An Officer and a Gentleman

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An Officer and a Gentleman Page 39

by Rachel Lee


  A shadow moved behind him, and then Xavier appeared at his shoulder. Jack’s expression became so swiftly, so carefully, blank that for a moment Sarah thought she’d imagined the cold fury in his eyes.

  “Eduard,” he called softly.

  The boy sat up, rubbing a hand over his face. “Sí?”

  “Xavier will take you and Eleanora and the children back to camp.”

  Both Sarah and the slope-shouldered rebel stared at him in surprise.

  “I will stay with the religiosa while she gathers the white fungus that she needs for treating fevers,” he said, in a low, deliberate tone that rasped along Sarah’s nerve endings. She didn’t understand why just the sound of his voice should suddenly make her so nervous.

  The guerrilla glanced from her to Jack, then shrugged and walked toward the boy. Sarah knew that the men weren’t quite sure about her relationship with the mercenary, but no one had challenged him or tried to molest her since the big, beefy lieutenant. After catching a glimpse of his face, Sarah wasn’t surprised.

  “Go with Xavier, Eduard.”

  The boy rose, clearly not happy at leaving them.

  “Now.”

  The absolute authority in the single syllable convinced Eduard. He walked over to Eleanora, who stood watching the scene with the children. Lifting Ricci onto his hip, Eduard turned without another word and started back down the trail. Eleanora hesitated, then took Teresa’s hand and followed silently.

  The small sounds they made as they left seemed unnaturally loud to Sarah. Teresa’s protest that she hadn’t finished making her cake echoed hollowly. Ricci’s sleepy murmur seemed to reverberate in Sarah’s ears. The flap of a toucanette’s wings as it soared off the branch Eleanora brushed against sounded like a rattle of distant thunder.

  Then there was only stillness.

  And Jack.

  He watched her with the silent intensity of a predator that had spotted its prey. Just as silently, he began to move toward her. His lean, taut body radiated an aura of barely leashed power.

  The nervous tension that had collected along Sarah’s nerve endings seemed to explode in tiny, stinging pinpricks. She tried to think of something to say to break the tense silence between them, but no words came.

  Never taking his eyes from her face, he circled the edge of the pool. Slowly, deliberately, he stalked her.

  With each step, Sarah felt the fluttering of some primitive inner fear. She wet her lips nervously, not understanding either his menacing approach or her reaction to it. The sunlight reflected from the pool cast his face in hard, uncompromising planes and angles. His eyes glittered with a fierce light that seemed to sear her skin wherever it touched. A maleness so raw, so potent, emanated from him that Sarah reacted instinctively.

  She whirled and tried to flee.

  Before she’d taken three steps, his fingers closed over her wrist and spun her around. She struggled against his hold, panting with fear and some indescribable, undefinable emotion.

  “Jack, what—what is it?”

  The noise he made far back in his throat sent ripples of sensation down Sarah’s spine. Without speaking, he pulled her slowly toward him.

  Sarah battled his hold, like a frightened creature staked out at the end of a rope. She resisted his pull with all her strength, but knew even before his other arm wrapped around her waist that it was hopeless.

  Still without saying a word, he hauled her up against him. His arm tightened, banding her, molding her. His free hand reached up and tore the veil away. Sarah gasped and flung her head back.

  “Jack, for God’s sake…”

  “Oh, no,” he snarled. “This is for my sake.”

  The hand tangled in the fall of her hair. Wrapping a length of it around his fist, he held her steady while his mouth took hers.

  There was no other way to describe it. Sarah had kissed and been kissed by her share of boys and men in her time. She been made love to by a skilled, considerate Frenchman. But she’d never felt so taken before. This was a kiss meant to dominate, to subdue, to possess. And it did.

  Thoroughly alarmed now and deeply ashamed of the liquid heat that rose inside her, Sarah wedged both hands against his chest. Using all her strength, she managed to lever her upper body a few inches away. She was bent backward over his arm and her hips were thrust intimately up against his, but at least she could see his eyes. What she saw in them made her heart trip.

