by Nikita Black
When she woke, the clock had advanced a couple hours. She glanced around. Jacque had put the laptop away and was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her moodily. There was a half-full glass in his hand and a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the table next to him. She checked the clock again. Barely noon.
She looked at him and he stared back, his sullen mien daring her to speak. His beautiful, sculpted lips were poised in an arrogant snarl, his sexy mustache drooped sinisterly, his broad shoulders were hunched in a surly slouch. Oh, dear.
"I need to pee," she croaked past the foreboding lodged in her throat, hoping to throw him off whatever he was contemplating.
She should have known he wouldn't miss a beat. As if he'd been expecting her request, he rose and walked to the bed, released her cuff and stepped aside. She hurried past him into the bathroom and turned to shut the door.
He blocked it. Handing her a small box, he planted his feet firmly across the threshold and crossed his arms over his massive chest.
The box was a pregnancy test. Her eyes shot to his. He gazed back at her impassively.
"Okay," she said nervously. She didn't know what she'd do if it was positive, but it was best to know either way. "Good idea." She waited for him to leave, but he didn't move. "What? Are you going to watch?" she asked, scandalized.
"Jus' makin' sure you tell me the truth."
Stung, she lifted her chin. "I've never lied to you, Jacque. I never would. It wouldn't be right."
For a moment, he appeared taken aback and, for a split second, guilty, then his face resumed its scornful expression. "Let's jus' get dis over with, eh?"
Determined not to be embarrassed, she ripped open the package, glanced over the instructions and sat down. Glaring mutinously into his eyes, she did the deed. Holding her breath, she lifted the stick so they could both see it. She couldn't explain the illogical disappointment that filled her when she realized it was negative.
She covered it quickly with a veil of triumph. "There! You see? I told you it was the wrong time of month."
She thought Jacque would be relieved. Instead, his glower grew darker and more menacing. "Dese things, they're wrong all the time," he hissed. With a curse, he spun and strode away.
Since he seemed inclined to leave her alone, she seized the opportunity to shower and brush her teeth. When she emerged, she felt renewed and in a much better mood.
Too bad he wasn't. Face like a thundercloud, he'd taken his place at the kitchen table, and already the level of the bottle at his elbow had lowered.
She glanced at the sofa. "I don't suppose you'd let me—"
"Not a chance, ma femme. Back in bed." He rousted himself from the table and herded her to the bed. "In."
After he'd locked the cuff back onto her wrist, with a grunt, he tossed her a book she hadn't noticed sitting on the nightstand.
Laurell K. Hamilton. An erotic romance about a captive lover she'd read a few years. She almost choked. "Just happened to have this in your collection?"
"Non. A wedding present from Lisette."
Figured. The woman had a warped sense of humor. "Be sure and thank her for me."
She settled down to read the story of a kidnapped woman who falls in love with her sexy captor while Jacque returned to the kitchen. Immediately, he started banging pots and pans, throwing ingredients into three separate sauce pans and cursing a blue streak. At least she assumed it was cursing since he muttered exclusively in Cajun so she couldn't understand more than the odd word.
He pointedly ignored her, but she had an inkling it wasn't his cooking he was swearing about.
Continuing to refill his glass with bourbon, his bad mood escalated until, finally, he threw a pan full of dark sauce out the door and into the bayou.
"I'm goin' fishin'."
With that, he stomped outside. A minute later, the sound of bare feet slapped to the end of the jetty and the quiet plink of a glass float hit the water. She knelt in bed and peered through the front door, and was just able to see him, lying with his back on the wooden planks and his feet dangling over the side, tipping a bottle into his mouth.
Well, she hoped the local fish species went for kebab sauce and bourbon.
***
"Fucking hell. I'm a goddamn fucking idiot," Jacque told a seagull patiently watching him re-bait his hook from a few feet away.
Fucking woman. What was with him anyway?
