shoulder blade. He winced. She apologized.
“I do not know where—”
“I’m fine.” He reassured her with a kiss.
She trailed her fingers down the center of his chest, eliciting a groan of pleasure she mistook for another injury. “I am sorry.”
“No, honey. Don’t stop.” He kissed her again, desperate to reclaim her when she snatched her hands away. He could feel his energy ebbing as his frustration grew. But other forces were winging through his body now—adrenaline, desire—giving him a new source of strength and purpose.
She tapped at his shoulders, tugged at one sleeve, looking for purchase but afraid to touch. “I do not want to hurt y—”
“I won’t break. I promise.”
He took her arms and looped them around his neck. In the same fluid motion, he snugged his hands at her waist and walked into her, pressing their bodies together from chest to knee. Her breasts pillowed against him. He slipped his hands inside her sweater and ran his palms across her cool, smooth back. She wound her arms tighter, sparking a delicious friction between the pebbled tips of her breasts and the wall of his chest as she pulled herself up into his greedy kiss. Equals? Hell. He was playing catch-up.
She couldn’t hurt him. Not when it felt this good, this right to hold her in his arms. The only way she could hurt him now was to come to her senses and end the kiss.
Senses. Ah, damn. A nagging voice that had been with him a lot longer than this hunger for Tasiya reminded him of his mission. He tried to ignore the instincts that had been trained into him from the first day he’d enlisted in the army. The same creed he lived by now as a bounty hunter. The mission comes first. Your men are depending on you.
Bryce forgot all about even pretending he knew how to finesse a woman. Bracing a hand against the stones, he drove her back against the wall and wedged his thigh between hers in a desperate effort to ease the ache in every pore that had been ignited, and could only be assuaged by touching Tasiya—by absorbing her into his skin, his muscle, his heart.
She scraped her palms across the short hair at his nape and hummed in her throat as if the needy, coarse action somehow thrilled her. “Bryce Martin,” she gasped as he shamelessly rubbed himself against her womanly heat. “I have never—”
He stole her breath with another kiss. He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted her. He wanted to feel normal. He wanted to feel her passion. He wanted to pretend that this was real, that she’d be kissing him anywhere on the planet right now—not just in this desperate, hidden corner of the night where two solitary souls had no one else to turn to.
But the voice was insistent. You gotta do it, Sarge. Forget how good this feels, how bad you want this. Think. Do this before your strength gives out.
“Whoa.” What did she say? I have never? Did she mean—?
Get a grip on reality, Sarge.
“Whoa.” He whispered the word more firmly against her mouth, drawing on sheer will to turn his lips away from temptation. But burying his nose in the clean scent of her hair wasn’t much better for gathering his composure.
“Whoa.” He planted both feet flat on the ground and pulled his body away from hers, praying the damp ocean breeze would chill the air between them and cool him off fast.
“What is Whoa?” she asked on a breath as raspy and uneven as his own.
Bryce couldn’t pull away entirely. He wasn’t strong enough to do it. Not yet. His back ached, but there was something inside him hurtin’ even more. So he rested his forehead against hers, looking down into those beautiful eyes and kiss-swollen lips as he awkwardly straightened the clothes he’d nearly torn from her back. The stones were too hard, too cold for her tender skin. He pulled her away from the wall and retreated a step himself, finally letting go. He looked her straight in the eye. “It means we should stop. We can’t do this here. I can’t do this to you. Take a good look at my face, Tasiya. You don’t want to do this with me.”
She frowned at his crude speech. He didn’t mean to reject her or hurt her. He just wanted her to wise up. Devil’s Fork Island was too dangerous a place for either one of them to be distracted by false hopes or fairy-tale kisses.
She smoothed her hair as best she could after his hands had had their way with it. “I have never been kissed like that before.”
Join the club. But Bryce knew she was talking about being inexperienced when it came to getting hot and heavy with any man. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Shh.” Despite the innocence of her body, she smiled like a siren as she pressed gentle fingers over his sensitized lips. “Do not spoil it with an apology. I knew who you were when I kissed you. I looked into your eyes and knew that I would be safe. I am not sorry it happened.”
As stunned by her acceptance as he’d been by her enthusiastic, untutored response, Bryce could only turn and stare as she crossed to the cot and picked up his chains. “But it is late. I must go. You need your rest.”
He held out his wrists and let her snap them shut around him, transforming him from a man into a prisoner again.
But when she was done, she took the sting away by blessing him with a gorgeous smile. “Good night, Bryce Martin.”
He couldn’t help himself. This was as hard a goodbye as any he’d faced in his life. Without touching her in any other way, he bent his head and stole one more quick kiss. She wisely backed out and pulled the door shut before he could steal another.
With a definitive click, the steel bars locked into place. And after one last, searching look, she picked up her things and walked away.
“’Night,” he called after her, watching her every step of the way until the last flip of her skirt disappeared around the corner.
I am not sorry. Hell. She would be soon enough.
Every good, hopeful feeling she’d spawned inside him withered. Bryce cursed himself and turned away from the bars.
He pulled out the band of keys he’d stolen from her and unlocked the manacles from his wrists.
Chapter Eight
Tasiya wasn’t sure how it had happened—how thank-yous and comforts had escalated so quickly into a kiss that left her still shaky on her feet as she negotiated the shadowy passageways of the prison wing.
Clutching the water pitcher in the crook of her arm, she stuffed Bryce’s napkin into his metal cup and freed her hand to trail her fingertips along the slick, cold stones. That was all it took to recall how feverish she’d felt, pressed between the wall and Bryce’s hard body.
His needy hands in her hair and on the bare skin of her arms and back had been as sensuous as the raspy tickle of a cat’s tongue and as hungry as a ravenous lion. His mouth had been
gentle at first, then most insistent. Then he’d driven her absolutely mad with the need to learn how he elicited every tingle, every shaft of heat inside her. She’d been thrilled to discover that touching him, kissing him, striving to give him the same pleasure in return only intensified the experience for her.
She curled her fingers into her palms and hastened past the corridors leading to the other prison cells, hoping the aftershocks of those last few minutes in Bryce’s cell would dissipate before she reached the breezeway and ran the chance of bumping into one of the sentries posted outside.
But her breasts still felt heavy, and prickly at the tips. The intensity of Bryce’s need, and the power of her own body’s unexpected response, had frightened her at first. Then she couldn’t seem to get enough of the way he made her feel. Ultimately she’d been left feeling mysteriously incomplete when he had recluctantly but, oh, so sweetly ended the kiss.
Though it had angered her at first for Bryce to claim that she was kissing him just because she wanted to be with someone, she’d quickly seen through his self-effacing lecture. He was worried that he’d frightened her or had taken advantage. He didn’t believe anyone could see through his scars to the good man he was inside. That a woman, that she could want him.
Dimitri Mostek, with his handsome face and politic charm, had tried time and again to force a kiss, to seduce her. But though he’d said pretty things and offered her gifts, she’d never felt anything but revulsion for the man. She’d never once been tempted to offer him her trust or her body.
Bryce Martin, a wounded ogre of a man with kind eyes and a unique way with words, had nothing to give but his time and his patience. He spoke of things that made her dream of freedom from men like Mostek and Fowler and Marcus Smith, that made her feel better about who she was and the woman she could become. He listened when she talked. He cared that she was hurt and scared and alone.
And he kissed like…well, Tasiya had little to compare it to. But there was something raw and honest and very basic about Bryce Martin’s embrace. That immense physical strength, tempered by his determination to be gentle, then refined into desire in its purest form and focused on her, was enough to make any woman feel as if she was the sexiest, most beautiful woman on earth.