  “What are you doing?” she panted. “Have you lost the last shred of decency you possessed? I’m a nun! A—a bride of Christ!”

  A sharp, slicing derision hardened his eyes to tempered steel. “Some bride,” he sneered. “No, don’t bother to protest. I know all about you, Sister Sarah.”

  “Wh-what do you know?”

  “I know that three months ago you were caught in bed with a French diplomat. A very married French diplomat.”

  Sarah felt the blood drain from her face.

  “I know that the wife who’d come to Washington to surprise him ended up being very surprised herself. She subsequently tried to OD on sleeping pills.”

  Sarah fought to force some sound out of her closed throat. “Jack, how did—?”

  Relentlessly he ignored her feeble whisper. “I also know that the son of a bitch returned to France with his wife. At which point the spoiled, pampered little socialite he’d been screwing felt so sorry for herself she went on a bender and slammed her Mercedes into a busload of Girl Scouts who were touring the capital.”

  For a bleak, endless moment, Sarah felt as though she were back in Washington. She cringed as she relived those moments of devastating shame when she’d realized that André had never told his wife he wanted a divorce, as he’d led her to believe. When his young wife’s shocked, stunned face had burned itself into her conscience forever.

  She could see again her father’s pain as he’d come to the darkened bedroom she’d retreated to, bringing her the news that Madame Foutier was in Georgetown Medical Center’s emergency room and had linked Sarah to her hysterical, sobbing suicide attempt.

  She saw the flash of cameras, heard the shouts of the reporters who’d dogged her every step for weeks, until she’d refused to leave the house. Until, finally, alcohol had brought a stupid, foolish bravado that made her say to hell with them.

  She gave a little moan as she heard the sickening sound of metal crunching and glass shattering.

  His arm tightened around her waist, bringing her up on her toes, until her face was within inches of his. “You want to tell me I’m mistaken, Sister Sarah? You want to deny that was your picture plastered across the front page of the Washington Post?”

  She wanted desperately to deny it. Staring up at his hard, chiseled face, she would have given her soul to deny it. Instead, she could only press her lips together and, to her shame, make a little whimpering sound far back in her throat.

  “Oh, no,” he growled. “Don’t get all white-faced and piteous on me. Not now. Not when we’ve got something to settle between us.”

  He loosened the fist that had tangled in her hair and released her. Sarah stumbled back a pace or two, her legs unsteady and her heart aching. She sucked in a long, ragged breath, then let it out again in a rush. Swallowing, she gaped as Jack began to unbutton his shirt. He shrugged out of it and tossed it onto the springy mat of ferns at his feet. His hands moved to the buckle that held the web belt slung low on his hips.

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  The belt thudded down on top of the shirt. “What does it look like?” He lifted a foot and planted it against a rock, bending to untie the laces.

  Sarah stared at his dark head, stunned. Her lips worked, but she couldn’t force any word out.

  One boot, then the other, followed the belt. He peeled off thick white socks and straightened.

  Sarah couldn’t breathe as she watched his hands work the fastening at his waist. A thousand tumultuous emotions surged through her—astonishment, incredulity, heart-hammering disbelief. But not fea
r. One small corner of her psyche noted that fact, and her rational mind grabbed it with both hands.

  “You won’t rape me,” she said, in a small, breathy voice. “Not after these past days together. I don’t know much about you, but I know that much. You won’t rape me.”

  His hands paused on the zipper. One corner of his lip lifted in a smile that made shivers race along Sarah’s nerve endings. “No, I won’t rape you. I won’t have to.”

  That stiffened her spine a little. She lifted her chin a small notch. “Listen, Mr. Macho Mercenary, you may think…”

  “Save it, Sister Sarah. I’ve done all the listening to you I’m going to do.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “I felt your heart thumping against my cheek when you held me last night.” His voice low and harsh, he stepped toward her. “I saw the look that flashed into your eyes when I held you.”

  Sarah stepped back.

  He took another forward. “I saw the way you displayed yourself to me a little while ago.”

