by Shirl Anders
“Good God, Chloe, I am right here,” Raven rasped. “Hush, baby girl, I am here. You’re dreaming.”
Chloe sobbed as her eyes popped open and she shoved on Raven’s muscular chest. It was as though she were breaking through the crest of a wave as she sat upright and began gasping. Her mind did not fully comprehend that she was gaping at Raven, when she cried, “Did they rape me? I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Jesus,” Raven expelled.
It was at that moment that Chloe realized where she was and what she might have said. Nausea overwhelmed her in an instant and she slapped her hand over her mouth as she tumbled off the bed trying to find the chamber pot quickly! Sometime during her violent retching Raven was there helping her, holding her up until she sagged weakly unable to heave anymore even though her senses rolled unsteadily. Raven lifted her and carried her to the bed laying her down, and then going to find a cool damp linen which he pressed to her temple.
“You are loose,” she murmured stupidly
Incredibly Raven smiled. A smile unlike any she had ever seen before on his chiseled aristocratic face. It was genuine and warm and it even deepened the color of his black irises. “Actually, Chloe, I was in the midst of a fierce temper tantrum, because I had just discovered that you have stranded us here.”
Chloe watched Raven’s lips with each word, then she barely whispered, “You were trying to leave?”
“No, Chloe,” he murmured as he stroked her cheek. “Not without you. But I needed to show you that I could. Only it seems that you are one step ahead of me.”
Chloe did not understand what Raven was saying and the gaps frightened her again. She rolled onto her side away from him with a small moan. “Leave if you wish. I will tell you how. I won’t hold you here.”
“Not now, Chloe. Now you need to tell me if you still feel ill.”
“Yes,” she hissed lowly.
“Just now or has it happened before?” Raven asked, smoothing the hair back from her ear.
“Two days . . . mornings.” Chloe realized at just that moment that it was morning. She had slept the entire night . . . and Raven had gotten loose, gotten dressed. Now he wanted to leave.
“Then we need to get you to a doctor,” Raven began.
“No!” she exclaimed. Sitting upright and swaying before Raven steadied her. “It passes. It is only the nightmares,” she finished on a murmur into Raven’s shoulder from where he held her.
“Chloe,” Raven expelled roughly, grasping her face between his big hands, but his touch was gentle as he made her look at him. Look at his intense, sharp black eyes. “They did not rape you. Do you understand, no one raped you?”
“They didn’t,” Chloe whispered with tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. “The opium. I could not remember, Raven.”
“Sweetheart,” he uttered emotionally, and then he pulled her back into his warm safe embrace where she clung to him. “I will tell you all that I know happened, Chloe. But first we need to take you to a doctor . . .”
“No!” Chloe exclaimed, wiggling away from him.
“But you just said, Chloe, that I could . . .”
“I have changed my mind,” Chloe interrupted blithely, while holding her stomach and glaring at him. “I do that a lot lately,” she finished with an impatient wave of her hand.
She knew what she needed she needed some dry crackers and hot tea. It had worked the other two mornings that she’d been sick after her nightmares. She certainly did not like the way Raven was staring at her with his hard chin flattening arrogantly. He was about to become the master again and she could not have that . . . yet.
“I cannot argue when I feel so sick, Raven. At least bring me some hot tea and crackers. It has helped before.”
Surprising to her, he did it without any more argument and when he came back with the tea and dry crackers, she boldly asked him for hot water for a bath. It was interesting to watch him at those domestic duties . . . interesting and soothing somehow. She had not known that Raven could brew tea and heat hot water for bathing. Most nobles were inept at such menial labor.
“I have not given up,” he said as he stood beside the small copper tub he had filled with steaming water.
“I know, Raven,” she replied lightly, swinging her legs off the bed. She felt much better now after a cup of tea and four of the dry crackers. Even better it seemed because the burden of what had happened to her at Kant’s hands had been lifted from her confusion. She had not expected to feel such relief, but she did because that meant that Raven had not left her because she had been used and raped. He had other reasons. She wondered what they were, even as she felt hope because she might be able to guess what they were.