She'd completely ruined his objectivity, his composure and his life. What right did she have to mess with his mind? He'd only been interested in her body. When had that changed?
He shook his head woozily and recast the line into the water, leaned back and took another swill from the bottle.
Bon Dieu. When had he fallen in love with the obnoxious fille? Obsession he could handle. Love was quite another matter.
He groaned deeply, bemoaning his cursed luck with females with another streak of French invective. It didn't change things, but it made him feel marginally better. He'd been feeling like shit all day.
Because he knew what he had to do.
How had everything gone so wrong so fast? What he'd envisioned as a cozy week of mindless sex had turned into something very different. He was engaged in the battle of his life. One, it seemed, he was about to lose.
She didn't want to stay. She didn't want to love him. She didn't want to be his wife.
She didn't love him. But he loved her.
So he had to do the right thing. Regardless of the cost to his own heart.
He gave a long sigh, letting all his longing and disappointment sough out with it. Damn. Fucking damn.
He had to let her go.
Chapter Eleven
It was almost dark by the time Jacque returned. Clouds hung low and black over the swamp, threatening to burst into a torrent of heavy rain. The air was thick with honeysuckle-scented moisture along with the sizzling tension that arced between Sahara and Jacque.
Sahara followed his impatient movements as he prepared supper from some huge, ugly fish he'd caught, swallowing a sigh when he continued to pointedly ignore her.
She didn't like it this way between them. She was tempted to promise not to escape again, just to see his handsome smile once more.
During supper, she tried speaking with him, complimenting his cooking, talking about the rainstorm that had begun to plink on the metal roof and splash through the screen door. Anything to draw him out of his foul mood. But he just glowered and sucked down the last of the bourbon as he ate and cleaned up the dishes. Then he spent an hour glaring at her from his roost at the kitchen table.
Rain water pooled on the floor in front of the door and windows, but Jacque didn't seem to notice, his eyes glued on her every move as she tried to read. Her nerves became jumpier for every minute that ticked by.
A bolt of lightning cracked, thunder exploding so loudly that she cried out in fright. Before the echoes had died, Jacque rose to his feet and began stalking the bed where she sat shivering, ripping off and discarding his clothes as he went.
He was wickedly, brazenly aroused.
She gasped. It was all too clear what he intended to do.
She scuttled backwards, but he easily caught her and yanked her across the mattress, instantly pinning her beneath his large, muscular body. His black eyes stared down at her, male and ravenous. A rush of conflicting emotions surged through her.
"I can make you do anything I want," he declared in a voice razor-sharp with cruel certainty.
"Yes." It was true in so many ways it scared her.
Rain pelted the roof. Wet wind whipped through the trees, and the shack creaked and vibrated under nature's onslaught. The smell of ozone mingled with the sweet, fecund odors of the swamp. Even the insects ceased to hum. But all Sahara was aware of was Jacque's weight pressing hotly into her.
His mouth came down hard on hers, crushing her lips, his tongue the front line in his battle to conquer her. Her chain tinkled merrily as she grasped his shoulders, incongruous against
the ferocity of his assault.
He grabbed her hands and held them in an iron grip over her head, thrusting a knee between her thighs. His free hand seized her breast, kneading it to swollen, stunning attention. Another bolt of lightning lit the room. His mouth plundered as thunder rattled the copper pots hanging against the wall. She moaned, writhing beneath him, unsure whether it was a moan of protest or encouragement.
He was rough. Very rough. She was already panting from her efforts to resist him, calm him down. But the more she struggled, the hotter he got. He laid bruising kisses down her neck, to her breasts, suckling furiously. He bit her tender flesh and she cried out.
"Jacque! No—"
"Shut up," he growled. "Don' talk, jus' fuck."
He let go of her wrists and ran his hands over her, feeling her, grasping her, claiming her. She'd never witnessed such torrential emotion as poured forth from his hands and mouth as he subdued her. Their bodies, sweat-slicked from the humid, blistering heat, slid together erotically, skin to skin.