  Heat surged into her face. She clenched her fists and refused to move another inch.

  “I didn’t know what it meant then, Sister Sarah, that little display of yours. Those tender little touches. Like a fool, a blind, stupid fool, I assumed your actions were those of a woman who didn’t know what she was doing to me. A woman who didn’t realize that her slightest touch made my nerves sizzle. That one look from those eyes of yours tied my gut into knots.”

  Sarah’s stomach did a little twist of its own at his admission. “Jack…”

  The single word hung on the air between them. He stopped a heartbeat away from her, his face stark, his mouth grim, waiting for her to say more. When she didn’t, something flared in his eyes that Sarah couldn’t even begin to interpret.

  “I held myself on so short a leash these past days I was almost doubled over with it,” he said slowly, “and all the time you were playing with me. Well, Sarah Chandler, it’s time to stop playing.”

  Sarah held her breath.

  “Put your arms around me.”

  The soft, steely command surprised her. And aroused her as nothing else could have. She’d known deep within her heart that he wouldn’t force her, but only this hard-edged mercenary would stand there and expect her to initiate her own seduction.

  No, it wouldn’t be a seduction. With a deep, visceral sureness, Sarah knew that if she touched him, the small, steady fire he seemed to have sparked within her would leap into flame and consume her. Consume them both.

  In that moment, she felt the need to strip away all pretense between them. She wouldn’t lie to him anymore.

  She wet her lips and gave the only answer she could. “I…I don’t know if I want this, Jack.”

  A muscle twitched in one side of his jaw. “Put your arms around me and find out.”

  For what seemed like an eternity, Sarah didn’t move. She tried to deny the desire that arced between them like summer lightning slicing through a hot, sultry night. She tried to tell herself that she despised this man, this hard, unyielding man who called to the primitive and elemental in her.

  But she refused to lie to herself any longer. Or to him. Swallowing, she lifted a trembling hand. Her fingers grazed the warm, rounded muscle of his chest. Her other hand lifted to join the first. Flattening her palms, she slid them upward. The light dusting of chest hair teased her fingertips. The strong column of his neck shaped her hands.

  Sarah gave a little sigh of surrender and stepped forward. Her breasts brushed his chest, their nipples peaking with the rasp of the scratchy black robe. The flame flickering deep within her gathered heat and intensity. Wrapping her arms tighter around his neck, she brought his mouth down to hers.

  Any vague idea that he would hold back and make her pay for the way she’d supposedly teased him vanished immediately. At the touch of their lips, Jack’s arms banded her waist once more. He shifted his stance and brought her into hard, intimate contact with his hips. Through the fullness of her robe, Sarah felt his rigid member leap against her stomach, even as his mouth slanted more fully over hers. His lips took her touch and gave it back, magnified a hundredfold. Firm, warm, slick, they fueled Sarah’s own need.

  Straining, she arched against him. His hand slid down to cup her breast. He mounded it in his palm, shaping it, kneading it through the rough fabric that covered it. His handling added to the friction that made her taut nipple ache.

  Leaving one arm curled around his neck and her lips molded to his, Sarah ran her other hand over his shoulders, his arm, his ribs. His skin burned under her fingers. She stroked and kneaded it with the same intense, exploratory touch he gave her breast. When her hand slid down and encountered the waistband of his pants, Sarah went crazy with the need to get rid of all barriers between them.

  She pushed herself out of his arms. They stood for a moment, their breath harsh and ragged on the air, their eyes hot and wild. Then Sarah’s hands lifted to the top fastening of her habit.

  “No, let me.” His hands brushed hers aside. A slow, sardonic grin twisted his lips. “You have no idea how many times I’ve fantasized about doing this.”

  Sarah bit her lip to still the quivers that raced through her as he unfastened the hooks, one by one, then pushed the heavy weight off her shoulders. It slipped down her arms, caught for a moment on the stiff peaks of her nipples, then slithered over her hips. She stood before him, clad only in her still-damp bikini briefs.