She walked over to him slowly and turned her back to him. “Could you help me with the hooks, Raven?” she asked sweetly.
Raven growled just a bit in the back of his throat, and then put his fingers on her back. Chloe smiled. She had not known whether he would stay or leave for her bath. The Raven she knew would stay. After he unhooked her gown, he retreated to a chair by the blazing fire he had built in the fireplace. She did not turn but slowly removed her clothing. The gown first then her chemise slithered slowly over her hips. She was naked except for her stockings and garters. The room was silent except for an occasional pop from the fire until she lifted one foot to prop it on the edge of the brass tub, and then she bent over slowly to remove her stocking.
Raven’s harsh intake of breath sounded behind her and she peeked over her shoulder at him. “What are you doing, baby girl?” he asked in a strained rasp.
“Only getting ready for my bath, of course,” she answered demurely innocent. Rising then to switch legs and bend over again. “You did not offer to help me so I must do it myself,” she finished.
“What I find amazing, Chloe, is that you would flirt with me at all,” Raven said lowly.
Chloe turned to face him, fully nude now in the firelight. “Flirting, Raven? I have never flirted with anyone before.” She stepped into the tub. “I believe I like it.” She paused. “With you.”
Raven looked abruptly angry, possibly betrayed, and then he looked down at his hands. “Not even with Sebastian’s father, Chloe? Surely you flirted with him?”
He meant to hurt her, Chloe thought, he meant to try and push her away. Perhaps he was being noble? Yes, her Raven was being noble, saving her from herself, he thought. Still, he did not realize what they had found together was so rare, and so special. She could not conceive of being anything else but Raven’s woman . . . and yes, his sexual slave, always . . . of the heart, mind, and body. She trusted him with it all and loved him.
Chloe slowly dipped a hand down into the steamy water. “I never flirted with Sebastian’s father. It was a desperate thing between us. People were dying all around us in the war. I was losing the plantation. I could not hold onto it because of the war. Robert, which was his name, Robert Talbert. Robert was part of Massachusetts’ militia. That is where my stepfather built his plantation after he retired.”
“You are American,” Raven said.
“Practically, we lived there for ten years before my stepfather died of old age. He had been much older than my mother when they married. But I lived in Paris when I was a baby. I don’t remember it, and then Hong Kong, England, and eventually America. I only left Massachusetts because I lost the plantation in the war and I was pregnant. I came back to England because my stepfather had left me some property here.”
“Ambassador Sang,” Raven said.
“Yes, that was my stepfather,” Chloe replied picking up a small bar of soap from the stool beside the tub. “I know you want to ask, Raven, please do,” she finished on a murmur.
“And, Lia?” he asked in a harsh rasp.
Chloe sighed. Lia had hurt her in so many ways but perhaps just this once she had given her a greater gift than all the pain put together. “We were separated when we were but two years old. Lia stayed with our father and I was left with our mother. Li
a has always resented that.”
Raven stood abruptly and turned toward the fire. His scarred hands were clenched at his sides. “You really are Ambassador Sang’s daughter,” he uttered.
“Stepdaughter,” Chloe murmured as she watched Raven stalk from the room.
Chapter Nineteen
Chloe was pregnant and did not realize it! Harrison slammed his fist into the bark of the tree he stood next to outside the cottage. He bit back his sharp cry of pain as he did it again. He knew every inch of Chloe’s body . . . every nuance. From her slightly bulged stomach to her heavier breasts. She was pregnant. And the child was his.
He wanted to rage. He wanted to cry . . . damn him, he wanted to hope. He looked down at his bruised knuckles then upward through the trees surrounding the cottage. Why would she flirt with him? Why would she blatantly display herself to his lecherous gaze? Did she not remember what he had done to her in the carriage? He had been so angry. So jealous. He had nearly raped her, and then he had let down his control and lost her when he should have kept her safe. Christ, she had nightmares because of it.
“Raven, I have cooked us lunch,” Chloe called suddenly from the cottage doorway behind him. “I can cook you know. I love to cook. Come see.”