She grabbed his hair and hung on. "No!" she repeated, more urgently.
"Yes," he snarled.
Suddenly, she realized she was pulling him closer, making fervent, needy sounds, urging his hands with sinuous movements against them.
Oh, Lord! She liked it.
She was horrified. And hopelessly excited. There was no doubt in her mind what he'd do to her. The thought of being overpowered by this huge male, taken against her will and forced to accept him into her body, thrilled her with an electricity that shocked her to the quick. With anyone else, she would have been sick with nausea, but with Jacque she felt inexplicably safe. Desired, rather than violated. Taken in a brute excess of love, not antagonism.
"Spread your legs for me," he commanded harshly.
"No!" She fought him, caught in her dangerous fantasy. "You can't make me," she spat, wanting nothing more than for him to do exactly that. Her body was a bundle of nettles, stinging with arousal, dancing with spikes of desire. "If you want me, you'll have to force me!"
"You're my wife. Do as I say!"
The sky turned bright orange and a pylon at end of the dock splintered in a deafening shower of sparks. Lightening licked along the jetty toward the gallery, burning in a flash of smoke and flame at the very door to the cabin.
Jacque was wild as the storm. Her parries were ineffectual pitted against his superior size and strength. He easily parted her thighs and moved between them. She bucked, playing it to the hilt. Wetness drenched her between her legs, her breasts burned for his touch. Goosebumps shivered across her whole body, sending hot chills through her bones. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for his brutal entry.
"Look at me," he rumbled, dark as the thunder. "Open your eyes and look at the man who possesses you."
She squeezed her eyes tighter and shook her head. "No," she whimpered, about to explode from wanting him inside her. "I won't."
"Putain."
Her eyes sprang open at the insult. "I am what you've made me, Jacque."
And she loved every bit of it. The freedom he'd bequeathed with his teachings was as breathtaking as the storm raging around them.
Suddenly, he let out a scorching curse and reared off her, rolling to the end of the bed. He sat there, holding his head and swearing. "Merde."
"What's wrong?" she asked, stunned by his mercuric desertion. Her body protested, aching, devastated by the absence of his enveloping heat. She sat up and laid an uncertain hand on his shoulder, only to be violently shaken off.
"Don't!"
"But—"
"Don' touch me, Sahara, unless you want me to finish what I started. And it won' be pretty." He stabbed his fingers through his long hair.
She settled behind him, not daring to reach out. "That's a matter of opinion..."
He turned, pinioning her with anguished eyes, black and hollow as the deepest abyss. "You wanna be raped, woman?"
Outside, the wind died to a whisper and the rain slowed.
"It's not rape if the woman wants it," she said into the sudden quiet.
He stared at her, long and hard, searching her face, as though trying to comprehend what was happening between them. Slowly, cautiously, she laid her fingers on his biceps. Her chain stretched taut, preventing her from going any further. She leaned over and tenderly kissed his shoulder, rubbing her cheek lightly over his sweat-sheened skin.
"I don' understand, darlin'. What are you sayin'?"
She bit her lip and cast her eyes downward. "I wanted... that is, I thought..." Her head wobbled and he grasped her cheeks between his hands, forcing her to look at him.
"Thought what, chère?"
"I thought you needed me to fight you. Almost as much as I needed you to win."
Understanding slowly crystallized in his eyes. "Oh, baby. Mon coeur. I don' deserve you." He swept her into his arms, lowering them to the bed. "I've been such a bastard. I'm so sorry."
Before she could draw breath he was over her, thrusting his silken length deep inside her.
Oh, yes! This was what she wanted. To feel him all around her, volcanic in his heat and power, singeing her to her toes with his molten body. No man had ever made her feel this way, so complete, so transformed by his love that she'd be so much less than herself without him.
She wrapped herself around him, buried herself under him, and let herself be conquered by his searing passion. "Jacque, I need you so."