  He swallowed, raking her with his eyes. “You mean that’s all you’ve been wearing under that robe?”

  Sarah felt pinpoints of fire everywhere his gaze lingered. “This is what I was was wearing under my sleep shirt the night of the raid. I…I didn’t have time to do anything except yank off the shirt and pull on the habit.”

  “I’m sure glad I didn’t know that. I lost enough sleep trying not to think about what was under those folds of material as it was.”

  Sarah gave a strangled laugh and stepped toward him. “I’ve lost a little sleep myself the past few nights.”

  She reached out and traced a finger down the line of soft, springy hair. His stomach muscles jumped under her touch.

  “You’ve no idea how much I’ve fantasized about this,” she whispered.

  The small sound broke the last of Jack’s restraints. With a smothered groan, he pulled her to him. Mouths hard against each other, they sank to their knees. His weight tumbled Sarah over onto her back, then crushed her into the bed of ferns. Within moments, they’d shed the last of his clothes.

  Sarah matched him kiss for kiss, stroke for stroke. When his knee pried her legs apart and his hand tangled in the curls at the juncture of her thighs, she arched upward, seeking his touch. Hot, slick wetness eased the way for the fingers he slid into her. Sarah moaned as he stroked and primed her. Her hand closed around his satiny shaft, priming him, as well.

  Jake felt her caress and willed himself not to explode in her hand. He’d never felt a need so great, or such a savage desire to possess a woman. No, not any woman. This woman. Sarah.

  He raised himself up on one elbow and stared down into her flushed face. If he’d allowed his fantasies full rein, if he hadn’t always jerked himself up short whenever the insidious need for Sarah spiraled in his groin, he would have imagined taking her here, like this. With her shining, spun-gold hair spread out against the lush green of the ferns. Her eyes wide, and shimmering with the same incredible blue-green as the pool. Her lips red and swollen. Her skin flushed with need. For all her delicate beauty, Sarah responded with a primal, elemental directness to his touch. The sight of her sent a shaft of fierce male satisfaction shooting through him.

  Although… Jake had spent half his life in the jungle. It occurred to him that he’d never seen anything as beautiful or as pagan as the woman who stared up at him.

  That was his last rational thought. Suddenly fiercely impatient, Sarah curled both arms around his neck and brought him down to her. Jake needed no further prompting. Spreading her l
egs farther, he reached down to position himself, then thrust forward.

  Sarah arched her neck and gasped at the intrusion. Within seconds, her tight sheath had fit itself to him, and she gave herself up to the slow pace Jake set. His deliberate approach didn’t last long. Her muscles gripped him, almost shredding the last of his control. He gritted his teeth and reached down between their sweat-slick bodies. His hand found the small, hard bud at her center.

  Moments, or maybe hours, later, Sarah felt her climax coming. She groaned, arching under him. A slow, dark wave swept up her belly, then receded. Another followed, and then another, until they washed over her in a sudden rush of pure, shattering sensation.

  Before the spasms of pleasure subsided, Jack’s weight crushed down on her. He shoved his fingers through the hair on either side of her head, held her steady while his mouth plundered hers, and thrust into her. Seconds, or maybe years, later, he followed her over the edge.

  Chapter 10

  Sarah had never experienced such shattering intimacy. Nor, she admitted in startled surprise, such a swift transition from all-consuming passion to intense, immediate alertness.

  The dark head that had been buried in the juncture of her neck and shoulder lifted suddenly. Eyes narrowed, Jack stared at the narrow path from the camp. Before Sarah could gather her uneven breath to ask what was the matter, he’d rolled off her, scooped up his pants, and pulled them on.

  “Get dressed.”

  The low command and the smooth, efficient way Jack slid the .45 out of its holster had Sarah scrabbling for her clothes. She pulled them on with fumbling fingers, then snatched up her veil.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure. Get behind me and keep quiet.”

  Her heart pounding, Sarah complied. She didn’t much care for Jack’s peremptory habit of ordering people around, but in this instance she decided not to take issue with it.

 

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