Harrison slowly turned to look at Chloe dressed in a simple yellow gown. No bare shoulders or plunging necklines, and she had never looked lovelier. What was she doing? As a matter of course he started toward her. He was hungry, and he could not have gone in any other direction had he tried.
It was incredible. Chloe must have cooked some of the food beforehand. The soufflé and the crispy white bread, surely. When she reached to pour him some wine, he covered the top of the glass with his hand. “Not wine, Chloe.” He looked at her glass across the table. “What are you having?”
“Lemonade.”
“That will do,” he murmured. She looked at him in wonder yet stepped back into the kitchen to bring him a cold glass of lemonade. He owed her . . . he knew. “I have quit drinking,” he muttered.
Chloe set the glass down and went to sit. “Liquor, Raven? You have quit drinking liquor?”
“Yes,” he muttered uneasily, glancing at her before he turned to the meal.
“I see,” she murmured, and then she began to attack her meal with gusto.
It appeared her nausea from earlier was gone. Morning sickness! He could not help but be amused as he covertly watched her eat, she particularly liked the chocolate soufflé she served with the roast beef. Only Chloe appeared to like the chocolate with small dill pickles. She did not touch the roast beef and he could not imagine the combination with lemonade. Yet she did, consume all three . . . heartily and nothing else.
“He died you know,” Chloe said popping a chunk of dill pickle into her mouth. “Robert that is. I did not say earlier.”
“I gathered. You said, was.”
“Oh I did, didn’t I,” she reached for more chocolate soufflé, before she said, “We only had three nights. I am not sure we even liked each other. We simply did not know each other really. It was impulse. He was a soldier and I-”
“You do not have to tell me,” Harrison interrupted glancing at her.
“I know, Raven. It is just that . . .” Chloe paused, looking at him intently with her incredibly beautiful brown eyes. “I wanted to tell you. And I know that you want to know.”
“How could you think you know me?” he asked roughly.
“Because I love you!” she suddenly exclaimed, and then at that same moment she stood abruptly to walk into the kitchen.
Harrison was stunned. Shocked. He swallowed hard on a piece of roast beef, grabbing his glass of lemonade. She loved him? But? Harrison came to his feet at once and strode to the kitchen . . . however, Chloe was gone.
He found her a short time later at a small stream fifty paces behind the cottage. He found her in the stream actually with bare toes and the skirts of her yellow gown pulled up above her knees. She was a golden nymph with dappled sunlight dancing off her beauty as it filtered through the leafy trees. He had never wanted anything more. Nor had he been more afraid in his life. He hesitated on the mossy bank of the stream with the sudden overwhelming surety that he did not belong in Chloe’s sunlight dream. Inevitably he would darken any dream that she . . .
“And you love me too, Raven,” Chloe called out turning to him. It was a challenge yet in the depths of her melting brown eyes he saw her certainty, and impossibly her joy.
“Yes,” he expelled in a harsh rasp, feeling as though that singular word were torn from his soul. “Yet I would destroy you. I...”
“Would you, Raven? Destroy me how?”
“My cravings,” he spewed harshly. “I need... Christ, I need...”
“My love. My submission. My embrace. My obedience? Never once, Raven, have you harmed me,” she paused. “Yet you have given me the most extraordinary pleasures. And I ask you now after I have declared my love for you. What of my cravings, Raven, for I am truly lost without you and I would beg . . . no, I would crawl for...”
“Damnation,” Raven cursed fiercely, abruptly cutting off her words before she could finish voicing the damning prediction that he had made so long ago to her. “Never, Chloe,” he hissed. “I would crawl first. Never you.”
“Then this means that you will not send me away, or leave me again,” she replied with an instant smile of feminine triumphant.
Harrison grasped it immediately, and with shocking relief that he was neatly trapped, tied up in a simple yet elegant package. Chloe had maneuvered him unerringly right into the position that she wanted him to be in. Christ, he loved her, and it appeared that she loved him as well. He did smile then, a dangerous smile filled with intent, love, and the immediate heightening of his sexual desire. Chloe gazed at him hesitantly, instantly demure. “Raven?” she questioned with the tip of her small pink tongue wetting her lips.