She gave into him. All of him. And knew she'd never be the same.
She loved him. Purely and simply. And she'd do anything for him. Anything. Including staying in this dreadful swamp, if that's what he wanted.
She smiled, and knew her life had just altered irrevocably. She'd come full circle. She'd come home. Suddenly, she didn't care what people thought of her, of how she and her man lived. Finally…finally, she understood what had driven her mother to stay with her father all those years.
Love. The purest, most exquisite form of selfless love.
"I'd never hurt you," he whispered, holding her as close as a man could hold a woman, joined in a union as old as the universe. "I'd kill myself first."
"I know." Her certainty must have shone in her tear-filled eyes, because when he searched them, he smiled, too.
He moved then, loving her with a patience that took her breath away, with a tenderness that made her heart weep for joy. She lost herself in the feel of him surrounding her, in the bliss of belonging to this wonderful man.
He loved her completely, taking command in a much different way than he had earlier. He lavished her with soft, languid kisses, long, caressing strokes of his hand, slick thrusts of his opulent length. When, after seemingly hours, they climaxed together, it wasn't with the usual fast, furious tumult, but with a deep, intense, endless rapture.
"I love you," she whispered as she fell asleep, still tucked under him in his warm embrace.
And in her dream he answered softly, "Et je t'aime, ma douce amie."
***
I love you.
The words echoed in Jacque's soul, bringing elation and torment at the same time.
She loved him. Sahara, his own sweet love.
She loved him, but would she stay? Would she pass the test to become the wife of his heart and his home, as well as in illicit ceremony? He hardly dared hope.
She'd given him so much, in such a short time. Limitless joy in his company, unabashed worship of his body, undivided attention to his needs and wants, words and interests. A profound understanding and acceptance of Jacque Cherchat, peeled down to the most basic, primitive level, the essential man he wasn't particularly proud of, but knew was the basis of his being. A man far more volatile and dangerous than millionaire playboy Jack Kershaw could ever show himself to be.
She loved him. Him.
But would she stay? If he really tested her, would she stay?
The question haunted him, tortured him. Would he survive if she walked away?
He doubted it. He needed her with a
depth that left him gasping for air, grasping for purchase on the brittle edge of reason. If she left, he'd hunt her down, capture her again, sell his soul to the devil all over to keep her with him always.
She stirred in his arms and he realized he was covering every part of her, holding her in a death grip, crushing her with a strength that would surely leave bruises.
She looked up and smiled sweetly, looking so much like a woman in love that his heart spun in his chest.
"Good morning," she whispered.
He knew if he held her for a single second longer, he wouldn't have the strength to do what he must. He gave her a quick kiss, then slid away from her. "Come on, sleepy-head. It's late. We have to get moving."
He parted the baire and slipped through the opening, padding to the stove to put on coffee. She watched him from his bed, a rumpled odalisque ensconced in the delicate web of mosquito netting, lit by the muted rays of the morning sun. He almost changed his mind.
"Can't." She held up her wrist. She was still chained to his bed. A mischievous smile graced her kiss-stung lips. Her legs parted, beckoning him wantonly.
A wicked jolt of possessiveness tore through him. For a moment, the desire to leave her like that nearly overwhelmed him. He was instantly lead-pipe hard.
His gaze shot to the clock, his mind furiously calculating how much time he had before they must leave for Gerroux.
Enough.
He quickly retraced his steps and knelt between her welcoming thighs, overwhelmed by a need to experience her once more. Before he took her to the bus that would seal his fate.
She grasped his manhood between her hands, paralyzing him instantly. Helpless to do more than watch in rhapsodic fascination, he endured her talented fingers stroking him, her palms cupping him hotly.
His balls swelled in his sac, ready to burst. His cock ignited in a solid column of burning brimstone. In seconds, he was ready to explode. He groaned and clenched his teeth against the terrible need to let go, to come all over her in a thick spurting roar of gratification, drenching her with his sticky essence.