He began taking off his jacket “Bare your breasts to me, Chloe. I want to see you naked in that stream.” He watched Chloe blushing, looking timid to his command as he reached for the laces on his shirt tugging them open. “Now, baby girl, or I will come into that stream after you.”
The thrill of his words and intentions coursed through his veins. The fact that Chloe was his, and she wanted to be his, humbled him, yet excited him, because she had proclaimed her love, and then bravely proclaimed her cravings that matched his. She wanted to submit to him, it aroused her as it did him and it filled him with completion, and beyond that an unwavering trust in her. He would be the master, her master . . . her love.
Chloe’s slightly slanted almond-shaped eyes peeked at him as she let the yellow skirts of her gown fall into the stream swirling around her ankles and she reached for the bodice of her gown. He stopped at his pants leaving them for the moment as he brazenly gazed at her, still hesitating, then he marched into the stream after her. She squealed of course and stumbled backward before he caught her. “I believe you need to be reminded, my love, that I will have my way,” he uttered, wrestling her into turning until her spine was caught against his bare chest. “With you,” he finished.
Chloe squirmed against him enchantingly with her sleek black hair mingling with the curling hairs on his chest. Her buttocks through her skirts did erotic things to his stiffening dick as he held her captured with his forearm, and then with his free hand he began hauling up her skirts. Chloe’s struggle against him was not of escape or defiance but of sexual arousal. Her femininity commanded that he take her, force her to surrender her arousal to him. This is what excited her. This is what freed her.
She was naked beneath her skirts and the discovery provoked him hotly, yet he clamped down on his own spiraling desires. He intended to take his woman mercilessly there in the sunlight, in the stream, to start with. His hand found her hungry cunt, already slick with eagerness.
“Raven, I need you so,” she gasped with the back of her head twisting restlessly against his collarbone while she clutched his wrist between her thigh
s not in forbearance but with urgency. He unveiled the shameless thrust of her clit with his two outside fingers and brought his middle finger down to bare over the hungry begging protrusion.
“Please, please,” she moaned even as he lifted his knee between her legs from behind to splay her thighs wider and open her more to his fingering. Her unbridled response to him was thrilling.
“Show me your breasts, baby girl,” he uttered gruffly. “I want to see your hard little nipples”
“Yes, Raven,” she cried. “Oh yes, anything!” Her hands frantically tugged at her bodice until her breasts were bared into the sunlight. The thrusting pink spikes of her nipples were bold with arousal, so tight they poked outward like small rosy-pink spears.
“Play with your breasts, Chloe,” he commanded. “Pluck those shameless little nipples. Let me see you.”
“My one,” she gasped with her hands cupping her breasts raising them upward as her head twisted from side to side on his chest and the backs of her thighs quivered uncontrollably over his leg. He flicked his finger faster over her jutting clit. “Oh!” she cried as she played with her breasts, lifting and fondling them, then wildly plucking the aroused spikes.
Christ, his woman was passionate beyond belief. Just for him, he thought heatedly, only for him. “Raven, I need you. I need you!” she cried and even though he knew she was senseless in the throes of passion, the desperation in her voice alarmed him.
So much so he rasped harshly, “Chloe, I am here. I will always be here for you, baby girl.”
“Oh-oh! Oh!” she cried sharply, convulsing against him like the rushing water of the stream at their feet. He felt the pulse beat wildly in her clit as she held her breasts in both hands with her graceful neck arched backward. He knew this moment as sure as his own breathing, and he caught her as she gave one last gasp of pleasure, and then she fell limp into his arms.
That he could do this to her, that she gave herself so freely, and that he could arouse her so strongly as to faint with pleasure was arrogantly fulfilling. Yet even as he carried Chloe out of the stream to lay her down upon his discarded clothing, he set that arrogance aside. Shoved it aside as the many niggling worries that something was not right with his love came around full circle in his mind.
